The Shark

does thinking like a lawyer make life less joyful?

[abony holmes]

If you read my posts regularly, you’ll know I’m a television junkie. I’m mostly into reruns of Golden Girls and SpongeBob, but I do have a couple of prime-time favorites — Ugly Betty being one of them. The last episode of Ugly Betty involved the trial of Claire Meade, a scorned wife accused of murdering her dead husband’s mistress.

I would have loved this episode from beginning to end if not for the fact that every trial scene contained enough inaccuracies to make me wish I had another Ugly Betty law student friend to call up and talk to about it. I couldn’t concentrate on the funny because I was too hung up on how unprofessional the prosecuting attorney was, and how the defense attorney was able to call surprise witnesses (or that he would even want to, considering he never actually spoke to them prior to trial).

In fact, I was so distracted by Ugly Betty’s major leaps of imagination, I wanted to get online to research criminal procedure. (No worries — I didn’t go that far... this time.) Everyone told me law school would train me to “think like a lawyer.” No one mentioned it would make watching television feel like homework.

diversity. geeks. we've got it all.

[cynthia foster]

Two quick things, everyone:

1.  A very serious analysis by WSJ's Law Blog of minority enrollment at law schools.  According to Peter Lattman (via the National Law Journal), Columbia Law is reporting that as overall enrollment numbers at law schools rise, numbers of minorities applying and getting accepted have been declining in the last 15 years.

"The decline has come as applications to law schools among those minority groups have remained constant and law school enrollment overall has risen since 1992."

(Coincidentally, Columbia Law's site looks like it was designed in 1992.)

The diversity trend, of course, is disheartening news.  Several months ago, CalLaw confirmed that this trend is not just limited to law schools — law firms historically suffer from diversity problems as well.

2.  Less serious.  A cautionary tale from geeksaresexy.net: 12 Reasons Why a Geek Will Steal Your Girlfriend in 2008.  Boys, watch out.  While you're busy in Civil Procedure, turns out the bioengineering grad student at Stanford will probably be making a run at your woman.  And he might win.

kirsten wolf: "i'm on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school."

[abony holmes]

Kirsten Wolf went to law school, but she doesn’t think you should. In an interview with WSJ's Law Blog, Kirsten explains why attending law school was such a bad decision for her, and why she thinks it’s a bad decision for many applicants.

Kirsten paints herself as the typical recent college grad; unsure of where to go next, but wanting something more than her 9-5 post graduation job. So she did what a lot of people in her position do.  She applied to law school.

“I wanted to make a more practical decision [than a PhD in English lit] and considered getting an MBA but wasn’t sure what I would do with that. So law school seemed to be right in the middle. It was esoteric enough to satisfy the part of me that had made me consider academia but practical – I wouldn’t be, I thought, poor for the rest of my life. I had just put myself through college working full-time and I didn’t want to live like that anymore. So I applied to law school and got into BU.”

She actually sounds a lot like me.  After two years of having a decent paying and interesting job, but wanting something more, I thought of a PhD in English or African American studies, but decided against it for practicality’s sake. I never considered business school, but law school was almost a natural choice for me after ruling out grad school. 

a double weigh-in on summer associate trends

[justin gosling & abony holmes]

Fret not 1Ls, there is hope that you will land paid summer employment.

CalLaw has a great piece about firms hiring more summer associates for 2008 than were hired last year.  This can only be good news with all the layoff news popping up on Above the Law.

According to the Cal Law piece, law firm hiring appears immune the economic downturn plaguing other industries:

“Seven Am Law 100 and 200 firms interviewed for this story report that larger economic forces played little role in their summer-program plans.”

In fact, firms are hiring more summer associates than last year, and some firms are even saving a few spots for 1Ls. The best place to look for summer opportunities?  Law firms with a diversified practice, as they are the least affected by economic downturns.

