UCLA School of Law

A Collection of Things You Can Do in a Bathroom

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We know how our readers are obsessed with toilets. Over the course of this week, a couple of stories came in about bathroom shenanigans, and we’ll deal with them both here. We’ve got a steamy bathroom (or maybe not, see correction below) and a stinky bathroom from Iowa and UCLA Law, respectively.

First up, Iowa. Land of same-sex marriage and judges getting kicked around because of same-sex marriage. With everybody hot and bothered over gay love in the corn state, you’d think there wasn’t any good, clean, traditional-values sex happening in Iowa. Well the Des Moines Register tells us that Iowa is still safe for heterosexual couples:

A Waterloo lawyer who allegedly had sex with a client in the law library of the Black Hawk County Courthouse faces a possible suspension of his license.

The Iowa Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Board alleges that Clovis M. Bowles had sexual relations with one of his female clients on several occasions in 2007 and 2008.

Clearly, if we let the “gay agenda” have its way and ruin the traditional definition of marriage, this kind of grotty, bathroom hetrosex will be a thing of the past. And that’ll make Jesus angry…

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UCLA Law Offers Most Depressing Job to a Law Student (2010 Edition)

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It’s been a while since we’ve had a true contestant for the title of most depressing job offered to a law student. Sure, there have been a lot of jobs that offer $10 an hour, or even $0 an hour, for legal work. But at least those jobs were offering the opportunity to put long years of legal education to some sort of use.

No, the most depressing jobs for would-be lawyers in this economy are jobs they could have easily gotten before they went to law school. Or college. Really, the most depressing job I’ve seen appeared last year, when University of Texas law students were given the opportunity to do some babysitting for extra money. That’s an opportunity you present to responsible high school students, not students at the fifteenth-best law school in the country.

If you thought those days were behind us, think again. Take a look at the job that was blasted out yesterday to students at the other law school ranked #15, UCLA Law.

Traffic in L.A. is notoriously horrible, and now one UCLA law student might profit from his or her stop-and-go driving skills…

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Skadden Associate Graces The Cover of In Touch Magazine Thanks to Rumored Relationship with The Bachelorette

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It’s not every day that we see a Biglaw associate on the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine. So we were a bit shocked when a tipster sent along the scanned image (right) of last week’s In Touch magazine, with this message:

The guy identified as “Ali’s new guy” in this week’s Intouch weekly (and pictured on the cover) is a Skadden associate — and I think a fairly well-regarded one at that.

Ali, of course, is the current star of The Bachelorette. Background from our resident celeb gossip expert Marin:

This season stars Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky, an unemployed 25-year-old who quit her job at Facebook and moved back in with her parents to be on the show. Fans of the series will recall that Ali was a castoff from last season’s Bachelor, where she endeared herself to fans by wearing low-cut dresses, crying frequently, and vaguely resembling a poor man’s Reese Witherspoon as seen in dim light through cataracts. Anyhow, she’s back this season and more determined than ever to find love with one of 25 white bachelors, not including the one Hispanic dude, Roberto.

The Skadden Arps associate is not one of the two lawyers who was competing for her hand on the show. So this story would ruin the season, if true. Who is this associate?

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Best of Spring

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champagne glasses small.jpgYes, we’ve been gone. Where we’ve been — poetry workshop, rehab, hiking the Appalachian Trail? — doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re back, and our team of interns has diligently kept track of the nuptial triumphs and travesties that have occurred in our absence. We’ve identified the very best of the best couples from this spring, and hereby present the top five pairings for your edification and enrichment:

1. Monica Youn and Whitney Armstrong
2. Jennifer Ku and Peter Rubin
3. Vikeena Bonett and Matthew Wolfe
4. Brian Distelberg and Ryan McAuliffe
5. Naomi Seiler and Eric Columbus

Feast your eyes on these prestigious couples’ pictures and bios, after the jump.

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UCLA Law: Surprisingly Chipper About Grade Delay

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The law school perspective on grading is wrong. At many law schools, professors look at grades as the least important part of their job. Sadly, it’s actually the most important part of their job. Grades are the only thing law students can’t get from an outline. Grades are VASTLY more important to a student’s earning potential than any professorial pontification about black letter law.

Grades should be produced immediately or as soon as is physically possible.

Law school administrations don’t seem to get that. UCLA Law is just the latest example. A tipster reports:

I’m a rising 2L at UCLA Law — we got this email last night saying that our grades weren’t going to be posted until next week. The fact that we won’t know our grades until then seems like something a low-ranked school would do to discourage transfers, but what struck me right away was the rather condescending tone.

