The Shark

CMCP: law is relationships. oh, and hitting up career services.

[cynthia foster]

I spent this morning at a professional development event run by the California Minority Counsel Program. The panel discussion featured several speakers, including in-house counsel and attorneys from private firms, and centered around career development for women and minorities. The conversation drifted from tips and tricks-style advice-giving to anecdotes about personal experiences.

A lot of the advice, particularly when it came to talking about job searching, was pretty standard stuff. Disseminate your resume in as many places as you can. Start your own networking group, even if it's just a group of like-minded individuals having dinner and talking about your industry. Join professional associates, attend trade shows. Find companies that are in the news and gaining economic traction, and apply with them as they grow. One theme echoed throughout the conversation: law is relationships. Network, network, network.

Duane Valz, VP and Associate General Counsel at Yahoo, told the audience that the best way to ensure you don't get laid off once you've found a job is to "always give the impression [at work] that you're bringing good value" to your company. Jim Potter, a Sr. VP and GC at Del Monte Foods, went through quite list of tips including an interesting one of always having multiple versions of your resume on hand - he recommended the magic number of seven.

All pretty good advice. During the question and answer portion of the discussion, several junior partners stood up to ask for help on how to manage their book of business during rough economic times.

What I thought was the best nugget from the event, though, was something that might be a little less encouraging to you all. Theodora Lee, a shareholder at Littler Mendelson, encouraged junior associates to trek on over to the career services offices of their alma maters, saying that these offices have "opened themselves up" to unemployed alums.

As I wrote in my notes, "Yay for law students!" Not only is there a question of whether or not career services can offer a whole lot to job-searching students, but now there'll be competition for face time and resources with all your school's alumni! As Petra said in a recent Cal Law story about the rising levels of competition for public sector jobs, the "door of opportunity is getting jammed with feet."

hold your school up to the light: what is it doing for you right now?

[brian lauter]

A couple of weeks ago Northwestern rolled out several programs to help unemployed and deferred 2009 law school graduates.  These Northwestern plans included help with health insurance, loan forbearance, and LLM programs.

The very next day, UCLA followed suit, announcing a new Transition to Practice LLM program designed specifically for unemployed and deferred graduates.

Yesterday, the JD Journal reported that Boston College joined help parade.  The Boston College assistance plan offers a Law School Fellows program, where graduates will be paid to work at the school; a Career Services Partnership Program, which coordinates public interest jobs and stipends for students through the school's career services office; paid research assistantships at the school; and a program for auditing classes.

Also yesterday, ATL reported that Loyola Law School of Chicago announced greatly reduced prices on its LLM programs for its graduates as well as a Graduate Fellowships program which sounds pretty similar to UCLA's new LLM program.

I agree with the many that have argued that these programs are, at least partially, self-serving because they will help the schools' US News rankings.  I also agree that going into an LLM program to escape umemployment is a pretty ridiculous solution.  

The fact is, however, that these schools are putting together viable solutions for their students' economic woes and giving their students several options that will help keep their heads above water.  At least they're doing something for their students

The real question the cynics should be asking is: What are the other 190-plus U.S. law schools doing to help their unemployed and deferred 2009 grads?

More importantly: What is my school doing?

take your broken education and your deferral on a public interest vacation.

[cynthia foster]

More from the AmLaw Daily! This time the "3L Dilemma: Will Deferring For a Year Save Their Jobs?" A few more firms have released news about their start dates, and I'm working on updating the table. (I guess I spoke too soon about The End yesterday.) Sounds like most of your peers are erring on the side of taking the deferral:

"In general, most of the firms deferring until January, have seen about half of the new hires choosing the year-long internship. At Dewey & LeBoef, more than 40 of the 88 U.S.-based associates took year-long public sector placements with an $80,000 stipend, plus benefits and travel expenses. At Ropes & Gray, almost 40 new associates have applied--from a class of more than 100. (They will receive $60,000, plus a bar stipend, travel expenses, a salary advance, and health insurance for work in the nonprofit sector.) At Goodwin Proctor, more than 60 of the class of 125 incoming first-years already have expressed interest in year-long nonprofit work, which will come with a $60,000 stipend, plus bar fees."

The folks over at Fulton County Daily Report (a legal paper from Georgia) have taken the opportunity to explore the issue of retooling law school. FCDR reports that, at a conference held by Best Lawyers of America, legal professionals are analyzing apparent flaws in the system, taking advantage of the high profile nature of both legal education and the biglaw model during these uncertain times.  According to one lawyer at the conference:

"You're producing a product that very few people want. Firms have hiring freezes. Why not stop producing the product - or create new markets for what you're producing? ...You're like the auto manufacturers who produce a product for which there is no demand."

While it's disconcerting to think of educated JD-holders as a products, or even legal educations themselves as products, I think the guy has a point. Sounds to me like people think the onus is on law schools to figure out how to respond to the changing tides. Academia and its institutions are notoriously slow to adapt, which is unfortunate given the fast pace of our economic swan dive. But it is what it is. At some point, law schools will have to tell us what they intend to do about it, besides offer health insurance.

an updated commencement speaker list. are YOU excited yet?!

