Happy Blog Birthday to Life, Law, Gender!
Denise is celebrating her 2-year blog birthday today—congratulations, Denise! As I said over there, Life, Law, Gender contibutes immeasurably to broadening the understanding of its readers and is unique (as far as I know) in at least the law school blogosphere. Denise writes helpfully and with great honesty about being transgendered and about how political and social developments are affecting the transgender and gay and lesbian communities. Those are obviously valuable contributions to the law school blog discourse, but Denise also has a vast amount of life experience in many other areas, as well, much of which she blogs about from time to time as a way of sharing some of what she's learned along the way. In short, Life, Law, Gender is a great blog and a daily read for me. If you haven't visited recently, I recommend you check it out. Oh, and wish Denise a happy blog birthday while you're there!
Posted 10:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Cost-effective searching on Westlaw
For those of you about to graduate law school: Your infinite supply of “free” legal research crack is about to come to an end. Many of you have hooked up with a new pusherman (e.g. a firm that's going to bill your continued Wexis access to its clients), but it's unlikely your new dealer is going to be as generous as the one on which you've come to depend. Looks like it's time to check into rehab!
To help you get started, here are some things I learned recently from our Westlaw representative:
Westlaw offers three main pricing options. First, “Plan A” is kind of old school. When you log into Westlaw with Plan A you'll have to choose whether you want your session to be billed hourly or by transaction. If you choose “hourly,” the clock starts the second you log in and it keeps ticking at the same rate regardless of what you do. If you have this option, use it only when you know exactly what you want and you can dive in, grab it, and print it, then get out. If you choose to be billed by transaction, you'll only be charged for the actual searches you conduct. There is no charge for logging in; charges basically begin once you enter a search query and hit “search.”
The second and most common pricing plan is called “Special Plan” (creative, huh?) and it's basically a negotiated flat rate for searches w/in some subset of Westlaw's available databases; each subscriber negotiates which databases are included in their “special” plan. You can do as many searches as you want in databases included in the plan; searches in databases outside the plan cost extra. This is a common arrangement in many firms and government agencies. Talk to your firm/agency librarian to find out exactly what is and is not included in your special plan.
Westlaw's last pricing option is called “Pro Plan.” It's a “mini flat rate” designed for public interest organizations, solos, and really small or boutique firms. You pay a flat rate each month for access to only a couple of sources you know you need. For example, if you're practicing criminal law in Alaska, you'd probably have access to Alaska and maybe 9th Circuit criminal cases, as well as Alaska criminal statutes, and that's it. You'll be shut out of everything else. (I assume you could always have a second login for searching on a transactional basis on your own dime.)
If for some reason you're ever stuck searching on a per-transaction basis, here are some things to keep in mind to keep costs to a minimum:
- The larger the DB, the more expensive to search. Pick the appropriate size db for your research task.
- The more specialized the database, the more expensive it is.
- Use the “directory” to narrow your search (look for the white “directory” link at the top of your screen after you log in). This makes Westlaw a little more like Lexis in that it allows you to choose the most appropriate (and narrow) database for your search.
- In the Directory, the sources on the right side are more expensive than those on the left.
- In the Directory, use the “Topical Practice Areas” to narrow your search.
- Charges begin once you enter a search string and hit “search.”
- Once you get a list of results they are included in the transaction; you can read through them w/out extra charge.
- When you want to search, write out the search on piece of paper so you don't waste time and money experimenting w/search terms inside Westlaw.
- Also, before you search, call 1-800-Westlaw; tell them you want to run search but you're not sure of the results. They will run it for you and tell you how many cases you'll get. If it's a bad search, they will help you craft a better search. This is free!
- Over time you'll get better at formulating searches, but until that point, don't hesitate to call for every single research assignment you have.
- If you just know the issue but don't know what kind of search to run, you can also call that number and they will help you formulate your search.
- Within a search result, “Results Plus” results (in the frame on left side of screen) cost extra.
- Internal citations w/in cases count as extra transactions. If you just want to click on citations and print them out, use the hourly search.
- If you accidentally hit “search” before you were finished formulating your search terms, call the number and tell them you messed up and they will credit you.
- A “transaction” does not depend on the number of hits you get. Make sure your search is not too narrow or too broad. 40-150 might be pretty good number of results.
- Narrowing in a search: use Locate in Result—does not count as transaction.
- Use “Field” searching to get a quicker answer. E.g., author, attorney, synopsis digest, etc.
- The Synopsis Digest field restricts search to summary and headnotes.
- The Synopsis field restricts to that.
- “Digest” restricts to headnotes only.
- Words/Phrases will search for any part of the case that talks about the definition of a term; use for definitions of legal issues related to a word or phrase.
- Keycite is a transaction; use it only for those cases you absolutely know are going into your brief.
- Keycite is probably the least expensive transaction on WL.
- Use “limit keycite display” at the bottom of a keycite results page to narrow results for no extra charge.
- Research Trail keeps history of your searches; print this trail for every assignment you do to give you a research record for every client/assignment.
- You can return to those results before 2 a.m. on the next day.
Posted 12:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Sunday Sermon: Teaching Integrity
What makes lawyers behave badly? And how can we teach them to do better right from the start?
These questions spring from the big legal news of the last week (besides the little fact that our representatives in Congress seem to think the president is above the law)— the prosecutorial misconduct in the sentencing phase of the Moussaui trial. While countless others have already made many interesting points about this attorney misconduct (see, e.g., Concurring Opinions here and here, OrinKerr.com, and Scoplaw), I want to raise it now in connection with the fact that the faculty at GW law are convinced their students are completely untrustworthy cheaters. I believe this sort of law school faculty attitude helps produce attorneys who act unethically.
You see, at GW law you must take your exams when they are scheduled; there are no exceptions of which I'm aware. Therefore, when you pick your class schedule, you must also check to see that none of the corresponding exams will overlap or conflict w/one another. This sometimes means students cannot take the classes they would like to take merely because the exam schedule doesn't work. Therefore, students recently proposed more flexibility in taking exams so that not everyone in the class would have to take the exam at the same time. Professors said (and I'm paraphrasing) “no way; then our students would cheat!”
Students at GW (and any other law school where the faculty act in similar fashion) are getting the message loud and clear, and that message is: I'm expected to cheat. If students then do, in fact, cheat, they are only fulfilling the expectations set for them by their professors.
So we have law students learning that they are expected to behave unethically and break the rules whenever they can get away with it. Is it any wonder we have attorneys like Carla J. Martin, the rule-breaking and unethical lawyer in the Moussaui case? She was just living up to her profession's (and society's) expectations of her as a lawyer—expectations she probably learned well in a law school that didn't trust her.
(As an aside: Putting the President above the law does relate to questions of professional ethics. If our elected leaders don't have to follow the law, why should any of the rest of us (professionals or not) have to follow it either? And if laws are made to be broken, how much more fungible are rules of ethical conduct?)
In the February '06 edition of Student Lawyer Magazine, Professor Lori Shaw addressed similar questions about exam policies; she asked whether cheating really is a problem in law school, and if so, what should be done about it. (The article is not available online.) Professor Shaw is conducting an online survey to collect responses to these questions—I'm sure she'd love it if you took a minute to complete the survey.
The questions Professor Shaw raises are good ones and I look forward to hearing what she learns from her survey. But even without knowing those results, I have little doubt that policies like GW's exam policy are sending exactly the wrong message to law students who are learning to become members of a profession that is supposedly self-regulating.
