Her Name is Rio and She Wants a New Law School

So the Washington Post has put out yet another irresponsible article about law schools being in a "death spiral," written by Dorothy Brown of Emory, one of those turncoat professors.  Of course, they aren't, and even if they were, they'd be taking American justice with them.

Some particularly odoriferous bits of blahbity-blah inanity:

No law school has figured out how to handle the new normal of legal education: the lowest number of applicants in four decades; fewer legal jobs for graduates; and, according to Moody’s, “no relief in sight.”
...
Legal scholarship is in a terrible state...
...
Law schools are run by the faculty for the faculty. A former colleague once put it like this: “If we could run this law school without students, this place would be perfect.” [ed. - this sounds confidential to me; did these heretics manage to avoid learning about "hush-hush" in their paltry-compared-to-trustier-faculty legal careers?] He happened to be the dean.
...
But while faculty cannot be terminated, their summer research stipends can be. Other disciplines require faculty to obtain external funding to support their work. Law schools should take a similar approach.

This high-and-mighty Campos-lite charlatanism is devoid of the proper respect law schools deserve as a result of their existence guarding the pot o' gold at the end of justice's rainbow.  And because Ms. Brown is female, we can invoke gendered criticisms as well.  What a bitch!

THANKFULLY, not everyone listens to objective truth and sound reason.  There are - THANKFULLY - still leaders who understand the value of legal education: getting what you can while you can, and employing a well-dressed faculty.  Or should I say MUCHAS GRACIAS?

The allure of law school can be powerful.

Nowhere is that more clear than the Rio Grande Valley, whose leaders are persisting in efforts to win a new, state-subsidized law school despite declining enrollments nationally and double-digit unemployment for the graduates of some programs.

Those trends don't seem to apply in the port city of Brownsville, said Rep. Eddie Lucio III, a lawyer beginning his fifth term in office at the Capitol and making his third attempt to bring a law school back home.

“We’re still very underserved," Lucio said.

"Very underserved!"  That sounds critical to me.  Someone get this place the epinephrine of Pennoyer v. Neff, stat!

But there's more, of course.  There are real lawyers who had to leave the area to get a high-quality legal education.

“I had to leave to go to Miami to go to law school,” said Steven Tipton, a Brownsville immigration attorney who recently launched a solo practice. “If there would have been a law school here, I could have stayed closer to my family.”

With $300,000 in law-school debt, Tipton, 39, is still trying to get on his feet. He's just beginning to pay off the loans that financed his degree from St. Thomas University School of Law.

Mr. Tipton is, of course, downplaying the excellence of St. Thomas (Miami version), the incredible value it offers students, and its natural focus on immigration law.  But it's clear that if there were a law school even halfway to St. Thomas's caliber in Brownsville, Texas, budding lawyers like Mr. Tipton could hang out closer to home before hanging their shingles.

What, exactly, do you have against home-cooked meals, you domineering skeptics of new law school construction?

The article offers a number of other gems, like this remark from our state legislator:

“I have a hard time believing there are no jobs for attorneys out there," he said.

And this statement from our immigration attorney, supra:

“We are legally underserved in the valley when it comes to immigration law. I wish there was 100 more,” he said.

MAS ABOGADOS!  LET'S MAKE IT A REALITY, FRIENDS! 

With the simple act of writing a letter to the Texas state legislature to tell them that the law school "crisis" is little more than a hoax like global warming and that all the "proof" is smoke and mirrors, you can help flood southern Texas with a waves of sweet justice, not to mention bolstering the regional economy with a fresh influx of student loan money.  Just like Fort Wayne is now basking in the sunshine of having its own law school, so too can Brownsville.

Someone should set up a bilingual hotline for this bullshit.

Law Schools Should go to Prison

Meet Jonathan Reynolds.  Reynolds was the special snowflake hippie weed dealer for his school, then was convicted as an adult for selling blow at the ripe old age of 19, which, as best I can tell, was eventually prosecuted because "[a] surprise visit from his probation officer in December 2011 revealed Reynolds in possession of drugs" - to be fair, it is totally unfair for a probation officer to just pop in without an invitation.

The timeline in the article is a bit murky, but the bottom line is this:  Reynolds is a 21-year old former user and convicted felon drug dealer who has, in a span of less than four years, totally redeemed himself.  And he's going to law school (South Carolina, for the lazy bastards who don't want to actually go to the article).

