UB gets $5 million pledge

Baltimore attorney and Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos has pledged a $5 million matching grant for a new law center at the University of Baltimore that could transform the midtown architectural landscape.

[Jeff]

I'm glad that Angelos is putting his money towards a good cause and helping out the community by making a school better. I only wish he could take some of that other money and put it into the Baltimore Orioles so we can be more competitive.

[Grad]

"The Harvard of the South" - ROFL. You go Dutch! Still, I feel sorry for UB Law students and graduates. Having Peter Angelos as their most well known colleague must be a daily embarrassment.

As for UB jumping into the second tier in the US News rankings - don't count on it anytime soon. Law schools all over the country are building bigger and more impressive facilities than UB. In fact, several states (and one country - China is building an American style law school, with American law professors, in Beijing), are building entirely new law schools. This is a boom time for law school construction (even though it makes no sense). A new building may help UB hold its own in the facilities arms race, therefore, but it won't improve its propects for success. A law school moves up in the rankings principally by changing the quality of its faculty and students (and thus, its US News reputation score and entering class profile), and its employment statistics (because this attracts good students), and that happens rarely. There are four or five well known examples of law schools changing their place in the rankings radically over the years, but this always happened after the schools received major monetary gifts that increased their operating budgets exponentially (thereby permitting them to raid senior faculty from higher-ranked schools by paying above-market salaries), but for the most part law school rankings are remarkably stable. UB's Dean points to recent increases in the School's LSAT and G.P.A. medians as evidence of upward movement, but every school's median LSAT score has gone up in the past couple of years after the ABA (and US News) started permitting schools to use the highest score an applicant receives on the test, rather than an average of all of his scores (since many applicants take the test several times), in calculating the median LSAT for the entering class. A rise of two points on the LSAT median, therefore, again only helps UB hold its own in the rankings, not move up. As for UB's increase in median G.P.A., this is probably explained either by the inflation in undergraduate grades in the country generally, or a decision to take students from less competitive undergraduate programs where high G.P.A.s are commonplace. Other law schools have the latter option as well, even though it makes no sense to use it, since a 4.0 graduate from [fill in the name of any bad undergraduate school] is invariably a much worse student than a 3.3 graduate from [fill in the name of any good undergraduate school]. I understand that the Dean's comments are designed to rally the troops for the fund raising solicitations already in the mail, and I do not fault him for that, but newspaper readers are entitled to accurate stories and this story is misleading.

[hlmencken]

Remembered shadows of the past and nostalgia abound with this article! I am a graduate of the class of "64"

[hlmencken]

Grad wrote:

"The Harvard of the South" - ROFL. You go Dutch! Still, I feel sorry for UB Law students and graduates. Having Peter Angelos as their most well known colleague must be a daily embarrassment.
As for UB jumping into the second tier in the US News rankings - don't count on it anytime soon. Law schools all over the country are building bigger and more impressive facilities than UB. In fact, several states (and one country - China is building an American style law school, with American law professors, in Beijing), are building entirely new law schools. This is a boom time for law school construction (even though it makes no sense). A new building may help UB hold its own in the facilities arms race, therefore, but it won't improve its propects for success. A law school moves up in the rankings principally by changing the quality of its faculty and students (and thus, its US News reputation score and entering class profile), and its employment statistics (because this attracts good students), and that happens rarely. There are four or five well known examples of law schools changing their place in the rankings radically over the years, but this always happened after the schools received major monetary gifts that increased their operating budgets exponentially (thereby permitting them to raid senior faculty from higher-ranked schools by paying above-market salaries), but for the most part law school rankings are remarkably stable. UB's Dean points to recent increases in the School's LSAT and G.P.A. medians as evidence of upward movement, but every school's median LSAT score has gone up in the past couple of years after the ABA (and US News) started permitting schools to use the highest score an applicant receives on the test, rather than an average of all of his scores (since many applicants take the test several times), in calculating the median LSAT for the entering class. A rise of two points on the LSAT median, therefore, again only helps UB hold its own in the rankings, not move up. As for UB's increase in median G.P.A., this is probably explained either by the inflation in undergraduate grades in the country generally, or a decision to take students from less competitive undergraduate programs where high G.P.A.s are commonplace. Other law schools have the latter option as well, even though it makes no sense to use it, since a 4.0 graduate from [fill in the name of any bad undergraduate school] is invariably a much worse student than a 3.3 graduate from [fill in the name of any good undergraduate school]. I understand that the Dean's comments are designed to rally the troops for the fund raising solicitations already in the mail, and I do not fault him for that, but newspaper readers are entitled to accurate stories and this story is misleading.

. Having Peter Angelos as their most well known colleague must be a daily embarrassment.
Why Grad are you offering yourself as an alternative? What amazing earth shaking feats have you accomplished as graduate?Convince us your is more admirable! What is it anyway? Perhaps head of city sanitation?

[hlmencken]

You, I am certain are too sever of a rattle brain to be a trial lawyer such as Angelo's who was my mentor and prodigiously taught me trial practice!

How many cases have you tried? How many sports franchises do you own?Apparently your noble cowardly practice is to cast dispersions of obloquy upon those obscure and distant from your emotional sports obsession! You introduce occum razor irrevalent variables to the criticism of Pete's ineptness at baseball-nothing eles!

[Set and match]

By the way, is the donation tax deductable or ammoritizable Marty?

[Chief Wiggum]

Too bad he doesn't want to pledge more money to his baseball team. You know, like all that MASN money he's raking in.

[UB Law Grad]

UB will always be a TTT law school. I am deeply in debt and can't find a substantive legal position and I graduated in the top 1/4 of my class. What a waste. Law school was the worst decision ive ever made in my life.

[ann]

Thank you, Mr. Angelos. Anytime someone is a benefactor to our city is a good time. Also the Orioles are just doing fine and everyone is enjoying the season. Thanks! Go Orioles!!

[Jared]

What the heck! This money should be used towards Mark Texeira

[Publius]

hlmencken wrote:

You, I am certain are too sever of a rattle brain to be a trial lawyer such as Angelo's who was my mentor and prodigiously taught me trial practice!
How many cases have you tried? How many sports franchises do you own?Apparently your noble cowardly practice is to cast dispersions of obloquy upon those obscure and distant from your emotional sports obsession! You introduce occum razor irrevalent variables to the criticism of Pete's ineptness at baseball-nothing eles!

Angelos is a settlement bureaucrat, not a trial lawyer. I doubt he's tried a case personally in twenty years, maybe never. He got lucky that asbestos cases turned into a cash cow without having to do any real litigation, and has had the good sense not to venture outside the confines of that safety net ever since. Lawyers would lick their chops to go up against him in a court room. I don't doubt that he would look impressive to a law student who couldn't tell a voir dire from a John Deere. In a world of one-celled organisms, a two-celled organism is king. But even Angelos would have enough sense not to call upon himself if he needed a case to be tried.

Oh, and by the way, Occam is spelled with a capital O, and an "a" rather than a "u".(You also could spell it Ockham, after William of Ockham, but I take it that's not what you were trying to do.) I guess Pete didn't tell you about spellcheck. You also might look up the meaning of the word "prodigiously." With fans like you Pete might be better off going to the ballpark.

[GoUB]

UB Law Grad wrote:

UB will always be a TTT law school. I am deeply in debt and can't find a substantive legal position and I graduated in the top 1/4 of my class. What a waste. Law school was the worst decision ive ever made in my life.

You know, while I'm sorry that you are having trouble, have you considered maybe it's you that is the problem, and not the school? The ability to do well in law school does not a priori translate into the ability to succeed as a lawyer.