Earlier this week, a New Hampshire voter asked Hillary Clinton if she would sign a bill in favor of building the Keystone XL Pipeline. Clinton sidestepped the question. stating: “this is President Obama’s decision…if it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question,” she said.

The Keystone XL Pipeline has been on the forefront of American politics for quite some time now, and Clinton’s reply to the issue has been typical of her response to climate-related questions in general: avoidance. But one oil-related issue, the U.S. ban on crude oil and natural gas exports, is one that can’t be avoided any longer, although it’s certainly not something you really hear the presidential contenders talking about either.

Under American law, energy companies are not allowed to export crude oil, and companies can only export natural gas to countries with which the United States has a free-trade agreement. The Energy Department can approve natural gas exports to other countries if it deems such sales to be in the public interest; currently, 46 out of 52 such applications have been approved. These policies have their roots in the 1970s energy crisis, a period in which interruptions in petroleum imports from the Middle East caused wild price fluctuations and supply shortages.

For 40 years, these policies made sense. With domestic production declining and the U.S. importing 60 percent of its oil as recently as 2005, the export ban served its function to protect the market from fluctuations and shortages.

The situation is not quite the same today. The increasing prevalence of fracking–a new more efficient method of extracting crude oil–has saturated the domestic market. There is an important distinction to be made between the “light oil” that we are producing in growing quantities and the heavier crude oil that we typically import. Many of our refineries are designed to process heavy oil, and running light oil through these refineries decreases output capacity and revenue due to the incompatibility of light oil with equipment. Consequently, refiners demand significantly lower prices for domestic light oil and the export ban forces suppliers to accept these low prices.

Interestingly, the export ban does not include gasoline and other refined products, rendering the laws of supply and demand that dictate the value of goods in a capitalistic society irrelevant to domestic refiners. Instead, the ban creates an unfair system in which refiners purchase cheap oil in a domestic crude oil market saturated with supply, while their prices reflect the global refined oil market saturated with demand.

Lifting the export ban on crude oil and natural gas would force domestic refiners to compete with foreign refiners, raising the price of light oil and incentivizing suppliers to produce more. Increased production would require new jobs, and subsequent revenues would bolster the economy. Refiners would no longer be the main beneficiaries of cheap light oil. According to energy experts Daniel Yurgin and Kurt Barrow, lifting the export ban, combined with continuing progress in production technology, would lead to as much as 2.3 million barrels of additional production a day. Yurgin and Barrow estimate that this increased production would reduce gas prices by as much as 12 cents a gallon, saving US motorists $420 billion over 15 years.

There are diplomatic advantages to lifting the ban as well. Russia supplied 30 percent of Europe’s gas in 2014, regularly using gas as a diplomatic tool to threaten foreign economies. Last year, Russia declared that it would no longer sell gas at a discounted price to Ukraine, which gets 60 percent of its natural gas supply from Russia. In the Middle East, ISIS’s operations are funded heavily through pirated oil. According to Andy Karsner, former assistant energy secretary in the Bush administration, “We have one bullet that hits both of them: bring down the price of oil.”

At the very least, U.S. oil exports would stabilize the market and provide our allies with viable alternatives to OPEC or Russian energy–perhaps the Western response to Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine last year would have been stronger had there been a U.S. presence in the global oil market. Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield notes, “It’s hard to believe we’re asking the Japanese to stop taking Iranian crude, but we won’t ship them any crude ourselves.”

It is impossible to predict all the implications of lifting the export ban, of course. Foreign suppliers may reduce their oil exports to maintain the high global price of oil, or Russia could engage in predatory pricing to drive U.S. suppliers out of the market. Perhaps increased fracking regulations will reduce the supply of domestic oil, minimizing our influence in the market. Regardless, lifting the export ban gives our government another front to exert diplomatic influence, engage our enemies, and improve our economy. It’s economics and diplomacy 101. Let’s just hope members of Congress paid attention in class, and that our presidential candidates make an effort to address this essential issue.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lifting the Ban on Crude Oil and Natural Gas Exports: It’s Time to Make a Change appeared first on Law Street.

So far, 2015 has been the year of law firm mergers. According to Altman Weil MergerLine, the first six months of 2015 saw the most half-year mergers ever, with 48. One of these mergers was the biggest ever, as global law firm Dentons merged with China’s largest law firm Dacheng to form the largest law firm in the world by attorney head count, with more than 6,500 lawyers in 50 countries.

Even so, law is one of the few industries in which the market is not monopolized by a few top firms. Last year, the 200 highest-grossing law firms in the world earned $115.2 billion, according to data collected by ALM Legal Intelligence, but the global law market is roughly a $600 billion industry. By comparison, the Big Four audit firms Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG audit 99 percent of the companies in the FTSE 100, and 96 percent of the companies in the FTSE 250 Index. As of December 2014, the top four wireless telecommunications carriers in the U.S. controlled approximately 70 percent of the market based on service revenues. The top 25 health insurance companies account for nearly two-thirds of market share.

