Mike v. Professor, The Final Chapter

Part 1


Part 2

With about a month left to go before the term ended, he opened one day by telling us about his exam. “My exam,” he said, “will consist of a list of case names and terms which we covered in the reading over the course of the semester. You will be expected to explain the facts of each case and tell me what each case stands for, or what each term means.” The class was taken aback by this unconventional exam, myself among them. I am far from being a law school apologist, but I really have no issues with the typical exam format. Essay, multiple choice, or a mix of the two designed to test a students ability to apply the law to different situations requires students to use their critical thinking skills. His exam did none of that. The purpose of reading a case is to understand the underlying law, not memorize specific fact patterns and holdings. A friend later said to me, “This exam is borderline high school.” When I questioned what he meant by borderline, he explained, “it’s almost junior high.” But this is the exam he chose to give, and the class wasn’t pleased.

Dozens of hands shot into the air, and one by one, people peppered him with questions, trying to get him to narrow down the scope of the exam, or at the very least, be more specific about what he expected. He did neither. Once all of the hands had been called on, he shouted out, “Any more questions? Anyone?” Looking around the room, his eyes locked on his favorite target. “Mr. [Mike], any questions?” he asked me, despite not having my hand raised. “Actually, I do,” I said, and he launched into his carnival barker voice. “Another question! Outstanding! Please, Mr. [Mike], what is your question?”

“I was just wondering what you are trying to accomplish with an exam format like this. It seems to me that giving a hypothetical fact scenario and having us apply what we have learned in class would be a much better way of testing our knowledge than having us spit back what we memorized about certain cases.”

The shit-eating grin which had been on his face disappeared and he tensed up. “What I am trying to accomplish is to make sure that you did the reading and paid attention in class.”

“And that is more important than understanding and being able to apply the law?”

He glared at me for a second, and moved on to the lesson plan. After class, a friend told me he has never seen a professor get more defensive than he did when I called him out. Later on in that class period, in a move even more blatant than his obvious crush on the hot girl in the front row, he called on me to explain the longest, most complicated case of the semester. To his chagrin, I had read it, and succeeded in making him look stupid for the second time that day.

For the rest of the semester, he lightened up on me. Once I had called him on his awful teaching, he was less eager to let me speak up. On the last day of class, he spent the first ten minutes trying to further justify his exam. “It couldn’t be easier,” he told us. “I’ll give you a case name, and you tell me about the case. It’s just straight memorization.” And this was the folly in his thinking. For two or three years, we, as law students, have trained ourselves not to memorize cases, but to be able to read a case consisting of a unique fact pattern, and apply the underlying law to other fact patterns. This is the essence of law school. And love it or hate it, it works. Talking to my friends who are preparing for the bar, they say that even though they haven’t take Torts in two and a half years, it comes right back to them. They remember elements and exceptions and defenses, all of which was extracted from cases they read. And this is precisely what they will be tested on. The bar exam will most assuredly not ask them to recite the facts from Palsgraf. In short, the exam he gave was an insult to his student’s intelligence, and incredibly lazy on his part.

Like 3Ls across the country, I didn’t read for the last day of class. I didn’t even bring my book. I was sitting in my usual back row seat, busying myself on the internet while the class was discussing a case. He was wandering around the room, and when he was two rows in front of me, looked at me and sneered, “Mr. [Mike], tell us about the next case.”

I looked back at him and said, “I’d love to, but I didn’t read it.” I could have left well enough alone, but you know that’s not in my nature, so I sarcastically added, “Why don’t you ask me about it next week on the exam?”

The look on his face went from a sadistic smirk to utter hatred. “But class is today,” he said through clenched jaws.

“I am aware of that, but the exam is next week, and since you want us to memorize all these cases, just ask me about it then. I'll know it when it matters.”

He said something about the exam, but I didn’t quite understand him. When I asked a friend later what he had said, he told me that he didn’t understand either, and described it as “gibberish.” A few moments later, he ended class early and walked out.



Epilogue: The exam was exactly what he promised, and was probably the biggest waste of two hours since my girlfriend dragged me to see Elizabethtown. I got a B, which is what I expected, and no doubt pissed him off, seeing as how he typically gave a handful of Ds each semester.

Throughout the semester, I enjoyed telling Russ my tales from this ridiculous class, and we enjoyed making jokes about his past as a popular oldies singer. One time Russ asked why he hated me so much. I thought about it and said, “Who knows…maybe he thought I was the one who put the bop in the bop sh-bop sh-bop, not him.”

Me, I Thought He Was An Asshole

I entered the classroom on the first day of my second year of law school and scanned the room for a familiar face. The class was comprised of predominantly 3Ls, and I saw only a handful of people from my class, none of whom I was particularly eager to sit with. I spied an empty chair at the end of an aisle and sat down. In the seat next to mine was a 3L guy, who busily typed away at his laptop. As I unpacked my own laptop, he started chatting.

“Hey,” he said in a booming voice. “You must be a 2L. Congrats on making it back for another round of this shit. Me, this is my third year.” He spoke louder than he needed to, with an East Coast accent that he made no attempt to conceal, and possibly was even trying to accentuate.

“Yeah, well, I’m not too pleased about it,” I responded, trying to give off the vibe that I was not interested in a conversation.

“Tell me about it,” he chortled, taking my unenthusiastic response as an invitation to open up to me. “I just got back in town last night. I sure do miss home…” He trailed off, expecting me to ask him a follow up. I didn’t, so he continued. “Yeah, I really wish I was still home…” He trailed off again, clearly setting me up to ask where home was. Against my better judgment, I took the bait. “Where are you from?” I halfheartedly asked.

His face lit up. “Me, I’m from Philly. Lived in Philly most of my life. Spent my summer working there, in downtown Philly. I love that place.” He paused, and added, “Yeah, I love Philly.”

I found it odd that he said the word “Philly” four times in his brief answer, but before I could ponder it further, he continued. “Yeah, I worked for a firm in Philly. The work was okay, but at the end of the day, I don’t know if it’s what I would want to do permanently. It was mostly tax stuff I did. Tax is okay and everything, but at the end of the day, it’s not for me.”

I was about to ask why not, but as if anticipating my question, he kept talking. “Me, I want to do litigation. Now I know, a job is a job in this market, but at the end of the day, there isn’t much litigation in tax work. I want to be in the courtroom, trying cases. I don’t care if it’s criminal or civil, defense or prosecution, at the end of the day, I want to be in the courtroom.”

By now, I was both perplexed and trying to keep from laughing. He had this odd habit of repeating a word or a phrase over and over in a short period of time. It was irritating, but also laughable because he spoke so loudly with a rather thick accent. I could only imagine how a jury would react to this. My mind pictured him in a nice suit inside of a courtroom, delivering an opening statement.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, at the end of the day there are two things I am certain of: Me, I love Philly, and at the end of the day, my client is innocent…”

He snapped me back from my fantasy world with a question. “Did you do the reading for today?” Before I could tell him that I had yet to purchase the book, he started talking again. “Me, I read it. Well, not all of it, but for all intensive purposes, I read it.” My ears burned, and he continued. “I have a system for reading for class. I read the main cases, and nothing else. For all intensive purposes, the main cases are what matter.” He said this as though he was on to something no one else knew.

“Say that again,” I directed him.

“Say what? For all intensive purposes, the main cases are what matter.”

“Look,” I said. “I hate to be the guy correcting how people speak, but the phrase is ‘for all intents and purposes,’ not ‘for all intensive purposes’. I would hate to have you mispronounce this in front of a jury.”

Instead of thanking me for my speech lesson, he got defensive. “Hey! I say things how I want to say them, and I don’t need you coming in here and correcting me. Get out of here with this ‘intents and purposes’ shit.” With that, he snorted and said something under his breath.

During class, he continued to give me menacingly dirty looks, and the professor passed around a seating chart that bound me to the seat next to him for the rest of the semester. So what did I do? I went home and dropped the class.

I know it seems drastic, but the last thing I needed was my new friend from Philly bothering me all semester, and for all “intensive purposes”, moving to a new seat wasn’t an option since the class was full. Besides, I didn’t really want to take the class to begin with, so at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do.

Bar Review Observation # 3

Lots of cliches lately...

To the guy who had on the Gadzook-esque shirt that said, "Trust me I'm a Lawyer",

Not cute

To the very attractive petite blonde who pinned her bangs back the other day to look like Reese Witherspoon from "Legally Blonde",

Very cute

Whoever said that possession is 9/10ths of the law was an asshole. I never liked that rule. This guy is taking the remaining 1/10th and getting back what he deserves.

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/

Mike v. Professor, Part 2

Part 1

It all started during the third week of class. On that Tuesday, we were going over some assigned cases, and I was sticking to my usual strategy of sitting in the back, laying low, and hoping to get by undetected. The professor called out the name of another case, and said, in an exaggerated tone, almost like a carnival barker, “Mr. [Mike]…Is there a Mr. [Mike] in the house…Are you here, Mr. [Mike]?” I don’t know if he was trying to be funny or folksy or what, but it came out awkwardly, and once he was done grandstanding, I raised my hand and quickly explained what I knew about the case, which I had skimmed earlier during class. My explanation satisfied him, and sent him off on a 15 minute tangent about an unrelated topic while I sat back in my seat, knowing I was safe from being called on for a while. Or so I thought.

