Mormon Churches used to aid illegal Mexicans?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is allowing its churches in San Marcos, Calif., to be used for immigration services, including the issuance of matricula cards for immigrants from Mexico who need the ID to function in the United States. Mormon Church spokesman Scott Trotter says the Mexican Consulate asked the church if it could provide temporary location for a "Mobile Consulate" for Mexican citizen services that are legally provided at the consulate in San Diego. "The church sought the input of the U.S. State Department Office in Los Angeles, which confirmed that the request involved legal services provided by the Mexican Consulate. The church then provided the location simply as an act of neighborliness, just as it has for evacuation centers during major fires and in housing the National Guard, or providing temporary relief for flood victims in New Orleans and Iowa," Trotter said.
Is the Mexican Consulate going to ask the Mormon Church to use its facilities in the future? Will this spread to other states? Is this an isolated incidence of the Mormon Church helping Mexicans stay in the country, or is this the begining of a broader standing?

University of Dayton School of Law

The University of Dayton School of Law was the first law school in the country to offer the two year J.D. A student graduates in five semesters versus the typical 6 semesters offer at most other law schools. University of Dayton Law Students who are on the two year track simple take one extra class each semester to eliminate the sixth semester. The University of Dayton School of Law is an ideal place for Mormons who may be married with children and could really benefit from getting into the work place a year sooner than law students attending a different school. The third year in law school can cost a student an extra $100,000 versus a University of Dayton law student who graduates in two years. If a student is borrowing $30,000 a year for living expenses and then loses a years worth of income (say atleast $70,000) then there is atleast a six figure expense for staying in school the third year.

Mormon Church's Financial Records

Ore. court rules against church's bid to keep finances secret
07/12/2007
Associated Press
The Oregon Supreme Court rejected an effort by the Mormon church to withhold financial information from the lawyers for a man who claims a "home teacher" frequently molested him about 20 years ago.
Despite the legal defeat, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not immediately release the detailed financial information about its net worth, The Oregonian newspaper reported.
Kelly Clark, an attorney for the Oregon man suing the church, said it would be good for a jury to have the information before considering his request for $45 million in punitive damages. A trial is scheduled for Aug. 6.
"A jury needs to know the entire financial context to know whether a punitive award is too much or sufficient or not enough," Clark said.
The LDS church sought emergency relief from a trial court order to turn over the financial information, but the Oregon Supreme Court late Monday rejected the appeal. The pretrial decision was reached on narrow pretrial grounds and doesn't mean the court would not ultimately side with the church's position that the Constitution protects its right to keep financial information private.
"The church is considering its position," Stephen F. English, the LDS church's lead Portland attorney, told the newspaper. "The church respects the rule of law but has profound constitutional concerns based on its constitutional right to protect the free expression of its religion."
The LDS church has not released financial information since 1959.
"It's the secret of secrets," said Timothy N. Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney who sought the information in 2001 on behalf of a former Oregon man who claimed he was sexually abused by an LDS Sunday school teacher.
Kosnoff never got the information because the church agreed to pay his client $3 million.
The latest bid to expose the church's net worth stems from a lawsuit filed last year that accuses Kenneth I. Johnson Jr. of molesting a Beaverton youth as often as twice a week in the late 1980s.
Johnson, who has denied the accusation, was the boy's home teacher, a church-sanctioned lay official authorized to provide educational and religious guidance, according to the suit.
English said Johnson was acting as a family friend, not a church official, and LDS church officials did not know about the alleged abuse while it was happening.

This ruling came down almost a year ago but I haven't been able to find more about it since then. Do any of you have any updates as to whether or not the church will have to turn over its finances?

