Best Laid Plans

jd2b links to "some uncharacteristically serious thoughts about pro-bono work" from the dubiously named Mr. Poon.* Mr. Poon is a 2L, looking forward to working with a firm in NYC this summer, and possibly again after he completes his J.D. Yet, he hopes he continue to do the kind of rewarding pro bono work he's doing now as a student. I asked how he plans to avoid becoming the kind of "a-hole" he's been doing battle with recently, and his response is worth a look. Basically he says that, as a lawyer, you've got to try your best to convince your clients to do the right thing, but if they insist on doing the wrong thing, you still have to do your best to represent them. I'm guessing this will be one of the harder things for me to learn or accept as a lawyer. My idea is that, by working in public interest law, I'll be able to avoid working for clients who would ask me to be an a-hole, but as this exchange between st and myself suggests, it's likely things won't be quite that simple. st writes:

I do know one thing, though - the market for full-time public interest legal positions at ANY level of salary and benefits is more cutthroat and competitive than the market for work in the private sector. I suppose the only good advice I can give is the most obvious - do really, really, really well in law school, and many of these issues will become, ahem, academic.

Yet another thing I so don't want to believe, but I'm sure st is correct. I suppose this is why I chose GW; if the public interest market is so competitive, I'll need every advantage I can get. GW's no trinity school, but, well, I'll take what I can get.

Meanwhile, now that the big "where do I go to school?" decision it's over, the anxiety topic du jour is: How much preparation do I need to do before school starts? So Sue Me and her commenters have some thoughts on the matter. Me, I'm still trying to get the house painted and electrified (do not, under any circumstances, ever attempt to rewire your house—trust me). I'll stress over how much I don't know about law school a little later, I'm sure.

UPDATE: Life, Law, Libido also has some good thoughts on the subject of paying for law school w/out working for firms. [Link via Left Coast Expat.]

Footnote:
I'm guessing from the Chevy Chase photo on Mr. Poon's main page that "Mr. Poon" is a movie reference? My cultural ignorance is very deep, w/regard to Chevy Chase; I admit he's one of those funny people I just don' "get." Not to say I never will. Much humor is an acquired taste. I seek enlightenment in all things.

Posted 11:40 AM | Comments (2) | law school

Priorities

The loss and destruction of the artifacts that were in Iraq's museums is being lamented worldwide as a loss for humanity. Scott Rosenberg has one version of the many comparisons being made between the U.S.'s inability to protect these cultural treasures, even as it seemed perfectly capable of protecting Iraq's oil. As I noted briefly in the comments below, the fact that the U.S. did nothing to stop the destruction of Iraq's cultural history only proves that its real interests in the country and region are economic. This "war" was about freedom, all right, the freedom of western capital to open new markets and make more money. Where's the $ to be made in museums and historical artifacts? Perhaps on the black market, so the looting was really a good thing—it opened a whole new market to trade and commerce as the looters begin to sell what they stole. Not that that was anyone's plan, necessarily, but what's certain is that the U.S. planned deliberately to protect the oil and the oil ministry (which it did), and it also planned deliberately to do nothing to protect Iraq museums, which were consequently destroyed. Now it's easy for Dumbsfeld and Yubbledew to claim they didn't "allow" the looting to happen, but then, lying has always come easily to this administration. Current priority: Let's get those damned sanctions lifted so we can start making some money from our new colony. Bechtel has millions to make, thanks to its, um "connections." Who's next?

Posted 09:25 AM | general politics

Who's Starting What?

These people say they want to take away Michael Moore's Oscar for "Best Documentary" because his film is "fictional," meaning it does not contain just the facts, ma'am. Sure, Moore is an infamous truth-stretcher, but lots of stories stretch the truth to make a point. But if we want to talk about truth-stretchers, what about the people behind this "revoke the oscar" business? They only care because they disagree w/Moore. All are "true patriots" and defenders of "freedom," I'm sure. A couple of clicks from the revoke the oscar site gets you to this site that implores you to "never forget who started it." Funny how they don't tell us who "who" is or what they mean by "it." Those details probably don't matter, though—just never forget, ok? Of course, one look at this site and we'll never forget who's selling it.

