A Manhattan jury has rejected a pregnancy discrimination and retaliation suit brought by former DLA Piper LLP associate Anisha Mehta, a seventh-year associate who alleged she was terminated to avoid the cost of her forthcoming parental leave. Mehta claimed the global firm’s decision was driven by bias amid a downturn. The firm countered that there was no pregnancy bias involved and that the senior associate was let go for poor performance, missing deadlines, and shoddy work. The two sides recently met in federal court in New York City in a case widely watched by the legal industry.
The case, presided over by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres, drew significant attention across BigLaw circles for its implications on law firm obligations toward expectant employees. In the end, the jury of seven women and one man sided with the defense, finding insufficient evidence that Mehta’s termination stemmed from discriminatory motives rather than legitimate performance concerns.
The decision boiled down to a “she said, she said” difference of opinion about the level of Mehta’s work. Was she indeed the victim of discrimination and retaliation by the firm, or was her termination for cause justified?
Mehta was hired by DLA Piper in October 2021 as a Senior Trademark Associate. Her boss was Gina Durham, the Tech Deputy Practice Group Leader of the firm’s Intellectual Property and Trademark (IPT) group. Mehta was fired a couple of weeks short of reaching her first complete year of employment. Why she was let go became the focal point of the ensuing legal battle.
In her complaint, Mehta claims Durham and DLA Piper terminated her employment in early October 2022, after she submitted her formal request for maternity leave while six months pregnant. Her leave was scheduled to begin in late January 2023. Refusing a $100,000 severance package offer, Mehta filed suit in June of that year. It accused the firm of four counts each of discrimination and retaliation, including violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the New York State Human Rights Law, and the Administrative Code of the City of New York.
Among other allegations, Mehta claimed she was treated differently by her employers because of her skin color and described an ongoing policy of discrimination against her. She also alleged that the firm’s “Leadership Alliance for Women” failed to represent her interests after her firing and did nothing when the firm reduced parental leave for non-birthing parents by six weeks in 2024. Mehta’s suit suggests one reason she was let go was a decrease in DLA Piper’s billable work.
DLA Piper’s stance was that Mehta was fired for poor performance and missing deadlines, claims made by Durham and two IPT partners at the firm, Keith Medansky and Tamar Duvdevan. Testimony claimed that Mehta missed an important deadline to attend a wedding for which she hadn’t secured permission and cited emails between her bosses that showed concern over her “subpar” work.
Represented by Wigdor LLP, Mehta sought to undermine DLA Piper's claims about her alleged incompetence. The suit noted that her base salary was bumped three times for a total increase of 21% during her first six months, and that she was given a year-end bonus for 2021 equal to 30% of her yearly pay. She also claimed that she never received a warning about her work or had any type of performance review.
DLA Piper partner and lead attorney Brett Ingerman insisted that Mehta's termination was due to her performance. He pointed out that during 2021 and 2022, the firm paid out over $6.5 million in leave benefits to 60 attorneys, questioning why it would deny Mehta what it had given to other litigators.
For law firms, the takeaway may be the need to document performance concerns and to be aware of terminations near major life events. Associates concerned about how pregnancy may affect their career arc, meanwhile, may be looking for a Plan B if they feel their prospects in BigLaw may be endangered by becoming pregnant, regardless of what the official handbook says.
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]]>Since the U.S. News law school rankings were first published, Yale Law School has been ranked #1. For the first time ever, those looking at the top spot will see a cardinal (or a tree) instead of a bulldog. This year’s U.S. News & World Report edition of the best law schools rankings has Stanford Law School holding the coveted position. No longer King of the Legal Mountain, Yale finds itself in a tie for second place with the University of Chicago law school. The top five is rounded out with a tie between the law schools at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia.
There was a great deal of movement in the Top 14 (T14) schools for 2026’s rankings, which may have a profound effect on where BigLaw firms attempt to woo potential associates from. What data fuels the ranking system that affects the opportunities available for so many law students? As might be expected, the methodology used to determine the rankings uses metrics that consider everything from law school admission policies and LSAT scores to ultimate bar passage rates and employment outcomes. Let’s take a peek under the hood to see how the engine driving the U.S. News ranking system runs.
While its annual report includes the part-time school of law rankings as well, it’s the U.S. News assessment of full-time law school programs that garners the lion’s share of attention. For those planning to enter the legal profession, it provides a pecking order of the best places to get a legal education. The latest rankings are based on information gathered through March 12, 2026. The report surveys almost 200 accredited law schools (157 of which responded to confirm or correct the findings) and the American Bar Association (ABA).
U.S. News relies on 10 indicators for its rankings. These indicators are standardized so they can be cross-referenced and weighted to allow for comparison. Once summed and rescaled, the top-scoring law school is given an assessment score of 100. The remaining schools receive their rankings based on the percentage of the top school’s ranking they achieve. The list is presented in descending order, with schools in the bottom 10% listed alphabetically rather than by exact rank.