The next time class met was on Thursday, and since I had been called on the previous meeting, I naturally didn’t prepare. I was sitting in my usual back row seat, engaged in a few IM conversations and a game of Text Twist, when all of the sudden, I heard the carnival barker shout my name again. I was a bit surprised that he was calling on me, but at the same time, I didn’t really care. Once he was done with his silly name game and asked me to explain the case, without looking up from my laptop screen, I told him, “Sorry, I didn’t read it.” I expected him to move on to someone else, but instead, he decided to try and embarrass me. “Bad, Mr. [Mike]….Baaaad,” as if he was speaking to a misbehaving puppy. And his tone was no longer the jovial carnival barker, but took on a more serious nature. When he was finished scolding me, instead of letting it go, my high school class clown instincts took over and I responded. “Yeah well, it happens to the best of us,” I said to him, dismissively. He glared at me for a second, and I glared right back. This would be the beginning of our conflict.

Over the next month, he called on me at least once per class. It wasn’t always to explain a case; sometimes he threw a random question my way, other times asking for my opinion. But regardless of the purpose for calling on me, on thing became clear in my mind: This was his was of exacting revenge for my previous lack of preparation. If I knew the answer or read the case, I participated. If I didn’t or hadn’t, I said so. And if he tried to embarrass me, I would make a disrespectful comment towards him. (Who says I have to be mature?)

For as smart as law students are purported to be, some have a very difficult time determining if a professor is good or not. A few people have told me that all a professor has to do is “not be mean”, and he or she will garner their respect and affection. My Entertainment Law professor fell into this category for some. Between his jovial (yet fake) demeanor and quasi-former celebrity, he could have sat in the front of the room and ate a can of beans, and some people would adore him. But the smarter people who take him recognize him for what he is: Simply put, a bad professor, and nothing represents his incompetence more than his final exam.

Part Three coming next week.

The Curious Case of Mike v. Professor, Part One

Ever since entering into the world of higher education, I have treated professors much like I treat wild animals: I won’t bother them, and hope that they won’t bother me. I have never been the type of person to ask silly questions or offer up crackpot answers during class. I never really felt compelled to contribute to classroom discussions, especially in large classes. I have never sought out a professor for his “wisdom” once the designated class period ended. On the rare occasions when I did have to meet a professor in his or her office, I felt uncomfortable and did my best to end the meeting as quickly as possible. In short, I did my best to blend in as one of the many faces in the crowd, and hoped that they would treat me as such. And for the most part, until this last semester, my strategy worked.

When I was choosing courses for my final round of law school classes, I needed three more hours, and I begrudgingly added Entertainment Law to my schedule. I say begrudgingly because in addition to meeting twice a week at 9:30, I had the prof for Con Law II, and walked away with the opinion that he was a terrible professor. On the other hand, the class didn’t meet on Friday, and Entertainment Law was supposedly this professor’s specialty, since he had worked in the industry both as a performer (in a well-known musical group that did covers of pop songs from the 50’s and 60’s) and on the business side. So I bit the bullet and signed up.

The first few weeks passed without incident, although I did begin to regret taking the course, because I immediately realized that he was the same horrible professor in his supposed specialty as he was in Con Law. What makes him so bad? The list of grievances is long, and any one taken alone isn’t cause for concern; but when taken as a whole, it paints the portrait of a man who has no business making a living as a professor.

His manner of “teaching” is difficult to describe. He doesn’t present himself as a hardass, but rather as your friend. However, his style is passive-aggressive, almost sarcastic, and you never get the feeling that he is actually one of those profs who wants to be everyone’s buddy. It was almost as if he humors you, like when you are subtly making fun of someone to their face, only the other person isn’t aware of it. His attempts at comedy were not funny, nor were they corny enough to garner a mixture of groans and giggles. Rather, when he made a joke, it was met with silence, or perhaps the odd chuckle, because he was simply trying too hard. He blatantly flirted with female students, even giving some of them pet names. He would assign 45 page reading assignments and cover only three of them. He would spend half of the class on a four-line note case and ignore a 15 page Supreme Court opinion on the next page. He seemed to enjoy asking his students lots of questions, although you couldn’t describe him as classically Socratic. It was more like a game of charades, when one person would give the other a clue, and then expect him to figure out the answer by simply motioning his hand in a “let’s go” fashion. In fairness, he wasn’t demanding in the typical sense, and didn’t lay into student who got stuck with one of his vague queries. He did, however, like to pick on certain people in the class, and try to embarrass them. This was where he and I clashed.

Part Two coming later this week

Bar Review Observation # 2

The subject today is "Suretyship." I brought this up at a party this weekend that I was at with 4 other law students or recent grads. No one knew even the definition of the word.

Can't be that important then.

Bar Review Observation # 1

I'm taking the Bar in Chicago. There are 3 schools in Chicago that each have classes of 400+ (I think), DePaul, Kent, and John Marshall. You'd never know anyone went there though by looking at the shirts of the people in Bar Bri class. If you only used T-shirts as a barometer, it seems that Chicago is flooded with Michigan, U of Chicago, and Northwestern grads.

I can't blame some of these people. I can wear all the Banana Republic clothes I want to look like an upwardly mobile yuppy but some fat balding slob can throw on a Stanford shirt and make me look like a trash collector in comparison.

I did find one girl's choice of attire rather amusing, however. What goes best with a pair of heels, Kate Spade bag, and a black skirt? Why, a navy and orange University of Virginia School of Law Section A 2003 Orientation commemorative T-shirt sponsored by Cravath, Swain & Moore, of course! Work it girl.

A Little Perspective

During the first few weeks and months of law school, 1Ls are blissfully unaware of the realities of the legal world. All that matters at that point is getting to class and being prepared. There are no worries about improving grades or maintaining grades, because there are no grades to improve upon or maintain. The ugliness that some students can exhibit hasn’t shown itself fully. Jobs are not a concern, because many law schools prohibit full time students from working, and legal employers are not allowed to talk to 1Ls until November of their first year. Except for a select few who have seen through the looking glass, many believe that whatever job they want will be theirs for the taking, and that employers will fight over who gets to hand them $2000 per week in the coming summer.

In light of this naivety, it is no surprise that when the Career Services office hauled my class into school on a Saturday in early November of our first year, attendance was robust. Sure, we were giving up half of a Saturday, but this was the vaunted Career Services office. They were all knowing, all powerful. With just a simple phone call, they could have potential employers in a bidding war over your services. Or so the story went. By sitting through this meeting, we would know just how much we could expect to be earning come May, and just how easy it would be to get those jobs.

Naturally, when so little is known about an entity, stories about it are invented to make up for the lack of real information. How were we supposed to know that Career Services is typically worthless? That we could get better advice from the homeless guy who hangs out around campus? That the only people it can actually help find a job are those people who don’t need help finding jobs in the first place? That spending your Saturday morning counting the number of tiles in your kitchen would be infinitely more productive?

After listening to the Dean of the school and the Dean of Career Services each deliver the exact same fifteen minute long speech, our guest speakers arrived. They included someone from the Prosecutor’s office, a couple of attorneys from small and mid-sized firms around town, and the hiring partner from a large and prestigious firm in a nearby city. The big firm hiring partner stuck out like a black guy in your typical fraternity. He wore a $2000 suit, $500 shoes, a $200 tie, and a $100 haircut, while the other collectively looked like the bargain rack at Sears. As the other people took turns speaking, he looked bored, aggravated, annoyed, and eventually, homicidal. I could tell he didn’t belong, and my mind raced as to why he was there. Finally, it was his turn to speak. Most of the students in the room perked up. After all, the big firms, that’s where the money is. This guy is sure to give some insights, right?

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was brief, harsh, and completely deflated the hopes and dreams of many in that room. His message boiled down to this: “We don’t hire 1Ls, and even if we did, we wouldn’t hire any of you.”

Many people were shocked and appalled by his candor, while I was refreshed. For the first time, I could see law school for what it was. Of all people, a big firm hiring partner gave me a better perspective on life.

Daydream Believer

I don’t talk on Instant Messenger with readers as much as Mike does. Probably because I’m a jerk. Here’s an example of a conversation I had with a female reader.

Russ: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?

SportySpice: I’ll find something around here to pay the bills until I can get my dream job, a sports agent.

Russ: Well, the WNBA is experiencing a rise in popularity.

SportySpice: WNBA? No way. I want to represent Major League Baseball players.

Russ: Wow. Have you worked for an agency yet?

SportySpice: No. My uncle is in the league and he’s been asking around for me. Nothing's panned out for me yet, though.

Russ: Are there any female sports agents in the major leagues.

SportySpice: No, I checked. I’ll be the first.

Russ: So, you’re a graduating 3L in the middle of your class, at an average law school, with dubious connections who wants to break into an industry virtually every male attorney would trade clerkships or six-figure salaries for..

SportySpice: Exactly. I know the odds seem slim but I can do it.

Russ: Interesting. Hey do you remember how in elementary school they told us that any of us could be president?

SportySpice: Yeah.

Russ: Do you think that statement is true?

SportySpice: Obviously not.

Russ: Do you think it’s actually cruel to get kid’s hopes up if there is, in fact, no hope of them being president.

SportySpice: Totally.

Russ: Well, I’m not going to insult you like your teacher did. Sporty, you will never be Jackie Robinson of female sports agents. Move on with your life and stay realistic.

SportySpice: Go to hell.

Epiphany

Watching television the other night, I had an epiphany. I won’t be able to use this particular advice myself, but for hundreds of readers, this could be the difference between getting that dream job when OCI rolls around and blindly writing letters to firms in hopes that you can line up any legal job before you graduate.

Are you ready? Okay, do you have a real passion for the law but only modest talents? If so, here is what you do: First, dye your hair gray so that you look like one of your parent’s friends; next, develop some facial tics and an “aw shucks” manner of speaking; then, throw away all self-consciousness and act like an idiot; after that, say “wooooo” a lot; and finally, develop a catch phrase that you spout anytime you can’t think of anything else to say. Follow these steps, and hiring partners will be throwing much more qualified people out of the way to make you an offer.

