It had to finally happen.  This blog has posted on the problems facing post-Great Recession law graduates: gigantic non-dischargeable student loans; a glut of newly minted lawyers; and few law-related job prospects.

According to the Law School Admissions Council, over the past year, law school admissions have dropped by over 11% to their lowest levels in a decade; perhaps due to the factors listed above.

The profession will no doubt rebound.  But not before more pain is inflicted.  Some in the industry predict that law school applications will continue to fall off over the next two years as the U.S. economy tries to mount a sustained recovery.  And any newly minted lawyer can tell you how difficult it has been to become engaged in the industry.

In the meantime, if you or a family member is absolutely determined to enter the profession, one advantage is to get an early start.  Along these lines, the Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center is again offering law-related programs for middle school and high school students this summer.  The program features a moot court exercise, discussions from jurists, lawyers and other legal professionals, and other law-related activities.

If you have a student interested in the law that would benefit from this program, contact Rachel Drenovsky:

drenovskyr@courts.mi.gov or (517) 373-5027.  

Here is the link to more information about the program from the Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center.

The dreaded LSAT scantron.

From time-to-time this law blog has addressed the effects that the down economy has had on the legal profession. In doing so, we’ve alerted our readers to the collateral effects now becoming manifest for recent graduates of the nation’s 250+ law schools. We’ve often asked the question: do we really need more lawyers?

The latest development in this rough chapter of the profession is the current proposal of the American Bar Association to drop the requirement that students entering law school take the LSAT.

Doesn’t this sound like a good thing? Many critics have long-asserted that the only thing this test measures is one’s aptitude for taking a standardized test. Well, not so fast.

The consensus among the industry professionals is that all the top-tier law schools will continue requiring that applicants sit for the exam. It should be noted that as many as 10 law schools already have been granted waivers to admit students without LSAT scores.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the chairman of the ABA’s committee on the entrance exam has told the National Law Journal that a significant faction within the committee has concluded that the rule that law school applicants, “submit to a valid and reliable admission test” should be repealed. The committee’s concern, in part, relates to the ABA’s proper role in the law school admission process and its indirect endorsement of the Law School Admission Counsel; the well-funded organization that administers the LSAT.

The proposal to drop the LSAT requirement will be the subject of public debate at the ABA committee’s next meeting on April 2 in Chicago.

Last weekend, we posted on the problems associated with the glut of lawyers, taking our lead from a front-page story in the NYT Business Section that has since received much exposure. The ABA proposal has attracted more unwanted attention to the professional formation of attorneys.

One of the knocks against lawyer-making is that the process is designed to enrich the law school and impoverish the law student. Students willingly submit to the impoverishment process in exchange for a coveted professional credential: the Juris Doctor.

Local connection: No law school exemplifies this process more than our own Cooley Law School, receiving yet more spectacular negative publicity on this subject in the tongue-in-cheeky blog Above the Law whose recent post on this subject asks, “does the ABA really want every lower-ranked law school to turn into Thomas Cooley?”

While acknowledging that most of the top-schools will continue using the admission test, ATL suggests that Cooley will drop the LSAT like a bad habit, opening the door even further for those, er, less-qualified legal aspirants that can afford to pay heavy-duty tuition bills for their shot at the American Dream; lawyer style.

While our service-economy is flexible and somewhat forgiving, your law school student loan obligation is not. Where the rubber meets the road on this problem is that attorney positions have become occasional in a crowded profession.

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Justice Maura Corrigan

In the first business-day of the new year, a significant development is unfolding at the highest levels of government for the State of Michigan.  Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan is expected to resign from the Court in order to serve in newly-minted Governor Rick Snyder's cabinet; most likely as the Director of the Michigan Department of Human Services.

This gives us pause on several levels.  The first consequence of Justice Corrigan's resignation is that it provides the new governor, deemed a political "moderate" along the lines of William Milliken, with his first opportunity to appoint a justice to the high court.

Governor Snyder's first appointment comes at a time of acute dissension at the High Court.  The Court has long been divided along ideological lines with a tightly held conservative majority of 4 justices often opposing the 3 more liberal justices over the past decade.  While some of the players have changed over time, the 4-3 conservative majority on the Court has remained relatively constant for many years.  Justice Corrigan has always led her conservative colleagues, authoring many business-friendly decisions and opinions tending to favor law enforcement in the criminal law.

Some of the acrimony within the Michigan Supreme Court has spilled from their conference chambers into the public in the form of scathing dissents in several decisions, and a recent letter-censure of fomer-Justice Betty Weaver back in November.  Justice Corrigan was among the five Justices signing the censure letter. 

The consensus among Michigan's appellate bar is that Governor Snyder's appointment will end-up as a critical "swing-vote" on the several critical decisions awaiting argument and decision in the current term of the High Court.

One of Justice Corrigan's recent opinions of note was the case of People v Smith; a case involving an African American criminal defendant's challenge to his murder conviction, handed down by an all-white jury selected from a nearly all-white jury pool.  Justice Corrigan's opinion affirming the conviction (and reversing the Court of Appeals decision that had remanded the case back to Kent County for a new trial) was upheld by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Berghuis v Smith.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the author of the SCOTUS decision, characterized Justice Corrigan's handiwork as "cogent".  High praise for a conservative state justice coming from a Clinton-era SCOTUS appointee.

