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Lawyers and Legal Services
February 26th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
There was a time when lawyers delivered most of the nation’s legal services. That time, however, is slipping away. Businesses increasingly obtain law-related work from contract managers, compliance officers, and human resource directors. Individual clients buy homes, draft wills, file uncontested divorces, and conduct other legal business with interactive software. When those individuals visit the courthouse, they may consult a self-help kiosk rather than a lawyer.
The ABA now recognizes that these changes are altering the market for legal services. The House of Delegates recently approved Resolution 105, which establishes model regulatory objectives to guide state regulation of “non-traditional legal service providers.” The objectives are relatively hospitable to non-traditional providers. They include, for example, a focus on “delivery of affordable and accessible legal services” as well as “efficient, competent, and ethical delivery” of those services. Those objectives would support many types of service delivery by non-lawyers.
The mere passage of this resolution, moreover, sends an important signal to the legal profession: Alternative service providers are here to stay. Have law schools gotten this message? What does it mean for us?
Women In The Law
February 23rd, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
During three years of law school, I learned the law from only one female professor. But she was a gem: the future Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After graduation, I had the honor of clerking for then-Judge Ginsburg on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The following year, I clerked for an equally admirable woman in law, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor faced stiff sexism throughout their careers. Even when they ascended to the Supreme Court, their gender could diminish them. I heard one lawyer address the Court as “your honors and Mrs. O’Connor.” Other advocates confused Ginsburg and O’Connor, despite their different jurisprudence and physical appearance.
Entering the law a generation after these pioneers, I faced much lower barriers–although women of my generation still struggled to prove their value in the workplace and to combine work and family. Today’s women, another generation forward, face a somewhat more hospitable workplace. But I don’t kid myself that the playing field is level: glass ceilings, hidden biases, and workplace stereotypes still hinder women in the legal workplace. Both men and women, meanwhile, struggle to combine a demanding professional career with a supportive home life.
Against that background, I’m delighted to announce that LST Radio is creating a podcast mini-series that will explore the ongoing role of gender in the legal workplace. Episodes will address implicit bias, the leaky pipeline, media images of female lawyers, and much more. Podcasts will include summaries of expert research, interviews with individuals, and round table discussions.
LST has assembled a first-rate team of producers, as well as partners who will distribute the podcasts widely. But to go into production, they need some start-up funds. Diversity Law has made a generous matching pledge: If you donate to the “Women in the Law” podcast project now, your dollars count double. Give $10 and the project receives $20. Give $25 and $50 goes in the pot. I’ve already made my pledge–please add your dollars here.
Let’s make sure we understand the forces that still hold women lawyers back–and work to overcome them.
Federal Government Transactions (WA): Affordable Housing Deals and Counsel
February 22nd, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is presented by The United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, through a system of rules, regulations, and incentives, seeks to create strong, sustainable, and inclusive communities in recognition of every citizen’s right to affordable housing. Naturally, such a system requires lawyers to dot the i’s, cross the t’s, and keep the system moving and improving.
Kevin Krainz is a 2013 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and HUD attorney in the Seattle regional office. In this episode, he tells us about his roles at HUD and how it differs from other types of public interest work related to affordable housing.
This episode is hosted by Debby Merritt, a law professor at The Ohio State University. It is sponsored by Barbri, ShouldIBeALawyer.com, and Top-Law-Schools.com.
Episode Links
Summer Employment
February 18th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) recently announced “an encouraging view of law firm recruiting,” pointing to the fact that “the average size of law firm [summer] programs has nearly recovered to pre-recession levels.” That statement conflicts with accounts I have heard from students, so I looked more closely at the NALP report.
It turns out that the average size of 2015 summer programs reported to NALP matches that for programs reported to the organization for the summer of 2007: Reporting firms in both years averaged thirteen second-years in their summer programs. The number of firms reporting to NALP, however, has declined dramatically since 2007.
In 2007, 425 firms told NALP that they had employed a total of 5,379 second-year students in their summer programs. That works out to an average of 12.7 students per program. Last summer 335 firms reported a total of 4,329 second-year summer associates. That’s 12.9 students per summer program–but it’s also 1,050 students fewer than in 2007. What should we make of this? Do these figures really give “an encouraging view of law firm recruiting”? *
Criminal Justice Advocacy From Within The L.A. Mayor’s Office (CA)
February 16th, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is presented by The United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
When someone is jailed for a crime, the punishment often extends beyond the sentence because formerly incarcerated people face structural barriers in their transition to freedom. In particular, limited employment prospects too often lead to a cycle of crime that’s difficult to escape. The City of Los Angeles, under the leadership of Mayor Eric Garcetti, established the Office of Reentry in response to this problem. Through programming, policy development, and outreach the office seeks to not only help the formerly incarcerated rejoin the public, but also to alter conditions that lead to jailing in the first place.
