Adjunct Law Prof Blog

Harvard Law Graduate at 22

Cortlan Wickliff, a native Texan and Rice University alum, has graduated from Harvard Law School at the ripe old age of 22.  Akilah Johnson at the Boston Globe has the full story.

Craig Estlinbaum

Texas Tech Claims ABA Moot Court Title

Congratulations to Texas Tech law students Reagan Marble, Ashirvad Parikh and Suzanne Taylor for claiming the prestigious Amercian Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition law week.  Tech bettered my alma mater, South Texas College of Law, in the championship round, which was held in Chicago.  The competition, which began with regional matches, included 225 teams from 129 schools in the U.S.A. 

Craig Estlinbaum

 

St. John's Labor and Employment Law Blog

For readers who do not know, St. John's Law School has a very comprehensive labor and employment law program. The program is run by Professor David Gregory. The faculty and the program are outstanding. The program is student centered and the focus is on learning practical skills. The students have formed a blog which focuses on labor and employment law and it is quite good. I recommend that you check it out, here.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Law School Application Take A Dive

A recent NY Times article documents a 38% decline in law school applicants which would make a 38 year low, here. Why, increasing tuition and the decreasing amount of jobs. 

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Vermont Buyouts and Other Law School News

This is a tough time to be a law school dean.  Consider Vermont Law School dean Marc Mihaly, who only four months into the job, is now facing a $3.3 million budget deficit.  With a  14% projected revenue decline on the horizon, Mihaly has announced a voluntary buyout for VLS staff which he says could be extended to faculty if there are not enough takers.  He also announced that VLS will increase its LL.M program and certificate offerings to make up for the revenue loss. Taja-Nia Henderson at Concurring Opinions, has some interesting comments on the problems and risks associated with law school faculty buyout programs.

Meanwhile, Penn State Law dean Philip McConnaughay, facing declining enrollment at the dual-campus school, has proposed to "spin off" the Carlisle campus into a separate, autonomous entity beginning in 2015.  This proposal came after state and local officials rejected his proposal to consolidatete the 1L program into the University Park campus.  Interestingly, Penn State acquired the Carlisle campus in only 12 years ago.

Ten new law schools that are either ABA accredited or seeking accreditation have opened the doors in the last ten years with new schools in Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas planning to open.  With enrollment declining and legal jobs paying enough to reasonably retire law school debt harder to find, it seems obvious that some industry restructuring, including possible consolidation or school closure, will occur.  We can expect more stories such as the ones coming out of Vermont and Pennsylvania as this process unwinds.

Craig Estlinbaum  

 

Arizona: Tattoo Artists Enjoy Free Speech Protections

In an important free speech case yesterday, the Arizona Supreme Court held that tattooing is protected free speech under the First Amendment and Arizona's state constitution.  The case is Coleman v. City of Mesa, No. CV-11-0351 (September 7, 2012).

Plaintiffs in the case sued the City after being denied a permit to open a tattoo parlor.  The city's controlling ordinance effectively bans certain specified uses, including tattoo parlors, unless the city council grants a permit for the use.  The Supreme Court, after finding tattooing to be constitutionally protected expression, held the city's permitting scheme vested unbridled discretion in city officials and failed the First Amendment's time, place and manner test.  The Court reversed the trial court's dismissal for failure to state a claim and returned the case to that court for further proceedings.

The Arizona Court considered three approaches to the issue:  (1) tattooing is purely expressive activity fully protected by the First Amendment; (2) tattooing is non-expressive activity not First Amendment protected; and (3) categorization on a case-by-case basis.  Notably, the Court cited a student comment, Ryan J. Walsh, Comment, Painting on a Canvass of Skin: Tattooing and the First Amendment, 78 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1063 (2011), for the third approach.