Hearing about firm layoffs, even if they are in select practice groups, scares law students. Nobody wants the legal market to implode (until out loans are paid off at least).  The diversification point is something Justin touched on last year when giving advice about fully evaluating potential employers. All in all, this is positive news. Let's hope it continues.

the downfall of scrabulous

[justin gosling]

Sometimes the world works in strange ways.  Scrabulous topped my list of in-class procrastination techniques and now the maker of scrabble are asking Facebook to remove Scrabulous (via ATL) because it infringes on the original Scrabble board game. I love the irony of students trying to escape law school, but their chosen method is subject to an infringement case. Apparently nothing is certain but death, taxes, and the inability to escape law school.

While it is a nice opportunity to, oh I don't know, learn about a case that you have an implicit interest in, my guess is that most will just move on and find a new distraction. Dare I suggest Filler?

textbooks are a money-making scheme. this is big news.

[justin gosling]

Nuts & Boalts has an interesting post on the absurd price of casebooks, and I couldn't agree more. Casebooks are expensive and I don't like having to choose between food and reading materials one bit. Fortunately, my school's bookstore sells used books and some were available for one of my classes. Naturally, I bought them. It wasn't until I got home that I realized it had a slight bacon scent and greasy texture on the cover. Inexpensive books and free meat smell, what more could you want?

Usually textbook manufacturers will print a new edition so you are forced to buy a new book. With all the pro-environmental talk that seems so popular with corporations, I wonder if textbook manufacturers will jump on the green bandwagon (and don't you dare suggest the Kindle because  it's not practical)? One solution that is implemented in my Criminal Law class is the publishing of a supplement that updated portions of the casebook for $9, rather than having to buy a new edition. It's great because you can pick up a used edition of case book and save both money and trees. Very nice. Of course the supplement is probably a stopgap measure until they print the new edition for next fall... which means I won't be able to sell this book back. Criminal Law should work as a conversation piece, right?

part-timers: they do it all

[cynthia foster]

Ann Levine, over at Law School Expert, explores 4 important factors to evaluate before applying to law school part-time.

She also explains the possible benefits a student can glean from considering a part-time program:

"'You may have noticed that at schools with part-time programs, the 25th-75th percentile LSAT numbers are a bit lower than that for the same school's full time program. In some instances, applying part-time may increase your chances of being admitted if your numbers are more in line with those of the part-time admitted students.'"

I, for one, don't think this is too novel a concept (part-time programs are traditionally "easier" to get into in all fields), but Levine goes further in-depth regarding the social and cultural demographics of part-time vs. full-time.

law school toilet graffiti

[cynthia foster]

Jamison Inc. reports some cornily wonderful graffiti he found in a toilet stall at McGill:

"'The Elitism and Self-Entitlement of my classmates is suffocating me!'

Beside it was written in different coloured [sic] ink:

'Why can't Law School have normal toilet graffiti?'"

academia: not for the lazies after all?

[cynthia foster]

Brian Leiter of Brian Leiter's Law School Report has compiled a nice breakdown of alma maters of US law faculty.  According to his report, Boalt churns out the most law professors of any California law school.  Not surprising.

EDIT: Duh.  Stanford actually wins this one, of course.  Not Boalt.  Super thanks to Dave from Traditional Notions for pointing out my user error.

let the impositions begin

[justin gosling]

I'm pretty excited. I just got my first "you're in law school, help me with this legal question" request from a friend. In the interest of full disclosure, I did receive a "how do I get out of this parking ticket" question from a friend a few months back, but this time it was a real legal question about trademarks(!). Granted, I have zero specialized trademark knowledge, but I could at least decode some of the legal mumbo jumbo. It was a nice chance to show off one semester of legal genius knowledge (and confirmation that law school isn't a total waste of time). 

It's novel to share my limited knowledge, but can giving legal advice become a burden? I'm not running the gauntlet that is law school to distribute free advice. I enjoy helping people, I just don't want to anyone to abuse the service. I guess if I was a CPA I'd expect audit and accounting questions.  And afterall, these people are friends...

It's going to be very awkward sending my brother-in-law a bill for parking ticket advice.