Happy Friday!

Here are a some interesting legal stories from this week in case you missed them:

A former assistant career services dean at Thomas Jefferson Law School has admitted to padding graduate employment statistics.

The New Jersey Supreme Court’s split decision does not clear up issues surrounding surrogacy.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated his position this week that the Constitution “doesn’t change.”

Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

In-house legal departments are getting fed up with paying outside counsel for soft costs like food and photocopying fees, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

In-house counsel are pushing back against law firms charging them for legal research, photocopying and word processing costs according to a study cited in the article.

Companies’ legal departments argue that these costs are included in law firm overhead and therefore should not be charged to them.

So, here’s our question for you:

Should companies be charged for soft costs like catered lunches and photocopying by outside counsel?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• Ballard Spahr’s Baltimore office and Capital One’s in-house legal department teamed up last week in Bethesda to provide free estate planning services to first responders.
• Rite Aid’s former general counsel loses a third case against his ex-boss.
• Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. named a new general counsel.
• Law schools are offering more courses for in-house careers. (The Daily Record reported on the trend in Maryland earlier this year.)
• Kia Motors puts outside counsel through a technology test before hiring.
•  Transocean Ltd.’s general counsel resigned.
•  Spirit AeroSystems Inc. named a new general counsel.
• University of California San Francisco’s chief legal counsel retired after 30 years.

• Follow us on Twitter for In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse
• Want the latest on who’s been hired, fired or moving and shaking in between? Head to our Movers and Shakers page to find out.
• For networking events and other happenings this week in Maryland, check out our calendar of events.
• Get the very latest updates from our law reporters on Twitter: @TDRKristi, @Steve_Lash, @TDRBeth
• Check out The Daily Record on Facebook.

While there seems to be a lot of negative news about law schools these days, here are some good tidings.

The interim dean at the St. Louis University School of Law, whose dean left amid controversy over accusations the university was using the law school as its cash cow, is buying each student at the law school a membership to the American Bar Association.

Tom Keefe will pay $14,212 for the 836 students at the law school. Memberships for the ABA at the group rate cost $17 per student. Four other law schools across the country buy every student a membership, which allows them to participate in ABA sections and seek grants form the organization.

Keefe is recovering from a bit of a rocky start earlier this summer. After being named interim dean in August, he told our sister paper Missouri Lawyers Weekly that he would not be controlled by the university or be the university president’s “butt boy.”

Renderings for the new Indiana Tech Law School

While there appears to be fewer students taking the LSATs and fewer students admitted to law school, one school in Indiana is looking to become the fifth law school in the state.

Indiana Tech Law School is looking to open in 2013, though it is not yet accredited by the American Bar Association. Four other law schools already exist in the state: Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington; Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis; the Notre Dame Law School and Valparaiso University School of Law.

Though the law school plans to focus on ethics, some are critical of the new Indiana institution.

“‘Chutzpah’ has been defined as murdering your parents and then pleading for mercy because you’re an orphan,” a law professor told Business Insider. “How about setting up another legal diploma mill in a hyper-saturated market, while claiming that what will set your school apart is its emphasis on ‘ethics’ and ‘professionalism’?”

Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

Ever wonder why general counsel fire outside firms?

A U.K-based market research firm put that question to a couple thousand in-house attorneys in 45 different countries. Out of the top five answers, three centered on the cost-to-value ratio and the other two focused on lack of client maintenance — one, particularly, on client maintenance when a key contact leaves the firm. The top reasons were published in American Lawyer:

• “They were doing a bad job: no results and a lot of invoices.”

• “Poor service. Lots of delay. When challenged, they were completely up front and just said [they] don’t have enough resources, which is pretty astonishing for an international law firm.”

• “It has to do with quality and price. We paid thirty or forty thousand euros, more or less for nothing. So, they had to go.”

•”The main client relationship [partner] left the firm. I find that often when partners leave, those firms neglect to contact clients to say we still want your business and we have signed a new relationship manager. They tend not to correspond with you. Yet the partner who leaves always contacts you from the new firm.”

•”There was a severe lack of relationship between what the bills were and what the value delivered was.”

So, here’s our question for you:

What are the main reasons you would fire outside counsel or have fired outside counsel in the past?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• Telecom’s group general counsel quit.
• More shake-ups in News Corp.’s legal department.
• The University of California, Irvine School of Law will open an in-house counsel certificate program next summer.
• The former associate general counsel at GlaxoSmithKline talked about being acquitted of criminal charges last year.
• Everything’s bigger in Texas: general counsel compensation is up 11 percent in the Lone Star State.
• General counsels are increasingly sought out by CEOs for advice.
• Follow us on Twitter for In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse
• Want the latest on who’s been hired, fired or moving and shaking in between? Head to our Movers and Shakers page to find out.
• For networking events and other happenings this week in Maryland, check out our calendar of events.
• Get the very latest updates from our law reporters on Twitter: @TDRKristi, @Steve_Lash
• Check out The Daily Record on Facebook.

On the set of "Whirlwind" at DLA Piper's Baltimore office. (Photo courtesy of DLA Piper.)

Hollywood is back in Baltimore.

Clayton LeBouef, an actor from “The Wire,” filmed scenes from his new movie, called “Whirlwind,” at DLA Piper’s Baltimore office last week in the main reception area.