Craig Estlinbaum

Becoming A Lawyer Blog

I just came across Becoming A Lawyer, a blog by law school publisher Wolters Kluwer-one of the giants in law school publishing. It provides helpful information to prospective law students. For example, the article I just read is about being a law student and a parent at the same time. If your a college student thinking about law school and even if your a 1 L, you may want to check this blog out.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Federal Court Dismisses Fraud Case Against Cooley Law School

MacDonald, Jr. v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, ____F.Supp.2d____(W.D. Mich. July 20, 2012), is the second case where a court has dimissed a fraud type of suit brought by former law students against a law school. The other case is  Gomez-Jimenez v. New York Law School, No. 65226/11 (NY Sup. Ct. Mar. 21, 2012), which we previously reported on. 

The claim was that the 2010 Employment Report and Salary Survey was fraudlent. In granting a motion to dismiss, the court explained:

                This Court agrees with Judge Schwietzer, a judge for the New York Supreme Court in a nearly                 identical case, for some of the reasons he discusses as to why reliance upon the two                 statistics would be unreasonable.  See Gomez-Jimenez v. New York Law Sch., Index                 No.652226/11, Seq. No. 002, Decision and Order (N.Y.S.Ct. Mar. 21, 2012) (Def.’s                 Supplemental Br. Ex. 1). This Court does not necessarily agree that college graduates The                 State of New York’s trial court. Case 1:11-cv-00831-GJQ  Doc #54 Filed 07/20/12 are                 particularly sophisticated in making career or business decisions.  Sometimes hope and                 dreams triumph over experience and common sense.  Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable                 for Plaintiffs to rely on two bare-bones statistics in deciding to attend a bottom-tier law                 school with the lowest admission standards in the country. In addition, “[i]t is widely                 accepted that American law schools,
                Cooley included, employ all sorts of legerdemain to boost employment rates in a                 contracting legal market” (Pls.’ Resp. at 5); once again, Plaintiffs state that they had other                 reasons to not rely upon the Employment Reports.  Furthermore, whether before or during                 Plaintiffs’ attendance at Cooley,it would have been unreasonable to continue to rely on the                 Employment Reports because of theeconomy’s massive downfall, which hit the legal business                 as hard as any.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: TaxProf Blog

South Texas College of Law Sweeps Writing Awards

From the South Texas College of Law website:

June 27, 2012 - For the first time in the history of the prestigious American Society of Legal Writers’ Scribes competition, one school took first, second, and third place: South Texas College of Law. The Scribes award is given to authors of the best written legal brief submitted in a national moot court advocacy competition this past academic year. South Texas students authored eight of the 68 briefs entered in the competition. This is the 5th time South Texas has won first place in the competition—no other law school in the U.S. has won it more than once. “The Scribes Award is recognized by all academics as the gold standard for legal writing,” says Associate Dean and Director of Advocacy T. Gerald Treece. “These briefs are judged anonymously and three of ours were the best of best from across the country.”

Formal presentation will be made on August 3 at the Scribes' annual luncheon during the ABA Annual Meetings in Chicago.  Congratulations to winning authors and to Dean Treece and the South Texas advocacy program for this impressive sweep.

Craig Estlinbaum

Breaking News NALP Releases Job Stats on Class of 2011 and it's Brutal

The headline in a June 8, 2012 article published by Inside Higher Education says it all. "Brutal" Job Market For New Law Grads.  It reports on a National Association of Law Placement or NALPA study which shows that 85.6% of law school graduates are employed 9 months after graduation. But get this, only 64.4% are employed in jobs for which bar passage is required. The NALAP press release is here. A copy of NALPA's selected findings, which provides much more detail is available here. The full report will not be released until August 2012. Note, the ABA maintains a statistical data on placement stats at each law school, but the 2011 data is not yet included. 

This is disgraceful. This is coming at a time when the median law school tuition is $39,496 at private schools, $35,765 for non-residents at public schools and $19,788 for resident students at public schools, here. 

These students are being taught by full-time faculty who are, for the most part, incompetent to practice law. The situation is particularly accute with recent law school full time faculty hiring.  Most full-time faculty members never practiced law for any substanial period of time. They may have a post-JD degree and an appellate clerkship, but very few have practiced law or represented a client for more than 5 years. This is because law schools are concerned with academic credentials as opposed to practical experience. 

