Lowering the Bar

Brazilian Boy Will Not Be Allowed to Enter Law School

Officials at Paulista University in Brazil said they had decided that Joao Victor Portelinha de Oliveira would not be allowed to start law school this year as he had planned.  Although he successfully passed the entrance exams and a writing test last week, the university said he does not qualify for law school because he has not yet completed certain other educational requirements.

Like grade school.

"I want to study law at the university," said Portelinha de Oliveira, who is eight.  "It's decided."  He told reporters that he had studied for a full week before taking the test.  The boy's father said he would file a lawsuit if his son was not admitted.  His son can't represent himself, you see, because he is eight.

The boy's mother insisted her son was not a "child genius" -- which I'd have thought was obvious, since he wants to go to law school -- but was just a normal boy who had "participated in our discussions [the ones they had with an 8-year-old about legal issues] and took interest in current affairs and interacted a lot with adults."

According to the report, the national bar association in Brazil, understandably embarrassed by the fact that an 8-year-old was able to pass a law-school entrance exam, has demanded swift action to make sure this never happens again.  Specifically, the bar has "called on the education ministry to ensure that no other primary schoolers are given the chance to sit [for] such tests."

That's the right solution.  Actually making the test challenging enough to screen out a bright 8-year-old would probably involve a lot of paperwork. 

Link: AFP via Yahoo! News
Link: AP via Law.com

Law School That Didn't Exist Is Sued by Student Who Didn't Take Classes

From today's Santa Clara County (CA) new-case report:

Katrina Petrini (in pro per) v. Doug Marcus aka Douglas Marcus; Chuck Marcus; Charles Marcus; Marcus Charles; National Law School Inc.; Does; No. 1-08-CV-107116 (filed 2/29/2008)

Fraud lawsuit. The defendants charged the plaintiff for classes that never took place at a school that never existed. $56,000.

In other news, someone paid $56,000 up front for law-school tuition without checking to see whether the school ever existed.

To be somewhat fair to Ms. Petrini (as you know, Lowering the Bar is firmly committed to the principle of somewhat-fairness), a "National Law School" does appear to have existed, sort of, in Santa Clara County at one point.  Though it has now been removed, it was previously listed as a registered correspondence law school on the state bar's website.  This particular national law school could be found in Room 305 at 228 Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto. 

California allows graduates of unaccredited law schools to take the bar, subject to certain restrictions.  Some of these seem to have actual physical classrooms, but others are "correspondence law schools" that offer courses by mail or online.  The "National Law School" was one of the latter.  Few details are available about the lawsuit so far, partly because I am too cheap to pay for the download, but it sounds like the allegations are that the National Law School set up a website, collected tuition, and then moved its computer out of Room 305 and went to Mexico.

There is no shortage of law schools in California.  Thirty-eight of them that are actually accredited one way or another are listed on the bar's website.  But if those aren't your style, you can also try one of the others, such as the Newport (Beach) University School of Law (located in spacious Suite 103), the Larry H. Layton School of Law (in Acton, CA, "one block from the Antelope Valley Freeway at the Crown Valley Road exit") or the University of Honolulu School of Law, which, oddly, is in Modesto, California.

Link: Courthouse News (paid download)
Link: California State Bar's list of law schools

UPDATE: Law Student Sues School; Says Low Grape Point Average Explained by Disability

A former law student at Southern Illinois University has sued the school and its dean after they refused to re-admit her for her second year based on what they said was poor performance.  Lisa Dawn Rittenhouse ended up with a 1.948 GPA, and a law school rule apparently provides that only those with a 1.95 or better will be invited back for another year.  Doesn't seem too unreasonable, on its face.

But Rittenhouse says that her low scores are due to disability, not a lack of ability.  She claims she suffers from bipolar disorder,  hyperactivity, ADHD, and dyslexia.  One or more of these disorders may or may not explain why Rittenhouse's complaint describes ADHD as "Attention Span Deficit Disorder" and says it contributed to her "low grape point average."  She alleges that she has one or more impairments that substantially limits here [sic] ability to perform" and that the school's failure to accommodate her was a violation of the "Americans for [sic] Disabilities Act."

Rittenhouse also claims a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, on the grounds that minority students with even lower grapes than hers were readmitted.

