The VLW Blog

The American Bar Association has told Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, that its role in accrediting law schools is to make sure that those schools produce graduates who can be lawyers, not to regulate the number of lawyers based on economic conditions.
Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote the ABA on July [...]

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Almost all the states in the nation, including Virginia, are turning out more lawyers than they need, according to a new study.
The New York Times reports that there were nearly twice as many lawyers who passed the bar than there were job openings, according to a nationwide study conducted by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc.
EMSI [...]

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President Barack Obama says  he plans to appoint University of Richmond law professor Azizah al-Hibri to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Members of the independent, bipartisan, federal commission are appointed by the president and leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Their principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances [...]

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Preston Mitchum had them laughing at his graduation ceremony at North Carolina Central University last week.
The law school grad was extolling the virtues of the “average” student, for whom procrastination was “not just a big word, but a way of life.”
The problem is that quite a few in the audience recognized the speech. It had [...]

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A year ago, it was the William & Mary Tribe unveiling a new mascot (the Griffin). Now the Spiders of the University of Richmond take the wraps off their new fuzzy symbol.
“WebstUR” was the choice of the UR community among three spider samples. He’s a muscular kind of spider with an aggressive expression, but not [...]

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Virginia’s eight law schools will begin a round of commencement exercises this weekend. The graduation speakers at the schools are an eclectic lot. Here’s a rundown of who will be offering comments at ceremonies across the commonwealth.
Appalachian School of Law. ASL will hold its commencement this coming weekend. On April 30, the speaker is former [...]

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The decision by the University of Maryland’s law school to change its name in exchange for a $30-million donation begs the question for law schools everywhere: what’s your name worth?
The Maryland school agreed to call itself the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in honor of the donor’s grandfather, according to a [...]

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The dean of one of Virginia’s eight law schools has rejected the idea that law school recruiting materials need to carry a disclaimer about job prospects.
“We are going through the worst legal job market in anyone’s memory,” William & Mary Dean Davison Douglas told the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association yesterday.
“It’s a tough time to be a [...]

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Those scamps at U.Va. law! First they embarrass the administration by wearing t-shirts mocking the employment prospects for law grads. Now, one unhappy 3L has crafted a model of the law school using rejection letters as construction materials.
Above the Law, naturally, was happy to oblige with publicity, including pictures of the handiwork.
-By Peter Vieth

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The economy may be showing subtle signs of recovery, but it’s still no picnic trying to turn your expected law degree into a good paying legal job, no matter where you’re enrolled. So it was that some U.Va. law students put their angst on display with T-shirts that read, “VIRGINIA LAW – $40,000 a year [...]

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