Harvard Law School debuted its new Wasserstein Hall this week, which is a massive law building that will help generations of law students at Harvard. Harvard had to perform a ton of fundraising to construct such a building, but the school is not shy when it comes to naming buildings or rooms after donors. Do not forget that the university is named after a man who made the wisest donation of books in the history of academia. The new Wasserstein Hall includes the Caspersen Student Center and plenty of commemorative plaques to spread across a handful of universities.

So what else does Wasserstein Hall include? Wasserstein Hall also features a men’s room that is dedicated to William Falik. Falik made money as a lawyer and as a developer of real estate and now teaches in Boalt Hall. The bathroom at Harvard Law School is not the only one named after Falik either. There is a Falik Gentlemen’s Lounge at the Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theater.

The story as to how the Falik gift and subsequent naming of the men’s room came about is quite funny, as told by Falik himself, according to Above the Law:

“The naming has a curious history involving conversations I had with a now distinguished Supreme Court Justice — Elena Kagan.

After several meetings with then Dean Kagan, I created a public interest fellowship in honor of my father’s 100th birthday by donating $100k to Harvard Law School.

Although I have developed several new communities in California, with a name like “Falik,” there are limited naming opportunities. (Somehow “Falik Blvd” or “Falik Ave” does not cut it). [As the] piece in the SF Chronicle suggests, I thought the best use of my name would be to name a Gentleman’s Lounge (aka Men’s Room), when I made a large donation to the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Dean Kagan, who has a great sense of humor, liked the idea, but for reasons that I cannot articulate, the Falik Gentleman’s Lounge moniker did not get through the chain of command at HLS, so alas, it is now the Falik Men’s Room.”

Falik is a 1971 graduate of Harvard Law School, which you can see from the dedication plaque in the picture in this post. Tell us your thoughts on schools, especially law schools, putting donor names on bathroom plaques to raise money for their schools. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

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Upcoming lawyer face enormous financial debt from college only to enter into a legal market with no available jobs. Despite this disheartening fact, William Robinson, the president of the American Bar Association, thinks that law students should have researched the market more thoroughly to understand what they were getting into.

In response to a great deal of criticisms from the media, law students and even Congress, Robinson stood his ground and backed it up with the fact that any student interested in law school would already have an undergraduate degree or higher.

“It’s inconceivable to me that someone with a college education, or a graduate-level education, would not know before deciding to go to law school that the economy has declined over the last sever years and that the job market out there is not as opportune as it might have been five, six, seven, eight years ago. We’re not talking about kids who are making these decisions,” he said.

During the Great Recession of 2007, United States legal jobs shrank dramatically. The huge drop in the market has led many critics – among them being two United States Senators – to ask whether to ABA works hard enough to watch law schools. Allegations say that many statistics given to prospective students by a handful of schools project incorrect statistics regarding the market.

Several media outlets have questioned the process for law school accreditation. They suggested that the American Bar Association encouraging tenure, and some other standards, causes law school costs to unnecessarily rise.

Robinson believes those accusations have no standing. He contends, “None of the studies show that the ABA rules of certification are what’s responsible for the cost of legal education. Other factors, such as competition for professors, are driving the increase in cost.”

He continued by recalling his past with paying his way through University of Kentucky’s Law School in 1971, “When I was going to law school, and I sold my Corvair to make first-semester tuition and books for $330, a sizeable portion of the faculty had tenure. They had tenure then and they have tenure now.”

Nearly 68 ABA-accredited law schools keep tuition near or below $25,000 for those needing a low cost option. However, the American Bar Association is powerless when it comes to lowering the cost of elite law schools.

“I should take the lead in telling these schools that they should reduce their tuition to $25,000 a year? No, I don’t think I should do that. I don’t think it would be meaningful. I don’t think it would accomplish anything for me to do that. It’s a complex question as to whether to cost is higher than it should be or is justified.”

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The long-stalled plans for the University of North Texas Dallas College of the Law have been out back into motion. It was announced on January 11 by university administrators that the school has hired Judge Royal Furgeson Jr. Judge Furgeson Jr. comes from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He has been hired as the dean for the law school, beginning in April of 2013. The plan is to open the law school in August of 2004.