UPDATE: I recently came across a post at the very good blog Simple Justice which argued that it seemed unfair to make fun of Ms. Rittenhouse for typos in her complaint, given that she may have dyslexia.  That is a valid point, and I think I was lazy in doing the initial post.  I should have clarified two points:

• First, I wasn't and still am not sure that Rittenhouse's allegations actually even describe dyslexia -- could that make someone call ADHD "Attention Span Deficit Disorder"?  Not sure.  So I was suspicious of the underlying claim, not setting out to make fun of a disabled person, which I would not knowingly do.  But the post does read that way, which is my fault.
  
• Second, the post would have been more accurate and a lot funnier had I made clear that Rittenhouse was not representing herself.  (The corrected links below now go to articles that clarify that point.)

I haven't found any evidence that her attorney suffers from any disability that may hinder his ability to write in a way that will not embarrass his client, but if that turns out to be the case, I will run another correction.

Thanks to Scott at Simple Justice for bringing this to my attention.

Link: Madison County Record
Link: Law.com

Casebook is Only Casualty in Law School Shooting

An Indiana Law School case book died last week in a hail of gunfire, according to reports today from the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog and elsewhere.

A third-year law student at Indiana was arrested last week and charged with criminal recklessness after an incident in which he fired at least two rifle rounds from the balcony of his apartment in Bloomington.  (Do two rounds qualify as a "hail"?  Well, close enough.)   Police investigators said the man had an AR-15 and an AK-47 in his apartment, though the report did not say whether investigators had linked either one of those weapons to the shooting.  The victim, a casebook entitled "Real Estate Transfer, Finance, and Development: Cases and Materials," was found lifeless in the parking lot of the apartment complex, pierced by two bullets, and mourned by no one.

Let's be thankful that no one else was harmed in the incident, but let's also take it as a warning that some action needs to be taken to better protect our nation's law students.  Clearly, "Real Estate Transfer" is much too thin to hide behind at only 1248 pages -- even with hardcovers, this was not nearly enough to stop a bullet.  It's probably not practical to add many more pages, so we should consider making the contents even more dense to give our students a fighting chance.

Maybe we can make the covers out of depleted uranium.

The shooter has been suspended, barred from campus, and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, all of which suggests that the judge in Bloomington has never actually had to read a 1248-page casebook called "Real Estate Transfer, Finance, and Development: Cases and Materials."

Link: WSJ Law Blog

UC Berkeley's Law School Chooses Expensive New Name

Called "Boalt Hall" for many years, the law school at the University of California's Berkeley campus recently decided to change its name because of concerns that people outside the Bay Area did not know what "Boalt Hall" was.  "We [were] looking for ways to more clearly identify the law school with Berkeley so that outside audiences will have a clearer sense of what we are," said the school's dean, Christopher Edley Jr.

To ensure that the law school was more clearly identified with Berkeley, the administration hired a San Francisco consulting firm, Marshall Strategy Inc.  According to its website, Marshall Strategy "helps all types of organizations develop successful identity strategies. This may involve re-positioning or revitalizing existing identities, creating new identities, or aligning brand portfolios."  Or, Marshall can "align and rationalize identity portfolios for strategic effectiveness and cumulative impact," if that would help.  "We are experts in creating meaningful names."

The name-creation experts conducted interviews with alumni, students, donors and others in the community, and, after an undoubtedly lengthy process of rationalizing the school's identity portfolio to maximize strategic effectiveness and cumulative impact, UC Berkeley's school of law will now be known as --

the "UC Berkeley School of Law."

This seems to have cost the UC Berkeley School of Law about $25,000.  In a happy coincidence, the school's new name happens to match what it has been using on its diplomas for some time now -- those do not say "Boalt," but rather "University of California, Berkeley - School of Law."  The article did not say whether the consultants reviewed the diplomas before creating the school's new name, or if in doing so they advised Boalt to go with the partial initial capitalization or to de-utilize the internal punctuational markings in its existing brand.

Also coincidentally, Edley has supported hefty fee increases at UC Berkeley School of Law, saying they're needed to attract top-quality faculty, and the school kicked off a $125 million fundraising campaign last year.  Alumni, please kick in a little extra for the branding consultants.

Link:  San Francisco Chronicle
Link:  UC Berkeley School of Law website (titled, "School of Law - Boalt Hall")

Former Sideshow Performer Says He Hopes to Become "Freak Lawyer"

Eduardo Arrocha began classes yesterday at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, saying he had found a new calling.  Arrocha, who has spent the last 15 years eating nails as part of a Coney Island sideshow, said it was time to move on.