The tipster is right. The tone of this email is kind of ridiculous…

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Open Thread: 2011 U.S. News Law School Rankings (6 – 15)

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Let’s continue our march through the U.S. News law school rankings. Today we finish up the traditional top-14 — and we’ll throw in the schools tied for 15th, because we’re pretty sick of hearing UT and UCLA students whine. To refresh your memory, here’s the next group of schools:

6. NYU
7. Berkeley
7. Penn
9. Michigan
10. UVA
11. Duke
11. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown
15. UCLA
15. Texas

All joking aside, dropping to #6 is really not that big of a deal. NYU Law students will be fine — check out how the kicked it on the basketball court just after the rankings came out…

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UCLA Protest Follow Up: On The Ground at UCLA Law

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UCLA School of Law logo.JPGEarlier today, we reported that protests over the proposed tuition hike at UCLA got a bit testy. But we also noted that the protests didn’t seem to include a lot of law students, even though their tuition is going through the roof as well. One friend had this apathetic response when asked about the protests:

Dude, I have finals. And my 2L grades matter because I’ll be doing 3L recruiting. Unless we’re protesting canceled summer programs, count me out.

We wanted to know how the law school generally was reacting to today’s festivities, so we reached out to the UCLA Student Bar Association President, Lenny Sandoval. We asked him why law student participation seemed lacking:

Being a third year with one foot out the door, it’s tough for me to give a totally representative view, but while I agree that the involvement of law students as a whole is a bit subdued, I think the reaction from the identity organizations and their leadership (Raza, BLSA, etc.) has been very supportive and vocal of the undergraduate led movements. Based on FB status updates and gChat blurbs I saw at least 6 or 7 people either returning from the protests or planning on going to the protests, so that’s something at least.

Sandoval also noted that law students need to be a little bit more careful when it comes to potentially getting arrested than college kids.
That’s certainly true, especially in this economy. There’s no sense having your tuition jacked up and hurting your chances at snagging a legal job.
But something other than fear and general apathy might be driving down law student participation in civil disobedience. We also spoke with UCLA Law professor Stephen Bainbridge and he notes that people at the law school might just be paying a little bit more attention to the general state of affairs with the U.C. system than your average college student.
Thoughts from Professor Bainbridge after the jump.

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Breaking: UCLA Law Dean Michael Schill Will Leave for Chicago

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UCLA School of Law logo.JPGUCLA School of Law will lose its dean at the end of the year. Dean Michael Schill will leave the law school at the end of the year to assume the deanship of the University of Chicago Law School. Dean Schill just informed his students over email:

Dear Members of the Classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012,
A little over five years ago I came to UCLA School of Law from the east coast to become dean of one of the greatest educational institutions in the world. From the moment I arrived I appreciated the strength and depth of our student culture. Indeed, you are part of the reason my five years as the dean of this school have been the happiest and most fulfilling years of my life. Thus, it is with mixed emotions that I announce today that I will be leaving the deanship at the end of the calendar year for a new challenge as dean of the University of Chicago Law School.

Why is he leaving so suddenly? Why was this decision made now instead of over the summer? University of Chicago Dean Saul Levmore announced he was stepping down back in February. Why the late trigger at UofC?
Dean Schill offers some additional information about his decision process — and the University of Chicago touts its new dean — after the jump.

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Morning Docket 06.11.09

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taco truck UCLA.jpg* UCLA Law students were successful in protecting our right to curbside carne asada. [Los Angeles Times]
* Apparently, Sonnenschein is “fat and happy” and moving its New York office. [New York Observer]
* Washington, D.C. lawyer Kenneth Feinberg has been appointed compensation czar and will get to set the salaries of CEOs at beleaguered companies getting government aid. [ABA Journal]
* The impeachment proceedings against Judge Samuel Kent — the first federal judge to be charged with a sex crime — will move on to the House of Representatives. [Associated Press]
* Sonia Sotomayor once called herself “an affirmative action baby.” [New York Times]
* San Diego lawyer Alfred Rava sued the Oakland A’s for sex discrimination after a 2004 Mother’s Day promotion that excluded males. Now ESPN columnist Rick Reilly is taking Rava and his men-ism suits for a round in the batting cage. [ESPN]

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UCLA: The Latest Law School To Help Deferred Students

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UCLA School of Law logo.JPGJust yesterday, we were able to report on Northwestern University School of Law taking the initiative to help deferred 3Ls. Today we’ve learned that UCLA is also stepping up to the plate.

UCLA School of Law announced its Transition to Practice LL.M. Program today. It will allow 3Ls to take an extra year of classes geared towards teaching them the skills and practices they would have learned as first-year associates. The school’s press release explains what students will be learning:

A core component of the Transition to Practice program will be capstone courses that will draw heavily on practice-oriented projects in addition to substantial research and written work. Capstone courses will include part-time externships within corporate legal departments, as well as clinical simulations, where students work with real legal problems in a controlled environment that permits reflection and generalization of lessons learned. The Transition to Practice program will also include a required workshop series designed to introduce students to the practical issues that confront new lawyers, ranging from how to define a work-product to understanding a client’s business and goals, and handling practical problems of ethics and confidentiality. Capstone classes will be taught both by the core faculty of the law school and prominent practicing lawyers. The law school expects to develop curriculum in conjunction with leading law firms and corporate legal departments and to draw on the expertise of the Los Angeles legal community.

After the jump, Above the Law speaks with UCLA School of Law Dean Michael Schill.

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