Academically Inclined

  • Law

  • We’re now being told that Judge Linda Bell’s injuries from getting hit by a car are much more extensive that originally reported…[RJ]
  • HOA scandal defense attorney Daniel Albregts is trying to determine if the RJ legally obtained documents it printed last month or whether something more nefarious is afoot. [RJ]
  • The woman who turned herself in as someone who may be the suspect that hit the pedestrian grandfather who died last week, surprise, has a history of DUI and driving without a license. [Las Vegas Sun]
  • The University of Alabama-Birmingham announced yesterday that it is eliminating its football program. [ESPN] Some people think UNLV should follow suit–with one commenter suggesting UNLV has no business having a football team or law school. [RJ]
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 6:25 pm

And cue up the trolls…queue forms here…(where da grammar trolls at?!?)…

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 6:29 pm

Seriously though, what's the point of having a football system if you don't have the internal support for it? If you don't have the facilities and academic support for the team, football will never succeed. Our basketball team has a state-of-the-art facility (Mendenhall) and strong local support (thanks Findlay!). Maybe if our football program had the same, UNLV could have the same success as Boise State, TCU, or hell, even Colorado State, Nevada, Fresno State, San Diego State, Hawaii, etc.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 7:00 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I'm pretty sure Hawaii football has terrible support, but that's just what I've heard–no independent research.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 5:58 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

^ Wrong.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 7:16 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Isn't that what the news was when Colt Brennan and June Jones were complaining of no soap in the Hawaii showers, not enough money to cover their travel budget, shitty resources generally? Maybe they changed their ways since then.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 7:02 pm

Todd Bice and the Pisanelli Bice law firm are discussed in the 12/1 Las Vegas Business Press. Wasn't Pisanelli just discussed in the Sun? These guys are all over the media.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/business-press/executive-snapshot-todd-bice-pisanelli-bice-law-firm

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 10:34 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

These guys are scorched earth litigators. Have you ever watched them argue in court? Everything is a discovery sanction.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 9:58 pm

A few diehards might miss UNLV football. Otherwise, elimination of the program would go unnoticed.

Elimination of Boyd? Now there's something to ponder.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 10:15 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I've long been a believer that eliminating football at UNLV would be a good thing. That article points out a lot of the positives– title 9, money, etc.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 10:35 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

And they could put all the money into the basketball program.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 3, 2014 10:50 pm

Other than being a taxpayer in Nevada, I have no ties to or interest in UNLV. My alma mater is in the Mountain West, and I will say that I very much enjoy watching them play here in Vegas every other year, it would be sad to see that go. The tailgate at Sam Boyd, while far off from a P5 school, is still really great. The weather is good through the entire season and that grassy field north of the stadium is great for grilling, socializing, frisbee and tailgating. Most UNLV fans were great, although a handful were obnoxious.

Boyd, on the other hand, has not good reason to exist outside of advancing the interests of UNLV's professors, administrators and bureaucrats. It is nothing more than flagrant, wasteful kingdom building dressed up and fronted in the benevolence and dogma of the virtues of higher education and that more education is ALWAYS a good thing, no matter the cost. Las Vegas obviously doesn't need a law school, but the admins and profs at UNLV do need it, so Boyd is probably here to stay, sadly.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 6:33 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Well done 2:50 PM. When I passed the bar and moved here 25 years ago, there were plenty of lawyers with no law school and the bar given once a year. There was a private law school–Western States that proposed to open a new school while they were struggling to obtain ABA accreditation in San Diego, California. The attorneys and the newspaper put the brakes on that institution from opening here. But then we got UNLV Boyd. The proponents hid the cost and got their school going during boom times. They would never get it started today. Now the school is a 35 million dollar a year drain on the state higher education budget. When they offered the bar twice a year, we got a big bump in out of applicants. Now almost as many folks take the bar in Nevada as they do in Arizona which has two and half times the population. Nevada gets more lawyers than it needs from other places that have far too many lawyers. We have seen a recession in all levels of the economy. Education is going through its bust but is fueled by loans where students can not go bankrupt or ever escape. Nevada's first law school–Old College of Law or something like that went under. UNLV will not go under because it is state subsidized. If they had to survive on their own they would never make it.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 6:36 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Meant to say bump in out of state applications. Oops. By the way, to the Boyd folks, what happened to all those pledges promised to the law school? Why are they having financial problems with millions and millions in pledges and donations?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 2:47 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Insightful commentary. Boyd is just another wasteful project generously funded by a combination of involuntary payments extracted from tax slaves and student loans guaranteed by tax slaves. It is appropriate that the Professoriat at Boyd sneer at the bourgeois who fund the place. Per Patron Saint of Boyd:
"Destroy the family, you destroy the country."
"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."
"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 12:17 am

