The Three C’s of Law School Success: go to Class, go to Class, go to Class

The most important advice I can give you about doing well in your first year of law school is to go to each and every class.  Several people who were not doing well after the first term asked me for advice on how they could improve their grades and invariably they were people who did not feel that going to class was that important.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “He just repeats what is in the textbook” or “I go to most classes”.  Going to half of the classes will get you half the grade and if you do not mind a B- or C, then do not bother going to class. 

This advice is applicable for all years in law school but especially the first year.  Even in my third year of law school, I would read and brief a case and be surprised when I would attend class and find that I missed a significant point.  In addition, often when I read cases and then subsequently went to a class, I found that I may not have paid as much attention to the part of the opinion that the professor found most interesting.  If a professor finds a particular aspect of an opinion fascinating, you can bet that this aspect is what is going to show up on the exam. 

For example, in some cases the professor may find the dissent (when there is a panel of Judges who vote and the Judge who loses writes about why he disagrees with the majority opinion) the most interesting part of the case and you may have just skimmed this to focus on what the winners said. This is just one example but rest assured that almost all professors gear exams towards what was covered in class which is what they found most important.

In addition, when you do not go to class or when you know that you will not go to class, you do not prepare.  The briefs that you prepare to deal with the Socratic method of teaching go a long way towards increasing your exam scores.  If you know that you are not going to go to class, you may not prepare a brief at all.  Even if you do prepare something knowing that you will not go to class, it will not be as thorough as if you thought that you might be called on to answer questions.  While the Socratic method might be a bit of a pain, the good thing about it is that it keeps you up to date so that studying for the final exam is easier and with this advance preparation your studying will be more effective.

Finally, there is one more important reason to attend class.  In law school, in order to study for law school exams, almost all students make what is called an outline.  An outline integrates the key points from your class notes, your briefs and the professor’s syllabus.  It is an invaluable tool and if you do not have class notes, making an outline becomes difficult or impossible.

HIPAA Privacy Action Filed Against University Health Associates

The West Virginia Record reports the filing of a medical record breach action against West Virginia University Medical Corporation dba University Health Associates (UHA) under the Privacy Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The action filed in Monongalia Circuit Court was filed by Jennifer M. McGinley on behalf of Randy Friend (11-C-774).

The complaint asserts that Mr. Friend received a letter from UHA indicating that an employee had accessed his medical record without authorization. Mr. Friend claims that his medical record was accessed multiple times by a former UHA employee and that this former employee related the medical information to several other people living in Mr. Friend's community causing him emotional distress and embarrassment.

Also, Jeff Drummond at the HIPAA Blog reports on an interesting lawsuit filed by the Minnesota AG against Accretive Health in Minnesota. The action involves Fairview Health and North Memorial who hired Accretive Health as its debt collection company. Accretive Health lost an unencrypted laptop with medical and other personal information. As Jeff indicates this has some interesting aspects including the question of direct liability of a business associate under the HITECH amendments to HIPAA and also whether the covered entities only disclosed the "minimum necessary" information to its debt collection company. Interesting case to watch develop.

UPDATE: The complaint filed in the United States District Court District of Minnesota, State of Minnesota, by its Attorney General Lori Swanson v.Accretive Health, Inc.

What Do I Need to Do to Transfer to Another Law School? - Part 4 of 4

Who is Eligible?

In order to apply for a transfer to another law school, you must go through the same application process that you went through to initially apply to law school.  There are some minor differences but for the most part the process is the same.  For most schools, you can use the LSAC process and fill out the transfer application (which is very similar to the original law school application) online.  You will require everything that you needed to apply to law school including a resume, a personal statement, letters of reference, transcripts and the completed application.  You must also provide your LSAT score but the schools will not place much, if any, weight on it.  The most significant factor that the schools will consider are your grades from your first year of law school.  Like everything else, the higher the better.

While most schools will want a complete picture, some are only interested in your first year grades.  For example, at New York University (NYU), the personal statement that they request is quite short and it does not have to talk about anything specific. Moreover, they do not require (or want) any letters of reference.  To contrast, Harvard, Yale and Columbia all require a comprehensive application complete with letters of reference, a resume and two page personal statements.

How Do Schools Select Who They Want?

In order to transfer to a top school, you will need top grades.  Harvard accepts around 25 transfer students a year and boasts that many transfer students could have been admitted if they applied there for their first year or are students that were waitlisted when they applied to Harvard in their first year.  You may know, Harvard’s entering class has a GPA very close to an A average and a LSAT score in the top 2%.  Yale only admits around 10 transfer students and the competition is very stiff.  In fact, many of the transfer students that were admitted to Harvard the year I was accepted were not accepted as transfer students to Yale.  (I did not apply to Yale so I will never know) 

As a rough guide, you should be in the top 10% of your class if you are applying to a top school.  This is by no means a cut-off and the number could change if you have some other compelling characteristics or you are transferring from a highly or lowly ranked school. The higher the ranking of your school, the lower your grades can be.  For example, if you are transferring from Columbia to Harvard, you could likely get away with an A- average (top 30%).  If you are transferring from Brooklyn Law School (ranked in the sixties), you will generally have to be in the top 5% of your class with other significant accomplishments. 

In addition to top grades, most of the transfer students at Harvard had a second Masters or Doctoral degrees or some other significant accomplishment.  Also,  law schools will look at other symbols of excellence such as success in Journals or Moot Court Competitions.  Moreover, work as a research or teaching assistant and participation in student groups during law school demonstrates that you can juggle classes along with other activities.  All of these accomplishments will help your application but the main thing the admitting school will look at is good old high grades.

WVHCA: 2012 CON Capital Expenditure Minimum

The West Virginia Health Care Authority has announced the 2012 certificate of need capital expenditure minimum threshold of $2,916,104. The new threshold is effective beginning January 1, 2012. The threshold is used as a part of the analysis by health care providers who must determine whether or not a certificate of need is required for a proposed project or health care acquisition. 

Pursuant to W.Va. Code 16-2D-2(h) and (s), the Authority is required to adjust the expenditure minimum annually and publish an update of the amount on or before December 31 of each year. The expenditure minimum adjustment isbased on the DRI inflation index published in the Global Insight DRI/WEFA Health Care Cost Review. The DRI inflation index as of December 31, 2011 is 2.9%.