The Shark

berkeley law loses one of its own.

[petra]

Berkeley Law has lost a long-time faculty member.

Stephen Barnett, an emeritus professor, died Tuesday after suffering cardiac arrest on Oct. 2. He was 73.

Not one to hold back when he had an opinion, Barnett had kept a keen eye on how the California Supreme Court went about its business and frequently criticized its policies. Chief Justice Ronald George grudgingly acknowledged to me that all of Barnett’s effort wasn’t in vain, and the court wound up adopting some changes based on his critiques. Barnett also targeted the State Bar. Colleagues said he didn’t limit his reach to the public sphere, though. Barnett was known to dig into decisions and policies at the school, too.

“If there is such a thing as a constructive gadfly, that was Steve,” said Berkeley law professor Richard Buxbaum, who had known him since Barnett joined the faculty in 1967.

Though he had retired four or five years ago, Barnett still made regular appearances on campus. Berkeley professor Jesse Choper said Barnett taught a first-year course and showed up to faculty meetings. But he also traveled a good deal for his international work and worked from home. “He had a big study at home,” Choper said. “Unlike most law faculty he tended to spend a lot of time working at home.”

The law school is planning a memorial service at the university.

Petra is a Cal Law reporter

twitter adds list feature.

[cynthia]

One of the cornerstones of social media is being able to organize others into groups according to your relationship with or interest in them. Twitter's joined the ranks of sites making customizable groups available to its users - well, some of them.

Social Media Law Student reported this morning that Twitter's unveiled its "Lists" feature, which allows you to organize the accounts you follow and allows other users to add you to lists as well. The feature's not available on all accounts yet (our Twitter account doesn't have it yet, for example), but once it's universally available it'll be an easy way for you to follow all of your law school-related social media at once.

Some of our favorite law school tweeters, who will be added to a list once we have list-making capabilities:

@Lessig: Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig

@BitterLawyer: "entertainment" law blog 

@EvilEsq: The Bar Association for Evil and Unethical Lawyers

@BlawgWhisperer: ABAJournal.com web editor

@blackbooklegal: law blog out of Philly

And, your Shark contributors on Twitter:

@julieanneines and @no634

Please feel free to share your favorite law/law school-related Twitter accounts in the comments.

massachusetts is just not that into you, law school.

[cynthia]

Yesterday, Dennis introduced us to the possibility of a public law school in Massachusetts. Today, the state treasurer announces no way. The state can't afford it.

“From an economic point of view, it’s an investment in a profession that we may not need more of,” [Timothy] Cahill, who is running for governor as an independent, said in a telephone interview. “It’s not like training medical technicians or nurses, which we need more of. In this economy, we should make investments in things beneficial to the state, and I don’t see that here,” he added.

No word on whether or not Southern New England School of Law (that had offered itself to UMass for acquisition) feels this was just some recession era politicking — shouldn't the 15th most populous state in the nation have a public school for its residents?

Meanwhile, broke University of California manages to keep one of its own, despite the perilous financial situation it's in; Prof. Stephen Bainbridge will not be leaving UCLA to visit UVA next year.

coming soon: umass law?

[dennis]

Apparently Massachusetts does not have any public law schools, but this might change. It looks like the Southern New England School of Law is throwing in the towel and gifting itself to the state, according to the Boston Business Journal:

"Officials at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth announced Wednesday that the Southern New England School of Law has offered to donate to the state university $22.6 million in cash and real estate, including the campus that now houses the 235-student private law school."

Actually, school officials would argue that the phrase “throwing in the towel” is inaccurate:

"Ward said that Southern New England School of Law’s offer did not come out of financial crisis at the Dartmouth, Massachusetts-based law school."

“We’re being very clear about that,” he said. “We’re coming off a very good year. In a time when layoffs and everything were going on, at the end of the fiscal year, we were able to put a little extra in the paychecks of our employees.”

Bonuses for the professors? Right.

Maybe the gifting has something to do with the competition that the low profile school faces from the 7 other private law schools in the state? Or that it uses credit in lieu of an endowment?