Why does Las Vegas need a law school less than the many smaller towns around the country that have multiple law schools?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 1:07 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Name the many towns smaller than Las Vegas which have multiple law schools. I cannot think of one.

I believe that the point several people are trying to make is that Boyd is an unnecessary law school – just as the majority of law schools are unnecessary. I mean, do we really need more construction defect lawyers? More ticket fixers? More high-volume personal injury lawyers? More minimally-competent bankruptcy mills?

I cannot remember the cite for the article from a few years ago which made this point, but I found the argument compelling; the author's conclusion was that if all ABA-accredited law schools shut their doors today, it would take the US economy over ten years to fully absorb all of the JD's who are either unable to find work in the profession or underemployed within the profession. It may have been in the WSJ or some other business periodical. If anyone finds that article, please post the link.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 1:17 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Cleveland. Drops mike…walks away.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 1:36 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Cool story bro. Tell me, why is Cleveland ranked higher than Las Vegas in metropolitan area populations?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 5:08 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Moscow, Idaho. Provo, Utah. Iowa City, IA. Tulsa, OK. Should I continue?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 9:11 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Wait. I thought you dropped the mic and walked away. You didn't?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 5:49 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Moscow, Provo, Iowa City, and Tulsa all have "multiple law schools?"

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 7:13 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I think 5:17 PM and 9:08 PM were a bit confused about the premise. There are quite a few *states* with smaller or equal populations to Nevada that have multiple law schools. Utah and Iowa are two of them. Unfortunately, Nevada came to the table a bit late with its law school when Arizona already had two, Utah had two, and California had about a billion. I went to Boyd and no matter how much I want it to succeed as a law school, it's hard to deny that it's probably not necessary for Nevada to have a law school. But I can say that now that I've graduated and have a good job in Las Vegas.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 11:07 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I agree with 11:13. I went to Boyd. I wouldn't be a lawyer if Boyd didn't exist because I wasn't going to quit my job and leave town. That said, I feel bad anyone tells me they're going to Boyd. It's a lottery, and only a portion of the class can win it. The others have poor-paying jobs and too much debt.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 10:39 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Holy shit, petition an Assemblyman or the Governor already if you want to shut Boyd down. If you're serious about it, take it someone who cares. I already have my degree. Fewer attorneys appeals to me, and law students are beyond annoying.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 3:56 pm

I am 9:08 but not 5:17.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 5:52 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

And not one of the towns you reference has "multiple law schools".

I think the point 5:07 was trying to make, and it's a valid one, is that Boyd is just a member of a large group of unnecessary, run-of-the-mill, undistinguished American law schools. Why do we need more underemployed lawyers swimming in six-figure debt burdens? The excess attorneys produced by these JD mills merely create whole industries of garbage law – just look at the now 20-year-old construction defect monstrosity.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 6:50 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Agreed. Also time to go back to offering the bar exam only once per year to reduce some of the local glut. Applicants can try elsewhere if they are keen to take it in February.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 4, 2014 11:08 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Perhaps Boyd should close, but there's at least 100 other law schools that should shut first. At least Boyd only pumps 130 grads out a year. What if Cooley was located in Vegas?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 10:40 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Good point. They should close down all the diploma mills first like Cooley, Michigan State, Thomas Jefferson, and/or any school that automatically drops the bottom 1/3 of a class after the 1L year (sorry Cal Western).

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 10:57 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Michigan State is a diploma mill? I thought that was a good school? Why is it I met some of the coolest people who went to USD, and then some of the biggest asses also went to USD?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 5, 2014 11:07 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I actually like the idea of ALL law schools dropping the bottom 1/3 of the 1L class. 33% less graduates across the United States means less worthless JD's running around without jobs.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
December 6, 2014 10:32 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Good point, maybe we should petition the ABA to impose that requirement on every school in the nation.