The Shark

aw, give the little gunner a break.

[brian lauter]

Yesterday's Courtoon hits gunners where it hurts most: grades.

Gunners get a bad rap. I mean yeah they’re annoying, but if it wasn’t for them you would never snap out of your laptop-induced daze to listen to what is actually going on in class.

Think about it from their standpoint. They’ve spent hours and hours preparing off-topic ingenious arguments and tangential meaningful stories that they’re now willing to share free of cost with you, the unwilling public. Is it too much to expect a little gratitude and admiration in return? Yes.

Think about that the next time you break out your gunner bingo card. If you still can.

bad news bears and captain obvious sit down to discuss your future.

[brian lauter]

NALP released a report on 2008 fall recruiting yesterday and it contains all kinds of depressing statistics, many of them in the form of depressing charts. The gist of the report probably won’t surprise anybody (law student recruiting = worse than usual), but it’s always nice to have the numbers.

I know how annoying it is to click on things and read articles, so here are the highlights from the National Law Journal’s synopsis:

“About 90% of 2008 summer associates were offered full-time positions, compared to about 93% in 2007.”

And some bad news for 3Ls looking for jobs:

“Only 25% of firms said they recruited 3Ls not previously employed by them, compared to about 66% in recent years.”

And back to 2Ls:

“The median number of offers to 2Ls for summer associate positions at firms of all sizes fell from 15 in the fall of 2007 to 10 in the fall of 2008. The decline was even steeper at firms with 700 or more attorneys, where the median number of summer associate offers fell from 30 in 2007 to 18.5 in 2008.”

Finally, something for everybody:

“Close to half of law schools — 46% — reported a decrease of 5% or more in firm participation in recruiting activities.”

It’s not as bad being the bearer of bad news when everybody already knows the bad news you’re bearing.

Check out other bad news bearers ATL, The Blackbook Legal Blog, and Nuts & Boalts.

clarence thomas: suffered through mega loans, too.

[brian lauter]

When you think of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the word “comforting” is not one that usually comes to mind.

Thomas is probably known best for his rigid originalism, which leads to frequent dissenting opinions, and his silence during oral arguments.

According to Regent Law Blog, however, Justice Thomas had some very comforting words a couple of months ago for students struggling with debt while trying to find jobs.

While answering questions from a Con Law class at George Mason University, Thomas used his own story to put law students worried about employment prospects and loan repayment at ease.  Thomas told students that he had graduate from law school with a wife and a child and school debt and had accepted a position with the Missouri Attorney General because that was the only job he was offered.

Sure, he did graduate fromYale Law School, but it’s an encouraging story for jobless 3Ls nonetheless. Thomas then went on to work for biotech company Monsanto and then as a Legislative Assistant in the Senate. He then worked in the Reagan administration and was appointed to the D.C. Circuit by George H.W. Bush.

Pretty non-traditional...

When asked about loans, Thomas told George Mason students that he didn’t finish paying of his student debt until his third year on the Supreme Court!

As for that steely silence during oral arguments? In a New York Times piece from 2000 Thomas explains:

“...I was on that other side of the podium before, in my earlier life, and it's hard to stand up by yourself and to have judges who are going to rule on your case ask you tough questions. I don't want to give them a hard time.”

Who knew Clarence Thomas was such a nice guy?

linx: faculty week, here at the shark.

[cynthia foster]

Orange County sure is a happening place lately.

• New UC Law School at Irvine is Ranked in Top 10, Based on Faculty (ABA Journal)
• Torture Memo Author Finds Friends and Foes at Chapman U (OC Weekly)
• Harvard Students Grill Starr About Role in Prop 8 Case (Bay Windows)
• No-Stat All Star Professors? (Opinio Juris)
• Poaching UC Faculty Persists in Recession (Contra Costa Times - includes an interview with Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley)
• A Symposium On the Evolution of J.D. Programs (Southwestern University)

law schools may still get money from you, but they're not really getting it from anybody else.

[brian lauter]

It may be hard to imagine after you've just finished writing a $15,000 spring semester tuition check to your law school, but apparently they’re feeling the economic pinch these days, too.

I haven’t heard about this happening at my school, but according to recent articles in the National Law Journal and an item on TaxProf Blog, several schools have instituted hiring and salary freezes. Other schools have made library adjustments and begun limiting faculty travel.

For instance, according to the National Law Journal, UC Hastings has cut cost-of-living and merit-based raises for administrators and slowed hiring. Law schools in other state systems like the University of Missouri are considering similar measures, and Arizona State has already furloughed many faculty.

Public schools in California have been facing budget cuts and corresponding tuition hikes for several years, and it looks to get even worse now that the legislature has passed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget which cuts education funding by about $8 billion.

More surprising to me was the fact that private law schools are also feeling the pressure. The endowments at Harvard and Yale have dropped 22% and 25% respectively since last summer, due to the tanking financial markets.

You have to applaud the public law schools who have sacrificed faculty salaries and hiring rather than announcing tuition raises or cutting education-related funding, but I wonder how long it is before these budget woes are passed on to students.

irvine dean challenges random "realist" new yorker to con law wrestling match. $5 on chemerinsky.

[cynthia foster]

Anybody wondering what Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has planned for the his tenure Irvine other than establishing his law school as a haven of public interest law domination? 

Looks like he's taking on the police department on behalf of the homeless community of Orange County.  He and some lawyers at Irell & Manella are suing the city of Laguna Beach over its treatment of its street population.

