UCLA School of Law

ATL Survey Update: Rearranging the T14 and Choosing a Permanent Number 15

By

Last week, we received our 4,000th response to the ATL School & Firm Insider Survey. (Please take it here, if you haven’t yet). Approximately half of our respondents are current law students, and in the wake of the U.S. News rankings release and the resultant hullabaloo, we thought it would be interesting to compare how the vaunted T14 stack up based on our own survey feedback.

The ATL survey asks students to rate their schools in five different categories:

  • Quality of faculty and academic instruction;
  • Practical / clinical training for the practice of law;
  • Career counseling and job search help;
  • Financial aid advising; and
  • Social life.

After the jump, we’ll look at how the elite schools compare….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “ATL Survey Update: Rearranging the T14 and Choosing a Permanent Number 15″

23 Comments

Early Reactions to the U.S. News Rankings: Deans and the Excuses They Make

By

Let's see them talk their way out of this.

The U.S. News law school rankings are out, which means it’s open season on law school deans. Nothing puts a law school dean’s job in jeopardy like a fall in the law school rankings. Nothing. The law school deans can lie, dissemble, raise tuition to backbreaking levels, and still keep their jobs. But when law schools drop spots in the U.S. News rankings, law school deans start updating their résumés.

If you want proof, just look at how deans from schools that dropped are falling all over themselves to explain their results. The deans will say anything; their explanations don’t even have to make sense.

While deans from schools that dropped are trying to save themselves, deans from schools that went up in the rankings are crowing from the rooftops.

Let’s start with a school that we left out of our Most Honest Law School bracket that is now a rankings darling…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Early Reactions to the U.S. News Rankings: Deans and the Excuses They Make”

84 Comments

There Is a Law School Lunch Thief Running Wild in Our Midst

By

With some of the truly horrible stuff going on in law these days — law students allegedly trying to kill each other, managing partners having affairs with their subordinates’ wives — it’s almost reassuring to know that people can still afford to get crazily worked up about good old-fashioned nothing.

Some behaviors are the equivalent of anger comfort food. Crappy parking jobs, really annoying commercials, and school lunch theft.

One of the top law schools in California is embroiled in a lunch thievery epidemic. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the Student Bar Association has sent an email to the entire school about the problem.

Any guesses as to which university needs to bump up its cafeteria security?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “There Is a Law School Lunch Thief Running Wild in Our Midst”

32 Comments

California Bar Passage Rate Holds Steady; Shame For Underperforming Schools Deepens

By

The picturesque Richard H. Chambers Courthouse in Pasadena, home of the Ninth Circuit.

California has released some macro-level results from the July 2011 administration of the bar exam. The California bar is notoriously difficult, and every year we like to take a look at which schools prepared their students well for the exam, and which schools did not.

Last year, the overall pass rates were 68.3% for all takers and 75.2% for graduates of the twenty ABA-approved law schools in California. This year, overall pass rates clocked in at 67.7%, while students who went to ABA-accredited law schools in California passed at a 76.2% clip.

But you might be surprised at which California law school had the best passage rate on the California bar. Hint: it’s not Stanford, or Boalt Hall, or UCLA….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “California Bar Passage Rate Holds Steady; Shame For Underperforming Schools Deepens”

114 Comments

Best Way to Brag About an Offer: Just Lay It Out And Bask In Your Own Glory

By

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily think that it’s wrong to brag about receiving an offer in front of your friends, family, and total strangers. I personally subscribe to the Major League theory that you don’t want to be dancing in front of somebody who just died, but I understand that most of the kids these days have never even seen the movie I just referenced.

For the millennials, bragging comes so naturally they don’t even realize when they’re doing it. It’s like their biological imperatives are to survive, reproduce, and post evidence of it on Facebook.

