Will Phoenix School of Law, Become Another Stronghold for Mormon Law Students?

Phoenix School of Law first opened its doors in January of 2005. On June 11, 2007, Phoenix School of Law recevied provisional ABA accredidation. Provisional ABA accredidation allows Phoenix School of Law graduates to sit for the bar exam in any state. The law school in located in a high rise building in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The proximity of the law school to most of the cities large law firms will be very convenient for students while completing internships, externships, volunteering, or working while still in school. Phoenix School of Law is owned by infinilaw which also owns Florida Coastal School of Law (located in Jacksonville, Florida) and Charleston School of Law (located in Charleston, South Carolina).

In the fall of 2007 Phoenix School of Law received 559 applications and addmitted 229 students. 70 students actually matriculated with a median GPA of 3.18 and a median LSAT of 153. Those median numbers are already better than some law schools who have been around for decades. Because they offer part time degrees and evening classes "non-traditional" students can keep working while attaining a juris doctorate.

I think that the Phoenix School of Law is going to go on to become a very successful law school. I also think that it will become another law school where Mormons will make up a large percentage of the student population.

Better VP than Mitt Romney?

The world still awaits John McCain's Vice Presidential nomination. Word on the street is that McCain will make his announcement after the Olympics are over. The media is still abuzz with who John McCain will pick or should pick. Other than biggoted "Christians" who won't vote for Romney just because he is a Mormon how can anyone see a better fit with anyone other than Romney?
Let's compare two of the leading candidates. After highschool Mitt Romney earned a perfect score on his SAT. Mitt Romney then attended Brigham Young University where he graduated valedictorian, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree Summa Cum Laude in 1971. In 1975 Romney earned a joint juris doctorate and masters of business administration from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. Romney graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and was named a Baker scholar for graduating in the top five percent of the Harvard Business School. Mitt Romney then went on to create thousands of jobs for Americans and increase the retirement portfolios of thousands of people by increasing the value of their retirement portfolios. Mitt Romney created himself a networth of somewhere between $250 and $500 million dollars.
On the other hand you have Mike Huckabee. Let's take a look at his educational acheivements, jobs created, and demonstrated ability to create wealth. Huckabee graduated magna cum laude from Ouachita Baptist University with a bachelors degree in religion. Mike Huckabee has spent his entire adult life as a preacher (it's interesting to note that while Mitt Romney has held some important Mormon Church callings, he not only was making money for himself, for others, but was also recieving no money from the Mormon Church).
So, Mitt Romney graduated from the most prestigious Universities in the world at the top of his class. Mike Huckabee graduated from the top of his class (from a school that most people outside of Arkadelphia, Arkansas have never heard of). Was paid to preach the word of God, created essentially no jobs, and helped build zero companies. Looks like a close call from here.

Empirical Legal Studies

We recently added a link to Empirical Legal Studies: "Bringing Methods to our Madness" Blog. The Blog itself has been around since early 2006 and has a huge archive of old articles. The blog is a collaborative project produced by Professor Jason Czarnezki of the Vermont Law School, Professors Michael Heise and Theodore Eisenberg of the Cornell Law School, and William Ford of the John Marshall Law School. ELS has a core group of editors and then consistently receives articles from other legal scholars throughout the world. I think you'll agree that there is a lot of great information available on the Empirical Legal Studies blog.

Rate-A-Lawyer

www.avvo.com is a new website where clients have the opportunity to rate the performance of their attorney in several different areas. Additionally, questions concerning different legal topics can be posted and an attorney can give general feed back. Pictures, profiles, and areas of practice expertise are provided for the available attorneys. Avvo.com isn't currently in every state but states with high populations already have a multitude of attorneys to view.

The Mission and Principles of Avvo,
Their mission is to help people navigate the complex and confusing legal industry. Choosing a lawyer is an incredibly important decision—yet most people have no idea how to go about doing it, and resources to guide them are scarce.

Avvo is guided by two basic principles:

1. Focus on the needs of regular people.
Many of the resources available today were developed for people who are already legal industry “insiders”—but Avvo was created specifically to help people who know very little about the law and may have no experience choosing a lawyer.

2. Provide information, as well as guidance.
We believe that providing open access to information about lawyers, coupled with guidance on how to use that information, is the best way to help people choose the right lawyer. Information is empowering: the more people learn about attorneys and how to select an attorney, the more comfortable and confident they’ll feel seeking legal help—and we think this will benefit both clients and lawyers.