Several factors are used for quality assurance. U.S. News reaches out to every ABA-accredited program to obtain certification for the data to be used in the ranking, with more than 75% of law schools responding. A footnote is included for rankings with unconfirmed data. Automated checks are conducted to detect anomalies between new and past research. Analysts then review the available data, relying on information from the ABA for conflicts or when a school didn’t supply the requested statistics directly to U.S. News. It’s then subjected to a final review, incorporating any late-arriving data and adjusting the ranking accordingly.
The 10 indicators are grouped into four categories. Each indicator also carries its own weight within the grouping.
In addition to teaching the law, law schools prepare students to both pass the bar exam and secure desirable positions in the field, such as with a prestigious law firm or in a clerkship. The effectiveness of a law school in these matters is measured by the following:
As a group, these three indicators carry the greatest ranking weight.
These indicators are driven less by quantitative statistics and more by the perceived excellence and success of the program. Scores are determined by averaging ratings on a one (low) to five (high) scale. “I don’t know” is an acceptable rating and is not figured into the final average.
All law schools can receive a peer assessment rating, but only those that participated in the most recent law school statistical survey will have their ratings of other schools’ programs counted.
Being the best law school often requires attracting students with the highest possible ceilings. It also usually means presenting challenging coursework that best prepares them for a legal career.
1% may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference in overall ranking.
Reputation counts, but so do having skilled professors and excellent resources. This includes help when needed, recommendations, and robust placement tools.
These indicators combine to single out a single program as the one against which all others are measured. This year, the honor falls to Stanford Law.
The theme of this year’s U.S. News rankings appears to be a game of musical chairs, with few participants finishing in the same position as the previous year. Despite Yale’s (slight) fall, Ivy League schools still account for four of the T14 (actually 15 schools, due to ties) programs, which ended up this way:
#1 - Stanford Law School
#2 (tie) - University of Chicago Law School
#2 (tie) - Yale Law School
#4 (tie) - University of Pennsylvania Law School
#4 (tie) - University of Virginia Law School
#6 - Harvard Law School
#7 (tie) - Duke Law School
#7 (tie) - New York University Law School
#9 (tie) - Columbia University Law School
#9 (tie) - Northwestern University Law School
#9 (tie) - University of Michigan Law School - Ann Arbor
#12 - Vanderbilt Law School
#13 (tie) - Cornell Law School
#13 (tie) - University of California Law School - Los Angeles
#13 (tie) - School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis
Despite employment rates for attorneys on a modest but steady rise, there aren’t desirable jobs ready and waiting for every law school graduate. With Stanford Law School now on top of the heap, will more positions be filled from the West Coast? Or will next year find Yale reclaiming its long-held throne?
The U.S. News & World Report Law School Ranking for 2026 is available in its entirety here.
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]]>The New Jersey Supreme Court recently amended the rules governing attorney discipline, creating a more structured process for attorneys to apply for readmission after disbarment and reinstatement after suspension. To do this, the Court created an Attorney Regulatory Board (ARB). The ARB functions as a post-disciplinary tribunal and will review attorneys’ petitions for reinstatement from suspension and petitions for readmission from disbarment. Here’s what you should know.
New Jersey was among the handful of states that made disbarment for misappropriation of client funds permanent.
That has now changed. The New Jersey Supreme Court, based in Trenton, adopted amendments to two rules: 1:20-1 et seq., which governs attorney regulation and discipline, and 1:20B-4, which governs the Disciplinary Oversight Committee. The Court also adopted new Rule 1:20-15B, which creates the ARB.
The new rule says that the ARB will have six members. Four of those will be attorneys, and two will be members of the public. The current role of the Office of Board Counsel will also be expanded to serve as counsel to the ARB in addition to continuing to serve as counsel to the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB). As part of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s attorney regulatory process, the ARB will review petitions for readmission after disbarment and make recommendations to the Supreme Court.
Changes went into effect on March 1, 2026.
There are several reasons that lawyers in can be disbarred. Some of the most common are misappropriation of client funds, but attorneys can also lose their licenses for other reasons — crimes involving dishonesty or other types of moral turpitude, fraud in bar admissions, and even failure to comply with ethics violations.
For decades, disbarment was presumed permanent in New Jersey. Once a lawyer lost their license, they could almost never get it back, especially if the disbarment involved a client’s property. This stemmed from a 1979 case called In Re Wilson, known as “the Wilson Rule.” Basically, if an attorney wrongly took a client’s money, including money in an escrow account, they could never be a lawyer again.
The reasoning was that this was necessary to protect clients and the public’s trust in the practice of law. For the legal profession to be respected, it must be tightly regulated and its lawyers strongly disciplined.