Restrictive conflict of interest laws, coupled with the notion that law is a national, not international practice, have prevented the legal market from consolidating to the extreme degree of other industries. Furthermore, law firms do not benefit from economies of scale the way firms in other industries do. In fact, bigger firms spend more, not less, on overhead on a per lawyer basis, according to Altman Weil. Law firm strategist Alan Hodgart said that consolidation is happening around types of legal work, rather than across the industry as a whole. For example, only a select few firms can handle the largest M&A deals, but that group cannot get much smaller because eight firms are needed for every major transaction, he said.

When it comes to law firm mergers, bigger is not always better. Altman Weil outlines two questions every law firm should ask itself before considering a merger: first, will the economics of the combined firm be substantially better than the economics of each firm currently? Second, will the firm’s financial indicators improve?

Of the 200 top law firms Altman Weil surveyed in 2005, almost two thirds had merged within the previous two years, and 90 percent of firms indicated that their experience with the merger was “very successful,” or “successful.” So then, law firm mergers are a proven business technique to improve revenues. The challenge is in finding the right fit.

Dentons and Dacheng are still working out the kinks of their merger. Six months after the announcement, Dentons and Dacheng have yet to roll out a joint-name or a combined website. Some of the problems are straightforward: things like translating and standardizing over 4,000 Chinese lawyers’ biographies. Other problems are deeper, stemming from the incorporation of two vastly different legal cultures, which could prove harder than combining teams of engineers, scientists, or doctors. Then there are the radically different rules governing protection of client information and regulations in various industries. It will be interesting to see how the merger turns out, and whether it will positively or negatively affect the recent trend of law firm mergers.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Law Firm Mergers: Good Idea or a Fruitless Endeavor? appeared first on Law Street.

Imagine this: you hire a contractor to install new hardwood floors. After the job is done, you discover that the floors weren’t built to code, multiple doors no longer fully open, and boot prints were visible in the varnish. So, you go on Yelp and submit a scathing review, “Absolutely horrible experience… The quality of the work is deplorable. Be warned!” Six months later, the company sues you for civil theft, intentional interference, and defamation, claiming that your online reviews had caused it to lose $625,000 worth of business, or $250,000 in profits; The company demands $125,000 in compensation. $60,000 in legal fees later, you settle for $15,000.

Unfortunately, this story is not a mere hypothetical. This is the story of Matthew White, a Denver-area resident who has become one of countless victims of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP). In today’s online environment, a few bad reviews on Yelp can derail a fledgling company. SLAPP is the term used to describe legal claims made with the intention of silencing critics, despite having little chance of prevailing in court.

In response, consumer, media, and activist groups have lobbied for anti-SLAPP laws, and 28 states and Washington D.C. have passed laws intended to discourage SLAPP suits. There is no federal law yet, however.

Yelp, the $3 billion San Francisco company that publishes crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses, opened a political office in Washington last year to push for anti-SLAPP laws. In May, the Free Speech Act was introduced to a Congressional committee. According to Laurent Crenshaw, who handles national policy for Yelp, “This issue is really one that hits close to the heart for Yelp… The concern is that these types of lawsuits, even if not incredibly common, will have a chilling effect on people’s engagement online.”

The Free Speech Act aims to curb SLAPP suits by requiring a plaintiff in a speech-related case pertaining to matters of public concern to prove that he is likely to prevail. If he is unable to, the case would be automatically dismissed “with prejudice,” allowing the defendant to recover legal fees.

Yelp has built an impressive anti-SLAPP coalition, with endorsements from two major tech industry groups, the Internet Association and the Consumer Electronics Association, and has consulted with the likes of Facebook and Google. “Yelp’s involvement has been huge… It has really been tremendous for the cause” said Evan Mascagni, policy director for the Public Participation Project, a coalition pushing for anti-SLAPP laws.

Still, the road to a federal anti-SLAPP law will be long and arduous. Government transparency website GovTrack.us gives the Free Speech Act a 13 percent chance of being enacted, and accusations against Yelp claiming that the website solicited money for removing negative comments certainly does not help. Yelp is going to need to step up its game if it wants users to leave unfettered reviews without the fear of losing thousands in SLAPP lawsuits.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Yelp Pushes for Anti-SLAPP Legislation appeared first on Law Street.

Looking to become a lawyer but don’t have a law degree from an Ivy League school? That might not be a problem for some. Adam Leitman Bailey, an attorney who runs a real estate firm in New York City, wrote an op-ed last week about how he intentionally chooses not to hire law school graduates from “traditional highest tier schools.”

Bailey characterized top students of the second, third, or fourth tier law schools as “more ambitious and more hungry to excel in the legal profession.” He also said his firm recruits “those who have been battle tested in one manner or another.”

Here are Bailey’s four reasons for not hiring from the “best credentialed” law schools in the country:

1. “The top students from these law schools have no interest in applying for a job at our firm.”
2. “Many of these law schools either fail to rank their students or do not even grade them at all.”
3. “No matter how mediocre the student’s performance, the statistics show that almost every large law firm offers all of the summer associates full time jobs. In order for the top law firms to attract the brightest students they must also show that in past years all of the candidates received job offers.”
4. “These students may become a United States Supreme Court Justice or a future President of the United States so political theory and international law and classes on capital punishment may be extremely important to them. However, we need our street lawyers ready for battle and taking trial practice, corporations, tax, civil procedure and any real estate and litigation course offered.”

