On the Record

Back in September, I wrote about the University of Baltimore bringing back its long-forgotten alma mater. At the time, the only evidence of the song was a piece of paper from 1958 that included the alma mater and Auld Lang Syne.

The school’s archivists theorized the alma mater was sung as part of graduation programs, but were hoping alumni would come forward with additional information.

Bill Clift (Class of 1951) responded to inquiries with an answer. He checked his Reporter yearbook from 1951 and found two copies of the program from his senior banquet held in June of that year. The alma mater is part of the program, along with Auld Lang Syne. An insert with the program contained the words to both songs.

Both documents are now part of the university archives. So the only question that remains concerns the alma mater’s origins.

Incidentally, the university has also recently digitized all of its Reporter yearbooks, which were published between 1928 and 1975. The yearbooks were started by the first graduating law class.

On Saturday, I spent a rejuvenating morning serving as a judge for the semi-final round of a moot-court competition hosted by American University’s Washington College of Law.

My service to the Burton D. Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition stirred me in three ways:

1. It made me feel 20 years younger, when I nervously stood as a law student waiting to be grilled by “judges” at the same school;

2. It enabled me to step out of the role of spectator (I have reported on oral arguments for two decades) and participate in the enterprise; and

3. As a husband — and father of a teen and a tween — it was refreshing to have people listen to me and answer my questions.

It also didn’t hurt that the fact pattern and issue were right up my alley.

The head of research and development at a major high-tech company was suing for libel a blogger who had accused him online of running a Mumbaian sweatshop where child laborers built computer components.

The issue before the moot court was whether the company executive qualified as a “public figure” or “private person” under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence, a critical distinction that largely determines who wins the case.

Public figures, to prove libel, have the heavy burden of showing that the reporter wrote an erroneous story either knowing it was false or with a reckless disregard for the truth.  Private individuals need only show that the journalist was negligent in reporting a story that was  untrue.

The three-judge panel on which I served — as “chief” no less — ruled for the reporter. Imagine that.

Law school — at least evidence class — hasn’t changed much since I last stepped into a classroom as a student during Bush’s presidency (the father’s, not the son’s).

Hearsay is still generally inadmissible at trial because it is “an out-of-court statement introduced for the truth of the matter asserted.” And a bunch of exceptions to the hearsay rule remain, including, but not limited to, “past-recollection recorded,” “present-sense impression,” “business documents” and “excited utterances.”

So, much of what I learned 18 years ago came flowing back to me as I sat in on Professor Paul Rice’s evidence class Monday afternoon at American University’s Washington College of Law (pictured), from which I graduated in December 1991.

But some things have definitely changed: For example, each student had a laptop computer and Internet access, made possible by Wi-Fi and electrical outlets by each seat.

Back in the Dark Ages (the late 1980s and early 1990s), we students had to get by with pens, highlighters and notebooks (the paper variety).

Just as I was feeling like Cro Magnon man, the good professor came to my rescue as he tried to illustrate for the students that just because a document has a date doesn’t mean that an event occurred on that date.

Rice, who has been teaching at the school for 35 years , asked the class if anyone knew what it meant to “kite” a check.

The students, born into an era when deposited checks are recorded automatically, stared blankly.

Meanwhile, the professor and I shared knowing smiles.

On the Cover:  Welcome to the first Monday in October! This morning marks the Supreme Court debut of Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Assistant Public Defender Celia Anderson Davis, who will argue over a Hagerstown man’s child sex abuse conviction. The question is whether a request for counsel, years earlier, should have stopped police from questioning the suspect without a lawyer after they obtained additional information. Read the main story, some advice from Gansler’s predecessor, and a preview of the new term.

In the News: The Court of Appeals heard argument in a legal malpractice case that challenges the “case within a case” methodology … the ban on self-represented lawyers claiming attorneys’ fees applies even to bad faith or frivolous actions, the Court of Special Appeals holds … Maryland Legal Services Corp. renews its quest for a higher filing-fee surcharge … Sen. Ben Cardin finds a civil audience for his health-care talk at UB Law… and a former CBS Early Show personality appeals a ruling that knocked out his medical malpractice claim.

Also:

• Paul Tiburzi remembers the time he argued against the D.C. lawyer who went on to become Chief Justice of the United States;
• An Owings Mills man got a $588,000 verdict in his lawsuit against a home-improvement contracting firm, but will also seek to hold the contractor individually liable;
• Read the Week in Review and our Law Digest, this week with cases from the Court of Appeals, the 4th Circuit and the U.S. District Court for Maryland.

Sorry, University of Maryland and University of Baltimore law school students – you don’t have a shot of clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

An ABA Journal story about the composition of current and past clerks at the highest court in the land quotes Scalia telling an American University Washington College of Law student earlier this year she should look elsewhere for a clerkship: 

By and large, I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, OK?

(The real chutzpah of the quote is that Scalia said it on AU’s campus after being invited by the law school.)