Hence, the sermon: Law students need to learn from day one that they have an extremely serious obligation to behave ethically and to report ethical breaches (cheating) by their peers. This is vital because they must regulate themselves and each other while in practice. No one likes to tell on their friends, but so long as the legal profession continues to maintain that that's the best way to regulate legal services (a dubious position, to be sure), law students and lawyers are going to have to do exactly that. It takes work to get people to actually become the ethical actors and tattletales that a self-regulating profession requires them to be; that work needs to begin in law school.
(Read on for a couple of the questions from Professor Shaw's survey and my responses to them.)
17. Who within the law school should be responsible for identifying cheaters? Law students often find themselves extremely uncomfortable in the role of accuser, but most law school honor codes place the responsibility for reporting wrongdoing squarely on students. Is that where it belongs?
Students should have the responsibility to not cheat in the first place and to report cheating if they see it or learn of it. If this is going to remain a self-regulating profession, that needs to begin in law school. If you teach students that you don't trust their integrity, you'll teach them to have none. Currently my law school teaches exactly this, which is why I'm not surprised to hear about lawyers behaving badly. Of course, it goes both ways. Law students see that in practice they will generally have to be *seriously* unethical to suffer any serious sanctions, so that may also teach them that breaking the rules a little here and there is no big deal and is expected and accepted by the profession.
19. What is the proper punishment for a law student found to have cheated on exam? What should happen to cheaters?
They should get an F in the course but also a letter that will be forwarded to all the state bar where that student applies for membership upon graduation. The letter should also remain in their professional file permanently.
20. In recent years, many universities have taken the position that the undergraduate years are a time of growth and that even a student's serious error in judgment should be viewed as creating a learning opportunity. Should the same standard apply in law schools, or should expulsion be the rule? Has the time for “living and learning” experiences passed, or is youth still a viable defense? What type of punishment fits this crime? Should we be seeking to rehabilitate, to deter, to punish, to denounce, to incapacitate, or some combination of the foregoing? Should law schools adopt a zero-tolerance policy?
Law school is a learning experience, so no, the punishment for cheating should not be so permanent as expulsion. The goals should be deterence, punishment, and rehabilitation. That's why I think the appropriate punishment is to fail the course and have a letter sent to the bar association in the state where the student applies for admission to practice. This is a serious penalty, but it should not destroy the person's legal career. (Of course, that's assuming the state bar association does not decide to refuse admission to anyone with such a letter. But again, there's no reason for them to be so draconian. Instead, state bars should take such letters as a warning that they need to look over this application more carefully and look at all other factors of the applicant. But mostly the letter should just remain in the student/lawyer's professional file for the rest of his/her life as a reminder and added incentive to follow the rules as a professional.)
22. If cheating is a real problem or is perceived as a problem, how should law students and law schools address that problem? Are there ways to change the culture?
I don't really think it's that big a problem. But regardless of the size of the problem, law schools should teach ethical behavior and put the responsibility on students to meet high expectations. If there's a problem w/bad ethical behavior in the legal profession, part of the reason for that has to be that students learn that they are expected to behave badly (see answer 17 above). We can start changing that by setting higher expectations and showing law students how a self-regulating profession is supposed to work.
(As an aside: If cheating is a problem in the legal profession I also think you can attribute much of it to the rise of law and economics and its cost/benefit analyses that encourage any sort of behavior so long as the benefits outweigh the costs. If that's true, then penalties for cheating need to be greater -- for both law students and practitioners who act unethically. However, this only makes it more important for law schools to teach students that as professionals they are expected to adhere to very high expectations. Exam policies that rely more on the honor system and less on surveillance and suspicion are one great way to start teaching those lessons.)
Posted 09:27 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Law School Prison Blues
Mother In Law writes:
Waaayyy back in December, just after finals were done, I received an early Christmas gift from a student at my school. He and another law student had written a parody of Johnny Cash's Folsum Prison Blues called Law School Prison Blues. I had every intention of posting it back then, but ran into some technical problems and couldn't get it done. But I got a little help from ai, and now here it is for your listening enjoyment. Kudos and thanks to Ryan Kasak and Eric Staples!
The brilliance and talent of law students shines again!
See also The Hearsay Exceptions Movie created by one of E. Spat's classmates. And isn't there at least one more brilliant law school musical creation I'm missing?
UPDATE: The song I was missing, again courtesy of Energy Spatula: Come and do your evidence homework with me!
Posted 08:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Beginning of the End
Congratulations to Monica who has finished her last class of law school! Her last class came a bit early compared to the rest of us graduating this spring because dhe attends Northeastern, which is on a quarter system and also requires that students spend every other quarter (I think) working. So she has a quarter left but will spend it “working” Florida. Sounds pretty good, no?
And so the end begins—the end of law school for the Blawgging Class of 2006. According to the calendar, I still have 13 weeks, but three of those I'll be spending on vacation in Wyoming, so it's really 10 (my one and only final is May 4th). Kind of hard to believe it's so close to over—especially when I have so much to do right now.
So I wonder: What is going to happen to this Blawgging Class of 2006? Will the blawgs live one? Will they be abandoned? Destroyed? Will the blawggers keep in touch? Blogging as a lawyer seems, in many ways, more challenging than blogging as any other sort of person b/c there's so much about what you do that's confidential. That said, lots of lawyers have great blogs, so it's obviously possible.
Here's another question: Can anyone think of a good example of a law student blog that has successfully transitioned to a lawyer blog? A couple of examples: L-cubed and Sua Sponte apparently hung up the keyboards (although I sort of suspect they're still posting somewhere and I'm just not privy to the info), and the blogger behind A Mad Tea-Party started blogging at bk! after a year or so hiatus. Andrew Raff, Screaming Bean and E. McPan have all continued blogging, but will that change when they all get the legal job of their dreams?
Do law students quit blogging after graduating because they are afraid to continue? Do they quit because they no longer find it enjoyable? Do they quit because they no longer have the time? Or is there something else going on?
Whatever the case, it will be sad if/when so many of the blogs I read regularly end up on permanent hiatus. That's not to say the imbroglio won't suffer the same fate. We can never tell what the future holds, can we?
Posted 02:34 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Pity the downtrodden landlord
Look! It's a right-wing screed against law school legal clinics! It condemns those clinics for attempting to help those among us who have the least because, well, that's “activism” or something. Instead, it advocates these clinics teach law students to help capitalists and crime victims—those for whom the existing legal and criminal justice system already work. It all makes eminent sense, don't you think?
Thanks to JD2B for bringing this screed to my attention.
Posted 11:54 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Congratulations Caravan4Christmas
Congratulations to Law-Rah for successfully collecting and delivering a truckload of toys to needy kids whose Christmas was dramatically changed by hurricane Katrina. The project was a big one and she and her team had to overcome many obstacles along the way, but they did it and it looks like it was a huge success!
Posted 12:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Hello, Accuracy
The Accuracy Blog appears to be a new blog about law school, politics, and current events by law student Chris Laurel. In one recent post he/she decries the sorry state of legal education and proposes a relatively simple fix: more frequent testing to measure progress and more teaching assistants to help students learn. That sounds like a fine start to me, although I would still add that the 3rd year seems unnecessary, at least in its current “more of the same” form.
Anyway: Welcome to the law student blog thing, Chris!
Posted 03:12 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Holy Tons Of Public Interest Money, Batman!