Hiring practices that discriminate based on the name of the school on the diploma are foolish to begin with. That’s like saying he only hires people from New England because he believes New Englanders are harder workers, or that he only hires people who have an undergraduate engineering degree because he believes engineering majors like to challenge themselves more than others. Moving on, his four reasons for non-hiring are nonsensical and here’s why:

1. The first point appears to be a classic non-sequitur where the conclusion does not logically follow from the argument. I understand that Ivy League graduates don’t apply to Bailey’s firm, but why is that a reason to then not hire any who do show up? That doesn’t make much sense.
2. This is a hasty generalization. Bailey links to Yale Law School’s grading policy, which grades students based on an honors-low pass-fail scale, to support his argument. Nevertheless, Yale is one of the few schools who does this, as well as Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. Many other top schools grade their students on a typical 4.0 GPA scale, although some variations exist.
3. This is another non-sequitur. Why are other law firms’ unsatisfactory hiring practices a reason to not hire Ivy League grads?
4. I’m no law school expert, but even I know civil procedure is a required core course at most, if not all schools. And last time I checked, we only have one president and nine Supreme Court justices. There are plenty of Ivy League grads who took civil procedure and will not be the president or a Supreme Court justice, and I’m sure some of them are interested in becoming “street lawyers ready for battle.”

Now, Bailey is not stupid. A graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, he runs a reputable real estate firm with an impressive resume. And there is some truth to the assertion that Ivy League schools may not be the best schools to go to if you want to practice certain areas of law (although this isn’t really what Bailey is arguing). If I were to guess, this article is a publicity stunt to raise awareness for his firm. Let’s just hope that his arguments in litigation are sharper than the ones used here.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lawyer Only Hires Non-Ivy League Grads: Smart or Pointless? appeared first on Law Street.

Same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states and a majority of Americans are thrilled with the landmark Supreme Court decision. Millions of people used Facebook’s rainbow flag photo-editing tool to shade their profile pictures in “celebration of pride.” On Twitter, #LoveWins became the victory cry of marriage equality proponents. On Instagram, prominent celebrities such as Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, and Lady Gaga posted pictures of themselves to show support. A nation that was overwhelmingly against gay marriage just 15 years ago is suddenly in agreement that this is a good thing.

I have mixed feelings about all of this.

On one hand, I support gay marriage and the notion that gay people should have the legal right to marry and start a family. At the same time, there is a difference between promoting tolerance and forcing acceptance. The Supreme Court decided to force acceptance when it declared laws banning gay marriage unconstitutional, refusing to wait for the gay marriage discussion to reach its natural conclusion in each state. After reading hundreds of social media posts about gay marriage, a vast majority of which mock gay marriage opponents with a “you are ignorant if you don’t agree with me” attitude, it appears most Americans are following suit. This is sad because American society was so close to achieving the wholesale attitude change necessary for true tolerance. Now, in an ironic twist of fate, gay marriage opponents are victims of the condescension of another “majority.”

The gay marriage debate is really a matter of semantics that revolves around one question: What is the definition of marriage? The most intriguing argument against gay marriage is that of the “slippery slope,” or the idea that legalizing same-sex marriage may lead toward legalizing all sorts of “unconventional” marriages. In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts argued, “much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” The same can be said for incest.

Nearly all arguments against gay marriage apply to incest and polygamy. It’s unnatural, they say–marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman. Think about the social problems. Children should be raised in traditional households. What about people taking advantage of the tax incentives? Drawing the line at incest and polygamy is fine. Justifying that line with the notion that incest and polygamy offend modern sensibilities is not. This is a justification that gay marriage supporters, now the majority of Americans, should be disgusted by.

When I brought up this issue to a gay friend, he had an interesting point. Polygamists and people who enjoy incestuous relations still have the right to marry a member of the gender they are attracted to despite being barred from marrying a family member or having multiple spouses. For gays, a ban on gay marriage eliminates the possibility to marry the entire population segment they are attracted to, he reasoned.

I don’t buy this argument.

In LSAT circles, they call this Begging the Question fallacy, or assuming the conclusion of an argument. My friend set out to find an argument that validates gay marriage in a way that doesn’t also validate polygamy or incest, and this is the situation-specific justification he arrived at. It is entirely possible that a person is only attracted to people within his own family, or is only capable of expressing love when he has multiple partners. I have yet to find a reasonable justification for allowing gay marriage while banning polygamous and incestuous marriages.

So, I have mixed feelings about all of this. I have mixed feelings about the role of government in the institution of marriage. I have mixed feelings about the new “celebrate pride” majority and their pompous definitions of ignorance and love. I have mixed feelings about my own sensibilities and the hypocrisy of supporting gay marriage while opposing polygamy and incest.