He tried college on a whim after getting an equivalency high school degree, and got "amped up" about politics and the law.  ["Command, this is Rocketship, we're at launch level one, interest in politics with rock music metaphors.  Repeat, launch level one."]
...
[A severe car] accident required brain surgery on Reynolds. Afterward he said it made him feel as if he was experiencing a permanent anxiety attack.  ["Command, we've got a physical injury causing an epiphany - we're at launch level two.  On standby"]
...
Then in the fall of 2012, Reynolds helped break up a robbery attempt while working as a bicycle taxi driver in Nashville. That earned him a Citizen Commendation award from the Metro Nashville Police Department.

"I grew up not liking police to getting an award by them," Reynolds said. "It just felt wonderful being appreciated, really euphoric. It was then my school and lifestyle turned around. It was definitely reaffirmation of what I was trying to do."  ["Command, we're at full power!  Full power!"]
...
"How many lawyers have been to jail?" Reynolds said. "Not many. There is a certain empathy you can't have if you haven't been to jail.  I feel I can represent those people better than third-generation lawyers."  [BLASTOFF!  Rocketship Law School is Racing to the Heavens and it's so Ethereal I have to use Capital Case!]

The issue here is not any of the following:

• How he can bear the heavy burden of proof at a C&F hearing
• How he thinks practicing law is a good idea with a past "permanent anxiety attack."
• How I'm going to recover from the concussion I received after bashing my head into a brick wall upon reading yet another person who was partially motivated to attend law school because he or she gets "amped" about politics and law.
• How he thinks empathy for accused criminals requires actually going to jail, or why it actually matters when negotiating a plea deal or opening a trial.
• How - if he's the type to suddenly change his opinion of the entire justice system because of a  citizen commendation - he's going to react the first time he loses something he shouldn't, or when he realizes that the system is wholly anti-accused.
• How arrogant an undergraduate student has to be to positively gauge his possible future representation of criminal defendants against established "third-generation lawyers."
• How he's going to avoid the sitcom-setup temptation to hit up his connections when the student loan bill comes due.

among others.  Oh, no, the issues are clear:

• Everyone, from convicted drug dealers barely back on the wagon to prestigious law schools, can reform in fairly short order.  This is America. You can be a total fuck-up from 11-21, dance with a little love, and - shazizm - you're good to fly the flag of justice.
• More lawyers need to experience the criminal justice system first hand to better get a grip on their professional lives.
• South Carolina is yet another law school open to embracing the diversity brought in by convicted felons.

I'm feeling inspired by Mr. Reynolds' story and South Carolina's willingness to accept him - baggage and all - to help kickstart amplified change in the world.  I think I'll rob a liquor store.  I can say it was for my raging alcoholism.  Five years from now, I'll be sober, out of jail for sho', and a better lawyer than ever!  Why?  Because I'll have empathy for my client by experiencing the terrible things they went.

Want to be a better family law attorney?  Get two unwanted kids and a loud mistress with bipolar disorder who likes crank-calling your wife.

Want to be a better animal law attorney?  Go spill some oil in Flipper's little habitat and clean it up.

Want to be a better oncologist?  Tan yourself black, smoke yourself coughy, shove your dick in a microwave, and get yourself da cancer.

God bless reform in the law school community.  Twenty years ago, I never would have heard of this story, because they all would have rejected this caterpillar Tony Montana, never letting him blossom into his Atticus Finch butterfly.

But instead of current lawyers - tainted by normally taking the straight and narrow path in life of not being convicted drug dealers - going to jail, why not seek candidates therein?

As everyone knows, law schools are having a hard time convincing crafty, skeptical, options-having millenials of the infallible truth that law school is a great three-year investment in oneself leading to models, bottles, and the upper middle class.

Why not look to prisons?

There they are, tens of thousands of young people, all of whom have more courtroom experience than many law school graduates.  Why not tap that succulent resource, and tap it hard?  Let's put programs in place to help these young men reform in rapidly short order, secure early release, get their undergraduate degrees, and make them eligible for extra-spicy maximum student loan payouts?

We would produce an army of tuition-paying justice-seekers who have empathy for criminal clients and help law schools get through The Irrational Times by filling seats with people who would no doubt relish the opportunity.

