The Red Velvet Lawyer

Law School Success Stories Elie Mystal, of Above the Law , which I would characterize as one of the leading "scambloggers,"  made a posting  yesterday entitled:   The Lack of Law School Transparency Claims Another Victim . Here is the lead in paragraph: Some guy on Twitter was complaining that Above the Law focuses too much on the negative side of going to law school. Apparently this person mistakes us for a law school admissions office — people who ignore facts when they don’t fit their happy-clappy narrative. We do bring you some law school success stories when we hear of good ones. Do you know why those stories are “news”? Because law schools are so effective at leading people down a path of career frustration and financial ruin that when somebody beats the odds, it’s mildly noteworthy. This blog tends to focus on graduates from top-ranked schools who had expected to join BigLaw. They routinely paid $40,000-$50,000 per year in tuition at the top sc...

Very good webinar on law firm marketing strategies using social media, local market web-based searches, and mobile-optimized experiences.  

Tuition Costs &  Scholarship Retention Over the past several months, I have tried to track changes in the cost of law school. Before providing some additional information, I want to highlight that ASL is one of the most affordable private law schools east of the Mississippi River.  And, we froze tuition costs for the coming year.   Not only that, but our historical scholarship retention rate has been one of the highest across the nation -- above 90 percent. Thus, unlike several of the law schools who also serve our Appalachian region, ASL does not engage in a "bait-and-switch" scholarship strategy.  Once we invite you into our community, we want you to stay.  We do not want you worrying unnecessarily about whether you will retain a scholarship. So, here is some tuition cost information for the highly competitive Pennsylvania market. Dec. 15, 2013 Update:  Thirty law schools have cut tuition costs over the last three years...

Distinguished Alumni of the  Appalachian School of Law:  Magistrate Elisabeth (Lis) Griffith Lis Griffith is remembered by her ASL family for her brains, exuberant spirit, bawdy wit, kindness, big heart, and service to the school and fellow students. Law School Career Griffith graduated in 2012 in the top 15 percent of her class, having earned Book Awards for receiving the highest grade in two courses: Disability Law and Secured Transactions.  (Yes, Secured Transactions!)   She made the Dean’s list during two of four graded semesters.    While on campus, she served in many capacities: Student Bar Association: Secretary  (2011-2012).  Student Bar Association  Property Management  Standing Committee: Chair (2010-2011). Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity : Vice Justice (2011-2012). Moot Court Board : Vice Chair of Technology (2011-2012). Moot Court team member on Constitutional Law ...

"World-Class Project Management  and  Process Engineering" Yesterday, I made a short posting recognizing the impact on me (Wow!) of some recent research found here on the dramatic shift in the BigLaw staffing model over the last 25 years.  Interestingly, my experience as a BigLaw associate in 1985 corresponds to the time when BigLaw relied on a highly leveraged triangle staffing model, in which associates out-numbered partners significantly.  Most of those associates performed the grunt work I describe  here .   Today, I quote at length from Williamm D. Henderson's article:   Three Generations of U.S. Lawyers: Generalists, Specialists, Project Managers , 70 Md. L. Rev. 373, 384-85 (2011) .  It describes the increasingly dominant approach to document review and management using technology and specially trained professionals.  The system offers corporate clients better management of document reviews for litigation or du...

Now I Really Get  the Law Job Market In a blog posting entitled, Did the Market for Law Firm Associates Peak 25 Years Ago , Bill Henderson, of The Legal Whiteboard, graphically shows the change in the BigLaw staffing model I discussed, in part, here . You must take a look at this material! From the posting (with permission): Based on the chart below, which reflects 35 years of large law firm data, the answer appears to be yes. The chart enables us to compare two very simple trendlines: the percentage of lawyers in NLJ 250 law firms who have the title of Associates versus the percentage with the title of Partner. * * *  Indeed, the 35-year graphic above provides a true wide-angle view, which in turn reveals an absolutely remarkable story. Associates were most integral to the large law firm model over 25 years ago. Although large law firms went on a hirng spree at various points during the 1990s and 2000s, the firms themselves were simultaneously ad...

"Time Famine" Begins in Law School and Later Creates Law Practice Unhappiness Christine P. Bartholomew (SUNY-Buffalo), Time: An Empirical Analysis of Law Student Time Management Deficiencies , 81 U. Cin. L. Rev. 897 (2013): This Article begins the much needed research on law students’ time famine. Time management complaints begin early in students’ legal education and generally go unresolved. As a result, practicing attorneys identify time famine as a leading cause of job dissatisfaction. To better arm graduating students, law schools must treat time as an essential component of practice-readiness. Unfortunately, most law schools ignore their students’ time management concerns, despite growing calls for greater “skills” training in legal education. * * *   [T]his Article presents a psychometric study of 1Ls – the first study to ever quantify law students’ time management problems. The study identifies five specific dimensions 1Ls lack: perceived control...