An American Bar Association report appears to confirm the fears expressed by diversity advocates since the economic recession began 1 1/2 years ago: Spending on law firm diversity initiatives has dried up and layoffs are undoing the gains the profession has made. The report, “Diversity in the Legal Profession: The Next Steps,” was the first comprehensive diversity study from the ABA since the legal profession began grappling with the economic collapse. Its conclusions were the result of a yearlong study that included surveys, regional hearings, roundtable discussions and a diversity summit held in June that drew 200 representatives of law firms, corporate law departments and diversity advocates. The goal was to create a ‘functional roadmap for advancing diversity in the legal profession,’ ABA President Carolyn Lamm wrote in the report.

The immigration court system faces an ‘exploding’ caseload where each potential deportee’s fate depends largely on who hears their case and 84% of detained respondents don’t even have representation, an independent research report said. The report, prepared by the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP for the American Bar Association, analyzed the U.S. adjudication system for noncitizen removal and recommended some 60 reform measures to improve it. The study involved the work of over 50 lawyers and legal assistants for more than a year. ABA President Carolyn Lamm added: ‘This thoughtful analysis of the adjudication system’s problems will help frame the debate as our nation’s leaders move forward. The ABA is especially hopeful that the report’s findings regarding representation and system restructuring will lead to reforms for which all Americans can be proud.’

With fundraising on track and a student fee increase all but a done deal, the University of Idaho hopes to start offering third-year law classes in Boise this fall without state financial support. UI College of Law Dean Donald Burnett said the only remaining hurdle is what the American Bar Association calls ‘acquiescence.’ The process is designed to ensure expanded programs in different locations don’t detract from a law school’s home location. ‘We’re going to go ahead, subject to the ABA’s acquiescence,’ Burnett said. The new approach is a dramatically scaled-back version of the law school’s original plan to open a full three-year branch in Boise that would focus on business and commercial law.

The House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would expand the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, allowing it to review petitions filed by military service members challenging courts-martial decisions. Under current law, a service member is barred from petitioning the high court if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has refused to review his or her court-martial appeal or has denied a writ for extraordinary relief.  The only exception is when someone is sentenced to death. In contrast, the government has the right to petition the justices in any case referred to the CAAF. Committee members, by voice vote last week, sent the full House the Equal Justice for Our Military Act of 2009, sponsored by Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.). The bill is supported by the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the District of Columbia Bar Association, the Fleet Reserve Association, the Jewish War Veterans Association, the Military Officers Association of America, and the National Institute for Military Justice.

U.S. lawyers, real estate and escrow agents and other professionals are enabling the flow of tens of millions of tainted dollars into the country due to loopholes in anti-money laundering laws, a Senate report says. In one case, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president relied on lawyers, shell companies, bankers and real estate agents to help move more than $110 million in ‘suspect funds’ into the U.S., the report said. The money was used to buy a $30 million home in Malibu, California, and a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet, the report said. …The report calls on Treasury to repeal a 2002 exemption given to real estate and escrow agents for anti-money laundering programs under the Patriot Act, which gave law enforcement greater latitude to investigate terrorism. Congress also should pass a law that requires people forming U.S. corporations to disclose the names of the beneficial owners, and professional groups such as the American Bar Association and National Association of Realtors should issue guidelines involving acceptance of funds from potentially suspect foreign sources.

The Mass. Board of Higher Education voted Tuesday to create the Bay State’s first public law school by having the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth take over Southern New England School of Law. The board voted unanimously to approve the merger during a meeting at Bridgewater State College, The Herald News of Fall River reported.  UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. Mac Cormack plans to enroll the school’s first class of 278 law students this fall. Enrollment is projected to double to 559 by 2017-18. Tuition would be $23,565 for in-state students and $31,209 for those from out of state. … Officials at UMass Dartmouth say they will seek provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association next year. Without it, SNESL graduates are not allowed to sit for bar exams in numerous states.

