Law Schools

Bashed by Rush Limbaugh, Law Student Gets Support from President Obama, Hundreds of Law Profs

Personally attacked by conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh for expressing her views about contraception in testimony in a Congressional hearing, a third-year law student at Georgetown University has been supported not only by hundreds of law professors but the Oval Office. In a phone call today, President Barack Obama told…

Mar 2, 2012 11:24 PM CST

Law Firms are Part of ‘Labor Lottery,’ Given Low Likelihood of Winning BigLaw Partnership

It might come as a shock, but a number of newly minted lawyers are little different than street-corner drug dealers and mailroom clerks in the entertainment industry. That’s because, like low-level employees in many fields today that offer either big bucks to those who grab the brass ring or the…

Mar 2, 2012 9:20 PM CST

Letters: Law Grads’ Toil and Trouble

LAW GRADS’ TOIL AND TROUBLE Regarding “The Law School Bubble,” January: This bubble has been expanding for years. I started law school in the early 1990s at the University of Oklahoma. A couple of weeks after my acceptance, dean David Swank sent a letter warning of the declining job market…

Mar 1, 2012 10:50 AM CST

Education a Concern for Silkenat

Legal education is a primary concern for the ABA’s president-elect nominee, James R. Silkenat, a matter he made clear at the 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting in New Orleans. Speaking to the ABA House of Delegates, Silkenat said the profession is faced with several difficult issues, and legal education is one.…

Mar 1, 2012 7:10 AM CST

Was Chief Justice Roberts Right? Law Review Circulation Reaches New Lows

Are law review articles so boring that no one wants to pay to read them? Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. expressed his views last year at a judicial conference. “Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you…

Feb 29, 2012 1:44 PM CST

Law Grad’s Ballooning Student Debt Will Exceed $1.5M by the Time He Retires

A Touro law graduate who financed his education with a $69,000 loan in 1996 says he’ll owe more than $1.5 million by the time he retires in 23 years. John Koch, now 46, was unable to pass the New York bar exam, despite three tries, according to Cable News Channel…

Feb 28, 2012 1:34 PM CST

Drug Arrest Redirects Doctor Into New Job as a Lawyer

After 20 years in practice as a physician, a Pennsylvania doctor turned to a new career as an attorney after his arrest five years ago on a prescription drug charge. Lawrence Kansky, then 50, felt he should never have been charged concerning what he describes as an unwitting technical violation…

Feb 27, 2012 6:51 PM CST

Would-Be Law Prof Loses Age Bias Suit

An Iowa jury has ruled against a Michigan lawyer who claimed the University of Iowa discriminated against him on the basis of age when he didn’t get an interview for a law school faculty job. Jurors ruled against West Bloomfield lawyer Donald Dobkin on Friday, report the Iowa City Press…

Feb 27, 2012 4:46 PM CST

Top BigLaw Feeder Schools Named; Penn Is Ranked No. 1

The University of Pennsylvania’s law school is ranked seventh by U.S. News & World Report, but it tops a list of the institutions that send the highest percentages of grads to the nation’s top 250 law firms. The National Law Journal compiled the rankings, and TaxProf Blog added the U.S.…

Feb 27, 2012 3:06 PM CST

Law Prof’s Upcoming Book Chronicles Oversupply of New Lawyers, Proposes Flexible Legal Ed System

A law professor is calling for cheaper, practice-oriented law schools in an upcoming book that chronicles the oversupply of newly minted lawyers. The book, by Brian Tamanaha, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has some statistics to illustrate, the New York Times reports at its Opinionator blog.…

Feb 22, 2012 11:30 AM CST

These Schools Exceed Expectations for Bar Pass Rates

Most law schools have bar exam pass rates that correlate to their students’ scores on the Law School Admission Test. But some outperform expectations. The National Jurist (reg. req.) developed a mathematical model to determine which schools most exceeded expectations for bar pass rates in 2009 and 2010, compared to…

Feb 21, 2012 12:00 PM CST

Suit by Law Student Claims Her School Negligently Admitted Her

A law student in Tennessee with $80,000 in education debt claims in a suit filed this week that her school should not have admitted her. The $750,000 suit by Morgan Crutchfield says Lincoln Memorial University accepted her even though she had not completed her undergraduate degree and will be ineligible…

Feb 17, 2012 12:30 PM CST

Chinese Restaurant Owner Surprised to Learn Justice Jackson Lived and Studied There

A building housing a Chinese restaurant in Albany, N.Y., may soon be sporting a plaque noting a famous onetime tenant: the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. The former chief U.S. prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg was a struggling 19-year-old law student in 1911 when he…

Feb 14, 2012 2:09 PM CST

Yale Law Loan Forgiveness Program, While Still Generous, Requires Grads to Pay More

Faced with rising costs, Yale Law School is scaling back its tuition loan forgiveness program for graduates who opt to work in low-paying careers, relative to their corporate practitioner peers. While still generous, compared to what many other law schools offer, the Career Options Assistance Program will now set a…

Feb 10, 2012 6:37 PM CST

Duncan Law Losing Applicants, Students in Wake of Accreditation Denial

Applications have dropped 26 percent at Lincoln Memorial University’s Duncan School of Law since the school was denied provisional accreditation by the ABA’s law school accrediting arm in December. Eight students have also left the school in the wake of the accreditation denial, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. “Competitor law…

Feb 10, 2012 6:06 PM CST