According to Harvard's new admissions blog, Harvard law gave out over $1.5 million dollars in subsidies to its students engaged in public interest work last summer. Apparently, if you work a summer public interest job, you're guaranteed $4500 from the school. Harvard also has an Office of Public Interest Advising that employs 9 attorneys (full-time, I assume) helping students find public interest jobs.
Just for the sake of comparison, GW gave out something near $160,000 last year in public interest subsidies, and that includes some stipends during the school year so the summer amount was less. GW has no office of public interest advising or anything that would even approximate such a thing, and, as far as I know, it has one attorney and one career office assistant who each spend half their time helping students find public interest jobs.
Obviously it pays to go to the top school, but I never realized just how much. Unfortunately, it looks like Harvard didn't participate in the Equal Justice Works E-Guide to Public Service at America's Law Schools so I can't make more direct comparisons between the two schools. It's not like I'm surprised to learn of Harvard's huge advantage here, anyway, it's just the size of the difference that shocks me.
Posted 06:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
GW Law Profs Blogging Like MadMEN
I noted the other day that GW's SBA seems to be getting its online house in order, but I would be remiss if I did not also note the veritable explosion of GW professors entering (or already in) the blawgosphere. As far as I know, blogging GW professors include:
- Paul Butler at blackprof.com
- Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy
- Spencer Overton at blackprof.com
- Daniel Solove at Concurring Opinions and Balkinization
And speaking of blogging professors, why are so many of them male? Or to put it another way, why are so few female?
Ok, I am so wrong about GW's 4 blogging profs being even a little impressive. According to The Conglomerate, the U of Wisconsin Law School has about 16 faculty blogs, at least two of which are by women—Ann Althouse and Nina Camic. And, of course, Christine Hurt is another female professor blogging at The Conglomerate, so maybe there's more balance out there than I realize. Her institution, Marquette U. Law School, also has at least six faculty blogs, so again, GW's four is looking more anemic all the time.
Still, even if GW is not on the top of schools in terms of numbers of blogging profs, these four are four more than existed (or at least four more than I knew about) when I started school two years ago, so I consider this great progress. Blog on, GW profs, blog on!
Posted 10:47 AM
Get Your Foundation Laid People
Remember that Hearsay Exceptions movie that Energy Spatula gifted us with a few months ago? Well, if you enjoyed that, then check out the new Evidence Song, also courtesy of Energy Spatula. Yes, she had a really talented evidence class!
So again I'm thinking that this should be a whole series. There must be lots of musical talent running around law schools these days—why not set more legal lessons to music? I'll set up lawschoolrocks.com if you people will bring the noise. Maybe we could get Andrew Raff to rock something up for us. His band certainly rocks (I especially recommend Teenage Symphony—I love that song), so why not?
Posted 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Rock the CasBar
No one who is taking the bar this week is going to be reading blogs, and this may come late (some bar exams, like Virginia's, were yesterday, I think, and Pennsylvania's is already on its second day), but who cares? As Kristine says, good luck to you all anyway!
And for those of you who have finished, Congratulations!! How did it go?
Posted 06:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Did You Consolidate?
A month ago I was all about consolidating loans. Divine Angst offered lots of helpful information about the process, but did I do anything about it? Of course not! Not until yesterday when I hurriedly filled out an online form at Access Group. The form said that it was sufficient to lock in the lower rates—filling it out was all I needed to do at this point and Access will process everything in the next few weeks. I'm skeptical, to say the least, but I guess that's what I get for waiting until the last minute. Damn! I've got to stop doing that!
On a lighter note: I must regretfully decline your invitation to appear in court on July 28. Shane! Shane! Come back, Shane!
Posted 07:37 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Thanks GW Class of 2005!
This just in from the GW law school student body president:
This year was the first time a graduating class of our law school has done an organized gift from the law school graduates. The Class of 2005 selected its donation to go to the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) to benefit graduates going into public interest jobs.
The 2005 Class Gift had 52% of the class make a donation, raised over $10,000, and had an alumni donor match the gift 4 to 1 because the class reached 50% participation. In addition, this year's Graduation Speaker, Senator Harry Reid, donated $3,000 to the gift. In total, this year's class provided $56,250 to directly provide assistance for the LRAP program.
Color me impressed! I'm hoping to make GW pay for most of my student loans through this LRAP dealio, so thanks to everyone who donated—and especially to that alum for the 4-1 match! You people rock!
Just because I'm curious, does anyone have any anecdotes about other schools doing things like this?
Posted 06:21 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Aaack! Consolidate Loans or You Will Spontaneously Combust!
Memo to college law students: Consolidate your loans now or pay more later.Yeah, that's right. Rates are low, but they're going up on July 1. You wanna pay even more for this already insanely-overpriced education? I don't think so. So what to do? Well, Access says it will consolidate for you. Access owns my soul, so perhaps I'll let them consolidate it, too. But if you don't want to go that route, NPR did a piece on this recently that might have more options. I'm assured that consolidation is possible even if you're still in school, which is a new thing. Probably everywhere you look you'll find banks jumping to help you with this. They know you're going to pay them lots of money over the life of those zillion-dollar consolidated loans. Mmmm. Feeding the machine. Satisfying, isn't it? Ok, so no, but still, what choice do we have? So consolidate your loans already, will you? You can send the money you save right here. ;-) UPDATE: It appears I don't know as much about this as I thought. (Shock!) If you know more than I do about loan consolidation pros/cons/strategies, or know where I (and others) could learn more, please do share!
Posted 08:30 PM | Comments (8)
Hearsay Exception Movie!
Energy Spatula offers up the very best way to learn about hearsay exceptions—The Hearsay Exception Movie!
The maker of this movie is without a doubt a rockstar. What a great way to study! And he got credit for it, too! My evidence class does not even begin to measure up.
Extra points to anyone who can name the song on which the Hearsay Exception Movie tune is based.
Posted 07:00 AM | Comments (2)
Call Me Killjoy
I was just going through old email and noticed an announcement for a GW end-of-year party that was apparently last Friday at a local bar. I'm sure I wouldn't have gone even if I'd known about itI was sleeping off a 24-hour paper-writing binge at the time. It's only worth mentioning because apparently the student government sponsored the event and paid for the first $3000 in drinks.
Does any other "profession" enable alcoholism the way law does?
Don't get me wrong. I'm a big beer fan and free drinks are really the best kind, but this just strikes me as, well, not the greatest idea. I mean, it's great that the student government organizes and sponsors the party, but why do they need to buy drinks? Law students who want to drink to celebrate the end of the year are going to drink regardless of whether someone else is buying, so if the student government has an extra $3000 to throw around, why not create a summer grant for a needy public interest law student or something?
Yeah, I'm obsessed with funding public interest law students.
Posted 02:40 PM | Comments (5)
Choosing a public interest law school
A reader wrote in recently with a dilemma: He has been offered a “full-ride” scholarship at a school at the higher end of the top 50 in the U.S. News rankings, or no aid but admission at an upper top-20 school. He'd like to do international public interest law related to poverty issues. Which school should he choose? Also, more generally, what factors should he look at for each school to compare them and make this decision?
If you have any thoughts, please share. For starters, here's a slightly edited version of my response to this reader:
First: Congratulations! Getting a full-ride to a top-50 program is an awesome accomplishment!