For this upcoming term, the Harvards and Yales of the world still dominate the clerkships, although Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “caused a stir” by picking a Seton Hall alumnus as his one of his clerks, according to the story. The universities of Georgia and Texas and George Washington University are also represented this term.

One former justice who didn’t automatically gravitate to top-10 law schools was Byron White, who hired ”interesting people,” including a man who worked in a coal mine.

“Look, there are a hundred people a year that could to the job adequately,” the NFL-player-turned-justice told biographer Dennis Hutchinson. “I might as well have someone who’s interesting, and that doesn’t mean the ones that the fancy law profes­sors recommend.”

I was driving on Charles Street by our office this morning when I saw a woman walking across the street with the help of a cane and what I thought was a full cast on her left leg. Upon closer inspection, I thought the woman was Phoebe Haddon, dean of the University of Maryland School of Law.

Turns out I was half right. The woman was in fact Haddon, but she was wearing a brace, not a cast, according to Jamie Smith, a law school spokesman. Haddon has been rehabbing from a summer leg injury, he said, and part of the treatment is to wear the brace.

Haddon is on her way to her goal, incidentally, of a full recovery by Saturday, when she will deliver her first address since becoming dean in July. Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, will give the keynote address at the program, titled “Justice & the Global Economy”  but designated on the school’s Web site as “an event celebrating [Haddon's] appointment.” Registration for the event had to be closed after 500 people signed up, Smith said.

Both of Maryland’s law schools are located on campuses that are among the most dangerous in the country, according to a new ranking.

Both the University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland-Baltimore made The Daily Beast’s list of the 25 most dangerous colleges. In fact, UMB is the third most dangerous school in the country, according to this list. The rankings are based in part on crime data the schools are required to report to the federal government and in part on crime stats for the surrounding neighborhoods.

Maryland has the dubious distinction of having more schools on the list than any other state except Massachusetts. The other dangerous colleges in the Free State are University of Maryland-Eastern Shore and Bowie State University. Notably, the Johns Hopkins University is not on there.

No Maryland schools made The Daily Beast’s list of the 25 safest colleges.

Students at the “dangerous” Maryland schools: do the rankings ring true? Do you feel unsafe on campus?

(An aside: I’m proud that my alma mater didn’t make the list. To my dad, who was worried about me going there because of safety concerns: I told you so.)

HT: TaxProf Blog via Above the Law.   

The University of Maryland School of Law gives students a lot for their money, according to new rankings.

According to a “best value” list by The National Jurist magazine, the school ranks 48th in bang-for-your-buck. The publication assessed institutions based on tuition, bar pass rate and percentage of employed graduates. The schools on the list are, unsurprisingly, state schools.

Maryland’s value ranking more or less matches its U.S. News & World Report ranking, 43. What’s interesting is how many of the high-ranking value schools, such as 1st place North Carolina Central, 3rd place Nebraska and 5th place Mississippi, are in U.S. News’ third or fourth tier.

By the way, Maryland also makes the magazine’s list of the top schools for students who want to do public-interest work, as does the University of Baltimore School of Law. Maryland is 7 and Baltimore is 14. Neither school places on the list of law schools with the most diverse faculty.

HT: TaxProf Blog via ABA Journal.

They didn’t set out to hang out their shingles — at least, not yet — but the economy made it the most attractive option for these new solo practitioners. Read The Accidental Solo, this related story on setting up shop, and these tips on running your own practice.

The University of Maryland law school’s Appellate and Post-Conviction Advocacy Clinic highlights its summer wins and is taking a setback in stride, as one of its recent clients got arrested on a charge similar to the one the clinic helped get expunged.

Topping the news are stories about the firing of Public Defender Nancy Forster and a citation against a Charles County judge for letting the air out of a court worker’s tire. In Legal Briefs, Chief Judge Bell sends another letter – this time, seeking Social Security numbers for the Client Protection Fund.

In Verdicts & Settlements, a Baltimore jury awards more than $1 million to the children of a young woman who died after surgery to resolve her blood clots. And, in Unbillable Hours, meet a Montgomery County lawyer who coaches high school football players in more ways than one.

PLUS: On the Move; columns by Legal Aid’s Joe Surkiewicz and Dolan Media’s Justin Rebello; and our weekly Law Digest, featuring eight opinions by the 4th Circuit.

Happy Monday! Enjoy these law links:

• Miles & Stockbridge keeps its associates informed about firm finances.
• Fired Public Defender Nancy Forster was “totally selfless, devoted, and delightful” when Jon Katz worked with her on an appeal, he writes.
• The Washington Post has a story this morning about an absolutely crazy lawsuit. (HT: Above the Law.)
• Remember the case where the judge referred to a drug defendant’s girlfriend as his “baby mama”? It’s heading to Wisconsin’s top court after another appellate court held that the judge’s comments could create a reasonable perception that the defendant’s sentence had something to do with race.
• What should a law professor wear on the first day of class? Readers, do you remember any profs from your own law school days who made interesting sartorial choices?