The American Bar Association and at least 36 law schools will announce an ambitious tuition refund initiative on Monday to ease law student debt and to help prop up an ailing attorney job market, Bitter Lawyer has learned.
The plan—which reportedly includes two phases known informally as “clunk” and “cull”—involves issuing tuition refunds of up to two years to both current law students as well as unemployed graduates from participating schools.
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Bitter Lawyer is considering adding Stephanie Cohen’s Not So Legal Show to its regular schedule. But, before we do, let us know what you think.
As the purveyors of the daily Legal Humor Roundup, we’re actually starting to get some tips from readers. This one comes from one of our local attorney pals and is taken from the police blotter from a Minneapolis suburb. There’s probably an ethics lesson in here for attorneys, as in do you represent both folks? Or, more appropriately, do you offer a two-for-one legal representation special?
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Cheating Isn’t Just for College Sports Teams. In the spirit of NCAA sanctions, the ABA slapped Villanova for padding the LSAT scores and average GPAs of incoming students. In its attempt to game the U.S. News rankings, Villanova avoided the specter of losing its ABA accreditation (the equivalent of the athletic “Death Penalty”), but must wear a badge of public shame: for two years, the school’s website must display a link to its public censure. At least there’s basketball.
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BigLaw Associates Overpaid? You Don’t Say! It seems that all that griping by associates about their awful work lives is finally finding an open ear –though perhaps not the one they’d want. A survey by American Lawyer confirmed that money does not seem to buy loyalty among associates. No matter what the bonus or base pay, associate happiness just isn’t there. Therefore the answer seems simple: cut their pay back to saner levels. After all, this is an employer’s market.
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Maybe a JD/MBA Isn’t a Bad Idea. As more and more companies build provisions barring first and second year associates from working on their projects, law firms are responding by creating business education programs to teach junior lawyers financial and accounting concepts and the finer points of business school, like creating power-point presentations and computer spreadsheets. No word on whether or not they’ll be taught how to make boatloads of money without needing to work at BigLaw.
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The Offices of Law & School, LLP: A pair of law professors have proposed that law schools expand existing clinics create their own law firms to help train new graduates. Comparing the system to a judicial clerkship or medical residency, the plan envisions the firms as being more involved than existing clinics, overseen by senior attorneys, and potential revenue generators. We look forward to seeing what happens in law school saturated markets such as Boston, NYC and the LA area where the public will gravitate towards the top schools and the lower tier schools will need to come up with ways to attract clients (much like real practice!).
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Made of Only the Finest Felons: Frederick James is selling an exclusive selection of iPad covers made from the pants of Bernie Madoff, sourced from an auction held by the US Marshals Service last fall. We feel these modern day scalps would make the perfect gift for the attorney who makes a living going after white collar crime. Imagine the effect at a deposition: “Let me just take out my iPad… oh this? This cover’s made out of the pants of Bernie Madoff, I wonder how much yours will fetch.”
Class is Back in Session: Law students from Thomas Cooley and New York Law School are banding together to try and form a class action to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition refunds, as well as other damages and reformed employment statistic reporting practices. They accuse the schools of using deceptive employment statistics to drain them of tuition dollars in exchange for little gain, essentially making them out to be the DeVry and ITT Tech of law schools.
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Why Lawyer Pay Will Shrink: Reverse auctions are driving Biglaw rates down as large firms anonymously submit quotes for a jobs posted by major companies. With the increased number of lawyers being dumped into the market graduating each year, it seems like this may be a trend with legs. Whoops, forgot to say something funny—so here’s a funny video.
Sleep is for Closers: Law firms in London are setting up Japanese capsule hotel-style rooms for their sleep-deprived attorneys. Along with the high paychecks, many magic circle attorneys find themselves going for days without sleep when trying to close a deal. Such accommodations might work well at certain US law firms, allowing first year associates to save money on renting a place they’ll never see.
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The Force is Strong With This One: The British prop designer who crafted the original Stormtrooper costumes for Star Wars, based on George Lucas’ own sketches, managed to defeat Lucasfilm in the UK Supreme Court and win the right produce replica outfits. His attorneys at Fox Williams LLP managed to successfully argue that the costumes were functional works rather than artistic ones, and therefore not subject to full UK copyright laws. However, the UK Court also ruled that the 2004 US decision that held him in violation of Lucas’ copyright also stands. So right now the prop designer is free to sell replicas in England but facing a $20m verdict if he ever returns to the US. Considering the bounty hunter Lucas’ been known to affiliate with, the prop designer should watch his back.