Second: Knowing what I know now after two years of law school, I would definitely take a full-ride at a top 50 school with a very solid reputation in my desired area of specialty. No question. Why? Because my impression has been that school rank or prestige are probably helpful—even in public interest law—but the difference between upper top-20 and upper top-50 is just not worth the $90-$150k dollar difference involved in a choice like yours. That said, I really don't know what a PI employer (esp. one in international poverty law, for example) would do when faced with a selection of candidates from these schools. My guess is that, most things being equal, the employer would likely want to hire someone from the higher ranked school. Yet, it wouldn't be that simple because you've obviously already distinguished yourself enough to get this scholarship, and I bet whatever earned you that (your previous work in the field, I'm guessing) would also earn you special attention from employers.
So, another way to put this: You're clearly shoulders above the average upper top-50 student, which is why you got the scholarship. That distinction will show through to employers, so I would say your career chances at the upper top-50 school will be nearly as good (if not exactly as good) as at the upper top-20 school. If you were going into BigLaw, the choice would be much harder. But in PI law, my impression is that school rank just isn't that huge a factor. Your resume will be strong from either school so employers will give you a serious look, either way.The quality of your legal training probably won't vary much between the two. Graduating with zero debt (or very little -- I assume “full ride” includes room and board) is huge because it makes you more flexible -- you'll be able to consider a wider variety of jobs w/out making your heavy debt load a major factor in your career decisions. From where I sit, your choice is clear: I would choose the full ride at the upper top-50 school.
HOWEVER, I'm just a 2L and what do I know? Not so much. I'm just speaking for me. You may have different considerations. How do you feel about the possible debt you'd accrue at the top-20 school? Do you see any differences in the two programs (besides the obvious factors of cost and location) that make you lean one way or the other? You may have tried this already, but what if you did this: Remove cost from the equation; assume both schools would cost the same. Which would you attend and why? Now remove cost AND rank from the equation—which would you choose? Doing this will force you to focus on other, possibly more important factors, such as:
- Classes: Look at the courses offered at each school and make a list of 8-10 courses you think you'd really like to take. Does one school have more classes that sound great? Also, call the registration people and ask how often your most desired classes are offered. Many schools list a number of courses in their curriculum materials that are actually only offered rarely. If that's the case, you may choose a school partly hoping to take one or two classes that won't even be offered in the two years you'll be there and taking electives (you probably won't get electives in your first year). The registration people should be able to tell you if this is the case.
- Faculty: Then look at who teaches the classes that really appeal to you. Read their bios. Do any of them sound like people who have done things you want to do and/or who are connected to institutes, nonprofits, gov't orgs or NGOs that you'd like to get connected with? Look at what they've published; you may not be able to read much of it, but you could skim some of the papers and/or read abstracts (many are online via SSRN and other places). Are any of these people doing interesting work? Do any of them make you say, “Yeah, I really would love to know that person and maybe have him/her as my mentor”? In your first year, faculty won't matter nearly as much, so look beyond to the electives you'd want to take.
- Journals: You may have no interest in being on a journal, so this may not be an issue. But if you have even a vague interest, you should look at the journals at each school and also at how you qualify to be on staff of one. If there's one that especially appeals to you (like the “Journal of International Poverty Law” or something), you should contact someone on that journal (phone or email or whatever) to find out how you could get on staff. Do they choose based on grades or writing competition, or both? If grades are a factor, how big a factor? How competitive is it? How prestigious is the journal in its field? Being on a journal in a subject area in which you want to work can be very fun and very helpful to your education b/c you'll read and write on specialized topics in that area.
- Clinics: Clinics are important to PI law and if either school has a clinic or two that grabs you, you should give that school extra points. If there's a clinic that would let you do exactly what you think you want to do, that's a huge bonus. It'll look great to employers and again, it will be excellent training for you. If you want to go further with this, call the clinic director and ask to speak with students who are in or have been in the clinic. Then ask those students what they did in the clinic and what they are going to do for their summer jobs or careers, and whether the clinic was helpful or worthwhile, etc.
- Career services: Does either school have someone one staff who is dedicated to helping PI students get PI jobs in summers and after graduation? GW has a person who does this as part of her job. This is nice, but it means that there's no one working full time year-round to maintain connections with public interest employers, research jobs and connections for you, and generally help you in your PI career building. In contrast, Georgetown has an entire PI office dedicated to this sort of thing. The more resources the school gives to this, the better it will be for you. In addition to what the career services office tells you, try to talk to students who are doing things you think you'll want to do. The career services people should be able to give you a couple of names you could email so you could ask about their satisfaction w/the school's career services, etc.
- Summer funding: As a PI student, you are not so likely to find summer jobs that pay; therefore, it's good to know what grants will be available to you in the summers. For example, GW gave out $165k this summer, spread among approximately 50 people; at least 100 people applied for this pool, meaning only 50% who wanted funding got it. You should be able to find those kinds of numbers for each school. This shouldn't be a deal-breaker factor for either school, but it's one more piece of data that might help you make a choice.
Posted 10:10 AM | Comments (14)
Money Milestone
The deadline for financial aid applications at GW is tomorrow and, of course, I'm just getting around to filling everything out. There's a reason I put this off: Filling out all these forms forces me to face the fact that I have sold my soul. Exactly to whom or what I sold my soul, I'm not sure (did I have a meeting a couple of years ago with Satan, or was that just a dream?), but it certainly does not belong to me any longer.
For the record, today I officially owe the government and various banks just over $100,000. Yeah, that's six figures. Quite an achievement, don't you think? About 1/4 of that is not accruing interest at the moment; the rest grows like every day like some mutant spawn. Including that interest and what I will have to borrow in the coming year, the total should approach $150k before all is said and done. Cool.
You know those counters that show the national debt skyrocketing? I think someone needs to devise one of these for students so we can program in our loan amounts and interest rates and watch our debt grow. Yeah. And we can post these things on our blogs and show the world how poor stupid we are.
How much do you owe? Generally when you hear people bragging about money it's because they have some surplus of it, but hey, I'm all about making lemonade here. Shall we start a $100k and more club?
Posted 10:21 PM | Comments (13)
GW EJF Auction Today!