The idea for the law school has been discussed for years, with the project being authorized by the Texas Legislature back in 2009. The original plans were to open the doors of the law school sometime in 2011, but budget problems slowed the plans for the school.

School officials are hoping to renovate a former department store in downtown Dallas this year at a cost of $24 million. The former department store will become the new law school for at least three years. The length of time the law school is at the department store location depends on how long it takes to renovate the law school’s eventual location in Dallas’ Old Municipal Building.

When the law school opens, it will be the only public law school in the northern part of Texas, which is home to Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in Fort Worth and Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

In order to fulfill his responsibilities as president of the Federal Judges Association, Ferguson will stay on the bench for 15 months. While he remains on the bench, the work he performs for the law school will be limited. University of North Texas System Vice Chancellor Rosemary Haggett will be responsible for getting the law school up and running.

“Our extensive search brought us into contact with many highly regarded legal educators,” said Chancellor Lee Jackson. “But Judge Furgeson, besides possessing a fine legal mind, brings the kind of broad range of practice experience we were looking for. He’s a distinguished judge well known throughout Texas, a respected litigator, and he shares our vision of providing students with an affordable and accessible, high-quality legal education.”

Bill Clinton appointed Ferguson to the federal bench back in 1993. Before that, he was a shareholder in the litigation section of the law firm Kemp, Smith, Duncan & Hammond for 24 years.

“Several colleagues have asked me why I would give up a lifetime appointment to take on a start-up law school during these tough economic times, when tuition is rising and demand for lawyers is declining,” Furgeson said. “But the prospect of pioneering a new law school that addresses these issues head-on was too challenging and exciting to pass up.”

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Andrea is stuck in a stressful present because of a previous decision to ensure her future in law. As a concern for her future job leads, Andrea decided against using her real name in this piece from the ABA Journal. Andrea has been laid off from jobs twice since graduating law school back in 2009. One of those positions was a small law firm that paid her $20 per hour, where she was practicing as a licensed attorney. Andrea is 29 and has supported herself since college. She feels that the investment in law school was the worst of her life, even though she earned a degree from a second-tier law school.

“I deferred my loans because of economic hardship the first time,” says Andrea, who borrowed nearly $110,000 to finance her education. “After that,” she falters, “they might be in forbearance … accruing interest … I just don’t know.”

In 2010, 85 percent of law school graduates from schools accredited by the ABA spoke of an average debt of $98,500. This is according to data collected by the U.S. News & World Report from law schools across the country. The debt amount exceeded $120,000 at 29 of those law schools. Sixty-eight percent of those graduates claim they have employment in positions that require a JD only nine months following commencement. Just under 51 percent of those graduates were able to find employment in private law firms.

There were 44,258 graduates in 2010, according to the American Bar Association, which adds to an influx of graduates into the legal field. This influx will cause repercussions that will reverberate for decades because of the decreasing job market.

Close to 75 percent of the payroll is sucked up by the top 35 legal markets in the country. In 2004, the number of law office jobs in private practices peaked at 1.23 million.

The country’s young lawyers are in danger of being consumed when it comes to their future earnings and livelihood because of heavy loans. According to the Law School Admission Council, there were over 87,900 candidates vying for 60,000 seats at 200 ABA-approved law schools this year. According to preliminary numbers for 2012, there are just over 78,900 applications for those seats.

Bleak job prospects, youthful optimism, and more universities entering the legal education field have helped to cause some of the supply and demand imbalance for entry-level lawyers.

There are critics who have studied the role of the federal government using its student loan policies when it comes to creating a law school bubble that could be close to bursting. Many experts compare this bubble to the mortgage crisis that hurt the economy in 2008.

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David Segal released a new piece on problems that law schools face in the New York Times. His piece is titled ‘For Law Schools, a Price to Play the A.B.A.’s Way.’ Segal places the blame for tuition increases on the accreditation regime of the American Bar Association. Segal writes the following:

“In 1995 . . . the Department of Justice in an antitrust suit . . . charged that A.B.A. standards had artificially inflated faculty salaries. The A.B.A. signed a consent decree, agreeing to a number of strictures intended to pry the process out of the hands of legal academics and end the fixing of salaries.