This isn’t the first time the law school has tried to gift itself to the state. The same proposal failed a few years ago when the state’s Board of Education determined that UMass-Dartmouth could not legally operate an entire law school under its continuing education program.

I'm not sure what has changed, but maybe UMass could now operate a bonus-giving law school under its continuing education program? We'll see.

bad blogger, good law student

[julie anne]

I've been a bad blogger. There, I said it.

In addition to The Shark, I write - or am supposed to write - for my personal blog on a regular basis, but, like the hefty price tag of my student loans, I had put them out of my mind in favor of reading case books, briefing cases and writing my first Legal Research and Writing memo.

Turns out that what people say about the first year of law school being a major time suck really is true.

Where I've been a bad blogger, however, I've been a "good" law student - I've gone to every class and have read the material - and an OK everything else, i.e. girlfriend, daughter, martial arts student, regular gym goer, regular dish and clothing washer, etc.

And I've done so without a single "FML" Facebook status update.

I've heard some people say that they are able to handle their day-to-day activities without scheduling them. But I honestly think I would not have been able to get through these first months of law school, and keep my sanity and my relationships, without doing so.

I've been finding it helpful to schedule all the "events" I have coming up for the following week - both law school-related and personal - in a personal planner that breaks down the days by the hour. Depending on how much time is needed, I group events in blocks of anywhere from one -and-a-half to three hours.

In pen, I block out my law school classes, my gym schedule and my weekend karate class.

In pencil, I block out the reading that must be done so I can adjust the time accordingly if I need to spend more time on any given subject, and any errands or chores that must be done

You'll notice that I haven't mentioned blogging. And I've done that to, um, illustrate a point. If I don't write something in and just think about doing something, I never get to it.

For some reason, a to-do list seems more daunting when it's floating around in your head, than when it's fixed onto paper. As such, that floaty to-do list never gets done.

Rather than drive me crazy with what could be seen as micro managing my days, the schedule actually gives me some relief when I see that, yes, there is time to sleep, spend time with The Boyfriend, and indulge in a show or movie from Hulu or Netflix.

And, yes, write a blog post.

If you're a 1L, what are you doing to keep your sanity? If you are an older student, or have graduated from law school, what did you do?

drexel dean "stoked" on recent bar exam showing.

[cynthia]

When Drexel opened a law school in 2006, the climate of the legal industry was much different than it is today. (How you like them obvious apples?) 

Back then, pressure from other schools and its own student body, who asked in the student newspaper, "what's taken you so long?" pushed Drexel over the edge into joining the ever-growing ranks of institutions looking to parlay undergraduate program success into a creation of a law school.

Of course, with a 2006 inaugural class, Drexel was right in the line of fire when the legal industry collapsed this year. More pressure was on for the school to produce prepared graduates, or, in a word, graduates who could pass the bar exam and put their best foot forward.

And amidst all that pressure, Drexel showed up. Or, its students did. The Legal Intelligencer is reporting that 90% of Drexel law grads passed the Pennsylvania bar exam in July. That pass rate was surpassed by only two other schools in the region: Temple and University of Pennsylvania. A resounding success for a baby school, one might say.

"It's particularly important in this job market to get students to pass the bar the first time through because it makes the job search" for places like small firms or government positions, where bar passage is often required, all the easier, Dean Roger Dennis said.

Dennis attributed this success to the school's focus on bar exam passage: the school has an in-house writing specialist to assist studying students, and a director of academic skills who triages with students who are showing signs of struggling and might be "in jeopardy of failing the bar."

what do americans know about their justice system? short answer: not much.

[patrick]

Nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots in Florida, its decision in Bush v. Gore appears to have had lasting effect on how the public views the justices.

A poll from C-SPAN asked voters whether the ruling affected their view of the Court. A substantial minority, 29%, said that the ruling did. And not surprisingly, those who said so saw the ruling as incorrect, as a sham or as an area the justices should have avoided altogether.

(...or was it (d) "all of the above"?)

Even less surprisingly, only 52% of Americans polled knew that there is no constitutional requirement that the chief justice be a lawyer, 37% knew how many female justices have graced the Court (three), and 39% knew the correct number of African American justices in the Court's history (two).

