ATL March Madness: Best Law School Scandal, Pt. 2
The second half of this year's ATL March Madness revealed!
And now for our final region: Wacky Admin/Faculty. Think Wacky Students except… you know, administration or faculty.
1. Sociopath Law Professor Admits To Being A Sociopath
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Everyone suspects that all lawyers are secretly sociopaths. And that’s not really fair… many of us are psychopaths.
But an anonymous law professor came out as a card-carrying sociopath in a Psychology Today article explaining how she gleefully messed with a fellow associate’s life, remorselessly crushed people as a prosecutor, and dreamed of workplace murder in a particular detail.
But an appearance on Dr. Phil led a lot of tipsters to conclude the professor in question was Jamie Rebecca Lund of St. Mary’s School of Law in Texas. We never did get full confirmation on that one, but, you know, Lund is apparently the registered owner of the domain SociopathWorld.com, so that’s a good bet.
As one former student tipster put it:
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She was generally known as the IP law professor with big tits (she only taught trademarks and copyrights because she had no science background) and there were A LOT of guys (and girls) that were infatuated with her. The sociopathic part that people were able to pick up on was the stare – that blank, empty, uncaring stare. I met with her in office hours once. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to f**k me or eat me. I’m assuming now that it was likely both.
8. Thomas Jefferson School Of Law To Stand Trial For Allegedly Inflating Employment Statistics
Anna Alaburda is a 2008 honors graduate of Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Like many of her peers at unranked law schools, she racked up more than $150,000 in debt and was unable to find suitable legal employment. Unlike her peers, Alaburda decided to file a class-action lawsuit against her school in 2011, alleging that the law school had committed fraud by publishing deceptive post-graduation employment statistics and salary data in order to bait new students into enrolling.
Thus began the wave of law school litigation. While many other law schools have been taken to court over issues similar to the ones presented in the Alaburda case, never before has a law school been forced to actually stand trial for allegedly inflating its employment statistics. This is historic, and the trial is currently ongoing. Only time will tell if this law school will have to face the music for its alleged misdeeds.
What's The Better Law School Scandal
- (8) Alaburda Case - TJSL (53%, 157 Votes)
- (1) Professor Behind Sociopath Book? - BYU (47%, 141 Votes)
Total Voters: 298
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Loading ...2. Latest Cooley Law School Rankings Achieve New Heights of Intellectual Dishonesty
Back before Western Michigan granted the imprimatur of respectability to Thomas M. Cooley Law School, the embattled Michigan program was flailing about trying to desperately dupe people into enrolling. Now, the school… well, has a nicer name. In 2011, the school’s desperation reached amazing peaks when it declared itself second only to Harvard in the law school pecking order.
Yes, Cooley had created its own rankings system — a dubious enough enterprise for a law school — and then had the chutzpah to rank itself second:
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.
Speaking of Yale, thanks for ruining actual March Madness brackets across the country.
7. Villanova Law ‘Knowingly Reported’ Inaccurate Information to the ABA
One of the biggest problems with the U.S. News Rankings is the very real risk that a school could fudge its data and throw the whole endeavor out of whack. That’s what happened at Villanova, who self-reported some funny business with GPAs and LSAT scores. There were allegations that the former dean “directed” staff to falsify data.
That’s the sort of academic scandal that could cripple a school — oh, wait — yep, they got a slap on the wrist.
What's The Better Law School Scandal
- (2) The No. 2 Law School In America - Thomas M. Cooley (59%, 162 Votes)
- (7) Cheating - Villanova (41%, 114 Votes)
Total Voters: 276
Loading ...3. Lawrence Mitchell Threesomes And Other Startling Allegations In Affidavit
Where do you even start with this one? Lawrence Mitchell was once the dean of Case Western Reserve Law. Then he resigned. In between we had a sexual harassment lawsuit, makeout sessions in the meat section, and finally a former assistant talking about threesome propositions.
His artful poetry about ogling women in public is positively tame by comparison.
6. Oregon Law Professor Has Meltdown, Gets Arrested
There’s video of this confrontation if you click the story, but basically this is all you need to know:
The professor, James Olmsted, got into a dust-up with a student protest group, snagging one of their phones and seeming to goad the protesters into a fight. Hippie protesters can be annoying, but, I mean, if you hate hippie protesters, you may not want to work in Eugene.
What's The Better Law School Scandal
- (3) Horny Dean - Case Western (79%, 208 Votes)
- (6) Prof. Hates Hippies - Oregon (21%, 56 Votes)
Total Voters: 264
Loading ...4. T14 Law School Dean Sued For Sexual Harassment
Come on! I know you remember this one — it happened last week. Boalt Hall was rocked by a sexual harassment lawsuit, filed against the Board of Regents and the (at the time current Dean) Sujit Choudhry. The suit contained all manner of icky details, which detailed the increasingly intimate series of hugs, kisses, and touching Choudhry would demand from his executive assistant, the plaintiff:
Choudhry’s hugging and kissing Plaintiff quickly escalated to a near daily occurrence. At times, it occurred multiple times per day. At the same time, the hugs became tighter and more lingering and the kissing more intimate in that over time Choudhry’s kisses began to land closer and closer to Plaintiff’s lips. Choudhry also began kissing Plaintiff on the forehead.
The consequences were swift and harsh for Choudhry, and he resigned his deanship the day after the story broke.
5. Stanford Dean Should Count To 10 Before Sending More Emails
Everyone has a bad day. One generally “super-nice and helpful” dean decided to memorialize that bad day in a scathing rebuke of students who just asked her for help — help she was already committed to providing and ultimately succeeded in. They wanted access to the school gym and pool:
Associate Dean for Student Affairs Cathy Glaze received an informal petition signed by 52 students who want the school to give them back their stairmasters and hot tubs. Glaze could have responded to this in a number of ways. She chose “barely concealed contempt.”
Instead of, “Thanks folks, but your wonderful dean is already working on it and should have results soon!” she sent a pair of real doozies blasting the students for basically not trusting her enough.
We really need to get locks for these keyboards.
What's The Better Law School Scandal
- (4) Harassment Dean - Berkeley (86%, 217 Votes)
- (5) Count To 10 - Stanford (14%, 36 Votes)
Total Voters: 253
Loading ...Now that we’ve revealed every scandal in the mix, here’s the complete bracket:
(Click to embiggen…)
Voting is open until Sunday, March 20, at 11:59 p.m. EST. Get to it!