But things changed in 2022 when the New Jersey Supreme Court made a major change. In the Matter of Dionne Larrel Wade: a lawyer misappropriated client funds, but she admitted it right away and, by other accounts, was a strong advocate for her clients. Some of her clients even argued against her disbarment. The case prompted the court to reconsider whether the Wilson Rule was truly fair. Maybe, the justices thought, permanent disbarment wasn’t necessary in every single case with no exceptions.
The court also noted that only eight states, including New Jersey, make disbarment permanent; most states, along with the District of Columbia, permit some form of readmission after a set period. Of course, there are many shades of disbarment, from mandatory permanent, to discretionary permanent, to de facto permanent. Still, even the American Bar Association Model Rule 25 allows disbarred attorneys to apply for readmission after five years.
After Wade, New Jersey implemented a process for disbarred lawyers, allowing them to seek permission to regain their licenses after a five-year waiting period if they’d satisfied a series of requirements proving they now have the competency, integrity, and character to practice law in New Jersey. The process includes:
The New Jersey Supreme Court is responsible for ensuring that all attorneys in the state follow ethical and practice-of-law rules and serve their clients' best interests. The court has put several programs and boards in place to ensure compliance:
Generally, New Jersey has established a robust and fair review process that gives attorneys a second chance. The most recent change, which builds on the work of a special committee to create the ARB, continues to refine this process. It should make it clearer for attorneys, for the public, and for the protection of the practice of law.
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]]>According to the American Bar Association, bar passage rates went up in 2025 for two key groups of law graduates from ABA-accredited law schools. First-time exam takers had an aggregate pass rate of 84.10%, compared to the 2024 rate of 83.02%. Including those who took alternative pathways to licensure, the first-time pass rate was 84.19%.
The ABA also measured the number of law graduates who passed the bar exam within two years, referred to as “ultimate bar pass data.” This year, they found that 92.15 to 92.25% of 2023 law graduates had passed by 2025, an improvement of nearly two percentage points over the two-year pass rate of 2022 graduates. Each ABA-accredited school must have an ultimate pass rate of 75% to maintain its accreditation.
As Reuters reports, Stanford Law had the highest first-time bar exam pass rate in 2025: 175 out of 176, or 99.43%. The elite T-14 schools accounted for most of the year’s top scorers among first-time exam takers, but Texas schools made a strong showing; Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law had a 97.75% pass rate. Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School was not far behind at 96.85%.
Bar exam passage rates have largely risen since 2024, following a sharp decline due to the pandemic. Relief from class cancellations and shutdowns would appear to be the obvious reason, but there may be more.
Law schools had a larger candidate pool after COVID, as shutdowns and job losses led many people to reconsider their career paths. Some propose that the law graduates of 2024 and 2025 were better equipped to take the test because law schools could afford to be more selective in their admissions criteria for 2021 and 2022.
Several jurisdictions have recently lowered or adjusted their required passing score cutoffs. The Washington state supreme court has retroactively lowered its passing Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) score by six points, allowing exam takers from 2020 and forward to reapply if their score now qualifies. In 2023, five state bars lowered required scores on the UBE. Afterward, pass rates improved in Utah, Idaho, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
In July 2026, the NextGen UBE will replace the current UBE in ten jurisdictions, including Connecticut and Maryland. Washington is among them; it adjusted its previous cutoff score to create “parity” with its use of the NextGen UBE’s scoring system. According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), the NextGen UBE will roll out through February 2028, and 49 jurisdictions plan to implement it.
The NextGen UBE is intended to test more practical skills than previous examinations have. It will test exam takers not only on the law but on “foundational skills,” including “client counseling and advising, negotiation and dispute resolution, client relationship and management.” Sample questions are available at the NCBE website.
States have increasingly become more open to alternative pathways that allow lawyers to obtain licenses through supervised experience without taking the full formal bar exam. Oregon, Washington, and Utah have adopted such programs in the past few years. Delaware, America’s corporate legal hub, is considering the possibility. Those who struggle with bar exams, or who simply need a different plan for their working lives, may have more options in the future.
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]]>The Justice Department wants to take the lead on ethics investigations into its own lawyers. Many in the legal community see that as a direct challenge to state bar oversight.
The new proposal lands against a backdrop of mounting ethics investigations and complaints against Department of Justice leadership and line attorneys during the Trump administration. In Florida, more than 70 lawyers and former judges (including two former justices of the Florida Supreme Court) have asked the Florida Bar to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi for allegedly pressuring DOJ lawyers to violate their ethical obligations while defending President Trump’s policies. The Florida Bar has declined to open a case while she remains in office, and the Florida Supreme Court refused to order it to proceed, punting the complaint unless and until she leaves government service.
