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May 10 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, May 10, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. This week we were at the Center for Legal Inclusiveness’ Legal Inclusiveness & Diversity Summit in Denver. Since we’re a bit light on diversity news, we thought we’d share a few things we learned at the Summit. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our next Diversity Twitter Chat that will take place May 23^rd at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the concept of sponsorship versus mentorship. Mark your calendars for what is sure to be a great chat. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden!

 

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May 3 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, May 3, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. We had a wonderful week in Tampa for NALP’s Annual Education Conference, but are happy to be back in DC. It was great to meet some of you in Tampa last week and we hope to see some of you in Chicago June 6-7 for the 2013 Diversity & Inclusion Summit!. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our next Diversity Twitter Chat that will take place May 23^rd at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the concept of sponsorship versus mentorship. Mark your calendars for what is sure to be a great chat. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden!

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April 19 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, April 19, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. While this week has been heavy on the news nationally, we’ve had a quiet week on the diversity front. In addition to the two stories we have below (one highlighting the need to focus on details when examining diversity statistics and the second recapping our Pipeline Program in Miami last week), we have two programming notes. First, we will be on hiatus next week while we are enjoying the NALP Annual Education Conference in Tampa. And second, our next Diversity Twitter Chat will take place May 23^rd at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the concept of sponsorship versus mentorship. Mark your calendars for what is sure to be a great chat. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden!

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 4/19/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, April 19, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending April 19, 2013. Good morning from Boston, where I will be speaking at the National Conference of Bar Examiners educational conference later this morning. Things are in pretty tight lockdown here this morning, as you can imagine. It has been a tough week all around, and legal career industry news has taken a back seat, as it should. I am looking forward to seeing many of you in Tampa next week, and while we are away the Industry News Digest will take a one-week hiatus during the NALP Annual Education Conference. Stay safe out there my friends.

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 4/12/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, April 12, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending April 12, 2013. The only truly good news this morning is found at the very bottom of the hour, where BLS data suggest the legal sector actually grew in March for the first time in a long time. Working our way up from the bottom, Steven J. Harper’s new book is making a bit of a splash, and student debt plight and student loans continue to be in the news. In what may be signs of things to come, South Dakota has become the first state to offer a subsidy for lawyers willing to work in rural jurisdictions, and Illinois has announced that it will raise the passing mark on that state’s bar exam. Finally, the ABA law school employment outcomes data released last week continues to garner media attention and comment from pundits, and the NLJ has crafted a variety of noble and ignoble top ten lists based on that data. Here in DC we went from winter to summer in one fell swoop this week, and the cherry blossoms were rushed through a late and abbreviated bit of spring wonder. There are just about ten days left until we descend on Tampa for NALP’s annual education conference. Enjoy your well-earned weekend!

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April 12 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, April 12, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. First up this week is news of a great pipeline program in Georgia. We also have an interesting article discussing if men should be required to take paternity leave. Check out the stories and share your thoughts! On a programming note, our next Diversity Twitter Chat will take place May 23^rd at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the concept of sponsorship versus mentorship. Mark your calendars for what is sure to be a great chat. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden!

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 4/5/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, April 5, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending April 5, 2013. Dominating the news this week was the ABA’s release of its school-specific employment outcomes data for the Class of 2012 and the ensuing analysis and commentary by academics and pundits alike. Based on that data, the entry-level job market looks to be mostly flat, with some good-news/bad-news nuggets imbedded in the data itself. The words “bleak” and “brutal” were tossed around, and Bloomberg piled on, finding the current picture for legal education unsustainable. The University of Arizona’s law school made a bit of a splash this week with its announcement that it is cutting tuition, and Drexel’s law school was in the news with its announcement of its accelerated two-year law degree. Other than that? Oh yeah, law firm associates are the unhappiest of all job-holders according to the good folks at Forbes. No cherry blossoms yet here in DC, though they are promised. Have a good weekend my friends!

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April 5 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, April 5, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. This week we are a bit light on news but have two stories, one focusing on diversity and the other focusing on law school more broadly. First up is an interview with the managing partner of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius’ Washington DC office focusing on diversity in the profession. Then we have news of The University of Arizona’s Law School reducing tuition rates. On a programming note, our next Diversity Twitter Chat will take place May 23^rd at 3pm EST. We will be discussing the concept of sponsorship versus mentorship. Mark your calendars for what is sure to be a great chat. Have a great weekend and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden!