[brian lauter]

We're only a couple of weeks away from law school commencements, so I thought I'd update the ol' commencement speaker list.  Still no Jerry Springer-esque announcements, although Rudy Giuliani did once dress up in drag and let Donald Trump rub his face all over his chest. I think the folks at Drexel may be disappointed, however, if they're hoping for entertainment on par with that performance.  Ed. note: If you click no other link today, click that one.

Anyway, here's the updated list:

- Ave Maria Law - His Eminence, Cardinal Adam Maida, Archbishop Emeritus of Detroit (sounds like fun!)

- Berkeley Law - UC Irvine Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

- Boston College Law - Fed Chairman Benjamin Bernanke

- Boston University Law - Governor Howard Dean (Yeeeah!)

- Brooklyn Law School - Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board Paul Volcker

- Cardozo Law - Justice Rosalie Abella, Supreme Court of Canada

- Case Western Reserve Law - Ohio Supreme Court Justice Robert M. Duncan

- Charleston Law - U.S. House Rep. James Clyburn

- Columbia Law - Former California Governor Gray Davis (a recall campaign is already heating up at CLS)

- Drexel Law - Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani

- GWU Law - 44th Solicitor General of the U.S. Gregory G. Garre

- Golden Gate Law - Litigator Patrick J. Coughlin

- Indiana Law - Deputy Director of the FBI John Pistole

- Lewis & Clark Law - trial lawyer Robert S. Bennett

- Loyola LA Law - Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court Ruth V. McGregor

- Pace Law - NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg (Ed. Note: A strong contender for most interesting person on this list.)

- Pepperdine Law - President of the International Justice Mission Gary Haugen

- Santa Clara Law - Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan A. Stevenson

- South Texas Law - Houston Mayor Bill White

- University of Buffalo Law - Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga (Where did this come from?)

- UC Davis Law - President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate Darrell Steinberg

- UC Hastings - Congresswoman Jackie Speier

- U of Pittsburgh Law - President and CEO of the NAACP Benjamin Todd Jealous

- U of Minnesota Law - Chief Judge, U.S. District Court Michael J. Davis

- UNC Law - former Attorney General Michael Mukasey (complete with requisite controversy)

- USC Law - California Attorney General Jerry Brown (Ed. Note: Are we sure he won't farm this out to a lower-level employee?)

- USD Law - Qualcomm President Steven R. Altman

- USF Law - President of the Children's Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman

- UVA Law - 4th Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

- Vermont Law - Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke

- Wake Forest Law - Former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr.

- Whittier Law - U.S. District Court Judge for the Central District of California David O. Carter

All things considered, Nina Totenberg remains the most interesting speaker on the list.  Get it? Because All Things Considered is a show on NPR...  

Alright, let us know if you hear about any commencement announcements we should add to the list.

the arrival of the suspiciously perky am law 100 results.

[cynthia foster]

The American Lawyer has released their venerable Am Law 100 list, version 2009.  Above the Law provides some analysis, but what I'd like to really point out is a nice feature they're running along side it: a layoff list, with information on employment "shifts" (nice euphemism) organized by firm.

For those of you gearing up for OCI next year, or who are planning on spending the summer analyzing your future job prospects, these various charts may provide you with some fodder.  The charts themselves are free without registration, but several of the accompanying articles are subscription only.

the last gasp of start date deferral news? god, we hope so.

[cynthia foster]

In what I'm hoping (for your sakes, rather than mine) is the last update to our start date deferral table, I bring you: Kilpatrick, Dechert, Bingham, and Andrews Kurth. 

On the cheap end of the spectrum: Kilpatrick is offering only an advance to its deferrees, who will be joining the firm in April of 2010, and loaned a two-month salary advance for their trouble. On the more generous end: Dechert is giving $17.5k stipends to its incoming first years, who are joining in March of 2010.

ATL is declaring that most incoming associates should know when they're starting by the end of April. Well, we're there. Is anyone out there still in the dark? We'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE: As well as being cheap with its incoming associates, Kilpatrick is laying off 24 others.

grading issues you didn't even know existed, maybe.

[brian lauter]

Let me interrupt my string of rankings related posts to discuss with you another subject of paramount importance to law students: grades.

Last Wednesday, PrawfsBlawg posted the first in a series of grades-related posts, critiquing the "seminar exception."  For the uninitiated, most law schools exempt seminar classes from the forced grading curve. PrawsfBlawg argues that the exception "gets the goat" of many law students because some students load up on seminar classes to pad their GPAs.

Maybe PrawfsBlawg and I run in different circles, but I have never heard any law student complain about this seminar exception.  First, most students take advantage of seminar classes at some point in their law school careers.  They're usually interesting courses and it's refreshing to be able to really get into the material instead of having to focus on a grade for the entire semester.  Second, a forced curve just doesn't make sense in smaller classes.  If professors already have a difficult time accurately distinguishing students enough to fit them into a forced curve for large classes, doing so for smaller classes must be even more difficult.  I could go on, but I've got more grading items to discuss.