Reports also describe complaints pending in multiple states against members of Bondi’s leadership team and against federal prosecutors involved in immigration matters, filed in the jurisdictions where those lawyers are licensed. Those petitions sit alongside a broader wave of professional-conduct complaints targeting Trump-aligned government lawyers, which watchdog groups say are needed to check abusive or politicized uses of federal enforcement power.
The proposed regulation would create a formal “right of first review” for the attorney general over bar complaints against current and former DOJ lawyers when the alleged misconduct occurred in the course of their federal duties. Whenever a third party files a complaint with a state bar association (or a bar opens an investigation on its own) alleging that a DOJ attorney violated an ethics rule while doing DOJ work, the attorney general, acting through the Office of Professional Responsibility, would conduct the initial review of the allegations.
Under the proposal, DOJ would notify the bar and the DOJ lawyer and ask the bar to pause any parallel ethics probes or disciplinary proceedings until DOJ’s review is complete. If DOJ drops its review, state proceedings can resume, and bars can still impose sanctions, including disbarment. But the department also warns it will take “appropriate action” if a bar refuses to pause a case, which critics see as a threat to pressure or sue state regulators.
In the notice, DOJ grounds its authority in the McDade Amendment (28 U.S.C. § 530B) and a suite of statutes that give the attorney general broad control over DOJ litigation and personnel. The department argues that McDade imposes substantive state ethics standards on DOJ lawyers but does not require that state bars control enforcement, leaving room for the attorney general to set up an internal enforcement mechanism “to assure compliance” with those standards.
The proposal explicitly ties the rule to an executive order on “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” which directed the attorney general to prioritize attorney discipline. DOJ characterizes recent bar complaints as part of a weaponization of the state bar complaint process by political activists and says that unchecked state investigations are chilling zealous advocacy by DOJ lawyers and intruding on the attorney general’s statutory duty to supervise federal litigation. The notice also points out that, in DOJ’s experience, most bars already wait for the Office of Professional Responsibility to complete investigations before acting, suggesting that the proposal mainly formalizes a practice the department says has operated informally for years.
Procedurally, the proposal follows a standard notice-and-comment track under the Administrative Procedure Act. The notice is slated for publication in the Federal Register with a 30-day public comment window. After that period closes, DOJ can revise the proposed rule in light of the comments and then publish a final regulation governing how the department handles bar complaints against its lawyers.
If the rule is finalized in its current form, litigation is likely to follow. State bars, bar‑watchdog groups, and affected lawyers are expected to challenge it as conflicting with McDade, intruding on state judicial regulation, or unlawfully insulating Department attorneys from oversight. In the meantime, state bars must decide whether to ignore or accommodate DOJ requests to pause ongoing cases, and Congress may respond with oversight hearings.
For critics, the proposal is more than a technical tweak; they see it as a direct shot at McDade’s promise that state bar authorities, not DOJ, ultimately police federal lawyers. Former U.S. attorney and law professor Barb McQuade warns that subverting state bar authorities would give DOJ lawyers “carte blanche to violate ethics rules” Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law in New York, calls the proposal a “threat,” noting DOJ has suggested it might go to court if state disciplinary committees refuse to defer to its claimed primacy in investigating federal attorneys.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy, which helped spearhead the Florida complaint against Bondi, argues that the proposal would remove DOJ lawyers as a class from the disciplinary system the public relies on and looks more like an effort to sidestep oversight than to strengthen discipline. LDAD warns that with a strained Office of Professional Responsibility, pausing state bar cases whenever DOJ opens a file could let the department slow‑walk sensitive matters and effectively run out the clock on regulators.
Supporters of the rule, mostly within the administration and its allies, counter that McDade has been weaponized against DOJ attorneys through politically motivated complaints. They say DOJ lawyers need protection from harassment that could derail sensitive enforcement work, and they stress that state bars still retain ultimate authority to suspend or disbar lawyers after DOJ’s review, framing the change as a matter of sequencing investigations rather than as an immunization for misconduct.
For lawyers advising clients or serving in government, this fight is more than a turf battle. It will decide who can truly police DOJ attorneys under political pressure, and whether McDade’s promise of equal standards still has bite.
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]]>On February 18, 2026, the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) announced the launch of a new working group. The group is part of CCJ and COSCA’s Committee on Legal and Admissions Reform (CLEAR), and it’s focused on an important and timely issue: law school accreditation. So, what are they looking into and how could it affect law schools in the United States? Here’s what you should know.
First, let’s talk about what CLEAR is. The Committee On Legal Education and Admissions Reform (CLEAR) was formed to examine legal education and bar admissions to ensure competent and ethical practice. It was formed in response to a changing landscape in the practice of law.
Research shows that many people never get legal help for serious problems they can’t handle alone. They’re often forced to deal with issues like child support and custody, domestic violence, housing troubles, consumer disputes, and probate matters without the guidance of a lawyer.