If you enjoy the complete lack of concern good "patriots" show about sticking to the "facts," pick up the most recent edition of Harper's and read this transcript of a Feb 4th interview between Jeremy Glick and Bill O'Reilly on FOX News' "The O'Reilly Factor." Glick's father was a Port Authority worker who died in the 9-11-01 destruction of the World Trade Center; yet, despite that, Glick is outspoken in his condemnation of the 2001 U.S. attack on Afghanistan, as well as the recent occupation of Iraq. This makes O'Reilly apoplectic; he comes apart like a robot on bad code: "That does not compute. Error. Error. That does not compute!" For superfun, check out this mp3 version of the interview. Obviously, the last thing O'Reilly wants is to remember—or even talk about—who started "it."

Posted 08:50 AM | Comments (4) | general politics

Just Ask

If you're the poor soul who came here looking for "a person who knows everything," you've come to the right place. Ask away.

Not.

Posted 07:54 AM | meta-blogging

Decision's Day After

Browsing the discussion board for students admitted to GW I find this (which you probably can't access, but I wanted to save the link):

I talked to the dean in charge of Financial Aid during the preview day about the Loan Repayment. He said that currently, it only applies to certain public service jobs. Govt repays something like $8k a year each year you work in a DA’s office or as a public defender. They do not do this for DOJ or other government agencies. Repayment for that depends on the agency in question, most of which dont.

Basically, look to spend a year or two in the private sector to put a dent in the debt.

I so don't want to believe this is true. When I visited, I talked with the Public Interest Liason in the Career Development Office about the LRAP, and he, of course, made it sound a bit better. He estimated that in recent years, only 21-22 graduates each year have participated in the program, which is obviously not many. Perhaps what he didn't tell me (and what I think I failed to ask), is what types of jobs are eligible. Looking again at the program's details, the criteria for eligible jobs seem reasonable and the major limiting factor will probably be the income cap. The "target income" the program tries to give grads is $35k, which isn't much, but it is enough to live on. I hope. I assume the reason so few people use the LRAP is simply that it's not too hard to find a job that pays more than $45k, and since the LRAP will pay a max of $8k/year, you'll come out ahead just skipping the LRAP altogether.

LRAP aside, in the interest of staving off second thoughts—or answering them when they come—I want to note one more rather important argument I considered in the decision about where to go to school. It's a bit abstract, but I get the impression that while American is concerned with helping the people who get screwed by social structures (bad laws or absence of laws, bad social policy or lack of policy, etc.), GW may be a better place to learn how to change those social structures so that fewer people will get screwed in the first place. For example, if you're concerned about domestic violence, it seems you could work on the issue on two levels:

1) You could represent and work with clients who have suffered abuse to help them, one-by-one, get justice and go on to better lives; or,

2) You could head to a larger group like NOW (for example) to try to change—via legislation and test cases in court—the social policies that seem to encourage domestic violence in the first place (e.g., certain aspects of welfare policy, maybe).

If you choose option 1, you're working "in the trenches," which is incredibly noble, absolutely necessary, and completely worth doing, but progress is slow, case-by-case, and the cases will probably just keep coming. If you choose option 2, you're working on the structure in the hope that your work will have wider, and perhaps more lasting effects. So the idea is to work on option 2 in order to obviate the need for option 1. (It's not that simple, I know, but I'm just trying to make the point.) Of course, you can always do both kinds of work, and I'm sure both American and GW will prepare you to do either or both. However, it also seems that going to a "better" (meaning higher ranked) school will put me in a better position to work on those larger, structural issues. It may be as simple as the connections the different schools help students make. American seems to promise lots of connections to grassroots, legal aid type public interest work; while GW might promise more connections to things like think tanks, national lobbying groups, government offices, etc. Of course, I could be wrong.

Anyway, it's time to think about other things. Decision made, time to get behind it. For those of you who haven't yet enjoyed a visit to GW, the newly-christened Left Coast Expat recently posted some nice pics of the Law School buildings and "courtyard." It's urban, with personality and a certain charm. Downtown D.C., very easy to get to, close to all that D.C. is famous for. It's all good.

Posted 07:53 AM | Comments (8) | law school

It's Done

Have you seen that commercial for the Volkswagen Passat? A guy gets a call from someone claiming to be his Future Self. The Future Self gives the guy advice: don't take job X and stay away from woman Y. Oh, and buy the Passat. "Trust me, it's the one decision you'll always be happy you made," Future Self says. Recently I've wished for just such a call from my Future Self. I've wished I would call myself from 3-5 years in the future and tell myself which law school I should attend. But after waiting to nearly the last minute for such supernatural serendipity (this blog isn't called ambivalent imbroglio for nothing), I finally made the choice.