Taylor Hicks as the American Idol? This show has officially hit rock bottom, something which I didn’t think could happen after the Clay Aiken debacle. If Taylor Hicks is worthy of being American Idol, I am worthy of being the Dean of a prestigious law school. The American Idol should be someone who is marketable to a large portion of the population. We learned this the hard way with Ruben Studdard. Taylor Hicks falls under the same category. Are little girls going to want to put posters of him on their walls? Of course not. Do we really think he can produce viable pop songs that will get heavy rotation on a top-40 radio station, especially in the long run? I’ll bet against it. The American Idol should be young, fresh, and hip, not a baby boomer that looks like an odd mix between Mark Cuban and Jay Leno. Male idols should inspire men to want to be him, and women to want to be with him. No guy I know would want to look like Bill Clinton circa 1991, and only the most desperate of women have expressed a fondness for him. On the other hand, Taylor is the perfect guy for girls to take home to dad, because they have been golfing since the mid-eighties.

But America has spoken, and I think we can apply what we learned here to interviewing. Your skills and qualifications are secondary to your appeal to the lowest common denominator. Just hope that the person you interview with is not a Simon, with his common sense and acid tongue, unafraid to point out your many, many flaws. No, you better hope it’s a Paula, filled with compliments waiting to be dispensed and a heart waiting to be melted, and a glass full of rum on the table in front of her.

Are You Studying For The Bar With Me?

I'm taking the afternoon class at Chicago Kent. I'd like some contacts who are in the same session so I can ask questions like, "Is there reading assigned for tomorrow?" Shoot me an email at barelylegalblog@gmail.com.

On that note, "Is there reading assigned for tomorrow?"

Ten Commandments for Easy Livin', Part 2

VI. Thou shall avoideth classes taught by tenured professors. In general, tenured professors are more likely to give low grades than non-tenured professors. Professors without tenure are like an insecure girl in high school; they desperately want to be liked and won’t do anything to rock the boat (like giving out grades lower than a C). Classes taught by an adjunct professor are also a good option. Adjuncts are usually more laid back and straightforward. However, always keep in mind the first commandment, about choosing your professors with care. Every now and then, you’ll run across a non-tenured prof who is trying to establish himself as a hardass, or an adjunct who treats his two-hour per week class like a Paper Chase fantasy camp. But in general, those professors who are not full time or tenured are your best bets for a smooth ride through the class.

VII. Thou shall avoideth classes subject to the grading curve. While being part of a large class has some advantages, such as more anonymity and slacking with greater ease, it does have the disadvantage of being curved, which means, of course, that a healthy portion of C’s will be handed out. However, classes which are not subject to the grading curve are more likely to produce a higher number of good grades since the professor isn’t bound to deem a percentage of the students below average. However, again remember the first commandment and know what the prof is like before you decide to take the class. The last thing you want is to sign up for a class on some obscure topic, along with eight other people, only to have the prof grade hard and subject you to being called on daily. But usually, when combined with adjuncts or non-tenured professors, as discussed above, you have the perfect storm for an easy A.

VIII. Thou shall striketh an appropriate balance between papers and finals. After a year in law school, you should have a fairly good grasp on your strengths and weaknesses as a student. Maybe you have an unusual gift for completing multiple choice exams, or perhaps you have a knack for writing essays. Or you may possibly hate exams but don’t really mind writing papers. The beauty of choosing your own schedule is that you can dictate how many classes for which you’ll write papers or take exams. All the same warnings apply: You probably don’t want to take Professor Asshole just because he offers a multiple choice exam, nor do you want to sign up for a paper class without knowing the parameters of the paper. Sure, you may not like taking exams, but wouldn’t taking a three hour exam be easier than writing a 60 page, law review quality paper on product liability?

IX. Thou shall investeth in a DVR. Yes, this one isn’t really school related, but I don’t believe any law student can fully enjoy their experience without owning a DVR. Ask anyone who has one; they will tell you that they don’t know how they ever got by without it. If done correctly, you should have at least 50% more free time during your final two years than you did as a 1L. If you don’t fill this free time with something productive, you may be tempted to do something silly, like reread your assignments. Answer this question: It’s 3pm on a Tuesday, and you are done for the day. Which would you rather do, make case briefs for Federal Tax, or watch the marathon of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” that you recorded over the weekend?

X. Thou shall findeth those people whom thy liketh, and treateth the rest of the people like ghosts. The biggest complaint that people have about law school is not academic but personal. Specifically, many ILs get a bitter taste in their mouths because of their fellow classmates. How can you stand two more years? There is a simple solution to this problem: stop associating with the people you don’t care for. Figure out who you like and hang out with them. Sit next to them in class, eat lunch with them, and call them on the weekends. As for the people you don’t like, pretend they aren’t there. Don’t talk to them, don’t talk about them, and don’t even acknowledge their existence. It’s really quite easy. Once you stop sweating someone’s presence, they stop bothering you. You have your friends, and you can always expand your group. But for the people who bother you so much, just treat them like ghosts in your own law school and the place won’t seem quite so bad.

Ten Commandments for Easy Livin', Part 1

We often get suggestions for posts, and they almost always fall into one of three categories. First, something we have already done. For example, “You guys should do a people you meet on the guy who still acts like he’s in his frat”; Second, something really clichéd and obvious. For example, “You guys should do a post on how much law school is like high school”; or third, something that is just plain dumb. For example, “You guys should do a post ranking which firms send the hottest associates to conduct OCIs.” But recently a reader suggested an actual good idea for a post: “I just finished my first year. What advice do you have to help me make my second and third years and painless as possible?” So without further ado, here is part one of our Ten Commandments for Easy Livin’

I. Thou shall chooseth thy professors with care. The best professor can make the most boring topic seem somewhat interesting, and a bad professor can make even the biggest sounding blow-off classes a nightmare. When picking courses, look for who is teaching a class before you look at what the class is. Information about the reputations of professors should be common knowledge at your school, and if you don’t know, ask someone. People think there are upper-level courses that you have to take for the bar. The only class you really have to take is Evidence. For anything else, let Bar-Bri teach it to you. You are going to be better off taking something challenging, like Bankruptcy, with a cool prof who is so burned out that he doesn’t care anymore, than taking a cake class, like Sports and Entertainment Law with some gung-ho asshole who doesn’t understand that people are only sitting in his classroom because the think it will be easy.

II. Thou shall not maketh thy own outlines. My philosophy on outlines is the same as my philosophy on clothes; Sure, while I probably could make my own if I wanted, I’d just as soon let someone else do it. Other people make better ones than I can, so why waste my time. The key is not to sound like a mooch, unless you are mooching off of other moochers. Also, many schools have an outline bank from past years floating around. Try and get your hands on that. Professors rarely deviate their courses from one year to the next, so if you can match both the class and the prof, you are three-quarters of the way done. Also, commercial outlines will suffice when a student-made one cannot be located.

III. Thou shall not taketh classes on Friday. This one is a no-brainer. Schools should only hold Friday classes for 1Ls, and give their upper level students a permanent three day weekend. Alas, this is not the case, but with careful planning, you can eliminate Fridays from your schedule. If you cannot avoid Friday classes, there is no harm in saving your absences for that day. Also, if possible, avoiding Monday classes is also beneficial.

IV. Thou shall not taketh classes that begin before 11am. In reality, this one is hard to pull off, but if you can, you will not regret it. Think about it; this is probably your last chance to sleep in on a regular basis for 40 or so years, and by then you won’t be able to sleep past 5:45. When looking at a class that starts early, you have to weigh the cost of taking it (sleep) against the benefit you receive from taking the class (enlightenment on topics such as Commercial Paper or Remedies). Let me give you a hint: Sleep should win. If you can’t do this every day, try to do it on Monday. Nothing takes the sting out of the Monday blues by sleeping late and having your first class start at three.

V. Thou shall choosesth as many pass/fail classes as possible. Pass/fail classes are the best kind of classes. In general, there probably won’t be an exam or a paper, and if there is, it will be easy, and they don’t affect your GPA. Classes that are designed to be pass/fail are often more hands on and interesting, like negotiation classes or trial practice classes. However, don’t forget the First Commandment, because there may be some professors of pass/fail classes out there who don’t understand that no one ever fails. The only effort required to pass is usually your presence. That being said, make sure you put enough effort in to earn that “P", or you'll be that guy who managed to fail a pass/fail class.

Part 2 coming later this week.

Don Juan

While I've implied (or said outright) several times that women in law school are often single and looking, I'm well aware that their single male counterparts give those women good reason to stay single.

Law students are nerds. At least female nerds are redeemable. Every teen movie has shown us that a girl nerd can take her glasses off, let her hair fall to her shoulders and she will metamorphize into a quiet beauty. Guy nerds, however, are just a nerds with worse vision without their glasses.

Anyways, I recalled an encounter with one of these single male law students during my 1L orientation. We were all at a bar, and he was telling me how his "single days were over" and how he was "ready to settle down now that he was in graduate school."

I sat there and nodded but I wanted to give him two pieces of advice based on my very brief observations after knowing him all of 15 minutes.

# 1 If you want to get a girlfriend, don't wear a polo shirt and jean shorts to the bar.

# 2 Failing that, untuck your polo from your jean shorts when at the bar.

Not too long ago...

...I was discussing a particular baseball player, and his relative attributes and skills, with a friend. He asserted, with absolutely no evidence or reason, that said player was the best in the league. I tried to get him to back this bold statement up, and he couldn't, other than saying "I don't know why, but I just know. It's just a feeling." His enthusiasm was unquestioned but his methodology was deeply flawed, which reminded me of this story...