"Coney Island was very good to me, but it was just time to go," said Arrocha, who has been known since 1992 as "Eak the Geek."  "Eak the Geek is the performance," he said, "but I'm also a person."  And as his resume and his new ambition suggest, he is not what you might expect when you hear the words "carnival sideshow act."  While he is heavily tattooed, eats nails and walks on glass, he is also a poet and artist who has toured with a hard-core punk band.  His solo act at Coney Island "displays his many tattoos, includes a lecture on diversity and stands three audience members on his chest as he lies sandwiched between two beds of nails." (Emphasis added.)

But Arrocha has decided to do more than just lecture about diversity.  He says that he hopes to use his law degree to speak for "alternative people" like himself.  "I hope to have a little office in New York," he said, "and work with the alternative people, all the so-called riffraff, to give them legal representation that is not judgmental."  He continued, "I know it sounds weird, but I want to be a freak lawyer."

I had been considering making that my niche, too, but I would be in serious need of some street cred if I tried to compete with this guy.

So congratulations and best of luck to Eak the Geek, now faced with new challenges as he changes professions.  "I've never had to tie a tie before," he said.  I'm pretty confident that anybody who can eat nails and walk on glass can master that skill.

Link: AP via Newsvine
Link: Eak the Geek's MySpace page
Link: Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Law School Documentary to Tell Story of Oklahoma Students

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reports today on a documentary called "The Trials of Law School" that has recently been completed and will be released later this year.  The film follows eight students at the University of Oklahoma as they enjoy all the delights that law school has to offer.

The film was made by Porter Heath Morgan IV, who was a student at Oklahoma's law school when he shot the footage but who apparently went to law school for the purpose of making the film.  Morgan told the WSJ that he wanted to get a law degree to stand out from other filmmakers when marketing his film to producers, and "naively thought it wasn't going to be that hard."  That's what I thought after I went to film school hoping to later stand out from other potential associates when marketing myself to law firms.  Turns out they don't just hand over the degree.  They really ought to tell you that on their website.

The film will be screened this fall for incoming law students at various schools (where it may have a sort of "Blair Witch Project" effect), and has been entered in a Dallas film festival.  If it does well there, who knows?  For now, though, it's going straight to DVD, where it may ultimately appear in the same rack with my planned production of the film version of "Law School Musical."  I think it will be a big hit.

The WSJ post has a link to the trailer for the film.

Link: WSJ Law Blog
Link: The Trials of Law School (official site)

Candidate for Assistant DA Position Proves Slightly Unqualified

In May of this year, it looked like Ilya Movshovich would have a shot at becoming a prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney's office.  Movshovich had risen from volunteer to paid law clerk, and after the February 2007 California bar results were released he put his hat in the ring for a possible promotion to assistant DA.  "Everyone was celebrating with him," said District Attorney Kamala Harris.  "The folks at Caffe Roma across the street even gave him a free coffee."

Here's the funny thing about the San Francisco DA's office: they actually check the bar exam results for people who want to be prosecutors.  They're real sticklers over there.  Movshovich was not on the pass list, and so by the end of the week he was not employed, either.  (The report did not say whether he went back and paid for the free coffee.)

It was not entirely clear whether Movshovich actually even took the exam, although he implied he did by claiming he hadn't lied because he had been "under the impression" that he had passed it.  "After the fact," he said, "I found out I did not."  Since the California Bar releases a list of those who passed, and you are either on it or you are not, it is unclear to me how Movshovich could have gotten a misleading "impression" that he passed.  Wait -- there is a "Mozdyniewicz" on the list; maybe Movshovich just didn't look too closely, or maybe the words were blurred by tears.

People do fail the California bar exam, of course -- lots of people, actually, since they set the pass rate at about thirty-eight percent -- and many go on to pass it on another attempt and then have a perfectly good legal career.  In that category, you may remember, was Kathleen Sullivan, who failed in July 2005 although she was a member of two other state bars, had practiced law for 25 years, had appeared multiple times before the U.S. Supreme Court, and had been the dean of Stanford Law School, for Christ's sake.  But California's bar examiners, in their wisdom, found her unworthy.  (She passed the next time.)  So, not passing the bar is not the end of the world in California.  But lying about it is bit of a problem, especially when applying for a job in the DA's office.