When haven't been busy not reading and failing out of law school recently, I've been working behind the scenes to help ensure a successful EJF Public Interest Auction. The auction is today, and with 60 cases of beer, 150 large pizzas, costumes, a giant balloon rainbow, and gregarious faculty all set to entertain and auctioneer, it promises to be an absolutely awesome time. And that's not even mentioning some of the incredible donations on offer. I constantly complain about GW's support for public interest law, but I commend GW's faculty for stepping up at auction time to make this a real success. Thank you to all who have donated! See you at the auction! Note: Anyone can help support public interest at GW by donating via PayPal!Posted 08:22 AM | Comments (3)
About Macs at GW and GW Generally
A reader has requested advice about using a Mac at GW (and attending GW generally). GW requires incoming students to have a laptop, and it all but orders them to buy one of two or three Dells with certain features. It explicitly states it does not support any other platform and will not provide any assistance whatsoever to anyone using anything other than a PC. If you choose to use a PC but not one of the recommended Dells, you'll still get some support, but not the full package (whatever that is). So it's basically a PC-only school, yet I've used a Mac there for the past two years, and I'm not the only one. So what's the deal? For anyone who is interested, here are the problems you will *definitely* encounter using a mac at GW: 1) You can't print to the network printers. PC users can print from anywhere in the school via the wireless network to printers located on the second floor (and maybe elsewhere; I don't pay attention since it doesn't work for me). To print anything, you'll have to email it to yourself, check your email on a school computer (there are two PC computer labs where you can always find an open computer), and print from there. I just bought a $125 laser printer and print everything at home except for emergencies when I do the above. Note: Both Lexis and Westlaw give students free printing from their services. This works fine on the mac. 2) You will feel very sad that your computer doesn't crash or freeze or just stop working every couple of weeks or months. You will not be on a first-name basis with the computer help desk -- you may not even know where it is (I don't). You will generally have far fewer things to bitch about so far as your computing goes, and law students really hate not having things to complain about. ;-) That's all I can think of, really. If you've got access to a PC laptop for taking finals, that's all you need. And if you're a relatively comfy mac user who is not phased by the above sort of printing issues or lack of access to a computer help-desk on a regular basis, etc., you'll be fine. If you're someone who maintains his/her own machine now and is going to be comfortable continuing to do so in the future even after you've become a suddenly helpless and pampered law student, you should be fine. Note also: GW tries to further scare you into buying a PC by mentioning that you'll be required to use special PC-only software for your 1L legal writing classes, but they've made this claim for two years now and so far they haven't started using that software and I've heard no further mention of it outside this computer policy rhetoric. My guess is they just throw that around as an extra threat to discourage people from ignoring their orders that you buy a Dell. Whatever. If anyone has other questions about GW, send them along and I will respond and ask any other GW people to respond as well. (That goes for the above, too—if you're a GW student, alum, or professor and have thoughts on computing at GW, please do share!) Generally, it's a fine school, lots of opportunities, some really great professors, good wireless access, sort of crap library but ok if you like old maze-like study environments (and some do), rank-focused, very intent on helping students become BigLawyers and get judicial clerkships, small but still very worthwhile clinical program, supposedly great IP and international human rights programs (I don't know, but that's what I hear), pretty sad public interest support but I'm told it's better than some other places, and....? That's all I can think of right now, so again, I open the floor to any GW peeps who might agree/disagree w/my assessments or have anything to add. I will thank you for explaining why GW is better than I think it is b/c regardless of what I think, I'm stuck here for another year so if you can help me appreciate it more, please do! (And that is not to say that I don't like the school or whatever, only that I think it leaves much to be desired...).Posted 09:25 AM | Comments (15)
How Can Law School Be Different?
I linked to this a couple of weeks ago at Blawg Wisdom, but a group of 1Ls at GULC (including the Scoplaw and Swanno) have started a new site called Law School Can Be Different (LSCBD) as a way to maintain and advance a conversation they have been having about improving legal education so that it better serves both students and society. It's an awesome project and is definitely worth checking out. So far they have focused on a bit of the history of Section 3 at GULC, as well as where legal education stands today as far as they're concerned. I would like to see them expand this into a nationwide dialogue about the purposes of legal education and how more schools could learn from Section 3 and start thinking critically about their own curricula. I have suggested a nationwide conference on the subject. Let's make it in Spring '06, about this time next year, maybe during the Cherry Blossom Festival here in DC so that can be an added incentive for people to come. Invite law students and legal scholars from around the country, but especially try to get participation from those who have written extensively on the subject of reform in legal education. Next year could be the perfect time to do this since it would coincide w/the release of the first Equal Justice Works Guide to Public Interest Law Schools. Anyway, as I mentioned on the LSCBD discussion board, if you're interested in changing legal education, you might also be interested in this recent discussion at law.com in which Stephen Friedman, the new Dean of Pace U. LS, talks about how he wants to change legal education. He says:Yeah, let's align legal education more closely with the needs of firms. That'll be good for society. Right. Some of the other things Friedman says sound a little better. I'm thinking Mr. Friedman should be on the list of speakers at at the upcoming “Law School Can Be Different” conference? What do you think? UPDATE 03-21-05: I've been meaning to say something about this for a while, but on the subject of what's wrong w/law school and how it could/should be different, this critique of law school exams is very helpful. An excerpt:
The rest of the article explains why the typical law school exam is flawed and goes on to denounce the MPRE and the multistate bar exam. Great stuff.
Posted 12:23 PM | Comments (6)
BigLaw Review, Or Why I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love LittleLaw
Now that the GW journal competition is over (it officially ended at 8 p.m. Monday night), I send my congratulations to those who competed. You probably now know more than most people about sex offender registries and you've produced a small piece of what's probably some very good legal writing. Regardless of what you learn in July about being on a journal, you should feel good about what you've done just by completing the thing. In that spirit, I also wanted to comment on the comments generated by this post from late last week. To summarize, a GW 1L had written asking for advice on the journal competition. I offered my two cents, including a few words about how someone might choose which journals to rank highest in their “preferences” list. Self-described BigLaw senior associate and GW alum David Kaufman wrote in to say:He later clarified a bit and Professor Yin and Energy Spatula added some helpful perspective. What I wanted to add is that this is a perfect example of why BigLaw is so not for me. My experience has been that Duncan Kennedy was absolutely correct when he described legal education as training for hierarchy (in an essay by that name), and this discussion about law review v. other journals v. no journal at all is a perfect example of how that training works. Law school is very good at teaching students to think in high stakes, either/or terms about their career choices. It begins with taking the LSAT and applying for schools, where the conventional wisdom is that you must have the highest scores you can possibly get and you must attend the highest-ranked school to which you can gain admission—otherwise, you might as well not go at all. The training continues in the first year with the myriad competitions where you either win and receive congratulations and accolades, or lose and retreat to your outlines to ponder whether you're really good enough or smart enough or whatever to make it in this racket. And, of course, the training goes on throughout school, with still more competitions, ruthless grading curves, and the constant cycle of interviews and job-seeking that sorts people into the best—and everyone else. Isn't that what the “law review or nothing” mantra means? These lessons of all or nothing hierarchy are drilled into most 0Ls to such an extent that they often make foolish choices and end up in programs that don't fit them as individuals and which do not serve their career goals. But quickly they learn that, whatever goals they may have had when they started applying to law school, the only legitimate goal of any self-respecting law student—nay, the only possible goal if they do not want to live a life of shame and poverty, or worse—is to scrap and scrape for every little “distinction” that will earn them a coveted spot w/in the miserable and too often morally questionable corridors of “BigLaw” where they can help perpetuate the dispiriting cycle for the generations to follow. As I've said before, Kennedy's essay is well worth reading in its entirety, but his comments on the firm hiring process are especially relevant to this point. He writes:
As Energy Spatula pointed out well, it's not only students who are poorly served by the myopic mentality of this legal hierarchy, but the profession itself suffers because BigLaw employers too often hire based merely on the “numbers” and credentials, without looking at the individual characteristics that might make a prospective associate a real asset to the firm. She writes:
This, in turn, damages society because it produces a cadre of professionals who have never learned what it means to be a “counsellor at law” or a guardian of liberty because they've been too busy gunning for the illusory golden ring and making sure everyone who follows in their footsteps has to pay the same exorbitant price they paid for the privilege. It's sad, really, and I want as little to do with it as possible. Of course, I'm absolutely certain that there are happy, well-adjusted, kind and humane people working in BigLaw (I know a few of them); it's not satan's own playground, by any means, and I applaud those who recognize that the system is badly in need of change and are trying to do something about it. Still, evidence abounds that the BigLaw hierarchical model is still going strong at all levels of the legal profession. See, for example, the recent discussion on many blawgs about whether it's necessary to attend a top-10 law school to become a law professor. E.g. Preaching to the Perverted here and here (including links to other voices in that discussion). Again, the brutal hierarchy perpetuates itself. Is there some hope in the news that “Gen Y” lawyers are balking at the hierarchy's demands? Perhaps. At the very least, it's sparked some terrific discussion, including this giant comment thread at the Volokh Conspiracy. (See also: Thoughts from Anthony Rickey.) However, reading around that discussion only adds to my cynicism about BigLaw. First, I agree with this comment that much of this could just be normal generational squabbling; in about 1993 I wrote an article for my college magazine about those slacker Gen-Xers, and now it appears I could write the same thing about Generation Y. Another commenter puts it this way:
That's a great comment because it captures the bitterness and resentment of those who have spent their lives trying to rise in the hierarchy. That bitterness and resentment destroys any empathy these battered practitioners may have once had for those following in their footsteps, leaving them, again, with the pyrrhic satisfaction of being able to make sure their successors pay the same high price they paid for their misery. As Kennedy puts it, “[n]othing could be more natural and, if you've served your time, nothing more fair than to do as you have been done to.” If that's not enough, this discussion also offers little hope that anything is changing because it simply reinforces the fact that the legal “profession” has become nothing more than the pursuit of profit for a large and unfortunately influential swath of practitioners. (See, e.g., this complaint that $120k/year really isn't a very big salary.) Perhaps this is the logical endpoint of the hierarchy—like the proverbial snake it begins to eat its own tail. As Kennedy writes, “[t]raining for subservience is learning for domination as well.” Or perhaps not; perhaps what's at work with these “gen-Y” associates is not that they are becoming “rational actors” in the self-serving sense of pursuing their own profit at any cost, but that they are realizing that there's more to life than billable hours and climbing a ladder that may very well lead only to more rungs. For their sakes, and for the sake of society, I hope so.
