The Shark

deferral extension season: indefinite winter?

[cynthia]

I've been working on updating the 2009 start date deferral table (not to be confused with the 2010 table) with all of the recent outpouring of info on start date deferral extensions and offer revocations. 

A lot of firms are pushing would-be associates back even more (we're now at, like, full body's length, rather than just arm's length). Some notables: Arent Fox, Chadbourne & Parke, Baker & McKenzie... the list goes on. 

Check out the table, which I'll endeavor to keep updated for as long as this "season" lasts. Please also email me with any updates, corrections, or thoughts of your own.

Chins up.

pizzas and the crucifix: the saga of ave maria law school.

[dennis]

One of the generally understood perks of being a tenured law school professor is the job security. This assumption, however, requires that your law school is not run by a pizza mogul who moves the school halfway across the country so he can erect a 250-foot crucifix. Read: as long as your boss doesn't have a crazy agenda, you'll probably be able to keep your job

Naplesnews.com reports that the professors at Ave Maria School of Law settled their wrongful dismissal claims against the school, who sued for wrongful termination or denied tenure. This means that there will be no ruling on whether the professor's claims were barred by a constitutional exception for "ministerial" employees that prevents the filing of employment claims.

The saga of how Ave Maria went from a start up with a bright future to the lowest ranked law school in the country is detailed over at The Washington Monthly. Excerpts from the Washington Monthly article are after the jump:

memorial held for law student who died after beating.

[julie anne]

When I read a news story about a crime that has (allegedly) occurred, I like to think that I approach it as a reasonable person would, that I am able to forget my emotions and weigh the facts on their own merits, that I can wait until all the information is in before I come to a conclusion.

But sometimes the crimes are so egregious that I can't help but shake my head in disbelief and hope that the wrongdoers are locked up for a really, really, really long time.

That was the case when I heard about and read the story of Mr. George Onyango, a 43-year-old Kenyan immigrant who was working toward a Master of Laws degree at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif.

According to news stories, Onyango was a law student by day and a caretaker at night at a youth group home for troubled teens in Yucaipa, Calif. On Aug. 22, he refused to allow two teens to leave the home, and, in retaliation, the teens beat Onyango with a steam iron and tied him up in a closet before taking his car, money, food and clothes.

As a result of his injuries, Onyango was left with severe brain damage and paralysis. He was taken off life support and died Aug. 29 at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

law school admission council files suit against testmasters

[julie anne]

Just months after its battle with Blueprint LSAT Prep found TestMasters on the losing side, Testmasters and its founder Robin Singh may have to head back to court once again.

The Law School Admission Council filed a complaint Sept. 4 in a Pennsylvania district court seeking damages for  breach of contract and copyright infringement against TestMasters, confirmed an LSAC representative.

According to the complaint, which was posted to Scribd, the Law School Admission Council, beginning in 1992, granted TestMasters limited licenses to copy certain LSAT materials. These licenses had specific requirements that had to be met by TestMasters.

More recently, LSAC granted a license effective Aug. 1, 2007 to July 31, 2009 that required TestMasters to provide "an accounting of the number of students enrolled and questions used (as relevant), on or about February 1st or July 31st of each year."

The complaint states that TestMasters failed to account for the students and the questions used by the deadline, and further states that the company failed to pay a $900,000 licensing fee. 

LSAC seeks to stop TestMasters from further use of the test materials and to get them to destroy all the copies of LSAT materials in their possession.

What does that mean for law school hopefuls?

Users of Top Law Schools, an online forum where users discuss law school admissions, hypothesized that the law suit could mean shutting down TestMasters classes, even those that have already been paid for.

According to one user, who claims to have been the one to post the original complaint:

"I am the one who posted that information. I did it to warn potential LSAT students to be careful with their money. ... TestMasters is using these materials unlicensed *right now*, and they may be shut down at any moment."

Check out the complaint on Scribd.

Check out what users of Top Law Schools have to say.

(Hat tip to The Shark commenter "Merkin", who posted a link to the complaint)

why are T2 and T3 schools so good at training judicial clerks?

[cynthia]

Earlier this week, US News released a list of top clerkship feeder schools. I came across it this morning, and I have to be honest with you. A couple of things made me go "Hmmm."

Here's the top 15 (and here):

		Percent employed in all judicial clerkships	Percent employed in a judicial clerkship by an Article III federal judge
Yale University  New Haven, CT		41.4%	37.0%
University of North Dakota Grand Forks, ND		28.0%	25.0%
Stanford University  Stanford, CA		24.0%	23.0%
Harvard University  Cambridge, MA		20.6%	18.2%
University of Wyoming Laramie, WY		19.0%	16.7%
University of St. Thomas Minneapolis, MN		17.0%	16.0%
University of Michigan--Ann Arbor  Ann Arbor, MI		14.2%	14.0%
Brigham Young University (Clark)  Provo, UT		14.0%	14.0%
University of Maine  Portland, ME		13.0%	13.0%
University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA		13.6%	12.5%
New England School of Law Boston, MA		12.5%	12.5%
Duke University  Durham, NC		13.5%	11.7%
University of Texas--Austin Austin, TX		15.0%	11.0%
Cornell University  Ithaca, NY		15.0%	11.0%
Western New England College Springfield, MA		11.0%	11.0%

Does anything seem weird about this list?

I know that there has been news of incorrectly reported/tabulated data (with the schools blaming US News and US News apparently not altering its list), but the news from University of North Dakota and Western New England College that their data is not accurately represented does not really seem to account for the overwhelming presence of Tier 2 and Tier 3 schools. Neither does anything else I can think of, like "small class sizes at T3 schools" or "loyalty of fly-over state court judges to their local regional schools." Maybe a perfect storm of all of those things? Or maybe something else?

