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Reuters
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
ABA defends its diversity scholarships as protected free speech
June 17 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association said on Monday that a scholarship program designed to boost diversity among law students is protected free speech, in a bid to toss a lawsuit brought by a prominent conservative group alleging the program is discriminatory. The ABA's 25-year-old Legal Opportunity Scholarship is protected under the First Amendment, the organization said in a motion to dismiss, opens new tab filed in an Illinois federal court. The ABA also claimed that plaintiff American Alliance for Equal Rights lacks standing to sue. 'The ABA has a First Amendment right to distribute funds as it deems appropriate, consistent with its organizational goals,' the motion said. The Alliance, which is led by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, had sued the ABA in April alleging that the Legal Opportunity Scholarship program discriminates against white applicants because they are ineligible to apply. Blum was the architect of the 2023 Supreme Court affirmative action case that barred the consideration of race in college admissions. The Alliance said it is representing an unnamed white male law school applicant who alleges he would apply for the $15,000 scholarship were he eligible. The ABA awards between 20 and 25 such scholarships annually to incoming law students, according to its motion to dismiss. That anonymous member lacks standing to sue because the lawsuit does not show he was 'ready and able' to apply for the Legal Opportunity Scholarship, the ABA claims. He did not take any 'concrete steps to express his interest in, or apply to' the scholarship program beyond 'words of general intent,' according to the motion. Reached by email for comment on Tuesday, Blum said none of the 18 lawsuits the Alliance has filed in the past two years alleging racial discrimination have been dismissed for lack of standing. 'It seems likely that this assertion will fail,' he said. Blum also called the ABA's First Amendment claim a "Herculean stretch." The ABA declined to comment on Tuesday. The ABA's motion also claimed that the Legal Opportunity Scholarships are discretionary gifts and not contracts that are subject to the federal law requiring equal rights in making and enforcing contracts. The ABA had in October revised the criteria for its judicial clerkship program, which encourages judges to hire diverse law clerks, to eliminate references to minority students and "communities of color." The ABA made that change after a different conservative legal group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, had filed a complaint against the ABA with the U.S. Department of Education in May 2024 and threatened further legal action, alleging that the ABA was illegally discriminating by using racial quotas. Read more: ABA sued over diversity scholarships by conservative group ABA strikes 'minority' and 'of color' from clerkship criteria amid lawsuit threat
The Guardian
16-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Overturning miscarriages of justice and boosting local businesses – the power of real-world university learning
When lawyers at Northumbria University's Student Law Office (SLO) were approached by a man who appeared to have been wrongfully imprisoned for eight years for armed robbery, they believed their students could help. At the SLO, students research, interview, and sometimes represent clients on a pro bono basis, all supervised by experienced lawyers. They were right – students successfully worked to get Alex Allan's conviction overturned back in the early 2000s and, after taking his case to the court of appeal, he was paid £170,000 in compensation for the miscarriage of justice. Since then, real-world learning at Northumbria University has been driving change, helping the local community and powering the economy in the north-east. While most cases at the SLO, set up in the 1980s to give students real-world law experience, are less high profile than Allan's, they are no less impactful for the clients at the centre of them. 'We get a lot of demand,' says Dr Jonny Hall, a solicitor who worked on part of Allan's case and is now the university's academic lead for all aspects of experiential learning. Students typically work in pairs, spending some 10-15 hours a week on real-life cases across areas of law including family, crime and human rights as part of their third-year studies. 'They gain skills and experience but also knowledge and attributes,' Hall says. 'The SLO introduces students to the reality of how lawyers might be able to help people.' The SLO is just one example of how the university is integrating real-world learning within its courses, helping both students and those living, working and trading in the local area. The Business Clinic is a similar initiative. Final-year business students consult and advise national and international companies, local SMEs, social enterprises and charities on business problems, from helping a home fragrance business with its latest marketing campaign to supporting the RNLI with a series of events and fundraising ideas to help sustain the future of its base in the nearby seaside town of Cullercoats. 'It's embedded into the curriculum – we've made it an integral part of their degree – and that's important because students then have the time to devote to it,' Hall says. 'It's not just about learning by doing, it's about students applying the knowledge they are gaining in the real world to further their understanding, skills and future careers. Alongside this, they are contributing to the local economy and community – the benefits really are widespread.' The majority of the university's undergraduate degree programmes already include real-world learning, and Northumbria's goal for the future is for every UK-based undergraduate student to take part in this transformative learning as part of their studies. Many courses, such as nursing, education and social work, already require students to spend a significant percentage of their time on placement, developing the skills they need in a real-life environment. The university has enhanced the way these students train by investing in VR technologies which provide simulation scenarios to help them prepare and rehearse in a safe environment on campus, before they face similar scenarios in the real world. This ethos carries through to other courses. Physiotherapy students help patients with real issues in the Physiotherapy clinic, supervised by a chartered physiotherapist. Law and history students have collaborated to dig into legal archives, while fashion students work with major-label brands on live projects including design, marketing and social media campaigns, many of which have led to employment after graduation. 