Stony Brook Pre-Law

Spring Semester: The First Meeting

2009-02-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

We we will be holding our first meeting of the Spring '09 semester tonight at 7:30 in SAC 308.

Any questions, or just curious, come on by.

The meeting's basic purpose will be to update on news, including a new calendar layout and the formation of an advertising committee now that we have funding come from the USG.

Introductions will go on as always, VP Brady will start collecting all the books and films he lent out over the intersession, and there will also be a current events discussion focused on renewed interest in gender law following Pres.. Obama's signature of the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act of 2009.

Student Networking Seminar: Friday

2008-10-01T12:37:00.001-07:00

This is just a reminder that this Friday, October 3rd will be the first skills program SBPL will be sponsoring for the semester.

Our guests:
*Alfreda James of SBU Career Services. Her skill-set precedes her. She has a number of activities planned.
*Michael Marchena, current Area Manager and recruiter for BCBG Max Azria. He has a decade of experience in management, retail, interior design and networking.

Location: Wang Center, Rm. 103
Time: 4PM
Refreshments: Bottled water, light snacks

If you have any further questions, please e-mail SBPL VP Kevin Brady at KevinCQBrady@gmail.com.

Civil Rights Law: A Presentation

2008-09-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

I. What is Civil Rights Law?

•Cornell Law: a “civil right” is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury.
•Examples of civil rights are freedom of speech, press, and assembly; the right to vote; freedom from involuntary servitude; and the right to equality in public places.

II. What about discrimination?
•Discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of their membership in a particular group or class.
•Statutes have been enacted to prevent discrimination based on a person's race, sex, religion, age, previous condition of servitude, physical limitation, national origin, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

III. Who should get involved?
•Remember: Just because civil rights law is often associated with racial minorities and females, we ALL have civil rights
•Civil Rights Law, much like Corporate Law, requires a particularly large amount of paper work and coordination between parties
•CRL requires a boldness of intellectual character, as new arguments have to be made using preexisting cases

IV. How is CRL applied?
•Remember: Just because Civil Rights Law is often associated with racial minorities and females, we ALL have civil rights (sound familiar?)
•Thanks to the mass spectrum of application, CRL is a sector of law that is rife with possibility and an endless amount of cases
•Growth areas: Religious groups, GLBT rights, Constitutional protections (Re: PATRIOT Act)

V. Law Schools for Civil Rights Law
•Like in all areas of law, a little bit of everything is covered at most schools
•But some schools have stronger focuses in certain areas
•Nationally: Besides the obvious “top law schools” - George Mason (VA), UC Davis (CA), University of Chicago (IL), Notre Dame (IN)
•“Locally”: Brooklyn Law, Cornell, CUNY Queens

VI. Examples of Civil Rights Law Classes
•An example from Columbia Professor Katherine Franke’s “Civil Rights Law” Course Intro. from Fall 2003:
•“The course will provide an historical and statutory overview of federal civil rights law - with a particular emphasis on police misconduct. Class format will combine lecture and discussion, with an emphasis on discussion. A significant portion of the class will be devoted to the details of litigating under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 - a statute that provides a private right of action for violations of the U.S. Constitution or federal laws. If you plan to clerk after graduation, you will encounter § 1983 cases a great deal, and will find our work in this class very helpful.”

VII. An Example of a Class

Professor Franke’s Course Outline:
•Part I: History of the Reconstruction Era Constitutional Amendments and Reconstruction Era Civil Rights Statutes
•Part II: 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 - Civil Remedy for Deprivation of Rights Under Color of State Law
•Part III: 42 U.S.C. Section 1985(3) and - Civil Remedies for Conspiracies to Deprive Rights
•Part IV: Civil RICO Actions against Police Departments
•Part V: U.S. DOJ Initiated Actions to Combat Patterns and Practices of Police Misconduct

VIII. Civil Rights Law Clinics
•Many law schools in urban regions have established law clinics, allowing students to gain experience while serving the community
•Civil Rights Law is the MOST COMMON area of expertise practiced in these clinics
•At NYU Law, Professors Vanita Gupta and Claudia Angelos maintain a one-semester clinic worth 5 credits

IX. What Kind of Work Do They Do?

In the last year, NYU Law’s Civil Rights Clinic has worked on:
•Title IX challenge to the schedule for girls' soccer in the New York City Public Schools
•NYCLU's litigation alleging that the delivery of indigent criminal defense services statewide is unconstitutional
•New York City Police Department's revocation of the press credentials of a journalist who is critical of the Department
•investigation of potentially politically-motivated border searches
•development of a strategy to challenge the Department of Correctional Services use of "ion scanning" of visitors to prisons in New York

X. Stony Brook Classes
•Political Science classes of potential service:
•POL310: Immigration and Refugee Politics
•POL316: Federalism and Intergov’t Relations
•POL320: Constitutional Law & Politics
•POL325: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
•POL330: Gender Issues in the Law
•POL331: Law and Political Representation

XI. Stony Brook Classes
•Those POL classes work on the underpinnings of Civil Rights Law, so please don’t cry “bias”
•CRL is inherently more “political” than other aspects of law in terms of its origins and workings
•Still, focus on issues that appeal to you in the concepts of diversity and awareness
•Classes in Africana (AFS), Women’s/GLBT studies (WST), and Religious Studies (RLG) are examples to begin developing expertise

XII. More Questions, Concerns?
•Feel free to e-mail Vice President Kevin Brady (currently sick in bed) with any specific questions about the topic of Civil Rights Law, including recommended books, sub-topics, schools, and ideas on the subject for further study
•KevinCQBrady@gmail.com
•Stonybrookprelaw.blogspot.com

Information: Our First Agenda of '08-'09

2008-09-19T00:42:00.000-07:00

Stony Brook Pre-Law (SBPL)

First General Membership Meeting / Open House
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 / Room: SAC 308 / Time: 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM

I. What Do We Do?

A) Our Members: We at SBPL believe that our best resource as students is one another. SBPL is a place to network. Come to our meetings and you can learn more about different fields, majors, exams, and careers involved in the Law. We have members with interests ranging from public office to private practice, corporate positions to law enforcement.

B) Our Speakers: Every two to three weeks we have visiting speakers to our meetings who offer their own takes on the Law:
1. They explain what they do
2. Share what they have done
3. Offer advice to you
4. Available for making connections later in life (or as soon as starting an internship next semester!)

Please note: We’re always looking for new connections. If you have friends, relatives, or other connections in any kind of legal field… tell us! We’d love to have new and fresh faces at our meetings to share their knowledge. The more connections the better!

C) Our Events: About twice a semester the SBPL works in conjunction with SB Career Services to hold events in the Wang Center for members of all organizations to take part in. Topics include personal skills development (mock interviews, networking, etc) as well as forums where multiple guests take part in a panel discussion on the best advice they can offer you to make your way in the wide field of Law.

D) Our Calendar:

Wed, SEPT 17: Introductions: First SBPL Meeting
Mon, SEPT 22: Graduate Examinations: LSATs and GREs
Wed, SEPT 24: First Mock Trial Meeting
Mon, SEPT 29: Topic Presentation: Arbitration and Mediation Law
Fri, OCT 3: Wang Center Seminar: Networking (4PM in Wang 101)
Mon, OCT 6: Special Guest Speaker
Mon, OCT 13: Topic Presentation: Criminal Defense Law
Mon, OCT 20: Special Guest Speaker
Mon, OCT 27: Topic Presentation: Civil Rights Law
Mon, NOV 3: The Day Before: Election Law and Voting Rights Law

Note: To answer a surprisingly popular question, we will be doing MORE in the Fall semester, it is merely that the full calendar is not complete yet.