On “The Wire,” LeBouef played Orlando, a front man who ran a strip club for the Barksdale drug organization. LeBouef is also known for his role as Col. George Barnfather in “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

DLA Piper’s glass office building has been a Hollywood hot spot in recent years. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s HBO comedy, “Veep,” shot several scenes for its pilot episode at the building. Several scenes in the 2005 movie “Syriana,” starring George Clooney, also were filmed at The Marbury Building at 6225 Smith Ave.

The recent movie shoot at DLA Piper is just one of a number of Charm City’s recent forays into the film industry. In addition to “Veep,” the HBO movie “Game Change,” about John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s 2008 bid for the presidency and vice presidency, was filmed in Baltimore. (Both “Game Change” and “Veep” won awards at Sunday’s Emmys.)

The Netflix show “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey has also been around town, filming at a sound stage in Edgewood, as well as in the city in places like the Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon.

All are part of an effort by Maryland to boost the film industry in the state.

Former University of Baltimore School of Law Dean Phillip Closius has returned to campus after he resigned his post as dean amid controversy more than a year ago.

Closius stepped down in July 2011 citing differences with the university’s administration. Closius said at the time that he thought the university was taking too much money from revenue raised by the law school.

Both parties have moved on as the fall semester starts this year. A new law school dean, Ronald Weich, started this summer. Closius took a year of administrative leave and has returned as a professor. He is teaching two sections of Constitutional Law II this semester and Constitutional Law I and sports law next semester.

“I’ve always loved teaching,” Closius said. “When I was dean, I always taught. Coming back to teaching is coming back to the roots of why I got into this.”

After his dramatic exit, Closius admitted it has felt different being back on campus.

“It’s a little strange,” Closius said. “I’m not going to pretend it’s not. I think everyone’s been good. The students have been wonderful, telling me their support for me. A lot of people have been telling me how happy they are that I am back.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Law schools are still increasing tuition even though the number of people applying to law school has dropped dramatically.

The National Law Journal reports the average tuition for law school will increase this year by more than double the rate of inflation in the country. The average, annual private school tuition is $40,585, a 4 percent increase from last year. Tuition for in-state students attending public law schools will increase 6 percent this fall to an average of $23,590 annually.

(On the other hand, law schools are giving out more scholarship money, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.)

The Law Journal examined the reported tuition rates at law schools across the country. Locally, law school tuition rates vary; The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law had the highest tuition increase, at 19 percent. On the other hand, the school has one of the lowest tuition payments in the country — $11,265.

The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law raised tuition 3 percent this year despite freezing it last year.

“It’s hard to do a tuition freeze,” dean Phoebe Haddon told the Law Journal. “I don’t think any program can stay flat for long. Costs continue to go up, and they have to be paid somehow.”

Welcome back to the work week. We would normally have something pithy to say here, but we must get right to the first link lest you be in danger:

– Exploding toilets! Exploding toilets!

– Why it’s important to have the right expert testify at trial.

– One lawyer’s formula for law school success.

– Big tobacco lawyers are now targeting what’s in your pantry.

(Photo: Isaac Brekken for The Los Angeles Times)

When it comes to defending same-sex marriage, one Washington, D.C., lawyer is no chicken.

Attorney Ted Frank, who also blogs, has come up with a way to support same-sex marriage and consume controversial Chick-fil-A chicken.

The country has been abuzz about the Georgia-based fast-food chain in the past few weeks after its president, Dan Cathy, told a Baptist newspaper in an interview that he only supports marriage between a man and a woman.

Since then, each side of the political spectrum has jumped into the issue. Opponents of same-sex marriage declared a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” and encouraged those supporting Cathy’s views to head to their nearest Chick-fil-A and order a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. Those in favor of same-sex marriage responded with Chick-fil-A “Kiss-Off” day, where same-sex couples smooched outside chicken chains across the country.

Frank has found himself, like many Americans, facing a conundrum: he loves Chick-fil-A food, but dislikes the company’s stance against same-sex marriage. So Frank decided to take a stand — all for the love of chicken and same-sex marriage.

Frank started the website, Chicken Offsets, where people can donate every time they eat at Chick-fil-A. The money will then go to a number of LGBT nonprofits. Every $1 donated equals an offset of one chicken sandwich, and $6 is worth 10 chicken sandwich offsets, according to the website.

As Frank explains on the website:

Chick-fil-A sells $4,100,000,000 of chicken a year and donates about 0.04% of that to Christian organizations that are only anti-gay in a collateral sense. Buying a chicken offset does far more for gay rights than boycotting the chain because someone asked a business executive so religiously Christian that he insists that the stores be closed on Sunday what he thought about gay marriage and people are pretending to be surprised by the answer.

At least 90 percent of the money donated goes to the It Gets Better Project, which focuses on helping LGBT teens, and The Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that researches gender identity and sexual orientation law. Only a small amount of money is kept by the website for operating expenses.

Frank launched the website Saturday night and reportedly had raised $100 by late Monday.

So now, thanks to Frank,  gay rights supporters hankering for a spicy chicken sandwich bathed in signature Chick-fil-A Sauce can consume the 630-calorie meal guilt-free. Well, morally, anyways.