For the last couple of weeks I've been mentally preparing myself to go to GW. At least that's what I told everyone I know. But as decision-time neared, I was increasingly nagged by a little voice saying, "but, but, American is such a cool place!" That voice reminded me that I've never cared about rankings before, that the class I attended at American was so much better than the classes I sat through at the other schools, that American's facilities and clinical programs are superb, and that the public interest orientation I sensed at American was exactly what I've been looking for in a law school. "You'll be so much more comfortable there," the nagging voice said. Plus, I still hadn't heard about financial aid from American; I hoped that would make the decision for me.

It didn't. American basically matched the financial deal GW offered, which didn't really help. By all accounts, GW is a much stronger school than American, so it seemed I'd need a much better financial deal from American to make it more attractive. Still, I couldn't decide. So I started comparing stats:

• How long would it take to get from our apt. in Silver Spring to school? Time on train to Farragut North metro station is 25 minutes, plus a 5-10 min. walk to GW. Time on train to Tenleytown-AU metro station is 30 minutes, plus 5-10 shuttle ride to WCL (plus possible wait time for shuttle, which supposedly runs every 30 minutes). Advantage: GW.


• Student/Faculty ratio: GW = 17.9; AU = 16.7 Advantage: AU.


• Employment at graduation/after 9 mos.: GW = 96.3/98.6; AU = 82.0/94.6. Advantage GW.


• Bar Passage rate: GW = 89.9 NY; AU = 69.6 MD. Advantage: GW.


• USNWR Specialty ranks: GW = #9 Environmental, #2 IP, #6 International; AU = #3 Clinical, #7 International. Advantage: Depends. I'm more interested in clinical-related things than IP or International (I think).


• Lietner Specialty rankings: GW = 15th in Administrative and Environmental, 17th in Constitutional, 10th in International and Comparative, ; AU = 15th in Critical Theories, 14th in International and Comparative. Advantage: GW, but barely.


• Especially appealing extras: GW = Legal Activism class; AU = Marshall Brennan Fellowship program. Advantage Even.


• Employment in Govt/PI/Clerks/Academia: GW = 9.5/3.9/10.7/0.5; AU = 18.7, 5.1, 9.8, 1.2. Advantage AU.

I compared many more variables, of course, but no matter what, the decision seemed to boil down to this:
A) I could play it safe, following the nearly unanimous advice I've received and read (advice influenced in no small part by rankings, of course), and go to GW; or,
B) I could throw caution to the wind, following my "gut" and the romantic siren song of a school that seems to think like I do, and go to American. I'm definitely a romantic at heart, and I've made many big decisions in life by standing on principal and ideals (e.g., graduate school in English). Sometimes it works, but often I've ended up feeling like I'm just beating my head against a wall as I realize that no matter how much I wish the world were different or how strongly I believe in something, the world won't change just for me, and to a large extent it doesn't give a damn about what I believe (e.g., graduate school in English).

I chose "A." My seat deposit is currently making its way to GW through the U.S. Mail. I hope my Future Self will someday tell me this was the right decision. Meanwhile, if you're going to GW, see you there.

Posted 07:06 AM | Comments (2) | law school

Threads of Anxiety

I know I shouldn't, but I keep returning to the Princeton Review Discussion Board to see if I can learn anything that will help me make this final decision about where to go to school. Mixed in with the asinine juvenilia (I'm sorry, am I showing my age), the board offers some interesting bits. For example, from "Why did American fall out of T1?" (which, in the interest of full disclosure I'll admit I started) we get this reasonable answer:

yeah, I heard the drop was due to overenrollment. less expenditure per student, and the student/faculty ratio went up, which I know USNWR considers quite a bit. But I kind of think the ratings are bullshit: I have a hard time believing that Pitt, University of Alabama, Maryland, and others are better schools (Pitt gave me a full ride, american gave me nothing, which makes me think quality of american applicants are higher than Pitt, at least) I'm sure its mostly political, and something like 40% of USnews rankings are based on name recognition, which seems kind of dumb to me. I personally think American sounds better than GW if you want to do Int'l law or Public Interest, but if you want a big firm job maybe GW is better? I don't know that for sure, but that's the impression I've gotten from other people on this board, that GW=big firm (although I've heard that students there aren't as friendly as American) good luck in your decision, I'm sure both schools are great, have their strengths and weaknesses, etc.

