Cooley Law Alumni Sues Alma Mater in Class Action Suit

A class action law suit was filed against the Cooley Law School this week in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan.  In addition to legal counsel from Gotham, attorney Steve Hyder from Monroe, MI, himself a Cooley graduate, is local counsel on the suit.

The 45-page complaint reads like an indictment on the issue of student loans versus available law jobs in this protracted economic downturn.  The complaint alleges that Cooley intentionally uses false statistics (i.e. graduate employment rates and graduates' salaries) to lure and retain prospective law students .

The New York law firm handling the heavy lifting in the suit, Kurzon Strauss, is also suing the New York Law School on nearly identical grounds, but in state court.  Each suit seeks hundreds of millions in tuition refunds from the respective law schools.

Last month, Kurzon Strauss was on the receiving end of a law suit filed by Cooley, alleging defamation.  The firm had been trolling around Craigslist and Facebook soliciting candidates for its class action suit.  Understandably, Cooley wanted to get the drop on the firm and steal the negative publicity thunder such a suit would generate.  Always the publicity gurus over there at Cooley.

Cooley will probably use the same law firm on defense as they do on offense; Miller Canfield.  One way or another, this litigation will siphon-off some of Cooley's rich profits as they continue to tap deeply into the American Dream, lawyer-style.

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The Right to be a Millionaire

The NFL team owners, a tony group, just announced an official lock-out of their players.  For their part, the players have dissolved their union and several super-stars have filed a high profile class action law suit against the owners.

Football is America's most popular sport and has grown into a billion dollar industry over the past decade.  With the lock-out and the law suit, however, looks like the 2011 season is in jeopardy.

The super-star quarterbacks' lawsuit, formally known as Brady vs NFL, was filed in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, MN and asserts an antitrust claim against the storied league while seeking an injunction to terminate the lockout.

The quarterbacks are represented in Minneapolis by the Berens Miller law firm.  The league is in the good hands of Attorney Aaron Van Ort, a former law clerk to both SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia and well-known 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner.

Another Justice Scalia connection:  The players' case, initially assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle who promptly recused himself, was re-assigned to Judge Patrick Schiltz, also a former Scalia law clerk.

For their part, the owners, on average only slightly wealthier than the league's star players, are claiming poverty in the complexity of operating a modern football franchise. 

While millions of NFL fans wait to see whether there will be a season, and drafted rookies wait to see whether they will become newly minted millionaires, the attorneys in the case will be walking away with millions in legal fees.

Now go count your money.

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Nun Indicted in Gotham for Embezzling Nearly Million From Catholic College

Nunsense!  Earlier this week, Marie Thornton, a nun known around Westchester County, New York's Iona College as "Sister Susie" was indicted for embezzlement in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.  She was charged with stealing nearly a million dollars over a decade from the private Catholic college which she served as a vice president for financial affairs.  

Thornton pled not guilty to the charges.  Apparently, the college found out about their CFO's sticky fingers some time ago, but declined to report the crime or press charges.

The missing funds were only recently disclosed on the college's 2008 tax forms which indicated that an unnamed employee misappropriated $80,000 each year in small amounts over a ten-year period.  The tax filing stated that the monies were garnered via fraudulent checks and a college credit card.

When it discovered the shortfalls, Iona did fire Thornton (and another employee), stating only that she was on a permanent leave of absence.  The Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Education connected the dots, arresting Thornton last Thursday.

Sister Susie left the Manhattan federal courthouse on her own recognizance.  She is believed to be staying with her cloister, the Sisters of Saint Joseph, in Philadelphia, where she is known by another alias: "Sister Marie".

Sister Marie's lawyer, Sanford Talkin, was not talking about the case, or his client's whereabouts while the matter remained pending; promising only a hard-fought trial down the road.

Iona College's former basketball coach has commented publicly that Sister Susie spent most of the embezzled funds gambling in nearby Atlantic City.  A good bet is that she's now heading for the confessional.

Michigan Connection:  Iona College is run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland, the same denomination that founded Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

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