Painting a picture of an overwhelmed immigration court system choked by an ‘exploding’ caseload and an ‘exponential’ increase in outside pressures, a report submitted to the American Bar Association has the ABA considering a host of policy reforms affecting the adjudication system for determining whether to remove noncitizens from the United States.

A report commissioned by the American Bar Association has found that the current system to determine whether non-citizens should be deported fails to ensure adequate due process for immigrant defendants. The report provides proposals for restructuring the system. The nearly 500-page document, Reforming the Immigration System: Proposals to Promote Independence, Fairness, Efficiency, and Professionalism in the Adjudication of Removal Cases, was prepared by the law firm Arnold & Porter pro bono for the ABA. Though the full report is not available electronically, the ABA released an Executive Summary yesterday. The study’s authors say it is the most comprehensive review of the immigration adjudication system to date, examining both immigration court and Department of Homeland Security policies. The report recommends sweeping changes to promote greater fairness and efficiency. Recommendations include hiring 100 new immigration judges, restructuring immigration court to make it more independent from the Department of Justice, and establishing a right to counsel at government expense for immigrants who may have valid claims to stay in the country but cannot afford a lawyer.

The state’s victim advocate yesterday urged a special panel not to forget the thousands of “original victims” allegedly harmed by juveniles whose cases were heard by judges at the center of the Luzerne County criminal-justice scandal. Carol L. Lavery, who heads Pennsylvania’s Office of the Victim Advocate, says she has received letters from numerous victims – and parents of victims – of juvenile offenders whose cases were vacated as a result of the “cash for kids” corruption investigation. Former Luzerne County Court Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan are accused of collecting $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending thousands of children to detention at private facilities. The two pleaded guilty last year to fraud charges, but a federal judge threw out their plea agreements, saying the men had not accepted responsibility. They are awaiting trial. … Krier said her group advocates mandatory training, more uniform funding, and independent oversight of public defenders and judges who handle juvenile cases to help ensure the ethical lapses are not repeated. George Kuhlman, ethics counsel for the American Bar Association, told the panel the state’s judicial code of conduct lacked specificity and could use stronger teeth. He said ethics rules should be more strongly worded and provisions for accepting gifts more detailed. ‘There seems to lack a provision of disclosure about what is accepted,’ Kuhlman said.

Reforming the $450 trillion derivatives market is key to removing the risks of financial markets, and greater central clearing of privately traded derivatives is a vital part of that, the head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission said on Friday. Central clearing, in which a counterparty stands between two trading partners and guarantees the trade, is needed to remove risks from banks, Gary Gensler, chairman of the CFTC, said at a conference hosted by the American Bar Association in Naples, Florida. He also called for greater transparency. Banks are at greater risk of failure than exchanges because they also have large lending and trading operations.

In a new escalation of an ongoing controversy about whether a non-ABA-accredited law school should merge with the University of Massachusetts, a state lawmaker is calling for an investigation of potential antitrust issues. Three competitors of Southern New England School of Law may be misusing public funds to lobby against its potential marriage with UMass, says Rep. John Quinn in a letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, reports South Coast Today (reg. req.). As he points out in the letter, Suffolk University Law School, for instance, gets $1.5 million in state aid.

This is the unlikely home of where the University of Massachusetts hopes to open the state’s first public law school: a one-building campus, tucked behind a commercial building on a strip of Faunce Corner Road with real estate and medical offices, factory outlets and the Bristol County jail. The Southern New England School of Law, a 29-year-old law school with 235 students, is easy to miss. Its building is hardly visible from the road, and it looks more like an office building than an academic one. … Indeed, SNESL has never been as well known as it is today, thanks to the proposal to turn the school into UMass law. It will become part of UMass if approved by the state Board of Higher Education on Tuesday. … Students are proud to be part of UMass and excited that the school will spend millions on achieving American Bar Association accreditation, Ward said.