I have mixed feelings about marriage equality, and what it really means.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post I Have Mixed Feelings About Gay Marriage appeared first on Law Street.

From adding practical training opportunities to “personalizing the admissions process,” law schools across the country are finding ways to stand out in today’s tough recruitment environment. Brooklyn Law School is taking it a step further, establishing a tuition repayment program that offers students who have not found a full-time job nine months after graduation 15 percent of their total tuition back.

The 15 percent figure only applies to out-of-pocket tuition expenses, including loans; scholarships and grants do not apply. “This builds on the overall approach that we’ve taken to be very student-centric, to listen to what students need,” Brooklyn Law School Dean Nicholas W. Allard told The New York Times. The program, dubbed “Bridge to Success” and made possible by a $133 million endowment in May, was established to give students the time and resources to land the job they want and not settle for the first offer they receive, said Allard.

To qualify for a repayment, graduates must take the bar exam, although they do not need to pass it. In addition, students must demonstrate that they have actively searched for employment and exhausted the law school’s career resources.

The program is part of Brooklyn Law School’s efforts to remain competitive by lowering tuition costs. In April 2014 the school also decided to reduce yearly tuition by 15 percent to an average of $43,237 per student, which is still higher than the average private tuition of $41,985.

Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistic show that the legal sector lost 60,000 jobs during the recession, only 20,000 of which have been added back. In particular, lawyers with two to three years of experience were hit hard, according to New York Bar Association President David P. Miranda. Consequently, he pointed out that recent law school graduates find themselves in a legal job market in which they have to compete with seasoned lawyers.

Brooklyn Law School is ranked the 78^th best law school in the nation, according to the U.S. News & World Report. Brian Leiter of the University of Chicago Law School, told the Washington Post that he expects as many as 10 schools to close over the coming decade, and about half to three-quarters of schools to reduce class size, faculty, and staff. We will see if Brooklyn Law School’s latest initiatives will help the school avoid this fate.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Brooklyn Law School Lends a Financial Hand to Unemployed Grads appeared first on Law Street.

Garet Bradford, a former University of North Dakota School of Law student filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents, dean, assistant dean, the university president, and two professors earlier this month. However, the frivolous 22-page complaint leaves out many critical details, making it difficult to evaluate the propriety of the school’s actions and leaving more questions than answers about this odd case.

Bradford, 46, claims he was denied basic information regarding his dismissal from the school, violating his right to due process. He is also suing the school for violating his freedom of speech and equal protection rights, breach of contract, defamation, and emotional distress. For relief, Bradford is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorney fees.

According to the complaint, the whole ordeal began when he refused to take a quiz that was different than the quiz other students in class took, resulting in a severe penalty and a subsequent appeal by Bradford, which was denied. Despite his academic performance allegedly being “more than adequate,” Bradford claims that he received “less favorable treatment than similarly situated classmates” following his appeal.

Bradford alleges that Professor Steven Morrison arbitrarily lowered his grade for “no apparent reason except for personal and institutional bias against the plaintiff.” The complaint does not explain why Bradford was taking a different quiz, why he felt that taking a different quiz than his classmates was unreasonable, or why these professors were biased against him.

A few weeks later, Bradford received an email from Assistant Dean  Brad Parrish that issues had “come to light” concerning his application for enrollment. After weeks of correspondence between Bradford and Parrish and deliberation by the admissions committee, Bradford was dismissed from the institution.

If Bradford is telling the truth, he may have a case that the distribution of an email suggesting that his “woefully inadequate” academic performance justifies his dismissal was untrue and harmful to his reputation, possibly constituting defamation. He can further argue that these events caused him undue emotional distress. Depending on school policy, Bradford may even have a case for breach of contract, considering he allegedly did not violate the school’s code of conduct. Nevertheless, his argument that his right to criticize the school without fear of retaliation was infringed upon appears flimsy, especially when considering he does not specify the nature of the criticism he is referring to.

Unfortunately, Bradford’s story does not appear to add up. His allegations that university professors and administrators decided to conspire against one particular student for no apparent reason seems outlandish; this is the first time UND Law is being accused of such actions.

According to the complaint, James Grijalva, the professor to whom Bradford appealed his quiz grade to, told Bradford in an email,

[The appeal is] an unconsidered, immature unwillingness to take responsibility for your [Plaintiff’s] own actions. That approach will not serve you well in any professional career, particularly in law, and does not help your cause now.

When Bradford forwarded this email to Dean Katheryn Rand and Assistant Dean Bradley Parrish, Rand replied that Bradford’s “tone” was negative, and that he was “not professional” and “lacked character.” At one point, Bradford says his academic advisor told him, “Every professor has an issue with you.”

It seems likely that Bradford has academic issues, disciplinary problems, or both, and a quick look at Bradford’s records should provide an answer one way or another. According to the Grand Forks Herald, Bradford said he could ask for “extensive” repayment in damages. “I wouldn’t be doing this for a cup of cofee,” he said.

