Law Schools

Afternoon Briefs: Student loan reprieve extended; did Giuliani infect state lawmakers?

One more month of student loan forbearance announced by Education Department Student loan forbearance has been extended through Jan. 31, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday. The offering started in March as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. In August, President Donald Trump directed the…

Dec 7, 2020 4:37 PM CST

Artist sues law school to stop destruction of his Underground Railroad murals

Vermont-based artist Samuel Kerson has filed a lawsuit against the Vermont Law School to prevent destruction of his murals depicting the fight against slavery and the Underground Railroad in Vermont.

Dec 7, 2020 2:54 PM CST

Afternoon Briefs: Good news for law grad who took bar exam while in labor; Boies Schiller leader leaves

Law grad passes bar exam after taking the test while in labor A graduate of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law has passed the bar exam, even though she went into labor while taking it and finished it the next day after giving birth. Brianna Hill said she slept…

Dec 3, 2020 4:36 PM CST

Afternoon Briefs: 25 former DC bar leaders decry election suits; ousted 1L presses due process claim

25 ex-DC bar leaders decry election suits Twenty-five former presidents of the District of Columbia Bar are criticizing lawyers who attacked the electoral process through unfounded allegations of voter fraud or ballot tampering. “In the absence of any meaningful evidence, we must condemn the abuse of the judicial system to…

Dec 2, 2020 4:49 PM CST

Law school debt is delaying plans for recent grads

Some new attorneys delay buying a home or a new car. Others reluctantly postpone marriage and having children while altering the career plans they had going into law school. These are among the personal and professional sacrifices young lawyers often make due to their sizable student loan debt.

Dec 1, 2020 12:00 AM CST

Judge’s threat to add lawyer to pro bono list could be seen as punitive, 6th Circuit says

A federal appeals court has concluded that a federal judge’s comments about a lawyer for a bias plaintiff were "within the bounds of what imperfect men and women, even after having been confirmed as federal judges, sometimes display."

Nov 24, 2020 3:12 PM CST

Pandemic problems may be defense for law schools not meeting bar passage standard

Law schools now must report the number of recent graduates admitted by diploma privilege in their annual questionnaires in addition to those who took and passed a bar exam.

Nov 23, 2020 8:53 AM CST

Constant communication has been key amid COVID-19, law school dean says

“We have all gone above and beyond to ensure that we are creating relationships with our students and mechanisms for ensuring they have the ability to contact us, to learn from us, to ask the questions they have,” says L. Song Richardson.

Nov 18, 2020 9:00 AM CST

Cellphone entrepreneur donates $15M to law school

The John F. Scarpa Foundation, which was formed by the founder of the American Cellular Network Corp., has donated $15 million to Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law.

Nov 17, 2020 1:36 PM CST

Has law prof been fired over tweets? He says it might not be technically true—yet

A professor at the University of Miami School of Law is at odds with his school over whether he has been fired for racially insensitive tweets.

Nov 16, 2020 3:38 PM CST

5 steps law school deans can take to improve diversity and inclusion

The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor have highlighted to the world that systemic racism exists. It has caused many law schools, law firms and other legal employers to grapple with how to foster more diversity and inclusion as well as what it means to be antiracist.

Nov 12, 2020 3:57 PM CST

Program offers Utah law school scholarships based on overcoming adversity

Utah’s two law schools on Thursday announced a fellowship program with full-tuition scholarships for admittees with significant hardships.

Nov 12, 2020 9:15 AM CST

Biden will be first president since Taft to have a law degree outside T-14; his law prof saw ‘presence’

President-elect Joe Biden will be the first U.S. president since William Howard Taft to graduate from a law school outside the nation’s top 14 ranked law schools.

Nov 9, 2020 11:46 AM CST

Western Michigan University trustees vote to end affiliation with Cooley Law, calling it ‘a distraction’

Western Michigan University’s board of trustees voted Thursday to end its affiliation with the Cooley Law School. The meeting was livestreamed on the university’s YouTube channel.

Nov 5, 2020 1:55 PM CST

How many tenured law professors are Black? Public data does not say

After unrest escalated across the nation following the killings of George Floyd and other African Americans by police, many law schools issued solidarity and anti-racism statements. But a fair number of those institutions have few if any Black tenured professors, says Meera Deo, the author of Unequal Profession: Race and…

Oct 28, 2020 3:25 PM CDT