Since then, the cost of law school tuition has soared, though at the high end, those prices are not the fault of the A.B.A. They are attributable to the prestige race prompted by U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of law schools, along with the wide availability of student loans.”

The Am Law Daily believes that Segal is attempting to make three claims and they include the following:

The first is that law school tuition increased over the inflation rate because of the consent decree. The second is that tuition increases that occur at highly regarded law schools are caused by rankings released by U.S. News and the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. The third is that tuition increases at schools not highly regarded by U.S. News occurs because of standards set forth by the ABA.

The first claim can be shot down pretty quickly because there is no known link between the consent decree and tuition increases. Check out the graph below for law school tuition since the decade of the 1980s from the ABA and the CPI.

The claim regarding tuition increase caused by U.S. News can be substantiated because the U.S. News ranks law schools based on their spending, and in turn, charging more money. There is a problem with this though; because of the struggling economy, applicants will still flock to law schools and graduate programs to avoid the job market.

The third claim is not substantiated by Segal because he does not show which of the accreditation standards cause tuition increases in schools across the country. ABA standards require three years, large libraries, and plenty of full-time instructors. Full-time faculty members must be paid a living wage because they cannot work anywhere else. Should the ABA remove this requirement, law schools will be forced to hire more adjunct professors, who cost the school less money to employ.

Low-end law schools dispute the claim that the ABA forces them to increase their tuition each year. That is backed up by New England School of Law dean John O’Brien, who claims that salaries, not accreditation, increase the costs of his law school:

“The argument for high salaries has always been that law professors could earn even more money at a law firm. As for tenure, one oft-cited reason for requiring it is that the most sought-after talent demands it, putting a school that doesn’t offer tenure at a disadvantage.

‘I need to get the best teachers out there,’ says Mr. O’Brien, the [ABA Section of Legal Education] chairman, ‘and the fact of the matter is that in order to do that, to compete for top-quality faculty, I have to offer tenure.’ ”

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Legal education in the United States could come under some heavy scrutiny very soon as Senate staffers are in the midst of gathering as much information as possible regarding facts and figures on law school job placement and student-loan debt. The reason for this is that experts in the legal and education fields feel that law schools are luring students to their institutions by giving them false data.

Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, has submitted three letters to the American Bar Association’s section that accredits law schools in an effort to urge the organization to increase its efforts in protecting current and future students from possible misleading data about job placement.

Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, has himself sent two letters to the same organization asking whether or not law schools are enticing students to take on federally-backed loans, which most in government feel is irresponsible of the schools because it is becoming increasingly harder to repay those loans, putting students in a major financial hole.

In October, Senator Boxer and Republican Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma requested the following:

“To better understand trends related to law schools an examination of American law schools that focuses on the confluence of growing enrollments, steadily increasing tuition rates and allegedly sluggish job placement.”

For as long as anyone can recall, students have used a law school’s promise to land them a job and future financial security as the basis to pay for their law degree, which can cost upwards of $100,000. The American Bar Association releases data that has been collected from law schools across the country; data that is referenced by prospective students when choosing a school for their law studies.

When the country’s financial situation went in the tank back in 2008-2009, plenty of law schools across the country have continued to release data that they are placing graduates at a 90 percent rate in jobs upon graduation. This comes at a time with massive amounts of layoffs and hiring shutdowns at law firms across the country.

The University of Illinois College of Law admitted that one of its assistant deans in fact posted inflated data on the school’s website about employment.

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Michigan and Manhattan’s New York Law School have had lawsuits filed against them by a law firm in New York. The suits, filed in August, allege that each school provided distorted data about employment for graduates. Both of the law schools have vehemently denied the allegations and have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits.

If a congressional hearing were to take place, this would not ultimately lead to legislation, but it would be the most aggressive action taken by the government against the country’s law schools to date.

The Senators involved in the investigation would likely investigate law schools’ failure to report correct data regarding employment for their graduates. The Senators would also air their concerns about the amount of debt being collected by law school students by the time they hit graduation.