I think this website is a great thing because it will allow clients to find attorneys who have the expertise that they are looking for. Once upon a time when all a client had to go off of was the picture of an attorney in a phone book they really didn't know what they were getting.

"Jimmy Justice" takes the law and his video camera into his own hands

This guy is a great American, doing what citizens are supposed to do...keep the government in check. You've got to watch his videos they're really funny.

He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked.
Cop cars blocking fire hydrants make him particularly incensed.
"Something like that is just despicable," Jimmy fumed, pointing to a police enforcement vehicle parked next to a fire hydrant on 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side on a muggy July afternoon. "They're never allowed to block a fire hydrant -- but they do it."
He posts his best videos on YouTube and sends regular e-mail to the union representing the city's traffic enforcement agents, pointing out the most egregious parking offenses. And he has gotten results, he said, with some parking enforcers being fined because of his videos.
"I'm using a video camera as a weapon," he said. "I believe a video does not lie." As originally reported by the Washington Post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mVFXZ5wjzc

Jimmy Justice should start following some of our politicians around to see what kind of laws they're breaking!

Top Ten Most Mormon Friendly Law Schools

Top Ten Most Mormon Friendly Law Schools 2008

1. Arizona State University- Tempe, Arizona
75 Mormon Law Students
Cost of living $13,000
Cost of tuition $26,000
Distance to the nearest Temple 10 miles
Prestige 52 points
Total: 389

2. University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) School of Law - Las Vegas, Nevada
100 Mormon Law Students
Cost of living $14,460
Cost of tuition $20,000
12 Miles to the nearest Temple
Prestige 0 points
Total: 338

3. Creighton University School of Law- Omaha, Nebraska
50 Mormon Law Students
Cost of living $16,530
Cost of tuition $25,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 7 miles
Prestige: 0 points
Total: 318

4. Gonzaga University School of Law- Spokane, Washington
40 Mormon law students
Cost of living: $14,375
Cost of tuition: $29,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 11 miles
Prestige: 0 points
Total: 304 points

5. University of Idaho School of Law- Moscow, Idaho
100 Mormon students
Cost of Living $15,2703
Cost of Tuition $20,0004
Distance to nearest Temple – 85 Miles
Prestige 0 points.
Total: 290

6. George Washington University School of Law- Washington D.C.
70 Law Students
Cost of living: $20,500
Cost of tuition $38,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 18 miles
Prestige: 20 points
Total: 283 Points

7. Harvard Law School
36 Mormon law students
Cost of living: $21,469
Cost of tuition: $41,000
Distance to Temple: 4 Miles
Prestige: 99 Points
Total: 256 Points

8. Georgetown Law School -
33 Mormon law students
Cost of living: $20,210
Cost of tuition: $39,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 22 Miles
Prestige: 87 points
Total: 248 Points




9. Columbia University School of Law- New York City, New York
19 Mormon Law students
Cost of living: $19,705
Cost of tuition: $43,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 5 Miles
Prestige: 97 Points
Total: 236 Points

10. New York University School of Law- New York City, New York
18 Mormon Students
Cost of Living: $22,305
Cost of tuition: $39,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 4 Miles
Prestige: 96 Points
Total: 235 Points

Honorable Mention:
University of Dayton School of Law – Dayton, Ohio
6 Mormon Law Students
Cost of living: $11,700
Cost of tuition: $33,000
Distance to nearest Temple: 68 miles
Prestige: 0 points

The University of Dayton School of Law has been awarded an honorable mention on the first annual most "Mormon friendly" law schools because it is the only ABA approved law school in the country where a J.D. can be received in only 24 months instead of the typical 36 months. The extra year in law school not only costs law students another year of living off of loans but they also lose a year income. For example if a law student is married, and has one child they might need to borrow $30,000 in loans to pay for their living expenses during their third year. They also are losing out on a year's worth of income. For argument's sake let's say their first year income would have been $70,000. That is a $100,000 difference between a student who studies at the University of Dayton School of Law and who studies at a traditional three year school. Additionally, one year less of law school is reason enough to look seriously at the University of Dayton School of law.