At the same time, law students and new lawyers are struggling too. AI is profoundly affecting the legal profession, mentorship is declining, and attorneys have fewer opportunities to hone their skills and learn from more experienced attorneys before being left to their own devices in the courtroom.
CLEAR members spent 18 months crisscrossing the country and talking with stakeholders to better understand why the legal profession is not meeting the needs of the American people. The group then proposed nine initial recommendations in a Report and Recommendations last year.
In recommendation three, outlined in the report, the group proposed that state supreme courts should “encourage law school accreditation that serves the public.” The group said that “state supreme courts should encourage an accreditation process that promotes innovation, experimentation, and cost-effective legal education geared toward lawyers meeting the legal needs of the public.”
The new accreditation working group will be chaired by Justice C. Shannon Bacon of the New Mexico Supreme Court. She’s also vice chair of CLEAR. The group will operate from March through December 2026 and will submit a draft report of findings and recommendations to CLEAR no later than December 2026. So, looks like we’ll all be getting an update on ABA accreditation for the holidays.
Justice Bacon was appointed to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2019, after being recommended by a nonpartisan Judicial Nominating Commission, and she’s presided over thousands of cases spanning complex civil litigation, class action lawsuits, election issues, contract disputes and more.
Under Justice Bacon, the group is taking what they call “a big tent approach” to understanding the current challenges to, and the future of, law school accreditation. The working group’s goal is to collect a diversity of viewpoints so that CLEAR can offer practical, concrete recommendations that reflect the consensus of CJJ and COSCA.
Currently, the American Bar Association (ABA) Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is the primary organization responsible for accrediting law schools. The ABA has been the primary accrediting body of law schools in the United States since 1952.
As part of its role in accrediting law schools, the ABA publishes Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools. These standards outline what law schools must do to meet the jurisdiction's minimum education requirements so that their students can sit for the bar exam.
In most places, law students are required to attend an ABA-accredited law school before taking and passing their state’s bar exam, and before becoming a lawyer. You’d be hard-pressed to find a lawyer working in Big Law who hasn’t taken that (let’s be honest, generally very expensive and stressful) route to the legal profession.
Recently, some states have moved away from ABA accreditation. For example, Florida just ended exclusive ABA accreditation for law schools. That’s because, in part, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been working to abolish “woke” policies within Florida’s educational institutions and took issue with the ABA accreditation standards on racial and ethnic diversity in law schools, as well as what he saw as the ABA’s active political engagement.
But Florida is not alone in exploring innovative licensure pathways. Texas also split from the ABA. And, increasingly, states are reforming their bar licensure pathways to include options other than attending an ABA-accredited law school and then sitting for the state bar exam. Some have explored circular options where the applicants complete most or all bar requirements while attending law school. Other states offer post-graduation supervised practice options or other innovative approaches. Most of these involve would-be lawyers doing real legal work under the supervision of a practicing attorney or law professor.
Is the current way the right way to do things? It will be interesting to see what the new working group discovers. On the one hand, the ABA accreditation process helps ensure that law schools adhere to strict standards of excellence. In that way, it protects the American people from representation by lawyers who could potentially be unprepared to effectively advocate for them in court.
On the other hand, making attending an ABA-accredited law school mandatory for the practice of law is limiting. It often means that the only people who can attend law school are those who can afford it and have the time and resources to spend years in school instead of on the job. It means that first-generation Americans, minorities, single parents, people with disabilities, people from low-income families, and a slew of others simply don’t have the choice to become attorneys. A primary argument for those looking to increase access to justice is that lawyers who have the same lived experiences as their clients are the people we really need in America’s courtrooms — lawyers who can use their understanding to fight for people underrepresented in the legal system.
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]]>The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) will no longer be administered remotely for most test takers. The exam will return to its once-familiar test center format for the August 2026 exam due to concerns about cheating in a remote environment.
Susan L. Krinsky, Law School Admission Council (LSAC) Executive Vice-President, announced, “We have been increasingly concerned about organized efforts by individuals and companies in mainland China to promote test misconduct. While security is always a concern, these enterprises are becoming increasingly aggressive ... We are taking steps to shut down these operations and will pursue appropriate legal remedies. LSAC also has processes in place to monitor and respond to individual score irregularities for all LSAT candidates, and we will continue to evolve our security measures. After careful consideration, we have decided to take the additional step of suspending online testing in mainland China following the upcoming October (2025) international administration of the LSAT.”
"I think it's a great move," said Dave Killoran, Chief Executive Officer of LSAT prep company PowerScore. "By and large, taking people off the remote platform will really limit the ability of cheating agencies to steal the test, so this is a necessary step."
LSAC stopped offering the LSAT in China entirely after the October 2025 online administration, at least until a new, secure in‑person system is in place.
