ABA Journal: “In past economic downturns, the number of law school applicants jumped as students extended their studies rather than look for jobs in a down market.
But this year at least 10 law schools are cutting class sizes in an “unprecedented” nod to the changing legal profession, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. The number of applicants is also down by 14 percent from last year.”
Estate of Denial: “For a man who’s been diagnosed with diabetes, you’d never guess that about Steven Cooksey. His life choices fly directly in the face of the American Diabetes Association’s recommendations for people living with the disease. He maintains a no-grain/low-carbohydrate diet, commonly known as the Paleo diet, and as a result is in fantastic health. Incredibly, because of his dietary decisions, Cooksey no longer requires insulin injections (on his website, he states that before adopting the Paleo diet he was taking four insulin shots a day). With those kind of seemingly miraculous results, it’s no surprise that Cooksey wanted to share his story and hopefully help others with what he’s learned through his own research and experience.
While trying to help others, Cooksey also has no problem making his disagreements with the ADA known. However, little did he know that by blogging about his success in maintaining his diabetes with the Paleo diet while also lambasting the ADA for its dietary policies would lead to him becoming a target for government censorship.”
Algorithms could be used to make predictions based on the historical data, Law Technology News reports. “Called quantitative legal prediction, it’s basically what happens when the latest technology trend—called ‘big data’—meets the law,” the story says. “And it just might change how corporate general counsel and BigLaw manage legal matters and costs, how they craft legal arguments, and whether, how, and where they file a lawsuit.””
ABA Journal: “Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law isn’t the first to consider helping new graduates hard-hit by the dismal legal economy establish their own law firms.
But it’s hoping to do so in a bigger way than others than other law schools have previously done.
Dean Douglas Sylvester hopes to create an affiliated program akin to a medical residency for new graduates at what is being billed as the nation’s first large-scale nonprofit law firm for training attorneys, the National Law Journal (reg. req.) reports in an article reprinted in the New York Law Journal.”
New York Times: “The economics of legal education are broken. The problem is that the cost of a law degree is now vastly out of proportion to the economic opportunities obtained by the majority of graduates. The average debt of law graduates tops $100,000, and most new lawyers do not earn salaries sufficient to make the monthly payments on this debt. More than one-third of law graduates in recent years have failed to obtain lawyer jobs. Thousands of new law graduates will enter a government-sponsored debt relief program, and many will never fully pay off their law school debt.
How did we get into this mess? And how do we get out?
Two factors have combined to produce this situation: the federal loan system and the American Bar Association-imposed accreditation standards for law schools. Both need to be reformed.”