Res Ipsa Blog

Texas law students who have completed 60 credit hours and are not on academic probation may apply for a third-year bar card. The temporary trial card allows the student to "participate in the trial of cases in Texas under the supervision of a licensed attorney." Students who wish to apply for a third year bar card outside of a clinical program should take the following steps: 1. Download and complete the Third Year Bard Card Application. (Word, PDF) Review pages 1-5. ... Read More

"You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer." Professor Kingsfield, The Paper Chase. Professor Kingsfield was right; law school changes the way you read, the way you think, and the way you analyze. Not unlike boot camp, this three-year odyssey is meant to break you and then remake you into something better than you were before. There are a number of things that you can do to ensure you come out on top when ... Read More

One factor that is often considered in determining a law school's ranking is the number of scholarly articles published per year by the school's faculty. Since larger schools have an advantage in this regard, a more equitable measure of publication rates is a comparison based on the number of papers published per full-time faculty member.  This offers a better measure of how often professors are being published. For example, under the traditional measure the University of Texas would come out ahead in ... Read More

Texas Tech University School of Law announced today that it will be hosting United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia this Fall as he takes center stage for the Sandra Day O'Connor Distinguished Lecture Series. The Series, which started last year with the attendance of former United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is the result of the continuing efforts of Dean Walter Huffman and distinguished alum Mark Lanier to bring much deserved recognition to the law school. On a related note, ... Read More

The University of North Texas and the City of Dallas have selected a location for the proposed University of North Texas College of Law. On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council agreed to spend over $16 million renovating the old Dallas City Hall to make it the home of the "first pubic law school in North Texas." Built in 1914, the building served as the Dallas City Hall until 1978. It is in the parking lot of this building that Jack Ruby ... Read More

Early last week, I wrote a post about the CCRAA loan forgiveness program in which I noted that it was still unclear whether loan forgiveness under the CCRAA would trigger tax liability. Paul Caron of the TaxProf Blog reported on Friday that the IRS handed down Rev. Rul. 2008-34 "which clarifies that law school public interest loan forgiveness programs qualify for the § 108(f) exception (and, as a result, students need not report the forgiven interest as discharge of indebtedness income). " ... Read More

According to the ABA, 87% of law students borrow money for their law school education. The average law student at a private school graduates with over $83,000 in student debt, while those who graduate from public schools have, on average, over $54,000 in debt. In 2007, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) was signed into law by President Bush. (Public Law 110-084). The CCRAA provides for the forgiveness of federal student loans after i) 10 years of public service work, or ... Read More

A low average cost of education doesn't always translate to less debt on graduation. For example, although SMU has the highest average cost of education of all law schools in Texas, graduates from SMU carry less debt on average than graduates at Baylor and St. Mary's. Similarly, Texas Wesleyan has the third highest cost of education, yet Wesleyan graduates have the second lowest average debt. Meanwhile St. Mary's, which has the fourth lowest average cost of education, has the highest average debt ... Read More

University of Texas law students, on average, get the most bang for their law school buck. There are only two other schools in Texas where students make more in their first year than they spend in law school: the University of Houston and Texas Tech. At the other end of the spectrum, Baylor and Texas Wesleyan graduates have to work for nearly two years before they can recoup their law school expenses. The cost/earnings ratio (C/E ratio) reflects how much every dollar earned ... Read More

Continuing on the theme of whether going to law school is worth it, here is a look at the average starting salaries for Texas law school graduates, as originally published by The Princeton Review Best 170 Law Schools, 2008 Edition. (The average starting salary for Texas Southern graduates was not included in the article.)   Law School Average Starting Salary Texas Wesleyan University School of Law $57,497 St. Mary's University School of ... Read More