The Shark

recovery from technological failure is possible during write on. here's how.

[justin gosling]

So it's the night before the journal writing competition entry is due, and I'm chugging along nicely when... all of a sudden it sounded like someone took a handful of thumbtacks and shoved them into my hard drive.

That's right, my computer (and my entry) just went to the big computer in the sky. It was like one of those nightmare stories that you hear from other students, but dismiss as lore. Well, it happens. And it isn't very fun.

So what did I do?

First, I popped in the recovery disk that came with my laptop, but running the disk checking utility didn't fix the hard drive.  When that didn't work, I burned a Linux Live CD (think a full OS that you boot into stright from CD without touching your hard drive). From there it was just a matter of accessing the hard drive momentarily while I transferred the last saved version of my memo to a flash drive. At this point my hard drive was sounding more and more like a bicycle skidding through gravel. In the end I lost a few hours of actual work time plus a few paragraphs, not to mention 120GB of data. Unfortunate, but not a total disaster.

It's times like these where I'm really, really glad I shelled out the extra cash for a three year warranty. So take note class of 2011, get that extended warranty!

Tips on backing your docs up, after the jump.

law prof v. law prof: did someone give enron some bad legal advice?

[abony holmes]

There is an interesting article on legal ethics at CNN.com today. For those of you just starting your summer jobs, some of the issues raised in the article will be particularly worthy of note.

The article recounts the story of Vinson & Elkins, the firm retained by Enron to do a “preliminary investigation” of its business and accounting issues.

The firm defended its "breathtaking[ly] shallow" investigation with a letter from Charles Wolfram (a "distinguished scholar of legal ethics," according to his online bio) of Cornell Law School that justified V&E’s actions, arguing it is “customary and appropriate for a company to conduct a preliminary investigation before undertaking a full-scale one, and that the firm had not violated conflict-of-interest rules.”

Professor William Simon of Columbia counters Wolfram’s letter with a law review article entitled The Market for Bad Legal Advice. In it he argues that the Wolfram letter is "just one example of patently bad advice offered in exchange for lucrative compensation by academics" whom he contends are becoming "enablers of pernicious... practices."

Ouch.

where's bob barker when you need him? the law school ranking game

[abony holmes]

If you haven’t started your summer job yet and need to kill some time, check out the Law School Ranking Game (via Osler’s Razor) between Scrabulous moves. The game, courtesy of Jeffrey E. Stake and Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington, allows you to “create the variables and weighting, based on the factors you feel are most important.” 

One small outlier on the criteria list: "Tibetan food within 600m." 

the shark reads first, judges later. jeffrey toobin's the nine.

[brian lauter]

With all due respect to my editor, the summer before law school I definitely did not read about law school. (I did do quite a bit of reading that summer, but I mainly read books I was assigned in undergrad, hadn’t read, but had always told myself I would read eventually.)

Yesterday, I read an item on Law Vibe from a few weeks ago which listed the Top 10 Law Student Books of the Moment. Needless to say, they are all about success in law school.

Then, today, I read an article exploring the possibility of a Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton. I should mention: my boy Professor Carlton Larson came up with this idea a whole month ago (unless he also ripped it off of somebody).

Where am I going with this? I'll tell you what.  I am going to make a book recommendation! It is even law-related.

I recommend you take a look at The Nine, by CNN law guy Jeffrey Toobin.

As I read the Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton article, I was reminded of some of the blatantly political Supreme Court appointments and decisions Toobin discusses. Its an interesting read and points out some trends and outlooks that are probably as essential to law school success as anything you’ll read in your copy of “Top 10 Ways to Ace Law School, Dominate Law Review, and Earn a Million Dollars a Month for Life.”

a higher power may not help you through law school

[brian lauter]

When I stop to think about it, law students don’t seem to be a particularly spiritual bunch. A new study may explain why.

Research conducted by Scott A. Taylor of the University of St. Thomas School of Law shows a negative correlation between strong spirituality and academic performance in law school. Is it possible those frantic last minute prayers before each final were actually hurting me?