Imagine the heart-warming stories that would develop in 1L classrooms!

Prof.:  Rasheed, what's the Rule Against Perpetuities?
Rasheed:  Shit, dawg, I don' know.  What is this bullshit?
~~~~~two weeks later, in office hours~~~~~~
Prof.:  Rasheed, I believe in you, son.  You got fight.  You got heart.  You got potential.
Rasheed:  I know, coac, I mean professor, but I just don't see how this property shit matters none.
Prof:  Let's take it one step at a time.  Let's say there's a prime growhouse for sale, and you buy it.  But then you find out the owner already sold it to another dealer...
Rasheed:  I bustin' a cap in his ass.
Prof:  No, no, Rasheed, listen!  If you record before him in a race jurisdiction, you don't have to.
Rasheed:  Damn straight.  Respectin' my turf.
Prof:  But what about in a notice or race-notice jurisdiction?
Rasheed:  I di'n't know he sold it.
Prof.:  There ya go!
 ~~~~~~grading final exam time~~~~~~~
Prof.:  My God, Rasheed's exam is flawless!
~~~~~~after graduation~~~~~~~
Rasheed:  Yo, Prof.!
Prof.:  Rasheed, how's it goin'?
Rasheed:  Prof., I used to hate the law.  Now I'm a lawyer rakin' in the benjamins and I love the law.
Prof.:  Well, I used to be a crusty white T-6 graduate.  Now I'm a crusty white T-6 graduate who "gets" the street reality, my brotha'.
Rasheed:  Wanna roll wit' us?
Prof. (winking):  Straight up, homie.

Credits roll as Prof. and Rasheed smoke blunts rollin' in a Cadillac listening to Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage."  Cuz, if you don't get it, that's what law school is.   

Can't have the hop if you don't have the hip.  

Enroll now.

Dean Nick Allard: Mythological Hero

He doesn't always run law schools, but when he does, he runs Brooklyn to new heights.  This faith-affirming article describes Dean Nick Allard as

a man who has, in a few short years, elevated Brooklyn Law School’s reputation dramatically in the view of many in the legal profession.

Remember a few years back, when among "many in the legal profession" Brooklyn was a wannabe 2nd-tier law school among the dozens of overpriced private law schools in American urban centers that may have once filled a useful function, but now are overpriced, questionable institutions with sub-optimal employment scores?  Remember how Allard's leadership brought Brooklyn to the level of NYU and Columbia with Herculean might and Chemerinskyan aplomb?

Me, too!  What fun days those were!

More journalistic excellence:

His innovative leadership has sent ripples through the national legal world and, many believe, he has almost single-handedly sent out the message that our existentially challenged profession can indeed be “saved” and prosper if only scholars and practitioners would embrace the dramatic changes thrust upon them by the onset of the Digital Age.

Indeed, I have no doubt these unnamed believers remember fondly the time Allard took his "embrace change!" message to attack the oligarchic test-makers at the NCBE, who were using antiquated psychometric science and unfairly causing bar examination results to decline.  The NCBE should have simply embraced the change brought on by the digital age and let anyone into the bar who could correctly navigate an ExamSoft prompt or two (which, to be fair, most older solo practitioners would fail at doing.

And what a grueling task to "single-handedly" send out reform messages starting in 2012; like Atlas holding up the Earth by his lonesome, Allard swooped it to hoist the Rock of Reform on his broad shoulders.  I only wish others in the profession had bothered to utter one word about reform and adopting to the digital age prior to then...or even now...

And in the speech actually being reported in the above article, Allard makes clear that Brooklyn is the place to be:

Today, we are known for producing extraordinary graduates, like you, who have that extra Brooklyn edge in public service, government and the private sector. [emphasis added to show the edge - it cut you like a switchblade, mothafucka]
...
These students will go on to excel in law school, pass the bar and get meaningful jobs.*

See?  And I would be remiss not quoting Allard on his inventive, unprecedented tuition plan:

We have turned the broken business model of legal education on its head. And we sparked a national conversation on an issue that affects us all.

When you think about the positive reforms that are happening in legal education - and particularly the part about law school becoming more affordable for the blue-collar masses - remember it all started when Brooklyn Law School courageously lowering its tuition in 2014.

Dean Nick Allard has not only filled the void left by the departures of Titans like Dean Hobbs, Dean Mitchell, and Dean Matasar, among others, he's building himself a legacy in his own right as a trailblazer among trailblazers, an Osiris-Dionysis figure taking the mantle of a noble cause and leading his own revolution.  This Rhodes Scholar should, frankly, have his own Colossus.