II. So Who Are We?

A) Our Mission Statement: Stony Brook Pre-Law is a pre-professional student organization open to all undergraduates either seeking or interested in pursuing a graduate education in the Law.

SBPL seeks to achieve the following as part of its basic mission:
1. Facilitate the flow of information regarding all aspects of law to inclined individuals through both campus-based and external resources.
2. Serve as a sounding board and peer support group for fellow students regarding the pursuance of a graduate education and/or career in the law.
3. Draw awareness to contemporary issues of law in relation to the student body and society at-large through inter-group collaborative efforts.

Our Last Spring Meeting and Guest Speaker

2008-05-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

We are proud to host yet another guest speaker at what will be our last regular meeting of the semester, as always, 1PM this Wednesday, May 7th in SAC 311. This semester has drawn a half-dozen speakers from various law backgrounds and has been a tremendous source of advice and networking to our members.

Our next speaker is David McClean, none other than the business regulation-involved father of the recently reelected Secretary Alex McClean. Mr. McClean is a hedge fund compliance officer and professor of business ethics. He will be discussing the intersection of law and business, with a focus on regulation.

The Numbers Are In!

2008-05-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

Officially Declared Winners of SBPL 2008 E-Board Elections:
President: Syed Haq
Vice-President: Kevin Brady (re-elected)
Treasurer: Shane Myers
Secretary: Alex McClean (re-elected)
Project Manager: Katie O'Brien

Elections! ELECTIONS! ELECTIONS!!!

2008-04-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday, April 28nd will be the Stony Brook Pre-Law E-Board elections! The offices of President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary and Project Manager are all up for the vote. Incumbents are seeking reelection for Vice-President and Treasurer.

Announced Spring 2008 Candidates:
President:
Syed Haq (current Project Manager)
Felix Omozusi

Vice-President:
Kevin Brady (incumbent)

Treasurer:
Shane Myers
Diana Villalobos

Secretary:
Alex McClean (incumbent)

Project Manager:
Katie O'Brien

The Elections Board, headed by President Al Sand, will be taking nominations on the day of the elections on a case-by-case basis as "write in" candidates.

A message from Project Manager Syed Haq

2008-04-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Its a big week for the SBPL this week, with this weeks regular meeting (Wednesday, 1 pm, SAC 311) being taken up with speeches from those running for positions on the Executive board, and most importantly out Law Forum on Friday.

The Law Forum features a panel of lawyers who will be discussing their views on a wide range of issues of concern to pre-law students, such as how the profession is changing, how to chose an area of law, advice on how to get into law school, how to seek employment and more, as well as answering your questions. This is a great opportunity to get the info you need to pursue a career in law. Don't miss out.

The Forum will be held this Friday, April 25th, from 4 -6 pm in Wang Center Lecture Hall 001.

Hope to see you there.

4/16: Speaker: Arshad Majid

2008-04-14T22:25:00.000-07:00

We are proud to host our semester's final midday meeting speaker this Wednesday, April 16th. Our guest will be former ADA and now private practice lawyer Arshad Majid.

Here is some background on Mr. Majid from Background Syed Haq, SBPL Project Manager:

ARSHAD MAJID, JD MBA is the principal attorney of Majid & Associates, P.C., a New York based law firm. Prior to forming the law firm, Mr. Majid was employed as an Assistant District Attorney and prosecutor in New York State. As a prosecutor, Mr. Majid initiated and supervised criminal investigations and supervised the disposition of thousands of criminal cases. During his tenure, he obtained convictions on several notable trials on issues ranging from Domestic Violence, Computer and Credit Card Fraud, Driving While Intoxicated, Child Abuse, Elder Abuse and Violent Crimes.

Mr. Majid is lead counsel on matters concerning criminal, real estate, civil and federal litigation and is responsible for negotiations with debtors on behalf of leading banking and financial institutions. In this capacity, he has served as an adviser and liaison between the American minority community and international banking institutions such as HSBC and Citigroup.

Evening Meetings

2008-04-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

Stony Brook Pre-Law will begin holding evening meetings for those unable to attend our usual midday times on Wednesday. The first meeting will be this Wednesday, April 9th, in the Stony Brook Union, Room 226 @ 7:30PM. Contact VP Kevin Brady at KevinCQBrady@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Elections: Elections Board & Running for Office

2008-04-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

A) Elections Board: Someone's Gotta RUN the Elections!
-Five members are elected to oversee elections by the general membership
-No members may be seeking an office in the next semester
-Elections Board votes for its own chairperson

B) Constitutional Requirements
1. A minimum GPA of 2.0 is required for election to the e-board. A GPA of 2.0 must be maintained for each semester an office is held.
Note: These are executive board minimums set by USG.
2. No one can seek elected office without having been a voting member of SBPL for one whole semester prior.

C) What is each office responsible for?
1. President: Official representative of SBPL
-Preside over all meetings
-Prepare agendas for all general body & e-board meetings
-Non-voting member of any and all committees
(except the elections committee)

2. Vice-President: Coordinator between e-board members and committees
-Advise signatory officers (pres., treas., sec.)
-Fulfill presidential duties at any time necessary

3. Treasurer: Chief financial officer
-Keep detailed record of all finances
-Submit all payment requests to USG

4. Secretary: Record keeper, manager of all official documents
-Take attendance and minutes at all meetings and functions
-Maintain up-to-date voting & non-voting member rosters
-Submit all required documentation to USG

5. Project Manager: Chair of Stony Brook Mock Trial (SBMT) subcommittee
-Manage and preside over SBMT meetings
-Receive all new project ideas from e-board and members
-Manage and encourage new projects to completion

April 2: Presentation Summary: Syed Haq & Kevin Brady: Media Law

2008-04-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

1. Introducing the field:
-First and foremost, Media Law demands fluency in the application and extensions of the First Amendment, which reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

-Media Law straddles the duel debates of expression and information in our society: Think of the ideal of the three branches of the US federal government and replace them with “media,” “government,” and “the public”

2. Why does this field matter?

Example: Reporters’ Secret Sources
-McKevitt v. Pallasch (Chicago Tribune-Real IRA case): In 2004, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion penned by conservative darling Judge Posner, declared that there was no First Amendment privilege in protecting a confidential source nor special criteria into which journalists fell when deemed in contempt of court.

-In 1972’s Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court failed to achieve a majority on the issue of whether journalists had a right to keep their sources secret, even from authorities. From then on, most courts erred on the side of a limited, “balanced” approach to the privilege, allowing judges often to determine what could be kept secret and what could not, but no precedent was set in stone.

-Today, ranks have now been achieved in many judgeships in the US that seek to overturn the entire concept of journalistic immunity from prosecution for secret sources. Debate continues in the media itself, in political arenas, and amongst the public about what is best for all involved, weighing equality under the law, government protection of secret information, and the public’s right to know.

3. Aspects & Education:
- In many cases, Media Law, as a major for example, is referred to by other names, such as Communications-, Entertainment-, Journalism- or First Amendment Law.
-Local Programs: Columbia U., CUNY-Queens College, Fordham U., NYU

Links:

http://www.medialaw.org/

Site’s Summary: The Media Law Resource Center – formerly the Libel Defense Resource Center – is a non-profit information clearinghouse originally organized by a number of media organizations to monitor developments and promote First Amendment rights in the libel, privacy and related legal fields.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/

Our Summary: Maintained by LSU Associate Prof. of Law Christine A. Corcos, the blog offers summaries, updates, and links to ongoing cases and interesting articles about journalists involved with the law (the murder of reporters in Russia), freedom of expression issues (Google availability in China without censorship), and governmental regulation of media outlets (FCC licensing and auctions). Delivered with less opinion and much more summarization and analysis than most blogs, Prof. Corcos’ site is both a good resource for those keeping tabs on media law, freedom of expression issues or journalism as a whole, as well as a nice sample of what is at stake and at work for prospective lawyers and journalists alike.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/topicssummary.aspx

Site’s Summary: The First Amendment Center works to preserve and protect First Amendment freedoms through information and education. The center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, of the press and of religion, and the rights to assemble and to petition the government.