Last Thursday, PrawsfBlawg posted an item discussing the virtues of "flex courses."  These are courses where students can elect to receive 2 or 3 units depending on how much work they want to put into the class.  

As PrawsfBlawg points out, flex courses, also known as variable credit courses, give students scheduling flexibility without really diminishing academic value.  Sounds like a good idea to me.  Some schools (such as Davis) essentially offer flex courses by allowing students in paper-based courses to conduct further research and write longer papers for extra units as part of an independent research project. Professor and dean approval is required and the independent research grade is the same as the course grade.

Finally, yesterday, PrawsfBlawg posted an item asking whether professors should be allowed to change student grades after discussing them with students.  Apparently, many law schools flat out forbid professors from making changes to grades based on qualitative considerations after they've handed them in.  These schools will only allow professors to change their grades based on computational errors.  

I don't see any problem with giving professors the discretion to change their grades, and the argument that "law students like to argue" seems particularly weak.  I doubt these policies deters students from pestering their professors about grades, since most law students, like me, probably don't even know about their school's policy.  

There you have it.  Three grade issues tightly wrapped with glib analysis.  The PrawfsBlawg items, of course, contain in depth theoretical and statistical analysis of each topic, so check them out if my musings aren't enough for you.

facebook groups: go, join, gripe.

[julie anne ines]

I’m not even in law school yet, and I already know - by benefit of being in a relationship with a law student, and a frequent reader of law school student Twitter streams and blawgs - to expect something of a bitch fest once my law school journey starts this fall.

Please believe me when I say I mean no disrespect to those who frequently air their grievances. As someone who came from a profession that spawned AngryJournalist.com, I understand the need to vent and write strongly-worded, unpunctuated, all-caps forum posts/emails/tweets. But save for Twitter and personal blogs, I could not for the life of me find one law-related website that served as a forum to collect all said grievances into one place for my general amusement.

That is, until I remembered Facebook groups.

In the world of Facebook, as in the world of law school, law students nationwide have formed themselves into communities by drawing on their shared experiences of acquiring nervous ticks, learning from sometimes ineffective instructors, navigating through trial-by-fire, and turning into alcoholics.

The result is a collection of groups whose titles and descriptions alone paint vivid, sometimes-amusing, occasionally scary, pictures of the law school experience.

Law School Haiku

Members: 29

Description: Describe your classes in poetic form! Reconnect with your creative side! Share your feelings for law school in a total of 17 syllables! Example: Marbury and Graves, Spend days in the library —, What sense of humor?

Law Students for Naptime

Members: 49

Description: “C'mon, you know you're tired. You know you'd like to curl up on the couch, throw a blanket over yourself and fall asleep. So give in!”

Dear Law School

Members: 67

Description: “A healthy outlet for your angst against law school. In the tradition of ‘getting it off your chest’, please pen your grievances, plaints, and pleadings addressed to law school, appellate briefs, the reasonably prudent person, etc. Example: Dear Law School, is it too much to ask that an alcohol stipend be included directly in the Stafford loan? Sincerely, Jane. Please note that any attacks on specific individuals or groups will not be tolerated. “

I've Thought About Dropping Out Of Law School At Least Ten Times Today

Members: 6,321

Description: “This is a support group for students who have seriously considered throwing down their highlighters and running screaming from the building at least ten times in the past day (or hour, if you're me). If you've been feeling this way, but yet still keep coming back for more, please join. Invite your friends. And together, BY GOD, we will persevere.”

Dear Law School: High School Called, They Want Their Drama Back.

Members: 8,160

Description: “Quit your bitching and see below.”

You Might Be In Law School If ...

Members: 15,460

Description: “You consider dropping out of law school approximately every hour, but after that first semester you realized you were already in too much debt to be anything other than a lawyer. … You can name without hesitation at least three people who make you want to throw things when you see them raise their hands in class."

possible rankings shake-up ahead: are there data errors?

[brian lauter]

Well, we've hit stage three of the U.S. News rankings cycle.  For those of you unfamiliar with the process, stage three is the part of the cycle where we discuss administrative reactions to the rankings.

So far the reactions seem to be relatively sane, which is disappointing from an entertainment standpoint.  That could all change, however, because, according to TaxProf, U.S. News is currently investigating possible errors in the rankings of at least two schools.  

TaxProf Blog also has a handy compilation of law school reactions to the 2010 U.S. News rankings.  Here's hoping some geeked-up law school dean loses his cool.  Good luck in stage three!

LSAT-takers hope to put off the inevitable.

[cynthia foster]

The Penn State Daily Collegian (via the ABA Journal) is reporting that 2 out of 5 takers of the LSAT are planning to apply to law school "in part to avoid having to look for employment."

Kaplan Test Prep surveyed 1,040 0Ls about their motivations for attending law school.  Additionally, the company saw an increase of 6.4% in the sheer number of exams administered.

"The Kaplan survey also found 67 percent of those surveyed listed the potential earning power of being a lawyer as affecting their decision to apply to law schools, and 54 percent plan on someday running for political office."

Good look with that earning power thing, kids. Something tells me the face of associate compensation is changing right before our very eyes.