If you're unemployed and saddled with debt, it's your own fault -- just ask William Robinson, the president of the American Bar Association.

Robinson sat down with Reuters to address rising tuition costs and the unrealistic expectations held by today's law students. Congress, the media and the profession have accused the trade group of contributing to both problems.

Robinson's response is anything but what you want to hear.

Everybody wants a career that has a great work-life balance. Most attorneys fail to achieve this goal. After all, when you think high-paying jobs that have the most time off, does "lawyer" come to mind?

Well, magistrates, judges, and law professors all make it onto a new list compiled by AOL Jobs. The list goes through the highest paying jobs where workers work the least amount of time.

Surprised? Here are the statistics used to back up AOL Jobs' claims:

You can't bill prostitutes, hotel rooms, porn and limos to your clients -- unless they were there, too.

Unaware of this little caveat, James Hazen charged $21,000 in "personal services" to his corporate credit card. He then tried to bill his clients at New York's Hill Betts & Nash.

He claimed he was bipolar. They fired him anyway.

Homelessness is a major problem in many major U.S. cities. It's such a major problem that one Cardozo law student decided to -- well -- "immerse" himself into it.

He became homeless by choice.

The student, who went by the pseudonym of "David" in an interview with the Yeshiva University Observer, wasn't facing financial problems. He wasn't forced out of his home. He decided to become homeless last spring because he "experienced the ultimate problem" of having no problems.

Makes sense, right?

A woman accused of cheating on the New York bar exam has lost the battle to overturn her misconduct charges.

Rose DeWitt sat for the bar exam in July 2009. The New York State Board of Law Examiners charged her with misconduct. They claimed she tried to copy other student's answers on the multiple choice portion of the test.

Specifically, a proctor saw her "craning her neck," according to Thomson Reuters News & Insight. They saw her make this strange neck movement more than once. They saw her do it on both days of the exam.

Lawyers at a lucrative Washington, D.C., law firm have a new reason to celebrate this New Year's Day. That's when a new policy kicks in for their practice group, bidding bye-bye to the billable hour.

And it's not just billables. Members of Holland & Knight's public policy and regulation group -- i.e., lobbyists -- will no longer have to keep track of their time at all, The Washington Post reports.

"We'll be the first national firm that will have decided not to use the billable hour framework for a major practice group," an H&K manager told the website Politico. "I think if you look out 10 years, this will be a very large trend ... and we could either lead or follow."

If you haven't heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), then get your head out of the sand. The bill, which is currently making its way through committee, gives copyright and trademark holders the ability to cut off access to infringing websites.

And if your firm does any work for the media or entertainment industry, you can bet that they've heard about SOPA.

Some call it censorship, others think it protects American jobs. And a group of technology heavyweights thinks it stifles innovation. But what does your law firm think of SOPA?

According to a list released by the House Judiciary Committee, the following 22 law firms support the bill:

2012 may prove to be the year of the law school lawsuit.

At least that's what some attorneys at LeClairRyan are saying. They claim that they've been tracking the "noise" on blogs and social networks for months. Their conclusion is that disgruntled law grads everywhere seem poised to sue.

Are you surprised? If you're currently sitting pretty in a BigLaw office, you're probably grateful for your law school education. It netted you a high six-figure paying job, after all. Granted, you don't have a social life. But hey, life's all about compromise. At the same time, you likely know some law grads that fall into one of the following categories:

Goodbye 2011, and hello 2012! Time to break out the bubbly -- and to reveal our Top 3 New Year's resolutions for BigLaw associates.

1. Work healthier.

How much time do you spend stuck behind a computer or in a cubicle? A lawyer's sedentary lifestyle can lead to health problems -- but you don't need us to tell you that. The bloggers at Diethack suggest taking frequent, regular breaks: for example, 10 minutes on your feet for every hour at your desk.

Other tips to work healthier include:

Martin Ginsburg's posthumous Supreme Court cookbook will allow you to eat as heartily as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Sure, Justice Ginsburg wasn't exactly young in her years when she first took her place on the bench. But that doesn't mean she subsisted on a high-fiber diet of prunes with a nutritious side of Ensure.

No, it actually seems that Justice Ginsburg ate better than most of us. Her late husband, Martin Ginsburg, was not only a tax lawyer but an amateur chef. Are you seething with culinary jealousy right now?