If you have been directed to this site by a search engine, check http://resipsablog.com for my latest posts.

Thanks!

Plaintiff has a great deal to say,
But it seems he skipped Rule 8(a).
His Complaint is too long,
Which renders it wrong,
Please re-write and re-file today.

The Seattle Times reports that the title alone covered eight pages, and it took another 18 pages just to identify the parties. The lawsuit includes 37 pages of quoted emails and a 224-page “odyssey” listing the claims for relief.

Sources: Seattle Times and ABA Journal

PreCYdent seeks to provide lawyers, law students, and the general public with free and easy access to legal authority. While WestLaw and Lexis are used primarily by paid subscribers, PreCYdent seeks to provide anyone who has access to the internet a single interface to find all the cases and statutes that are available online and are already in the public domain. However, because PreCYdent is a free service, it does not have the financial resources to license materials that are not already available in the public domain. Herein lies the key drawback to PreCYdent: it does not provide comprehensive coverage of the law. Currently, the coverage of cases on PreCYdent is limited to federal Court of Appeals cases going back to 1950, federal district court cases going back ten to fifteen years, and coverage for state courts varies based on what each court makes available online.

What PreCYdent does do, though, is provide excellent search results for the content and areas it covers. By default, the cases are ranked according to “authority” which basically means by number of times the cases were cited. Search results can also be organized in chronological order or based on the hierarchy of the court that wrote the opinion.

While users do not have to register to use PreCYdent, there are a number of unique features that are available only to registered users. For instance, registered users can rate cases on a five-star system, mark cases as relevant, add keyword “tags” to cases, as well as upload opinions, and statutes. There are also discussion pages where registered users can post comments or questions about cases or statutes. Additionally, PreCYdent has a professional networking feature that allows registered users to connect with other attorneys.

The ability to locate key cases on a given subject makes PreCYdent an excellent place to start a search. However, PreCYdent’s limited coverage means it is not a replacement for services like WestLaw and Lexis. With many new features though, PreCYdent.com will definitely be a site worth keeping an eye on.

My thanks to Professor Thomas A. Smith, cofounder of PreCYdent.com and a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, for taking the time to answer my questions about PreCYdent.

While the City of Dallas and the University of North Texas prepare to open the doors of the new law school in 2010, the proposal for the new law school has yet to receive legislative approval. In April 2007, the Texas Senate approved Senate Bill 105 authorizing the creation of the school, but the measure has yet to be approved by the House. A similar measure died in the House in 2005.

The announcement comes just days after the Associated Press reported on the growth of new law schools outpacing the number of jobs available to law students. A debate hosted by Robert Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams between Dean Chemerinsky (of Duke, who heading to the new UC Irvine) and Dean Guernsey (of Albany) on the issue of whether the nation has too many law schools can be found here.

In the majority opinion written by Justice Scalia, the Court held that the individual right to possess a firearm is unrelated to service in a militia, and instead, was a right to bear arms for “traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” In reaching its decision, the Court examined the language used in the Second Amendment, which provides: “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The majority noted that the operative clause used in the Second Amendment was the “right of the people to keep and bear [a]rms.” The Court determined the phrase “right of the people” referred to an individual right rather than a collective right. In dissecting the phrase “keep and bear arms,” the Court found “arms” traditionally referred to “weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not employed in a military capacity.” The majority also determined that the most natural meaning of the phrase “keep arms” was “have weapons.” The Court went on to note that every time the phrase “keep arms” was used in the founding era, the phrase referred to an individual right unconnected with militia service. Having addressed the operative clause, the Court went on to address the prefatory clause “[a] well regulated [m]ilitia being necessary to the security of a free [s]tate…” The majority found that the phrase “well-regulated militia” referred to every man who was physically capable of bearing arms. The majority also pointed out that “a militia” was distinguishable from the phrase “organized militia,” and that the phrase “well-regulated” meant only “the imposition of proper discipline and training.” The majority went on to note that the “security of a free state” referred to the “security of the polity” rather than the security of each of the several states. Having addressed each phrase in the pertinent portion of the Second Amendment, the majority concluded that the Second Amendment created an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Majority: Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito

Dissent: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer

1. Quicksilver
Quicksilver is a program launcher that uses simple commands to rapidly bring up any program, file, folder, or website. Quicksilver learns what files and programs are most often accessed and adapts so that those items are pulled up almost instantaneously when the user starts typing the name of the item in the Quicksilver interface.

