Louisville School of Law

Heavy metal lawyering.

* The Fifth Circuit is allowing the Texas voter ID law to be enforced during the upcoming election, even though it was recently struck down by a federal judge. After all, “preserving the status quo” is very important down south. [Bloomberg]

* We suppose that’s why the Supreme Court stepped in to make sure that abortion clinics in Texas were allowed to reopen following their shut down. Take that, Fifth Circuit. [New York Times]

* AG Eric Holder is showing off some fancy legal footwork before he walks out the door. Federal prosecutors can no longer ask defendants to waive their IAC claims when pleading guilty. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Davis Polk & Wardwell is a Biglaw firm where hotties roam, and it looks like this top Justice Department prosecutor who started his career there is returning home there to roost. [DealBook / New York Times]

* It’s the debt: With headlines like “Law school applications plummet – at U of L too,” the University of Louisville School of Law can’t even convince alums from its undergrad school to attend. [Courier-Journal]

* Amal Alamuddin changed her name to Amal Clooney on her firm’s website. It’s as if she wants to rub the fact that she’s a human rights lawyer who just got married in everyone’s face. [New York Daily News]

* Human Rights Watch wants to “stop killer robots” from being used as cops. In case that was really weighing on your mind. [PC World] * A profile and Q&A with Twitter’s foremost jurist, Justice Don Willett of Texas. He indulges us with answers longer than 140 characters. [Coverage Opinions] * The Berkeley bird beheader gets four years probation and service to an animal shelter. And you just know some bird is going to try and start something with him on the first day. [Associated Press via San Diego Union-Times] * Instead of announcing a new dean, Louisville has given a three-year extension to its interim dean to keep holding the “interim” title. What’s going on? Could one of the commenters be right: that the school doesn’t want to take on a new salary because they expect the school to fold? [The Faculty Lounge] * The Drake Law service dog lawsuit is over. [Des Moines Register] * Today is the last day to enter the New York’s Funniest Professional Competition! [Manhattan Comedy School / Gotham Comedy Club] * Internet collegiality alert: Internet Tax Lawyers blog blatantly rips off another blogger. For shame. [Law and More] * Comparing the U.S. News peer ranking with which faculty’s academic writing really gets read. [Tax Prof Blog]

Voting begins for the Worst Law School In America! Polls close Sunday night.

Time to while away your Monday filling out a bracket.

* Lawyer decides to fight City Hall… with spray-can graffiti. [KING] * A new survey finds that pre-law students want a 2-year law school model. They want to come out of law school with 33 percent less debt? Shocking. [Kaplan Test Prep] * Should law schools fire professors who stop writing post-tenure? I mean who does that? I thought tenured professors work harder than ever. [PrawfsBlawg] * A look at the future of computer forensics via Almost Human. Frankly, when I think of the future of criminal policing I think of a different Karl Urban vehicle. [The Legal Geeks] * With the revelation that standout defensive end Michael Sam is gay, a number of NFL types are trotting out the whole “he’ll be a distraction” excuse. That’s a pretty stupid excuse. [Lawyers, Guns & Money] * Who is the “tipsy coachman”? [The Volokh Conspiracy / Washington Post] * It’s a zombie! The living dead! Or maybe just a living woman that banks have declared dead despite all evidence to the contrary. [ATL Redline] * Remember Brandon Hamilton? He used to be the the assistant dean of admissions at Louisville Law before he promised students $2.4 million more in scholarships than the school had to give. Well, he finalized his plea bargain. [The Courier-Journal]

* The Zimmerman verdict allows us to sit back and reflect on how bad Atticus Finch really was at his job. [Criminal Defense Blog] * In case you’d forgotten about the shenanigans at Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, here’s your update: a former employee has been charged for promising students more scholarships than the school had. Rick Pitino needs to show the law school how to work within scholarship limits. [Courier-Journal] * State licensing boards are trying to put the kibosh on advice columnists. Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to shut down Dr. Demento. [Lexington Herald-Leader] * Fun with patents: Monkey Dog Saddle! [Lowering the Bar] * Transgendered workers are successfully challenging workplace discrimination using the Civil Rights Act. These sound like cases Justice Alito will get right on overturning. [Buzzfeed] * McDonald’s is trying to show how it provides its employees a living wage. It just requires working a second job for a total of between 62-74 hours. No biggie. [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

You can have a J.D. or a house but not both.

Do you have something to say about your law school's U.S. News ranking? This is the place to do it!

The BCS schools square off over their law schools.

A law school scholarship isn't just free money when it's conditioned on merit.

Law school costs so much that even the law school has to go into debt to finance the education...

* Bankruptcy blues: “No one is getting a free pass.” Howrey going to start clawing back all of that money from our former partners and their new firms? Dewey even want to get started with this failed firm’s D&L defectors? [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]

* Way to show that you’ve got some Seoul: Ropes & Gray, Sheppard Mullin, and Clifford Chance were the first Biglaw firms to receive approval from the Korean Ministry of Justice to open the first foreign firm offices in South Korea. [Legal Week]

* This is supposed to represent an improvement? Pretty disappointing. The percentage of women holding state court judgeships increased by a whopping 0.7 percent over last year’s numbers. [National Law Journal]

* Throw your birth control pills in the air like confetti, because a judge tossed a lawsuit filed by seven states that tried to block the Affordable Care Act’s mandatory contraception coverage provision. [Lincoln Journal Star]

* “[S]omewhere along the way the guy forgot to tell the seller that he was working with the buyer.” Duane Morris was sued for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty for more than $192M. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Please don’t Google me, bitches. Brandon Hamilton, Louisville Law’s ex-assistant dean for admissions, resigned Monday after overpromising $2.4M in scholarship money to incoming law students. [Courier-Journal]

* A New Hampshire college is offering free tuition to students in their junior year if they combine their senior year with their first year at the Massachusetts School of Law. The catch? Mass Law is unaccredited. [NHPR]

Dean Jim Chen is stepping down at the University of Louisville's Brandeis School of Law. What prompted the move, and what will he be doing next?

Our hot-blooded lawyer of the day allegedly drank too much and tried to break into a judge's house...

The National Law Journal reports that Jim Chen, Dean of the Louisville School of Law, has come up with an easy to apply salary figure to determine whether law school was a financially sound decision on a case-by-case basis. I'd like for people who constantly defend the value of law school to start pointing out the high salaried jobs that are needed to make law school worth it....