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 3/29/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, March 29, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending March 29, 2013. We have a short digest this morning at the end of a relatively slow news week as we head into the holiday weekend. Two of the class actions against law schools saw activity this week, with a New York appellate court declining to take up an appeal of a previous dismissal, and a federal district court allowing another case to move forward. DLA chewed up a lot of column inches around the country in a dispute with a client over allegedly inflated bills, and the University of Texas continued to garner unwanted press coverage in an ongoing kerfuffle over law school faculty salaries. In the long run perhaps the most significant news of the week is the fact that the US Supreme Court agreed to take up yet another affirmative action challenge. The Court is expected to rule in the Texas admissions case before the end of June, and will now hear arguments in this Michigan admissions case next fall. Susskind’s new book gets another shout-out, and at the top of the hour, Clearspire’s “alternative legal services provider” business model gets some more attention (hint: they’re hiring lawyers). That’s all I’ve got for you this morning. Enjoy your weekend!

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March 29 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, March 29, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish and Happy Friday. This was a big week here in Washington, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two major cases. In other news (and yes, there is other news), we have three interesting diversity related stories this week. First, Nixon Peabody is encouraging 40 hours of diversity related activities for all its paralegals and attorneys. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer, is discussing the company’s diversity benchmarks. Finally, we have news of a panel on law firm diversity that confirms, once again, the role corporate legal departments can have on affecting law firm diversity. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CourtneyDredden if you aren’t already! Have a great weekend!

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 3/22/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, March 22, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending March 22, 2013. For a change of pace we have no breaking news this morning and nothing terribly awful to report. We begin with what might be considered some good news, a report that more corporate counsel offices are hiring junior lawyers, including an increasing number of recent graduates. New research has found declining professionalism among college students, which is surely no surprise. There is some drama this week at the University of Texas School of Law. The LSAT lives on, for now. Confidence among law firms leaders appears to be gaining steam, and the 50th anniversary of Gideon has prompted some thoughtful and provocative writing this week. We end the digest with a roundup of the latest reports of law firm year-end financials; growth seems to lie down the path of fewer equity partners, at least in the short term. If you're looking for some provocative industry reading, there are two new books out this month you might want to consider: The inimitable Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith Esq., has written Growth Is Dead: Now What?: Law firms on the brink, and Richard Susskind's latest is a slim readable paperback, Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future.

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March 22 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, March 22, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish. This week we have a mixed bag with one uplifting story of a blind attorney landing a federal clerkship and one more depressing story revealing that few poor students with top scores attend selective colleges. We also co-hosted this month’s Diversity Chat with Lauren Luke who serves as The Bar Association of San Francisco’s Diversity Pipeline Manager. Our focus was on stress management for diverse attorneys and it was a great chat. You can find the chat transcript here and a brief recap below. If you are interested in co-hosting a Diversity Chat with us, just let us know. Have a great first weekend of March Maddness, folks!

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Weekly News Digest for Legal Career Professionals -- Week Ending 3/15/2013
Posted by James G. Leipold on Friday, March 15, 2013
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Here is the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest for the week ending March 15, 2013. Good morning from Tempe, Arizona, where NALP President Charlotte Wager and I are attending the ABA Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar meeting today. There is more news here than you can read this week, so pick and choose according to your interests. The accounts of the Silicon Valley ReinventLaw conference are worth reading (we have seen the future and it is not like the present), and the Big Data piece in The Recorder is also a compelling read. The release this week of a new report by the nonprofit State Higher Education Executive Officers Association has created an outpouring of writing about the student debt crisis, some of which I have collected in a special section below. It is probably not possible that any of you missed the fact that the US News Law School rankings came out this week, but if you did, news on that happening is also collected below. In case you ever harbored any illusions that you had some sort of privacy interest in your work emails, you don’t, and the Harvard email brouhaha has made that painfully clear once again. The word layoffs has now appeared in two back-to-back editions of this digest, and news of law firms’ 2012 financials is wrapping up with a damp note from BigLaw in NYC. It’s a lovely morning here in Arizona. Enjoy your weekend!

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March 15 Diversity Dish
Posted by Courtney Dredden on Friday, March 15, 2013
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Welcome to this week’s Diversity Dish, Conference Edition. This week we have two interesting stories – one examining if African-American attorneys are losing ground in law firms and the second noting how diverse Supreme Court Justices’ families are. Don’t forget that the next Diversity Twitter Chat will take place on March 21^st at 3pm EST. Use the #DiversityChat or tweet me @CourtneyDredden. This Chat is co-hosted with The Bar Association of San Francisco’s Diversity Pipeline Manager, Lauren Luke. We’re going to be discussing how to manage stress and find resources that attorneys (especially diverse attorneys) might need. It’s sure to be a great chat, so mark your calendars now!  If you are interested in co-hosting a Twitter Chat with us, just let me know!

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Proposed Changes to Summer Employment Provisions for First Year Students
Posted by NALP Staff on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
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During their February 2013 meeting, NALP’s Board of Directors reviewed member feedback regarding the current Summer Employment Provisions for First Year Students (Principles & Standards Part V D).

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