And a pesky thing about lies is that they often travel in packs, and that was the case here.  A spokeswoman for the DA's office said that not only did Movshovich not pass the bar, it turned out he had lied about being a law student, which was a requirement for his previous promotion from intern to paid law clerk.  She said he had apparently forged a document saying he was a student at the University of San Francisco Law School.  He isn't.  Not only isn't he, but technically it doesn't exist.  There is a "San Francisco Law School" and a "University of San Francisco School of Law," but Movshovich didn't go to either one of those.  Of course, there are an awful lot of law schools in and around San Francisco, so maybe it was just a simple mistake.  This is consistent with Movshovich telling the San Francisco Chronicle that "[t]here is a law school that has a record of me."  That might have cleared everything up, had he been willing to say which one.

Oddly enough, in California (and a few other states), not graduating from law school also does not disqualify you from being a lawyer.  There is at least one practicing lawyer in California who does not even have a college degree, let alone a law degree.  (His website points out that this didn't hold back Abraham Lincoln, either).  But he was able to pass the bar exam with the help of years of experience as a law clerk and paralegal.  So, again, it wasn't so much the not-graduating that was the problem, it was the lying about it (and also the not-passing-the-bar and then lying about that too).

DA Kamala Harris said no one suspected Movshovich was unqualified.  "He had a reputation as a very nice person," she said, "and every time I saw him he had a smile.  Unfortunately, it appears he didn't have the credentials to be working here."  (Note to self: smiling not sufficient to qualify as assistant DA.)

Too bad, because Movshovich says he had an "amazing experience" defrauding -- I mean working for the DA's office, and he definitely wants to continue in the law.  He told the Chronicle that he regretted the "misunderstandings" that led to his dismissal, and that (in the Chronicle's words) "he hoped the situation would not negatively impact his law career."  Let's review: a guy who has no law degree and no license to practice law and who was only working as a law clerk because he forged a law-school document he gave to the prosecutor's office, and who was recently fired from that job when the forgery and related lies came to light, hopes that this situation will not negatively impact the law career he doesn't have.

"We wish him well," Harris said. "He can't do this work, though."

Link: San Francisco Chronicle

Law Student Claims Discrimination Against Unskilled Typists

I've been meaning to post this for a while -- it's not new, but worth having in the Hall of Pleading Shame.  Late last year, Adrian Zachariasewycz (or, as his complaint states in paragraph 1, "hereinafter Adrian Zack"), after not being hired by the law firm where he had been a summer associate, sued that firm, his law school (Michigan), and a bunch of employees of both entities, alleging that they had all conspired to deny him employment.

Not surprisingly, the conspiracy allegations are especially vague.  Plaintiff does allege that he "believe[s] there is some nexus between the actions" of everybody that is named or not named in the complaint (see para. 33), which I think means among other things that all of you reading this now, and everyone you know or don't know, are alleged to be participants in the Conspiracy Against Adrian Zack.

The heart of the complaint, however, is Zack's allegation that Michigan Law School implemented, as part of the conspiracy, a "system of course examination and grading [that] disadvantaged students that could not type at a sufficient speed to produce the volume of text required to produce competitive examination responses."  This diabolical scheme resulted, in certain exams, in "borderline failing grades by virtue of the low volume of prose Mr. Zack could type in the time allotted as compared with other students."

I make a lot of suggestions in my legal writing seminars, but "try to generate a higher volume of prose" is not one of them.

It is not clear whether Zack is claiming to have an actual disability, but he does charge the law school with failing to make an accommodation for bad typists "that would allow them to complete on a level playing field with their manually more dextrous peers with better-developed keyboarding skills."  Among the relief sought in the complaint in addition to money, is an injunction preventing defendants from (among other things) "voluntarily disclosing the existence of this action," which of course Zack had already done himself by filing the complaint (not under seal).

Ironically, Zack's complaint has been typed reasonably well, by a person or persons unknown.  Perhaps he tapped it out one painful stroke at a time, during the two-and-a-half years that he has been trying unsuccessfully to find a job.

Link: Zachariasewycz v. Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, LLP., et al. (complaint filed Nov. 28, 2006).

Georgetown Professor Bans Laptops From Classroom

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog, which I thank again for not using the awful word "blawg," reported yesterday that Georgetown Law Center professor David Cole has banned laptops from his classroom.  Students typically claim, he says, that it is easier for them to take notes on a laptop and that it is no problem because they can "multitask."  Cole gave two reasons for the ban in a Washington Post article over the weekend:

1. First, typing turns you into a stenographer more focused on getting the words down than actually thinking about them, let alone participating in a classroom discussion.
2. Second, many people aren't even taking notes, they're checking their email, shopping, or [insert pointless Internet activity here].
3. Third (I know I said there were only two, but this was implicit), he is sick of students asking "Could you repeat the question?" as they look up from their laptop because they weren't paying attention.

