California bar exam pass rate rose despite cold venue, conservative US judges boycott Columbia grads, Willkie latest to enter Dallas, and more ➡️
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☀️ Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:
📈 California bar exam pass rate rose, despite cold venue
An investigation by the State Bar of California concluded that a lack of heating at a San Francisco-area testing site for the February 2024 bar exam did not impact scores, the attorney licensing body said on Friday.
On the contrary, the overall pass rate for the exam rose to 33.9% from 32.5% in February 2023, following a national trend in which the majority of states posted pass rate gains. A total of 3,944 took California's February exam, and 1,337 passed.
More than a third of the state’s February examinees took the two-day test at the Cow Palace, a warehouse-like venue in Daly City that hosts concerts, sports events and livestock shows. Examinees complained of frigid indoor temperatures on the first day of the test and a lack of bathroom facilities that resulted in long waits. Some test takers said they worried they would fail as a result.
State bar officials acknowledged those issues after the first day of testing and said they were working with Cow Palace staff to address them. The bar commissioned a psychometric analysis of the exam results to see if Cow Palace examinees had lower scores than those who took the exam elsewhere but found no difference. The report concluded that score adjustments were not warranted for Cow Palace test takers.
⚖️ Conservative US judges boycott Columbia grads over campus Gaza protests
A group of 13 conservative U.S. federal judges said on Monday that they would not hire law students or undergraduates from Columbia University in response to its handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The judges, all appointees of former U.S. President Donald Trump, called the Manhattan campus an “incubator of bigotry” in a Monday letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik and Law Dean Gillian Lester.
Federal judges hire law grads annually for year-long clerkships that can lead to prestigious and high-paying legal jobs. The boycott will apply to students who enter Columbia this fall, the judges wrote.
Two-thirds of the signatories are based in Texas, including Matthew Kacsmaryk, who gained national attention last year by suspending approval of the abortion pill mifepristone in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two of the lead signers, U.S. Circuit Judges James Ho of the 5th Circuit and Elizabeth Branch of the 11th Circuit, had previously announced boycotts of clerks from Yale and Stanford, citing disruptions of conservative speakers on campus.
The 13 judges boycotting Columbia represent a small slice of the nation's nearly 900 federal judges.
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🏙️ Willkie is latest US law firm to expand into growing Dallas market
New York-founded U.S. law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher on Monday said it has opened an office in Dallas with a group of seven private equity partners, including three from homegrown Texas firm Haynes and Boone.
Willkie is among the latest large, non-Texas-founded firms to launch an office in Dallas, which has seen an influx in companies moving their headquarters to the area, including Frontier Communications and Caterpillar.
King & Spalding entered the Dallas market in February when it tapped the co-chair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's global litigation practice. Other newcomers in recent years include Blank Rome; Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan; Seyfarth Shaw; Snell & Wilmer; O’Melveny & Myers; and Duane Morris.
Six of the 200 highest-grossing U.S. law firms opened offices in Texas in 2023, according to data from Leopard Solutions, which tracks law firm hiring.
"Dallas clients have been encouraging us to open a Dallas office for some time," Archie Fallon, the managing partner of Willkie's 10-year-old Houston office, said in a statement.
🤝 Law firm Mintz taps Proskauer patent litigation team, life sciences leader
U.S. law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo said Monday it has hired a life sciences patent litigation team from Proskauer Rose led by Siegmund Gutman.
Gutman, who led the life sciences patent team at Proskauer, has joined Mintz's Los Angeles as a member, the firm said. He will lead Mintz's life sciences litigation practice and co-lead its patent litigation practice, the firm said.
Joining Gutman at Mintz are "nearly a dozen" lawyers based in Boston, Los Angeles and New York. The firm did not identify the team apart from David Hanna, a Proskauer of counsel who has joined Mintz as a member in its Los Angeles office.
Gutman has represented Alvogen Pine Brook, Amgen, Natco Pharma and Oxford Immunotec Global in prior patent fights.
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