Law Schools

Columnist Laments Unemployed Law Grads and Broken Unspoken Contract

As factories closed and the economy changed, young people were repeatedly told that the way to succeed was to get an education. But that advice hasn’t helped many of today’s law and college graduates, according to columnist Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. It’s the No. 1 topic…

Oct 28, 2009 12:52 PM CDT

More Law Schools Adopt Completely Smoke-Free Campuses

Most law schools already prohibit smoking in and near buildings, but a growing number are going completely smoke-free. At least five law schools already ban smoking anywhere on campus, and three more are adopting campuswide smoking bans, the National Law Journal reports. Most schools rely on self-policing. University of Arkansas…

Oct 28, 2009 11:34 AM CDT

Chemerinsky Represents Teacher Who Called Creationism ‘Nonsense’

The dean of the University of California’s newest law school is representing a California high school teacher who called Creationism “religious, superstitious nonsense.” Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC Irvine law school is one of four lawyers representing history teacher James Corbett as he appeals a ruling that his…

Oct 27, 2009 4:36 PM CDT

GAO Puts Blame on US News Rankings for High Law School Tuition

Updated: Law school tuition has been rising since 1994, reaching as much as $50,000 per year when combined with fees at law schools such as Yale and the University of California at Hastings. But don’t blame the ABA. A new report (PDF) by the Government Accountability Office says accreditation requirements…

Oct 27, 2009 1:13 PM CDT

Justice Thomas Reveals His Best Day of Law School—Graduation

Justice Clarence Thomas told law students at the University of Alabama on Friday that his best day at Yale Law School was his graduation. Thomas said law school was extremely difficult, according to stories in the Crimson White and the Tuscaloosa News. The Crimson White says Thomas talked with law…

Oct 26, 2009 2:33 PM CDT

Miami Law Grads Get $10K Foreclosure Fellowships to Fill Legal Services Gap

New legal tactics are showing promise for some homeowners in foreclosure, if only they had lawyers to help. The shortage of foreclosure lawyers has reached “emergency proportions,” Time magazine reports. As many as 86 percent of homeowners in foreclosure in hard-hit areas last year didn’t have a lawyer, according to…

Oct 26, 2009 1:41 PM CDT

‘Vampire’ Law Prof Takes Academic Look at Zombie Litigation

Just in time for Halloween, a Canadian law professor has put together a round-up of vampire and zombie references in legal jurisprudence. There have been more than 200 such mentions during the past 50 years, with the vast majority in the United States rather than her own country, found Sharon…

Oct 23, 2009 11:05 PM CDT

Bright Light of New York Law School Aggravates Neighbors

It may initially have seemed like a bright idea to those in charge of the design. But neighbors are seeing the light at New York Law School’s new building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. And they aren’t happy about it. A 24/7 continuous fluorescent glow from the five-story glass-covered…

Oct 22, 2009 5:45 PM CDT

Two Calif. Law Profs with First Amendment Interests Have Died

Two law professors with an interest in media issues have died. Stephen Barnett, who taught at the University of California at Berkeley, died of cardiac arrest on Oct. 13, the New York Times reports. He was 73. A specialist in intellectual property and the First Amendment, he campaigned against a…

Oct 22, 2009 2:13 PM CDT

Two Yale Law Grads Settle Suit Against Once-Anonymous Online Critics

Two graduates of Yale Law School have settled their defamation lawsuit against several online critics who wrote nasty comments about them on the law school discussion board AutoAdmit. Lawyer Ashok Ramani of Keker & Van Nest in San Francisco represented the women pro bono. He told the Hartford Courant that…

Oct 22, 2009 12:23 PM CDT

Stanford Is No. 1 in Prof’s Take on Princeton Review Survey

Stanford Law School comes out on top in a law professor’s analysis of a new guide to 172 law schools. Paul Caron, author of TaxProf Blog and the associate dean of faculty at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, looked at five categories in the Princeton Review’s guide, Best…

Oct 20, 2009 5:37 PM CDT

Pipeline and Lateral Recruiting Blamed for Stagnating Diversity Stats

The proportion of minority lawyers at the nation’s largest and most profitable law firms has increased from 10.4 percent in 2005 to 13.9 percent in 2009, but not every law firm is reporting increased diversity. The Minority Law Journal’s Diversity Scorecard found that more than 12 percent of the law…

Oct 20, 2009 12:58 PM CDT

Students Study Hardest at Villanova Law School, Survey Finds

Students at Villanova University School of Law apparently study the hardest, putting in an average of 7.5 hours a day, according to a survey by the Princeton Review. TaxProf Blog developed the list from data published by the Princeton Review in its report, Best 172 Law Schools. The top five…

Oct 19, 2009 4:21 PM CDT

U Mass Mulls Possible Acquisition of Donated Private Law School

The University of Massachusetts is mulling over a possible plan to acquire the Southern New England School of Law, potentially creating the state’s first public law school and giving the law school, which is not accredited by the American Bar Association, a higher profile. The 235-student private law school, which…

Oct 14, 2009 11:29 PM CDT

Is Lawyer’s Ivy Plus Society ‘a Meet Market for the Pedigreed’?

Los Angeles real estate lawyer Jennifer Wilde Anderson’s idea for a networking group catering to those from Ivy League and other elite schools is gaining some traction. Already there are two chapters of Anderson’s Ivy Plus Society in California and one in New York, the New York Times reports. A…

Oct 9, 2009 4:02 PM CDT