*disclaimer: puffery; not a warranty of any kind.

Don't Tread on Me, Washington & Lee

Washington & Lee is named after a mediocre general who won a revolution and a great general who lost one.  The former revolted against the tyranny of taxation without representation while the latter revolted against the tyrannical anti-states rights-pro-industry-black-freedom movement. 

In any event, our newest generation of leaders should find inspiration in these men and lead a new revolution.  Unfortunately, Washington & Lee has become tyrannical.

The gruesome details are captured at the link above.  Increases in endowment payouts.  Freezing salaries.  The cardinal sin of faculty attrition.  The goal is to "balance" the law school budget by 2018-2019.

You know what you can't "balance?"  The urgent demand for new lawyers and future unmet needs for valuable legal services in the sprawling Lexington, Virginia, metropolitan area, to pump up the need for a nearby first-class law school.

Washington & Lee put in an excellent experiental program a few years back.   It was an outstanding,  inspired idea to bring more fish to a barrel in the relative middle of nowhere.   Those students are now on the verge of bar admission and poised to light the legal world on fire.  Alas, that legacy will not be an eternal bonfire, but rather a snuffed candle wick thanks to penny-pinching fire marshalls.

Washington & Lee is a frivolous rich frat-boy school, where presentable grandsons of the confederacy go when they can't get into a better school and want to snobbishly brag about going to an elite liberal arts school that didn't land them a job.  "Take that, Old Dominionites!"

My point is this:  W & L has tons of money.  It's a third-tier lemming factory and only the 4th or 5th best law school in its saturated state, but people think it's prestigious.  It's in a perfect situation to continue to innovate with experiental education to lure the unsophisticated sophisticated consumer.  When you have a law school, you have a public duty to continue pumping out as many lawyers as you can while employing a fully-stocked faculty with the protections of academic tenure to promote the advance of legal scholarship.

Balanced budget?  Oh, don't tread on me, baby.  This is America.  We don't balance any budgets where there are more important things to do.  And the stability of law and access to justice are the type of thing worth fighting for.  If you can't believe in those simple concepts, you might well let commie ISIS bastards keep pouring fluoride into our precious water system.

God bless America.

More Brilliant Thoughts from Dean Chemerinsky

The pioneer has two main thoughts on the Supreme Court in his latest book.  First:

The Supreme Court has been, on balance, a more negative than positive influence on our country throughout its history

Thank goodness lower-quality law schools have not been, on balance, a more negative than positive influence on our country.  And second:

The idea that justices bring neutral, objective legal principles to the task of “divining” the true meaning and purpose of the language in the statutes and the Constitution is bunk.

Thank goodness lower-quality law schools have promoted the idea that they bring non-profit, public service principles to the task of "educating" America's lawyers.  Because that's totally not bunk.  Or something.  If you can come up with a better parallel analogy thingamajig, fill it in for me.

Such observations aside, it's obvious that Chemerinsky has earned his place as a top scholar of constitutional law.  Take this observation about the heinous group of Supreme Court cases that seem vile in retrospect, such as Plessy or Korematsu:

 For years, Chemerinsky said, he had taught these cases, which are all understood in retrospect to have been miscarriages of justice, as if they were anomalies. But by explaining them that way, he said, “I realized I had been making excuses for the Supreme Court.”

Because this totally isn't the type of conclusion one could come to after a mere semester of Con law.  It takes years of studious inquiry during ten-hour work weeks poring over the 4500 words of the Constitution, treating each one the way PhDs treat War and Peace subplots.

Well, I'm off to hit the open road with two strippers and a crack pipe.  Remember, I'll make a great DA some day.

An Open Letter to Hamline and William Mitchell

Dear Co-Best Law Schools in Minneapolis:

It's my understanding that you are seeking to merge.  As you both know, running a law school can not only be joyous, splendid fun, but also serve the public interest and provide a landing spot for BigLaw's better-credentialed rejects.  You two have been independently ensuring an ongoing win in the war for social justice in Minneapolis for over a century, and I have no doubt you will continue in your new union.

It is my understanding that despite the obviously-cyclical nature of this "recession" in the legal education sector (how many times does Professor Diamond have to say it until it sinks in?), you have thought it in your "financial interests" to join forces and create one super-badass law school where previously there were two.

