Overall, 1118 people took the February Bar, and 732 of them passed--a 65.47% pass rate.
Congrats, new lawyers, and good luck finding work.
Mack,
Forgive my fantastical ego trip. Below is the original letter I emailed to the Express-News in response to the April 25th report on the student protest:
Dear Editors, I am a very recent St. Mary's Law alumnus. (Disclosure: I passed the bar, got a legal job, and love St. Mary's.) Your decision to frame the article "Students protest 2 St. Mary's law profs [sic] terminations" (Apr. 25, Metro p.3) as an expose on race and sex discrimination at St. Mary's confused me. Why does this paper insist on giving credit to a few students' claims of discrimination when none of the terminated professors/instructors/ administrators are making those claims themselves? There are only two possible outcomes of this publication decision on your part: one, a venerable San Antonio institution has its reputation lowered because it cannot defend itself against the accusations of students who are unable to distinguish correlation and causation; or two, these women, a few of whom I count among good friends, have their professional reputations tarnished because the university is forced to justify its decision to terminate them by making statements like "Not all minorities, even in a national context of pervasive if somewhat unconscious racism and sexism, are qualified.”
Not well done at all, Express-News. St. Mary, pray for us.
Jason C. Petty, J.D., St. Mary's, 2008
Here is what they put on their website:
A hit on St. Mary's
I'm a recent St. Mary's Law School alumnus. I was confused by your decision to frame your April 25 report, “St. Mary's students protest 2 law professor terminations,” as an exposé on race and sex discrimination there.
Why did the newspaper give credence to a few students' claims of discrimination when neither of the terminated professors/instructors/ administrators made such claims themselves?
Two possible reasons:
• A venerable law school has its reputation lowered because it cannot defend itself against accusations by students who are unable to distinguish correlation and causation, or;
• These women, a few of whom I count among good friends, have their professional reputations tarnished because the university is forced to justify its decision to terminate them.
Not well done at all, Express-News. St. Mary, pray for us.
- Jason C. Petty, J.D., Alexandria, La.
My original beef, motivated by my love of the school, is that the article doesn't give any information about credible allegations of sex or gender discrimination by St. Mary's against the professors themselves. All the article gives us is the students' suggestive protest. Yet at most all we have is a throwaway argument of retaliation for defense of other minorities in the EEOC complaint made by the beloved Instructor Piatt. Is Professor George alleging actual discrimination, or just saying that she, personally, felt uncomfortable at St. Mary's? We don't know. That's all the article gives us. In other words, where's the discrimination?
My new, entirely personal beef is that the change in my letter switches "two possible outcomes" of the report to "two possible reasons" for it, which would have me be some sort of crystal-ball wielding apologist for the reporter's insinuations. Are
cause and effect wholly obliterated in our post-metaphysical world? And then they don't change the grammatical construct of the two items they bullet, which would make sense if I were providing hypothetical effects rather than the causes they suggest. That just makes me look dumb and, I believe, undercuts any argument I might have. (Sort of like the comment box below the online version of the article, where one commenter self-identified as a "Steller Law Student.")I loathed that April 25th report: no one comes out a winner. The school looks bad and the professors look bad.
jcp
A group of students at St. Mary's University School of Law are protesting the school's decision to terminate contracts for two female professors, one of them black, saying the move is a blow to diversity on a faculty where women and minorities are already underrepresented.I'd be happy to post a copy of that petition, if someone will send it to me. The newspaper also posted a letter (page 1 and page 2) from the American Association of University Professors on Rosanne Piatt's de facto tenure claim, which I wrote about earlier this month. The letter states in part:
Raul Pelaez-Prada, the student leading the protest, has put up fliers on campus and collected around 150 signatures on a petition supporting Professors Cheryl George and Rosanne Piatt, who are both fighting their terminations.
Because Ms. Piatt has served as a full-time lecturer in the law school for more than eight years, she would therefore be entitled under the above documents to the procedural protections that normally accrue with tenure. ... They include the right to a pre-termination hearing of record in which the administration bears the burden of demonstrating adequacy of cause for dismissal before an elected faculty committee.One possible reason for the dismissals? From the E-N article:
Students say the ousting is due in part to the professors' connection to former law school Dean Bill Piatt, who was forced out in 2006 after a rocky tenure. Rosanne Piatt is married to the former dean, and claims she has earned de facto tenure after teaching for 10 years. George was hired by the former dean and has been a staunch supporter.In addition, the story notes that Bill Piatt tried to bring in four other African-Americans besides Prof. George to teach at the law school.
I'm more inclined to believe that it's office politics, not racism, that led to this result. However it happened, it sure makes the law school look bad.One was never hired and another worked as a visiting professor for a year. A third taught at St. Mary's for six years before accepting a tenure track position at another university. Reached at her office, the professor did not want to be identified, but said she too felt unwelcome at St. Mary's.
The fourth is Sharon Breckenridge-Thomas, director of the Office of Academic Excellence, whose contract was not renewed this year. Breckenridge-Thomas declined to comment.
Waco attorney Tammy T. Polk was arrested Wednesday morning on four charges of “falsely holding oneself out as a lawyer” while her law license reportedly was suspended [for nonpayment of State Bar of Texas dues and the state occupational tax], charges her lawyer called “disgraceful.”Her attorney wonders why no one else gets arrested for this charge:
“It is disgraceful that they chose to do this knowing full well that there are literally thousands of lawyers who every year fail to timely pay their bar dues,” Soechting said. “My first job this afternoon is to find out how many times they have issued an arrest warrant for them. I am starting to think this looks like more than an impartial investigation.”This isn't Polk's first time on the other side of the table--in March she was arrested on a charge of "forging the signature of a McLennan County prosecutor on a case dismissal form." In that case, a court worker noticed that the handwriting of the prosecutor's signature appeared different--and the first name was misspelled.
Murphy has spent nearly 34 years in the Western District, 14 of them as the first assistant U.S. attorney. He will hold the job until the Obama administration nominates a U.S. attorney, a process that requires Senate confirmation.According to Murphy's State Bar of Texas member directory entry, he's a 1972 St. Mary's grad.
St. Mary's Law School is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). One of the conditions of membership is that member schools agree to adhere to the standards regarding academic freedom and tenure of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The AAUP standards describe two categories of full-time teachers: probationary (up to 7 years) and tenured. If a school continues a full-time teacher beyond seven years, that professor is tenured, per the AAUP (and AALS). Twice now the American Association of University Professors has written to St. Mary's, informing St. Mary's that I hold tenure and requesting my reinstatement, or the initiation of formal tenure revocation proceedings, with the burden on the university to show cause. St. Mary's has refused to comply. I will be able to share additional information within a week. Thank you for your interest.According to the AAUP, de facto tenure exists if, after the probation ends, a faculty member continues teaching or working at the school:
Upon continuance of full-time service beyond the maximum probationary period, faculty members who so serve should be recognized as having an entitlement to the procedural safeguards that accrue with tenure, even in the absence of institutional regulations to that effect or of specific action by a particular college or university.However, the case law on de facto tenure runs both ways. The AAUP lists a number of federal and state court cases on this subject, including a couple of federal cases from Texas:
I will post more on this subject as soon as I hear anything.
