Law Schools

Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 04.09.18

* What's behind the Supreme Court's sluggish pace, and does Justice Gorsuch have anything to do with it? Only 18 rulings have been sloooooowly handed down so far this Term, and the world is still waiting for decisions to be made in some of the high court's most contentious cases. [Reuters] * House Republicans are so pissed the DOJ failed to comply with a subpoena deadline to turn over more than a million documents related to investigations of Hillary Clinton's emails, alleged FISA abuses, and Andrew McCabe's firing that there's a "growing consensus" Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein could be held in contempt of Congress -- or even impeached. [Washington Examiner] * There may be a law school brain drain when it comes to a lack of applications from students at top undergraduate institutions, but the Law School Admission Council is reporting that the number of applicants with LSAT scores of 160 or higher is up by 21 percent since last year. We'll have more on this interesting news later. [Law.com] * In case you missed it, with an average deal size was $3.7 billion and a market share of about 24 percent, Skadden came out on top of Bloomberg's law firm league table for global M&A deal volume in 2018's first quarter. Congratulations! [Big Law Business] * According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the legal services industry added 400 jobs between February and March. The entire profession now ranges from 1.2 to 1.3 million jobs, down from pre-recession highs of 1.8 million jobs. Sorry, but after about a decade, it's looking like those jobs may be lost forever. [American Lawyer]

By Staci Zaretsky
Non-Sequiturs

Non-Sequiturs: 04.08.18

* Remember the "revealed preferences" law school rankings that debuted last year? Christopher Ryan and Brian Frye have issued the 2018 edition. [SSRN] * And C.J. Ryan offers yet another set of law school rankings, this time focused on "value added" (similar in philosophy to the ATL rankings, but Ryan's top ten is very different from ours). [SSRN] * If brevity is the soul of wit, then Supreme Court opinions are getting less and less witty; Adam Feldman has the data to prove it. [Empirical SCOTUS] * A serious threat to political speech and election integrity, according to media law expert Charles Glasser: the weaponization of copyright law. [Daily Caller] * Andy Oldham, President Trump's latest Fifth Circuit nominee, is very, very smart -- and very, very conservative. [Texas Tribune] * The latest headline-making case handled by legendary litigator Ed Hayes is a doozy -- involving a former beauty queen, a hedge-fund magnate, an ostrich farm, and... an STD. [New York Post] * Interested in constitutional law and possessed of a progressive perspective? Here's a great job opportunity you should check out. [Constitutional Accountability Center]

By David Lat
Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 04.04.18

* Amal Clooney, the acclaimed lawyer who is working a side hustle as a visiting professor at Columbia Law, left her apartment while wearing clothes. This is apparently a very big deal. Oh, did we mention she's married to George Clooney? Because she is. [Daily Mail] * Both Microsoft and the Department of Justice have asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a high-profile data privacy case even though oral arguments have already been heard due to the fact that a new law, the CLOUD Act, has made it moot. [Reuters] * Villanova Law students got the day off yesterday to continue celebrating the Wildcats' 79-62 win in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. The team's chaplain who delivers a prayer before every game is a lawyer. [Legal Intelligencer] * "She’s created the impression that I’ve done something wrong and I haven’t even had final adjudication." Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea of DePaul Law has canceled Professor Donald Hermann's class in the middle of the semester after he used the N-word during a lecture. We may have more on this later. [Chicago Sun-Times] * In the lead up to the release of the 2018 Am Law 100, the American Lawyer has been publishing articles about firms' impressive financial feats. One of the latest articles is about Strasburger & Price's 9 percent jump in net income -- which likely means that Strasburger may have made it (at least into the Am Law 200). [American Lawyer]

By Staci Zaretsky