My guess is that Bradford gets nothing. Lawsuits that involve defendants’ intent are notoriously difficult to litigate to begin with, and Bradford simply does not provide enough information to validate his allegations. In fact, his experience in court will likely have a similar ending to his experience at UND Law: dismissal.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Want to be a Lawyer? Maybe You Shouldn’t Sue Your Law School appeared first on Law Street.

Syracuse University College of Law Dean Hannah Arterian will step down from her post on August 1 to focus on “research and scholarly activities,” the school announced Monday. Board of Advisors Distinguished Professor William C. Banks will take over as interim dean.

After receiving her J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law with high distinction, Arterian practiced corporate tax law at Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood. She then moved onto academia, teaching at Arizona State, the University of Houston, and the University of Iowa law schools, most notably serving as associate dean at Arizona State (ASU) for ten years. She began her tenure as dean of Syracuse Law in 2002.

Arterian expressed enthusiasm for the job from the very beginning. In a 2002 ASU press release announcing her move to Syracuse, Arterian commented, “I think what drove me to apply [to Syracuse Law] was the school’s strong reputation…When I had a chance to spend time getting to know the faculty, I became even more enthusiastic. The law school is well positioned, and I am happy to have the chance to move the school even further forward.”

It seems she has been successful. During her tenure, Arterian increased the number of the college’s free legal clinics from five to nine and launched several new internship and externship opportunities, including the Washington D.C. externship program. She oversaw the establishment of legal centers and institutes, including the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media and the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT). Perhaps her crowning moment came in August 2014, when the College of Law relocated to Dineen Hall, a 200,000 square foot building that allowed the entire Syracuse Law community to operate within a single facility. The building was ranked the 25th most architecturally attractive law school in the world, according to Syracuse Law. Syracuse Law interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Liz Liddy stated,

[Arterian] has ushered in a new era of success for the college. Last year, the College of Law bar exam pass rate was the highest it has been among the law schools in New York State. We are grateful for her service and thankful that she will remain at the University as a member of the faculty

Liddy appointed founding director of INSCT William C. Banks as interim dean effective August 1. Banks joined the Syracuse Law faculty in 1978 and was named a Meredith Professor Teaching Excellence in 1998. He has authored several books on national security, including “Combating Terrorism, Strategies, and Approaches” and “National Security Law and the Power of the Pulse;” serves on the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security; and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of National Security Law & Policy. “Professor Banks is a tremendous teacher, scholar and leader of INSCT, I am certain he will be a strategic interim dean and an advocate for the College of Law,” Arterian said in the announcement.

He certainly has big shoes to fill, especially in today’s stressful law school environment. Law school deans across the country are struggling with the lowest number of applicants in four decades, fueled by an abysmal legal job market. Potential applicants are increasingly making the decision that incurring $100,000-$200,000 in student debt is not worth it if they do not attend an elite law school that can land them a job after they graduate. For the vast majority of law schools, this means adapt or die.

George Washington University Dean Blake Morant said at a panel hosted by Lawyers of Color, “Every single law school that I know of is doing something to not only innovate, but also to add value to what they’re giving to students.”

Doing so may involve lowering tuition costs to entice applicants, like the University of Illinois College of Law. Georgetown University Law Center is “personalizing” its admissions process, with alumni and admissions officers interviewing more applicants. Other schools are prioritizing practical training for students. In response to the long-time criticism that law schools teach too much theory that is not relevant in day-to-day firm operations, Villanova University School of Law Dean John Gotanda told the Washington Post that the school is now requiring students to take a course on the economics of law firms in case they want to open their own practice.

Even so, it is likely that Banks is going to have to make some compromises. Well funded elite programs are able to offer significant scholarship money to qualified applicants, eliminating the incentive for students to attend less prestigious schools to lower student debt. To combat this trend, schools like George Mason University School of Law had to ease their admissions standards to maintain enrollment.

For Banks to be successful, he is going to have to perform a balancing act. Fewer applications means there is going to be less funding to provide additional experiential learning opportunities and scholarships to attract students. That is precisely what he is going to have to provide if he wants Syracuse Law to survive. It would be wise for him to take some notes from his predecessor.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Syracuse Law Dean to Step Down, Successor Must Meet a High Bar appeared first on Law Street.

A shocking Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report recently obtained by the Associated Press revealed that United Nations (U.N.) peacekeepers in Haiti had “transactional sex” with hundreds of poor local women. According to the report, a third of the alleged sexual abuses reported involved individuals younger than 18. OIOS’s in-depth analysis and a history of past U.N. misconduct demonstrate a pressing need to reevaluate current peacekeeping policy.

Earlier this year, reports surfaced that between December 2013 and June 2014 French peacekeeping soldiers made local children in the Central African Republic (CAR) commit sex acts as entertainment. However, this was hardly the first reported incident of sexual misconduct.

In 1999, former U.N. International Police Force monitor Kathryn Bolkovac reported that U.N. officials were involved in the Bosnian sex trafficking industry. “[Bolkovac] discovered numerous individuals in the Bosnian and U.N. police (which was made up of some 1,800 officers from 45 countries) who were not only using trafficked prostitutes but were on the traffickers’ pay-roll,” the Telegraph reported.