'It's a really important part of what we're trying to do across the university,' Hall says. 'We're trying to make these kinds of connections to the outside world, and to real experience,' he says. 'Each student goes on an individual journey, and for most I would say it enhances both their learning experience and their career prospects.' This approach has helped Northumbria University drive social mobility and power an inclusive economy in the north-east, an integral part of the university's mission. 'Northumbria places more graduates in highly skilled north-east positions than any other university,' says Prof Graham Wynn, the university's pro-vice-chancellor (education). 'We do this by constantly evolving our education offer to be ever-more responsive to the educational needs of our students and our region.' This creates a pipeline of talent for the area's economy and beyond – the university supplies policing, nursing and social work apprentices in the region, as well as healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs and skilled graduates for established and emerging sectors. 'I think Northumbria is a great example of a university that really is very focused on its economic mission and that means making sure students get good jobs on graduating, or create jobs for themselves and other people,' says Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, which has recently published reports on the skills needed by employers over the next decade and the economic impact of start-up and spin-out businesses originating from universities. 'The university works hard to make sure students can show prospective employers what they have done that has real-world applicability and will make them really attractive.' One of the university's great success stories is iamproperty, a business founded by two Northumbria graduates in 2009, with support from the university. It has since grown to become a business with annual revenues of £76m, making it one of the UK's largest residential auctioneer companies, employing more than 700 people. However, back in 2008, founders Ben Ridgway and Jamie Cooke were just two 24-year-olds with an idea. '[The university] was able to give us a small two-man office in the business centre that covered our phone bills, print bills and post bills for that first year,' Cooke says. 'They put us in contact with advisers, helped with our accounting process and legals and that was really, really helpful.' Without the university's backing, he says, it would have been difficult for the fledgling company to get off the ground. 'I'd like to think we would have got there, but I know for a fact that our growth would have been stunted without the support that we had,' Cooke says. 'They knew we were wet behind the ears and they put their arms around us and helped us.' Now, iamproperty recruits graduates from Northumbria University because the founders value the real-world learning students get there. 'We were really looking back to the university as a talent pool to recruit from because we knew the kind of education and the knowledge people were coming out with, and we knew they were hands-on, that they'd had the level of experiences that we had had,' Cooke says. 'We attend all its graduate fairs … to make sure we're bringing in a really high calibre of people with a real base knowledge that we can push on from.' Overall, Northumbria University's emphasis on experiential learning is supporting local communities and businesses, and beyond. The SLO, Business Clinic and success stories like iamproperty are examples of how 'economic powerhouses' such as Northumbria University are powering an inclusive economy that benefits everyone, says Stern. 'There are seeds of tangible, meaningful growth that will mean people in the north-east have access to better jobs, and money and investment coming into the region,' she says. 'And that matters – that really matters. People can feel it in their everyday lives.' Find out more about how Northumbria University is shaping futures and driving change
Associated Press
23-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Lindabury Law Firm Welcomes its 2025 Summer Associates
Two promising law students, Alix Gallipoli and Jordan DeCrescente, join the firm for a summer of hands-on legal experience and mentorship. 'Working alongside our attorneys Alix and Jordan will receive real-world experience and training across a variety of practice areas. We look forward to their contributions and a summer of learning.'— Eric B. Levine WESTFIELD, NJ, UNITED STATES, May 23, 2025 / / -- Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, is pleased to welcome Alix Gallipoli and Jordan DeCrescente to its 2025 Summer Associate Program. Both law students have outstanding academic and professional backgrounds and will spend the summer gaining hands-on legal experience and mentorship across the firm's various practice areas. Alix Gallipoli is a 2026 J.D. candidate at Rutgers University School of Law, where she is a Staff Editor of the Rutgers Business Law Review. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University and previously worked as a paralegal in the New York office of an international law firm. Jordan DeCrescente is a 2026 J.D. candidate at Seton Hall University School of Law. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from The George Washington University. Prior to starting law school, Jordan gained valuable legal experience as a legal intern at several law firms in New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Virginia Beach, VA. 'We are thrilled to welcome this year's summer associate class to the firm,' said Eric Levine, President of Lindabury. 'Working alongside our attorneys, Alix and Jordan will receive real-world legal experience and comprehensive training across a wide variety of the firm's practice areas. We look forward to their contributions and a summer of learning, collaboration and growth.' Lindabury's Summer Associate Program offers law students hands-on legal experience through direct collaboration with the firm's partners and associates. Alongside substantive legal work, the program includes luncheons and social events designed to foster both professional growth and personal connections within the firm. About Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. is a mid-sized general practice law firm, located in Central New Jersey. From offices in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, the firm serves clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Lindabury provides litigation and transactional counsel to a broad spectrum of clients including corporations, privately held businesses, insurance firms, healthcare institutions, trade corporations, employee benefit funds, banks and financial institutions, nonprofit organizations, and individuals. Richard DeLuca Lindabury email us here Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
Reuters
20-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
ABA plan to boost law students' hands-on experience spurs criticism about accreditor overreach
May 20 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association's proposal to double the number of hands-on learning credits that law students must complete to graduate has sparked criticism that the accrediting organization is going too far in controlling the curriculum for legal education. Under the proposed change to the ABA's law school accreditation standards, the number of credits for hands-on learning, known as experiential learning, which students must take would go to 12 from the current six. Students would need to earn at least three of those credits in a clinic or a field placement. And none of the experiential credits — which include clinics, externships, or simulation courses that aim to recreate real legal work — could be taken in a law student's first year. The ABA, which says that the change is necessary to produce practice-ready graduates, adopted the six-credit experiential learning requirement in 2014, but surveys of recent graduates and legal employers continue to find that young lawyers are unprepared, according to the proposal, opens new tab. The ABA's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar is gathering public comments on the proposal through June 30 with final adoption possible in August. If approved, the changes would go into effect in 2030. Supporters and opponents are making their cases now, before the comment period closes. 'The ABA ought not to be in the business — for the most part — of increasing programmatic requirements that are expensive,' Northwestern Pritzker School of Law professor Daniel Rodriguez told Reuters. He also said doubling the experiential credit requirement leaves less room in law students' schedules to take upper-level seminars or subjects tested on the bar exam. The ABA proposal acknowledged that clinics are more expensive for schools to deliver than other types of classes due to their low student-to-faculty ratios but said their costs are in line with other low-enrollment courses. The ABA did not provide an estimated cost to schools for meeting the proposed new requirement but said schools would have several years to reallocate resources. The ABA has not produced any empirical studies that show law graduates who took 12 or more experiential credits are better lawyers than those who took fewer, Rodriguez said. University of Miami law dean David Yellen said in a post on the law school-focused PrawfsBlawg, opens new tab that the ABA proposal goes beyond what other professional school accreditors require. Doctors, dentists and veterinarians complete more hands-on training than lawyers, but those rules are imposed by schools or licensing requirements, not by their accreditors. The claims of ABA overreach come as the organization faces threats from the Trump administration to strip it of its status as the federally recognized accreditor of U.S. law schools. Supporters of the change, including the Clinical Legal Education Association, say critics are overstating the cost of experiential courses and underestimating how flexible and innovative they can be. Live client clinics cost more than large lectures, said University of Washington in St. Louis clinical professor Robert Kuehn, but so do many other types of law courses. His research shows that law schools that offer more experiential learning opportunities don't charge higher tuition than those with less. 'It's really a choice about how schools spend their money,' Kuehn said. 'It's not that schools don't have the money to do it.' Other ABA curricular requirements for professional responsibility and upper-level writing coursework haven't generated the same level of scrutiny or claims of regulatory overreach as experiential education, said Gautam Hans, a clinical professor at Cornell Law School. The debate over the experiential credit requirement also reflects the longstanding tension between clinical and doctrinal teaching, said University of Florida Levin College of Law clinical professor Sarah Wolking. 'The critics are doctrinal or podium professors,' she said. 'These are people who feel threatened by the idea that nobody is going to fill their niche seminars.' Read more: ABA keeps law school diversity rule on hold into 2026 amid Trump crackdown Law school courses to become more uniform under new ABA accreditation rule
Bloomberg
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Chief Justice Roberts Says Court Criticism Shouldn't Be Personal
Chief Justice John Roberts said that criticism of members of the US Supreme Court shouldn't turn personal. 'Criticism is a good thing so long as it is not trashing the justices,' Roberts said in response to questions from graduating law students at Georgetown University Monday.