After consulting both other people who should know and Underneath Their Robes, I still have no answers. 

Share your theories, or insight, with me in the comments section.

the florida bar is NOT your facebook friend.

[patrick]

Nearly half of all employers poke around online before hiring. That might range from a simple google search to detailed and thorough background checks by professional online providers. That relatively common knowledge can also be disquieting in light of internet archiving projects like the Wayback Machine or Google Cache. 

The Florida Bar has taken it to the next level. Specifically, The Florida Bar considered and came very close to requiring all would-be lawyers to submit to their Facebook profiles as part of its moral character and fitness evaluation.  The final decision, which came only after months of study, was to require submission on a case-by-case basis because — hold the phones! —  they realized that applicants would delete unsavory friends or images prior to submission.  Apparently they realize the effort is doomed to failure, but cannot bring themselves to surrender the power to poke around.

To quote from another blogger, "let's briefly rehash why this is not okay":

1.  The Florida Bar will have access to information it could never legally ask for (e.g., sexual orientation, religions affiliation, etc.).  The policy welcomes itself to all sorts of discrimination.

2.  The Bar asks applicants for their identity and password, which give the Bar access not only to applicants' personal information, but to the personal, private information of their friends as well.  Applicants' Facebook friends never signed up, and never intended, to have their personal information shared with the Florida Bar.

3.  The Facebook terms of use prohibit the very behavior in which the Florida Bar seeks to engage.

morgan lewis: shady used car dealer?

[cynthia]

Our sister pub, The Legal Intelligencer (who last week brought us the news that Dechert is no-offering half of its summer class), brings more sunshine to your day: Morgan Lewis is not giving offers in "at least one major office."

The firm, after informing all its summers of their fates, offered this further explanation of its firm-wide decision: 

"Firmwide hiring partner Eric Kraeutler said there were 102 eligible 2Ls across the country in this year's summer program. Of that group, 28, or 27.5 percent, were given offers to start as first-year associates in the fall of 2011 -- a year later than would normally be the case given the deferrals of the 2009 first-year class until the fall of 2010."

Never fear, no-offerees. Morgan Lewis is stating it will provide a letter for you to show other prospective employer that it's not personal. This reminds me of that CarFax commercial, with the "note" from the previous owner, ensuring everyone that everything is all good with the beater.

Unfortunate. Sign of the times. You know the drill.

I hope the Mayer Brown kids aren't laughing at the Morgan Lewis kids right now.

offer day happy hour specials, coming to a miserable dive near you.

[cynthia]

True to 2009 form, I'm relaying some bad news. Above the Law has broken some more for law students and recent grads:

• Proskauer Rose is extending its 2009 class deferment, at least in its New York office. The firm, which already deferred incoming associates to March 2010, is hitting the pause button all the way to November 2010 now. This is, coincidentally, also when the 2010 class is supposed to be starting. LOL ?
• Mintz Levin has deferred half of its incoming class to April 2010 and half of it to January 2011. The latter group will be offered a stipend. 

Our sister publication, The AmLaw Daily, also has some great news of its own. Skadden has elected to cut its 2010 summer associate class in half, and has changed its "recruiting process" by making all its offers on one day in late September (rather than at the tail end of the program, as most firms do). 

I'd say this seems like a cold offer-esque ploy to get students to take other offers first, but, really, how many offers can rising 3Ls be expecting to get next summer? -3 each? 

Those lucky enough to land spots in Skadden's 2010 summer class will receive those offers on the same day--Sept. 22, which the firm has dubbed "Skadden Offer Day." The firm will continue to give those who receive offers 45 days to evaluate them in compliance with informal guidelines set by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).

Skadden Offer Day! I'm envisioning the Hallmark cards now.

hastings looking to raise tuition. again. always?

[petra]

Public law schools across the country are barely done talking about bumping up the cost of a J.D. for the upcoming academic year.

UC’s Hastings is looking even farther out.

In a finance committee meeting yesterday, school CFO David Seward said California residents might be looking at a price tag of about $36,000 in academic year 2010-11, while out-of-state students might be paying $47,000. That doesn’t include health insurance and other fees, he said.

A third of the revenue from the latest fee increases would go toward financial aid.

Seward said the school is reacting to state budget cuts and fee increases at other UC law campuses. The goal is to fall just under the fees charged by the law school at UC Davis.

It seem like just yesterday that Seward prepared first- and second-years to pay $29,383 in enrollment fees in 2009-10 (.pdf).

“The good news is, we are the lowest-cost highest-value law school in California,” Seward said. “The bad news is, we’re not as low-cost as we used to be.”

The full board of directors will consider the proposal Sept. 11, after students have had a chance to weigh in.

All of the law schools in the highly regarded University of California system are raising tuition — called professional degree fees — by 10% or more.

Petra is a Cal Law reporter. 

yoo protesters arrested after entering classroom and refusing to leave.

[cynthia]

The four prostesters who were arrested on Berkeley's law campus yesterday were detained inside Professor Yoo's classroom, according to an email sent out to students regarding the situation this morning. The protesters had entered Yoo's Civil Procedure II class in a loud enough way to disturb all the surrounding classrooms, and had refused to leave after UC Police entered the fray.

Berkeley Law students received an email this morning, alerting them that the school will be working with UC Police in the coming days to develop a "strategy" to deal with the protesters, who vowed to return as long as Yoo is employed

The full email can be found after the jump.