Mainebiz

V O L . X X I V N O. V I I A P R I L 2 , 2 0 1 8 6 Maine jobless rate lowest in 42 years e Maine Department of Labor reported that the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 2.9% in February was the lowest since 1976. Maine's rate was little changed from 3.0% for January and slightly down from 3.3% one year ago. e number of unemployed declined 3,000 over the year to 20,000. e state's unem- ployment rate has been below 4.0% for 27 consecutive months. Brower to own all Maine dailies except BDN With a deal that closed April 1, Reade Brower became owner of all but one of Maine's seven daily newspapers. On March 23 he announced he will acquire from Sample News Group two more Maine dailies, e Times Record in Brunswick and the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, as well as the Mainely Media weekly publications. Under the corporate name of RFB Enterprises, Brower bought the Sun Media Group in July 2017, picking up the Lewiston Sun Journal and several weekly newspapers and magazines in the acquisition, a little more than two years after buying MaineToday Media, which owns the Portland Press Herald, Morning Sentinel, Kennebec Journal and e Coastal Journal newspapers. at will leave the Bangor Daily News, owned by Richard Warren, as the only remain- ing Maine daily outside of Brower's ownership control. China fuels demand for Maine lobster China imported more than 17.8 million pounds of lobster from the U.S. in 2017, eclipsing the previous record of about 14 million pounds in 2016. e Financial Post reported the value of the imports also surged, from $108.3 million in 2016 to $142.4 million last year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. China has targeted dozens of U.S. products for new tariff s, but lobsters aren't on the list. N O T E W O R T H Y S T A T E W I D E The new Sarah Mildred Long Bridge connecting Kittery to Portsmouth, N.H., was scheduled to open on March 30. A joint project of the Maine and New Hampshire departments of transportation, the $163 million bridge replaced the 76-year-old Sarah Mildred Long Bridge. Cianbro, which is based in Pittsfi eld, handled construction. Jail time for oyster house owner e owner of J's Oyster, an iconic res- taurant and bar on Portland's water- front, has been sentenced to four months in jail for pocketing sales taxes paid by the restaurant's customers, as well as for failing to pay her personal and corporate income taxes. Maine Attorney General Janet Mills said that Cynthia Brown, 58, of Portland, was sentenced to four years in jail, with all but four months suspended, followed B U S I N E S S M A I N E Business news from around the state S T A T E W I D E S O U T H E R N How important is Maine Law's rise in U.S. News & World Report rankings? B y R e n e e C o r d e s The University of Maine School of Law just shot up in closely watched national law school rankings, but the school's dean, Danielle Conway, sees that as a mixed blessing. In U.S. News & World Report's 2019 list posted on March 20, Maine Law is at No. 106, tied with Albany Law School, University of Buffalo-SUNY and West Virginia University, while Yale, Stanford and Harvard held on to the top three slots. Maine Law was No. 139 last year. Conway told Mainebiz she's taking the upgrade with a "huge grain of salt called a rock." "We've not changed our structure, our faculty or our orga- nization from one year to the next, and why can't people see that and understand that for small law schools like ours, these rankings are not meaningfully done, and it creates a volatility that negatively impacts or positively impacts our admissions cycle," she said. "I would much rather our admissions cycle be based on the actual quality of our program of legal education." Conway, who like other deans received the rankings before they were made public, said the scoring system has always favored large schools over smaller ones like Maine Law. "When you're a small school that's truly in the busi- ness of serving a particular community or a segment of the region, you're getting lumped into a category of well-endowed, long-standing schools that have the benefi t of time and money," she said, "and it's really hard to compete." But she acknowledged that moving up in the rankings could also be positive if it inspires prospective applicants to go to Maine Law's website to learn more about the school. Conway highlighted the school's dedication to service, commitments to rural practice, public interest and experi- ential learning through clinical programs, a commitment to refugee and human rights representation and "our commit- ment to being Maine's law school." She also said there may be a short-term bump in the applications cycle that starts this fall and goes through spring 2019 as a result of the rankings upgrade. That said, Conway would rather see a focus on a three- year rolling average for all schools, and perhaps separately for schools that are the only one in their state, rather than on year-to-year-fl uctuations, to be fairer to smaller institutions. She also says support in Maine is strong for its law school no matter what the rankings, which "means everything to me." U.S. News & World Report said that rankings of 194 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association are based on a weighted average of 12 measures of quality. Data were collected in fall 2017 and early 2018. B R I E F P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Danielle Conway, dean of the University of Maine School of Law, says the school's jump in annual law school rankings should be viewed "with a huge grain of salt."

• Cover