Another highlight in Justice Corrigan's distinguished jurisprudence is her opinion (5-2) in Glass v Goeckel, granting Michiganders the right to walk along the beaches of the coastline of our Great Lakes.  A controversy had arisen from the intermediate appellate court's decision in a case from Up-North holding that citizens could not walk along the beaches of the Great Lakes but rather, could only walk in the water; difficult, if not impossible along many stretches of the lakes.  In overturning the intermediate appellate court, Justice Corrigan's opinion cited both Roman law and portions of the Northwest Ordinance.  She also faced eleventh-hour vigorous dissents from her colleagues Stephen Markman and Robert Young, Jr.

Perhaps Justice Corrigan's most enduring accomplishment, in addition to her life of selfless public service, is her leadership role in bringing about the completion of the Michigan Hall of Justice; a beautiful courthouse which serves as the home of the Michigan Supreme Court and the Lansing office of the Court of Appeals.  Having argued in that Court on several occasions, I've noted that you could land a plane on the counsels' tables.

A second major consequence of Justice Corrigan's job-swap is even more political.  If she assumes the directorship of the Department of Human Services, she will head the agency tasked with providing public assistance and child and family welfare assistance to Michigan's poor.  The DHS has over 100 county offices throughout Michigan.

In the Great Recession era, the DHS has been swamped with families and individuals seeking aid; over one million open cases were logged by the agency last May.  Also, the agency is being sued in federal court over its track record of protecting children.  The imminent appointment of a receiver for the agency apparently was forestalled by Justice Corrigan's appointment.

With Governor Snyder getting elected and taking office on a firm promise to immediately reducing the state's nearly two billion dollar budget deficit, you don't have to be a genius to "do the math" on this one.

So let's sit back and see how this one plays out, as the ripple effect from the election spreads throughout our Great Lake State.

Update:  Since the original version of this post, Justice Corrigan and Governor Snyder have made Corrigan's appointment as Director of DHS official.  Recognizing the difficult task at hand, Governor Snyder has apparently promised Corrigan, and the federal judge, 600 new-hires to replace the more than 1000 experienced workers mothballed via former Governor Granholm's retirement inducements. 

Former Justice Corrigan has a huge and important challenge ahead.  Michigan's poor and its underserved children stand to benefit.

For another take on this subject, check out fellow Oakland Press blogger Tim Skubick's post.


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In mid 2008, many divorce attorneys faced the problem of apportioning sudden significant losses in the stock and real estate markets.  Those cases depended on valuing IRAs and 401(k) plans to neutralize the risk for both parties.

The economy fell too fast and too far, however, for many sagging marriages.  During the first two quarters of 2008, many divorce litigants locked-in on values established over appreciable time.  Unless their divorce attorneys had the qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) ready at the trial date (a rare bit of forethought), significant value was lost each day of the delay.  In some cases, more than six-figures.

One such case decided during that era by Oakland County Family Court Judge Elizabeth Pezzetti, Skinner v Skinner, was upheld earlier this month in an opinion by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Skinner is a guide for divorcing partners relative to what constitutes premarital or "separate" retirement property and defines "passsive income" relative to retirement assets.  The case also illustrates the consequences of stipulating to division dates for retirement assets, then suffering a long delay prior to full-resolution of the divorce litigation.

In Skinner, Husband stipulated to a date for purposes of valuation of the couple's retirement assets, including the pre-marital portion of his 401(k).  A two or three day trial and other dispositive court hearings were then spread over the next 3-months, during which time investment portfolios tanked, eroding nearly half the accrued value in retirement assets, across the board.

The issues in the case were: how to classify the significant interest income generated from Husband's pre-marital, and thus separate, retirement asset; and what date to use for division of the parties' IRA.

Coming into the marriage, Husband had invested approximately $15,000 in his Ford Motor Company 401(k) plan.  Over the course of the couple's 23-year marriage, more than $150,000 in marital earning contributions were made to the Ford plan.

As of the (pre-Great Recession) trial date, the value of the parties' other significant retirement asset, an IRA, was nearly $500,000.  By the time the judgment of divorce entered in mid-November, the IRA was only worth $330,000, and the Great Recession was upon us.

At trial, Husband presented a mathematically sound formula to calculate the interest generated from his pre-marital investment; these calculations were uncontested.  In her opinion dividing the marital estate, however, Judge Pezzetti ruled that 100% of the appreciation on the retirement plan was part of the marital estate.

The court of appeals affirmed Pezzetti's decision, including such gains as a component of the marital estate when a spouse, in this case the Wife, assists in the growth of the separate asset.  In the Skinner case, this assistance took the form of Wife's role as homemaker for the parents' four children.

Husband in Skinner took a double hit due to the losses incurred from the stipulated valuation date and the delay in getting the divorce judgment entered.  He cried "unfair" to the appellate court, to no avail.

In many of these cases, investor(s) nearing traditional retirement age were caught napping; some had a significant portion of their life-savings  invested in stock-based retirement assets rather than a more liquid, diversified portfolio.  Once the Great Recession took hold of the economy, divorce attorneys whose clients had already agreed to valuation dates for retirement assets lost significant value each and every day until their final judgment was entered.

Even when (painfully) aware of the issue, attorneys simply could not complete these divorces fast enough.  One of the parties, like in Skinner, usually came up short, suffering a complete loss of retirement value.

Once an agreement is reached, or when a divorce trial begins, it is crucial for the attorneys to work diligently in order to complete the often painful and emotional process of ending a long-term marriage.  Skinner tells us that no good can come from a delay.

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