Posted 08:05 AM | Comments (5)
She's Back!
Hooray! Ditzy Genius has escaped her evil squirrel prison!!! Get on over and welcome her back to the wacky world of these funny little electronic blawg things! Oh, and she made the law review editorial board, as well, so: Congratulations and Welcome Back, DG!Posted 10:10 PM
GW Journal Competition Coming Up Again
A reader who will remain anonymous writes roughly:Well, reader, about all I can say is: Good luck! But I can also say that I enjoyed the competition last year and it really needn't be hard or onerous. Therefore, my advice is to try to have fun with it. The bluebooking isn't all that bad. One way to do it is to look at the shortcuts in the front (or is it back? depending on the directions for the competition, I guess) cover of the bluebook and cite everything based on the examples you see there. Then go through each citation one-by-one, read the rule(s) that govern it, and make sure you've dotted every “i.” If a rule sends you to another rule for some reason, go read it—it might tell you something you've forgotten. Remember to abbreviate appropriately w/case names and other places where abbreviations are allowed/required. Don't forget subsequent history where necessary (according to the rules). What else? That's what's on the top of my head. I've found that when bluebooking, it's best to be as thorough as I can be, then put it aside for a while, then go back and start checking my work against the rules one last time. I always always always find at least some little thing I'd forgotten the first one or two times through. The fun part is summarizing the cases succinctly and constructing an argument from the materials. Make the argument you want to make, not the argument you think some judge wants to hear. If you write what you want to write, it will be better, even if your judges disagree with it. A good strategy may obviously be to summarize the cases first, then free-write your argument quickly, writing it like you would if you were writing a note to a friend or something—casual, your own language, just getting the points down that you want to make. Then go back and revise and expand that into something slightly more formal and support it all w/good citations. That's how I did it, anyway. Oh, one more thing: I'm pretty sure I made it on a journal in large part b/c of how I ranked my choices. If your grades aren't stellar (mine aren't), the best choice is AIPlA b/c it's the only journal that doesn't consider grades. Other than that, obviously make your choices based on whether the subject matter of the journal interests you (your choices are obviously severely limited at our wonderful school w/its paltry four options; not that I think the world really needs more legal journals, but...). I bet I haven't told you anything you haven't heard already, but this is the best I can do. There's really no secret that I know except what I said already: Try to make it fun. If it's not at least a little fun, you probably shouldn't even do it b/c it's not like the work will get better once you're on a journal. I'll be curious to hear from any 1Ls (after the competition, of course) who would like to share how things went for them. Best of luck everyone!
Posted 11:49 AM | Comments (10)
Advice To Law Schools: PI-LRW Sections
I guest-posted today on Notes from the (Legal) Underground. Briefly, the piece argues that law schools could easily boost their support for public interest legal education by filling a small section of their 1L writing programs with public interest students and teachers. Thanks to Evan Schaeffer for graciously providing the forum for the piece. Please comment here or there with any thoughts you might have on the specific idea or on public interest legal education in general.Posted 09:02 AM | Comments (1)
Didn't Wouldn't Couldn't Don't Won't Phooey!
As I work on this paper, I'm reminded: The prohibition against contractions in legal writing is as pretentiously ridiculous and meaningless as is the attempt to make a serious distinction between “lawyer” and “attorney.” To quote tph:See also tph's followup on the lawyer/attorney distinction, emphasizing the counseling aspect of legal practice. Excellent points. Why don't law professors talk like this more often?
Posted 08:29 PM | Comments (1)
2L Summer Job Update
Thanks to everyone who threw in their two or twenty cents in response to my question about the 2L summer job. You all gave me a lot to think about and I was able to make the decision feeling confident I'd considered nearly all angles. The decision? I took the job with the PD office where I worked last summer. Although in an ideal world I would be able to get experience with a different PD's office this summer, I think this was the right choice for several reasons:- I know the office and the people and they know me so I can hit the ground running and get more experience and responsibility, hopefully making it into court representing misdemeanor defendents on my own all the sooner.
- It's getting a bit late to be looking for summer jobs around here and the GW summer stipend deadline is approaching, so it seemed better to take a job where I knew I'd get good experience rather than holding out for a hypothetical job I might not even get and which might not give me the same level of experience even if I did get it.
- While I almost certainly could have found another good PD job somewhere for the summer, I live with my girlfriend and my dog and I'd really rather not leave them for the summer, not to mention the added expense and hassle of doing so.
- I'm currently in a civil law clinic and plan to take at least one crimlaw clinic next fall, plus I've been working for a civil law nonprofit for the past six months, so I'll end up with lots of diverse experience, despite working in the same office for two summers.
- The next several weeks are going to be busy enough; it will be nice to be relieved of the worry of whether I'm going to have a good job this summer.
Posted 02:32 PM | Comments (5)
Tuition Dreams & Nightmares
Now that people are filling out FAFSAs and thinking about financing another year of law school, Mackenzie, a law student at the University of Wyoming, offers some thoughts on UW's proposed tuition hike:Damn! I should have gone to the University of Wyoming for law school! Imagine getting a J.D. for under $20k for the whole shooting match! Of course, if you add in cost of living, maybe you double that, but the in-state Wyoming tuition-payer would still be getting three years of law school for what I pay for one year. Excuse me, I must now return to selling my soul to satan.
