University of Maryland School of Law

The Return of the Lawyer-Politician

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Attorney retirement home?

Well, the election is over, and a gaggle of new Congressfolks and Senators are coming to Washington in January. Of this population, 43 percent are lawyers, reversing the decline in lawyer politicians. So let’s review the incoming class and you can not-so-quietly judge our new legislators for their education and experience in the comments.

Ten new members attended Harvard Law School, so congratulations Crimson for continuing your tradition as the shadowy institution ruling our lives. There are also some inspiring stories among the new members. Like Joseph P. Kennedy, who lifted himself up by the bootstraps and managed to get into Harvard without any connections whatsoever. Everyone’s education info and any interesting career tidbits are provided below.

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Comment of the Week: Your SCOTUS Comments Weren’t In The Right Format

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I assumed that the comment of the week this week would come from the news that Justice Roberts turned into Severus Snape and saved Obamacare.

There have been some hilarious things said about the Obamacare decision, and Buzzfeed captured the 25 funniest tweets. I even got off a couple of nice one liners. Popehat is running a whole competition for the most outrageous rage reaction from the Obamacare decision.

But the comments on Above the Law were kind of… tame. I mean, there was a lot of making fun of CNN and the usual number of people who are still butthurt that Obama is the president, but there wasn’t a lot of insight, and very little was funny. The comment with the most likes was BL1Y’s:

Why is Obama waging a war on poor people with this incredibly regressive tax?

That’s pretty good. But the general dearth of good comments in the thread made me look elsewhere for the Comment of the Week this week….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: The Conspiracy

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This week, Legal Eagle Wedding Watch salutes… a divorce lawyer. This one dutifully dissolved her client’s marriage, seeing him through a contentious custody battle. But then she went the extra mile and set him up with his next wife. Attention, divorce bar: We smell a new business model.

But let’s not let talk of divorce spoil our ooh-ing and ahh-ing over some tender new lawyer marriages. Here are this week’s finalists:

Ainsley Fuhr and Orin Kerr

Alison Silber and Eric Lesser

Elizabeth Marshall and Jeffrey Leeds

Read on for all the juicy details on these newlyweds, plus a recap of all the recent legal-eagle nuptials….

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Morning Docket: 03.07.12

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* All your base are belong to… Rick Santorum? Error! Malfunction! Super Tuesday was not quite as super as Mitt Romney was hoping for. Looks like it’s time to reprogram the Mitt-bot so he can conquer the true conservatives. [CNN]

* And the Cebulls**t just keeps on coming. Now Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling for a hearing and an investigation on the consequences of the federal judge’s racist email. [Associated Press]

* After wrapping up a Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Lehman Brothers, Weil Gotshal’s bill came to $383M. And sadly, that’s probably going to be the only “spring bonus” associates will see this year. [Am Law Daily]

* Complete pwnage: a handful of LulzSec hacktivists were arrested after their leader, an FBI informant, turned on them. How will this affect the Anonymous movement? More importantly, who cares? [New York Times]

* No postponements for you, Casey Anthony. Try as she might, the acquitted ex-MILF just can’t escape the defamation lawsuit filed by a woman who was only supposed to be make believe. [Washington Post]

* Don’t like Maryland Law’s environmental clinic litigation? Offer another public law school $500K to represent the defendants. Because if anyone would take a bribe, it would be Baltimore Law. [National Law Journal]

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Morning Docket: 02.16.12

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What is this, I don't even...

* It looks like the Biglaw buzzwords for 2012 are “challenge” and “uncertainty.” Good! Great! Grand! Wonderful! Speaking of uncertainty, where are the spring bonuses? [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Kodak got the go-ahead for a $950M bankruptcy financing deal. Just think, if you had taken pictures using a film camera instead of a digital one, we probably wouldn’t be telling you about this. [Bloomberg]

* Rod Blagojevich will report to prison for his 14-year sentence on March 15, and he hopes to do so with “dignity” (i.e., no cameras). But you can be damn sure he’ll have his hair did, just in case. [Chicago Tribune]

* To be fair, the University of Maryland School of Law doesn’t really have time to worry about that parking job. The university might have to pay up to $500K in legal fees thanks to a lawsuit filed by the school’s environmental law clinic. [National Law Journal]

