The Shark

learning to love failure

[brian lauter]

Failing was big this year. No, I’m not talking about your spring semester grades, back-row slacker, or your attempts at getting a date, first-row gunner. I’m talking about the oft-overused label “FAIL” made popular by Failblog, which seeped into common parlance in 2008.

Never one to buck a trend, I’ve created a year-end Top 10 list that celebrates both the beauty of FAIL and the ridiculousness of law school. I present to you:

The Top 10 Law School Fails of 2008

1. Law School Elections Fail

2. Biglaw Jobs Fail

3. Law School Prostitution Fail (Michigan and Stanford)

4. John Yoo Fail

5. Law School Rapper Fail

6. Fighting U.S. News Domination Fail

7. California Bar Examination Fail

8. Law School Laptop Theft Fail

9. Law School Kidnapping Fail

10. Boalt Hall Naming Fail

That’s it. No more Top 10 lists for the rest of the year. Have a great New Year. 2009 FTW!

when you're getting dressed to go out and get arrested, or whatever

[brian lauter]

‘Tis the season for year-end lists. Because we’re all just base 10 people living in a base 10 world, 10 seems to be the generally accepted number of items to be included on these lists.

In the spirit of the season and list-making tradition, I offer for your perusal:

The Top 10 Law-Related Year End Lists of 2008

1. The Top 10 Blawg Reviews of 2008 (a.k.a. Blawg Review # whatever)

2. The Top 10 Most Entertaining Celebrity Lawsuits of 2008 (Popsquire has two similar year-end reviews. I’m not sure why, but they sure help a guy fill out a Top 10 list.)

3. The Top 10 Legal Stories of 2008 (ABA Journal’s most read of 2008)

4. The Top 10 Weirdest Lawsuits of 2008 (mostly wacky foreigners and lesbians)

5. The Top 10 Pop Culture/Law Collisions of 2008 (Popsquire’s other list)

6. The Top 10 Biggest Medical Stories of 2008 (If you or a loved one has been hospitalized after taking Digitek™, and believe Digitek™ may be the reason ...)

7. The Top 10 Expert Witness Cases of 2008 (Everybody’s an expert ...)

8. The Top 10 Legal Issues of 2008 (Findlaw’s most searched topics)

9. The Top 10 Most Mormon Friendly Law Schools of 2008 (Why not?)

10. The Top 10 Shirts To Get Arrested In (Not really an “of 2008” list, but interesting ...)

There you have it. Let me know if you see any other good ones. Watch out for a special law school-related end-of-year list coming soon.

for your break: something more productive than video games

[pam smith]

Nothing to do on your break? You could just lounge around, doing the kinds of things we did over the holidays. (But then, our little tiny work break was not nearly so long as your big, bloated school break, so we forgive ourselves for not being more productive.) Or, unlike us, you might use the time to set yourself up to make some extra cash.

We’re sure this isn’t the only fellowship opportunity out there, but, to be honest, it’s the only one that’s fallen in our laps: A foundation linked to the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California, which pays law students to spend their summer on public interest work that affects the South Asian community in Northern California, is taking applications. (Find a blank one (.pdf) here.) 

To qualify, you've got to be enrolled in law school at least part-time, in Northern California. Plus you have to show your dedication to the cause, and all that.

The information we got isn’t precise about how much money we’re talking. But we do know that the foundation gave out three $3,000 fellowships last year, to law students working with the Asian Law Alliance, API Legal Outreach, and the health education and welfare section of the attorney general’s office. Not big money compared to Big Law summer gigs, but if you’re inclined toward public interest stuff, it’ll help pay the rent. And since Big Law appears to be a less available option this year, anyway, you might actually come out feeling like a high roller.

what ohio's got that california doesn't

[pam smith]

Well, there's the million and one inches of snow on the ground there. But actually, we are not lobbying to get that in San Francisco.

We are, however, kind of intrigued by this mentoring program for new lawyers that a state Supreme Court justice just wrote about in the Bucyrus Telegraph Forum. (Our second-favorite story in today's edition: "'Barkery' treats dogs to gourmet goodies." Seriously. The puns in it are really impressive.)

But back to the program Justice Paul Pfeifer is peddling: It matches up volunteer experienced attorneys with newly annointed members of the Ohio State Bar, in the hopes of teaching them all of the practical things that law school doesn't. Things like dealing with problem clients, networking, working with support staff, and figuring out office politics.

Sure, this is all of the stuff that lawyers have been figuring out on their own, or with the help of older-and-wiser compatriots, for centuries. Still, if it's a low-cost option for California's State Bar, might not be a bad idea for recent grads who find their colleagues are too a) few b) busy c) ornery or d) generally hapless to be a help. Or for those who don't have colleagues, period, due to the awesome job market.

in law school i learned to question the meaning of the word "learn."

[brian lauter]

What did you learn in law school? 

It’s a good question.  The nitpicky among us might immediately seize on what the meaning of word “learn” is.  For instance, at some point I learned to how to accurately apply the Rule Against Perpetuities with mind-blowing speed.  Now all I can remember is that the number 21 is involved.  I suppose you could say I learned the Rule Against Perpetuities in law school, but, given my current state of Rule Against Perpetuities knowledge, I think that interpretation might defeat the purpose of the question.

At any rate, ignoring all semantics, Gideon over at A Public Defender blog asked himself the same question and came up with a list of ten things he didn’t learn in law school.

Gideon’s list focuses largely on the realities of legal practice that most law students don’t learn in law school regardless of what you think “learn” means.