The center’s Web site, www.firstamendmentcenter.org, is one of the most authoritative sources of news, information and commentary in the nation on First Amendment issues. It features daily updates on news about First Amendment-related developments, as well as information and detailed reports about U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment, and commentary, analysis and special reports involving free expression, press freedom and religious-liberty issues.

Upcoming Events: April 2008

2008-04-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

4/2 (TODAY): Meeting: Elections Board / Presentation: Media Law (SAC 311)

4/9 (WED): Meeting: Speaker: Rudy Migliore, Senior Partner and Trial Lawyer (SAC 311)

4/12 (SAT): New Student Club Fair (SAC Ballroom B)

4/16 (WED): Meeting: Speaker: Arshad Majid, General Practioner and former Assistant District Attorney (SAC 311)

4/23 (WED): Meeting: Nominations Day / Presentation (SAC 311)

4/25 (FRI): Stony Brook Pre-Law Forum (Wang Center's Lecture Hall 1): 4PM

4/30 (WED): Meeting: Election Day / Semester Summary (SAC 311)

This Week's Guest: Mark Murry

2008-03-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

Guest Speaker This Week:

Mark Murry – Personal Injury/ Discrimination Lawyer

Wednesday March 12^th - 1:00pm in SAC 311

Please try to attend with questions in mind and as on-time as possible so that we can devote as much of our hour together to Mr. Murry.

Business and Corporate Law: Links of Interest

2008-03-11T22:53:00.000-07:00

>>Links of Interest:

*Corporate Securities Law Blog:

My Description: A blog maintained by the California-based firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Attorneys at Law. The firm practices mergers and acquisitions, securities and corporate finance practices, and securities litigation.

*The Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog:

Site’s description: Our weblog will provide updates on working papers, seminars, speakers, and other activities sponsored by the Program. The blog will also provide a forum for communications about corporate governance by individuals associated with the Program–faculty, fellows, and members of the Program’s advisory board–as well as by guest contributors and others.

*The Legal Intelligencer’s Special Supplements Section:

Site’s Description: “The supplements of The Legal Intelligencer provide our readers with in-depth coverage of the developments and trends occurring in Litigation and Real Estate, Environmental and Intellectual Property Law; track the hiring and promotion of associates and partners within the region's firms; and examine the experiences of such groups as women in the profession and first-year associates. Return to this page throughout the year to read all the supplements.”

*In addition, FindLaw.com’s recommended corporate and enterprise law blogs:

* Business Law Prof Blog By the law professor blog network.
* By No Other By D. C. Toedt.
* Corporate Law Notes
* Deal Attorney By Anthony Cerminaro.
* Franchise Law Blog By the Franchise & Distribution Practice Group of Wiggin & Dana.
* Law & Entrepreneurship News By Professor Gordon Smith and students at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
* Unincorporated Business Law Prof Blog By the law professor blog network.

>>Google-worthy Terms and Topics (as provided through the University of Cincinnati College of Law's “Securities Lawyer’s Deskbook”):

» Securities News provided by Google™

» Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Home
» SEC Proposed Rules
» Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
» PCAOB Rulemaking

» U.S. House Committee on Financial Services
» U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs

» New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
» National Association of Securities Dealers - Regulation (NASDR)
» American Stock Exchange (AMEX)
» World Stock Exchanges
» World Federation of Exchanges

» National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD)
» National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ)
» Investment Adviser Registration Depository (IARD)

» Investment Counsel Association of America (ICAA)
» Securities Industry Association (SIA)
» Investment Company Institute (ICI)
» Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)

» North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA)
» Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) » International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO)

» Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
» The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)

» Securities Class Action Clearinghouse (Stanford)
» Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA)
» The Sarbanes-Oxley Forum

» WSJ Law Blog
» SECLaw.com
» Securities Law Beacon
» The 10b-5 Daily
» The Securities Litigation Watch
» Business Law Prof Blog
» Corp Law Blog
» The Corporate Counsel.net Blog
» White Collar Crime Prof Blog
» M & A Law Prof Blog
» N.Y. Times Dealbook
» SOX First
» Sarbanes-Oxley Blog

Business and Corporate Law: Food For Thought

2008-03-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

>>People often forget that corporations exist within the realm of the everyday as much as individuals, governments, and small businesses, and thus are open to the same pratfalls in all aspects of law, especially battles over discrimination and defamation/libel. This blog from The Legal Intelligencer (which offers free subscription access over the Internet) illustrates how quickly such issues can transpire between a corporation and a disgruntled former employee and the use of broad-based knowledge of law and local jurisdiction in such a “big-picture” field as corporate law.

Blog This: Corporations, Defamation and the Internet

The Legal Intelligencer

By Robert C. Clothier

March 5, 2008

Editor's note: The people, companies and situations printed in italics in this story are fictional and represent hypothetical circumstances.

Increasingly, the law of defamation is being shaped by cases involving corporations, both for-profit and nonprofit, rather than traditional media defendants. The possibilities are broad and expanding. Companies can defame employees in the context of internal investigations, evaluations, firings and references. Employees, especially disgruntled ones, can likewise defame or harass their employer and fellow employees, wrecking reputations and morale. And companies can defame their competitors by disparaging others' products and services, leading to claims of trade libel, product disparagement and injurious falsehood.

Throw in the Internet and the proliferation of Web sites, blogs and e-mail, and you've got the potential for an explosion of such claims. Corporate counsel have plenty of reasons to be worried about what their company and its employees (or former employees) may be saying. Let's spin a series of not-too-unreal events to illustrate these risks and identify a number of misconceptions about libel law.

On her personal blog, Gladys Snoop, an employee at ML Capital Advisors, criticizes the top executive at the BS Fund: "In my opinion, Bradford Sterns was an incompetent idiot and should have been fired."

Is this defamatory? Very possibly. To be actionable defamation, there must be a false statement of fact. While there is no federal constitutional protection for opinion — a misconception of libel law — statements that are non-factual, such as rhetorical hyperbole or satire, or those that amount to pure opinion are not actionable. Here, the problem is that Snoop may have implied undisclosed defamatory facts about Sterns' incompetence, thereby turning her statement from pure opinion to a mixed opinion –– opinion and fact — that can form the basis of a defamation claim.

Gladys Snoop then adds: "Someone told me that Bradford Sterns ordered his people to deceive clients about collateralized debt obligation (CDO) risk while telling traders to hedge the firm's own subprime exposure."

Snoop's statement makes a factual assertion that is clearly defamatory and that, if false, could form the basis for a defamation action. Snoop was merely repeating what she heard from someone else, so she can't be held liable, right? Wrong, and another misconception of libel law. Under the republication rule of libel law, a person who repeats an allegedly defamatory statement is deemed to have endorsed the statement and can be held responsible for it.