LSAC is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to advance law and justice by promoting access, equity, and fairness in law school admissions and to support the learning journey from prelaw through practice. LSAC develops, administers, and scores the LSAT. LSAC also provides LSAT-related products, including licensed test prep centers, study materials, and practice exams.
The LSAT, a 3-hour standardized exam, is part of the law school admission process in the United States, Canada, and several other countries. For most American Bar Association-approved law schools, passing the exam is an admission requirement, although there are some state exceptions to the traditional law school admissions path.
California is notable for its law school admissions exceptions: No LSAT is required, and neither is an undergraduate degree. Celebrity figure Kim Kardashian is a famous example of someone going through this process. Ms. Kardashian does not have a 4-year degree, and she has not taken the LSAT. Instead, she is undertaking California’s alternative bar admission path by engaging in a "reading the law" apprenticeship with an admitted attorney. She sat for the California Bar Exam in 2025 but did not pass; she previously passed the state’s First‑Year Law Students’ Examination (“baby bar”).
According to LSAC, the LSAT is designed to measure skills essential for legal education, including reading comprehension, critical thinking, and logical reasoning. The test consists of four 35-minute multiple-choice sections (scored on a 120–180 scale) and a separate unscored writing sample
The LSAT was almost exclusively given in person until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the exam to go online in 2020. LSAC began offering test takers a choice between taking the exam remotely or in test taking centers. Most LSAT takers opted to take the exam at a licensed test center. On the January 2026 exam, 61% of LSAT examinees opted for test centers while 39% took the exam online.
LSAC-mandated rules for remote LSAT testing include taking the exam in a private, enclosed room, a 360-degree scan of the room, specific hardware/software; a laptop/desktop; an external camera; no talking, no leaving the camera view; no looking away from the screen for extended periods; and no unauthorized materials.
In addition, no VPNs, hotspots or virtual machines are allowed. The only permitted materials are a government-issued ID, scratch paper that must be destroyed on camera after the test, a writing implement, and approved comfort items.
A live, remote proctor monitors the session, which is recorded.
The test-taking integrity dam broke in 2025 when it was discovered that China may have hacked LSAT questions and used proxy test takers. A Chinese student studying at a Texas law school reported that he warned the LSAC about offers on Chinese language social media sites charging up to $8,000 for help in cheating on the online LSAT.
There are allegations that cheating rings are hiring groups to take standardized tests, such as the LSAT, and memorize exam questions, then compile and sell them to examinees.
Steve Addicott, chief operating officer of testing security firm Caveon, reported that “Cheating rings also use hidden, high-definition cameras to photograph in-person and online exams, and can sometimes gain remote access to a test taker's computer and answer the questions for them.”
In an online reaction to the cheating scandal, a Chinese student exclaimed: “There are entire businesses openly advertising LSAT cheating services—whether it’s hiring a proxy to take the test, exploiting remote testing loopholes, or using technology to manipulate results. This is not just an isolated scam—it’s a full-on industry.”
LSAC will be returning to its previous in-person test-taking format in August 2026. Most U.S. and international examinees will be required to sit for the exam at a physical test center. Remote testing will be reserved for individuals with approved medical accommodations or those facing extreme hardship in reaching a test center.
Reports suggest LSAC has leaned more heavily on previously unscored sections to create “all-new” tests, reducing the risk of stolen material being reused.
LSAC has indicated it’s updating its security measures and adding a new test delivery platform in LawHub, an online LSAC testing resource, for the August 2026 exam.
Although remote LSAT testing in China has been temporarily suspended, some security experts believe that the remedy is not broad enough, noting that the scandal is not confined to China. Cheating services in China were reported to be using software that bypasses security, allowing people to take the test through proxies, including in Canada and the U.S. On-site testing centers may need to institute further security protocols to validate test takers’ identities.
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]]>Patent infringement claims have long been considered some of the most difficult lawsuits to win. They tend to be lengthy, demanding copious legal research and complex technological analysis. While it’s always nice to harness the power of technology to help dig through case law and other research, it’s also important to double-check the results to ensure that AI-generated citations don’t manage to hamstring your case and get you in trouble.
Yes, it’s yet another edition of “Lawyers Get Tripped Up by Filing a Brief Containing AI Hallucinations,” as trust in AI tools for legal citations continues to be perhaps a little higher than it should be. That might well be the revised opinion of five attorneys working as co-counsel for plaintiffs Lexos Media IP LLC in its patent infringement lawsuit against Overstock.com. The suit, currently in pre-trial motions in the District of Kansas, was forced to make a slight detour in December 2025 after Federal Judge Julie Robinson issued an order to show cause for using generative AI in their response to a motion to exclude testimony given by one of their expert witnesses.
