Maryland Lawyer Blog

I've been a student or a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law for 15 of the last 18 years. Most of the time, UB has talked of taking a leap, moving the ball forward and rising up in the food chain of law schools. Frankly, is has been mostly two steps forward, two steps back.

Since new Dean Philip J. Closius has come aboard at UB, the school's arrow seems to be pointed consistently north. (I say "new." Dean Closius has been there for three years.) But the University of Baltimore's rise has coincided with a near collapse in the market for lawyers generally and newly minted lawyers in particular.

The Maryland Daily Record has a really good interview with Dean Closius in yesterday's edition. I call it really good because it is a real interview instead of the canned stuff you usually get from law school deans.

Going back to the title of this blog, Dean Closius gives an honest assessment in the interview of where salaries are for UB graduates: "The bulk of UB Law’s Class of 2010 started out making $60,000 a year, he says, with a small group making between $80,000 and $90,000 and four graduates making six figures."

A student once asked me what the best path would be to "make about $200,000 and not have to work real hard." This student was asking this question because she really had no clue. I think a part of being a better law school in 2010 is transparency. Let law students know what they can expect when they graduate and what they can expect if they do well after they graduate.

If you had told me just a few years ago that UB could be a top 50 law school in ten years, I would have thought you were insane. But it does not seem like such a crazy notion anymore.

"I don’t think medical malpractice reform is going to save any money — and even in this puzzle it’s only $13 billion over the next 25 years. But every time we start talking about health care costs there’s this shrieking about malpractice suits, and it just cuts off the conversation and gives people who don’t want to do anything an easy out."

-Gail Collins in the New York Times

The Maryland Board of Public Works signed off yesterday on a $913,000 settlement with the Baltimore Orioles. The deal includes a modification of the lease to the Orioles for Camden Yards so that the city will get 25% of the revenue from the advertisements located behind home plate in the ballpark for the remainder of the lease.

Comptroller Peter Franchot seems excited by the deal because "everyone else who negotiates with Mr. Angelos [Orioles owner Peter Angelos] gets nothing.” When you set the bar like that, it is pretty easy to get in a win. Hey, we had a dispute and we got something. In a related story, the Orioles will be unable to pick up that key, light-hitting, free agent that was going to lead them to the pennant a .500 record for the first time in fourteen years.

You can find the WBAL story here.

A San Diego Superior Court Judge resigned after admitting to the California Commission on Judicial Performance that she had secretly filmed her courtroom to make an audition tape in a desire to become the next Judge Judy. The Commission made clear what a mockery the judge made of the courtroom during her demo tapes: "while the cameras were rolling, the proceedings took on the atmosphere of a game show." Apparently, the judge even manipulated the trial schedule to best suit her taping, sending out an email that she would "line up my most interesting cases for the afternoon...."

Just a wild story. It is amazing that someone who was able to get a prestigious job on the bench would be so willing to burn her credibility like that. She may have been a good judge - who knows - but it is just an incredible lapse in judgment that should not go unpunished. You can get the full summary of the transcript of how the judge was playing to the camera. It really is worth reading for the entertainment value of watching this judge try to be Judge Judy on steroids. You can also find a full summary from Bruce Carton's post on the Legal Watch Blog.

We get a lot of traffic on this blog for law students looking to read about their bar results. When the Maryland bar exam results were coming out on Friday, we just got tons of traffic. The traffic has died off, naturally but continues strong. Who is it? Surely, it is not people looking to see if they passed the exam. I suspect it is curious ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends.

Listen, you ex-girlfriend passed the exam. You never should have dumped her. She is going places. Now, I'm not saying she has a job or anything; it is a tough economy. Still. You made a mistake.

"There must be a different rule that exists in [Appellee's lawyer's] kitchen where he cooks up these fringes unknown to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence or even Iran for that matter."

-Taken from Appellant's Maryland Court of Special Appeals brief in Mbakpuo v. Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank.

This Slate article points out the paradox of rising law school applications and students in a shrinking job market for lawyers which has to make some question, the Maryland bar results coming out soon, whether it would a be good a long term career move to fail the bar.