* Duncan Law’s got 99 problems, and another lawsuit is one. In addition to the school’s troubles with the ABA, a law student is suing because the school “negligently allowed her to enroll.” [Knoxville News Sentinel]

* George Seward, the founding partner of Seward & Kissel, has died at the age of 101. RIP. [Businessweek]

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Maryland Law’s Response Highlights Career Services ‘Expertise’

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Yesterday, we brought you news of a job opportunity that is currently available on the University of Maryland School of Law’s Symplicity job bank. When we first wrote about the listing, we called it a “career services nightmare.” After all, the job had more to do with orange parking cones than the law.

As it turns out, the powers that be at Maryland Law weren’t very happy that Above the Law called them out. Instead of hanging their heads in shame for trying to sell a job as a parking garage manager to its students, the career development office issued a vigorous defense of this exciting opportunity in vehicular supervision and coordination.

The email was written by the assistant dean for career development herself. What did she have to say?

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Maryland Law’s Tuition Is Down, But So Is the Quality of Its Job Listings

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Back in December 2010, we reported that tuition at the University of Maryland School of Law (now known as the Francis King Carey School of Law) would not be subject to the four percent hike for the 2011-2012 academic year that was thrust upon the rest of the programs doing business at the university’s Baltimore campus.

It was rumored that the law school’s dean, Phoebe Haddon, fought valiantly to keep tuition from rising due to students’ hefty debt loads and the “impact of the economic downturn on the legal employment market.” At the time, we gave Maryland Law major kudos for protecting its students from tuition increases. Now, we wonder if a just little more tuition money would have prevented this career services nightmare.

As it turns out, even students who attend a top 50 law school are in danger of landing awful jobs, especially when the career development office is offering up gems like this one….

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Man Drops Out Of Law School, Prepares For Zombie Apocalypse

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Over a year ago, Lat and I had a good debate about whether a student already in law school should finish the effort or drop out and cut his losses.

Somewhat predictably, I advocated getting out while the getting was good.

I don’t know what happened to that student. But I recently came across a student who was a part of the class of 2010 and dropped out, voluntarily, in 2009. Yeah, I found a guy who saw the writing on the wall after the dark days of 2008, had the foresight and the bravery to quit throwing good money after bad, and left law school.

Sure, I found him now that he’s unemployed and literally running out of food as we speak. But that’s hardly the point. The point is that he’s doing something exciting with his life. The point is that he’s still alive, and still trying to make a difference in this world.

And trust me, if you ever are living in a world overrun by zombies, you’re going to want to make your way to this guy’s house. He’ll be prepared for the worst….

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Morning Docket: 09.06.11

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Luis Mijangos: Sextortionist Extraordinaire

* According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 100 new jobs were added to the legal industry last month. About 40,000 students graduated from law school this spring. You do the math. [Am Law Daily]

* This Maryland law school dean thinks that the U.S. News rankings “generalize about things that are not generalizable.” Come on, lady, don’t bite the hand that feeds you. [College Inc. / Washington Post]

* Did you get an email from Paul Ceglia about enlarging your penis? If so, it’s because lawyers at Gibson Dunn exposed the fraudster’s passwords in a court filing last week. Oops. [Bloomberg]

* A computer hacker in California got six years for sextortion and cyberterrorism. Ladies, this is just another reason to save your nude pictures on your flash drive, not your hard drive. [CNN Justice]

* An Ohio man who stopped paying into the office lottery pool is suing for a share of his co-workers’ $99M jackpot. You get what you pay for, and in this case, it should be nothing. [Fox News]

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Can’t Get a Job? Lacking Lawyer Skills? Try Working for Your School’s Law Firm

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Under new management?

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about how law schools are failing to adequately prepare recent graduates for the working world. Because after having your nose in a book for three years, let’s face it, you probably don’t know how to do “useful things with the law” that would actually help a client.

Law schools have also been under fire for their apparently inability to employ recent graduates in the legal work force. While some law schools are simply gaming their employment numbers, others are creating temporary employment opportunities so their graduates can be employed at graduation.

And in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, law schools may soon have a solution for both of these problems. Instead of inventing temporary jobs to make you “practice-ready,” they might invent a whole law firm….

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