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According to the 2011 HBR Law Department survey, more and more firms are relying on in-house staffers to deal with legal functions and the continuing growth of legal demands in today’s world. Firms are relying on larger in-house teams instead of outside counsel, which helps the firms save money. A statement released by HBR discusses the following regarding the survey:

“Law departments are recognizing that they can do more with less by building up their in-house capabilities. The Survey shows that the median fully-loaded inside hourly cost per lawyer is approximately 46% below the median average hourly rate of the company’s top three billing firms.”

Key data from the HBR survey includes the following:

• More than 50% of participants reported an increase in the total number of legal staff worldwide between 2009 and 2010, while only 29% reported a decrease.
• More than 80% of participants commented that their company’s legal needs are increasing.
• More than one-third attached high importance to increasing the number of in-house lawyers; only 11% responded that they would increase the use of outside counsel.
• More than 40% of companies expect to increase the number of lawyers in the U.S. and outside the U.S. during the coming year.
• The median expected increase in lawyer staffing was 10%.

Senior Director and Survey Editor Lauren Chung added the following about the data gathered in the survey:

“This finding serves as one of the important considerations in building a business case for adding more in-house counsel to handle the increasing workloads. We are hearing from our consulting clients across industries that they are limiting the use of outside counsel to high profile matters or specific areas of expertise rather than to support the growing volume of work. With the rising cost of outside counsel, we expect this trend will continue.”

Jonathan Bellis, the head of the HBR Law Department Consulting practice, added the following:

“It is no surprise, in view of these trends, that law departments are highly focused on their efficiency and effectiveness in delivering and managing legal services. Chief Legal Officers and General Counsel are under unprecedented scrutiny, both internally and outside the company. Much of our law department consulting work involves helping clients identify and achieve opportunities for better performance in legal risk management, operational excellence, cost management, and client service delivery.”

The survey showed that legal spending has decreased by one percent on a worldwide scale but there was no change in spending in the United States from 2009-2010. The legal spending median value was $29 million worldwide and $25 million in the United States. The survey reported that the median company has 26 lawyers working worldwide and 22 lawyers working in the United States. The median number of law department staff members worldwide is 55 and 46 in the United States. The legal staff consists of lawyers and non-lawyer members of the staff. The survey compiles data on such areas as legal spending, staffing, organization, compensation and management practices.

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The opportunities to study abroad are increasing accordingly. In 2009, over 100 U.S. law schools offered over 250 such programs, according to the ABA.

In the usnews.com article, Hulett Askew, a consultant for the American Bar Association’s legal education and admissions section, was quoted as saying about foreign study programs: “The growth overall in the last 5 or 10 years has been steady—and even dramatic.”

 The most common study abroad opportunities are offered during the summer. Approximately 8,000 U.S. law students participated in a foreign program in 2009, despite the downturn in the economy. According to the ABA, around 40 U.S. law schools have semester abroad options.

Alexis Paddock, a Georgetown graduate, spent a semester at the school’s Center for Transnational Legal Studies. “It’s like going to 10 countries” to study,” she was quoted as saying.

Steven Ratner, a professor at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Law School was quoted as saying: “It’s simply impossible to be a competent lawyer” without understanding “how law works across borders.”

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The current rankings consider 12 factors: peer assessment; assessment by lawyers and judges; median LSAT scores; media undergrad GPA; acceptance rate; placement success; employment rate for graduates, bar passage rate; faculty resources; expenditures per student; student/faculty ratio; and library resources.  The rankings are controversial but highly influential and schools work very hard to game the system from the inside.  Including diversity as a category would promote diversity on law school campuses by creating a strong incentive to add diversity programs.

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An industry expert, James Liepold, said that the increase in applications is typical in a recession environment.  With economic uncertainty, more people are looking to graduate level programs rather than taking their chances with the job market.

Since they are less expensive, public law schools saw a larger increase over their private counterparts.  There was also a significant increase in male applicants over female ones.

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The Sidley Prelaw Scholars Initiative, now in its fifth year, seeks to enlarge the pool of diverse students able to attend law school and enter the profession by providing financial support and mentoring during the law school application process to diverse undergraduate students.

The intern will spend a ten week legal internship in the New York office of MetLife’s Law Department as part of its 2010 Summer Law Clerk program and have the opportunity to gain work experience while networking with lawyers and business professionals.

