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NEW JERSEY LAW CENTER BEGINS EXTREME MAKEOVER
"Last week, work began on a $6 million project to update and overhaul the 20-year-old New Brunswick building that serves as a focal point for the state?s legal community and residents in search of guidance on legal issues. When complete next spring, the Law Center will be outfitted with state-of-the-art communications technologies; hotel-style workstations for visitors; videoconferencing in all conference rooms; capable of showing live and archived broadcasts of educational seminars via the Internet; and have a mock courtroom. The road to the construction project began several years ago, when the New Jersey State Bar Foundation formed a fundraising committee. To date, Forever Vital: the Campaign for the New Jersey Law Center has raised $4.2 million. Officials hope to raise nearly $2 million more before the project is complete."

COURT SET TO HEAR LANDMARK CASE ON CAMPAIGN FUNDING LIMITS
"All the atmospherics about the extraordinary oral argument on Wednesday on campaign finance reform at the U.S. Supreme Court scream "landmark!" The Court, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, could be ready to toss out decades of laws and precedents, including a major chunk of McCain-Feingold law, that limit corporate and union expenditures in federal elections. When the case was first argued in March, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart made the damaging acknowledgment that, under some circumstances, even a book, if it advocates for or against a candidate and is funded by a corporation or a union, could be banned. The prospective reach of the statute and the case decisions may be why the Court ordered the case re-argued and re-briefed on the question of whether the precedents should be overturned."

WAGE-AND-HOUR COMPLAINTS HEAD FOR A COMPANY NEAR YOU
"Wage-and-hour problems are about to get uglier for Corporate America. Employers, already battling a rash of private lawsuits, are bracing for yet more scrutiny over their pay practices in light of a new report that shows wage-and-hour violations are running rampant in the workplace. The study, which surveyed more than 4,000 workers in low-wage industries in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, found that "employment and labor laws are regularly and systematically violated." It estimated that in a given week, about 1.1 million workers in the three cities combined have at least one pay-based violation and that front-line workers in low-wage industries lose more than $56.4 million per week as a result of employment and labor law violations."

RECESSION MAKES EXTERNSHIPS A SWEETER DEAL FOR STUDENTS
"Without summer associate programs to rely on, law students are turning to alternate ways of gaining practical experience and making connections that could lead to full-time employment. Many students are doing externships to fill that need. They work, unpaid, for credit under the supervision of faculty and an on-site attorney at a government agency, nonprofit organization or sometimes a corporation. As the economy batters law students' hopes for employment and law firms cut back or eliminate summer-associate programs, law schools are answering the criticism that they have done a poor job preparing law students for real legal work. Schools are revamping their programs, enlarging their focus to include many more opportunities for practical training, and externships are part of that picture."

SMALL, MIDSIZE FIRMS LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITY IN HARD TIMES
"Hard times bring opportunities, and the network of small and midsize law firms called Meritas hopes that more general counsel come knocking as their companies look for ways to cut costs. Cost savings isn't the only reason to use one of Meritas' 170 firms, which are based in more than 60 countries (and 49 states). The firms and their clients also tout personal service, geographic reach and quality control. But the potential savings compared to fees charged by larger shops isn't something companies are likely to sniff at these days. Clients say they save up to 25 percent, with hourly rates that average $150 to $200 less than megafirms charge."

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