The Legal Intelligencer Blog

Fresh Ink: Inside Today's Legal

Welcome to your Monday morning round-up of stories in today’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer. All of the links below will take you directly to today’s stories, or you can head straight over to The Legal’s homepage. (Some stories may require registration or a paid subscription.)

The top story this morning is the chief justice suspending indicted Traffic Court Judge Robert Mulgrew on an emergency basis Friday. As reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel writes, Mulgrew is suspended from all official duties and assignments until further notice and the issue of his pay will be in front of the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline.

Also above the fold on Page 1, reporter Zack Needles writes that defense firm Swartz Campbell has sued Chartwell Law Offices for poaching lawyers and clients from its Fort Myers, Fla., office. The suit alleges “improper interference with and destruction of” Swartz Campbell’s business interests, client relationships and partnership agreements.

Below the fold on Page 1, reporter Saranac Hale Spencer writes that insider information passed between two members of Alcoholics Anonymous is sufficient to sustain allegations that one of them violated the Securities Exchange Act, a federal judge has ruled.

In more Regional News on Page 3, reporter Gina Passarella writes that Rutgers School of Law-Camden is looking to rebuild after its merger talks with Rowan University.

As always, our People in the News section is on Page 2, and the top stories from our sister publications across the country make up the Page 4 National News section.

In a Litigation column on Page 5, Charles F. Forer writes about alternate dispute resolution and being careful when working with experts.

In the Law Technology News page, Adam Losey writes about using technology to get ahead.

If you have questions or comments about any of today's stories, or our coverage as a whole, we invite you to e-mail any of the reporters directly. We hope you'll enjoy today's Legal.

February 2011 Bar Exam Results Are In!

By Jaime Bochet
Of the Legal Staff

For a new class of aspiring Pennsylvania practitioners, the wait is over! The Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners today announced the results of the bar examination that was given on February 21 and 22. Out of 692 applicants who took the test, 482 passed.

To read the names of the lucky ones, click here.

Read more about it in the Legal in the coming days, when we'll have analyis of local law school pass rates and comparisons to past years' pass rates.

Making CLE Work For You

By Laura L. Gleason
Special to the Legal

We’ve all attended CLEs that brought to mind our law school days. There’s one guy in the first row asking a five-minute question at 11:59 while the rest of us are pondering tuna versus turkey; folks in the back juggling the newspaper, their iPhone and coffee (anything but the lecture handout); and of course a number of attorneys who penciled the course in their calendar but didn’t make it due to that urgent client e-mail they received last night, or maybe they just didn’t feel like sitting in another conference room all day. 

Some years back at 3:58 on a Friday, that guy was in the front row trying to really hone his understanding of the Rule Against Perpetuities while several of us were checking the box scores online, discreetly making our Saturday night plans, or hadn’t shown up in the first place due to our Thursday night plans.

And as with law school, we’ve all attended CLEs that didn’t have any obvious connection to our work.  I’ve never encountered a case in practice implicating the Rule Against Perpetuities, nor do I expect to handle a dog-bite case, but there’s no reason I can’t get one of my 12 PA credits learning about the “one bite rule.”

Given the similarity between the two, it’s surprising how much disconnect there is between law school and CLE. But there are some organizations trying to add value to both the law school experience and CLE courses by sharing goals and lessons across these two types of learning.

ALI-ABA and ACLEA (the association for CLE professionals) held a summit in 2009 called, “Equipping Our Lawyers,” during which the participants tangled with challenges to the current model of legal education, preparing law students for a post-recession legal world, and strengthening the continuum between law school and CLE training. 

I encourage you to read the recommendations they’ve produced (as well as the resources they’ve compiled and relied upon) at their site and think about your own experience transitioning into the practice of law, as well as ways your CLE experience could be modified to better support you in your practice.

Laura L. Gleason is an associate in the antitrust department at Berger & Montague. She also writes about the practice of law and legal education at LawLearn.  Follow her on Twitter at @lawlearn.