Lawyers Blog

Add another institution of legal learning to the lengthening list of those dealing with the recessionary economy by reducing the size of the incoming class.

George Washington University Law School says it hopes to reduce enrollment in the first-year class from last year’s 474 to below 450, the National Law Journal reports.

Dean Paul Schiff Berman, who started work in that role a year ago, said he had planned from the outset to cut the first-year class. His resolve was strengthened, he said, when applications dropped 15 percent or so at GWU, just as they did on average at law schools nationwide.

The University of California Hastings College of the Law made a similar announcement last month.

And Albany Law School, Creighton University School of Law and Touro College Jacob D.

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Twitter is fighting a subpoena demanding tweets of an Occupy protester on trial in Manhattan. The outcome of the battle could have a major impact on tweeters privacy. The company is arguing that Twitter has no claim on a users communication, and therefore has no right to turn them over to a court. Prosecutors are seeking three months of tweets written by protester Malcolm Harris, who was busted on the Brooklyn Bridge last year along with 700 other Occupy activists. Harris filed his own motion to quash the subpoena, contending theres “no justification” for access to “such a broad swath of electronic data.” But the judge threw out the motion, ruling that the tweets dont belong to him and he has no standing to fight for them.

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PEWAUKEE, Wis. — To Mitt Romney, the economy is in a shambles. To fellow Republican Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, it is a glowing success.

Romney and Walker offered clashing portraits of the economy at a Waukesha County GOP dinner on Saturday.

It was a jarring display of how political imperatives can lead candidates of the same party to examine the same set of facts and reach wildly different conclusions that suit their needs for an upcoming election.

Facing a June recall vote sparked by his fight with unions of government workers, Walker cast himself as the governor whose fiscal restraint has turned Wisconsin’s economy around.

“The unemployment rate is now below 7 percent for the first time since 2008,” he boasted.

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ABA Techshow keynote speaker Ben Stein applauded technological advances that enable U.S. (and Canadian) lawyers to increase access to justice for their fellow citizens in a Friday session titled The Life of Law is Not Logic But Experience.

Referring to the Constitution and the legal system it fosters as the heritage of Americans and a national treasure, Stein urged members of the legal profession to strive to put the needs of others before their own in a wide-ranging, anecdote-filled speech that covered issues ranging from letting Lehman Brothers fail to the importance of skilled and unskilled immigrant workers to economic recovery and a nation facing what he predicts will be an inevitable debt default.

Stein also acknowledged the many Canadian attendees throughout the program, although his words were geared toward U.S.

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Another twist in the Trayvon Martin case: The chief homicide investigator probing the teenagers shooting wanted to charge George Zimmerman with manslaughter, but was overruled, sources tell ABC. Investigator Chris Serino filed an affidavit on the night of the shooting saying he was not convinced by Zimmermans claims of self-defense, but the state attorneys office decided there was not enough evidence to make an arrest, the sources say.

As tensions around the case continue to rise, an elderly Florida couple named Zimmerman who have no connection to the case have moved out their home after receiving hate mail and unwanted visits from journalists, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

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