Can the BS Fund sue Snoop for what she said about Bradford Sterns? No. Defamatory statements made about an employee do not defame the employer, and vice versa. Can Bradford Sterns sue ML for the accusation made by its employee, Gladys Snoop? Only if the employee was acting with the authority or on behalf of the employer. Here, since Snoop is making statements on her personal blog and on her own time, ML should not bear liability for what she said. And an employer can never be held responsible for a punitive damages award unless it endorsed or ratified what the employee said.

ML's head of human resources finds out about Snoop's blog, fires Snoop and sends her a letter saying: "Because you have violated ML's policies and made deliberately false statements to others, you are fired, effective immediately."

Is the letter from ML to Snoop defamation? No — at least not yet. The letter was sent to Snoop only, and there has been no publication to a third party. And, under Pennsylvania law, an employer has an absolute privilege to notify an employee of the basis for her dismissal.

But what if Snoop later reveals the reason for her firing to a prospective employer? In some jurisdictions, the doctrine of compelled self-publication could create liability for the employee's subsequent, compelled publication of the allegedly false reasons for the termination. Many courts around the country have strongly criticized this theory of liability, and it is not the law in Pennsylvania.

What if ML's human resources department provides a reference to her prospective employer that includes the reasons Snoop was fired? Under a 2005 Pennsylvania statute, employers are immune from civil liability for disclosing job performance information about a current or former employee to a prospective employer unless the employee can show, by clear and convincing evidence, the employer's lack of good faith in providing the reference. While this may sound like solid protection for the employer, it isn't. Simple negligence — albeit clear and convincing evidence of negligence — is sufficient to establish lack of good faith.

After sending the termination letter to Snoop, ML's HR person e-mails a copy of it to a distribution group of ML employees.

Could this publication of the termination letter be considered defamatory? Possibly. Intra-corporate communications are conditionally privileged in Pennsylvania, depending on whether there was a reason for those on the ML distribution list to know this information — why Snoop was terminated. Since that is likely not the case here, the privilege is lost. Companies must be scrupulously careful in determining who is allowed access to potentially defamatory information about employees.

ML, desperate to stop Snoop from saying anything about the company or its business, files a complaint with the local police, alleging — falsely — that Snoop has trespassed on company property and made harassing telephone calls to ML's employees.

Although the criminal complaint makes a defamatory accusation, it is not actionable. That is because ML's charges filed with the police are protected by the judicial proceedings privilege, an absolute privilege that cannot be defeated by the fact that ML's allegations were knowingly false or that ML was making the allegations solely to harm Snoop.

Snoop creates a new blog called "MLSucks" and posts anonymously. In one, she makes defamatory statements about ML and specifically criticizes ML's "big enchilada, whose mega-bucks pay package is his reward for nefarious dishonest dealings."

Can the big enchilada sue for defamation even though his name is never mentioned? Yes, under Pennsylvania law, you can defame someone without naming them, so long as a reasonable reader would understand the identity of the person. In this case, if ML only has one "big enchilada" with a "mega-bucks pay package," then that person would easily satisfy what is called the "of and concerning" requirement of libel law.

Can ML unmask the anonymous blogger? Anonymous bloggers have First Amendment protections, and most courts around the country have placed stringent limitations on a libel plaintiff's ability to discover their identities, essentially requiring that the plaintiff make out a prima facie libel case that would survive a motion for summary judgment — a difficult burden.

No Pennsylvania appellate court has directly addressed the issue, though several trial courts have adopted varying approaches. In one 2007 decision, Reunion Indus. v. Doe 1, Allegheny Court of Common Pleas Judge Stanton Wettick adopted the summary judgment standard.

If Snoop now blogs in California, can ML sue in Pennsylvania? To do so, ML must prove that Snoop expressly aimed her speech at Pennsylvania such that Pennsylvania is the focal point of the defamation. Since ML is based, and the big enchilada lives, in Pennsylvania, a Pennsylvania court likely would exercise jurisdiction over her.

Can ML get a court order shutting down Snoop's blog? Very unlikely, since this is considered a presumptively unconstitutional prior restraint, something the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn't do in the Pentagon Papers case. But a few intrepid trial courts around the country, angered by recalcitrant bloggers who won't stop, have shut down blogs in rulings of doubtful constitutionality.

Snoops' anonymous blog spurs an avalanche of third party postings, all making defamatory statements about ML.

Can ML sue Snoop for what these third party posters said about ML? No. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) gives immunity to a "provider or user" of an "interactive computer service" to the extent that they are deemed a "publisher or speaker" of information provided by another content provider. In other words, if a third party posts something on Snoop's blog, she can't be held responsible. This immunity applies even if Snoop made the decision to post the blog or edited its content, so long as she didn't materially change its meaning. ML, of course, can sue the third party posters assuming they can be identified and located.

ML's general counsel wants to send a message that the company goes after bloggers spewing defamatory material. She files a complaint suing Snoop for defamation, but she wants media attention. Her options are: (1) persuade the media folks to distribute the libel complaint against Gladys Snoop to the media, (2) talk to the media off the record, (3) do nothing and hope the media finds out.

Are ML and its lawyers at risk for what their libel complaint alleged about Snoop? No. Such complaints receive full protection by the judicial proceedings privilege.

But what happens if Snoop passes along the libel complaint to the press? Yes. That is an extrajudicial statement that is not protected by the absolute judicial proceedings privilege. Under the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling in Bochetto v. Gibson, however, Snoop would have a qualified privilege, just as a newspaper has a qualified privilege (the fair report privilege) to report on complaints filed in court.

And what about the reporter — could she be compelled to disclose Snoop as a confidential source? No. The Pennsylvania Shield Law provides an absolute privilege against the disclosure of confidential sources.

What lessons should companies learn from these scenarios? Here are a few:

• Companies need to establish blogging guidelines for employees. These guidelines should prohibit blogging during working hours and limit what employees can say on their blogs.

• Companies should set up stringent policies and procedures limiting who within the company receives potentially defamatory information about employees. Only those with a legitimate reason to know the information should receive such it.

• Companies should be wary about giving references. Even though they enjoy a statutory immunity and are also subject to a qualified privilege, these protections are not strong enough to prevent libel lawsuits or to dispose of them at an early stage in the litigation.

• Companies need to take steps to ensure that what it and its employees say publicly is truthful and non-defamatory. And if something inaccurate or inappropriate about the company is posted on a company or individual blog, companies need to get the material removed quickly. This requires vigilant monitoring.

Business and Corporate Law: Important Terms from Black's Law Dictionary

2008-03-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

*corporation: An entity (usually a business) having authority under law to act as a single person distinct from the shareholders who own it and having rights to issue stock and exist indefinitely;

a group or succession of persons established in accordance with legal rules into a legal or juristic person that has a legal personality distinct from the natural persons who make it up, exists indefinitely apart from them, and has the legal powers that its constitution gives it.

*C corporation: A corporation whose income is taxed through it rather than through its shareholders (the default status for non-S corporations).

*charitable corporation: A nonprofit corporation that is dedicated to benevolent purposes and thus entitled to special tax status under the Internal Revenue Code (see also: “nonprofit corporation”).

*close corporation: A corporation whose stock is not freely traded and is held by only a few shareholders (often within the same family). Requirements and privileges vary by jurisdiction.

*collapsible corporation: A corporation former to give a short-term venture the appearance of a long-term investment in order to portray income as a capital gain, rather than profit (usually formed for the sole purpose of purchasing property and usually dissolved before the property has generated substantial income).

*dummy corporation: A corporation whose only function is to hide the principal’s identity and to protect the principal from liability.

*parent corporation: A corporation that has a compelling interest in another corporation (called a “subsidiary corporation”), usually through ownership of more than one-half the voting stock.