Kimberley Baker Guillemet, a 2005 graduate of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, helped Mayor Garcetti open the office in the fall of 2015. In this episode, she talks about how her background as a lawyer prepared her to tackle this job and how the intersection of law and policy can make a difference in millions of people’s lives.
This episode is hosted by Kyle McEntee, executive director of Law School Transparency. It is sponsored by Barbri and Top-Law-Schools.com.
Episode Links
Washington D.C. Adopts Uniform Bar Exam
February 9th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Originally published on Above the Law.
Washington D.C. is the 20th jurisdiction to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam. In an order filed last Thursday, the D.C. Court of Appeals confirmed that it would begin administrating the exam this July.
This will not be the only new UBE jurisdiction in the coming weeks or months. Vermont’s Board of Bar Examiners also announced that “Vermont expects to adopt the Uniform Bar Examination for [the] July 2016 bar exam.” It’s not official but the Vermont Supreme Court asked the Board to propose rule changes to quickly make way for the changes.
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Workers’ Compensation (TX): Helping Injured Workers Fight Insurance Companies
February 7th, 2016 / By I Am The Law
This episode is presented by The United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
If you hurt someone, a court may require you to pay their medical expenses and for their pain and suffering. Workers’ compensation insurance changes this process for employers and employees. An employee loses their right to sue their employer for negligence in exchange for an insurance plan that pays for the employee’s medical expenses and wage replacement when they’re hurt on the job. Workers’ compensation attorneys help employees navigate the administrative process and fight insurance companies over the insurance payouts.
In this episode, Royce Bicklein, a 1998 graduate of St. Mary University’s School of Law, discusses his firm’s practice and what’s involved in proving where an injury occurred and what’s to blame for the extent of an injury. Unlike almost every other state, Texas employers choose to opt in to the workers’ compensation process. As such, Royce’s firm handles workers’ compensation and traditional personal injury. Who helps a client depends on whether the client’s employer opted in to the system or not.
This episode is hosted by Derek Tokaz, an academic writing teacher at American University. It is sponsored by Barbri and Top-Law-Schools.com.
Episode Links
- The Law Offices of Miller & Bicklein
- Texas Department of Insurance
- Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation: Biennial Report to the 84th Legislature
Education and Employment
February 6th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
The ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is once again considering amendments to Standards 304 and 305 in order to permit externship credit for paid work. As I have written before, I support that change. When granting academic credit, the quality of the experience counts–not whether the student was paid for the work.
I have heard about unpaid externships that offered very little educational content. Conversely, I know of terrific externship placements (with both nonprofit and for-profit employers) that required students to choose between academic credit and pay under our current rules. I see no clear line between pay and educational value. Nor does a black letter rule seem appropriate for a learned profession: Surely ethical educators can determine which externships deserve academic credit.
The debate, meanwhile, raises a more troubling issue. If education and paid employment are incompatible, as some comments on the ABA proposal suggest, then we have lost an essential element of our professionalism. It’s possible that we have lost that element, but I think it’s worth reflecting on the issue.
2016 State of the Legal Market
January 24th, 2016 / By Deborah J. Merritt
Georgetown Law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession has released its 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market. The data-driven study of mid-sized and large law firms repeats many of the same findings that researchers have reported since the Great Recession. The news, unfortunately, is that there is nothing new. In 2015, as in other recent years, demand for law firm services “was essentially flat,” productivity among lawyers at those firms declined, and realization rates “plummeted.” (A realization rate “is the percentage of standard billing rates that is actually collected.”)
In sum, “2015 will go down as another overall lackluster year in terms of law firm financial performance.” Yikes. What does that mean for law schools? (more…)
Law Schools More Transparent Than Ever
January 19th, 2016 / By Kyle McEntee
Since 1974, the National Association for Law Placement has surveyed ABA-approved law school graduates with the help of roughly 200 schools and a nod from the ABA. NALP’s annual survey asks graduates to describe their jobs, their employers, how and when they obtained the positions, and their starting salaries.
NALP checks the data for discrepancies and produces statistical reports of post-graduation employment outcomes for each law school. NALP must keep these “NALP reports” confidential, but individual schools may publish their reports.
Before the law school transparency movement, law schools did not publish NALP reports online for prospective students and others to see. Instead, these detailed, immensely useful reports occupied dusty filing cabinets. I recall when my organization first requested these reports from law schools, several career services deans told me they did not know where they were.
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