According to Gideon, law school didn’t teach you how to pick a jury, it didn't teach you that you won’t remember much more than the names of seminal cases, or that your clients will hate you and think they’re smarter than you, or that you will be ridiculed if you use the term “black letter law.”

The item is pretty entertaining and, having written before about age-old pedagogical debate between theoretical and experiential learning, I am not too surprised by the abundance of practical issues included. 

I do have to defend law school a little here, because I have come across a couple of these issues Gideon lists in law school.  For instance, a Pretrial Skills professor did give us some tips on how to deal with clients who basically hate you. I also remember hearing in Moot Court about how often your well-reasoned precedential arguments will be ignored by judges.  Finally, I believe jury selection is covered in Trial Practice at Davis, although I haven’t taken the course yet.

There wasn’t a whole lot of emphasis placed on developing these skills, but I suppose you could say I “learned” how to do these things in law school.  It would really depend on how you define the word “learn.”

how corrupt is your teaching staff?

[brian lauter]

Rankings.  You know you love them.  A new set came out last Friday and, although the usual suspects remain at the top, you’ll be happy your school isn’t up there with them this time.

These rankings, prepared by Scott Moss at Concurring Opinions, rank law schools based on alumni corruption.  As usual, Yale, Harvard and NYU all occupy spots in the top 5.  The real news here is Pepperdine’s rapid assent into the top 10, due mostly to the recent ridiculous activity of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Moss’s timing is appropriate, not just because of the Blagojevich scandal (Blago-gate?), but because the results for the November MPRE came out last week.

Last week thousands of law students all over the country found out how badly they over-studied for their profession’s ethics test.  If you scored over 115, chances are you were pretty disappointed with your studying performance.  Between 90 and 100?  Just about right.

The fact that it is reasonable, or even possible, to rank law schools by the number of corrupt public officials they have produced is cause for concern.  However, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.

The MPRE is kind of a joke, but few other professions even require that entrants pass an ethics test.  Heck, all doctors have to do is mumble some antiquated oath.

What’s more, before they are accepted into the bar (at least in California) law students must complete an invasive and time-consuming Moral Character Application.  And on top of that, some law schools require that students take a Professional Responsibility course even if they’ve already passed the MPRE.

So, I’m not sure what else can be done.  At this point, I think the only way to preserve the law’s good name is to make sure good lawyers put people like Gov. Blagojevich in jail for a long, long time. 

Considering the importance lawyers and law students place in rankings, though, adding an alumni corruption metric to the U.S. News rankings might help curb ethical violations as well.  Its all in your hands, Bob Morse.

laurence velvel loses "millions" in madoff fraud scheme.

[cynthia foster]

Lawrence Velvel, the oft-mentioned dean of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover who earlier this year announced his intention to bring war crimes charges against President Bush, is now in the news again.  This time, for his financial losses due to Bernard Madoff's mismanagement of his and others' assets.

Madoff, who allegedly swindled up to $50 billion, managed money belonging to Velvel (and Velvel's unnamed "friend").  The amount lost, according to Velvel, is "millions."  No word on whether or not Velvel had any of his that money invested in the crusade against the prez.

revenge of the 1Ls: a book review

[abony holmes]

 I started "Lawyer Boy: A Case Study on Growing Up" about two weeks ago, but much like my law school reading assignments, I didn't finish it until the night before my review was due.

It's not that Lax is a bad writer; in fact there were several passages that showed real promise of a comedy writing future. It was more that reading his book was like reading for law school, interesting parts here and there, but the rest skim-inducing at best, sleep-inducing at worst.

An example — Lax's liberal use of footnotes. I hate footnotes in legal writing; they tend to have the most incomprehensible and irrelevant junk in them. And I was once told that if something is not important enough to include in the text, it should be left out. I'll admit to not having read a single one of the footnotes, and I don't believe I lost much from it. In fact, skipping the footnotes is what helped me to finish the last 240 pages of Lax's book in just a few hours.

But it wasn't just ignoring the footnotes that got me through this book so quickly — it was Lax's lengthy and numerous descriptions of legal concepts and cases. The moment a scene changed to class or studying (and that happened as often as one would expect of a law student), I knew I'd find a page or two of the useless 1L legal musings I didn't want to hear in my first-year classes, and I certainly didn't want to read in my spare time. Lax, in writing his memoir, repeatedly commits the cardinal sin of law studentdom — he talks about the law too much.

linx: the good news is, at least you're not shia labeouf. or living in marin.

[cynthia foster]

To aid and abet all you procrastinators, I bring you the semi-annual Finals Linx:

• Firms Rescinding Offers to Students (The American Lawyer)
• Say What, Berkeley City Council? John Yoo Is Not Styrofoam (The Daily Clog)
• Bar Exam Pass Rates Climb in Several States (The National Law Journal)
• UC Bigwigs to Crowd: We're Screwed (East Bay Express)
• Betting on Bob - The next thing in student loans: Investors pay your bills. You give them a share of your future (Boston Globe)
• Shia LaBeouf to Star In the Associate (Variety)

And last, but not least, an SF Chron OpEd from Berkeley Law's own Susan Gluss (director of media relations) on why she's forsaken the East Bar for Marin County:

• Long Commute Better than Living In Oakland (SF Gate)

november mpre scores, available now.

[cynthia foster]

Hi all.  Happy Monday.  To celebrate, I report that MPRE scores have been released today.  Hopefully you all passed, because who needs to add failure to the fubar of finals week.

From the California State Bar:

"Effective January 1, 2008, the new minimum Multistate Professional Responsibility
Examination score required for admission to practice law in California is a scaled
score of at least 86."