For example, in screenshot below, I pulled up the Quicksilver interface with a single keystroke and then by typing in “ex” brought up Excel. Using the tab key I was able to bring up specific commands such as the option to open a specific excel document, move a document to another folder, or email a specific file. Quicksilver is very intuitive and allows users to execute specific commands so quickly that using the built-in OS X dock to open a program seems slow by comparison.

2. Anxiety

Anxiety brings the iCal task list to your desktop. It provides easy access to your to-do list so that tasks can be added or marked as complete without opening your full calendar. Anxiety stays in sync with iCal and disappears when not in use.

3. Caffeine

OS X has a great power saving feature built-in: after a short period of inactivity the screen automatically dims. Caffeine allows you to turn this feature on and off with a single click so that presentations can be run without interruption. It also prevents your Mac from going to sleep or starting the screensaver.

4. Growl

Growl provides unobtrusive notification messages from various programs that run on OS X, including Adium, Firefox, and iTunes. They simply pop up as semi-transparent notifications on the top right corner of your screen and then disappear.

5. Adium

Adium is by far the best instant messaging program I have ever used. You can seamlessly send messages to your friends using various protocols including AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and MSN Messenger. Adium also supports tabbed conversations so you can keep all your conversations in a single window.

6. Smultron

While there are a number of free text editors available for OS X, my favorite is Smultron. Smultron allows you to have multiple documents open at the same time in an easy-to-use tabbed interface. Another popular free text editor for OS X is TextWrangler while users who want a word processing application with features closer to what Word or Pages offers, Bean is worth checking out.

7. Skim

Skim is a PDF reader that is cut above Preview, the default viewer in OS X, because of Skim’s enhanced markup capabilities. You can easily add notes, highlight portions the document, and quickly jump from one marked-up section to the next through a convenient side panel. Skim also allows you to create presentations and then run the presentations using the Apple Remote.

8. VLC
VLC is media player that supports most modern digital video formats including the DVD format and various streaming protocols. Installing VLC will save you the trouble of having to find a compatible player every time you need to play a new media format.

9. iStat Menu

One of my favorite features in Vista is the pop-up calendar that is displayed when you click on the time in the taskbar. iStat Menu brings that feature to OS X. It also allows you to display multiple time zones, open your iCal calendar, and add additional menus that display everything from the temperature of your Mac to the remaining space on your hard drives.

10. Rachota

Rachota allows users to track the time spent on various projects. Rachota can also summarize how much time was spent on each project and provide helpful time-maximizing tips.

<iframe src=”http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=reipbl-20&o=1&p=13&l=ur1&category=electronics&banner=006WFG7XDBN5TDN1KDR2&f=ifr” width=”468″ height=”60″ scrolling=”no” border=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ style=”border:none;” frameborder=”0″></iframe>

In 2007, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) was signed into law by President Bush. (Public Law 110-084). The CCRAA provides for the forgiveness of federal student loans after i) 10 years of public service work, or ii) 25 years. One of the notable aspects of the CCRAA is that the ten years of public service work does not have to be continuous. Students clerking for a judge for a year or two before entering private practice can apply those years of service towards the ten-year requirement if they later chose to accept another government position or work for a 501(c)3 organization.

Qualifying for Public Service Debt Forgiveness:
To qualify for Public Service Debt Forgiveness, the borrower must:
A) make 120 payments after October 1, 2007, based on one of the following programs:
i) IBR – Income Based Repayment (available after July 2009)
ii) ICR – Income Contingent Repayment (borrowers must have Federal Direct Loans or consolidate under a Federal Direct Consolidation). The one noteworthy difference IBR and ICR, for the extent of this discussion, is that the IBR program allows students to pay a smaller percentage of their discretionary income as a qualified monthly student loan payment.
iii) 10 Year Standard Repayment
B) be employed in “public service”
C) consolidate any federally-backed private student loans with a Direct Consolidation Loan directly from the Department of Education. (http://www.loanconsolidation.ed.gov/)

In the above example, a student graduating with $100,000 in eligible debt, entering a public service position for 10 years, will pay $430 per month instead of $1,150.80, and have $86,496.00 in outstanding interest and principal forgiven. I’ve made the spreadsheet available here, so that users can calculate their own IBR repayment terms by changing the variables highlighted in yellow.

