José A. Cabranes

2nd Circuit

Morning Docket: 08.20.13

* Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Second Circuit Judge José A. Cabranes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Roberts must be happy; few will criticize a moderate. [Washington Post] * The Department of Justice plans to hire Leslie Caldwell, Morgan Lewis partner and ex-Enron prosecutor, to fill Lanny Breuer’s shoes. Way to leak the news while she’s on vacation. [DealBook / New York Times] * Tell us again how sequestration isn’t having an impact on the judiciary. Private federal indigent defense attorneys are going to see their already modest rates slashed due to budget cuts. [National Law Journal] * Sixteen lawyers will receive the New York Law Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and a list like this obviously wouldn’t be complete without the names of some of Biglaw’s best and brightest. Congrats, Rodge! [New York Law Journal] * Thomas D. Raffaele, the judge who was karate chopped in the throat by a police officer last summer, is now suing over his crushed larynx and similarly squashed constitutional rights. [Courthouse News Service] * Future gunners, unite! If you’re set on becoming a lawyer, there are things you can do to prepare your law school application, even as a college freshman. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report] * Here’s something to aspire to for the ongoing law school lawsuits: Career Education Corp., a system of for-profit colleges, will pay $10 million to settle a dispute over its inflated job statistics. [Wall Street Journal] * Penn State University is starting to issue settlement offers to young men who claim they were sexually abused at the hands of Jerry Sandusky, the school’s former assistant football coach. [Legal Intelligencer]

By Staci Zaretsky
Benchslaps

Outsiders Criticize Law Schools, But Will Change Ever Come?

While many of the law school deans and other administrators at the AALS conference acknowledged problems with the system, most of the actual critiquing came from people with no power to change it. Media members criticized law schools, judges criticized law schools, outgoing deans that shamelessly profiteered off of unwitting law students criticized law schools -- and the people who could actually change their systems dutifully listened. But despite all of the critiques, there weren't a lot of schools that seemed ready to institute sweeping change to the business of educating lawyers....

By Elie Mystal