Law school money down the toilet?

Dear Kimber,

Happened to be visiting Shilling Me Softly (www.shillingmesoftly.blogspot.com) adding another posting to our running list - we do that with images/cartoons as well. As you know, there can be slow news days when there doesn't appear to be anything that's a good fit for your blog so we'd returned to SMS to add "Christina Lee: Portrait of Adorable Delusion" which is when to our surprise we noticed we'd been linked. Thank you so very much!

It's nice to see you're getting many inquiries after being referenced in the New York Times article - great, great newspaper. The internet is amazing and we've only scratched the surface of its potential. All your hours of hard work are finally bearing fruit. Congratulations!

We'll keep an eye open for the McGill student's article and post it as soon as it becomes available. Should be interesting because in September of 2009 its law faculty was ranked second overall only to the University of Toronto in a national publication (McLean's Magazine). Ditto for the Canadian Business magazine piece and, of course, you're upcoming appearance on Fox - hopefully a video will be available shortly afterward that can be "interneted."

Look forward to working with you and thank you again!

Regards,
Clare Pieuk
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Hi, Clare,

It's funny you should write today, as I've been receiving a number of inquiries from Canadian reporters since the NYT piece was published last week. Today, I actually spoke with a young McGill student who is doing a story for her school newspaper about the law school scamblog phenomenon, and Canadian Business magazine is going to be running a story in an upcoming issue as well. I have also been asked to appear in a segment for the Fox Business Channel tomorrow night (1/13) at 7 PM ET/6 PM CT. The story has most definitely gone viral, and those of us who have been working towards meaningful change in legal education couldn't be happier.

I think my readers would appreciate the perspective that your blog provides, so I'll be adding it to my blogroll right now.

I look forward to reading your posts, and I hope you find mine informative as well.

Kimber

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Clare Pieuk wrote:

Dear Ms Russell:

We’re a blog based in Winnipeg, Manitoba the precursor of which (www.CyberSmokeSignals.com) dates to the summer of 2000 before the term “blog” had been invented. The current version went online in March of 2006.

We’ve been following the debate in the United States regarding the value of law schools and how administrators/professors/the American Bar Association and others may be misrepresenting current labour market conditions to potential, present students and recent graduates. We remain quite prepared to link with your site if you’d like a Canadian component. There are three current situations to which we may be able to directly contribute that your readership might find interesting:

(1) here they’re termed Law Societies versus your Bar Associations. Regardless, we’re covering a disciplinary hearing for a lawyer whom we know that’s currently in its preliminary stage. To date, we’ve attended three brief sessions and reported their outcomes on our blog. By law we’re unable to indentify the individual by name until after a finding of misconduct has been rendered if that, in fact, happens – we have our doubts. Therefore, we’ve named him “Blackie” after the popular radio, television and film character of the 1920s -1940s Boston Blackie

(2) a classic SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) initiated by a Canadian taxpayer funded Aboriginal organization traceable as far back as mid-September of 2003 initially against three unrepresented Co-Defendants. To date we estimate at least $250,000 worth of public funds have been spent by the Plaintiffs. This action is not yet trial ready

(3) the province’s legal system has been rocked recently by what can only be described as “a judicial scandal” involving a Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice (Madam Lori Douglas - Family Division), her husband, also a lawyer, and a third party for whom he was acting in a divorce related matter. Long story short, inappropriate images appeared of Justice Douglas on an American pornographic site placed there by her husband. Her Ladyship is currently the subject of a complaint before the Canadian Judicial Council which will ultimately decide her fate while her husband is facing multiple-counts of misconduct yet to be heard by the Law Society of Manitoba. It is our intention to attend and report on this proceeding once it gets underway. BTW, Above the Law has been periodically updating the “Douglas-Chapman-King” affair as we call it

We plan to post this letter on our site. Should you choose to reply your response unless requested otherwise will also be displayed. If Shilling Me Softly is not interested in linking do you have any suggestions for similar sites you could recommend given the ever increasing number that seem to be coming online these days?

By the way, we have no formal legal training other than what we’ve learned by the seat of our pants sitting in a courtroom. Keep up the great work on SMS!

Best wishes,

Clare L. Pieuk
Blogmaster
www.CyberSmokeBlog.blogspot.com