This wedding shall be a bittersweet moment.  On one hand, when you two combine your awesome forces, you are going to build an arsenal of frostbite flim-flam, a legion's worth of law school lemming larceny, churning and burning through tons of fine students who couldn't quite make it into Minnesota.  When you combine resources, I have no doubt that your legal scholarship output will quadruple the amount of justice you're currently distributing.

But I give you a word of caution:  mergers can be fraught with risk.  I speak, most importantly, of "efficiencies."  Some cost-cutting soulless bureaucrats may try to talk you into "staff reductions" or "buy-outs of overpriced faculty members" or say things like "you don't really need six international entertainment law scholars."

To hell with these people.  Protected tenure for all is as important as a newlywed couple buying a McMansion in the suburbs as soon as they can get a loan.  It is the bulwark of academic liberty, and essential to letting law professors keep their inflated salaries and senses of self-worth.  Every tenured faculty member of either Hamline or Mitchell must be allowed to keep their position, with full liberty to publish as much navel-gazing lucubration as their curricula vitae can handle.  The only way to ensure that Minneapolis does not have a legal scholarship shortage is to continue to provide a supportive environment for each and every one of these superlative scholars.

Furthermore, what will happen when the demand for legal services and particularly legal education rebounds to lofty new heights?  Previously, demand easily supported four law schools in the twin cities.  Please don't be so naive as to think demand will not return, particularly after the current crop of graduates begin making bank when the pending lawyer shortage hits.  You currently have the capacity to handle that demand.  Downsizing would only mean having to upsize in a few years, or, in the alternative, having to open up a whole new law school to ensure that the Twin Cities remains at maximum JD advantage.

I'm happy for you, but you must take these responsibilities seriously.  I implore you to keep full tenured faculties at both institutions and resist any efforts to "improve efficiency" or other corporate non-speak from people who simply don't understand the legal industry and how easy it is to take $200k from 23-year-olds who are on their way to making great district attorneys.

Bless you, whatever you call yourself:  Hamiam Mitchline.  Willline Mitchamill.  Hammy Wilmitch.  Minnesota Summit.  Really, let the creative juices flow.

Just know that I hope you've merged for the right reasons, and that I look forward to your reproducing numerous satellite campuses in Duluth, Rochester, Moorhead, etc. 

If you've married for the wrong reasons, well, the total lack of divorce lawyers to handle the aftermath will, frankly, be your own damned fault.  So pump 'em out, baby.  Pump 'em out.

With love this scammertine's day,

Law School Truth Center.

P.S. - I know the ABA still has to approve this union.  Please don't let cause you any stress.  You could three-way merge with a horse college and a barber college and the ABA would likely acquiesce and feature y'all in a video on social justice.

The California Model; or, the LSTC: Where Great Comments Inspire Great Ideas

The Law School Truth Center isn't just a place for me to post love letters to my intangible paramour, the Law School Industrial Complex.  It's also a think tank where the masses can inspire innovations in legal education.  From a comment on my last post:

Being 16 of 203 [law schools] is more prestigious than being 16 of 16.

From this Newtonian observation by Anonymous, we can derive a simple theory:  A greater number of law schools total makes every school except the bottom of the bottom ("PD academies") more prestigious.   Conversely, if law schools unfortunately close, suddenly otherwise-reputable schools like Florida, Arizona State, and Brooklyn may find themselves in the fourth tier.

We must prevent that from happening.  Do you really want to live in a world where a fine school like American is a bottom-feeder?  Of course not!  Those who bemoan schools like Thomas Cooley simply don't understand how the prestige pyramid works.  You have a whole bunch of drones at the bottom, and they buoy up everyone else to ever-greater heights.  Cooley didn't destroy legal education; it was trying to establish yet another base in the pyramid to make schools like Wayne State and Detroit look like sparkling rays of sunshine shooting from a unicorn's eyes.