Her ruling on February 2, 2026, contained bad news for those involved. While the fines, public admonishment through the court order, and the requirement that one of the attorneys self-report to his state bar for possible further disciplinary action for violations of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 are bad enough, not being permitted to submit a revised reply brief is perhaps even more devastating.
As just about anyone who has practiced law can tell you, sifting through precedent in support of an argument is necessary but often tedious. The use of generative AI tools to aid legal professionals in finding case citations was understandably met with great hope and excitement. So far, the results have been mixed.
While AI tools have shown promise in the legal field as search engines, draft creators, and in other unexpected ways, they have also returned results containing misstatements, hallucinations, and references to nonexistent cases. While many are likely caught by legal teams before being submitted to the court, enough have gotten through for judges to lose patience and punish the litigants who slip up.
The patent infringement suit filed by Lexos Media focuses on technology for modifying the display of a cursor image on websites that Overstock.com allegedly used without permission. On June 13, 2025, Overstock.com filed two motions to exclude testimony given by Dr. Samuel Russ, Ph.D., an expert witness for the plaintiffs. Questioning apparent mistakes made by Russ concerning the definition of a cursor, Overstock.com also filed a motion for summary judgment under Daubert on the grounds that, without Russ’s testimony, Lexos Media couldn’t prove infringement.
Lexos Media’s legal team filed a response on July 7 to challenge the exclusion, offering several citations in support of its position. Overstock.com’s attorneys returned fire by alerting the court to multiple instances of nonexistent quotations, misrepresentations about cited authority, and nonexistent and incorrect citations in Lexos Media’s filing. The cases referenced, including those involving Microsoft and Walmart, were real. However, the citations provided were either incorrect or nonexistent.
In the order to show cause, District Judge Robinson demanded that counsel explain how something like this could have happened. It turns out that nobody got around to checking the citations.
Judge Robinson ruled that five attorneys were in violation of Fed. R. Civ. P. Rule 11(b) for not making a reasonable inquiry into the results presented by their AI tools before signing and submitting their response to the court. The attorney given the harshest sanctions was the author of the troubled filing. The lawyer admitted he didn’t check the AI-generated results, apologizing while citing extenuating family issues and his fear of missing a deadline as rationale. He was fined $5,000, had his pro hac vice admission for the case revoked, and was ordered to self-report the ruling to his state bar. He must also submit documents showing how his law firm will institute new procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Three attorneys each received $3,000 fines for signing off on false content. Only the junior attorney who conducted a technical edit of the filing was not fined.
The final attorney voluntarily self-sanctioned himself by promising not to serve as local counsel or a legal authority for pro hac vice attorneys for a 12-month period. His firm agreed to upgrade its AI-review policies.
The consequences of their actions (or inactions) may strike a much more serious blow to the plaintiff’s lawsuit. Judge Robinson denied the request to amend the reply. Instead, the fictitious citations created by the generative artificial intelligence research tools will be struck and not replaced, perhaps moving Overstock.com one step closer to receiving its requested dismissal by summary judgment.
The ruling may have a ripple effect on the legal world, prompting firms to pay closer attention to citations generated by AI searches.
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]]>The slow but steady increase in the unemployment rate over the past year reflects the difficulty many are having in finding new employment or switching to a new position. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the legal field, where a significant influx of attorneys who were previously federal employees has added a bonanza of experienced legal professionals to the pool of potential hires. While this deluge of former government workers is great news for law firms and state and local governments, it means added difficulty in vying for coveted jobs in an already ultracompetitive field.
Data released by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shows that almost 8,600 attorneys left federal agencies between the beginning of the second Trump Administration in January 2025 and November of last year. With only a little over 2,000 of those legal government employee positions filled by new hires, the federal government has struggled to keep up with case loads and appointments.
The public sector’s loss is proving to be a gain elsewhere, as former civil servants find new homes in private law firms, attorneys general's offices, and as prosecutors. Is this exodus from federal employment an aberration, or has the tradition of the “best and brightest” vying for positions in civil service as part of the U.S. government become a thing of the past?
It’s common for cabinet positions and similar roles to turn over when there’s a change in administration, but it’s unusual to encounter significant upheaval among attorneys and other legal professionals working in the executive branch. Lawyers working in government services are often in for the long haul and retained as the baton of command passes from one president to another.
President Donald Trump’s second term has departed from the norms in how it approaches those working full-time government jobs. The White House, along with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), used executive orders to significantly shrink several federal agencies. Through layoffs, reduction in force (RIF), retirements/buyouts, and resignations, these workforce reductions have sent many former government employees into the job market.
The job cuts were deep at agencies like the Department of Education (DOE), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but perhaps nowhere was the effect more keenly felt than at the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Civil Rights Division lost between 70 and 75% of its attorney workforce, with very few replaced as of this writing. Overall, the DOJ has seen a net loss of about 8,900 employees, including more than 2,500 lawyers, according to OPM figures.
