By Elizabeth Olson, New York Times

Law schools, which have been plagued by a shortfall of students in recent years, are changing their admissions requirements.

Two top-ranked schools — Georgetown University Law Center and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law — this week joined Harvard Law’s recent move to make it simpler to apply.  Applicants can submit the results of the more widely available Graduate Record Exam, the GRE, instead of those from the Law School Admissions Test, which long has been entrenched as the numeric gauge of law school success.

Many law schools are casting wider nets to attract students who would not otherwise set their sights on a legal education. The schools hope that by making it easier for the engineers, scientists and mathematicians who typically take only the GRE, more of them will enroll. With the two this week, there are now four law schools, including the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, that admit students with GRE scores.

Full Article

By: Christine Simmons, New York Law Journal

Despite perennial complaints among associates about life in Big Law, a combination of rising paychecks, greater attention to associate satisfaction and a more cautious lateral market may be keeping young lawyers at their firms longer.

On average, 16 percent of associates left their firms in 2016, compared with 20 percent in 2015, according to NALP Foundation data for its Update on Associate Attrition Study.

That's the lowest attrition rate in the last four years of the study, according to the NALP Foundation, which gathers information on law firm associate departures from firms of all sizes in the United States and Canada.

Gretta Rusanow, head of advisory services at Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group, said law firms are repeatedly reporting this year that associate attrition is falling, driven in part by widespread salary increases that were sparked when first-year associate pay at leading New York firms rose by $20,000 to $180,000 last year.

Full Article

By: Stephanie Francis Ward, ABA Journal

The requirement that ABA-accredited law schools use some sort of entrance exam in the admissions process hampers innovation and does little to guide schools toward the admission of students capable of mastering legal education and passing a bar exam, according to a group of law school deans.

The six deans–who include Erwin Chemerinsky, now at the University of California Berkeley School of Law; Daniel B. Rodriguez of Northwestern University; and Blake Morant of George Washington University–submitted their statement (PDF) focusing on whether the council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar should devise a process to validate non-LSAT entrance exams. The public hearing took place Thursday in Chicago.

Full Article

By: Ian Lopez, Legaltech News

In almost every sense, technology has changed the way we both provide and consume information. The same is currently happening in legal services , albeit slowly.

Mark Klein, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Marketfield Asset Management, said he's been watching this advancement for the past 25 years of his career. Along with this change, he said, has come change to the demands of consumers—for law firms to provide services that are " more efficient, more cost-effective and timelier."

At Thomson Reuters' Law Firm CFO/CIO/COO Forum , Klein partook in a panel aptly titled "Exploring Future Drivers of Change in Legal Services—Defining Client Expectations." Here, corporate and law firm professionals discussed technology's role in the changing nature of delivering and receiving legal services, as well as shopping for them.

Full Article

Arent Fox LLP will once again host an Evening at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, featuring General Counsel and Arent Fox Partner, Gerard Leval. 

This year’s event takes place on Tuesday, July 11 at 5:00 PM. Please inform your summer associates, interns and students. Thank you in advance for your help in publicizing the event. For questions, please contact Michelle Fowle at michelle.fowle@arentfox.com.

By Michelle Kim Hall, US News

Once you decide where to enroll in law school, you may be wondering how best to prepare for your first year – or 1L. Socratic lectures, casebooks, issue spotting, legal research, blind grading and a curve make law school different than what you encountered as an undergraduate. Your 1L grades are particularly important for summer employment positions, clerkships, eligibility for law review and class rank.

The summer before I began my law school journey at Harvard University, I bought Scott Turow's book "One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School." I still remember Turow's description of reading his first case as equivalent to "stirring concrete with my eyelashes."

I found that description so memorable because it was true for me. As an English major, I didn't have any experience reading cases to identify rules, rationale and holdings. I didn't know what a tort was or how civil procedure governed the adjudication of lawsuits. I was excited to find out, but I was nervous, too. I wish I had done more to prepare.

Today there are more resources available to rising 1Ls than ever before. While 1L prep courses can help you navigate your first year, keep in mind these benefits and drawbacks.

Full Article 

By: Elizabeth Olson, New York Times

Tim Ryan had been the United States chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers for about a week last year when five police officers in Dallas were killed by a sniper during a protest over police shootings of African-Americans in Minnesota and Louisiana.

A company email to reassure the accounting firm’s employees drew a response that stayed with Mr. Ryan. “The sender wrote that when he came to work, the silence about what happened was deafening,” Mr. Ryan recalled in an interview. “I knew this was something that hit on our leadership.”Less than three weeks later, thousands of employees sat down for a daylong discussion on race, he said.

It was a risky step, Mr. Ryan said, “because people have different views and often it’s the case that we don’t openly address these topics in the workplace, even though that’s where we spend the majority of our time.”After talking to fellow chief executives about the experience, Mr. Ryan began enlisting many to join a new initiative to foster more open discussion about race and gender in the workplace.

That new initiative, C.E.O. Action for Diversity and Inclusion, will announce on Monday that 150 corporate executives have committed to their companies’ encouraging their employees to discuss those sensitive topics. Procter & Gamble, New York Life, Accenture, Deloitte U.S. and the Boston Consulting Group are among the companies that have joined the alliance, of which Mr. Ryan is chairman.

Full Article

By: Linda R. Evers, Forbes

Attorneys are now using SMS (short message service) to communicate with clients and prospects. Before you start thinking that lawyers are on the cusp of a cutting-edge communications style, let me remind you that SMS is also known as text messaging. You may be wondering, “how does an article about texting fit into a discussion regarding the legal profession?” Because the law doesn't always keep up with reality.

As fellow members of the International Female Entrepreneur Association, Kendra Stephen and I recently discussed future trends in the legal profession, covering a variety of topics including attorney use of SMS. Kendra is the founder of hirealadylawyer.com, the only online directory dedicated solely to women attorneys.

Kendra has successfully used technology to turn her boutique law practice into an international virtual law firm. It's safe to say she's an early adopter and on the leading edge when it comes to leveraging technology to market her practice. Kendra is full of knowledge regarding modern law practice marketing and management. I would like to share some of the takeaways from our discussion on text message marketing and communication, as it is expected to become more visible in the legal industry.

Full Article

JOSE LUIS DAVILA GONZALEZ

By: Sara Randazzo, Wall Street Journal

California’s notoriously difficult bar exam has long been a point of pride among the state’s lawyers. Now it is prompting blowback. With passing rates hitting historic lows, the state’s law schools are pushing for a controversial change: lowering the score required to pass.

The educators argue that California holds graduates to an unreasonably high standard that no longer can be justified, especially as the price of law school skyrockets. Others say lowering the bar would pander to a recent cohort of law students with weak credentials, and that law schools should either raise their own standards or shut their doors.

The issue came to a head after the announcement that just 35% of takers passed the most recent California exam, given in February. Only 43% passed last July’s test, the lowest mark for the summer exam in more than three decades.

Full Article