U of Florida Increases Class Size

The University of Florida's Levin College of Law is increasing its yearly enrollment from 400 students to nearly 450 and limiting new admissions to the fall semester.

In the past, Levin has admitted 200 first-year students each fall and 200 each spring. Spring admissions were eliminated this year as part of efforts to upgrade Levin's J.D. program. Dean Bob Jeffrey told a local television station that having only one class would allow the school to focus its efforts rather than dividing them between two concurrent programs.

The Levin School is ranked as one of the top 50 law schools in the nation by US News & World Report. The middle 50 per cent of fall 2005 admits had GPAs between 3.4 and 3.86 and LSAT scores between 157 and 164. 57 per cent of students in the Class of 2006 were men and 47 per cent were women. 12 per cent of students identified themselves as Hispanic and 13 per cent as black.

Source: "UF Law School Accepts Bigger Fall Class" - WCJB TV20 News, August 23, 2006

Top 10 Law Schools for SC Clerkships

Law professor and blogger Brian Leiter has posted the results of a study into which U.S. law schools have placed the greatest proportional number of graduates into Supreme Court clerkships over the past decade.

The top 10 schools are:

1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Chicago
4. Columbia
5. Stanford
6. New York University and the University of Virginia (tied)
8. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
9. University of California, Berkeley
10. University of Texas, Austin

For more information, see "Supreme Court Clerkship Placement, 1996 Through 2006 Terms" on the Leiter's Law School Rankings blog:

http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/1996_06_scotus_clerks.shtml)

Lawsuit Filed Over St. Thomas Expulsions

A recently filed law suit claims that the St. Thomas University School of Law of Miami has hit on a simple but effective means of improving its bar exam passage rate: it accepts weak applicants -- and cashes their tuition checks -- but then expels them before they can take the exam.

The National Law Journal reports that a former St. Thomas student is suing the school for pursuing a "scheme" whereby it accepted large numbers of students and then expelled anyone who failed to maintain an adequate grade point average. The lawsuit claims that St. Thomas has expelled almost one-third of its first- and second-year students, based on grading practices that violate the school's own policies.

The lawyer representing the plaintiff characterized the practice as "culling" students. He argued that the school should never have accepted students who did not have "a reasonable prospect of completing law school" in the first place.

A St. Thomas spokesman said the lawsuit is unfounded. He said that only 12 per cent of the class in question had been expelled for poor academic performance, adding that a 12 per cent attrition rate is typical for a school of St. Thomas' standing.

St. Thomas' bar exam passage rate rose from 57 per cent in 2004 to 61.5 per cent in 2005. The average rate for all Florida law schools was 76 per cent in 2004 and 73 per cent in 2005.

Source: "Law School Sued Over Expelling Students," by Leigh Jones. The National Law Journal, August 16, 2006.

U of Georgia Welcomes Gifted, Diverse Class

The University of Georgia School of Law's Class of 2009 has an average LSAT score of 163, on par with the top 10 per cent of test-takers nationwide.

The 163 average marks a record high for Georgia Law, tying with the average LSAT score set by one previous entering class.

The 232 students entering Georgia Law this year have an average undergraduate GPA of 3.62. 44.8 per cent of class members are women, 25.4 per cent are minorities, and 15 per cent come from out of state. The average age is 24.

Director of Admissions Giles W. Kennedy said that the School received over 2,400 applications for fall 2006 entry.

Source: "UGA School of Law Enrolls Talented and Diverse First-Year Class" - press release, University of Georgia School of Law (Athens, GA), August 15, 2006

Drexel Welcomes First J.D. Class

Drexel University's new College of Law welcomed its first class of J.D. students at a ceremony held on August 16.

The class of 185 students has been divided into 3 sections of approximately 60 students each. They will be taught by 12 full time and 2 adjunct faculty members.

Drexel's J.D. education includes a cooperative internship with a local employer. To date, Drexel has secured co-op arrangements with 91 employers, including law firms, government agencies, corporations, and non-profits. The only other U.S. law school which follows this model is Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

Drexel's first J.D. class has an average GPA of 3.4 and an average LSAT score of 156. 50 per cent have prior work experience and 33 per cent already hold graduate degrees.

The Drexel University College of Law has applied to the American Bar Association for provisional accreditation. It hopes to receive accreditation before the entering class of students graduates.

Source: "College of Law to Open Next Week," by Aditi Dubey. The Triangle (the Drexel University student newspaper), August 11, 2006.

How Do You Know Who Interviews Where?

Smart law applicants think about career goals when they choose which schools to apply to. Those who aspire to high-flying legal careers focus on schools that will help them land first internships and then job interviews with prestigious firms.

Collecting that information can be a tedious process. The data is certainly available -- law schools publish annual career placement reports, and a number of firms list the schools they recruit at on their websites. But if you're just beginning your school selection research, you may not even know which law schools or law firms to look up.

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) has a great website that can help solve that problem. Users can look up employers by field of practice, and then check which schools those employers have recruited at. Alternatively, you can also look up individual schools and see who has interviewed there.

The NALP Directory also posts employer profiles that show how many people the firm or organization anticipates hiring in the coming year -- and what the pay scale for interns and new hires is.

The one caveat about the NALP directory is that employers' participation is voluntary. It's an excellent source of information but may not be exhaustive. If you look up employers who hire prosecutors, for example, you'll only get a list of 11 employers, which certainly doesn't reflect the actual number of government agencies that hire prosecutors.

That said, the NALP database is a great starting point to research the career aspects of law school selection. For more information, go to the NALP Directory's website:

http://www.nalpdirectory.com/index.asp

Employers Cast a Wider Net in Search for Associates

Law firms are forced to work harder to identify and recruit associates as the national demand for legal talent continues to grow, the National Law Journal reports.

Law firms are planning more recruiting trips to more schools, conducting 'remote' interviews through videoconference facilities, and tapping alumni networks to draw in career candidates.

Baker Botts, for example, added Emory, Notre Dame, and Washington University in St. Louis to its list of recruiting destinations this year. Although the firm has always hired students from those schools, it has typically reserved recruiting trips for higher-profile schools such as Yale, Stanford, and Harvard. This year's tight competition for top legal talent prompted the firm's recruiters to take the extra step of sending recruiters to the lower-profile campuses.

Similarly, the University of Richmond School of Law's associate dean for career services told the NLJ that his campus was hosting recruiters for firms that had not targeted the school previously, including Haynes and Boone, Bingham McCutchen, and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

One of the qualities that recruiters are looking for in potential associates is some likelihood that candidates will stay with the firm if hired. Nationally, almost 4 out of 5 associates at private law firms seek other employment within six years. Recruiters say they expect job candidates to ask about work-life balance and strive to be honest about candidates could expect as an associate with a private firm, but note that candidates who ask too many questions about work-life balance risk being written off as not serious.

One standard that recruiters are not compromising on in their search for associates is academic standing. Baker Botts told the NLJ that it will not consider applicants for internships or associateships who fail to meet the firm's academic requirements.

Source: "Law Firms Rework Campus Recruiting," by Leigh Jones. The National Law Journal, August 3, 2006.