Law Students

NALP Group Recommends Jan. Job Offer Kick-Off Day

A NALP commission is recommending that law firms push back the date for summer associate job offers until mid-January of the second year of law school, giving employers more time to do extensive interviewing and testing. The recommendation by the Commission on Recruiting in the Legal Profession addresses concerns that…

Jan 8, 2010 1:32 PM CST

261 Dickinson Law Alumni Warned of Possibly Breached Info

Updated: Dickinson School of Law gave 261 alumni some bad news last month: Malicious software had infected a university computer containing an archived list including their Social Security numbers. The former students were warned under a 2006 state law requiring notification whenever anyone’s personal information is potentially disclosed by a…

Jan 7, 2010 4:52 PM CST

Dean Blames Rankings for Drop in Minorities at Law Schools

An associate dean at Thomas M. Cooley Law School blames U.S. News & World Report for a drop in the percentage of black and Mexican-American students entering law schools in the United States. A big part of the problem is the rankings and their emphasis on the Law School Admission…

Jan 7, 2010 2:40 PM CST

Furman Official Says Talk of New S.C. Law School Is Urban Legend

Furman University officials say the hire of a leading law dean as its new president doesn’t signal an intention to form a third law school in South Carolina. Furman’s new president, Rodney Smolla, was dean of Washington & Lee University’s law school, where he led an innovative program that pushes…

Jan 7, 2010 1:26 PM CST

Blind Law Grad Sues Over Bar Exam’s Human, Rather than Computer, Readers

A blind graduate of UCLA law school plans to take the bar exam in February, and she hopes she will be able to use a computer program that reads the text aloud. The State Bar of California allows use of the computer assisted reader for its section of the exam,…

Jan 6, 2010 6:53 PM CST

Almost 1/3 of Law Students Expect to Graduate with $120K Debt

The percentage of law students expecting to graduate with more than $120,000 in student debt is continuing its upward climb. Twenty-nine percent of law students surveyed said they expect to owe more than $120,000 at graduation, up from 23 percent in 2008, 19 percent in 2007 and 18 percent in…

Jan 6, 2010 2:23 PM CST

The Chasm in BigLaw Management: Restore or Cut Salaries?

When news broke that Latham & Watkins plans to restore frozen associate salaries (on the heels of Above the Law’s report of Arnold & Porter’s intention to pay up deferred compensation), we wondered if this was a sign that more firms will return to pre-recession compensation models. And what, we…

Jan 5, 2010 9:57 PM CST

ABA Group Honors Pipeline Program that Begins in Eighth Grade

An ABA group is honoring a New York City program that reaches into eighth-grade classrooms to inspire students from diverse backgrounds to choose legal careers. The Legal Outreach program selects 70 urban eighth-graders each year, working with them intensively beginning the summer before high school and continuing through law school,…

Jan 5, 2010 5:19 PM CST

NALP Report Said to Recommend Later Date for Summer Offers

Law firms would be barred from making offers to law students for summer associate positions until sometime in late fall, under recommendations to be made by a 17-member commission later this month. The Am Law Daily had news of the upcoming report, relying on three sources familiar with the contents.…

Jan 5, 2010 4:16 PM CST

The Job Market Is Tough for Law Grads in China, Too

A new study supports the tales of woe told by recent law graduates in China. It is more difficult to find a job in law than any other profession studied, the China Daily reports. The story cites a June 2009 study by China’s Academy of Social Science and the Mycos…

Jan 5, 2010 12:42 PM CST

ABA Prez Laments Young Lawyers ‘Squashed by Debt,’ Presses Deferment Idea

The ABA continues to lobby for student loan deferments for recent law grads, despite Congress’ failure to advance the proposal. ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm told The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times that congressional and White House aides appeared interested in finding a solution when she and other ABA…

Jan 4, 2010 1:33 PM CST

Another Sweet Deal for Law Students at UC Irvine: Half Off Tuition

California’s innovative new law school, the University of California at Irvine, attracted more than 2,700 applicants with its offer of free tuition to all members of its first-year class, for all three years of law school. UC Irvine accepted only 4 percent of the applicants for the 2009 school year,…

Dec 22, 2009 3:11 PM CST

New Exam Issue Tests NYU Law School: How to Grade, When Some Saw Questions Earlier?

In at least the second such snafu reported this month concerning a law school exam, New York University administrators are now pondering how to handle a situation in which some of the students in a law school class, through no fault of their own, saw the questions in advance. Earlier,…

Dec 19, 2009 12:41 AM CST

Washington & Lee’s 3Ls Learn in-the-Trenches Practice

An innovative program has third-year students at Washington and Lee University law school outside the classroom, learning about practice in the world. This year’s program began with a two-week course that required students to handle a court case from start to finish, the Washington Post reports. “It was a grueling,…

Dec 18, 2009 4:28 PM CST

Washington & Lee’s New Curriculum Will Go On Without Innovative Dean

As news broke of Dean Rodney Smolla’s imminent departure from Washington & Lee University School of Law to become the president of Furman University, concerned law students worried about the fate of the school’s 3L curriculum reform, which launched this fall. The program eliminates traditional coursework and focuses on the…

Dec 16, 2009 6:31 PM CST