*private corporation: A corporation founded by and composed of private individuals principally for a nonpublic purpose, such as manufacturing, banking and railroad corporations (including religious and charitable organizations).

*public corporation: A corporation whose shares are traded to and among the general public;

A corporation that is created by the state as an agency in the administration of civil government;

A government-owned corporation that engages in activities that benefit the general public, usually while remaining financially independent (managed by a publicly appointed board).

*registered corporation: A publicly held corporation a security of which is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

*S corporation: A corporation whose incomes is taxed through its shareholders rather than through the corporation itself (only corporations with a limited number of shareholders can elect such status).

*shell corporation: A corporation that has no active business and usually exists in name only as a vehicle for another company’s business operations.

*small-business corporation: A corporation having no more than 75 shareholders and otherwise satisfying the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code provisions permitting a subchapter S election;

A corporation receiving money for stock (as a contribution to capital and paid-in surplus) totaling not more than $1M, and otherwise satisfying the requirements of IRC Sec. 1244(c), thereby enabling shareholders to claim an ordinary loss on worthless stock.

*corporate citizenship: Corporate status in the state of incorporation, though a corporation is not a constitutional citizen for the purposes of the Priveleges and Immunities Clauses in Article IV, Sec. 2 and in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

*corporate purpose: The general scope of the business objective for which a corporation was created. A statement of corporate purpose is commonly required in the articles of incorporation.

*corporate veil: The legal assumption that the acts of a corporation are not the actions of its shareholders, so that the shareholders are exempt from liability for the corporations actions.

General Membership Meeting

2008-02-12T23:25:00.000-08:00

The SBPL will be holding our first general membership meeting of the spring semester Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 1 PM in SAC 311. We hope to see you there!!

Recent Law Related Articles

2008-01-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

Greetings All,

The following is a number of articles recent published on the state of the legal profession. While these articles are not all together encouraging, especially for such young guns as ourselves, it is useful and important to know what we are all getting our selves into, and to make sure we are confident in our choice to pursue law. Enjoy the read, and remember not to freak out.

optimistically,

Alexander Sand

***************************
The Falling-Down Professions
Harry Campbell
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: January 6, 2008

YOU can’t say law firms aren’t trying.

ANY OBJECTIONS? The careers of real-life lawyers are often less
glamorous and satisfying than those portrayed by their television
counterparts in shows like “L.A. Law.” "Ally McBeal" "Boston Legal"

At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a
“happiness committee,” offering candy apples and milkshakes to
brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. Perhaps this will
serve as an example to other firms, which studies show lose, on average,
nearly a fifth of their associates in any given year, in an industry in
which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at
some point in their careers.

Last year, Cravath, Swaine & Moore tried a more direct approach,
offering associates an added bonus of as much as $50,000, on top of
regular annual bonuses that range from $35,000 to $60,000.

At the august Sullivan & Cromwell, partners in 2006 began a program,
groundbreaking in white-shoe firms, encouraging the uttering of “thank
you” and “good work” to harried underlings, as reported in The
Wall Street Journal.

Probably not a bad move at a firm that had been hemorrhaging associates
at a rate of about 30 percent a year. (The rate dipped below 25 percent
in the year after the program was started, although Fred Rich, a
partner, said better etiquette was simply an element in a “very broad
agenda” focused on more open communication.)

So now who’s going to cheer up the doctors?

As of 2006, nearly 60 percent of doctors polled by the American College
of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine
because of low morale, and nearly 70 percent knew someone who already
had.

In a typical complaint, Dr. Yul Ejnes, 47, a general internist in
Cranston, R.I., said he was recently forced by Medicare to fill out
requisition forms for a wheelchair-bound patient who needed to replace
balding tires. “I’m a doctor,” he said, “not Mr. Goodwrench.”

Make no mistake, law and medicine - the most elite of the traditional
professions - have always been demanding. But they were also
unquestionably prestigious. Sure, bankers made big money and professors
held impressive degrees.

But in the days when a successful career was built on a number of
tacitly recognized pillars - outsize pay, long-term security, impressive
schooling and authority over grave matters - doctors and lawyers were
perched atop them all.

Now, those pillars have started to wobble.

“The older professions are great, they’re wonderful,” said
Richard Florida, the author of “The Rise of the Creative Class: And
How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life”
(Basic Books, 2003). “But they’ve lost their allure, their status.
And it isn’t about money.”

OR at least, it is not all about money. The pay is still good
(sometimes very good), and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining.
Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career
experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center
of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”

In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward - where professional
heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites - some doctors
and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting
toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It’s not
just because the professions have changed, but also because the
standards of what makes a prestigious career have changed.

This decline, Mr. Florida argued, is rooted in a broader shift in
definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars.
Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably
linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to
seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago.

“There used to be this idea of having a separate work self and home
self,” he said. “Now they just want to be themselves. It’s almost
as if they’re interviewing places to see if they fit them.”

Indeed, applications to law schools and medical schools have declined
from recent highs. Nationally, the number of law school applicants
dropped to 83,500 in 2006 from 98,700 in 2004-representing a 6.7 percent
drop between 2006 and 2005, on top of the 5.2 percent slip the previous
year, according to the Law School Admission Council.

(Maybe they’ve been talking to actual lawyers. Forty-four percent of
lawyers recently surveyed by the American Bar Association said they
would not recommend the profession to a young person.)

The number of applicants to medical school, meanwhile, has dipped to
42,000 from 46,000 in 1997, although it has recovered from a low of
33,000 in 2003.

Students are focusing now on starring in their own creations, their own
start-up businesses, said Trudy Steinfeld, the executive director of the
Wasserman Center for Career Development at New York University.

“There’s a sexiness to starting something cool,” she said. “Now
we have people trying to start a Facebook or a MySpace. You might be
working like a maniac, but it’s going to pay off in status. You’re
going to be famous, providing something people are going to know and use
all over the world.”

Unquestionably, many doctors and lawyers still find the higher calling
of their profession - helping people - as well as the prestige and
money, worth the hard work. And the stars in either field are still
that: commanding the handsome compensation and social cachet. But to
others, the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the
entrepreneur’s autonomy simply can’t be found in law or medicine.

“We’d all seen the visions, watching ‘L.A. Law,’ or ‘Ally
McBeal,’” said Catherine Kersh, 32, a former litigator at a large
firm in Los Angeles. “It did seem glamorous.”

Reality, she quickly learned, was different. Ms. Kersh recalled a
two-week stretch in which she and a team of associates were holed up in
a conference room with 50 boxes of documents. Every day, for 12 hours,
they fastened Post-it notes to legal briefs.

“You look around at the other associates, trying to remind ourselves,
why did we go to law school?” said Ms. Kersh, who now works for a
nonprofit group that administers scholarships.

Many young associates, she added, spent their lunch hours making lavish
purchases on NeimanMarcus.com, just to remind themselves that what they
did counted for something.

Life, in fact, was less like “Ally” and more like “The
Practice,” where lawyers work like dogs in a thoroughly unglamorous
setting.

Nor does hard work guarantee success. “With law firms merging, fewer
people are making partner,” said Carolyn Elefant, a lawyer in
Washington who writes for Law.com, a legal news and information Web
site.

In 2005, the number of equity partners at law firms grew by 2.5
percent, compared with 4.5 percent five years earlier, according to a
study by Citi Private Bank. And even if you make partner, the work
doesn’t lessen.

“Partners now are often billing as many hours as the associates,
because of the enormous growth of law firms,” Ms. Elefant said.
“There’s a huge overhead. The demand for global practice means
many partners having to be available to clients around the clock.”

