Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Cooley Law and NYLS Hit With Class Action Lawsuits

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July shaped up to be a pretty good month for going after lower-ranked law schools. It isn’t even mid-August, but this month might end up even better.

Early in July, we reported that Kurzon Strauss, a small law firm based in New York, was trolling Craigslist for plaintiffs to sue Thomas M. Cooley Law School over its employment reporting practices. Cooley Law decided to strike first, suing the firm for defamation. And at about the same time, New York Law School and its dean, Richard Matasar, got ripped a new one in the New York Times.

And now, both law schools are getting sued for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and deceptive business practices — à la Alaburda v. TJSL, the lawsuit filed back in May against Thomas Jefferson School of Law by an unhappy alumna.

Karmic revenge sure is sweet….

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Because Cooley Law Really Needs Another Campus

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It’s time for some news from the second-best law school in the country, namely, Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Members of the Cooley Law administration had to find something to do with themselves when not busy defending the school’s honor by suing the internet.

Boasting four campuses and more than 15,000 graduates in Michigan wasn’t enough for this elite law school. The nation’s #2 law school needs MOAR CAMPUSES (and unemployed graduates). So the administration started cooking up a plan to remedy this issue, on the down low.

Yet another Cooley Law campus will soon be invading a state near you on the east coast. But which one will be plagued with more unemployed law school graduates?

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Morning Docket: 08.08.11

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* A scam blogger hit it hard last week, calling Cooley out for policing the internet. Guess we know why s/he chose to go by “Rockstar.” [Detroit Free Press]

* Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to remember the life of slain Mercer Law School graduate, Lauren Giddings. Rest in peace. [Baltimore Sun]

* Other than the fact that this dude waited nearly a decade to sue, Facebook now says it has “smoking gun” evidence that Paul Ceglia’s case is a fraud. Like. [Bloomberg]

* The Innocence Project says that past DNA evidence is a “poor judge of character.” You’d say that, too, if you exonerated a future rapist. [New York Daily News]

* Lady Gaga is being sued for copyright infringement. Seriously? Get it straight, lady: Gaga only copies from Madonna. [Daily Mail]

* In this economy, to get a job you have to make believe you love the law. Career advice for old farts can be applicable for young lawyers, too. [Boston Globe]

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Morning Docket: 07.18.11

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Rebekah Brooks

* The arrest of Rebekah Brooks over the weekend only complicates the investigation into News Corp. phone-hacking. I like her hair. I only have one question. [Bloomberg]

* What (and where) becomes of Casey Anthony now that she’s out? Y’know, F. Scott Fitzgerald once opined that “There are no second acts in American lives. But Playboy is always a wise option.” Well said, F. Scott. Well said. [New York Times]

* Dominique “L’Dominator” Strauss-Kahn may have had multiple slam pieces on the fateful weekend he was accused of sexual assault. Trois, to be exact. Trois slam pieces. [Daily Intel]

* Some longhair in San Francisco got off a shrooms possession charge because he claimed to forget he had the magical caps and stems. He could, however, rattle off Phish’s entire set list from their Montreal show on 5/9/1998. “Trey was on fire that ni…” the hippie trailed off before asking the reporter for bus fare. [San Francisco Examiner via Gawker]

* More on Cooley’s lawsuit against the internets. [Lansing State Journal]

* The Supreme Court continues to hold its own Player Hater’s Ball with regard to the 9th Circuit. [Los Angeles Times]

* Obama’s pick to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the former Ohio AG, a University of Chicago Law alum, a member of The Elect and, most importantly, a five-time Jeopardy! champ. [Columbus Dispatch]

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Cooley Lawsuit Update: One Of The ‘Cooley Four’ Responds To The Law School’s Complaint

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You see what happens, Cooley? You see what happens when you sue anonymous commenters on the internet?

We’re only on day two of Cooley’s reputation defense lawsuits, and it’s already obvious that the lawsuits have made it possible for more people to be more critical of the education offered by the school.

So far, the most damning statement about Cooley’s education has come from Cooley itself. Cooley president Don LeDuc said that the school filed these suits “to protect Cooley’s reputation and stand up for our students and more than 15,000 graduates.”

And yet, of those 15,000 graduates, when it came time to defend Cooley’s reputation, the school went with lawyers who were not educated at Cooley.

Not only did the school not use its own graduates for this work, one of the anonymous commenters the school is suing appears to be a recent Cooley graduate former Cooley Law student. I mean, with friends like these, right?

