ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 11.19.18

* "You were very busy. Wow. Wow. I always knew I liked him." President Trump posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom to the Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday and managed to crack a joke about the late justice's sex life when referring to his wife and their nine children. Wow. [USA Today] * Speaking about birth control... President Trump has proposed a new way for employers to get around the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate by creating a Title X loophole that would "hijack" programs that already have limited funding and send women to low-income family planning clinics to get their contraceptives. [New York Times] * Will Biglaw be the next thing that millennials kill? Not only has Weil Gotshal shortened its partner track in order to keep its youthful talent from walking out the door, but the firm that once made a big joke out of work/life balance is now allowing associates to work from home once a week. [American Lawyer] * The California bar exam results are out, and they're not anything to write home about -- except if you enjoy schadenfreude, that is. Nearly six in 10 failed the test, and the overall pass rate is historically horrible. More on this later. [The Recorder] * After having already been rejected by the ABA's House of Delegates, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has sent its proposed 75 percent bar-passage rate within two years of graduation accreditation standard right back for another vote. Will it be approved this time around? We shall see. [ABA Journal] * Joel Sanders, the ex-CFO of failed firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, was jailed on Thursday for failing to pay a $1 million fine associated with his fraud conviction, but he was out by the wee hours of the morning on Friday thanks to his new firm, Greenspoon Marder, which paid the entire sum on his behalf. [American Lawyer]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 05.14.18

* Could it be? Will another Biglaw firm be dragged into this mess after Skadden? Michael Avenatti, lawyer to Stormy Daniels, thinks that special counsel Robert Mueller ought to take a look at Squire Patton Boggs, the firm that's been working hard to disavow its "strategic alliance" with Michael Cohen, the president's personal attorney. [Newsweek] * "[Y]ou can’t have one rule for Democratic presidents and another rule for Republican presidents." Chairman Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who recently suggested that any Supreme Court justice who was thinking about retiring do so right f**king now, claims that he won't hold any hearings or votes for a Supreme Court nominee during the lead-up to the 2020 election [Bloomberg] * The American Bar Association is planning to do away with its requirement that accredited law schools use a standardized admissions test to admit students. Will any law schools actually go so far as to admit students without any test scores at all? More on this later today. [Law.com] * The end of the latest Supreme Court Term is drawing near, and if you've been watching goings-on at the high court, you know what that means: justices seem to be more likely to injure themselves now than during any other time of the year. Cross your fingers and hope that no one else sustains any broken bones -- or worse -- before the end of June. [CNN] * Public law schools are usually cash cows for their associated undergraduate universities, but one law school is doing the complete opposite thanks to a dip in applications. But for a gigantic annual subsidy from main campus ($7.5 million), the University of Minnesota School of Law wouldn't be able to balance its budget -- and the school will need even more by 2020 ($12 million). Yikes! [Duluth News Tribune]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 11.06.17

* Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims of the deadliest church shooting in modern U.S. history, which took place yesterday in Sutherland Springs, Texas. This is the second mass shooting in a little more than one month. [ABC News] * The Russian election collusion investigation is just getting started, but lawmakers have introduced a nonbinding resolution demanding that special counsel Robert Mueller resign due to his "obvious conflicts of interest." [POLITICO] * "Jeff, you need to tell us everything you know about Russia." Senator Lindsey Graham wants AG Jeff Sessions to testify again before the Senate Judiciary Committee about whether there were any arranged meetings between President Trump's campaign and Russia. [UPI] * According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal profession lost 1,100 jobs in October, which is depressing news for jobless law school graduates who just found out positive bar exam news. [American Lawyer] * LSAT or GRE? Thanks to a vote by the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, it might not matter. If this proposal passes, soon law schools won't even have to test potential applicants seeking admission. [Law.com] * Advice for the internet hero who shut down President Trump's Twitter account on his last day of work: "Don't say anything and get a lawyer." Why? He likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. [The Hill] * Todd Macaluso, one of Casey Anthony's former attorneys, has been found guilty in an international cocaine distribution conspiracy involving a plane load of drugs worth about $13 million. He plans to appeal his conviction. [New York Daily News]

By Staci Zaretsky
Law Schools

Law School Deans Ask For Extension On Exploitation

More than 90 law school deans have asked their accreditor to halt new standards that would hold schools accountable for very low bar passage rates. Last October, the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar approved two new standards to stop exploitative admissions and retention practices. At a time […]

By Kyle McEntee
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 11.17.16

* Don't say we didn't tell you this, but according to the latest report from Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group, the great Biglaw salary increase of 2016 is now being cited as a strain on law firm profits. Expenses are now growing faster than revenues at many firms. We'll have more on this later today. [Am Law Daily] * This is one promise that President-elect Trump is sticking to: Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, has confirmed that he will choose a Supreme Court nominee from the list(s) he released earlier this year: "You’ve seen the list of 21. The list has not changed." You can see Trump's shortlist(s) here and here. [Big Law Business] * "Every good person has an obligation to both to continue being heard and to continue doing the right thing. We can’t afford for a president to fail." Justice Sonia Sotomayor has spoken out about the results of the presidential election, and she thinks that we must guide President-elect Trump to make the right decisions for the country. [WSJ Law Blog] * The American Bar Association's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has sanctioned not one, but two law schools for their lax admissions standards. Valparaiso Law has been publicly censured and Charlotte Law has been placed on probation. We'll have more on this later today. [National Law Journal] * Judge William Duffin of the Eastern District of Wisconsin has denied a request made by state prosecutors to delay "Making a Murderer" subject Brendan Dassey's release from prison. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel says he will appeal Duffin's ruling to the Seventh Circuit. Dassey is scheduled to be released on Friday. [Reuters]

By Staci Zaretsky
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 10.24.16

* "Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign." Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump plans to sue all of the "liars" who have accused him of sexual assault within the last two weeks when the election is over. As an attorney representing one of Trump's accusers noted, a lawsuit would provide a "field day" to depose him under oath. [CNN] * The American Bar Association's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has approved a tougher bar-passage rate standard that would require 75 percent of of a law school’s graduates who sit for the bar exam to pass it within two years. It's up to the ABA House of Delegates to decide if the stricter standard will ever be implemented. We'll have more on this later today. [ABA Journal] * "I don’t know why he would wait around for 200 days and then pull out at the very moment that it seemed likely that he was going to get confirmed." Will Judge Merrick Garland be confirmed to SCOTUS? With senators calling for lame-duck hearings if Hillary Clinton is elected and a bare-bones oral arguments calendar scheduled, it seems like even the justices are holding out hope for a full house in 2017. [Washington Post] * In a deal likely to invoke government scrutiny, AT&T has agreed to purchase Time Warner for $84.5 billion. Teams from Sullivan & Cromwell (transaction work) and Arnold & Porter (regulatory work) will be representing AT&T, while Cravath will be representing Time Warner. Faiza Saeed, Cravath's deputy presiding partner, will lead the team working on the deal from her firm. [DealBook / New York Times; Am Law Daily] * According to testimony from Bridget Kelly, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's former deputy chief of staff, Christie allegedly knew about the Bridgegate lane closures a month before they occurred, not afterwards, as he's repeatedly claimed. Kelly, who says she thought the lane closures were for a traffic study, not a politically motivated scheme, is currently being tried in federal court over her role in the 2013 scandal. [Reuters]

By Staci Zaretsky