Tomorrow We Unveil the Top Ten Most Mormon Friendly Law Schools in the Country

The long wait is almost over! Tomorrow we announce the top ten most Mormon friendly law schools in the country. We are posting the criteria we used to develop our list a day early to let everyone have an opportunity to see how we created the list before we actually revealed it.

It is very important to note that neither law school from Utah was considered in this ranking. The reason is two-fold: First, it is a given that BYU’s law school would be considered the most Mormon friendly law school each year. Secondly, if we were to remove BYU from the ranking of most Mormon friendly law schools in the country, the University of Utah would then become the number one ranked most Mormon friendly law school in the country and we just couldn't let the University of Utah be rankied number one so we decided to remove both schools from the running.

We looked at five wide ranging criteria to formulate our ranking. 1) Number of Mormon law students at a given law school. We found this element to be very important for several reasons. Law schools with a large Mormon population have student chapters of the J. Reuben Clark Legal Society which promotes comrade, spiritual growth, and networking. Because so many Mormon law students are married it is nice when spouses and children have an instant group of friends to bond with. 2) Cost of living. This is an important criteria for all students who are looking to go to law school but the cost of living is magnified if you are married and have children. For this ranking we assumed that the average Mormon law student was married and had one child. Encountering family living rentals that are affordable, safe, and close to law school can next to non-existent in many major metropolitan areas in the country. 3) Cost of tuition. Unfortunately the day will come when you have to begin repaying your student loans. Does it make sense to pay $40,000 or more a year in law school tuition when you can go to a school ranked slightly lower but is only $20,000 a year in tuition? It might but that’s up for you to decide. 4) Distance of law school to the nearest Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Having the opportunity to break away from the law library and spend time in the temple contemplating the things that are truly important in our lives is a great blessing. For some law schools the closest temple is just a few miles away but for others the nearest temple may be so far away that visiting with any frequency becomes very difficult. 5) Prestige of the law school. For good and bad rankings are extremely important to entering students when deciding where they want to study law. The rankings are also very important to many employers who like to recruit from top schools. We used the US News and World Report’s ranking to give a quantifiable meaning to the word “prestige”.

Each law school begins with 0 points and has the possibility of earning as much as 100 points for each criteria or 500 total points. 1) Each law school was granted one point per current Mormon law student but not to exceed 100 points (incidentally there were no law schools—excluding BYU and the University of Utah—with more than 100 Mormon law students).2) To tally the numeric value for the estimated annual cost of living we granted each school either 0, 25, 50, 75, or 100 points (0 points given to the law school’s with the highest estimated annual cost of living and 100 points to the law school’s with the lowest estimated annual cost of living). If the cost of living is less than $15,000 per year then the school received all 100 points. If the cost of living is between $15,001 and $17,000 then the school received 75 points. If the cost of living is between $17,001 and $19,000 then the law school received 50 points. If the cost of living is between $19,001 and $22,000 then the law school received 25 points. If the cost of living is over $22,001 per year then the law school received 0 points.3) To tally the numeric value for the cost of tuition we granted each school either 0, 25, 50, 75, or 100 points (25 points given to the more expensive schools and 100 points given to the less expensive schools) depending on the cost of their tuition. If the tuition was less than $25,000, then the law school received all 100 points. If the tuition was between $25,001 and $30,000 then the law school received 75 points. If the tuition was between $30,001 - $35,000 then the law school received 50 points. If the tuition was between $35,001 and $40,000 then the law school received 25 points. If the law school’s tuition was more than $40,000 (Yes, I am referring to the cost of only one year’s tuition!) then they received 0 points. 4) The numeric value of how close a particular law school is in relation to a particular Mormon temple was tallied as follows. Each school started with 100 points and lost a point for every mile that separates that particular law school and the nearest Mormon temple. No school could receive a negative number even if that law school is more than 100 miles from the nearest Mormon temple. 5) The numeric value for “prestige” was calculated by giving each law school 100 points and then subtracting a point for each position they were away from ranking number 1 in the U.S. News and World Report’s 2008 Law School Ranking. For example if a school was ranked 15 in the U.S. News Law School ranking then we granted 85 points. If a school ranked more than 100 positions from the number one ranking in the U.S. News ranking then they received 0 points. (A law school could not receive a negative number for this criteria)

We look forward to revealing the First annual top ten most Mormon Friendly law schools in the country!