CORRECTION (7/16/11): It appears that this commenter did not graduate from Cooley, but instead studied there for a time before transferring out.

In any event, that defendant has decided to respond to the Cooley lawsuit…

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Thomas Cooley Sues A Law Firm And Four ‘John Does’ On the Internet

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Cooley President Don LeDuc

Earlier this month, we reported that somebody was looking to Craigslist for potential plaintiffs to sue Thomas M. Cooley Law School over the school’s published post-graduate employment statistics. As many of you know, Thomas Jefferson School of Law has already been hit with such a lawsuit.

Well, apparently Cooley isn’t going to sit around and wait for somebody to sue them. Instead, the school is going to sue first.

A message from Cooley president Don LeDuc informed students that Cooley is suing a New York law firm and four anonymous “John Doe” commentators on the internet. We haven’t seen the lawsuit, so we don’t know exactly who the school is suing. According to LeDuc, Cooley is not trying to “police the internet.” Instead he says the school is trying to defend its reputation and the value of a Cooley Law degree.

You can read his full letter to students below….

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Suing Law Schools Potpourri: Tidings From Law Schools Named After A ‘Thomas’

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A couple of days ago, we mentioned that Thomas Jefferson Law School had been sued, again. The school is already facing heat for its allegedly misleading employment statistics, and now it has also been caught up in sexual harassment litigation.

Officials at Thomas Jefferson furnished us with a response to the allegations that a school official sexually harassed an employee and his wife.

But that’s not the only law school litigation news we have today. Actually, we’ve come across a Craiglist ad looking for plaintiffs for a possible lawsuit against another school with “Thomas” in its name…

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Morning Docket: 05.26.11

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* Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, sang throughout his entire court proceeding yesterday. I guess he was practicing the jailhouse rock, because he got a double life sentence. [Wall Street Journal]

* Sam Logan, I bet your dad wishes that he was still on the Tenth Circuit so he could benchslap the s**t out of you for trying to seduce a 14-year-old. [Kansas City Star]

* “Before you say I’m racially discriminating against you, let me stop you. I am discriminating against you.” No wonder Apple products didn’t make the list of stuff black people like. [Apple Insider]

* An almost-Cooley grad faked it for over four years as an attorney. He must have one hell of an “O” face. [Chillicothe Gazette]

* Not only is Arianna Huffington accused of being a slave driver, but now she’s allegedly an idea thief too. This is a little bit too inception-y for me. [ABC News]

* Cyclists in New York City are being ticketed for imaginary offenses, and two law firms are taking up the cause. Looks like the NYPD took the training wheels off a little bit too soon. [Gothamist]

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Latest Cooley Law School Rankings Achieve New Heights of Intellectual Dishonesty

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It’s Christmas morning here at Above the Law. Thomas M. Cooley Law School has released a new set of law school rankings designed to make Thomas M. Cooley Law School look good. Back in 2009, Cooley incredibly ranked itself the 12th-best law school in the country.

Now the farce reaches new and glorious heights. In this latest edition of Cooley’s own Judging the Law Schools rankings, Cooley has rated itself — wait for it, wait for it — the SECOND BEST law school in all that land. That’s right, #2! Harvard is #1, so according to Cooley, if you can’t get into HLS, you’d be making a wise career decision to go to Cooley instead of, oh, I don’t know — YALE. Click over to the Cooley website if you want to see the full list; I don’t want to befoul ATL’s pages with a breakout of Cooley’s top ten.

This, my friends, is funny. But it’s also serious. Because there are real people studying at Cooley right now, and I don’t think they understand how horrible it makes the school look when the administration publishes things like this….

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Michigan Lawyer Ryan Hill Has a Funny Way of Showing ‘Marriage Matters’

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Ryan Hill and his wife

Michigan law firm partner Ryan Hill has a very candid biography on his non-firm website:

I am a self-proclaimed family man. My wife and I have open communication about everything, whether it is small things such as who is going to take out the trash, to bigger things such as communicating our sexual desires.

We’re all in favor of open communication about sexual desires, but why does this Thomas Cooley law grad want to share it with those reading his bio?

It’s because he’s the face of his own non-profit, My Marriage Matters:

My Marriage Matters is a non-profit organization that strongly believes in the union of marriage. We acknowledge there are infinite obstacles that stand in the way to a happy, long-term marriage but we encourage couples to work through those obstacles together. Divorce should not be considered an option when you decide to say “I do”.

So what kind of attorney is Ryan Hill? A divorce attorney.

When one starts digging, this all gets stranger and stranger…

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