1830 Land Law Accelerated Mormon Persecution

By Kimberly Reid and James T. SummerhaysBYU Studies

New findings reveal that several prominent Missouri persecutors in Daviess County made immense profits off the lands from which early Mormon settlers were driven. New research also suggests the timing of the Extermination Order facilitated this landgrab. In 2005, Jeffrey N. Walker was working as manager of the Legal and Business Series for the Joseph Smith Papers project when he discovered important documents that shed new light on the 1838 conflict between Mormons and Missourians in Daviess County. Walker shares his findings in the current issue of BYU Studies: “While popular history has painted the persecution as religiously motivated, the facts suggest a more base reason: greed, in its most ugly and insatiable form.”Land laws enacted in 1830 stated that “preemption was the process whereby individuals secured right to purchase public land they had improved and inhabited.” After lands were surveyed, a sale date was announced, and if squatters did not pay for the land they had inhabited by the published deadline, other interested parties could buy the improved land at unimproved prices.
Surveyors struggled to keep up with the workload. “A settler could file an application for his land and then wait months, or sometimes even years, for the surveying process to be completed,” Walker explains. In the meantime, settlers worked the land and earned money to purchase it. Also, once houses, mills, and crops were in, the land became vastly more valuable -- the case with most Mormon property in Daviess County. Preemption rights -- and the delayed payment for claimed lands -- directly influenced Mormons’ settlement decisions following the financial collapse in Kirtland, Ohio. Although “Caldwell County was informally designed to accommodate Mormons,” Saints established their main community, Far West, in Caldwell County but also expanded into Daviess County. This was not because “Caldwell County had filled up to overflowing with Mormons,” as some have claimed. Many Saints from Kirtland had sold their land and possessions to help pay Church debts, so they came to Missouri unprepared to buy property. Many of these Saints settled Daviess County because preemption rights gave them time to farm and earn money before having to pay for the land. Walker asserts that some Missourians in Daviess County were motivated by financial self-interest in persecuting their Mormon neighbors. Because Mormon settlers had the first right to buy the improved and now-valuable land at the original price, “some Missourians carefully orchestrated the persecution in October and November 1838 specifically to gain control of Mormons’ preemption rights,” he asserts. “They did not reap an unintended windfall” in buying Mormons’ improved land. “Rather they orchestrated the deliberate taking” of Mormons’ preemption rights. Walker provides convincing evidence by describing the timing of events during fall 1838. On October 21, a notice was published announcing November 12 as the sale date for Daviess County lands. “It appears more than a coincidence that A.P. Rockwood reported on October 24, 1838, that the Saints’ mail had stopped coming to Far West,” Walker writes. The infamous Extermination Order, issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs, came only six days after the sale date for Daviess County lands was published. Soon afterward, on November 1, Far West surrendered to Missouri troops that had besieged the city. Militiamen forcibly prevented anyone from leaving or entering Far West, and they limited communication from the outside. Additionally, Walker explains, Missouri militia general John B. Clark “commenced the process of systematically arresting key Mormons. By early November, Clark had arrested over fifty Church members. These men were not only ecclesiastical leaders, they also were the most prominent landowners in Daviess County.” The preliminary hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to hold the arrested men for further trial took two weeks. “It seems hardly a coincidence that the hearing began on November 12 -- the exact day the Daviess County preemption land sales started,” Walker states. The sales were held for two weeks, “which ran exactly concurrently with the preliminary hearing. Those critical two weeks were Mormons’ final opportunity to exercise their preemption rights.”Walker discovered that when Mormon’s preemptive rights lapsed, “the key actors in the preceding months’ anti-Mormon activities immediately purchased nearly eighteen thousand acres of Daviess County land.” But not just any land; these Missourians got “the most valuable improved Mormon lands.” Walker quotes Parley P. Pratt in summarizing the roots of the Missouri conflict: “The anti-Mormons were determined the Mormons should yield and abandon the country. Moreover the land sales were approaching, and it was expedient that they should be driven out before they could establish their rights of pre-emption. In this way, their valuable improvements -- the fruit of diligence and enterprise -- would pass into the hands of men who would have the pleasure of enjoying without the toil of earning.”

2 More Men Join Sex-Abuse Case Against Mormon Church

According to the Oregonian: Two Portland men filed an $8.5 million lawsuit today against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts, bringing to eight the total number of former Boy Scouts alleging sexual abuse by Timur Van Dykes, who was a church and scout leader in the 1980s and early 90s.
The lawsuit contends that Timur Van Dykes molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which was supervised by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dykes, a registered sex offender who now lives in Southwest Portland, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes since 1983.
Together, the pending abuse cases filed in Multnomah County Court against the scouts and the church seek $33.5 million.
Six of the alleged victims agreed earlier this month to enter talks to settle their lawsuits but failed to reach a resolution.
At least a dozen Oregon child-abuse cases are pending against the Boy Scouts.