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

New York Law School Wins Round One In Stunning Fraud Case Brought By Former Students

Gomez-Jimenez et al v. New York Law School, ___Misc. 3d____, 2012 NY Slip Op (N.Y. Co. March 21, 2012), is a case that every, and I mean every, law school adminstrator must read. In fact, prospective law students, as well as law professors in general, should review this decision as well. 

The case was brought by nine former law students. Interestingly, they did not challenge the quality of the education they received. Instead, they alleged that New York Law School engage in unfair and fraudlent practices, fraudulent misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation. 

In a scholarly opinion, full of cites to articles and an exhaustive review of case law, the court in a thirty-page decision dismisses each claim one by one and grants New York Law School's motion to dismiss.

Plaintiffs' theory was that New York Law School published misleading employment statistics which plaintiffs' relied upon. In rejecting this claim, the court viewed the plaintiffs as educated consumers and pointed to the poor job market for lawyers as reflected in their papers.

Apparently, plaintiffs believe that New York Law School statistics were misleading because it included all employment whether or not someone was working in a legally related job and whether the person was working full-time, temporary or part-time. Their claim is a bit hard to determine from a bare reading of the decision. In any event, the court concluded that New York Law School did not make any misrepresentation because they did not state in their published statistics that these statistics only represented full-time employment.

Frankly, I believe that is quiet a stretch. It is entirely reasonable for a law student to assume that statistics published on a school web site refer to full-time employment. Most law students do not go to law school in order to seek part-time employment when they graduate.

The court also gives significant weight to U.S. News Law School rankings and assumes that they are accurate. The court explains that because New York Law School does not rank high, plaintiffs could have evaluated this when deciding whether or not to chose New York Law School. The court states:

"One would think that reasonable consumers, armed with publicly available information from U.S. News that plaintiffs cite, thus would avail themselves of plaintiffs' own logic as stated in their complaint when it comes to evaluating their chances of obtaining the full-time legal job of their choice within nine months post-graduation."

What!! Even assuming that U.S. News is the bible, and it surely isn't even close, the U.S. News rankings is based upon several criteria. The U.S. News is not a placement bulletin. Also, the court is assuming that higher ranked schools have better placement rates. That may be true, but courts should not be in the business of making assumptions.

The court also errs, in my view, by stating that "before 2008 there was a seeming abundance of opportunities for lawyers at all points of entry into the profession, regardless of the law school one attended. . . " The court does not cite any authority for this proposition. I have been a lawyer for quite some time and the market has been quite difficult for lawyers as well as law students for quite some time-both before and after 2008. 

The court's most significant error is that because of the changing nature of legal practice "[m]andatory retirement ages are coming down." Excuse me, but mandatory retirement has been per se unlawful under the ADEA for years. 

To be fair, the also court makes some vaild points about the Great Recession of 2008 which is when most plaintiffs were in school. The decision is also well written. Plaintiffs also had a high bar to cross given the elements of each cause of action they had to prove.

I do not express any opinion about whether or not any of these mistakes are material enough to warrant an appeal. I have been an adjunct  faculty member at New York Law School for about 7 years and I do not know any of the players involved in this case-at least I don't think so. I can honestly say that everyone I ever met at New York Law School, including faculty and students, always appeared sincere and honest. I do not believe for one minute that New York Law School would intentionally or negligent mislead any student.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein   

Updates

New York Law School Press Release, here

New York Law Journal Article, here (registration required)

 

2d Circuit Upholds Rule That Correspondence Law School Graduates Are Not Eligible To Sit For Bar

Bazadier v. McAlary, ___F.3d___(2d Cir. Feb. 16, 2012), is an important case which has gotten little press. The 2d Circuit upheld New York's bar admission rules which effectively bar graduates of law school correspondence and online schools from sitting for the New York bar examination. The case was brought by a California attorney who was fully licensed.