And from the same poster (confused4321) we get this in answer to the question of whether AU is a conservative or liberal school:

I haven't visited the school, but I "asked a current student" on the admitted students website that question, and he told me that AU is more liberal than most schools because of the people who go for public interest, and that AU in general is more liberal than most law schools. thats all I know

And finally, from "What do you think of George Washington Law" we get this from a 1L at GW:

I've found it both friendly and fun. My classmates are all friendly and I haven't really experienced the mean competitve spirit that is sometimes associated with GW.

This goes for most law schools, but every Thursday there's a bar review. These are lots of fun and they're usually well attended. We occasionally socialize with our professors- last semester two of our professors who are neighbors invited the section over for a picnic, which was nice.

People are certainly focused on school here, but I think most keep a balanced life.

One thing I must say I don't like about the school is the library. It's too small, the computers suck, and it's not aesthetically appealing. I think they'll remedy this in the coming years, but probably not before I'm gone.

I agree about the library—the weakest part of GW for me, as well. Anyhoo, food for thought as the game enters overtime...

Posted 08:18 PM | Comments (2) | law school

Law Schools Phone Home!

Gee, there's really nothing better than an entire Monday (or at least the second half of it) spent waiting for the mail to come and the phone to ring. My calls to AU and GW yielded zilch. AU says try back in the morning and they'll have some kind of offer. I applied in December, kids; can you hurry the f#&! up? ;-)

Today's real ire is directed squarely at GW's financial aid office, which refused to tell me about my revised aid package (after the "request for reconsideration" I sent them last week) over the phone. I tell the woman my name, rank, and serial number, I wait, she comes back and says, "Your reply was mailed on the 11th. It should be in the mail soon."

Me: Uh, you do know the deposit is due tomorrow, right?

Her: Yes, I know that. You should get something in the mail within a couple of days.

Me: (thinking to myself, 'she's staring at a screen that holds my fate and she's not going to tell me what it says!?') Could you tell me what the letter that is coming in the mail will say?

Her: No, I can't tell you that information over the phone.

Me: (getting snippy) Can you fax it to me?

Her: Hmph. What's your fax number? I don't know if I can get to it. We're very busy. I'll try to do it by the end of the day.

Did she send the fax? No. Does GW seem like a nice place to go to school? No.

Perhaps I'll just ditch the whole law school thing. Who needs all that debt, anyway?

In other great news, check out this poster and welcome to Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. Yay.

Posted 07:41 PM | Comments (1) | law school

Do you realize?

Sorry I'm ripping off The Flaming Lips for the title of this post, but did you realize it's almost April 15th? Not only is that tax day, it's also the day that every law school I'm considering wants its deposit. In other words, my little game of indecision (Where should I go to school!?) is almost over. I can't believe the 15th is already nearly here. Where did the time go? Tomorrow I'll make two more hail-Mary calls to GW and American to see if last week's faxes did any good, and then the check will be in the mail. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for lawyers is rising:

The Labor Department says that white-collar unemployment is the highest it's ever been, nearly 9 percent. For lawyers, at 1.2 percent, it's the highest since 1997. While that rate is low in absolute terms (in 2002, 11,000 unemployed out of 940,000), it's up sharply from 0.8 percent in 2001 and 0.6 percent in 1999. In other words, attorney joblessness jumped by half last year and has doubled since the Internet boom's peak.

[Link via Jd2B.] On the positive side, it seems the areas of law suffering the most—tech and other types of corporate law—are areas in which I'm highly unlikely to end up. Besides, this little recession we're in is going to turn around, right? I mean new markets are opening all the time.

Posted 11:30 PM | law school

What's Unreasonable?

If you want to start an interesting discussion, perhaps you should play the devil's advocate. That seems to be what Philip Greenspun is doing when he says public education should not teach "critical thinking" because it's better for the economy to have a nation of mindless drones. [Link via Scripting News.] Judging by the comments, it seems Greenspun's post has become both a test of readers' critical thinking skills, and its own proof that our public schools are failing to provide those skills—many of the commenters seem unaware that Greenspun's post is a parody of the neoliberal view of education. Of course, it's possible that the commenters are merely extending the parody, in which case I'm the one who doesn't "get it." Either way, it's a smart strategy: The argument proves itself. As commenter Mike Owens says, "Johnathan Swift would be so proud."