I could not agree with this more, not so much based on laptopping, which was rare when I was in school (at Georgetown, as it happens), but on the continuing scourge of that horrible Satanic torture tool that some call the "Blackberry."  I wonder sometimes if I am the only lawyer on the planet not infected with this parasite, which not only keeps people eerily connected at all times like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but also manages to chop their attention span into even-tinier bits than email already does by constantly beeping and blooping at them like some idiot conjoined twin.  (No offense to conjoined twins, many of whom are wonderful demi-people.)  "As for multitasking," Cole wrote, "I don't buy it," and neither do I, having seen so many people not do it.

So far, I've been able to resist having one of these forced on me, but I've had to flee in terror a number of times when someone realizes that I'm not one of them.

Underhill has no BlackBerry!
He must be -- upgraded!

So I fear the time is coming when I, too, will become a glassy-eyed, drooling pod slave, but for now I have the drooling under control, at least.

Link: WSJ Law Blog
Link: Cole's Washington Post article

"Sprightly Nonagenarian" Finishes Law School Just in Time to Die

Allan Stewart received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of New England (the one in Australia) on Saturday, October 7.  This is notable for two reasons: (1) he finished a year and a half early, and (2) he is 91 years old.

Stewart said he had hurried to finish the program because he didn't want to die before he got his law degree.  "There is a saying in law that time is of the essence," he said.  "I think if I had let it run too much longer I might not have finished it." I think he was in such a hurry that he missed the second part of that saying, which actually goes "Time is of the essence, so for God's sake don't waste it by starting law school when you're already eighty-seven years old."  If time was of the essence in that sense, I wouldn't spend any of it learning the Rule Against Perpetuities, that's for sure.  Although, now that I think about it, I didn't learn the Rule Against Perpetuities anyway.

It actually takes six years to finish a law degree in Australia, apparently (Stewart did it in four and a half).  According to him, however, it wasn't the duration or the content of the classes that was the biggest challenge.  It was learning to use the Internet.  "I was not literate in computers at all," said Stewart, described by the AP as a "sprightly nonagenarian" who was born in 1905.  "I was completely self-taught as far as that was concerned."  Showoff.

Link: AP via FindLaw.com

Law Student Has Not Learned Not to Steal

Law student by day, cat burglar by night.  A judge in Australia has sentenced Phillip Ryan See, 27, to over four years in jail for robbing 43 homes in the suburbs of Sydney, where he was also studying for a masters' degree in law.  See, who had previously worked as a legal assistant in a government law office, and didn't learn not to steal there, either, would rob the houses and then call a taxi to carry the loot home.

Evidently Sydney cab drivers do not ask questions about why a plasma TV is being loaded into the trunk of a cab in the middle of the night.  Police did not catch See until he was discovered by a homeowner during a midnight burglary, but they apprehended him while he was fleeing the scene of that crime, again in a taxi.  A stolen police uniform was among the $80,000 worth of items that police found during a search of See's apartment.

The relatively light sentence for the 43 burglaries appears to have been because the judge accepted See's argument that he had a psychotic disorder, the kind that makes you steal plasma televisions, computers and jewelry.  So maybe Mr. See does have a future in the law, even if he will be taking correspondence courses for the next few years.

Link: Reuters via My Way News

Berkeley Disinvites Thousands of Losers from Admission Party

A email accidentally sent by the law school admissions director for the University of California at Berkeley comically ruined the lives of thousands of applicants this week.  Edward Tom was training a new staff member when he attempted to send an email to 500 students who had gained early admission, inviting them to a reception on April 6.  Somehow he managed to send it to all applicants, many of whom, of course, are complete losers who were not even close to getting into a school like Berkeley.

(Disclaimer: Your reporter didn't get into Berkeley, either -- although I'm sure it was pretty close, probably -- and had to settle for lame-ass Georgetown.)

Apparently the message got to about half of the 7,000 applicants before the mail server failed.  Still, the phones started ringing almost immediately as confused applicants who had never gotten acceptance letters -- and some who never will -- called to figure out what was going on.

Berkeley says it plans to notify all applicants of their acceptance status by early March, and Mr. Tom, who continues to insist on having two first names, says he plans to let somebody else handle the mass mailings from now on.

AP via FindLaw.com