Manhattan Institute fellow (whatever that is) Heather Mac Donald, for an editorial written for the Wall Street Journal, went to Laguna Beach to investigate Chemerinsky's claims that the police are antagonizing the homeless.  She found Chemerinsky's claims that police, among other things, forced a homeless woman to put out her cigarette and then cited her for littering, and the resulting legal action to be "shrill."  In several interviews with homeless individuals, Mac Donald paints Irvine as a sort of Santa Cruz of the south, where the homeless receive courtesies from police and suffer through resentment and fight-picking from other homeless.  She also paints Chemerinsky as a bleeding heart who is gunning to overwhelm Irvine with a long series of newly-minted JD proteges in the coming years.

"[T]he lawsuit augurs poorly for Orange County's future. The U.C. Irvine law school has already signed up a Who's Who of left-wing advocacy groups such as the Western Center on Law and Poverty, California Women's Center, and the Public Law Center to work with and recruit its students. Expect a steady stream of similar litigation against cash-strapped local police departments, welfare offices and private employers to roll forth from the tax-subsidized school."

She's also not a fan of his politicking, accusing him of misrepresenting himself as a champion of public interest.

"Mr. Chemerinsky did not respond to a request for an interview, but perhaps he could create an on-site shelter and treatment program and have his students try to persuade Orange County's homeless to use it. Until they do, any argument that they are vindicating the 'public interest' rings hollow."

Chemerinsky shot back with a letter to the Journal following the publication of the opinion piece.  Beyond establishing that UC Irvine or its future graduates have no place in this debate (he is one of several co-counsels in the suit which is not linked to the school in any way other than through his association), he's also challenged Mac Donald to a bit of a con law throwdown.

"I am glad to debate Heather MacDonald any time, any place on the constitutionality of ordinances that make being homeless a crime."

WATCH OUT. 

the aba: ruining your education, your career, your life.

[brian lauter]

Sometimes, problems with legal education are all U.S. News’ fault, and sometimes they’re all the ABA’s fault.

Ready to play the blame game again? This week, they’re the ABA’s fault.

At least that’s what Dean Lawrence Vevel of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover and Kurt Olson, an assistant law professor there, argue in their new book, “The Gathering Peasants’ Revolt in American Legal Education.”

You may remember Dean Velvel for his efforts to try George W. Bush for war crimes.  You may also remember him for calling for Rod Blagojevich’s acquittal. Or you may remember him as another high profile victim of Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme.  Just as long as you remember him.

A brief and non-comprehensive list of the Velvel/Olson grievances against the ABA:

· The ABA has drastically lowered the permissible faculty to student ratio in law schools and refuses to count adjunct professors, which drives up the cost of legal education.

· The ABA prohibits professors from doing administrative work, forcing law schools to hire many more personnel, which drives up the cost of legal education.

· The ABA forces law schools to build new physical facilities or renovate existing facilities, driving up the cost of legal education.

Velvel and Olson go on to argue that top law schools don’t criticize the ABA because they benefit financially from these rules, and less established law schools don’t criticize the ABA because they are scared of having their accreditations revoked.

This sounds about right, and, in case you forgot, the ABA is also responsible for stifling law school innovation and forcing law schools to “build an Acura instead of a Corolla.”

What I don’t understand is how these accreditation standards can be changed or if they should be. The ABA, according to what I do understand, is basically a voluntary association of lawyers and law students. It is governed by a representative body. Doesn’t this suggest that the legal community, at some level, has considered and endorsed the ABA standards?

That’s not a rhetorical question, I really don’t know enough about how the ABA operates to answer it. Until I do, it’s the ABA’s fault this week, and U.S. News’ the next.

king hall is gifted with $1M to build.

[brian lauter]

Construction at King Hall has stopped due to California’s budget debacle, but, apparently, the money is still coming in.

This morning U.C. Davis announced a $1 million gift to fund construction of a new appellate courtroom at King Hall. The gift from the Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation is the second highest donation to the King Hall Expansion and Renovations Project.

The law school expects the new courtroom to “bring sessions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, California Supreme Court, and California Court of Appeal to the UC Davis campus.”

Imagine that.

bar prep loans may be lacking, but fear not for your ramen and rent: there's a plan B

[pam smith]

In a Cal Law story we just posted (free reg. req.), we've got one school noticing more loan rejections than usual this bar prep season, and many more wondering if they'll see the same, given the shrinking pool of lenders and the credit environment in general.

But fear not -- they have a plan. Many are banding together to try to persuade the federal government to give loans out for more bar prep costs (like, say, those pricey exam-prep courses) than it will typically cover. So long as the federal government moves swiftly, all should be just ... oh, um ... hmm.

linx: no negativity here.

[cynthia foster]

After yesterday's layoff bloodbath (in case you didn't hear, 800 lawyers lost their jobs yesterday - covered extensively here, free reg. req.), I thought it might be nice to not talk about job security/biglaw/everyone's tanking futures at all.  Your roundup for today:

• New Dean Chosen for Local Law School (OC Register - that local law school is Whittier)
• Online Law Research - Pros and Cons (Law Librarian Blog)
• Law School Defends Obama Poster Artist (Stanford News Service)
• Wow Again! (Nuts & Boalts - Berkeley Law receives record number of applicants, current students express relief at their good timing)
• What Would It Mean to Be the #1 Law School for Ethics? (PrawfsBlawg)

And from Overheard in New York:

"Guy: I can't decide which song to listen to. (girls around him look at him quizzically) No, I normally listen to Van Halen's Right Now before a test, but this is my first exam in law school, and I want to set a precedent.

- Fordham Law School Cafeteria, Lincoln Center"

And don't forget: we're hiring!