The Law Revue Cheaters: Why Above the Law Awards No-One (Yet)

law revue cheaters

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Law students cheat? Surely not.  Particularly to win a ‘virtual trophy’ for a Law Review Video competition.

But no, that was the case outlined in a strongly-worded missive on AbovetheLaw by publisher David Lat, who wrote that the stats for alleged visitors and votes for the competition were revealed as being falsified – ie ‘cheating’ – in an audit undertaken by The University of Pennsylvia Law School, which showed what they  called “rampant cheating” by Columbia, UVA and NYU.

Cheating, they wrote.

The UPenn Law letter noted “They (Syracuse) always had the best video (and also, OMG, just a general not giving a s**t about, like, needing to cheat to win a virtual trophy???). I mean, c’mon, Syracuse be throwing delicious shade while those T-3 A**holes be gunnering about trying to get the A+ at any cost. Honey, try emotional fulfillment for once, and a little work/life balance. I promise, you’ll be happier.

In summary:

  • Between April 26 at 6:19pm (web cache permalink) and April 27 at 12:30am, over 7,000 votes were cast for the top 3 videos.
  • During this 12:30am time frame, NYU, Columbia, and UVA had more votes (15,704; 13,950; 9,706, respectively) than YouTube views (9,686; 6,123; 4,956; Penn: 5,431; SU; 7,406; UT: 3,803)
  • At one point, Columbia increased by 1,716 votes in 52 minutes. Compare 12:30am with 1:22am. This is an average of 33 votes a minute, or, a vote every other second.
  • Between 2:08am and 10:54am, an additional 8,000 votes were cast, putting the top 3 within spitting distance of each other, at around 17,000 votes each, almost entirely due to UVA’s last ditch 5,400 vote push (that didn’t even work).

This shows more than 100,000 votes being cast in the contest. But we know, thanks to WordPress and Google Analytics, that the contest voting page did not receive anything close to 100,000 pageviews.

A contest winner? Sorry, Columbia and NYU and UVA — we award you no points, and may character and fitness have mercy on your soul.

The Deserved Winner – Syracuse

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The Undeserveds

‘Westside Story’ – Columbia 

Backroom Ballers – University of Virginia

Mean Gunners – University of Pennsylvania 

‘Drunk in Law’ – NYU


“I’m Not Hiring You” – Texas University

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Gender Diversity. What Gender Diversity?

Woman alone

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 Gender diversity is still not happening in law firms, it seems.  The climb to the top can be a lonely one for women.

A new survey from ALM Legal Intelligence indicates that women still account for around 30 per cent of lawyers in the 200 largest law firms in the US (be revenue), which is much the same as the figure for the past five years.
The problem is that women are not staying in the profession, for a variety of reasons but only one of them is to be mothers at home.

Women comprise 47 per cent of law school graduates and 45 per cent of associates at large law firms, the ALM survey shows.  However they account for just 17 per cent of equity partners and 25 per cent of non-equity partners.

As Fortune wrote,  law firms have rolled out generous benefits packages aimed at retaining female lawyers.

In 2015, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe beefed up its parental leave benefit, offering 22 paid weeks off to both male and female attorneys. The new policy also gave lawyers the option of taking a total of nine months off without risk of losing their jobs. Last year, Latham & Watkins introduced a breast milk shipping program for its female attorneys and staff who have young children and need to travel for work.

Leaders in Diversity?

Law firms, both large and small, have implemented widespread diversity packages and programs both in the US, as well as other jurisdictions like the UK where there are similar gender discrimination issues with women-in-law.

“Lawyers are at the forefront of the push for non-discrimination and equal opportunity under the law, but ironically, the legal profession is consistently ranked as one of the worst industries when it comes to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce,” Daniella Isaacson, senior analyst at ALM Legal Intelligence and author of the report, said in a release.

“If Big Law firms aren’t taking the time and effort to analyze gender diversity in their industry and their firms, they will remain behind the curve.”

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