Another commenter offers this gem from George Bernard Shaw:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

To which I say: Let's all be unreasonable. But wait: Who defines "reason," and what constitutes "progress"? Perhaps what saves us from complete fascist tyranny is that we can never seem to agree on the answers to these fundamental questions.

Posted 10:41 PM | general politics

Making Iraq Safe for Capitalism

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ronald Dumsfeld says Iraqis are now free to do bad things. Lucky for them, they'll also retain their "freedom" to have bad things done to them. Right now, chaos appears to reign in Iraq, but that won't last long for the simple reason that there's a lot of money to be made there. In fact, the amount of money to be made is probably directly proportional to the completeness of Iraq's destruction, because the more the looters steal or destroy, the more "help" the country will need to rebuild. And that "help" will, conveniently, come from U.S. corporations being paid by U.S. tax dollars and Iraqi oil receipts. As Naomi Klein writes:

The process of getting all this infrastructure to work is usually called "reconstruction." But American plans for Iraq's future economy go well beyond that. Rather, the country is being treated as a blank slate on which the most ideological Washington neoliberals can design their dream economy: fully privatized, foreign-owned and open for business.

…

Some argue that it's too simplistic to say this war is about oil. They're right. It's about oil, water, roads, trains, phones, ports and drugs. And if this process isn't halted, "free Iraq" will be the most sold country on earth.

So what does it mean to say the Iraqis are free? Under Saddam Hussein Iraqis were subject to abuse and exploitation; under a U.S.-installed "democracy" they'll continue to be subject to abuse and exploitation. But while Saddam ruled by physical force, the new regime envisioned by the U.S. will rule Iraq through the same economic and psychological force that controls the Western world. Henceforth, Iraqi citizens will be "free" to drink clean water, eat an adequate diet, get a quality education, and receive adequate health care—as long they can pay Western corporations for these basic human needs. Free markets only give those who own capital the "freedom" to make money. But of course, the looters know this, so they're busy accumulating as much capital as they can before their window of opportunity closes and Western corporations take over—under the complete protection of U.S., er, I mean, "coalition" military forces.

Oh yes, the Iraqis are now "free," but we all know that guns and money will win in the end. If capitalism is such a great system, why does it require such massive military force to succeed? The dream, I suppose, is that eventually the military won't be necessary. Perhaps someday all the world's people will become just like Americans who, as Matt Taibbi explains, are the best subjects in the world:

There’s almost nothing you can’t get away with doing to an American. Take away his health insurance and he’s likely to fall to his knees in gratitude. You can tell him to his face that you’re pulling funding for his kids’ schools in order to bail out some millionaire stockbroker in Connecticut who overbet the peso–and he not only won’t get mad, he’ll swell up with pride and burst out singing the "Star-Spangled Banner." You can even steal his pension and gamble it away in Vegas, and the most he’ll do is sulk a little.

Taibbi paints a cynical picture, but it's no less accurate for its vitriolic condescension. Taibbi's solution is to hit corporate America in the pocketbook with a massive boycott—"a self-defeating gesture, to be sure, but we didn’t get to drink the British tea, either." I wonder what Dumbsfeld would say to that. Oh yeah: "Send in the troops!"

Posted 04:44 PM | Comments (3) | general politics

Fahrenheit 911

FYI: Michael Moore's next movie sounds like it'll be incredible—incredibly good, or incredibly bad; it sounds like his goal is to force an extreme response. According to Frank Rich (as republished on Moore's own site):

His next film, titled "Fahrenheit 911," is scheduled for release in the two months before Election Day. It tells "in part the story of twin errant sons of different oilmen," he says, and will stir together the pre-9/11 intersection of Bush and bin Laden family business interests when both had ties to the Carlyle Group. Such connections "may mean nothing," Mr. Moore concedes. But then he recalls Jane Mayer's article in the November 2001 New Yorker about the private Saudi jet that the Bush administration permitted to fly 24 members of the bin Laden family out of the country after 9/11, before they could be questioned in detail by the F.B.I. "Here's one question I want to pose," he says. "What if on the day after Oklahoma City, Bill Clinton, suddenly worried about the safety of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo, allowed a jet to pick them all up and take them out of the country, not to return?" You can already fantasize how Mr. Moore, once he is turned away from the White House, might travel to Kennebunkport to pursue the first President Bush in retirement much as he did Charlton Heston in "Bowling for Columbine."

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

Posted 04:41 PM | ai movies