Lest you think this theorem indefensible and reckless, I give you the Great State of California.  There are dozens of unaccredited schools in California; yet, their role, educating high-quality lawyers, has done nothing to stop the prestige of Stanford and Cal-Berkley.  Indeed, California is only one of three states to have multiple T-14s (to say nothing of the surplus of T2s like UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, UC-Irvine, Loyola, etc.).   And of course, relatively, those type of unaccredited "blue collar" institutions make places like UC-Hastings or Cal-Western look like Harvard.

Previously, I've explored potential other locations for law schools.  I have realized that this might have too restricting of a view on my part.  What we need is for the rest of the nation to implant the California model.  According to crack research by the LSTC, California has sixty (60) law schools and a population of only thirty-nine (39) million.


So California's ratio - which is obviously a successful number to generate fine schools like Stanford - would be roughly 1 law school for every  630,000 people.  Current US Population is 319 million, so our actual number of law schools to achieve California-quality prestige and legal representation nationwide would be around 506.

Examples of the severe shortfall of law schools to achieve this ideal abound.  Washington only has three law schools.  It should have 11 or 12.  Wisconsin has 2 law schools. It should have 9 or 10.  Ohio, with 9 law schools, is underlawschooled by 10.

When folks like Professor Seto talk about an impending lawyer shortage, it's not a great revelation to figure it out; we simply haven't considered that maybe the legal education industrial complex's problem isn't too many law schools, but too few.   Plus, as everyone knows, more competition always means a better result for consumers.

It's not just a matter of running out of lawyers.  

It's a matter of running out of prestige.

Study: Paying Deans Millions as Effective - if not Moreso - Than "Experiental Education"

As most devoted readers know, law schools have been under a lot of pressure by certain irrational folks to reform - this despite the fact that law schools have historically done exceptionally well at educating America's lawyers, such that American justice has never been in better shape.

One of the popular reform "ideas" is adding more "experiential" "learning," things like clinics and externships, expensive do-hickeys that are less fun and lucrative than letting Professor McAncient dust off his UCC or Crim Pro outline each year, while profit margins soar and the lounge gets a new cappuccino machine with silver plating...drool...

The problem is that those expensive clunker clinics don't help employment outcomes.  Look, it's science!

To summarize the paper’s key finding: there is no statistical relationship between law school opportunities for skills training and JD employment outcomes. In contrast, employment outcomes do seem to be strongly related to law school prestige.

Wah-wah.

If prestige is what truly matters, why spend ridiculous amounts of money on clinics?  Everyone knows that clinics are associated with law schools where the 98% employed are most likely to work for government, small firms, or public interest firms; noble deeds, but far from the importance of appellate clerks and law professorships.  On the other hand, schools like Stanford, Yale, and Emory have no need for such things.

So what should the "lesser" law schools do?  How about instead of dumping cash in the sinkhole of training stupid practical lawyers, you instead pay out the bazooka bucks to land a worthy seven-figure dean?

There is literally no evidence that a domestic violence clinic is a pubic hair better than paying buying Erwin Chemerinsky his own private island.  But there IS evidence that having Erwin Chemerinsky as your dean can take prestige from zero to mid-level hero with a good chance at a federal court gig.

And that's what we call logic.  Letting your all-star professors backstroke in Scrooge McDuck's gold silo is literally as worthwhile as teaching (well, trying to teach) anyone to actually practice law.

Viva la profession.

Pirate Law Deans Far from the Caribbean

A few weeks back, I celebrated the transfer game, where law deans send raiding parties to other law schools to swoop in, appropriately pillage, and leave the remainder to enjoy mid-law jobs instead of big law riches.

Today, Inside Higher Ed has an article honoring our favorite pirate captains.  Here's Georgetown's Andy Cornblatt (great pirate name!):

Cornblatt said it would violate antitrust laws and be "paternalistic to the extreme" to try to curb transfers.

“These are not elementary school kids, these are adults who are in the middle of or finished their first year of law school,” he said.

Ay, the fear of antitrust argument coupled with the "sophisticated consumers of free choice" argument, coupled with a giant straw man, to the extreme.  That's some nice piratin' on the good ship Georgetown.  I mean, the way he sails past the implicit questions of why transfers may be a bad thing and goes straight to refuting arguments no one's making is some excellent verbal maneuvering.  To the extreme.

