Casey Anthony's Attorney Teaching at FAMU Law
According to a report by WFTV in Orlando, Casey Anthony's attorney, Jose Baez, is teaching upper level trial prep classes at Florida A&M University College of Law.
The report from the Eyewitness News team states:
Jose Baez passed the bar exam just three years ago. He has already confused jurisdiction and botched a motion in the Casey Anthony case. Now, he's teaching law students at FAMU.
It went on to note that Baez is also currently under investigation by the Florida Bar regarding alleged statements he made about prosecutors in the case involving Caylee Anthony, a 2-year-old girl who was missing for months and then found dead. The girl's mother Casey has been charged with murder.
It's clear from the report where the TV station stands on the hiring decision, but I'm wondering, do high profile attorneys make good law professors? Is there the potential to add more drama than knowledge to the classroom, or are they, indeed, the best resources law schools can have--real attorneys who are under the public microscope?
The reason he is there is to get the students to work on his case. He uses the students at the school to prepare his frivolous motions. He also misuses the computer lab. Everytime I go in the computer lab to work on my classes and look up cases on Westlaw, Biaz is in there using all the supplies, looking up Westlaw cases, hogging the printer and the paper to get his motions done.
Interesting…so what does the school get out of it? Publicity? Is that sort of publicity a good thing? Hmm….
I think Biaz is a loser looking to make a big name for himself. He is arrogant in the courtroom and I think he is going to botch the case but he will make a lot of money off of it in the end. He has a lot of SO CALLED dream lawyers on his team so with any hope at all it will be the best thing in the end as Casey wil not have grounds for an appeal. I get psd off when he opens his mouth as he talks so stupid but I shut my eyes and imagine him naked and I think it will be a long and depressing trial. Go to hell Casey where you belong.
FAMU Law students ROCK !!
What is it with the distortion of facts about FAMU LAW?
If you’ve read the news lately, FAMU LAW is undergoing a complete overhaul.
The new Dean, LeRoy Pernell is totally on task. Administrators and faculty are developing new programs and initiatives designed to move FAMU College of Law to the next level of greatness.
Also, If you understand anything about statistical accuracy you will know that the Times empirical data analysis on FAMU law bar passage is faulty.
The Times only cited FAMU’s first-time bar passage rate. The overall passage rate is CONSPICUOUSLY absent.
According to page 26 of FAMU’s March 2008 ABA report (available in a link in yesterday’s story) FAMU’s overall bar passage rates have been the following: June 2005, 70.6%; February 2006, 71.4%; July 2006, 70.3%; February 2007, 70.9%; and July 2007, 81.3%.
The 70-81 percent passage rates are much larger than the “little more than half” statistic listed in the Times.
These rates prove that the overwhelming majority of FAMU’s law students are passing the bar.
FAMU law students are warriors – resilient men and women who persevered through tough circumstances.
The only thing that matters is that a law student passes the bar and the school is accredited. Being a state run school it is very unlikely that FAMU will not become fully accredited. That happened with the Orlando school of Law before Barry took it over. Orlando school of law was a private run law school that did not receive accreditation. FAMU has provision accreditation which is more that The Orlando School of Law received. The law school you go to matters when you first graduate. Latter on though it is how good of lawyer you are that matters and less on where you went to law school.
Some people have pointed out how FAMU has a large number of Black students. I am a White male FAMU law student and do believe that FAMU does their best to recruit all types of students. FAMU receives a large number of Black student applicants because of the history of the school being the only place Black college student could go in segregation. So there is an important history for some of the Black FAMU students to attend a historically Black school that matters to them. Some other Black students may go to FAMU because their relatives went to FAMU. It is similar to Yale law students that have relatives that went to Yale and then decide to go to Yale themselves.
To maintain ABA accreditation many of the law books and classes are similar at most of the law schools. I go to FAMU because they have a part time program which allows me to work. Barry University also has a part-time program but they are more expensive. I am in the U.S. military reserves and most of my tuition is paid for by the U.S. military at FAMU. If I could afford to go to a law school like Yale of course I would go. In conclusion, I do agree Biaz is a dumbass and should be booted out of FAMU.
Mike,diversity is high on your list. Look my friend,TSU-COL feb 2009 bar results was 40% and your Dean HIRED the Legal Writing Director from THAT law school and she delivered to him a feb 2009 bar results of 52.3 the LOWEST in the state and the LOWEST in your school’s HISTORY.Look my friend,get OUT NOW
Relax – What is the big deal here. FAMU law will hire a better legal writing director to train students so they pass the bar and improve the bar passage rate for the school. There are plenty of other people to bring on board to improve the school’s rating. Things change, schools improve their ratings all the time.
Hopefully you’re right and FAMU students will see a marked increase in the bar passage rate soon….
Unfortunately the bar will never go up if the school hinders the students by hiring relatives and practicing nepotism and/or by not filing the multiple academic success postions. Bar rates do go down, as is evidenced by FAMU when they dropped like a rock after vacating the academic support positions. How ridiculous was that – the deans caused the bar to drop 13% by their callous behavior.
Sounds lilke FAMU has a lot of work to do from the inside….