Seems disappointing for the leaders of the free world, but I wonder - would third year law students fare any better?

Ed. Note: Well, 3Ls, do you?

psa: back up those files.

[dennis]

I experienced vicarious horror in my Tax law class this morning when the professor began one of those “this is on the test” hypos. The class started typing furiously. Then the girl next to me gasped in horror because her computer’s screen was blue.

Error messages flowed on the screen. There was a bunch of code, but the message was clear: “THOU ARE SCREWED.”

I immediately saved my OneNote files and emailed them to myself.

Most of us are one month into the fall semester. This is long enough to feel utterly screwed if your computer decides to die. Imagine all of your notes, legal research, calendars – everything. Gone. I know, the thought makes me feel ill too.

So, for all the students out there: this is a call to back up your files now. Don't worry about zip disks. Just send your notes to your email. You may thank yourself later.

school sponsored blawgs: i'm not buying it

[dennis]

California Western Law School is taking an interesting and possibly misguided approach to law school marketing: school sponsored student blawgs.

There are eight blawgers, and a brief skimming of the posts confirmed my suspicion that the posts are thinly veiled PR pieces for the school.

Most blawgers love their law schools, but what makes a blawg interesting are the posts about the writer, and not the posts about the school.

That is why a student blawg is not a good school-sponsored marketing tool. Our lives are filled with procrastination, balancing tests, dating, shockingly inappropriate classmates,  blunders, and plenty of f-this-shit moments. The non-school related stuff is why we read blawgs, and that is exactly what is lost when the law school sponsors a blog that won't stray too far from "oh look how great Bumble Law School is, tee hee." 

I think the only effective blawg-marketing route takes a lot more nerve than most law students and law schools have: the school should support its non-anonymous bloggers, but not exercise any influence over them. Only then will the recommendation of that blogger mean anything.

Easier said than done right?

For example, I am fully aware that some of my school's administrators and professors read my blawg. Heck, my dean of students has quoted my blog while looking right at me. (Just to see me sweat, I'm sure.)

My school is not hostile towards my blogging because the administrators realize that I love the school and I am not going to write anything crazy or malicious. (With the exception of my career counselor, who is convinced that prestigious law firms will burn my applications…)

Sure, I'm going to have those "F-THIS! OH MY GOD WHY IS IT SNOWING?!" moments, but that is what makes my blog more relatable than the beauty pageant "things are wonderful, always" blogs produced by admissions. School-sponsored student blogs are only perceived one way:

And hopefully a law school's applicants are smart enough not to believe company-sponsored testimonials.

Prospective students contact me early during the law school application period, and I answer questions via email and twitter up until the first day of class. This is effective for the school because I serve as a positive yet real testimonial.

Sure, a student having so much unchecked contact with applicants is risky, but the power of a real and visible testimonal is an invaluable recruiting tool that cannot be contrived, which is exactly what California Western is trying to do.

biglaw's out. so you wanna be a... researcher?

[petra]

Students at UCLA Law School can now study to become lawyers — and researchers.

The school has announced the launch of a set of empirical research courses offered under the same roof as its J.D. program. Dubbed the Empirical Legal Scholars Program is the result of a partnership the law school and RAND Corporation struck in 2007 and made formal last month.

Professor Joseph Doherty tells us law students across the nation have gone too long without formal course work in scholarly research. To satisfy their research cravings, students at many schools have had to combine their J.D. studies with a masters in public policy or a PhD program at their universities, or seek out one member of the law faculty to work closely with.

“Students had to pick up the skills as they went along,” Doherty said. “I’d work with five to 10 students individually on projects which they’d do for somebody else.”

Now it will be at their fingertips. The second-year course will include research methods, statistics and data analysis and a seminar in which students conduct original research. All at the law school.

Doherty, who heads the law school’s Empirical Research Group and has been quoted in media on various studies of his own, will be teaching the courses. He’ll also bring in guest lecturers from RAND and the law school and arranging mentorships with law faculty. At the end of the program, each student will have a paper to publish or discuss at a conference.

Petra is a Cal Law reporter.