But shiver me timbers, look at what the Arizona State Raiders can do:

“The LSAT is a good predictor of first-year performance, but it’s nowhere near as good a predictor as first-year performance,” said Douglas Sylvester, the dean of Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

Give that man a parrot and call him Captain Sly!  And why is he being interviewed?

Arizona State accepted 66 transfer students last year, the second most in the country, behind Georgetown. Nearly a third of ASU’s second-year students are now transfer students. Forty-four of those transfers came from Arizona Summit Law School.

Yes, first-year performance at an InfiLaw school IS better than either an LSAT.  After all, who would YOU rather hire as a lawyer:  the 43rd-best 1L at Arizona Summit or a random 157 LSAT? 

You know what the number-one sign of some great piratin' is?  Butt-hurt.  Cue the victimhood:

“I do believe it to be poaching,” [Arizona Summit Dean Shirley] Mays said of ASU, “and I do wonder if the ranking system were changed so that the LSAT scores of transfer students were included whether or not the poaching of students from the lower-tiered schools would continue.”

While one has to admire her "my precious!" attitude towards her top students, I can't help but agree with Captain Sly:

"Give your students reasons to stay and we wouldn’t be able to take them,” Sylvester said.

Ahoy!  Sounds to me like a dare!

Obviously, Arizona Summit's promises of future career riches and JD-Advantage(c) thinking skills aren't enough to retain top talent.  They should set up a foundation or something that gives out extra scholarships and can be used as kick-backs to hot professors and forgivable loans to deans.  They should also build a swimming pool and tack on a billiard room.  And maybe sponsor a minor league baseball stadium.

Or better yet, they could build their own pirate ship and send out a raiding party of their own.  California has plenty of state-accredited schools.  Mexico probably has law schools.  Take laterals from nursing schools or something.  Seriously, get creative.  The ABA isn't going to stop you.  It's, like, an antitrust violation or something.

Former SMU Dean Arrested, Possibly for Giving Novel Form of Scholarship

I know, I know, prostitution is still technically illegal.  So is marijuana.  But let's be serious.  If you're young and stupid and like rock and/or roll and/or hip and/or hop, it's okay to light up a "doobie."  And if you're a refined white man of means with a cufflink collection, fashion-forward socks, and a Rolodex of dudes who are on wife number three and Lexus number four, you're entitled to stick your dick wherever you want if you've paid fair market value for the privilege.  It's as American as buying GE stock and golfing at a club where minorities are rarer than holes in one.

In any event, former SMU dean John Attanasio was arrested recently on vague prostitution-related charges.  Remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty (or, you know, forced to plead with a chandelier of Damocles's knives hanging over one's head by a single thread).  I know in modern media times, we're like a digital lynch mob, but I'm going to take the high road and assume that - just like Paul Pless - he's innocent and was framed or duped by some fraudulent scheme.

After all, no sophisticated consumer could get caught picking up a hooker, right?

Here's a hypothetical that explains how many of these things might happen with an upstanding law dean:

FEMALE:  Oh!  Hi, law dean!
DEAN:  Hello, future empress of dynastic legal change.
FEMALE:  Oh, you!  I prefer guillotine in the coming doctrinal revolution.
DEAN:  I would love to accept you in my school, which is a spring training ground for legal shortstops who want to turn two and then hit a triple in the bottom half.
FEMALE:  That sounds great!  Can I pay you full tuition so you can teach me to be an eloquent flamethrower of jurisprudential burns in the arid courtroom climate?
DEAN:  Perhaps.  I can't help but notice you're practically naked standing on this street corner.  You can't be a pioneering trailblazer leading the wagons of justice wearing lingerie.
FEMALE:  I know!
DEAN:  Let me make you a deal.  If you come to my law school, I'll give you a scholarship of half-off so you can start being a courtroom Eskimo building persuasive igloos with ice blocks of truth and diversity.
FEMALE:  Really?!
DEAN:  $20k a year, an excellent price to become a walking blowjob of  sublime justice wearing the immortal lipstick of Constitutionality.
POLICE:  Up against the wall, everyone!
FEMALE:  Oh, I wish I were already a legal lyricist crafting the grand libretto in the opera of truth!  Mr. Law Dean, O capeless crusader, use your magical powers!
 DEAN:  Shut up, ho, I'm calling a friend who knows what he's doing.

I have no idea what happened with the former SMU dean and the above is wildly made-up, but making stuff up and presenting it as some version of the truth is a tradition we in the legal industry hold quite dear.