Bruce Smith

* When it comes to billing rates, starting at the junior level, female law firm partners are still lagging behind their male counterparts by an average of 10 percent less. Boo. [Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)]

* Just in time for the graduation of one of the largest law school classes in history, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the legal sector is shedding jobs. That sucks. Sorry Class of 2014. [Am Law Daily]

* Law school deans are dropping like flies. Since last week, at least three have announced their intention to leave their positions. We know of one more that we may discuss later. [National Law Journal]

* If you want to work as an attorney, your odds are better if you go to a Top 50 law school. Seventy-five percent of Top 50 grads are working as lawyers, compared to 50% of all others. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* The verdict is in on the latest Apple v. Samsung patent case, and Apple is probably pretty miffed it was awarded only $120M this time, since lawyers for the company requested billions in damages. [Reuters]

* Laura LaPlante, a 3L who was set to graduate from U. Chicago Law on June 16, RIP. [Chicago Tribune]

Law school deans are trying to explain away drops in the rankings, but one leading indicator is always on the way up....

It’s time to check in on the scandal involving the University of Illinois College of Law and its false reporting on the qualifications of its admitted students. Every time we do look at Illinois, the school tells us that “this time” they’ve figured out the full extent of the problem — and it’s a bigger […]

The University of Illinois College of Law has had to restate the LSAT scores and GPAs of its admitted students for the last three years. If you've been following the story, you know that Illinois Law had previously admitted that it misstated admissions data for a year. Some of you really want to talk about how Illinois has been lying all this time. It's like some of you think that the ABA is actually going to do something to punish Illinois....

Another law school has been busted for reporting inaccurate admissions information. The latest school caught up in a scandal involving false data is the University of Illinois College of Law. Now, we know how this sounds. You're probably thinking that it's not "news" that an Illinois public institution is being accused of engaging in unethical behavior. In fact the most observant of you are thinking that Illinois Law has already been busted for admissions corruption. And, you know, you're right. But this is an entirely different admissions scandal...

Another day, another controversy over something hanging in a law school. Why is law school decor such a charged issue these days? As some of may already know, I served as vice president of the Yale Federalist Society when I was in law school. My campaign was non-controversial. At the time, the VP was responsible […]