The decision is unreported and not particularly well written. One would have thought that a decision involving this important issue would have generated more attention by the court. The plaintiff challenged the court rules on Equal Protection and First Amendment grounds. In rejecting those arguments, the court stated:

 First, the district court properly concluded that, because Bazadier’s claims do notimplicate a fundamental right or a suspect class, they should be analyzed under rational basisreview. See Hayden v. Paterson, 594 F.3d 150, 169-70 (2d Cir. 2010). The challenged Rules,Sections 520.3 and 520.5(a) of Title 22 of the New York Compilation of Rules and Regulations,which effectively bar a graduate of a correspondence law school from taking the New York barexamination, are not based upon the content of the instruction provided by a law school and donot favor or disfavor any form of speech on the ideas or views expressed. Rather, the Rules areoccupational regulations that express a preference for one form of legal pedagogy over another.Second, the district court properly concluded that, based on the State’s argument thatcorrespondence-based study offers less assurance that a graduate has received a legal educationthat is adequate for membership to the bar, the Rules had a rational relation to the State’slegitimate interest in protecting the public from an incompetent bar. See In re Griffiths, 413 U.S.717, 725 (1973) (“[A] State [has] a substantial interest in the qualifications of those admitted tothe practice of law . . . .”); see also People v. Alfani, 227 N.Y. 334, 339 (1919) (“The reason whypreparatory study, educational qualifications, experience, examination and license by the courtsare required, is not to protect the bar . . . but to protect the public.”). Bazadier failed to “negativeevery conceivable basis” upon which the Rules could be upheld. Lewis v. Thompson, 252 F.3d567, 582 (2d Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, the district courtproperly dismissed Bazadier’s equal protection claim based on his First Amendment right offreedom of speech.Finally, we concluded that the district court properly found that Bazadier had failed tostate a claim based on an infringement of his First Amendment right of freedom of associationfor the reasons stated in its decision and order. Accordingly, because Bazadier’s complaint failed to state a claim for relief, the district court properly dismissed it without first grantingleave to amend.

What I have always found interesting about New York's rules is that you do not even have to be a law school graduate to sit for the bar. As I understand it, you have to only go to one year of law school and then work as an apprentice for a lawyer. I actually know someone who has done this and he is a first rate lawyer. Therefore, I fail to understand the rationale for not allowing correspondence or online classes. If the student can pass the bar, that is what should count in my mind. 

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

 

 

 

 

 

Don't Cheat On The Bar

Matter of Dewitt v. NYS Board of Law Examiners, ____A.D.3d___(3rd Dep't. Dec. 29, 2011), is one of those decisions which you cannot make up. A student was found to have cheated on the bar exam and his exam was nullified. Guess what, he sues. The 3rd Department, in rejecting his lawsuit, explained:

 We must disagree with petitioner's contention that the determination is not supported by substantial evidence. Substantial evidence is defined as "such relevant proof as a reasonable mind may accept as adequate to support a conclusion or ultimate fact" (Matter of Berenhaus v Ward, [*2]70 NY2d 436, 443 [1987] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]; see 300 Gramatan Ave. Assoc. v State Div. of Human Rights, 45 NY2d 176, 179 [1978]; Matter of Goldsmith v DeBuono, 245 AD2d 627, 628 [1997]). Here, a proctor testified that she observed petitioner repeatedly craning her neck to look at the exam of the candidate seated next to her during the multiple choice session on the first day of the exam. The same proctor and her three supervisors all testified that they observed petitioner doing the same thing on the second day. Respondent also offered expert proof of strong statistical evidence that petitioner succeeded in copying answers from the other candidate. Although petitioner denied copying and presented her own expert proof challenging the statistical evidence against her, the resolution of conflicting evidence and determination of the witnesses' credibility are within the sole province of respondent and will not be disturbed (see Matter of Rogers v Sherburne-Earlville Cent. School Dist., 17 AD3d 823, 824 [2005]; Matter of Mirrer v Hevesi, 4 AD3d 722, 723-724 [2004]; Doolittle v McMahon, 245 AD2d 736, 738 [1997]).

The more interesting legal question is whether this applicant should be permitted to sit for the bar examinination in the future. I think not, but who am I? Moral of the story. Don't cheat.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

 

Basketball Career Backup Plan-Law School!!