Way back when I was just a lowly second-semester 1L, still entertaining thoughts of becoming an attorney and practicing law and such, I decided to respond to a job posting that was looking for a 1L for the summer. The posting said that a writing sample was required, and I deemed one of the papers that I had written for legal writing (a motion to do something or to block something, I don't quite recall) worthy of becoming my writing sample. I received a 'B+' grade on this motion, so I decided to take it to my legal writing instructor for some guidance as to how I could improve upon it.

I scheduled a meeting with him and arrived five minutes early, armed with two copies of my motion so we could go over it together, and I could make notes on my copy. Naturally, he wasn't in his office. I took a seat and waited. Twenty minutes later, after thumbing through an old copy of the law review and some legal magazine that had been on his desk, I was ready to leave. Just then, he burst into the office, and looked at me with the sort of suspicious eyes that a homeowner would use on some unruly teenagers standing outside of his house with a carton of eggs. "Can I help you?", he said in an accusing tone.

"Yeah, we had a meeting scheduled," I said. Then I realized he had no idea who I was, despite the fact that I was currently in his class, which had only about 15 students in it. "My name is Mike [Last Name], I'm in legal writing with you right now. I wanted to go over my motion with you so I can use it as a writing sample. We had a meeting scheduled to start 20 minutes ago..."

"Oh yeah," he said, clearly having forgotten ever scheduling a meeting with me, despite the fact I had done it via email two days earlier. "I'd be happy to help." I handed him my motion and said, "You gave me a B+, which is fine, I just want to know what I can do to improve it a little." He took about five minutes to read through the 15-page paper, handed it back to me and said, "I don't know, it looks pretty good to me."

"Well then," I said, "Why did I only get a B+?"

He paused, and sighed, and said, "Well, when I grade a paper, I look for some certain content, which is part of the grade, but for the most part, the grade is based on an overall 'feel', if that makes sense." I said that it didn't, so he continued. "Your motion was good, really good actually, but it just didn't feel like an A paper. And I'm not really sure what you could have done to make it an A paper, unless you completely started over."

This is where the me of two years ago differs from the me of today. If this happened today, I'd have told this professor exactly what I thought of his ridiculous grading system, explained how holisitc grading is a farce, a lazy method of assigning grades which are extremely important to some people, how he is cheating his students, and so on. But the me of two years ago bit his tongue, and let all those thoughts stay in my head.

I stood up to leave, and thanked him for his time. Walking away from his office, I decided that when course evaluations were passed out, I'd rate this professor as "poor", because, for the most part, he just felt like a bad professor.

Family Conversation

(Outside Grandma's House)

Mom: Don't tell Grandma you aren't taking the bar, at least not yet.

Me: Sure thing.

(At dinner)

Grandma: So Michael, what kind of degree did you receive?

Me: It's a JD, Grandma.

Great Aunt: What does that stand for?

Me: Juris Doctorate, I believe.

Grandma: So you're a doctor now?

Me: No...Well, techincally, I suppose, but no lawyer ever could get away with calling himself "doctor".

Grandma: Well why not?

Me: I guess it would devalue the whole meaning of "doctor". Most anyone who has gone to law school will tell you that it's kind of a joke.

Grandma: Oh, it can't be a joke.

Me: Well, maybe not a joke, but certainly not worthy of being called a doctor afterwards.

Great Aunt: What is an esquire?

Me: I think it's an actual lawyer.

Grandma: Like you!

Me: Well, not exactly. I would have to pass the bar first.

Grandma: When do you take the bar?

Me: Uh...well...

Mom: Who wants cake!?

Update

I have recieved confirmation that a Dean of Admissions at an American law school throws all applications who's essays have the phrase, "I like to argue" in the "Do Not Admit" pile.

This person is a true American hero. They have saved their charges from gunners and society from more hysterionic blather. God bless them.

Being in the Middle

Mike and Russ,

I need to vent and I don’t want to bitch to my friends, so I figured I’d sound off on a couple of blog guys I’ve never met. So here’s the deal: I just finished the 2nd semester of my 2L year. For my first three semesters, I always ended up right in the middle of the curve, never more than an increment above or below. My class rank was right in the middle. Being in the middle didn’t exactly afford me many job opportunities or journal positions or anything, so this semester, I decided to make a change. No more internet in class, no more IMing while I was supposed to be studying, no more drinking on weeknights, I paid attention in class, read every assignment, and even made my own outlines. My grades just got posted for a few classes, and guess what? Right in the fucking middle again, right at the curve. All of the changes and efforts that I made this semester pretty much got me right back to where I started. Not only am I pissed that I didn’t do as well as I had hoped, but I gave up all the things that make law school fun, and made myself miserable in the process. I guess what I want to know is, am I just meant to be in the middle? Is this as good as it gets?

Thanks for letting me vent,

(Name withheld)


To answer your question with the brutal honesty that our readers have come to expect, yes, you are probably just meant to be in the middle, and this is probably as good as it gets. By the 4th semester of law school, your abilities, which are reflected in your grades and rank, have been established. Your performance as a first semester 1L is probably not a strong indicator of your abilities; your performance between both 1L semesters is a better indicator; but your cumulative performance after three semesters of law school is going to pretty much establish how well you can be expected to perform.

The most frustrating part about the middle is that it's like a mediocre relationship. You'll be prone to say, "It's not bad. Sometimes the law professors are sweet and it's nice to have something to do all day. But where is it going? I've got two years invested and nothing but B's. Sure I got that A in Torts and it left me floating on air but I can't coast off that one romantic memory forever. Am I settling? Is this the best I can do? I think that Business School admissions officer was flirting with me the other day."

The middle is not the end of the world. You tried your best and ended up average. Focus on the fundamentals; you still get to be an attorney. Do you think the 8th guy who got to the lifeboat in the Titanic beat himself up for not swimming the fastest? No, he was just happy to stay afloat.

I think part of the problem is the negative connotation with the word “middle”. Middle gets a bad reputation because of some of its associations. The middle seat in the backseat of a car is called “bitch”. The Middle East has been an area of the world filled with religious and economic issues for years. When you are in a rural area, it’s said to be in the “middle of nowhere”. And, believe it or not, some people look at being in the middle class as undesirable. Can’t we give these positive connotations? Instead of calling the middle seat “bitch”, we can focus on the positive aspects, like how it’s less susceptible to death due to a side impact crash. The Middle East is very similar to Arizona, and everyone loves Arizona. Why not call it East Arizona from now on? And I’ve always preferred to call rural areas East Buttfuck, or some variation. And what’s wrong with being in the middle class? At the very least, you’ll own a house and car and take a decent vacation every year.

We lose sight of the positive associations “middle” has. The best part of any Little Debbie or Hostess snack cake is the creamy middle. “Stuck in the Middle with You” was a pretty decent song, and by far the biggest hit for Stealer’s Wheel. Malcolm in the Middle had a few good seasons, and introduced the world to Frankie Muniz. So you see, it’s all about perspective. Being in the middle isn’t so bad. You’ll be a 3L in a few months. You might as well go back to playing on the internet in class, IMing all the time, going out during the week, and borrowing outlines instead of making your own. If nothing else, at least you won’t be miserable.

Bright Lights, Big City

The upwardly mobile American has an odd migratory pattern: Grow up in the suburbs, go to some rural hinterland for college, live in cramped apartments and eat take out in the city until you have kids, then back to the suburbs. Rinse and repeat.

Some law students jump right into the city after undergrad and attend a law school downtown. These law students are struck everyday by the irony of the homeless asking them for money when, without student loans, these bums are worth more than they are.

Other law students suckle a few more years off of the state at a rural law school. Not only do these law students enjoy in-state tuition but they get Wal-Mart and $ 5 pitchers. While these rural students walk out of law school in less debt, they also walk out as naïve as whatever character Jennifer Love Hewitt is playing in her latest “pretty small town girl moves to the big city” TV show.

Lessons will be learned, like $125,000 doesn’t go so far when your new parking space costs as much as your old apartment.

Men will learn that a polo shirt is now dressing down not up. Women will learn that a complex hierarchy exists based on Kate Spade bags. Both sexes will learn that romance no longer blossoms over kegs and popped collars, and has become mere credential trading between $12 martinis. Ex: “You’re an anesthesiologist? I’m a workman’s comp attorney. I’m not sure which of us is better than the other.”

Most of all, everyone will learn that the city is not as exciting as promised. Just remember in the show “Friends” how even though they all lived in Manhattan, they rarely did anything cosmopolitan. The Friends mostly just hung out in their living rooms. So guess what? If you were boring in Lafayette, Indiana, you’ll still be boring in New York City.

Bad Reason for Attending Law School #10

“I like to argue”

Mike: Hey Russ, let me ask you a question…What would you say to someone who told you that they want to become an architect because they like to draw pictures of houses?

Russ: I’d say they don’t sound like they know what they’re talking about.

Mike: And Russ, what would you say to someone who told you they want to be a pharmacist because they like to put pills into bottles?

Russ: I’d say that they are missing the point of being a pharmacist.

Mike: So, then what would you say to someone that wants to be a lawyer because they like to argue?

Russ: I’d say that they don’t know what they are talking about and they are missing the point of the profession.


In my opinion, going to law school because you enjoy arguing is the worst reason to attend, but sadly, it’s all too common. Saying that you like to argue, and then deciding to convert this odd hobby into a career in law represents a fundamental misunderstanding of law school and the legal profession. Law is not about arguing; it’s about arguments. The difference between the two may seem subtle, but in reality, they are miles apart. Arguments have weight derived from logic and/or citation. Arguing is focusing on the delivery of arguments (by using volume, irrelevant anecdotes, etc.)

Being a successful law student (and eventually, a successful lawyer) requires that you know how to make a good argument. Unfortunately, the ability to make a good argument and the enjoyment of arguing for the sake of arguing are mutually exclusive traits. Those who enjoy arguing cannot be objective about it. They invest a personal stake in the argument, whether its ideology, or more often, pride. Instead of being able to objectively look at both sides of a situation and form a strategy for arguing either one, those who like to argue pick one side and will defend it to the death, no matter how inane or off base their points become. When facing an opponent who doesn’t fall for his or her impassioned yet inherently flawed argument, instead of conceding the point, or even agreeing to disagree, they become louder and more repetitive, in the hope that their opponent will have an epiphany and suddenly admit defeat. In reality, this strategy just makes them look obtuse and ignorant. Law school is for nerds, not hotheads. There's a place for these people, and it's not here; it's the AM radio bandwidth.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that the people who know how to make arguments are successful in law school, and the people who are there because they “like to argue” don’t fare quite so well. But can we fully blame those people who like to argue? Surely, this quality must have roots deep in their childhood. Maybe their parents saw little Jimmy disagree with everything his sister said, and told him, “One day you’ll grow up to be a lawyer.” The idea was planted in his head, and so as he got older, he would challenge anything and everything he encountered that he disagreed with, and more people would tell him, “You should be a lawyer.” Then, he graduates college and heads off to law school, where on the first day, he decides to argue with his professor. But the professor sees several people like him every year. He is ready for Jimmy’s logical fallacies and poorly reasoned points. The professor dismisses Jimmy, who’s arguing “skills” don’t appear as effective as he’d hoped. Poetic justice, I suppose. But maybe, instead of encouraging argumentative kids to become lawyers and further perpetuate this myth, we should call them what the really are: Assholes.

Family Law

My family law professor has no practice exams available for his test tomorrow. Luckily, an episode of Maury Povich is on today that I was able to practice my custody law knowledge on. This epidode featured Georgetta, a single mother, who was returning to Maury for the 12th time to determine who the father of her children are.

Here is the fact pattern and my analysis.

Georgetta comes out to the crowd booing her. She wags her finger at them and says, “You don’t know me. I do what I want.” Several male audience members scowl and wave as though to shoo her away.

Georgetta is, in fact, right. Without a showing of evidence to the contrary she has a presumptive right to custody until we can identify the father who might challenge her claim.

Earl, one of the prospective fathers, denies parentage and declares Georgetta to be a “hood rat”.

Experts are often heard by a judge but rarely considered heavily. In considering custody, Georgetta’s financial condition, “hood,” may be weighed, but her moral behavior, “rat” is irrelevant unless it effects the child.

Maury announces that the DNA test proves that Earl is not the father. Earl pumps his fist in the air and says of the results, “That’s what I’m talking about.” Georgetta runs offstage crying.

With neither a biological basis nor intent to be a father, Earl has no claims for custody. Evidence of Georgetta’s hysterics, if found unreasonable under the circumstances, may show that her custody claim is not in the best interests of the child. That claim is only relevant, of course, if a valid competing paternal claim is proven on next week’s show.

Recent IM Conversation

Reader: When are you done?
barelylegalblog: Now...just turned in my take home exam, that was my last one
Reader: Oh my gosh, are you like totally excited? What did you do once you turned it in?
barelylegalblog: Well, I planted a big kiss on the registrar's mouth as she took my exam, and pranced down the hall, engaging everyone I met with a dance or a twirl, all the while shouting about how I'm done. Then as I went down the stairs, I broke into song, with all the aforementioned people who I danced and twirled with followed, comprising the chorus. I reached the bottom of the stairs, lept in the air and tapped my heels together, and led my group of backup singers and dancers out the door, where my song crescendoed into a stirring climax, we all struck a pose for a few seconds, and the dispersed, having momentarily been overtaken by the emotion of the moment, the monumental occasion of law school being over.
Reader: Very funny, smartass...what did you really do?
barelylegalblog: Came home and ate some tuna
Reader: How boring...you should stick with the first story.

People You Meet in Law School # 17: The BFFs

There are a few certainties in law school: The biggest know-it-all in your section will do poorly the first semester; Career Services will not help you with finding a career nor will they provide any sort of service; and female law students pair off by twos and become attached at the hips. These pairs are the Best Friends Forever, or BFFs.

The birth of a BFF relationship is quick yet subtle. On the first day of orientation, two girls spy each other from across the room, size each other up, and with a slight nod of the head decide that for the next three years, they will be inseparable. It’s as if they give off a pheromone that says “I’m into Kate Spade, chocolate martinis, and going after men that are out of my league”. Her doppelganger picks up this pheromone, and the next thing you know, the two girls are eating together, sitting next to each other in class, going to bars together, studying together, and generally not letting the other out of her sight.

A few defining characteristics of the typical BFF relationship: 1) The two girls will be roughly at the same level of attractiveness. However, each will secretly believe herself to be the better looking of the duo; 2) The two girls will have the same, or very similar, fashion styles. The wisest girls will pick a BFF who is the same size, so that her wardrobe options double; and 3) The BFFs will almost always have the same relationship status. Married girls pair up with other married girls, engaged girls with other engaged girls, and single girls with single girls. (Note: The very best pairs of BFFs will have alliterative names, such as Katie and Kim, Amber and Ashley, Leah and Laura, etc.)

Beyond those defining characteristic, each pair of BFFs can be categorized further by examining who they are. Some of the common BFF pairings:

*The Hot Girl BFFs- It’s a fact of life that in any social group, the hot girls will find each other and become friends.
*The Faux Hot Girl BFFs- Just because something quacks like a duck and walks like a duck doesn’t make it a duck, especially if it looks like a frog.
*The Ann Coulter BFFs- BFFs who are very active in the Republican Law Society.
*The Feminist BFFs- They are the mortal enemies of the Ann Coulter BFFs, and also the most likely to “experiment” with each other.
*The Party Girl BFFs- An added benefit: There is always someone to hold her hair back.
*The Married BFFs- It’s nice to have someone with whom to talk about how boring life has become.
*The Nerdy BFFs- What’s better than an overachiever making an outline? Two overachievers making two outlines.
*The Desperate Girl BFFs- Misery loves company.
*The Girl and Gay Guy BFFs- Because every homosexual male needs a female best friend.

Law school only lasts three years, so what becomes of the BFFs afterwards? Some will serve as bridesmaids in their respective weddings and remain active parts of each other’s social lives, forcing their husbands into awkward conversations about lawn care and sports for years to come. Others will grow apart, becoming networking contacts and having lunch together a few times a year, always parting by saying “We must do this more often”, but never really meaning it. Sadly, some will lose contact and get chalked up as one of those situational friends that people tend to make over the course of their lives, like a best friend from camp with whom you correspond a few times and then never again. And unfortunately, despite these seemingly deep bonds that have been formed, this is still law school and these are still women. This means, of course, that a girl would gladly throw her BFF in front of a truck if it meant grabbing a man or a job.

Bad Reason for Attending Law School #9

“I’ve been in the real world and I don’t like my job”

Lots of people don’t like their jobs. It is the nature of the beast. You have to wake up early, put on decent clothes, go somewhere you don’t really want to be, do work you don’t really want to do, come home, and get ready to do it again the next day. And at the end of the week, you get handed a check for your services.

Law school is completely different. You don’t have to wake up quite so early, and you really don’t have to put on decent clothes. Then you go somewhere you don’t really want to be, and do work you don’t really want to do. After that, you come home and get ready to do it all again the next day. But instead of getting handed a check, you have to hand one over yourself, before you even start.

To do the math on that transaction: You are essentially paying for the right to sleep an extra hour or two, and to have the option of wearing jeans and a hoodie every day. Does that seem like a good deal to you?

The structure of our current educational system doesn’t really prepare college grads for the real world. It’s funny how four years of keg stands, beer pong, and living in squalor doesn’t transition well into having real responsibilities. Talk to the average college senior, and they expect that the world will be their oyster once they get out there. Personally, I blame Jennifer Aniston. A generation of girls saw her go from working at a coffee shop, to working for Bloomingdales, to having her dream job with Ralph Lauren after a few short years and relatively little effort. And a generation of guys thought that no matter how mundane their job was, a girl like her would be working at the local Bennigan’s-esque restaurant, ready to be swept off her feet. Sadly, reality hits them in the face like a bad Chandler joke. (Or should I just say a Chandler joke?) Suddenly, they have a job and a title and all the responsibilities that go along with it, but Ralph Lauren isn’t calling, and the waitresses at Bennigan’s are all either 19, or have kids, or both.

Soon, dissatisfaction sets in. Their mind begins to wander back to the good old college days, and nostalgia sets in. Then, one day, they have an idea: “I’ll go to law school!” The problem with this decision is that, for many of them, they don’t really want to be a lawyer. They just want out of their current situation, and law school is the most feasible alternative. They’ll give up their salary, and pay for three years of exile from the real world. Unfortunately, many of them find law school to be a drag, almost as much as working was. Many of them do the math and figure out that for a tenth of the cost of law school, they could have taken one hell of a vacation.

Perhaps the biggest question is, if you are dissatisfied with your current job, why would you then want to enter a profession with the highest rate of job dissatisfaction? If life in the real world is really that bad, why not move, or find a new job, or get a hobby, or do something less drastic than going to law school just for a change of scenery? I know that from your cubicle, the law school grass looks awfully green. But once you get here, you’ll see that it’s really just a big field of crab grass.

Regulators, Mount Up!

Before it even began, I knew today was going to be a good day. First, I completed my last ever in-class final exam yesterday, leaving only a six-hour take home standing between myself and the end of law school. Second, today is the NFL Draft, which I plan on watching in full. And as if it couldn't get any better, just now, when I went out to run a quick errand, the greatest rap song ever produced was on my car radio. Of course, I am talking about Regulate, by Nate Dogg and Warren G.

When listening to the radio edited lyrics, I noticed something that I never had before. During Nate Dogg's imfamous line, there was an edit. Sixteen in the clip and one in the hole, Nate Dogg is about to make some bodies turn [edit]. What? They edited the word "cold"? What is this world coming to?

I know what the radio people were thinking. "Making bodies turn cold? Why, that's murder! We can't have him talking about killing people on our airwaves! Sure, Eminem and Nate Dogg can talk all they want about bitches liking it from behind in their new song. But Nate Dogg turning bodies cold? That's where we draw the line!"

But listening to the song, I ask you, isn't the murder justified? It was self-defense. If I remember my criminal law correctly, an intervenor stands in the shoes of the party on whose behalf the intervention takes place. Warren G was getting jacked. His wealth was being taken from him, including his Rolex. He had guns to his head, and despite not believing this was happening in his own town, he believed he was going down. Warren was being threatened with deadly force, and thus was entitled to use deadly force to defend himself.

Nate Dogg was the intervenor. He came across the scene just in time. Warren G was contemplating that if he had wings he would fly, when who should appear in the cut, but his homey Nate. Nate then stepped into Warren's shoes, so to speak, and made some bodies turn cold. His killings were clearly self-defense, and therefore justified. I believe it is in the public interest to have the defense of others remain a viable option, and we should start by unediting that part of the song. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm switching my mind back in to freak mode.

Bad Reason for Attending Law School # 8

"I want to make a lot of money"

A common lament among law students is "I'm not good at math. That's why I went to law school." This must be true, because many law students also believe that being a lawyer will make them rich. In the best case scenario, $125,000 / 80 hours a week / 50 weeks a year is a little over $31 an hour, or roughly what a unionized plumber makes. And a plumber doesn't have to pay for his own suits.

Sure, some attorneys will become wealthy through their legal talents. Many will break into the upper middle class thanks to this profession's inflated billing tradition. But that presumes you get a big firm job, which, if you haven't figured out, are quite competitive, and not always the most pleasant of work enviornments. Most, however, will start their careers making the same salary that a competent manager would. The only difference between that competent manager and the beginning attorney is that the competent manager can sleep under the object of his $150,000 debt. Try doing that with just a diploma.

To be fair, many law students take a pragmatic approach to their future careers. They saw the writing on the wall after they got their first semester grades. But some can only see dollar signs. They think their top 25% ranking and spot on the moot court is going to be a ticket to the country club lifestyle, complete with a lake house and matching chocolate labs.

I can't help but be reminded of that kid in high school who was actually athletically gifted and would talk about his college scholarships and his plans to be in the pros and the riches that would follow. The rest of us in high school knew that his chances were slim, but he was convinced. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting him again as he tore my ticket stub when I went to see "The 40 Year Old Virgin." Perhaps in 10 years I'll have the pleasure of paying one of you $99 for a fill-in-the-blank will.

Three Lingering Questions About Exams

1. Why do people get there so early? The other day, I had an exam at 8:30 in the morning. I left my apartment at ten till 8, and by 8:05, I was walking into the building, kicking myself for leaving too early. I went into the exam room, and the place was nearly full. From the looks of things, I was one of the last ones there. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people had been there since 7:00. Why were they there so early? It wasn’t the Criminal Procedure exam/Line for Death Cab tickets. Getting to your seat early doesn’t ensure a better grade. If it did, there'd be a guy in sunglasses standing outside saying, "A's. I need two A's. Front row, right by the proctor."

2. Why do people wear earplugs? The exam started, and I looked around the room to see half of the people in there wearing earplugs. Why? It isn’t as if a construction crew was in the adjacent room, tearing down the walls with a sledgehammer. The exam wasn’t being administered in a kennel. There wasn’t a large Italian man asleep the chair next to you, vibrating the room with his snores. At worst, the room is filled with the quiet, almost soothing clacking of keyboards. I have to think that any benefit received from slightly muffling the sounds around you would be offset by the annoyance of having a malleable plastic compound jammed in your ear canal.

3. Why does anyone handwrite their exam? This is one thing I’ve never understood. Why do people shun a technological advancement that is, without a doubt, a marked improvement over the alternative. They don’t do this in other walks of life. No one rode a horse to school that morning. Nobody went outside and pissed into a hole in the ground when they took a bathroom break. No one cooked a can of beans over a fire for breakfast. So why not just use your laptop and type the exam? My hand is sore after writing out four checks in a row to pay my monthly bills. People must be in agony after writing out five essays. Perhaps they cannot fully feel that they earned their grade unless they experienced some physical agony to achieve it. The rest of us are fully satisfied with the mental agony of law school. That should be enough for them too.

Real Life Law & Order

Law & Order episodes all follow the same basic formula: A crime is committed, some clues are found, the detectives come up with the names of a few people they’d like to speak to, and they go out to find those people. Generally, one person they speak to is a witness, one person they speak to is the future defendant, and one person is a red herring, designed to throw the audience off.

Something always bothers me about these interviews. If they talk to the person out in the real world, as opposed to at the station, the person never seems overly concerned about the fact that two homicide/special victims detective are talking to them. They go about their business, looking at blueprints, bussing tables, or making copies, every so often shouting out instructions to an off-screen employee or stop to fix something amiss. Then, after a few questions, they cut the conversation short by saying “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have customers to attend to,” or “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run,” or perhaps, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to get to.” The detectives leave, but not without dropping a witty parting line.

I always wondered if this was realistic. Do people routinely treat detectives investigating their involvement in a serious felony like a minor annoyance that they can dismiss when they are bored? Well, the other day, I found out. I was cleaning my kitchen when there was a loud knock at my door. I looked through the peephole to see a uniformed officer and another guy. I opened it up, and the other guy introduced himself as a detective, and wanted to ask me a few questions. I invited them in, and continued scrubbing my counter. After a few moments, I became bored and said “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to run the vacuum.” They left, and the detective said, “For both our sakes, I hope your sink's as clean as your conscience.”

Actually, it didn’t happen that way at all. I opened the door and stepped out into the hall. They introduced themselves, and asked if I knew a guy who lives in my building. I told them that I didn’t know who he was. They thanked me and knocked on another door. I went back inside and continued my cleaning. My encounter was neither interesting nor anything like on TV. I am convinced, however, that I was just the red herring designed to throw the audience off.

Bad Reason For Attending Law School #7

“I want to make a difference in this world”

Perhaps more than any other profession, the legal world has been done a great disservice by television and movies and books. They like to portray a principled attorney representing the falsely accused or victims of injustice, or prosecuting a seemingly impossible case. All the odds are stacked against them, but after a dramatic courtroom scene ending with a stirring closing argument, the jury returns a verdict in their favor, while the client rejoices and the opposing party looks on in stunned disbelief. They cut to a shot of the victorious attorney, who has a look on his or her face of relieved confidence, happy that his or her unwavering belief in their cause prevailed in the end, and justice was served.

Unfortunately, the real legal world doesn’t work this way. Far too many bright-eyed, optimistic young men and women walk away with their undergraduate degree hand, and a vague notion in mind that they will become a lawyer and make a difference. I hate to sound so morose, but I’m here to tell you that if you think you can make a difference, you are setting yourself up for a big disappointment.

Let me say right now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to help people. It’s a noble pursuit, and speaks volumes about your character. But if you want to help people, you have to approach it with a realist’s point of view. Sometimes innocent people go to jail. Sometimes guilty people walk away free. Hours upon hours of time spent trying to get a poor woman custody of her kids will be wasted when she goes back to her abusive husband. And the little man doesn’t always get his day in court, because the big guys have teams of lawyers to keep that from happening. There is a whole set of rules in place to keep you from making a difference. It’s called “Civil Procedure”.

Far too many people who want to make a difference when they enter this profession end up getting disillusioned and either quit altogether, or even worse, go over to the dark side, where instead of helping poor people find fair housing, they help giant insurance companies not have to play claims for negligent acts. There’s a fine line between working for legal aid and appearing on the back of a phone book, but they are worlds apart. Many young attorneys start off in column A, only to end up in column B. If you don’t fully understand what you are getting yourself into by becoming a public interest lawyer, you are setting yourself up for a major disappointment. Public interest law doesn’t pay all that well, so your resolve had better be strong. And unless you don’t have any loans to pay off or are independently wealthy, at some point economics is going to catch up to you.

Life isn’t like a novel. If To Kill A Mockingbird was real, Atticus Finch never would have taken on the Boo Radley case. “I’d love to help that boy out, I really would,” he’d say. “But I have to worry about making ends meet and putting food on the table for my oddly-named children.”

EDIT: Yes, I know Atticus Finch represented Tom Robinson, not Boo Radley. I guess I underestimated the intelligence/anal retentiveness of our readers.

People You Meet In Law School # 16: Capt. Law School

Most law students like to argue about esoteric abstract issues that they can neither effect nor will ever effect them: "Should Social Security be Privatized? Does the Ninth Amendment provide a textualist rationale for the incorporation doctrine? What should I do if a girl talks to me at the bar this evening?"

Some students, however, are more grounded. These students want to deal, nay they must deal, with the practical unresolved issues of law school. These students are Captain Law School.

The Cafeteria closes at 3 but Torts doesn't get out until 3:30? Captain Law School will start a committee. Smelly smokers clustering around the law school entrance? Captain Law School will write an email to the dean of students. People not dressing up when an senator is visiting to speak on his pet issue? Captain Law School will remind people to "wear a tie".

If you'll notice, all these actions aren't really personal endeavors but actually just opportunities to tell someone else what to do. That's Captain Law School's true goal: Power.

And power is up for grabs at law school. A disillusioned, defeated, and disheartened population is easily led into tyrannical demagoguery. Napoleon knew it. Hitler knew it. And Captain Law School definitely knows it. Like Hitler or Napoleon, Captain Law School is seeking to compensate for his own shortcomings. Captain Law School is not a stellar student, and he believes that a resume padded with ultimately meaningless leadership positions will cause potential employers to look past his spotty academic record.

Captain Law School is invariably a guy who's gruff voice rises to take any leadership position real or imagined. He'll qualify himself by saying "I used to be president of my fraternity," "I worked in management," or "I'm 36 years old." No matter what he's not leaving this issue hanging without the label of president, treasurer, or guy-who-takes-the-envelope-of-professor-evaluations-to-the-office.

Capt. Law School may come in two different forms: First is the deadly serious Capt. Law School, who dresses in business casual, carries a briefcase, and drops lines like, "Well, I am off to speak with the Dean", without a hint of concern that the Dean doesn't care what he has to say. He earns respect because he seems to have everything together. The other type is the friendly Capt. Law School, a true man of the people, who walks up to you and asks you how the job search is coming, and cracks a joke about his own prospects. Once he has lulled you into being his friend, he fires off a quick "Hey, I'm running for SBA President, and I'd appreciate your vote", before leaving and seeking out his next victim.

Make no mistake, Capt. Law School is a shrewed opportunist. No opening for a titled position can escape his inevitable hat being tossed into the ring. Remember in the movie Glory, when Matthew Broderick asked who will pick up the flag and carry it forth if the flag bearer should fall, and the educated guy with glasses valiantly volunteered to do so? Had Capt. Law School been in that brigade, he'd have pushed him aside and said "I got this one covered, Four Eyes".

While Captain Law School may think of himself as a born leader, he is in fact just a beneficiary of circumstance. The herd of apathetic obsequious law students he leads doesn't create much competition for the position. After all, in the land of blind men, the one-eyed man is king.

Gullible 1L

Anonymous1L: Can I ask you a question about exams
barelylegalblog: shoot
Anonymous1L: Whats the least you've ever written for an exam answer
barelylegalblog: Once I turned in a blank exam, didn't write a word
Anonymous1L: Are you serious?
barelylegalblog: Yeah...I wasn't prepared, and I figured writing the wrong answer would hurt me more than writing nothing at all
Anonymous1L: What happened?
barelylegalblog: Grades came back and I got a B
Anonymous1L: No way! How?!?
barelylegalblog: I dunno, I don't question how the curve works
Anonymous1L: Thats incredible
barelylegalblog: I know, but I wouldn't recommend trying it...leave it to the pros
Anonymous1L: Wow...I can't believe that worked.

15 Minutes Later

Anonymous1L: Are you still there?
barelylegalblog: Yep
Anonymous1L: When you said you turned in a blank exam and got a B, were you just messing with me?
barelylegalblog: Of course I was, you fool...How are you in law school?

People You Meet in Law School #15: The High School Smoker

Within the walls of law school, it is a popular stance to take that you dislike law school. This stance is popular, I’d wager, because many people really do dislike law school. However, a percentage of these people who proclaim a dislike of their current lot in life in reality enjoy law school immensely. These are the High School Smokers.

If you’ll recall back to your high school days, one of the worst labels you could get was that of a “good kid”. You know the type: They volunteered at soup kitchens, prayed around the flagpole, and the principal knew his or her name, but not for a bad reason. These kids were tragically uncool, and in those days, that was one label you simply didn’t want. Some kids avoided the label naturally, because that’s just how they were; others had to make an effort, like by hanging around the bad seeds even though they weren’t bad themselves; and the rest? Well, they volunteered at soup kitchens, were active in their church, and the principal knew their names for good reasons, but to divert attention from their good side, they smoked.

This literal and figurative smoke screen served the high school smoker well. Simpleton jocks would see the high school smoker and be confused. "Is he a nerd or a rebel? Better play it safe and beat up a guaranteed nerd," the jock would say before moving onto easier prey. The high school smoker would exhale a tobacco-stenched sigh of relief as the jock ignored him and the Asian kid who claimed to know karate

In law school, the High School Smokers don’t actually smoke to blend in. Around their friends and acquaintances that are truly fed up with law school, they laugh at cracks about professors; agree with complaints about the administration; bitch about the class offerings; and make fun of those who don’t hide their love of law school. But when they do, a little part of them dies inside, because they themselves are fully enjoying their law school experience.

Why would someone pretend to dislike something just to fit in? Just like the high school smoker, they are more concerned with how other people perceive them than they are with being true to themselves. There is nothing wrong with being a “good kid”, just like there is nothing wrong with enjoying law school. To each his or her own. But some people need the approval of their peers, and so they try to avoid being associated with the less-socially acceptable group.

High School Smoker, you may imagine yourself as a law school Olivia Newton John who's traded in her poodle skirt and ponytail for a leather jacket and a perm but you're truly just a "Can't Buy Me Love" Patrick Dempsey, hoping your sunglasses will turn you into a "Risky Business" Tom Cruise.

So, High School Smoker, you can stop pretending. We’re on to you. We see that you attend every class, are a member of numerous clubs, and chat up professors during their office hours. And I’m here to tell you, it’s okay. Your first step towards self-actualization is admitting you’re a nerd.

D's Get Degrees

Today is my last day of law school classes ever. No more long and ultimately pointless assignments, no more listening to pedantic professors drone on about the minutiae of law, no more shoddy wireless connections. I’m done, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Do you know what else pleases me? Most of my classmates have reached my level of apathy. It’s so thick you can taste it. Go up to a group of 1Ls and you’ll find the nervous energy that precedes any exam period, with the fear of failure hanging in the air. A group of 2Ls will be less nervous but still focused on the upcoming tasks. But get a group of 3Ls together and it almost becomes a contest to see who is the laziest.

Finally! I am starting to relate to these people. If only everyone had been like this all three years, maybe I’d have enjoyed my law school experience.

Bad Reason for Attending Law School #6

“My parents pressured me into it”

For many people, their parents are the most influential people in their lives. Some people won’t make any decision without consulting mom and dad. Over time, parents tend to pick up on this trend and subtly try to steer their child in the right direction. That is, right for the parents.

It’s human nature for groups of people to pick out one member of the group with the weakest trait and make fun of them. For example, all the football players make fun of the kickers; kids in the business college make fun of marketing majors; and the rest of Europe makes fun of Greece.

Your parents are no different. In their little circle of friends, they want to make sure that you aren’t the kicker, marketing major, or Greek child amongst the group. Thus, when they hint to you that you should go to law school, they are looking out for themselves as much as they are looking out for you. After all, as long as you are in law school and not selling aluminum siding and living in their basement, they are assured of having bragging rights over at least some of the parents.

Parental pressure comes in several forms. They could try to flatter you: “Son, you have a good head on your shoulders and a way with words. You should be a lawyer.” Or they might be passive-aggressive: “You know, Judy Rosenbloom’s son Jared just got his law degree and is going to be working in New York City. What a nice young man he must be.” Or, in extreme situations, they could threaten you: “God damnit, we are sick of cleaning up your messes. First it was the car you wrapped around a tree in high school, and then that girl you knocked up in college. Over my dead body are you going to live here for free while you take time to ‘find yourself’. You are going to go to law school, just like we talked about!”

The problem here is that no matter how much they want you to do something, unless you want to do it too, you are just setting yourself up for a big disappointment. While you might want to please your parents, take the following into consideration: You are the one going to class, studying, taking exams, and trying to handle the pressure; you are more likely than not going to be paying the bills for your education; and you are the one who has to live with the decision, not them.

But you will be making your parents happy, and they can't wait to be able to gush when they tell their friends "Remember that child molester that used to terrorize our neighborhood? Our little Johnny got him an early release!"

On the other hand, if law school doesn't work out like you planned, they'll have to shamefully tell their friends that you've become the kicker of attorneys: A public defender.

My day spent doing the final assignment for my Family Law Seminar, by the numbers:

9:30- The time of my first and only class of the day.

10:05- The time I actually woke up.

5- Minutes spent reading the assignment

15- Minutes spent trying to figure out exactly what a “Separation Agreement” is

2- Seconds I was close to freaking out before I realized I have a sample separation agreement to work from

10- Minutes between realizing that I have a sample to work from and when I told myself I was going to start

90- Minutes between realizing that I have a sample to work from and when I actually started

0- Times I considered crawling into a study hole and deleting the entire blog until I came out

30- Milligrams of Adderall I had to take in order to motivate myself to start

3- Times I got up to play with my dog's jowls

50- Times my girlfriend IMed me and asked how it was going

49- Times I replied "fine"

1- Time I replied "just finished"

.5- Seconds between that reply and my phone ringing

3.79- Cost of the Hershey’s Syrup I purchased after decided, in the middle of a sentence, that I wanted chocolate milk and I wanted it right then and there

5.5- Total time, in hours, spent on the paper

2.5- Time, in hours, I spent copying boilerplate language from the sample to my agreement

4,262- Number of words in my completed separation agreement

500- Estimated number of original words in my completed separation agreement

6- People who IMed me and asked if I planned on posting anything today. Happy?

Bad Reason for Attending Law School # 5

"I got a good score on the LSAT"

Remember those tests you'd get in guidance class in junior high where there'd be questions like, "Do you enjoy being outdoors? Do you like working with numbers? Would you enjoy working a late shift?" After taking the test you'd total up the your score and be provided with your scientifically determined "ideal job".

Invariably some guy would get a typically female job like "secretary," a smart kid would get "truck driver," and a dumb kid would get "doctor." After the merciless teasing was over, even 12 year olds could see that a scantron sheet was a ridiculous way to determine a career.

Just a short 9 to 10 years later, people will happily take the LSAT, "just to see how I do" and some will be so impressed with their scores that they will believe that they were made for law school. They will be certain that that their ability to determine that some glops are glooks but not all glooks are glops will also allow them to master a theory of jurisprudence that undergirds our complicated society.

If not instantly sure that their LSAT score has determined their destiny, they will become even more certain when schools they've never heard of from the other side of the country send them unsolicited scholarship offers based on their LSAT score alone. Sadly, these prospective students did not learn the ego shattering truth that high school taught most of us, "When someone wants to go out with you, it's not always because they find you attractive, and is usually because they are lonely and can't do any better."

But, once someone's scored in the 74th percentile, there's often no turning back. Look out, law school, here comes their brain, almost better than 3/4 of all the other kids who were thinking about applying. And when they arrive at law school and begin comparing notes with their colleagues, they find out they're not so exceptional after all. In fact, everyone at their school has a score within two or three points of theirs.

This sudden averageness upon enrollment is rarely disappointing, though. After all, even if you're one of the plainer women who get eliminated in the first round of the Miss America pageant, you still get to be Miss Delaware.

The true disappointment typically arrives after 1st semester grades when it becomes very clear that a good score on an objective multiple choice test is rarely a sound predictor of a good score on a subjective essay exam.

Law School Timeline

1784-The first law school in the United States opens. Soon after, the first gunner appears, commencing two-plus centuries of eye rolling.

1786- Several competing law schools open.

1788- Colonial News and Flat World Reports releases it’s first official law school rankings. Five schools are included. Students at the top two ranked schools mercilessly tease the students at the three lowest ranked schools, while the lower ranked schools tout their research and writing programs.

1795- Ezekiel Miller, a recent graduate of Harvard, has an idea to open a law school for more dimwitted students. This fledgling school produced numerous graduates, none of which were sought by employers. His school went bankrupt a few years later, but became the forefather of modern fourth tier schools.

1808- The first ever law school grading curve is introduced after all nine members of the 1L class at Harvard receive straight A’s, and rival schools complain of grade inflation. However, employers still prefer the three lowest ranked Harvard grads over those from other schools.

1823- Phineas McCloud, a 2L at Columbia, arrives late to class wearing the casual top hat instead of the more formal powdered wig. No one comments. The next day Phineas arrives in pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

1841- Our nation’s greatest citizen, Abraham Lincoln, proves the importance of law school in shaping great minds by becoming an attorney without ever having gone to law school.

1854- Ramrod College in New York City holds the first ever “law school box social dance”, a precursor to law prom. However, since there were no female law students at the time, it was wrongly interpreted to be for homosexuals, and the school quickly closed down and reopened a year later as the nation’s first gay dance club.

1865- The Civil War ends, leaving 560,000 dead. The actual number of dead was 560,778, but those additional 778 were attorneys, and were not counted amongst the casualties, since they wouldn’t really be missed.

1879- A partner at a large Boston law firm overhears two Irish immigrants speaking about a local prize fighter named Billy Boy Howard. The partner has an epiphany about how to charge clients and keep track of his associate’s work: Billable hours. The sensation sweeps law firms nationwide.

1880- Attorneys everywhere begin to hate their jobs.

1886- At Boston College, a student visited Dean Henry Banks in the hopes that Dean Banks could help him find employment. The Dean hemmed and hawed and was unable to give any sound advice other than "put thyself out there". Historians would later regard this encounter as the birth of career services.

1896- James Mitchell, a 1L at Yale, inspired by a “horseless carriage,” puts wheels on a suitcase and begins to carry his heavy books in the loud, cumbersome apparatus. James immediately becomes the butt of his classmate’s jokes.

1898- Ethyl Morris becomes the nation’s first ever female law student. Coincidentally, she becomes the first female law student to complain about not being able to find a man despite wearing numerous alluring bustles.

1911- Brandon Sterling, a 1L at Penn, publishes a pamphlet of law school observations and stories called “Sterling’s Musings on Law and the Modern Life”. It serves as a precursor to the “blawg boom” a century later, where one half of all law students maintained a weblog.

1923- Adam Stephens, a 1L at Michigan, receives a B+ grade in contracts despite rarely attending class or reading the assigned material, proving that you can succeed in law school without endless hours of toil. This unheralded hero is considered by many to be the Jackie Robinson of law school slacking.

1927- James Washington becomes the first African-American to attend law school, when he enrolls at Loyola University in Chicago. He founds the first ever Black Law Student Association, but disbands it when he realized he would always have to be the one sitting at the table selling exam survival kits.

1938- The ballpoint pen is invented, making it much easier for law students to take notes.

1940- Thomas Schmidt, a professor at Duke, bans ballpoint pens from class because he feels that because students are so busy writing clear and concise notes without the worry of ink smearing or the quill breaking that they can’t think and analyze what he’s telling them.

1949- The American Bar Association, during its annual meeting, votes nearly unanimously to change how law school is run. A declaration read: “Whereas, law school up until this point in time has been hands on and teaches the students how to actually practice law, we find this course of study to make too much sense. Therefore, it is the opinion of this panel that hereafter law school should focus on the arcane, obtuse, and impractical, and shall at no time attempt to prepare its students for life after law school.”

1954- The McCarthy hearings introduce young attorney Roy Cohn to the country. Evil children are inspired to opportunistically betray their nation. Law school applications rise, subsequently.

1968- A Time Magazine report on the effects of the rising counter-culture in our nation’s educational system reports that while free love and drug experimentation run rampant on college campuses, law students have largely been unaffected and are still “quite square”.

1976- On the last day of Professor Ronald Dixon’s Property class at Pepperdine University, frustrated students sarcastically applaud their terrible professor. Misinterpreting this as a sign of respect, other classes begin applauding their professors, a misguided tradition which swept law schools across the nation.

1988- The first Scalia opinions begin to creep into casebooks. A generation of sexually frustrated nerds, perpetually confused by women’s mixed signals, find a "straight talking" comrade.

1994- Westlaw introduces its online database of case law, rendering literally millions upon millions of books useless. Heroically, legal writing professors try to carry the torch for book research, a practice as useful as teaching children to use an 8-track.

1995- People everywhere rejoice as Microsoft Windows includes games such as solitaire in its operating system, giving law students everywhere something to do during class instead of take notes.

1999- At the University of Pittsburgh, a hard fought election campaign for SBA Vice President between Katie Campbell and Todd Spencer causes riots when the results are announced. Evidence comes forth that Spencer bribed the Asian Law Society, among other groups, to vote for him. An emergency meeting of the ABA produces a mandate that all future law school elections should follow the standard high school election procedure, complete with glittery posters and hopelessly unrealistic campaign promises.

2002-Andrew Barbino and Sarah Prince, both 1Ls at Iowa, engage in an epic duel during their oral argument. Prince spoke for 13 seconds before being interrupted by a question, at which point she froze up and did not say another word for the rest of her allotted time. Barbino seized the opportunity by stammering through a rehearsed speech, ignoring judge’s questions and keeping his eyes glued to his paper. However, due to the dearth of quality candidates, both were invited to join moot court.

2006- I am literally so bored that I sat down to write a fake timeline of law school events.

Bad Reason for Attending Law School # 4

"Law School is Prestigious"

You’ve been a winner all your life. Gold stars beside your name in kindergarten, Presidential Fitness award in 5th grade, National Honors Society in High School, and then finally attendance at a prestigious university for your undergrad.

At family gatherings, grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles laud you for your achievements while ne’er-do-well cousins shoot menacing looks as they smoke in the backyard. You’re not just you, you’re (insert your name here) who goes to (insert undergrad university here).

Then suddenly you graduate and you’re back to being just you again. Even worse, you’re now (insert your name here) the temp, (insert your name here) who works at the Gap, or (insert your name here) the assistant to the industrial buyer at Procter and Gamble’s adult diaper division. After graduation, the adulation has stopped and the world has become a collection of Janet Jackson’s asking, “What have you done for me lately?”

During this crisis of confidence there is a simple solution in a society that reveres education for its own sake: go to law school. People may hate lawyers but, for some reason, they love law students. At law school the “oohs” and “ahhs” will keep on coming for another 3 years until people start expecting some real accomplishments again.

Just like a white guy who walked onto Duke’s basketball team and clapped from the bench all season, it’s great to be in a winner’s institution. But, when you graduate, you’ll just be the legal equivalent of “Steve who sells hot tubs at the boat show. Didn’t he play for Duke? I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter now, I guess.”

It seems you can rent prestige but you can never buy it. Maybe that’s why prestige’s root word is the Latin praestigiae, which means “conjurer’s trick”. In light of that, pay no attention to the Dean of Admissions behind the curtain.

Email of the Week

From a reader:

If your blog reflects the mentality of today's law students, the future of the rule of law in this society is in serious trouble. I do not see how such a level of self-absorbtion and infatuation with popular culture will ever lead to lawyers who care enough about their country to lift a finger to preserve our rapidly disintigrating Constitutional framework.

Grow up, look at what's happening, and stop fiddling while our Constitution burns.

And my response:

If your email reflects the mentality of today's practicing attorneys, then it should come as no surprise that today's law students are uninterested in the future of the rule of law. I do not see how such a level of self-importance and infatuation with one's own intellectualism will ever lead to people respecting lawyers or the general meaningless work that they do.

Calm down, get over yourself, and stop judging other people's values.