A few years prior, a 1994 study authored by former First Lady of Mozambique Graça Machel found that the arrival of peacekeeping troops actually correlated with a “rapid rise” in child prostitution in six out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children in situations of armed conflict.

It is clear that there has been systematic sexual abuse of local women by U.N. peacekeepers for quite some time now. Nevertheless, U.N. peacekeepers rarely get convicted for their atrocities. U.N. personnel are protected by diplomatic immunity, meaning they can’t be prosecuted in their mission country. Compounding the issue is that home governments have little incentive to publicize their troops’ bad behavior.

Some efforts to rectify the situation have already taken place. In response to Bolkovac’s revelations, the U.N. established a conduct and discipline unit in 2007. Susan Malcorra, who heads the unit, told the Telegraph that the U.N. can waive immunity whenever necessary. The U.N. regularly kicks officials off their missions and hands the investigation and punishment over to the member state, she said. On the U.N. Conduct and Discipline Unit’s website, Secretary Ban Ki-moon asserts that the organization is taking this problem seriously, writing:

Let me be clear: the United Nations, and I personally, are profoundly committed to a zero-tolerance policy against sexual exploitation or abuse by our own personnel. This means zero complacency. When we receive credible allegations, we ensure that they are looked into fully. It means zero impunity.

The recent report on abuses in Haiti did not find issue with U.N. policy. Rather, it found issue with “significant underreporting,” characterizing assistance to victims as “severely deficient.” To remedy the situation, the U.N. needs to increase oversight. One option is to require at least one member of the conduct and discipline unit, whose sole job would be to evaluate the conduct of U.N. officials, to be present at each peacekeeping site at all times.

Maintaining integrity is imperative. The unit must screen its employees rigorously to ensure that they are not the same officials who are causing problems and regularly rotate employees to different peacekeeping sites to minimize the possibility of collusion with peacekeepers. Periodic assessments of both peacekeeping officials and conduct and disipline unit employees is a must.

As human rights activist Gita Saghal asserts, “the issue with the U.N. is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do. Even the guardians have to be guarded.” Perhaps then the organization meant to uphold human rights will stop doing the exact opposite.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post United Nations Peacekeepers Aiding Sex Traffickers? appeared first on Law Street.

The June 2015 LSAT is over, and approximately 20,000 people are eagerly–or anxiously, depending on how they did–waiting on their results. In the meantime, users of law school forums like Top Law School (TLS) and PowerScore have created post-test impressions and waiter’s threads to pass the time. In particular, user basedvulpes on TLS launched a “War Stories” thread focusing on funny or unusual events that occurred while taking the LSAT. Check out some of the best ones below.

“Wake Me Up When September Ends” 

Also, there was a dude who showed up to my test in a full suit and bowtie, talking on a cell phone in the hallway. Five minutes before we checked in someone told him that there were no cell phones allowed, so he ran out to his car and ditched it. Then when he went up to check in he didn’t actually have his ticket, just the receipt from his registration. He begged the admins to let him run to a computer lab and print it, but they said it wouldn’t work because of time and because it wouldn’t have a picture. He insisted that he had a picture in his wallet that he could use, and awkwardly stood off to the side emptying the entire contents of his wallet and pockets while the rest of the people checked in. Turns out he didn’t even have a picture. Admins told him to register for October. – Contributed by basedvulpes

“Do It, You Won’t”

In the box that says “Do not write your essay in this box”, I wrote “your essay”. – Contributed by Whnlifegvsulmns

“Bubble Trouble”

another anecdote: proctor yelled at me for bubbling in my name before she finished reading instructions and said she could cancel my score if she were “not being nice.” she swatted the pencil out of the hand of this other student who was doing the same thing. another student got scared and raised his hand to ask about which sections he could bubble in. – Contributed by lsatkillah

“On a First-Name Basis”

On my drivers license, the last letter of my first name is missing because my name has too many letters for them to all fit and on my admission ticket all the letters were there. The proctor checking me in got all worried and had to ask another proctor if this was okay and if I was allowed to take the test. Thankfully it was okay, but I think it was ridiculous that it was almost an issue. – Contributed by JackelJ

“The Hunger Games”

Some jamoake came in just in the nick of time, sat down next to me and proceeded to start munching away at a full burrito whilst we were doing LR. Needless to say the proctors told him to put it away.

Anyway, same thing happened during RC – proctors ask him to put it away.

… During LR2, he gets the burrito (3/4 eaten) out AGAIN, needless to say the proctors went into full-scale meltdown, think their heads were doing cartwheels down Piccadilly Circus by the end. – Contributed by Topszn

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Most Ridiculous LSAT Stories of the Year appeared first on Law Street.

The NCAA’s amateurism rule is rubbish. On its website, the college athletics governing body claims it has “adopted amateurism rules to ensure the students’ priority remains on obtaining a quality educational experience and that all of student-athletes are competing equitably.” The page goes on to list all the things student athletes are not allowed to do under the principle of amateurism, including:

1. Salaries for participating in athletics;
2. Contracts with professional teams;
3. Benefits from an agent or a prospective agent;
4. Agreement to be represented by an agent; and
5. Tryouts, practice, or competition with a professional team.