We all know that the chances of making it professional sports are remote. A career may even be cut short because of a labor dispute. So, it is of course, wise to have a back up plan. But how many professional players have a back up plan. Well, here is a story about one who does.  Ben Wallace of the Detroit Pistons back-up plan is to attend law school. An ABA Journal Blog article is available here. A copy of a Detroit News article which provides further details is available here.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

So You Want To Be A Lawyer

Is Law School A Losing Game?, is an important Jan. 8, 2011 NY Times article that everyone thinking of law school should read. It describes the terrible job prospects new lawyers face and questions whether law school is worth it since so manner graduate with unheard of amounts of debt. 

My take is a bit different. You should not be going to law school for the money. You should be going to law school because you want to learn to think like a lawyer and you want to be a lawyer period. The jobs will come- when the economy gets better. I know it is easy for me to say this, but the fact of the matter is that is you want to be a lawyer you have to go to law school.

Though many new graduates are unemployed, many many graduates do find jobs-good jobs. But students should go into this with their eyes wide open. That is why it is important to read the above article.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein 

Text Book Inflation

The cost of college and law school textbooks is unbelievably high and it gets little attention. The Albany Times Union published an important newspaper article documenting this fact of university life. The article points out that publishers will not have to make additional cost disclosure options available; however I doubt that will mean anything.  As the article states: 

 

Now, there is some relief for students who pay hundreds of dollars every semester. A provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 took effect this month.

 

The first direct federal action to address textbook prices could help lower student costs by creating more competition and breaking the tight control publishers have on the textbook market.

Publishers are now required to disclose prices and revision information when marketing textbooks to professors, which will allow them to choose lower-cost options. Publishers now are required to offer all of the items in textbook bundles for sale separately so students won't be forced to pay for CDs or passcodes they don't need. Colleges are now also encouraged to provide the list of assigned textbooks for each course so students can shop around for the best deal.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=952849&category=REGION#ixzz0uQSPcxHd

Some relief will come when electronic texts are used in all classes. However, something tells me that those texts will not be much cheaper than the traditional books. 

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

 

Does It Pay To Get An LL.M?

The Wall Street Law Journal Blog ran an interesting story on September 20, 2010, here, questioning whether an LL.M degree was worth it. The article seemed to concluded that it generally was not worth it unless the student was interested in a highly specialized field such as tax.  

I tend to agree. Also, the academic job market has become so competitive that I am sorry to report that an LL.M is not enough to land a law school or even a college teaching job in most competitive markets (where everyone wants to work). If your interested in a full time academic appointment, your looking at a J.S.D. or P.hd degree. That is the reality of todays world.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Study Claims That Grades Are More Important Than The Law School

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported on July 30th about a study which indicated that grades were more important than the particular law school chosen by the student. As the article states:

 Go to the best law school you get into.

It’s advice that’s been passed down through the ages, from generation to generation. Law is a profession that trades, the thinking goes, on prestige. Clients like prestigious names like Wachtell and Cravath; the wealthiest firms like names like Harvard, Yale and Chicago. Get into one of those schools, and up go your chances of going to a big firm, kicking tail, making partner and grabbing that brass ring.

Or so the conventional wisdom has for decades dictated.

But is it true? In a new paper, UCLA law professor Richard Sander and Brooklyn law professorJane Yakowitz argue no. “Eliteness” of the school you attended matters much less, they found, than your GPA.

I for one still believe that a student should go to the best law school they could get into. Then get the best grades that you can. I do not know how you can separate grades from school. I think it would not be reasonable for a student to chose a lower ranked school because he or she "thinks" that he or she may get better grades at a lower ranked school.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: Neil J. Dudich, Esq.

Law Student Sets Up Pay Pal Account To Accept Tuition Donations

Here is a new one. A law student, actually a accepted student to Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill set up a web site and is seeking donations for her tuition. So far, she had gotten 3 donations. An article about this student in the ABA New Journal Now is available here.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Law Students Push For Transparency In Law School Employment Data

The ABA Journal News Now reported on two law students who are pushing for transparency in law school employment data. They published a scholarly article on the this topic (and cited Adjunct Law Prof Blog) which is available on SSRN. They also maintain a web site. This is a serious issues that schools need to pay attention to. It is also an important issue and the U.S. News ranking data is based, in part, on employment stats.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein