I think potential jobs/internships will be sympathetic...no way this doesn't have an effect on every student's grades. Now there may be less jobs overall to choose from, but that's a different issue. I graduated in 08, so this is deja vu all over again.
Law School and Other Legal Discussion.
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I think potential jobs/internships will be sympathetic...no way this doesn't have an effect on every student's grades. Now there may be less jobs overall to choose from, but that's a different issue. I graduated in 08, so this is deja vu all over again.
I don't think the judges will be - the clerkship hiring process is hell on Earth and my GPA was slightly above mediocre, I was set to KILL this semester (I've already gotten the reviews back on 2/4 of my final projects, and I may have gotten the top grade, professor of the class is a COA judge with a lot of sway) a 4.0 semester and reccs would have put me over into potential cum laude land and into a district court pool.
No chance now.
The global coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy have pushed many law firms to make tough decisions about their futures that have increasingly included cuts in pay, layoffs, and furloughs.
Arent Fox, Baker Donelson, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Goldberg Segalla, Reed Smith, and Womble Bond dikkinson announced this week cost-cutting measures to pull back on expenses as law firms face an uncertain future.
Law Firms Look for Right Mix of Layoffs, Pay Cuts to Survive
can't front I'm enjoying watching all these firms that rejected me in panic mode. I want to see big law burn to the ground.
get these nets
Veteran
10 law schools are out of compliance with bar passage standard, ABA legal ed section says
May 28, 2020
Ten law schools are out of compliance with an ABA accreditation standard that requires a bar passage rate of at least 75% within two years.
The council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which met remotely May 15, posted the findings to the section’s website Wednesday. For the following schools, the council found “significant noncompliance” with Standard 316. This is the first year compliance was determined based on two-year bar passage rates.
Standard 316 was revised in 2019 to state that at least 75% of an ABA-accredited law school’s graduates who took a bar exam must pass one within two years of graduation. This year, compliance is based on 2017 graduates.
Previously, the council allowed all sorts of exceptions—including having a 75% pass rate for all graduates over the five most recent calendar years, or at least three of those five years. It’s been said no law school has ever been out of compliance with it.
In March, it appeared that 11 ABA-accredited law schools had bar passage rates below 75% for 2017 graduates. Out of those schools, only Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law did not receive public notice of significant noncompliance. According to ABA data, its bar passage rate for the class of 2017 was 62.5%.
In February, the council determined that it had reason to believe Faulkner Law was noncompliant with Standard 316, according to a May 20 council decision Charles B. Campbell, the school’s dean, shared with the ABA Journal. However, Faulkner Law successfully argued that “the poor performance of the class of 2017 represented an anomaly” and demonstrated that the ultimate bar pass rate for its class of 2019 cannot fall below 79% since 49 of its 62 graduates have already passed a bar exam. Faulkner Law’s interim ultimate bar pass rate for its class of 2018 is 75.6%.
The law school also told the council that its low bar passage rate for the class of 2017 was likely due to changes in leadership and many transfers out by top students in the 2014 entering class. The law school credits legal education improvements and higher admissions standards for higher bar passage rates in subsequent years.
Neil Fulton, the dean of South Dakota School of Law, says he told the council his school’s interim ultimate class of 2018 bar passage rate is 79% when it notified him in February about potential noncompliance with the standard. Fulton says that class had 73 graduates, six of whom have not sat for a bar exam yet.
Fulton hopes that the council finds the law school back in compliance with the standard in February 2021, after its report is submitted. Also, he says the law school’s class of 2019 has an 86% interim ultimate bar passage rate.
Renee McDonald Hutchins, dean of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, told the ABA Journal that it will continue to work with its 2017 graduates for bar passage. According to ABA data, the 2017 bar passage rate at that school is 64.06%.
“In the last couple of years, the school has implemented a number of improvements that we believe will foster bar success for more of our graduates. As the District’s only public law school and one of just six HBCU law schools in the country, it is essential that we equip our graduates to become licensed attorneys should they wish to do so,” she wrote in an email to the ABA Journal.
Fernando Moreno Orama, the dean of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law, told the ABA Journal that its class of 2017 first took the bar exam shortly before Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria struck, and those who did not pass on their first attempts retook the exam under very difficult circumstances. The island has three law schools; and only one, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, is currently in compliance with the retooled ABA bar passage requirement.
“Standard 316 has a disproportionate impact in Puerto Rico and its repercussions were not taken into account when approving the new accreditation standard,” he wrote in an email to the ABA Journal.
For his law school the class of 2017 bar passage rate is 70.87%. They are working with an “innovative bar preparation program,” Moreno wrote, to support students and are in talks with the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico’s chief judge about creating a bar exam that they think would be more fair.
May 28, 2020
Ten law schools are out of compliance with an ABA accreditation standard that requires a bar passage rate of at least 75% within two years.
The council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which met remotely May 15, posted the findings to the section’s website Wednesday. For the following schools, the council found “significant noncompliance” with Standard 316. This is the first year compliance was determined based on two-year bar passage rates.
- Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School
- Charleston School of Law
- University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law
- Florida A&M University College of Law
- Florida Coastal School of Law
- Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law
- Mississippi College School of Law
- Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law
- South Dakota School of Law
- Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School
Standard 316 was revised in 2019 to state that at least 75% of an ABA-accredited law school’s graduates who took a bar exam must pass one within two years of graduation. This year, compliance is based on 2017 graduates.
Previously, the council allowed all sorts of exceptions—including having a 75% pass rate for all graduates over the five most recent calendar years, or at least three of those five years. It’s been said no law school has ever been out of compliance with it.
In March, it appeared that 11 ABA-accredited law schools had bar passage rates below 75% for 2017 graduates. Out of those schools, only Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law did not receive public notice of significant noncompliance. According to ABA data, its bar passage rate for the class of 2017 was 62.5%.
In February, the council determined that it had reason to believe Faulkner Law was noncompliant with Standard 316, according to a May 20 council decision Charles B. Campbell, the school’s dean, shared with the ABA Journal. However, Faulkner Law successfully argued that “the poor performance of the class of 2017 represented an anomaly” and demonstrated that the ultimate bar pass rate for its class of 2019 cannot fall below 79% since 49 of its 62 graduates have already passed a bar exam. Faulkner Law’s interim ultimate bar pass rate for its class of 2018 is 75.6%.
The law school also told the council that its low bar passage rate for the class of 2017 was likely due to changes in leadership and many transfers out by top students in the 2014 entering class. The law school credits legal education improvements and higher admissions standards for higher bar passage rates in subsequent years.
Neil Fulton, the dean of South Dakota School of Law, says he told the council his school’s interim ultimate class of 2018 bar passage rate is 79% when it notified him in February about potential noncompliance with the standard. Fulton says that class had 73 graduates, six of whom have not sat for a bar exam yet.
Fulton hopes that the council finds the law school back in compliance with the standard in February 2021, after its report is submitted. Also, he says the law school’s class of 2019 has an 86% interim ultimate bar passage rate.
Renee McDonald Hutchins, dean of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, told the ABA Journal that it will continue to work with its 2017 graduates for bar passage. According to ABA data, the 2017 bar passage rate at that school is 64.06%.
“In the last couple of years, the school has implemented a number of improvements that we believe will foster bar success for more of our graduates. As the District’s only public law school and one of just six HBCU law schools in the country, it is essential that we equip our graduates to become licensed attorneys should they wish to do so,” she wrote in an email to the ABA Journal.
Fernando Moreno Orama, the dean of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law, told the ABA Journal that its class of 2017 first took the bar exam shortly before Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria struck, and those who did not pass on their first attempts retook the exam under very difficult circumstances. The island has three law schools; and only one, the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, is currently in compliance with the retooled ABA bar passage requirement.
“Standard 316 has a disproportionate impact in Puerto Rico and its repercussions were not taken into account when approving the new accreditation standard,” he wrote in an email to the ABA Journal.
For his law school the class of 2017 bar passage rate is 70.87%. They are working with an “innovative bar preparation program,” Moreno wrote, to support students and are in talks with the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico’s chief judge about creating a bar exam that they think would be more fair.
You're not wrong, and quite a few should be closed down.
There are two issues with that though: 1. many of these schools are disproportionately Black (and Latino in the South and West) and it would definitely cut the number of new Black attorneys down (though many of them don't practice after graduation) and; 2. there are still not enough public-sector defense attorneys, and while this is the state executive and legislatures fault (as well as the ABA) its a problem that is going to eventually have to be remedied.
Started my externship/summer associate split 
Nothing super high-paying
Nothing super high-paying
Each state handling this differently is sheer, uncut lunacy.