In the meantime, the University of Texas basketball program collected more than $165 million in revenue for the 2013-2014 season, according to the Office of Postsecondary Education. Forbes values its football program at a cool $139 million, while the NCAA as a whole made nearly $913 million for the fiscal year 2013.

If the NCAA is starting to sound like a cartel, that’s because it is. By definition, a cartel is an agreement between competing firms to fix prices. A long time ago, colleges got together and decided not to pay players, fixing the salaries of their student-athlete employees at zero for the benefit of NCAA and participating universities’ leadership.

So then, it becomes evident that the NCAA needs to get rid of its amateurism rule. Fortunately, the rule is already under assault in the court room.

In a March 2014 National Labor Relations Board decision, Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr ruled that a group of Northwestern University football players are eligible to form a union on the basis that players devote as many as 50 hours a week to football, and that scholarships, which can be terminated yea to year and require student athletes to adhere to certain guidelines, are a contract for compensation.

In an August 2014 California District Court decision, Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that “NCAA rules unreasonably restrain trade in the market for certain educational and athletic opportunities offered by NCAA Division I schools” in a case involving a former UCLA basketball star who claimed the NCAA and EA Sports violated his right to use his image for marketing purposes when his image was used in a video game without his consent and without compensation.

Nevertheless, there are numerous arguments against compensating student athletes.

Some argue that a vast majority of athletic programs at universities are losing money and need help from their basketball and football programs to stay afloat. Compensating student athletes, they contend, will force athletic departments across the country to cut programs.

Tough luck. We live in a capitalist society where businesses close every day because they fail to make a profit. If a university believes that maintaining these programs leads to more donations from alumni, fine, fund them through donations. But student athletes contributing to profitable programs should not be punished for the financial woes of their unprofitable counterparts.

Others argue that scholarships reasonably compensate student athletes.

No, they don’t. In a Drexel University and National College Players Association study, the average Division I college basketball player would earn $266,000 per year, and the average Division I football player would earn $114,000 per year, if players received 50 percent of the revenue earned by their respective programs, which is approximately the revenue sharing model of the NBA and NFL.

Still, others argue that high school athletes have the right to decide whether or not they want to accept a scholarship and be bound by NCAA regulations.

Well, the NBA enforces a 19-year age minimum for draftees, and the NFL requires its draftees to be three years removed from high school. With the emergence of European and Chinese leagues, some high school basketball stars have opted to spend their last years of ineligibility abroad. With no comparable foreign football leagues, football stars are out of luck.

There is yet another denomination of people who argue that the NFL’s three-year rule protects young athletes who are more susceptible to injuries such as concussions.

In most states, minors become legal adults at the age of 18, and the legal age of consent is 16. High school football players are well aware of the risks associated with playing the sport, and they should have the option to get paid millions of dollars to take on the higher risks of playing professionally with better athletes, or receive scholarships and develop their skills in a less physical college setting.

Consequently, the most sensible solution to the NCAA amateurism problem is for the NBA and NFL to eliminate their age requirements. Unfortunately, college athletics function as a phenomenal developmental league for professional leagues that professional franchises do not have to pay for.

So, as long as these age requirements are in place, amateurism in college athletics is dead. The NCAA needs to stop pretending that its student athletes are students first, athletes second, and open up its leagues to all the intricacies of the free market.

Doing so may involve sports agents that specialize in college athletes, or a free agency period where eligible players can transfer to other universities. The market will invariably take many twists and turns before it settles into a final model, but it will certainly be better than a system in which a cartel blatantly exploits the services of helpless college athletes.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Capitalism and College Sports: Time to Pay Student Athletes appeared first on Law Street.

Last Thursday, United States officials revealed that they believe Chinese hackers were responsible for the May cyber attacks on U.S. federal agencies. The attacks compromised the personal information of more than four million current and former government workers. China responded by dismissing such accusations as “groundless” and “irresponsible,” stopping just short of ensuring that China does not condone cyber attacks. “We are very firm on this,” said China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei. This is just the latest incident in a back-and-forth saga between the U.S. and China when it comes to cyber crimes.

Lei’s statement may not have been completely truthful. In May 2014, Lei released a similar response to the Justice Department’s indictment of five Chinese hackers for cyber crimes against five U.S. companies and a labor union in the steel, solar, and nuclear-power industries. According to the Guardian, “China’s foreign ministry called the allegations preposterous and accused the U.S. of double standards.” But the accused in the 2014 case were members of China’s People’s Liberation Army. In other words, their attacks do represent China engaging the United States. It is evident that the U.S. must take a firm stand against China’s aggression. Nevertheless, there are numerous challenges and implications to consider on that front.

For one, China’s assertion that the U.S. resentment of Chinese attacks represents a double standard is justified. Edward Snowden’s release of NSA files unveiled a surveillance program that spanned numerous countries, including China. In March of last year, Snowden leaked another document exposing the NSA’s penetration into the networks of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies in search of evidence that the company was involved in espionage operations for Beijing. This complicates how far the U.S. can go to condemn China’s actions in the cyber sphere.