Posted 08:19 AM | Comments (9)
2L Summer Job Question
One year ago at this time I faced a dilemma about what to do for my 1L summer. Several of you, my kind readers, offered advice that proved invaluable—you said work for the public defender, I did, I loved it, and now I'm planning to make that my career. With that in mind, the time has come to make another career/summer job decision, and once more I seek your advice. Here's the situation: I worked last summer for a great PD's office where I had a great experience and learned an incredible amount about being a PD. It's a small office (only about a dozen attorneys) in a medium-sized city. I'm thrilled that they have asked me to return this summer, and I'd love to do so. But my question is this: Should I go back to the same PD office I worked in last year, or will that look bad to future public defender employers? The benefits of going back to the same job are that I know them and how things work in the office so I should be able to help them out more and get more responsibility in return. The office is also in a jurisdiction that allows 2Ls to get a “second year practice certificate” so I could represent misdemeanor defendants in court (w/a licensed attorney present and ready to step in at any moment if I start to screw up). Also, returning to the same job should send a message to future employers that I did well there, they liked my work, which seems like a good message to send. So basically, it would be an awesome opportunity that would give me some really good experience. The drawbacks I see are simply that if I return to the same job, my only real knowledge of being a PD will come from this one office and it just seems like it might be a good idea to see how another office does things. What do you think? If you were looking at hiring a new PD, would it matter whether the candidate had spent two summers in the same PD office, or would that make no difference? Any thoughts you have would be appreciated. (Please feel free to throw in your two cents even if you're not a PD yourself or never have been. I'm just trying to make sure I see all the angles here.) Thanks!Posted 08:51 AM | Comments (16)
More Thoughts for Future Law Students
After Brett's question the other day, and thanks to the Scoplaw's recent note about Duncan Kennedy, I went back to the archives and found an extended discussion about the value of a law school rank in attending law school, along with a bit more about my impressions of GW as of last fall. The discussion is in the comments to this post, and those of you who are currently trying to figure out where to attend law school might be interested in some of what you'll find there. The discussion started when reader Phil asked whether I was satisfied with my decision to go to law school. I answered, in part:GW professor Orin Kerr (who writes regularly at the Volokh Conspiracy) joined the discussion, and I especially recommend it to those of you thinking about GW b/c he offers his view of student satisfaction at the school. He also offers tips on getting the most out of law school that could probably apply to any school. For the record, I continue to disagree w/Prof. Kerr about how important school rank is for many public interest jobs. He argues that public/private employers give similar weight to where you went to law school and what your GPA was, but I've been told by countless public interest employers that that's just not true. Public defenders, for example, certainly care about your school and GPA, but they care just as much—or often more—about your extracurriculars, your demonstrated commitment to social justice, public service, and the kind of work they'll ask you to do (in this case, criminal defense). A high GPA does not necessarily correlate in any way with a commitment to the principles and mission of a public interest employer, and since there won't be a big fat paycheck to motivate their new hires, it only makes sense for public interest employers to care much more about demonstrated commitment than about grades or school rank. As I mentioned, this post was sparked by the Scoplaw's mention of Duncan Kennedy's essay, “Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy.” I can't help but point out in this connection that, according to Kennedy's logic in that essay, law professors, law school administrators, and many legal professionals will always tell you that rank, prestige, and GPA are important factors in your success as a lawyer. If you dare to think that's not the case, you'll be breaking out of the hierarchy for which law school is preparing you, and we couldn't have that, could we? Because I think tangentially, I'd also raise in this connection the whole idea of Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) statutes as yet another way the legal profession protects its status quo, preserves this hierarchy, and stands in the way of a legal system that really serves people rather than simply protecting property. That's a debate for another day, but I mention it only b/c, hey, if you're thinking about going to law school, it's another part of what you're getting yourself into. UPDATE: See also: Does Law School Rank Determine Success? [link via JD2B]
Posted 09:52 AM | Comments (2)
GW Summer Stipends
Reader “brett” writes:I wish I had more to tell you, Brett. First, the summer stipends are pretty competitive, but I have no idea how many people apply and don't get anything. I get the impression that the big variables are whether the funding committee thinks your job is worthwhile (and they seem pretty liberal on that), but also whether you've shown some commitment to public interest law. If it looks like you're just taking a public interest job b/c you couldn't land a firm job and you're going to go to a firm ASAP, I think the funding committee is not as happy about that. I knew several 1Ls who got the $5k grants. A good way to ensure that you're one of them is to spend as much time as you can in your first year working for the EJF or some other public interest-type student organization so that you'll have some good stuff on your resume that shows your commitment to this type of work. You could also volunteer for pro bono legal stuff, or perhaps you're entering law school with a good public service and/or volunteering background so you've already demonstrated that commitment. All of those things will help. The ask-a-student thing I don't know much about. I don't recall using it when I was deciding whether to go to GW, and that's the only time I've heard of it. That suggests to me that the people who participate are self-selected or more hand-picked (b/c otherwise I would have seen some notice for volunteers around the school sometime in the last two years). That's just a guess though, I really don't know. Generally, I will confirm what you probably already know: GW is very concerned about its rank and giving prospective students a good impression, so it's very unlikely to leave that to any schmo who is enrolled. I imagine this is true of any law school. During this decision process, take everything you hear from GW or any other school with some serious salt—they want your money, and once you're locked in, they'll be much less responsive to you. This doesn't mean everything is awful once you accept and begin attending, only that as you make your decisions you should try to filter out the sunshine being blown up your skirt from the more substantive things that really are important: Cost, courses offered, professors you think you'll like (read their publications to see if they're working on anything you'd like), courses offered (e.g., I wanted to learn about labor law and many smaller schools don't regularly offer courses in that area, but GW does), location (considering especially where you'd like to work after you graduate), and whether they support macs. Oh, wait, that last one may only be important to me. ;-) For more insight on GW, I highly recommend you also consult others on this list of GW-related blawgs, but esp. Life, Law, Libido (written by GW grads who were very pleased w/their GW experiences), Extreme Indifference to Human Life (who is now apparently running for student body president), Luminous Void, and Idlegrasshopper. The more perspectives you get, the better decision you'll make. Note: I'm always trying to find other GW bloggers, largely for this reason—so that when people like Brett are looking for info about the school they'll have plenty of perspectives. If you're a GW student w/a blog, please say “hi” so I can add you to the list and send mountains of traffic (little tiny mountains; mountains that would look large if you were a flea) to your site. UPDATE: I just glanced at the above again and realized I forgot to include WonL on the list of highly-recommended GW bloggers to query about life at GW, and she should have been top of the list! I'm very sorry for the oversight. Partly in response to this post she has posted some thoughts on her experience thus far.