As others have noted, the irony here is that St. Thomas School of Law is a Catholic law school “dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth...” Although the irony is fun to point out, I think St. Thomas School of Law gets points for staying true to its mission. Nothing promotes the integration of faith and reason in the search for truth like producing intellectually honest research, even when it may not support your faith the way you would have liked.

If St. Thomas School of Law is really committed to the search for truth, though, I think Professor Taylor’s next study should take a serious look at the correlation between group sex and bar passage.

stanford grading goes "pass/fail"

[cynthia foster]

According to an email posted by Above the Law, Stanford has officially changed its grading policy.  The Stanford Daily reported back in January that a record number of 1Ls were choosing pass/fail grading options, and this seems to have prompted the administration to implement an "honors/credit/no credit" grading system.  Further details, via the email from Dean Larry Kramer, are after the jump.

This comes just weeks after we reported on changes to the notorious Hastings curve.

linx: the summer before law school, i read about law school

[cynthia foster]

Now that you all have a little time on your hands, let's get some extracurricular reading in:

• From Law School to Law Practice: The New Associate's Guide (Book Review) (Legal Research Plus)
• How to Improve the Law School Rankings (U.S. News & World Report)
• Study Shows Gender, Racial Disparity of Post-Law School Debt (The National Law Journal)
• Everyone's Doin' It (Talkin' Law School Blues - pictorial narrative of law review write on)
• Summer Before Law School - What Did You Do? (law_students.livejournal.com)

berkeley law doesn't use examsoft - it uses microsoft word. hastings is jealous.

[justin gosling]

Many law schools require that students use a secure exam-taking program, such as Examsoft's SofTest.  But I can't shake the feeling that there is a better solution.

At first, I just accepted Examsoft as the one and only solution because, well, that's what my school told me to download. But recently UC Hastings sent out an email seeking feedback on Examsoft because they wanted to gauge student interest in the possibility of using a different program for test-taking. I've had a few issues with Examsoft, so I am open to the idea of other programs.  But get this: when I talked to a a friend at Berkeley Law, I found out that they used a Microsoft Word for their exams.

What gives? While I experienced technical difficulties, they saved a document to their desktop and then emailed it out. I couldn't believe it.

So, does the benefit of being "secure" outweigh technical headaches and trust issues?

iTunes U product shockingly less than lame

[brian lauter]

iTunes U has been up for a while, and, frankly, it sounded like it might be pretty lame so I never checked it out. A few weeks ago, however, I read that Loyola Law School had begun posting legal podcasts on the site for free download. I haven’t had time to take a look until this week, but it turns out that the site is actually pretty cool:

On the UC Davis iTunes U store I found an interesting immigration discussion with incoming King Hall Dean Kevin Johnson and Professor David Kyle of the UC Davis Sociology Department.

At UC Berkeley’s iTunes U store I listened to a town hall meeting on poverty in America with John Edwards and a debate on same-sex marriage at the Goldman School of Public Policy.

I expected to find Professor John Doe Smith’s Ten Part Lecture Series on the Intricacies of the Rule Against Perpetuities. But it looks like most schools have decided to use their iTunes U stores as a promotional vehicle rather than an educational tool, and the result, so far, is free access to a variety of stimulating presentations and discussions. Something to check out over the summer...

write on is easier than dealing with your mother

[abony holmes]

I think what I’m about to say is going to make a whole lot of people not like me, but I’m saying it anyway: I’m enjoying the law review write on process.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather spend this week lounging at my pool, or sipping ice cold lemonade on my balcony with my favorite chick lit novel, or even organizing my bookshelf like I promised myself I’d do the past few months.

But the law review write on isn’t so bad. Thinking back to the end of last semester, where I spent Christmas break explaining to my mother that (1) I’m not getting married anytime soon (2) or having children (3) or moving back to DC, the law review write on process requires less of my analytical and persuasion skills, and I don’t have to feel guilty if no one buys my argument.