UNT Dallas Law

Criminal Law Professors Help Exonerate Falsely Convicted Man

Occasionally, those who can also teach!

Morning Docket: 06.07.17

* Is there a constitutional right to follow President Donald Trump on Twitter? Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute apparently thinks so, and lawyers from the free-speech center have demanded that Trump’s unblock critics from his @realDonaldTrump account. Good luck! [WSJ Law Blog] * Following an investigation conducted by Perkins Coie, Uber fired more than 20 employees thanks to complaints of sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination. Perkins Coie's probe is separate from that of former Attorney General Eric Holder, who is now employed at Covington & Burling. [ABC News] * Per sources inside the Trump administration, the president is expected to nominate Cheryl Stanton, a former Ogletree Deakins partner, to head the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division. Stanton shares a former boss with Labor Secretary Alex Acosta: Justice Samuel Alito. [Big Law Business] * Michelle Lee, the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has resigned. During her time at the USPTO, Lee was known for her efforts to crack down on patent trolls, which ultimately led to a decrease in their vexatious litigation. The Trump administration has not yet put forth a nominee. [Reuters] * The American Bar Association has granted provisional accreditation to the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law. Last summer, the ABA refused to grant even provisional accreditation to the school because there was concern about future graduates' ability to pass the bar exam. Congrats... [ABA Journal]

Morning Docket: 09.22.16

* It's not always the best law schools whose grads perform the best on the bar exam: For the third year in a row, FIU Law posted the greatest passing percentage out of all Florida law schools. Which one did the worst? We'll have more on this later. [Miami Herald] * "[T]he court will be looking for cases that don't break along traditional partisan lines. IP cases fit that bill." With only eight justices, the Supreme Court has shied away from dealing with any hot-button political or social issues this term, instead choosing to deal with business-related cases like intellectual property disputes. [Reuters] * According to court documents, New York and New Jersey bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami now has an attorney. David E. Patton, a Sullivan & Cromwell alum who leads the Federal Public Defenders of New York and is known as a "vigorous critic of the criminal justice system," will be representing the 28-year-old alleged terrorist. [WSJ Law Blog] * "We believe there's really an unmet need here in El Paso to have a law school." Now that UNT Dallas Law School is struggling to be accredited by the ABA, it's high time that we open yet another Texas law school. Right now, El Paso Law is just a poorly conceived idea, but it could be a poorly conceived diploma mill in the future. [Texas Lawyer] * "We're competing with people who have been laid off and have five to 10 years of experience." With loan debt looming large as "the tax you pay for not having a college fund," law students are slowly but surely adapting to the realities of the "new normal" when it comes to their post-graduation employment options. [Cleveland Scene]

Non-Sequiturs: 09.09.16

* The ABA is finally cracking down on law school accreditation... and ham-fistedly came down on the wrong school. [Big Law Business] * The EU Playboy verdict could undermine the online press. [Engadget] * Today, on the anniversary of the Attica uprising, prisoners across several states planned a mass work stoppage to protest systemic injustices. How does something like this come together? [Wired] * Meanwhile, across the pond, the Supreme Court is selling off art made by prisoners for £30-£500 a pop. [Legal Cheek] * We need more judges like this. [Katz Justice] * A chat with activist Amanda Nguyen on the occasion of President Obama's expected signing of the Sexual Assault Survivors' Bill of Rights. [NPR] * The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline is generating as much buzz as anything can over the cacophony of the election and football, but is there a legal case to be made for putting a stop to the project? [The Atlantic] * Forget about the Prime Directive, why doesn't Star Fleet have a duty to warn about some of the crazy stuff they run across? [The Legal Geeks] * Speaking of Star Trek, the National Marine Fisheries Service just delisted nine humpback whale populations from the endangered species list. Thanks, Admiral Kirk! [Courthouse News Service]

Non-Sequiturs: 08.31.16

* SCOTUS is having none of the North Carolina voter ID bullsh*t. [Huffington Post] * Being a good defense lawyer is about finding and owning the paths to winning. [Katz Justice] * Some people really want to give UNT Dallas College of Law another shot at accreditation. [Texas Lawyer] * The lowdown on the recent decision requiring class action plaintiffs to disclose litigation funding. [Dando Diary] * A comparison of how Hurst and Whole Woman's Health have been applied differently by state courts. [Empirical SCOTUS]

Morning Docket: 08.11.16

* "Could a firm with a different business model suffer, potentially, if they don't match the $180,000? Maybe." Law firms may be competing for fewer students than in years prior thanks to decreased law school enrollment, but Biglaw's new starting salary scale doesn't seem to have made a big impact on the summer associate applicant pool -- at most schools, OCI participation has held steady or risen only slightly since last year. [Law.com] * “Are you listening? He just flat out lied. ... [I]t could be bad." In a text message that was included in a federal court filing earlier this week, a former aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie claimed that the governor lied when he told the media none of his staff knew about a plan to block George Washington Bridge traffic. Uh-oh! [New York Times] * "We'll tell the council that there's a giant need for affordable law schools like us, and we're going to meet that need." After learning it was unlikely his school would receive accreditation due to students' poor qualifications, Dean Royal Furgeson Jr. of UNT Dallas Law shrugged it off, saying the school would "get a fair hearing." [ABA Journal] * Robert Schulman, a former partner at Hunton & Williams, has been indicted for allegedly trading on insider information ahead of Pfizer's $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals, a client he represented in 2010 while at the firm. He, along with his investment adviser, will face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. [Big Law Business] * Yet another Biglaw firm has partnered with a financial company to assist its attorneys with their law school debt. Miller Canfield is working with Social Finance (SoFi) to provide loan refinancing options to the firm's associates to help "ease the financial burden" of their heavy six-figure debt loads. [Grand Rapids Business Journal] * "They're being terribly exploited." Lichten and Bright, a New York labor law firm, has contacted hundreds of UFC fighters in an effort to unionize them and help get them benefits that other sports unions share, like health insurance, pensions, and the ability to negotiate the terms of their contracts with the mixed martial arts giant. [MMA Junkie]