Mormon Church Supports Marriage Amendment In California

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sent a letter to all California congregations. The letter asks that California Mormons do all they can to support the California Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. "The church's teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal," the letter reads. "Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the creator's plan for his children.
"Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage."
The proposed state constitutional amendment will be on the November ballot.
The First Presidency asked "that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage is legally defined as being between a man and a woman."

How will Mormon lawyers in California react to the First Presidency's call to "do all you can" to support the proposed state constitutional amendment? Will they rise up to the challenge? This amendment is a moral battle that will be fought in the court of law. I'm glad there are so many excellent Mormon Lawyers in California who will fight tooth and nail to protect the sanctity of marriage. Because after all...."As California goes, the rest of the nation goes."

The 2 year JD program

Northwestern University announced today that it is to become the second law school to offer a 5 semester degree option which can be completed in 24 months. In 2005, The University of Dayton School of Law was the first law school in the nation to begin offering the accelerated program. Dayton Law has been very pleased with the interest in the program and credit it in part to its growing law school enrollment. For years the legal community has felt that the third year of law school was largely a waste and have contenplated different solutions to rectify the problem Sounds great to me: 1 year less of debt + 1 extra year in the job field = No Brainer

Can A Mormon Lawyer Support Terrorism?

MEMO ON TORTURE STOKES ETHICS-VERSUS-FAITH DEBATE - JAY BYBEE The Salt Lake Tribune by Peggy Fletcher Stack, Pamela Manson. Dan Burk doesn't see how anyone with a conscience could tolerate, let alone defend, the use of torture -- even in extreme cases. But Burk, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, was especially incensed to discover that just such a defense was launched by a member of his own LDS faith. Jay Bybee, a devout Mormon who in 2002 was head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, signed an August memorandum that year that said certain interrogation techniques could be used legally as long as the pain involved was less than that accompanying "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death." If the intent is to gain information, not just to cause harm, the memo reasoned, these techniques fall outside the legal definition of torture forbidden by international law. The controversial memo, since disavowed by the White House, has sparked a lively Internet debate among LDS lawyers about whether Bybee violated his professional and religious ethics while writing it. Burk started the conversation last month when he posted a stinging critique on http://www.timesandseasons.org, which has frequent comments by lawyers who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "I cannot believe that the practice of torture is acceptable to anyone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus Christ," wrote Burk. "At what point does a Latter-Day Saint governmental official have, like Mormon of old, the moral obligation to resign his position rather than participate in the conduct of his superiors?" Burk's incendiary comment produced more than 100 responses, with pro and con arguments built on everything from New Testament mandates and Book of Mormon stories to the philosophers Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Fred Gedicks, a Brigham Young University law professor who has known Bybee for 30 years, doesn't necessarily agree with the memo's conclusions, but he believes the bloggers misunderstand Bybee's motives. The timing of the memo indicates it was aimed at dealings with al-Qaida in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the Afghanistan war, he said. The anti-torture comments mirror earlier discussions about the problem of unilateral disarmament, Gedicks says. "It's fine to talk about the teachings of the Savior about peace, but when the other side is not living those teachings, there are real risks by living them unilaterally." He adds: "I don't think my answers about torture would have been the same as his, but the idea that the memo shouldn't have been written at all is not compartmentalization. It ignores the new reality." Nationally, lawyers have decried the memo as chillingly narrow. While acknowledging his exact assignment is unknown, critics assail Bybee for failing to include ethical, moral and even practical context. Michael K. Young, George Washington University law professor who is the incoming president of the University of Utah, said he took such a broader approach when he was a deputy legal adviser in the State Department during the first Bush presidency. He not only told government officials what they could do legally, he said, but also told what they should do morally. "You can often go beyond that and say that while technically one is prepared to do this, there are a whole lot of reasons you don't want to do this, some of them morally based," said Young, who is also LDS. It is not unethical for a lawyer to ignore the religious or ethical implications when giving advice to clients, says Professor Michael Ariens of St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "The real question is, are you sacrificing something in the relationship by ignoring those values? Would advice be better by saying this decision has profound legal and moral consequences?" For Mormon lawyers the memo is more than theory. It's personal. Bybee, now a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, earned his undergraduate and law degrees from LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University. He served a two-year mission for the church in Chile. He's had a fascination with biblical laws, he told Meridian Magazine, an independent LDS online magazine. "People in the Old Testament were absolutely devoted to the law of Moses and required exact obedience to it," he said. "While we should admire their zeal to follow the rule of law, we nevertheless have to recognize that without understanding the spirit or purpose of the law, there aren't enough rules in the world to make a person be good." Bybee has declined to comment on the memo. Young says he doesn't pass judgment on Bybee's motives or arguments, but at a BYU conference last year suggested Mormon lawyers would be better off if they connected their professional and religious selves. "It does matter that we are LDS and academics at the same time," he told a roomful of BYU lawyers in his keynote address. And that is what many of the Mormon bloggers were looking for, too. They appealed to LDS scriptures to build their arguments. There's Jesus' admonition that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me," Burk wrote to The Salt Lake Tribune. The Book of Mormon, which Latter-day Saints believe is the record of an ancient civilization in the Americas, tells of the destruction wrought by "warfare and genocide," Burk wrote. "The record repeatedly warns against the human propensity to develop a taste for violence and atrocity." Others argue worst-case scenarios. Suppose there is a ticking time bomb set to go off in an orphanage and troops capture the bomber. Wouldn't physical torture be worth it if you get information to abort the tragedy? "Does the Gospel commit us to a particular ethical approach?" wrote attorney Nate Oman on the timesandseasons blog. "For example, torturing the guy with the information in the ticking-bomb case may well be morally justifiable if we are utilitarians. It is probably not morally justifiable if we are Kantians. Dan seems pretty confident that good Mormons must be Kantians. On the other hand, one can point to fairly utilitarian moral claims in scripture." Kaimipono David Wenger, a New York City lawyer who regularly participates in the Mormon blog, found himself in the middle of the debate. "I would personally be uncomfortable writing a memo on how the administration could legally justify torture of people, but I don't think it's against the tenets of our faith," Wenger told the Tribune. "One might believe that the value of ready access to torture-obtained intelligence outweighed the negative." For Wenger, "it's something you would have to work out with God." pstack@sltrib.com - pmanson@sltrib.com - Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.