As firms demand ever more billable hours, said Lawrence J. Fox, a
partner in the Philadelphia office of Drinker Biddle & Reath, lawyers
find less time for pro bono work - the very thing that once gave them a
sense of higher calling. Increased competitive pressures also mean that
young associates are often locked into arcane sub-specialties, like
pharmaceutical product liability.

Doctors face similar pressure. Complaints about managed care crimping
doctors’ income and authority over medical decisions are nothing new,
but the problems are only getting worse, several doctors said.

“Remember the ‘I Love Lucy’ episode in the chocolate factory?”
said Dr. Ejnes in Rhode Island. “That’s what a medical practice is
now like. They keep turning up the speed on the conveyer belt, and
before you know it, you’re stuffing chocolates in your pockets.”

One doctor responding to the American College of Physician Executives
survey wrote: “I find it necessary about once every month or two to
stay in bed for 24 to 48 hours. I do this on short notice when I get the
feeling I might punch somebody.”

Increasing workloads and paperwork might be tolerable if the old
feeling of authority were still the same, doctors said. But patients who
once might have revered them for their knowledge and skill often arrive
at the office armed with a sense of personal expertise, gleaned from a
few hours on www.WebMD.com, doctors said, not to mention a disdain for
the medical system in general.

“If the topic comes up in cocktail party talk, you’ll hear
nightmare stories from people as they’ve gone through the system -
‘they gave me the wrong pill,’ et cetera,” said Dr. Gregg
Broffman, 57, a former pediatrician who is now a medical director of a
primary care group in Buffalo. “In terms of my own self-esteem, it
feels like a personal attack.”

EVEN the language of contemporary medicine has eroded the physician’s
sense of majesty.

“What irritates me the most is the use of the term ‘provider,’”
said Dr. Brian A. Meltzer, an internist in Pennington, N.J., who now
practices pro bono on the side, but works full time for Johnson &
Johnson’s venture capital division. “We didn’t go to provider
school.”

Making the erosion of cachet more acute is the fact that unlike law
schools or medical schools, flashier industries recruit heavily on top
college campuses, said Lauren A. Rivera, a sociology graduate student
and an instructor at Harvard who studies career choice among students.

“Investment banking and consulting firms have a huge presence;
they’re barging in from before first day of classes,” Ms. Rivera
said. “The messages they convey appeals to every undergraduate
fantasy: this is a continuation of prestige education, this is the only
valuable way to finish your education. You’ll work with the smartest
people and the most exciting, high-profile clients.”

And then there is, yes, the money issue. Or rather, money envy.
Associates at major New York firms often start at $150,000 to $180,000,
said Bill Coleman, the chief compensation officer at Salary.com, a
company that tracks income statistics. Partners at the country’s
biggest 100 firms took home an average of $1.2 million in 2006,
according to American Lawyer.

Hardly small sums, but for many senior investment bankers, bonuses and
salaries this year will average $2.25 million to $2.75 million,
according to Options Group, an executive search and consulting firm.

Doctors rarely approach such heights. While income varies widely, a
typical physician might earn $150,00 to $300,000, according to
Salary.com data. A surgeon might make $250,000 to $400,000; hot-shot
surgeons can earn $750,000 a year, and superstars over a million
dollars.

But absolute numbers are not the only issue, Mr. Coleman said.

The professions still largely award income in the traditional sense - a
set, orderly progression, over the course of decades. Careers in more
entrepreneurial industries like hedge funds and private equity firms
follow the sky-is-the-limit model of the entertainment industry, the Web
or professional sports.

Kevin J. Delaney, a sociology professor at Temple University who has
studied the culture of hedge funds and private equity firms, said
executives there “love the idea of being responsible for their own
fate.”

They’re going to make a million or lose a million based on the trades
they make,” he said.

Many firms are so small, he added, that “you go there, it’s one
floor, and 10 people sitting around the room, six of them making
millions of dollars.”

This star-system mentality is particularly attractive to college
students, many of whom were reared with the ’80s philosophy that every
child was a potential superstar, Mr. Coleman said. And they want
immediate rewards - not exactly the mentality that will fuel a student
through years of medical school, a residency and additional training for
a specialty.

“Their attention span, everything, is instant feedback: quick, quick,
quick,” Mr. Coleman said. “Apprenticeship, these kids don’t want
to do it.”

**********************************************

Job Market Wanes for US Lawyers
PAGE ONE

Hard Case: Job Market
Wanes for U.S. Lawyers
Growth of Legal Sector
Lags Broader Economy;
Law Schools Proliferate
By AMIR EFRATI
September 24, 2007; Page A1

A law degree isn't necessarily a license to print money these days.

For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better.
Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as
$160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a
supply-and-demand imbalance that's suppressing pay and job growth. The
result: Graduates who don't score at the top of their class are
struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts
that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work,
reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And
many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the
dark side of the job market.
[See More Data on Law School]

The law degree that Scott Bullock gained in 2005 from Seton Hall
University -- where he says he ranked in the top third of his class --
is a "waste," he says. Some former high-school friends are earning
considerably more as plumbers and electricians than the $50,000-a-year
Mr. Bullock is making as a personal-injury attorney in Manhattan. To
boot, he is paying off $118,000 in law-school debt.
[Scott Bullock]

"Unfortunately, some find the practice of law is not for them," Seton
Hall's associate dean, Kathleen Boozang, said through a spokeswoman.
"However, it is our experience that a legal education is a tremendous
asset for a variety of professional paths."

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector,
after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and
1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2%
since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according
to Commerce Department data.

Some practice areas have declined in recent years: Personal-injury and
medical-malpractice cases have been undercut by state laws limiting
class-action suits, out-of-state plaintiffs and payouts on damages.
Securities class-action litigation has declined in part because of a
buoyant stock market.

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in
part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants
after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic
year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for
2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are
starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they
are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and
classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited
schools increased by 11%, to 196.

Evidence of a squeezed market among the majority of private lawyers in
the U.S., who work as sole practitioners or at small firms, is growing.
A survey of about 650 Chicago lawyers published in the 2005 book "Urban
Lawyers" found that between 1975 and 1995 the inflation-adjusted average
income of the top 25% of earners, generally big-firm lawyers, grew by
22% -- while income for the other 75% actually dropped.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the inflation-adjusted
average income of sole practitioners has been flat since the mid-1980s.
A recent survey showed that out of nearly 600 lawyers at firms of 10
lawyers or fewer in Indiana, wages for the majority only kept pace with
inflation or dropped in real terms over the past five years.
[Slow Motion]

The news isn't any better for the 14% of new lawyers who go into
government or join public-interest firms. Inflation-adjusted starting
salaries for graduates who go to work for public-interest firms or the
government rose 4% and 8.6%, respectively, between 1994 and 2006,
according to the National Association for Law Placement, which
aggregates graduate surveys from law schools. That compares with at
least an 11% jump in the median family income during the same period,
according to the Census Bureau. Graduates who become in-house company
lawyers, about 9%, have fared better: Their salaries rose by nearly 14%
during the same period.

Many students "simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to
support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York
Law School, in 2005, concluding that, "We may be reaching the end of a
golden era for law schools."

Meanwhile, the prospects for big-firm lawyers are growing richer. While
offering robust minimum salaries, those firms are paying astronomical
amounts to their stars.

Now, debate is intensifying among law-school academics over the
integrity of law schools' marketing campaigns. Defenders argue that the
legal profession always has been openly and proudly a meritocracy: Top
entrance-exam scores help win admittance to top schools where top
students win jobs at top firms. Even the system that is used to issue
law-school grades -- a curve that pits student against student --
reflects the law profession's competitiveness.