Public Service Defined:
The CCRAA defines a “public service job” broadly. The definition includes full-time jobs in any government position, public interest law services (including prosecution or public defense or legal advocacy in low-income communities at a nonprofit organization), military, public education, and positions with 501(c)3 non-profit organizations. The Department of Education is expected to provide more guidance on what jobs qualify as public service jobs.

Loans Eligible for Federal Direct Consolidation:
Stafford Loans
Grad PLUS
Certain Perkins Loans.
Ineligible Loans:
Parent PLUS Loans
Private loans that are not backed by the government.

Potential Tax Liability Arising from the CCRAA:
One of the initial problems identified with the CCRAA was the potential “marriage penalty” since qualification for loan forgiveness and the repayment terms are based on the adjusted gross income from the taxpayer’s income tax return. Commendably, the House and Senate both recognized marriage penalty and passed an amendment to prevent this from becoming an issue. On December 21, 2007, S. 2371 was signed into law allowing married borrowers to file separate tax returns and calculate each spouse’s AGI and income-based repayment separately for purposes of the CCRAA.

However, there still remains the issue of whether the CCRAA loan forgiveness will trigger tax liability. Traditionally, forgiven loans are treated as taxable income. Despite this, section 108(f) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that the forgiveness of certain loans made by the federal government to facilitate higher education does not constitute income “if the individual worked for a certain period of time in certain professions for any of a broad class of employers.” However, it is unclear whether the Direct Consolidation Loan will qualify under 108(f) because the consolidation loan is made after the borrower graduates, rather than beforehand to “facilitate” the education. Given the Congressional amendment addressing the marriage penalty, an amendment favorable to borrower’s pursuing public interest work can be expected.

Students who are interested in working for the government or pursuing other public interest work on graduation should utilize Federal Stafford and Grad Plus loans while avoiding private loans that are not backed by the federal government. Upon graduation, students interested in taking advantage of the CCRAA provisions should consolidate their loans through a Direct Consolidation Loan. Students who do not remain in public service work for a period of ten years, but have consolidated under a Direct Consolidation Loan, will have their loan balance forgiven after twenty-five years from the date of consolidation.

Sources and additional reading:
http://www.abanet.org/lsd/legislation/
http://www.nasfaa.org/publications/2008/negloans011608.html
Schrag, Philip G., “Federal Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Public Interest Lawyers and Other Employees of Governments and Nonprofit Organizations” 36 Hofstra L. Rev. 27 (2007), available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1014622.

Thanks to Stuart Rees at http://stus.com for use of his cartoon.

Majority: Kennedy, Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter

Dissent: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito

To quote from Scalia’s dissent: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Full-length opinion.

Source: Reuters, SCOTUSblog

Some schools have lower average debt because of generous scholarship programs. Driving down the average debt on graduation at SMU are over $5 million in scholarships given out each year. Other schools have lower average debt because many of their students are employed while in law school. For example, at Texas Wesleyan, over half of the law students attend part-time, allowing students to pay a greater portion of their law school expenses as they go. This explains why Texas Wesleyan students have one of the lowest average debt burdens on graduation despite being one of the most expensive law schools in Texas.

While most law students are not able to maintain full-time jobs and attend school at the same time, students can maximize their chances of getting a scholarship by applying to schools where their LSAT and GPA scores are well above the school’s median.

The Debt to Earnings ratio is a measure of how much debt the average law student acquires for every dollar they earn their first year out of law school. Since the D/E ratio reflects the amount of debt acquired, the lower the D/E ratio is, the better.

The D/E ratio overcomes one of the limitations of the C/E ratios: artificially inflated costs of education. Since students can only qualify for loans up to the school’s published cost of education, many schools inflate the COE so that students who need extra money are able to qualify for loans. Since D/E ratios reflect loans that were actually awarded, the ratios closely track the expenses that exceed the average student’s ability to pay out of pocket. While neither the D/E or C/E ratio alone can answer the question of what law school is best for a student, both metrics provide an interesting look at factors that law students should consider as they decide which school to attend.