Sidley Prelaw Scholars, chosen from college juniors and seniors who demonstrate academic excellence and financial need, receive a $2,500 scholarship to cover tuition, an additional stipend to reimburse the cost of a commercial LSAT preparation course, as well as application fees for as many as seven accredited law schools.

This year, applications were received from students attending more than fifty colleges and universities nationwide. Other critical components of the initiative include: coaching on how to complete a successful law school application and pre-law school seminar instruction on the structure of the American legal system, as well as an introduction to the substance of the required common law first-year courses.

Sidley Austin LLP is one of the world’s largest full-service law firms, with approximately 1700 lawyers practicing in 17 U.S. and international cities.

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The basis for the complaints is that the law schools require applicants who wish to apply online to use a centralized Internet-based process provided by the Law School Admissions Council via its website – a process that is inaccessible to blind law school applicants.

According to today’s article at PR Newswire, the nine law schools named in the complaints are the University of Chicago Law School, Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law, University of Miami School of Law, William Mitchell College of Law, Gonzaga University School of Law, and Northeastern University School of Law.

The complaints ask the Justice Department to require these law schools to suspend use of the LSAC application system until it is accessible to blind and other print-disabled students, and to require each law school to provide the same application process in a format available to all students.

Founded in 1940, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is the nation’s largest and most influential membership organization of blind persons. With fifty thousand members, the NFB has affiliates in all fifty states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and over seven hundred local chapters. As a consumer and advocacy organization, the NFB is considered the leading force in the blindness field today and is the Voice of the Nation’s Blind.

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Weil Gotshal and Lowenstein Sandler have spoken out against it, saying that it would create a five month gap between on campus interviews and the extension of offers – a gap that would be expensive for firms that feel compelled to spend larger amounts of money wining and dining top recruits.

Jones Day has asserted that a predetermined “offer day” raises anti-trust issues and benefits weaker firms that are less able to predict their own internal needs to the detriment of better run firms.

Cleary Gottlieb is also opposed to the plan.

Taking NALP’s corner are firms like White & Case and Wilkie Farr.

This raises some interesting questions about law firm recruitment and the NALP plan.  There are three constituent groups affected by the plan: Law firms, students, and law schools.  Which group, if any, should the NALP plan seek to benefit and which group benefits from the current plan?

Certainly a longer recruitment period benefits law students, who will have more time to meet with and learn about the various firms while also receiving increased perks.  Some firms may benefit as well by having more information about their own internal numbers before issuing final offers, and Jones Day’s objection not withstanding even the best run firms will be able to capitalize on this information.  The longer recruitment period will, however, cut down on the advantage enjoyed by some firms.  But what about the schools themselves, who certainly have a vested interest in seeing their students receive offers from top ranked firms?  Will the NALP plan benefit them all equally or will some schools fare better than others as a result of the plan, and should that factor into the decision?

The discussions thus far have focused almost entirely on the firms and the students.  I’m eager to hear your comments on the impact to the schools.

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In a firm wide memo obtained by abovethelaw.com Foley Hoag has done just that. The salaries of all first through third year associates and some fourth years have been cut by ten percent in order to meet the aforementioned lofty goals. As bad as that sounds, this comes on top of salary freezes that had second year associates making the same as first years, so with the ten percent cut, second year associates and some third years are now making less than they did as first years.

Maybe this will be the start of a new trend. Maybe law schools around the country will pick up on the idea and charge less for second year students than first year students. Maybe student loans will lower the interest rate each year. Seems about as likely as retaining the best talent by cutting salaries.

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Washington and Lee has created a third year program designed to give students the same kind of experience a first year associate would get. Students will spend the year handling cases, simulated and real, instead of studying law from books. The program is optional – students can choose a more traditional third year experience – but over half the third year class opted in and applications for admission this year were up 33 percent from last year with a majority of the applicants citing this new program as a reason for applying.

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The school says a higher than usual number of accepted offers has created a “larger than optimal” first year class.

Those who accept the deferral will get a $5,000 scholarship upon completing 120 hours of public interest work; increased likelihood of selection for a $75,000 Miami Scholars Scholarship; and a better shot at getting 2010 scholarships.

The University of Miami School of Law, founded in 1926, is located in Coral Gables, Florida. According to US News & World Report, the school is ranked 71st among all law schools, with its tax law program ranked 6th in the nation. The law school was ranked 26th overall in the annual 2009 Judging the Law Schools rankings.

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With all of the recent focus on the University of California Law School furloughs, it’s got to be asked why USC Law laid off staff members this past week, and none of this is being made public by USC Law. In this economy, what’s all the silence about?

That is an excellent question.

If you know anything about layoffs at USC Law, please — send us a confidential tip!

The University of Southern California Law School (Gould School of Law), located in Los Angeles, California, is a graduate school within the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law had its beginnings in 1896, and was officially established as a school of the university in 1904.

It currently has about 600 JD students, and a growing LL.M program of 90 students.

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The plan requires faculty and staff to take up to 26 unpaid furlough days during the 2009-10 school year. One hundred and eight thousand employees of the UC system will be affected.

At UCLA Law, 60 law faculty members and 100 law school staff members face furloughs, as do 35 faculty members and 75 staff members at UC Davis’ Law School. The UC Irvine School of Law, which opens this fall with its first incoming class, will see 17 faculty affected.

The UC Board of Regents is facing a 20% cut in money from the state’s general fund.

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Ballard Spahr

The firm made no formal announcement, but notified law schools of the decision.

Thompson Hine and Squire Sanders made similar announcements today.

Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll employs more than 550 lawyers in twelve offices located throughout the mid-Atlantic corridor and the western US.

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The University of Miami School of Law is asking incoming 1L students invited to start in the Fall to defer their entry into the law school until Fall 2010.

Students who accept the offer will get a $5000 Public Interest Deferral Scholarship for the 2010-11 academic year, if they complete 120 hours of public service by June 2010. This is in addition to any other scholarship money.

Deferred students will also have a greater chance of receiving a $75,000 Miami Scholars Scholarship award; and will be first considered for all 2010 scholarships.

The University of Miami School of Law, founded in 1926, is one of the top 100 law schools in the United States. According to US News & World Report, the school is ranked 71st among all law schools, with its tax law program ranked 6th in the nation. The law school was ranked 26th overall in the annual 2009 Judging the Law Schools rankings.

The UM School of Law is located on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, just 6 miles southeast of Miami.

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Initially, the school said these students would still need to complete these work weeks, or risk losing their financial aid; although students who could not find work could appeal at the end of the summer.

But now the school has officially reduced the period of required work to eight weeks. The school initially resisted, unsure it could afford the change.

But after learning how many students were impacted by summer job reductions, Harvard Law reduced the requirement.

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the United States’ oldest law school in continuous operation. It is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS is typically ranked in the top three law schools in the nation, and is currently listed as the second best law school in the United States by US News and World Report, behind only Yale Law School.

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• University of Miami Law School Offers Deferrals to Incoming 1Ls

An anonymous foundation provided $2 million to create an Environmental Law Clinic to further the public interest in areas of environmental law, environmental health and environmental sustainability.

The clinic will give students an opportunity to do hands-on environmental legal and policy work. Students will work under the close supervision of trained lawyers and experienced professors. The legal clinic will be closely associated with the UCI Program in Public Health.

The University of California, Irvine School of Law is the law school at the University of California, Irvine. When its first class enters in Fall 2009, it will be the fifth law school in the UC system and the first public law school to open in California in 40 years.

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First, the School of Law will offer its 2009 graduates a deeply discounted tuition of $9,500.00 for its traditional LL.M. degrees in Child and Family Law, Health Law, Business and Corporate Governance Law and Tax Law… We have extended the application deadline to August 1, 2009.

Second, the School of Law also is planning to establish a new Graduate Fellowship for 2009 graduates. Graduate Fellows would be entitled to enroll in law school classes particularly suited to their professional objectives at a significantly reduced flat tuition rate of $4,000 per semester. A Graduate Fellow may enroll in law school classes during the fall semester of 2009, the spring semester of 2010, or both.

The graduate fellowships are intended to provide students with hands-on experience, such as externships, research projects, and professional skills classes.

Loyola University Chicago School of Law is the law school of the Loyola University Chicago, in Illinois. Established in 1909 by the Society of Jesus, the School of Law is located in downtown Chicago. The school offers degrees and combined degree programs, including the SJD, the equivalent of the Doctorate Degree in Law.

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• UCLA Law Offers Program for Deferred Associates

According to Eagleionline, the assistance includes:

Law School Fellows Program: “as many as twelve positions” will be available, paid at “a modest hourly rate” in places like the Legal Assistance Bureau and the Law Library.

Career Services Partnership Program: working with some firms and companies, the Law School will coordinate jobs for graduates from September 1 of this year to March 1 of the next, to help out those who are waiting out deferrals or bar exam results. While stipends vary, past participants have “averaged $800 to $1000 per week.”

Audit Courses: Class of 2009 graduates will be able to enroll in “a number of courses” in the fall semester, without tuition but without the opportunity to receive a grade…

Eagle Scholars Program: while auditing courses, graduates can participate in a weekly seminar intended to help students produce “a law review article of publishable quality.”

Research Assistantships: in a measure bound to raise the ire of some continuing students, graduates are being welcomed to apply for assistantships with professors. Some faculty members have been given the green light to hire an extra assistant for the summer and fall.

Public Service Jobs: for graduates waiting out deferrals, the Law School is extending access to PS Lawnet in an effort to connect graduates with public service opportunities.

Boston College Law School is situated on a 40-acre wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts. With approximately 800 students and 125 faculty members, the Law School is the largest of Boston College’s seven graduate and professional schools.

Admission to BC Law is among the most selective in the United States, with approximately 7,000 applicants for the 275 places in the first year class in 2005.

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• University of Miami Law to Defer Incoming Students

Earlier this week, fifty employers met with deferred associates and other alumni to discuss temporary and permanent positions. About 140 NYU 3Ls have had their start dates deferred.

The employers included public interest firms, non-profits and government agencies.

The New York University School of Law was established in 1835, and offers the JD, LL.M., and JSD degrees. It is located in Greenwich Village.

• Volunteer Lawyers for Justice to Hold Job Fair for Deferred Associates
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• UCLA Law Offers Program for Deferred Associates

The top 20 are:

1. Yale Law School
2. Harvard Law School
3. Stanford Law School
4. Columbia Law School
5. New York University School of Law
6. University of California Berkeley School of Law – tie – University of Chicago Law School
8. University of Pennsylvania Law School
9. University of Michigan Law School
10. Duke University School of Law – tie – Northwestern University School of Law – tie – University of Virginia School of Law
13. Cornell Law School
14. Georgetown University Law Center
15. UCLA School of Law – tie – University of Texas School of Law
17. Vanderbilt University Law School
18. University of Southern California Gould School of Law
19. Washington University School of Law
20. Boston University School of Law – tie- Emory University School of Law – tie – University of Minnesota Law School

The unobservant might miss the most important story here — that UCLA beat USC by two slots! You can’t spell SUCK without USC!!!

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The school says the courses will feature practice-oriented projects, in addition to substantial research and written work. The program will offer part-time externships within corporate legal departments.

Classes will be taught by the core faculty of the law school and prominent practicing lawyers. The curriculum will be developed in conjunction with leading law firms and corporate legal departments.

The UCLA School of Law is generally regarded as the top law school in Southern California, as well as one of the top 15 law schools in the United States. Founded in 1949, is the youngest of the top-tier US law schools.

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The Tuscaloosa-based law school says it is “streamlining” the admissions process for the Alabama Honors College students.

To be eligible, the students must be Alabama residents and have an undergraduate GPA of at least 3.75.

Those Honors College students who want to be eligible for a scholarship will still have to provide an LSAT score.

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Public universities have begun furloughing employees in an effort to reduce costs, and law schools aren’t exempt from the unpaid leave policies. For example, Arizona State University has implemented a university-wide furlough program that applies to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The move is expected to save the university about $24 million at a time when the Arizona lawmakers are looking at significant cuts to state university funding…

“It’s had absolutely no impact on students,” said Karen Rothenberg, dean of the University of Maryland School of Law. “Faculty aren’t in the classroom eight hours a day, five days a week. The furlough is flexible, and staff and faculty can take the time when it works…”

“Employees have been very supportive,” Rothenberg said. “It’s been incredibly gratifying that the academic community has been so positive about the plan.”