David Burcham, dean of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, considered
second-tier, says the school makes no guarantees to students that they
will obtain jobs. He says it is problematic that big firms only
interview the top of the class, "but that's the nature of the employment
market; it's never been different."

For the majority of students and alumni, he says, Loyola "turned out to
be a good investment."

Yet economic data suggest that prospects have grown bleaker for all but
the top students, and now a number of law-school professors are calling
for the distribution of more-accurate employment information. Incoming
students are "mesmerized by what's happening in big firms, but clueless
about what's going on in the bottom half of the profession," says
Richard Sander, a law professor at the University of California-Los
Angeles who has studied the legal job market.

"Prospective students need solid comparative data on employment
outcomes, [but] very few law schools provide such data," adds Andrew
Morriss, a law professor at the University of Illinois who has studied
the market for new lawyers.

Students entering law school have little way of knowing how tight a job
market they might face. The only employment data that many prospective
students see comes from school-promoted surveys that provide a
far-from-complete portrait of graduate experiences. Tulane University,
for example, reports to U.S. News & World Report magazine, which
publishes widely watched annual law-school rankings, that its law-school
graduates entering the job market in 2005 had a median salary of
$135,000. But that is based on a survey that only 24% of that year's
graduates completed, and those who did so likely represent the cream of
the class, a Tulane official concedes.

On its Web site, the school currently reports an average starting
salary of $96,356 for graduates in private practice but doesn't include
what percentage of graduates reported salaries for the survey.
[Debtors' Prison]

"It's within most individuals' nature to keep that information private,
unless it's a high amount," says Carlos Dávila-Caballero, assistant dean
for career development at Tulane, who adds that his office tells
prospective students to use the median figure as a guide because
starting salaries vary widely.

Academics who have studied new-lawyer salaries say that the graduate
surveys of many law schools are skewed by higher response rates from the
most successful students. The National Association for Law Placement,
which aggregates and publishes national data based on those surveys,
concedes that it can't vouch for their accuracy. "We can't validate the
figures; we have to rely on schools to report to us accurately," says
Judy Collins, NALP's director of research.

A prospective student studying NALP data might conclude that the study
of law is a sure path to financial security. For 2006 graduates who
entered private practice, or nearly 60%, NALP shows a national median
salary of $95,000, a rise of 40%, adjusted for inflation, from 1994
graduates.

The NALP data also show that the percentage of graduates employed in
private practice has been steady, fluctuating between 55% and 58% for
more than a decade. But in law schools' self-published employment data,
"private practice" doesn't necessarily mean jobs that improve long-term
career prospects, for that category can include lawyers working under
contract without benefits, such as Israel Meth. A 2005 graduate of
Brooklyn Law School, he earns about $30 an hour as a contract attorney
reviewing legal documents for big firms. He says he uses 60% of his
paycheck to pay off student loans -- $100,000 for law school on top of
$100,000 for the bachelor's degree he received from Columbia
University.

A glossy admissions brochure for Brooklyn Law School, considered
second-tier, reports a median salary for recent graduates at law firms
of well above $100,000. But that figure doesn't reflect all incomes of
graduates at firms; fewer than half of graduates at firms responded to
the survey, the school reported to U.S. News. On its Web site, the
school reports that 41% of last year's graduates work for firms of more
than 100 lawyers, but it fails to mention that that percentage includes
temporary attorneys, often working for hourly wages without benefits,
Joan King, director of the school's career center, concedes.

Ms. King says she believes the figures for her school accurately
represent the broader graduating class. She says the number of contract
attorneys is "minimal" but declined to give a number.

The University of Richmond School of Law in the last couple of years
started to be more open about its employment statistics; it now breaks
out how many of its grads work as contract attorneys. Of 57 2006
graduates working in private practice, for example, seven were contract
employees nine months after graduation. Schools "should be sharing more
information than they are now," says Joshua Burstein, associate dean for
career services who put the changes in place. "Most people graduating
from law school," he says, "are not going to be earning big salaries."

Adding to the burden for young lawyers: Tuition growth at law schools
has almost tripled the rate of inflation over the past 20 years, leading
to higher debt for students and making starting salaries for most
graduates less manageable, especially in expensive cities. Graduates in
2006 of public and private law schools had borrowed an average of
$54,509 and $83,181, up 17% and 18.6%, respectively, from the amount
borrowed by 2002 graduates, according to the American Bar Association.

Students taking on such debt may feel reassured by incessant press
reports of big firms scrambling to hire and keep associates. Making
headlines this year was a bump up in big-firm starting salaries to
$160,000 from $145,000 in many cities.

And indeed, some law graduates of lower-tier schools do find
high-paying private-practice law jobs. In recent years big firms have
boomed thanks in part to the globalization of business and Wall Street
deal making; firms have been casting a wider net for new lawyers, though
they still generally restrict their recruiting at lower-tier schools to
students at the very top of the class or on the law review. Some
students have leads on a job at a family member's or friend's practice.

But just as common -- and much less publicized -- are experiences such
as that of Sue Clark, who this year received her degree from second-tier
Chicago-Kent College of Law, one of six law schools in the Chicago area.
Despite graduating near the top half of her class, she has been unable
to find a job and is doing temp work "essentially as a paralegal," she
says. "A lot of people, including myself, feel frustrated about the lack
of jobs," she says.

Harold Krent, Chicago-Kent's dean, said it's not uncommon for new
lawyers to wait a few months to more than a year to find a job that's a
good fit. He added that there is a "small spike" in employment after his
school's grads receive their bar-exam results, several months after
graduation, because some firms wait until then before hiring.

The market is particularly tough in big cities that boast numerous law
schools. Mike Altmann, 29, a graduate of New York University who went to
Brooklyn Law School, says he accumulated $130,000 in student-loan debt
and graduated in 2002 with no meaningful employment opportunities -- one
offer was a $33,000 job with no benefits. So Mr. Altmann became a
contract attorney, reviewing electronic documents for big firms for
around $20 to $30 an hour, and hasn't been able to find higher-paying
work since.

Some un- or underemployed grads are seeking consolation online, where
blogs and discussion boards have created venues for shared commiseration
that didn't exist before. An anonymous writer called Loyola 2L,
purportedly a student at Loyola Law School, who claims the school wasn't
straight about employment prospects, has been beating a drum of
discontent around the Web in the past year that's sparked thousands of
responses, and a fan base. ("2L" stands for second-year law student.)
Some thank "L2L" for articulating their plight; others claim L2L should
complain less and work more. Loyola's Dean Burcham says he wishes he
knew who the student was so he could help the person. "It's expensive to
go to law school, and there are times when you second-guess yourself as
a student," he says.

Some new lawyers try to hang their own shingle. Matthew Fox Curl
graduated in 2004 from second-tier University of Houston in the bottom
quarter of his class. After months of job hunting, he took his first job
working for a sole practitioner focused on personal injury in the
Houston area and made $32,000 in his first year. He quickly found that
tort-reform legislation has been "brutal" to Texas plaintiffs' lawyers
and last year left the firm to open up his own criminal-defense private
practice.

He's making less money than at his last job and has thought about
moving back to his parents' house. "I didn't think three years out I'd
be uninsured, thinking it's a great day when a crackhead brings me
$500."

--Mark Whitehouse contributed to this article.

Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com

Happy Holidays

2008-01-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everyone!! Enjoy your break.

Also, keep in mind that if you are looking for summer employment or internships, now is the time to apply. So work those networking skills!!