25 Most Applied to Law Schools by BYU Undergrads

2006-2007 BYU Pre-Law Students

School Name: # That Applied # That Matriculated
1. Brigham Young University 411 101
2. University of Utah 239 25
3. Arizona State University 150 14
4. George Washington Univ. 111 15
5. Univ. Nevada Las Vegas 108 8
6. Georgetown University 98 5
7. Duke University 97 9
8. University of Arizona 97 4
9. George Mason University 95 2
10.University of Michigan 92 6
11.University of Virginia 90 6
12.William and Mary Law 87 2
13. University of Texas 86 5
14. Harvard Law School 85 5
15. UCLA 85 2
16. Columbia 79 3
17. Univ. of Chicago 74 6
18. Stanford Law School 69 2
19. UC- Berkley 68 0
20. University of Oregon 68 2
21. Baylor University 67 2
22. Gonzaga 60 15
23. Notre Dame 58 1
24. University of Idaho 58 5
25. U. of Washington 57 0

BYU, Mormon Law Students Ultra Competitive

PROVO — Brigham Young University students have long been known as the most sober in the country. Now students in two of BYU's graduate programs have revealed themselves to be the ultra-competitive.
In two new books, the company ranks students in BYU's law school and graduate business programs No. 1 in the category "Most Competitive Students."
The Princeton Review rankings hit the streets today with the release of the "Best 170 Law Schools". The Princeton Review is compiled from surveys of 18,000 law students.
The competitive ranking for the law school book was based on four questions — the average hour of sleep a student gets each night, the hours a student studies outside class, the hours a student believes classmates study outside class and the degree of competitiveness among students at the school.

What is it about Mormon law students that make them so hyper competitive? Does this make for better students and attorneys?

Non Utah Law Schools With High Mormon Populations

1.Arizona State University
2.University of Nevada at Las Vegas
3.Gonzaga
4.Creighton
5. University of Arizona
6. University of Virginia
7. UCLA
8. George Washington
9. Columbia
10. Harvard

Blog's Purpose

I hope this blog will be a forum where Mormon lawyers and non Mormon lawyers can come to learn about Law Schools and different events happening in the legal community. If you have any suggestiongs about things that you would like to see on the blog just let me know.