The potential costs of engaging China in cyber warfare are massive. Cyber attacks can threaten the control systems of dams, water-treatment plants, and power grids, compromise sensitive information stored on government networks, and access video surveillance cameras. Electronic door locks, elevators, and even life-sustaining medical devices are vulnerable to cyber attacks. While the U.S. rarely has to worry about war in its territory, in the cyber realm, physical boundaries are irrelevant. The statistics regarding the cost of cyber crimes are staggering. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates the annual cost of cybercrime and economic espionage to the world economy at $375-575 billion. Telecommunications giant IBM claims that there were 1.5 million monitored cyber attacks in the United States in 2013 alone. In a “60 Minutes” interview, FBI Director James Comey said, “There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who’ve been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese.”

Political action is fraught with challenges, too. China, with its massive population and rapidly developing economy, lends itself to lucrative opportunities for American corporations. Consequently, the Chinese and U.S. economies are closely intertwined. According to the CIA World Factbook, China ships 17 percent of its exports to the U.S. and is the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury bills, bonds, and notes. So, the government response to Chinese cyber attacks cannot deter China from doing business with American corporations. Germany’s cancellation of its longstanding contract with Verizon following Snowden’s NSA leaks serves as a cautionary tale, and the fact that most major Chinese corporations are government owned only further complicates the issue.

So, the U.S. government is left with few options. One thing it can do is encourage the development of cyber technology. The government should support programs such as the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, a competition aimed towards creating an automated cyber defense system, and incentivize the best cyber experts to work with the government by providing resources and appropriate compensation.

More importantly, the government needs to send the message that attacks on American networks will not be tolerated. This could mean under-the-table threats of retaliation to avoid negative media attention. Fear of retaliation should deter Chinese attacks, and if attacks persist, the government can deny visas to Chinese citizens, limit military ties, or implement economic sanctions. It is important to keep the campaign low-key and ensure that economic sanctions do not incite an aggressive Chinese response.

Examples of the United States asserting itself following a breach of security are littered throughout history; the U.S. defeat of Japan following Pearl Harbor and the assassination of Osama bin Laden following 9/11 demonstrated that we are not afraid to track down and engage our enemies. It is time to assert our status as the world’s leading superpower once again.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The U.S. Needs to Take a Firm Stand Against China on Cyber Attacks appeared first on Law Street.

The human trafficking industry involves 20.9 million people and $150 billion dollars each year. One new class at the University of Kansas School of Law is looking to lower those horrifying numbers. Led by KU School of Law Clinical Associate Professor and Director of KU School of Law’s Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic Katie Cronin, KU’s Human Trafficking Law and Policy course requires law students to work on real human trafficking cases and provide resources to attorneys, police, health care workers, and victims of human trafficking.

For example, Marci Mauch, one of Cronin’s students, devised training materials to help police and hospital staff recognize patterns consistent with human trafficking victims. According to the materials, signs that someone may be a human trafficking victim include avoiding eye contact, being unaware of their location, letting somebody else speak for them, having certain illnesses such as STIs, and having injuries that do not match their stories. Cronin came up with the idea of teaching hospital staff how to identify victims after learning that human trafficking victims often end up in emergency rooms.

Other examples of projects devised by Cronin’s students include working on the visa application of a human trafficking victim–the application most likely could not have been filled out by the victim as it was hundreds of pages long and required a certain level of expertise. Other students worked on the creation of a manual for attorneys working T visa cases–a visa afforded to victims who turn their human traffickers into authorities. Yet another worked on the creation of a Know Your Rights brochure for victims served by the Willow Domestic Violence Center.

“It’s sort of shocking how many areas of the law human trafficking does impact,” Cronin said in an interview with KU News Service. “Immigration attorneys can provide services to foreign national victims, and even those law students that go into corporate work can help their corporate clients to make sure that their supply chains remain free of human trafficking.”

The University of Kansas is not the first law school to expose its students hands on to human trafficking cases. For example, Boston University School of Law’s Human Trafficking Clinic offers its students the opportunity to provide legal representation for human trafficking victims and assist attorneys in shaping public policy. Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic regularly prepares reports on human trafficking cases, while the George Washington University Law School and the University of Southern California Gould School of Law clinics directly litigate human rights cases in court.

Still, KU School of Law is unique in its efforts to attack human trafficking at the “nexus” of medicine and law. Director of KU’s Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Initiative (ASHTI) Hannah Britton said to the Lawrence Journal-World:

All of these survivors need immediate legal assistance… The problem is that this is a hidden population because it’s a criminal activity… Most victims are very scared to come forward because they are fearful of arrest or deportation. They’ve been isolated, and the traffickers are very skillful at creating fear.

Cronin and her students are doing good work creating much needed avenues for victims to overcome these fears.

Hyunjae Ham

Hyunjae Ham is a member of the University of Maryland Class of 2015 and a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Hyunjae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post KU School of Law Students Aid Human Trafficking Victims appeared first on Law Street.