Final Meeting of 2007 (Mock Trial Project & Sports Representation)

2007-12-12T02:55:00.001-08:00

To all fellow members of the Stony Brook University community,

I invite any and all who are interested to attend the Stony Brook Pre-Law (SBPL) meeting today at 8:30PM.

Today's meeting agenda includes:

+ a presentation on sports and athletic representation

+ an introduction of the new Mock Trial Subcommittee

+ a layout of plans for the first full semester of SBPL

+ information about the Kaplan-sponsored raffle

This will be our second official meeting of SBPL this semester, our first with an approved constitution, and the last of the year 2007.

We will be meeting in room 309 of the Student Activities Center. Once again that is at 8:30PM.

I encourage all who are even the least bit curious to feel free to attend.

Wishing you all good luck on finals,

Kevin Brady, Stony Brook Pre-Law Vice-President

Holiday Book Recommendations from VP Kevin Brady

2007-12-05T00:11:00.000-08:00

Law 101: Every You Need to Know About the American Legal System
Author: Jay M. Feinman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Released: July 27, 2006

Feeling out of the loop on the Law? Looking to brush up or dive right into the jury pool? Got a relative, friend, or special person who just doesn’t get all this law stuff you talk about every waking hour and wants to learn (we should all be so lucky)? A popular read since its first release, Law 101 is a particularly great primer for pre-law students, covering the basic introductory fields of first-year law school (property law, criminal procedure, torts, constitutional law, etc.) using famous cases (the McDonald's elderly woman vs. spilled coffee lawsuit, for one) to underscore basic facets of American law.

Law School Confidential (Revised Edition): A Complete Guide to the Law School Experience: By Students, for Students
Author: Robert H. Miller
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Released: January 1, 2004

Described by The Houston Lawyer as “a must for anyone attending or thinking about law school,” that endorsement alone seems to make the grade for a mention on this blog. Author Mr. Miller, now practicing law in New Hampshire’s Queen City (Manchester for all non-New Englanders), pools retroactive advice from former students of law schools at Harvard, Vanderbilt, University of Pennsylvania and others to offer a lived-in and breathed-in testimonial into law school and all the processes it entails. LSATs, bar exams, first semester testing; advise regarding the examinations alone makes this a worthwhile read. On top, there are personal windows about the other side of the equation: paying for it all. That’s not to mention pointers on how to mentally adjust to being surrounded by the Law and the Law alone for what is likely the first time in your life.

A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country
Author: Larry J. Sabato
Publisher: Walker & Company
Released: October 2, 2007

For those of you who are political junkies like myself, read no further (I will see you at the church basement meeting next week and you can tell me what you already think of this book). For those who are not, Larry J. Sabato has grown into quite the political prognosticator and analyst, both on the Internet and television, and now evidently in print as well. As director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and thus in the middle of the latest “purple state” du jour of establishment media and politicians alike, Sabato has taken the bold and refreshing step of putting in his two cents on a subject that could the use even the dullest of copper shine: constitutional reform. Yes, most of these proposals do not have a shot in Hell. Others have been bandied about for years by the grey beards of the U.S. Senate for some time (Warren Rudman and the Balanced Budget Amendment, we mean you). But to read a personal and optimistic pondering of what our nation could be is something that is rarely done nowadays, especially in the circles of government and law. It is in Mr. Sabato’s contagious optimism and yearning to spark debate that lies the real incentive to read A More Perfect Constitution.

Black’s Law Dictionary (Pocket), Third Edition
Author: Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: Thomson West
Released: June 22, 2006

Let’s face it, this guide’s description sells itself:

Arguably the most valuable reference tool available to the legal community, Black's Pocket Dictionary provides more than 10,000 clear, concise, and precise definitions. The essential companion dictionary to the Standard edition and as a stand-alone tool, Black's Pocket Dictionary also includes a dictionary guide and the complete U.S. Constitution. Black’s is cited more than any other legal dictionary, comes recommended by law faculty, and is available in the pocket format and a variety of other useful editions.

P.S. – And yes, John Ventura has penned a Law for Dummies, published by the For Dummies series and released February 5, 2005. But wasn’t that obvious?

P.P.S. – For those needing law in their fiction, John Grisham does have a new novel out, but it’s a finding-yourself-again story about a U.S. football player seeking solace in Italy and laced with language Publishers Weekly dubbed “food porn” (though overall they apparently liked the novel). In other words, it isn’t much caring about the law. If you have never read Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird or Truman Capote's In Cold Blood consider this your window. Published in 1960 and 1959 respectively, and the winners of multiple literary prizes, there are perhaps no other works of fiction (penned by two real-live friends) that offer such direct perspectives into the average person’s outside perspective of the Law, the emotion at work behind it, and its effect on the lives of ordinary people.

Meeting synopsis: Inaugural general body meeting

2007-12-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

Date & Time: November 14th 2007 at 9:30 -10:30pm

Description:
What took place was essentially what was intended, namely:

(A) Personally get our message across to the members that attended the meeting (i.e. formally introduce the members of the e-board, explain the objectives and goals of the club, and introduce the constitution, underscoring particularly pertinent pieces)
(B) Hold a brief open forum for newly affiliated members to express any queries, concerns, and offer suggestions for improving the club.

Summary Thoughts: Despite the difficulties facing any new club yet to receive Student Activities’ recognition, SBPL was able to retain a room after all. Thanks to our generous compatriots at Business and Law, we were able to hold the two meetings simultaneously. The dynamic of give and take, share and hear, was unexpected and productive. A lot of unique ideas were aired. Overall, the meeting was a productive one, especially as inaugural first-runs go (when Disneyland first opened in 1955 almost nothing worked). The intimate space, as well as the conjunction with Business and Law, allowed for us to meet with students on similar career paths and prospective Pre-Law members alike.

P.S. - Thanks again to all those who came out to support the SBPL on it's "opening night."

Inaugural Meeting / Open House

2007-11-14T14:57:00.000-08:00

To all interested Stony Brook students,

We will be having our first general membership meeting Wednesday, November 14 at 9PM in the 3rd Floor Lounge of the Student Activity Center (SAC). Anyone who is interested in the Stony Brook Pre-Law society is more than welcome to stop by.

Hoping to see you there,

Kevin Brady, SBPL Vice-President

Update on Current Progress and Activities of the Club.

2007-10-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

Dear members,

My name is Alexander Sand, and I am the current president and co-founder of the Stony Brook Pre-Law club (SBPL) and I am thrilled to present to you our first report on the progress of the club so far.

Much of our activity over the semester so far has been behind the scenes, with the executive board focusing on completing organizational and bureaucratic necessities. We have accomplished quite a bit over the past month: we have written a constitution that will ensure the stability of the club and provide a solid base on which to grow, we have formed our extremely capable executive board, we have courted faculty advisers so that they may lend their considerable knowledge and influence to our cause, we have submitted to the registration process which will grant us the full rights of organizations come November, and, most importantly, we have been preparing and discussing how we may best serve you, the member.

It is in this last respect that we will continue forward, with the majority of our focus from here on being the many ways in which we plan serve the pre-law community including but not limited to: as a source for information, guidance, networking, and leadership opportunities. To this end we will begin posting various resources on the Facebook group (http://stonybrook.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22317026112), as well as here on our Blogspot page. Most importantly, we will be holding our first general membership meeting in the coming weeks, which will enable all of you to engage with the club, and allow you to voice any concerns or questions regarding the clubs formation, mission, and future. I look forward to meeting all of you (if we haven’t met already), and I cant tell you how excited I am to see what we can do!

Truly Yours,

Alexander Sand
SBPL President
asand@ic.sunysb.edu