Posted 06:48 AM | Comments (3)
Overloaded Update
I'm in law school, although you may not always be able to tell from the content here. Often, I talk about anything but law school, which is because I often think about anything but law school, and I sometimes wonder if I should take that as a sign: Is this really something I should be doing if I'd so often spend my time doing something else? But school is not practice, so I dismiss the question. In my spare time (what's that?) I'm trying to read Should You Really Be A Lawyer?. Perhaps that should be filed in the “better late than never category,” but I do wish I'd read this book before taking on somewhere near $100k in debt.* To those of you who are going crazy with anxiety before even starting law school, I say: Go buy this book or check it out from your local library. Read it. Challenge yourself to give it the time and real consideration it suggests you devote to the question of its title. You'll be glad you did, and this will be an excellent use of this interstice between applying and actually going to law school. And why would you want to take this decision very seriously, even if you're already at the point where you've applied or even accepted admission somewhere and already feel pretty committed to going? Well, for one thing, law school can suck. But wait, this isn't supposed to be a big fat advice post. No, this is a big fat whining post. Or just an “oh my gosh I've been busy recently” post. Last weekend alone I had interviews on Saturday (they went well, it seemed), I had to pretend to judge a “client counseling” competition for the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Board,** and I had to complete an “editorial competition” in an attempt to become some sort of editor on the journal next year. It was a busy weekend. Today I have three different interviews to become a “Dean's Fellow,” which is what GW calls the group of 20 or 30? 3Ls who help teach a small section of the first year writing and research course. This weekend I have to finish the second draft of my “note” for the journal, and although I never quite got around to posting what the editors thought of the first draft, I vaguely recall their comments ranging from, “What's the point?” to “This would never work.” So, yeah, still a bit of work to do there. Meanwhile, I'm about 60 pages behind in every class (1-2 assignments), which is actually about the most caught up I think I've ever been at this point in a law school semester, so that's kind of a bright spot, actually. Another bright spot: I got a call-back from one of the employers I interviewed w/last Saturday so I've got interview #2 coming up. It would be an awesome job (the more I think about it, the more I like it), and, if they offered me a job in the next month I may qualify for a GW summer subsidy, so that would be nice. Oh, and did I mention that we're currently days away from a 3-day weekend? It's true. As part of our v-day celebrations, L. was kind enough to give me Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando for the PS2 that has been gathering dust on a dark shelf of our entertainment center for, oh, about the last 18 months or more. Will this 3-day weekend include at least a teeny bit of PS2 time? Um yeah, I think so. (Yes, Ratchet & Clank is kind of a kiddie's game, but I'm kind of kiddie player; I haven't even made it through the first one yet—I gave up at a tough spot after playing the same screens for days. Oh, and I started law school and didn't have time to fight the evil robots and fight for truth and justice and the American way all at once. Now that I see that truth and justice are basically dead and I no longer understand “the American way,” I'd really rather play Playstation.) (I'm kidding about the truth, justice, American way part. Really.) * Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher and will review it in full as soon as I finish it. From what I've read so far, it's worth the price of admission even if I'd had to pay for it—at least for me—but you should know that that opinion is so far based on just a brief skim of the whole book and a close reading of only the first chapter. ** Congrats to all who made the Board; I saw three very professional and polished teams. I hope if you competed you saw the humor in seeing 250 law students (mostly 1Ls) running around dressed up in dark suits and carrying pleather portfolios and bottles of water for their clients. Someone remarked that it looked like GW was holding mass funerals over the weekend b/c of all the dark suits (both for the ADR competition and the job fair.) Incidentally, I was shocked almost speechless by the 1Ls who actually gave their clients four-color business cards; I guess the student government's business card sale last fall was pretty popular with the 1Ls. Scary. I know, I shouldn't be scared of 1Ls with business cards that say “Juris Doctor Candidate” or whatever, but um, I am. Please keep your crazy cards to yourselves, thanks.Posted 08:31 AM | Comments (18)
Leading by Example. Not.
I had two interviews yesterday, both of which went much better than the horror of last week, even if they were perhaps not for jobs I'd like as much. Who knows? Maybe I'd like one of these jobs even more? But the interviews were part of the GW/Georgetown Public Interest/Government Interview Program, and since the US Army and Air Force JAG Corps were there interviewing, the program marked their names with an asterisk followed by this disclaimer:While I was pleased to see this disclaimer, and also pleased that it is so bluntly worded (“this employer discriminates”), I still wish there was more GW could do. And since GW and Georgetown were in this together (GULC had its own disclaimer, more or less similar), it seems they could take this as an opportunity to “make a federal case” out of this. I mean, these are big law schools; what if they gave the JAG Corp the finger and dared the federal gov't to take away all federal funds? I'm thinking the case would probably make it to the Supreme Court and the Solomon Amendment would be history. Or maybe not. Can someone clarify what is going on here? I mean, I see here that the Solomon Amendment was found unconstitutional, yet GW and GULC still apparently fear its consequences. So what gives?
Posted 09:54 AM | Comments (5)
Stay Tuned...
I've got to prepare for class (reading Hart and Wechsler's!) so no time for a real post, but come back later today for a special treat—a guest post from a legendary blawgger! Oh, and on the Hart & Wechsler's, I feel compelled to clarify that I understand many of the questions are not intended in the least to be anything other than questions. Much of the material the book covers involves legal issues to which there really are no “correct” answers, so the book is attempting to raise the issues and get readers to think for themselves. That said, I still think it's a crap approach b/c the authors certainly have opinions about the issues they raise. I'd prefer they state their positions, then discuss competing views as thoroughly and fairly as they can. The pretend neutrality they attempt to achieve through the questions is disingenuous and a little bit condescending, as if the authors thought readers would just blindly follow their positions on these issues if they (the authors) were more honest and straightforward about what those positions were. Wait, didn't I say I had reading to do? More later....Posted 07:50 AM | Comments (3)
Reading Hart and Wechsler's
If you're in law school and you take a course with a name like “Federal Courts” or “Federal Jurisdiction,” chances are probably 100% you'll either use or hear a lot of references to a text that was originally written by Henry Hart and Herbert Wechsler and first published in 1953 (at least that's the earliest publication date listed in my 5th edition). Many people find this book maddening, because it asks as many questions as it answers. However, after reading several hundred pages, I've learned a trick: If you read most of the questions as statements instead of questions, then it's really much more clear. For example, H&W will often write something like: “Haven't courts recognized a power to enforce executive compliance with statutory duties since Marbury v. Madison?” That looks like a question, but it's not. What that really says is: “Courts have recognized a power to enforce executive compliance with statutory duties since Marbury v. Madison! (Duh.)” Do you think most of the questions are really statements? Would you be likely to enjoy reading a book written like this? Is writing in questions a sign of intelligence or a good way to teach, or is it just really, really asinine?Posted 07:11 AM | Comments (6)
Picture Worth Thousands and Thousands of Words
Once again I thank everyone who has sent paintings in response to my request the other day. The gallery is getting rather large and I'll definitely be making a special display page for all your masterpieces just as soon as I can. Meanwhile, because the paintings are disappearing from the “front” page here, I just wanted to make sure you see this one in action: Lawrah with “Law Student View” (action!)
If you go to GW you'll know that Lawrah has almost precisely captured the experience of sitting in most large lectures there. I have a funny feeling the picture is not too different at many other law schools around the country. Absolutely frakkin' priceless (nodding to BSG for the otherworldly adjective).
Painting is therapy, and come on, you know you could use some of that. If you haven't painted a picture on ArtPad yet and sent me a link, um, why not? ;-)
Posted 09:36 PM | Comments (1)
Margin Notes to the SCOTUS
If you're a law student, do you make notes in the margins of your books as if you were talking to the writer of the book or the case you're reading? I do. It's kind of like talking to the tv, which I also can't help doing, much to the dismay of everyone who watches television with me, I'm sure. Example: I was reading the opinion in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), in which the Supreme Court held that the “critical element” required to justify a search warrant “is reasonable cause to believe that the specific 'things' to be searched for and seized are located on the property to which entry is sought.” The facts of the case are that the cops thought a newspaper photographer had taken photos of some “demonstrators” who “attacked” a group of police officers. Since there was no reason whatsoever to believe the photographer (or anyone else at the newspaper) had committed any crime, did the police have “probable cause” to get a warrant to search the newspaper offices for the photos? Of course, the Court said “yes.” Then it turned to the newspaper's First Amendment argument that such a search infringed upon the guarantee of freedom of the press. The Court wrote:My margin note: “The timely publication won't matter much if the content is vapid b/c the paper's free expression has been trampled by intimidating searches!” The opinion continues:
My margin note: “That's a lot of ifs.” And finally: