Posts Tagged ‘law schools’

Thomas Bentey v. St. Thomas University Law School update

We wrote about this lawsuit when it was first filed in 2006, and were curious what was up with it. Bentey flunked St. Thomas U Law School; he then retained an attorney, Michael Lombardi, to sue numerous defendants alleging that it was consumer fraud for St. Thomas to admit him in the first place and seeking an injunction over Bentey’s contracts grade, suggesting a second person who should’ve flunked law school. The case was transferred from New Jersey to the Southern District of Florida in December 2006, and the multiple defendants filed a joint motion to dismiss in March 2007. The parties then apparently agreed that Bentey would voluntarily dismiss his case in April 2007; the terms of the settlement were not publicly discussed, but I’d be surprised if they weren’t simply a walk-away.

A Thomas Bentey who lives in New Jersey has a public Facebook page, though we make no representation that it’s the same Thomas Bentey.

Filed under: law schools, personal responsibility, shotgun defendant selection

May 2 roundup

Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
“U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
“Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”.]
Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.'” [Boston Globe, earlier]
RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]

Filed under: attorneys general, attorneys' fees, Barack Obama, gypsies, harmless lawsuits, Indiana, law schools, Massachusetts, Mazda, New York, Oklahoma, patent quality, political correctness, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., roundups, Sheldon Silver

New faculty hire at Berkeley law school

Eric Muller has details.

Filed under: law schools

Law professor sues his students

Richard Peltz, a specialist in media and First Amendment law at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, says he feels like a pariah after two students active in the school’s Black Law Students Association made “false accusations of racism” about him. Civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate, often quoted on the subject of campus free speech, contends that even if Peltz is correctly characterizing the students’ talk about him, a lawsuit is the wrong way to proceed. (Above the Law, Apr. 29; Michelle Hillen, “Experts watch as professor sues students”, Arkansas Online, Apr. 27). More: Bainbridge, Althouse, Caron (rounding up links).

Filed under: Arkansas, free speech, law schools

Jerry Springer to deliver Northwestern Law commencement

Well, at least it may help take some of the media spotlight away from Prof. Bernardine Dohrn. (Above the Law; Chicago Tribune; FoxNews.com).

Filed under: law schools

Law school diversity, the compulsory way

It’s done through the ABA accreditation process (Gail Heriot, “The ABA’s ‘Diversity’ Diktat”, Wall Street Journal, Apr. 28).

Filed under: law schools

Suing for a better education

The old joke goes something like this: If you go to law school, graduate, sue the school for providing a poor education, represent yourself and then win the case … did you really deserve to win?

The cases detailed here may not be quite as clear cut.

A group of students filed a $120 million class action against the American Justice School of Law in Paducah, Ky., on Nov. 17, citing allegations that include tax fraud, false representation to the American Bar Association, racketeering, scheming to defraud students and obstruction of justice. Rust v. American Justice School of Law, No. 5:07CV-191-R (W.D. Ky.).

Late last month, Adam Key, a second-year law student, sued Regent University School of Law, a private Christian school in Virginia Beach, Va., claiming violations of his right to free speech and religion after getting expelled for posting a critique in an online university forum. Key v. Regent University, No. 4:07-CV-04060 (S.D. Texas).

On Nov. 14, John Valente, a second-year student at University of Dayton School of Law in Ohio, filed a complaint against his school, citing negligence in dealing with exam software. Valente v. University of Dayton Law School of Law, No. 07-9593 (Montgomery Co., Ohio, Ct. C.P.).

It’s far from being a trend (yet!), but shouldn’t we expect a more costly legal education to generate demands from those students who slog it out to be chosen from an ever-increasing pool of applicants?

Law school tuition has been increasing at a considerable clip. And if you don’t graduate, it doesn’t matter to you if the value of the degree has risen twice as fast. You’re not a lawyer. (“Don’t Like Your Grade? Sue Your Law School,” The National Law Journal, Dec. 18, 2007.)

Update: I’m not a lawyer, either.

(crossposted at catallaxy.net)

Filed under: free speech, law schools, Ohio

November 7 roundup

“I’ve always thought that promoting yourself as a ‘Super Lawyer’ or ‘Best Lawyer’ was pathetic, self-aggrandizing and meaningless.” [Larry Bodine; Karen Donovan, Portfolio (“cheesiest”); ABA Journal]

That big campaign by bossy public health groups and tobacco-suit veterans for legal restrictions on fat in the American diet is still with us, even as its scientific credibility falters [Tierney, NYT]

“1,700 Connecticut Attorneys Suspended Over $110 Bill” — now that sounds like a bargain [ABA Journal]

Blackwater meets Elmer Gantry? John O’Sullivan shouldn’t plan on being invited to the Edwards inaugural [NRO Corner]

Nor would it be prudent to invite Felix Salmon and Ben Stein to the same dinner party [Portfolio; more]

Truly dreadful idea from feminist Northwestern lawprof Kimberly Yuracko: constitution obliges states to ban sexist homeschooling [SSRN via Prawfsblawg; Serious Learning, Ragamuffin Studies, TalkToAction, Marcy Muser]

New at Point of Law: some results of Tuesday’s election; employers whipsawed on risk of fetal injury; signs of exhaustion at long jury trials; wanna become a law professor?; 9/11 dust injury, or ground-up pills in his bloodstream?; more on Chevron/Texaco and the Ecuador Indians; dept. of New York Times self-parody; and more;

Lawyer who sued McDonald’s over cheese-allergic client served cheeseburger (Aug. 10, Sept. 1) asks to be released from case, says he’s quitting law practice [LegalNewsLine]

Of seven leading White House aspirants, all but McCain have law degrees, and all the other six but Romney practiced as lawyers [Liptak, NYT]

UK: “A lorry driver sentenced to 150 hours’ community service for a drunken racist assault has been let off after probation chiefs claimed the punishment could breach EU working hours limits.” [Daily Mail]

Notation on Scruggs’s court file: to be “kept away from the press” [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Filed under: Ben Stein, chasing clients, Chevron, Connecticut, Dickie Scruggs, Europe, Ground Zero dust lawsuits, John Edwards, juries, law schools, McDonald's, sued if you do, United Kingdom

What Elizabeth Wurtzel tells us about the XOXOHTH lawsuit

You may recall that a couple of Yale Law School students sued the administrator of a law-school bulletin board because they blamed silly gossip about them on the board for costing them job offers. (The administrator himself lost his job offer in response to the uproar.) If so, how come their Yale Law classmate Elizabeth Wurtzel—whose topless photos decorate the Internet, who wrote about her own cocaine and Ritalin addictions, and who was fired from a newspaper for plagiarism—was able to get a job offer from WilmerHale? More on Wurtzel: Taylor; Lat; Bonin, all talking about this NY Times piece. Previous skepticism about the lawsuit: Ilya Somin.

Filed under: AutoAdmit, harassment law, law schools, online speech

Taxpayers to provide additional subsidies for law-school education

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 [passed by Congress on Sept. 7] aims to help law students and other graduates with high debt through an income-based loan-repayment plan.

Bush has indicated he’d sign the bill.

The market currently reflects a private-public pay gap reflecting the fact that public jobs are generally considered to have better working conditions and that private-sector law firms need to offer substantially higher pay to encourage attorneys to work there. If the government is providing thousands of dollars of loan subsidies to government and non-profit attorneys, the private sector will need to raise its salaries to continue to compete, some of which will be swallowed by the partners, but most will be swallowed by the clients, who, increasingly facing bet-the-company litigation, have inelastic demand for top law firms. Too, as attorney salaries increase, and loans are subsidized by the government, law schools will be empowered to extract some of that surplus by raising tuition. Winners: most attorneys, law school employees, and some clients of non-profits. Losers: taxpayers, clients, partners at non-top-tier firms.

Update: Discussion at Above the Law.

Filed under: law schools