Which is fine. I mean, just because somebody is bragging doesn’t mean you have to care. For instance, today we’ve got a kid bragging about getting an offer from a particular Biglaw firm. Some people will be envious; other people are going to make jokes about coat hangers. To each his own….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Best Way to Brag About an Offer: Just Lay It Out And Bask In Your Own Glory”

97 Comments

Should UCLA Law School Accept Milken’s Millions?

By

Lowell Milken: Would you accept $10 million from this man?

Ah, California. Your weather is amazing, but I don’t think I could deal with your earthquakes. The tremor we just experienced here on the East Coast has turned me into a nervous wreck.

Over at UCLA Law School, they’re experiencing some earth-shaking controversy of their own. An ultra-wealthy alumnus made it rain, with a $10 million gift to the school — but now some professors want to rain on his parade, and their objections have hit the national news media. (Apologies for the mixed precipitation metaphors.)

As we mentioned last week, UCLA law alumnus Lowell Milken made a $10 million gift to his alma mater — the largest single donation in the law school’s history. The money will be used to establish the Lowell Milken Institute for Business and Law.

Milken, Milken — that last name sounds familiar….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Should UCLA Law School Accept Milken’s Millions?”

81 Comments

Morning Docket: 08.10.11

By

* With a $10 million donation, it looks like UCLA School of Law can afford to stop playing it fast and loose with its employment statistics. [New York Times]

* In light of Facebook’s “smoking gun” evidence of fraud, Paul Ceglia didn’t skip town. He skipped the entire country. [Los Angeles Times]

* You can be a runaway bride, but it’ll cost you a pretty ringgit when you get sued. That, and your 1,200 guests will be pissed. [Daily Mail]

* Would you allegedly kidnap for Shaq over a non-existent sex tape? He must be leading a good life if he can’t even keep track of his video exploits. [New York Daily News]

* People are saying that Felicia Pearson’s heroin distribution charges are a case of life imitating art. Do you know her background? This is more like life imitating life. [Yahoo! News]

10 Comments

Bar Review Diaries: The End Is The Beginning

By

If you took the bar exam last month, you might be trying hard to forget the experience, or you might be flying far, far away on an exotic vacation. Maybe you are counting the days until results come out in November, or maybe you’re frantically searching for employment before those organ bill collectors start knocking.

This is the final installment of the Bar Review Diaries. We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into the lives of three recent law school graduates as they prepared for the bar.

Let’s check in one last time with Mariah, Christopher and Mike, to see where they are headed next.

And if anyone has cool bar trips coming up or strange end-of-summer plans, please share them with us in the comments….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bar Review Diaries: The End Is The Beginning”

13 Comments

Bar Review Diaries: Basking in the Afterglow

By

The bar exam has come and gone. Our esteemed Bar Review Diarists have lived to tell the tale, and thank goodness none of them fainted or had a baby during the test.

But as usual, Mike, Mariah and Christopher also had their fair share of adventures. Keep reading to see how a soggy sweater and lines to nowhere are just normal parts of taking the bar…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Bar Review Diaries: Basking in the Afterglow”

29 Comments

Boalt Hall and UCLA Issue Scholarships To Cover Last-Minute Fee Increase

By

Today there’s good news and bad news coming out of Boalt Hall (aka Berkeley Law aka WGWAG School of Law).

Let’s start with the bad news. The bad news is that the Regents, who run the show for the University of California (UC) system, approved an increase in system-wide student fees for the coming year. It’s for a shade over $1,000 — $1,068, to be precise.

The good news: Berkeley Law, at the behest of Dean Christopher Edley Jr., is effectively reversing the fee hike for its students. Boalt Hall is issuing an immediate “scholarship” to each student, in the exact amount of the fee increase.

Let’s take a look at Dean Edley’s email — which explains the situation, and has a cute and clever closing — and explore what might be motivating the administration….

UPDATE (7/22/11): Also note the update at the end of this post regarding UCLA School of Law. (We have added the memo from Dean Rachel Moran.)

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Boalt Hall and UCLA Issue Scholarships To Cover Last-Minute Fee Increase”

27 Comments
Page 2 of 41234