As the nation’s lawyers, DOJ staffers are expected to be nonpartisan in their public service. The White House's rhetoric calling for a restructuring of the DOJ to align with the administration’s policies led to a drastic reduction in the department’s legal staff. DOJ attorneys resigned in protest over cases such as the dismissal of corruption charges against Eric Adams or being ordered to investigate the widow of shooting victim Renee Good. Others were fired for not following directives, for having prosecuted January 6 rioters, or for other reasons related to RIF measures.
All those former government attorneys had to seek work elsewhere. The result is a shifting of the legal workforce into the private sector.
Cleaning house in executive branch agencies has increased job competition among attorneys in both the private sector and at the state level, but in addition, many of those added to the mix also have desirable experience, which has seen them quickly snapped up. Research shows that in 2025, 1,129 former federal lawyers were hired by the 200 largest-grossing firms. Those lawyers made up roughly 7% of the lateral hiring pool, up from about 4–5% in prior years, indicating a significant increase.
Combined with a marked reduction in recent graduates from prestigious law schools opting to eschew careers at the DOJ, the addition of former government lawyers means fewer jobs are available in the private legal field. It also makes landing positions in some state governments more challenging, as vying for a prosecutor’s position can be difficult against someone with years of federal experience putting people behind bars.
Meanwhile, the federal government is having issues replacing attorneys (and immigration judges) who are no longer in its service. With the federal legal system already experiencing significant delays, any prolonged inability to restaff necessary positions could further slow things down.
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]]>Lawyers receiving sanctions from their state bar can expect to receive a written court order. In a disciplinary action filed by The Florida Bar and approved by the Supreme Court of Florida on December 11, 2025, serving the order would have required delivering it via séance.
Miami-Dade attorney Emelike Nwosuocha continues to receive fines and suspensions for his disciplinary case from the Florida Bar after ignoring a court order to pay attorney’s fees to the opposing counsel in a dismissed 2019 civil suit. This is despite the fact that he passed away in July 2024, which may explain why he failed to respond to the ensuing required notification affidavits.
If still with us on this mortal coil, the three-year suspension of Nwosuocha by the state Supreme Court would serve as a public reprimand. He’d be required to alert his clients, other counsel, and all federal and state bar associations that he belonged to of his sanctioning, and provide a sworn affidavit listing all notifications to The Florida Bar within 30 days. It’s unknown whether the same is required in the afterlife.
As in other states, The Florida Bar administers the bar exam to prospective attorneys, handles the reinstatement of disbarred lawyers, and addresses disciplinary issues of legal professionals. This includes tribunals that can suspend attorneys from the practice of law for a specified period or, in extreme cases, permanently.
Nwosuocha filed a medical negligence lawsuit in a South Florida court on behalf of one of his clients. After it was dismissed with prejudice in 2019, Nwosuocha was ordered by the trial court to pay more than $5,000 in attorney’s fees to the opposing counsel. Both the awarding of fees and the dismissal were upheld by the Third District Court of Appeal.
Unable to collect the owed money, the defendant in the case filed a grievance with the Florida Bar in August 2021. After Nwosuocha still didn’t provide relief, a default judgment for the Florida Bar was granted by Judge William Altfield on February 10, 2023. Nwosuocha's somewhat tardy response that his case had not been frivolous and that he didn’t understand why he was expected to pay attorney’s fees met with a frosty response. A six-month suspension from practicing law followed in August 2023. Nwosuocha had a month to provide his delinquent affidavit and pay the outstanding fees.
He did neither. This prompted the Florida Bar to file a petition for contempt in April 2024, requesting a one-year suspension of Nwosuocha’s license to practice law. Nwosuocha responded to this order to show cause, claiming that he’d been unable to make contact with some of the necessary people and that the suspension of his legal credentials made it impossible for him to earn income as an attorney. However, his response was stricken for being filed too late.
As a result, Nwosuocha received a one-year suspension on June 18, 2024. He was required to respond to the notification affidavit on July 17, but failed to do so. This resulted in the Florida Bar sending notification of his noncompliance with the rules of his suspension on October 11 of that year, but by that point, there was no chance of receiving a response. Nwosuocha died of a heart attack on July 21, 2024.
Even death was not enough to halt the sanctions. The Florida Bar petitioned the court again in October 2025, seeking to hold Nwosuocha in contempt again. It requested a three-year suspension for lack of compliance, a fine of $1,250 in court costs, and the submission of the missing affidavit before any reinstatement could be considered. In further proof that better lines of communication should be a high priority in Florida, the state Supreme Court approved the sanctions against Nwosuocha, who had been deceased for almost a year and a half at that point, on December 11, 2025.
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