[Sly Fox]

From the fishwrap:

Law school sees first graduation

By Ron Brown
rbrown@newsadvance.com
May 18, 2007

Three years ago, Jeff Johnson was a pastor looking to become a lawyer.

Today, he’ll become one of the first 50 graduates of the Liberty University School of Law.

At first, the 31-year-old was hesitant to commit to the LU law school because it wasn’t accredited at the time.

Click Here for Full Story

[TDDance234]

Another great accomplishment for Liberty. Congrats graduates of the Law school!

[jcmanson]

The question is, will their celebration include alcohol?

[Fumblerooskies]

The question is, will their celebration include alcohol?

[Sly Fox]

Here's a rather positive story in the Chicago Tribune off all places:

Falwell saw law school as tool to alter society

By Lisa Anderson
Tribune national correspondent
Published May 21, 2007

LYNCHBURG, Va. -- Some may have found it curious when Rev. Jerry Falwell's new Liberty University School of Law recently unveiled a $1 million teaching courtroom featuring exact-to-the-inch replicas of the U.S. Supreme Court bench and the lectern and counsel tables facing it. But Liberty faculty and students understood perfectly: Falwell intended his students to be well prepared to argue before and, ultimately, to serve on the highest court in the land.

Falwell, the prominent televangelist and father of the Moral Majority who founded Liberty University in 1971, died less than a week before the school granted its first law degrees to 50 graduates on Saturday. But his dream of "training a new generation of lawyers, judges, educators, policymakers and world leaders in law from the perspective of an explicitly Christian worldview" remains very much alive.

Click Here for Full Story & Video Links

[The Rock]

The question is, will their celebration include alcohol?

I just peed myself

[JDUB]

might wanna clean that up

[PeterParker]

From an objective standpoint, the real barometer of the quality of the Law School curriculum will be the success rate on the bar exams of this first graduating class. Many prospective students use this as a major factor in determining which schools will offer the best preparation to be successful on that juggernaut of a test.

Best of luck to the new grads.

[PeterParker]

While this in regards to the California and Nevada bar exam (toughest in the nation), it does provide interesting insight.


http://www.lvbusinesspress.com/articles ... news01.txt

Tough exam perplexes even seasoned legal eagles

But those who have passed test say it shouldn't be made easier

BY VALERIE MILLER
BUSINESS PRESS

A "final exam nightmare" is how an Arizona lawyer sums up his experience taking the Nevada bar exam.

Lewis and Roca partner Tom Ryan is no rookie, either. He has more than 30 years of practice under his belt. The attorney is also a veteran of three other bar exams and even sat on the committee that administered them in Arizona. Even so, the newcomer to Nevada had to hit the books.

After taking a prep course, Ryan passed the 2 1/2-day exam and was able to move successfully to Lewis and Roca's Las Vegas office. But not all his counterparts are so lucky. In July, nearly half the attorneys sitting for the bar -- 67 out of 139 -- failed it...


[Doh.] ...The Golden State's three-day bar exam recently gained unwanted notoriety when former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan failed the July test. The constitutional scholar, who was once talked of as a potential U.S. Supreme Court justice, was among the 51.2 percent that failed this summer. There were 8,343 California test takers in July. Only 41.2 percent passed the bar there in February.

[PeterParker]

For those interested in reading through the analysis, this report provides some interesting info on a cross section of Law School graduates success rate on the California Bar Exam. (While this data is a couple of years old, it provides an interesting look nonetheless.)

It will be interesting to see how the first crop of LU Law grads fare and can contribute to furthering a positive perception of the Law School by a strong performance on the bar exams (whether it is the CA one or the one within the state they wish to practice.)


http://www.lawtutor.org/school_ranks.asp

What is the best law school in the United States?

How good is your law school? Is it good enough for you?

Is it in the Top Ten?

The California General Bar Exam (CGBX) is the toughest in the nation and the only objective way to compare United States law schools. The CGBX is the "IRON-MAN COMPETITION" competition for law school graduates and the only forum where large numbers of graduates from a wide variety of law schools go head-to-head in a blind testing examination.


Not only is the CGBX the largest bar examination process in the United States (and possibly the world) but it is open to the widest variety of law school graduates from the following five types of extremely different law schools:


ABA: Law schools approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) inside California;
O-ABA: ABA approved law schools outside California;
ACCRD: Law schools accredited by the California Bar Association but not approved by the ABA;
UNACRD: Law schools that are not ABA approved and not CBA accredited;
CORRES: Correspondence law schools.

Here are the three sections according to this guys protocol: (circa 2004-05 according to the site)

1. http://www.lawtutor.org/TopTen.asp

2. http://www.lawtutor.org/Good.asp

3. http://www.lawtutor.org/GBU.asp


It is interesting to note the success rates of the three schools constantly noted in JF's goals for Liberty:

1. Harvard = 85%

2. Notre Dame = 77%

3. Brigham Young = 70%


>Also noted (alma mater of LU's new Chancellor):

1. Univ. of Virginia = 84%


>Other Virginia/DC and Others:

1. Geo. Washington = 59%

2. Pepperdine = 57%