Via NLJ

• University of Maryland School of Law Investigating Payments to Former Dean
• UC Law School Profs Hit By Pay Cut
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• Taylor Wessing Deferring Start Dates
• Harvard Dedicates Bathroom to William Falik

Dean Joan G. Wexler discussed the issue in a letter to students:

… I am writing to let you know that when the School sets tuition for the next academic year, we will be mindful of the current difficult economic times and the financial pressures that you face.

Over the past five years, annual tuition increases have been approximately 6.2% for entering students and 5% for upperclass students. I anticipate that any increase for the 2009-10 academic year will be substantially lower…

… All departmental budgets will be carefully reviewed, but we will be able to keep our tuition increase to a minimum by foregoing salary increases for deans and almost all administrators, faculty, and staff in the coming year. The savings will be passed on to you.

… We are imposing this limit on our tuition increase not because we have to, but because we are able to, and because we know it will help you deal with these challenging economic times.

Brooklyn Law School’s faculty includes 68 full-time professors and five emeriti faculty. It also draws on a large body of practitioners, public officials and judges as adjunct faculty to teach specialized courses.

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Facing an uncertain job market, law students are seeking more than the traditional options to put their degrees to work. Indiana University Maurer School of Law spotlights several of these options in its Alternative Legal Careers panel discussion series. All events are free and open to the public…

The next session in the series, “Legal Careers in Publishing, Communications, Consulting and Development,” will take place at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 12, in the Moot Court Room…

Panelists will explain how they use their law degrees and related skills in their respective careers…

Future events in the series include “Legal Careers in Higher Education” (Feb. 25) and “Legal Careers in Politics and Government” (March 11). Both events will begin at noon.

The series began Jan. 27 with “Legal Careers in Banking, Finance, Tax and Corporate.”

Via Indiana U.

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Now the Legal Intelligencer reports that after an official review, the faculty senate is unhappy with how university President Charles Dougherty handled the situation.

“[T]he manner in which the president dismissed Dean Guter caused harm to the university, and should not have been undertaken without the most serious of cause,” the faculty senate said in the statement. “It may have harmed the students who were preparing for finals. It certainly cast Duquesne in an unfavorable light in the national media and alienated some donors. This action deprived faculty, who were not consulted in the review process, of the role accorded them by the faculty handbook and executive resolution III. Further, it has contributed to an unhealthy atmosphere of distrust and fear that is contrary to our Spiritan Mission and Identity.”

In case you were wondering, “Spiritan” is actually a word. It refers to a member of the Congregation of The Holy Spirit, a Catholic congregation of priests.

Dougherty replaced Guter with law professor Ken Gormley.

Via Legal Intelligencer.

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• Law School Bubble Close to Bursting?

This new tool is being provided pro bono by Ogletree Abbott to help college students research law schools in the United States, and provide links to the law school’s main web page.

This new research tool provides one site where prospective law students can locate law schools with complete contact information, and view law professor resumes and articles.

Prospective law school applicants can look into each law school and better determine requirements, areas of study, tuition cost, school activities and research law professors in the law schools. Students also have the opportunity to look into clubs, groups and organizations law that they would find to be of interest.

In addition to traditional law schools, the site also includes information about online law schools.

Hey, Ogletree Abbott — I checked out your web site. Hey, 1996 called — they want their web design back. Also, when I click on “About Us,” I want to know where you’re located, how many lawyers you employ, and what kinds of law you practice. I don’t want to read about your grandmother.

Site.

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Dean JoAnne Epps was expecting a 1% budget increase, but reductions were necessary due to funding cuts from the Pennsylvania government, which was preparing to cut funding by more than 4% to the university.

Administrators at the law school looked at reducing spending by cutting back on library acquisitions, utilizing electronic publications instead of hard copies, leaving staff positions vacant and decreasing faculty travel expenditures. According to Epps, the Temple University students have not been affected by the cuts academically, however, she is concerned that there will be more cuts in the future. She acknowledges that “over time, the continued loss of support staff and counselors will be felt deeply.”

Read more about this story at LawCrossing.com.

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