Crisis resolved (?)

Law students have a reputation for being pretty high-strung, loving to argue, and refusing to concede damn near anything. How fair is that reputation, given my current state of mind, I don’t think I’m in any position to make that judgment.

Law Reviews and Journals tend to attract the “best” law students, so… you make your own conclusion on how the previous sentence relates to this one.

As for the people who are chosen to lead these organizations… again, make your own conclusion.

When you put the heads of all of these leaders in the same room and try to get them to agree to any sort of change, it’s just asking for trouble (and a three hour meeting). I didn't realize that what would actually happen was pretty close to what I suggested in my previous post.

That being said, due to some crazy series of events, a person who probably had no business being at this meeting was there – me.

Chup has done a great job of covering the events, but he left out the best quote of the meeting. From Dean Albright: “due to this, I learned all about blogs.” Other than that, I cant add anything. If you want to know what happened over there, check out the Goat Sucker’s site.

Office Space Crisis

A lot has been said about the current space “Crisis” at the Law School. I don’t think there’s much I could say that hasn’t been said already. However, one name that I haven’t seen mentioned is Powers. I wonder how much (if any) responsibility President Dean Powers should bear.

If King Sager’s comments are to be believed, that we are a bazillion sq feet in the hole, it didn’t happen overnight. This looks to be a growing problem that was never addressed. The King has only been on the throne for a year, this appears to be a problem that grew under Powers and now has to be dealt with by Sager.

That said, if we are so in the hole for space, why is the Law School starting new clinics?

As for the Journals now having to fight it out for office space, I propose a old-school, WWF-style, Law Journal Royal Rumble. Maybe even a cage match. Take all the EICs and MEs, throw them in together with no rules and no witnesses, last one standing allocates the space.

Thank you Westlaw

This still doesn't make up for not following through on a promise of breakfast, but it's, well... interesting.

I picked this up from Westlaw on what I like to call "Free Crap Day" at the law school. It was in a basket filled with the usual Westlaw swag (mug, water bottle, candy, etc.). I suppose it is better than the normal stress balls the law firms give out, but I still find this odd.

And yes, I know that neither playing with my new toy, digitally recording it, nor posting it online, is helping me, in any way, to write my seminar paper or help me get a job. To tell you the truth, it's not even relaxing or even pleasurable. I think it's because of the rather disgusting sound this thing makes when I squeeze it.

Anyhow, you'll probably want to make sure your computer is on mute when you play this clip.


UPDATE: Nothing really to add other than that my Westlaw Weststalker has added to to his Google Reader. I'm flattered.

Unemployment sucks

Yes, it sucks the Big One.

It appears that the job I thought I had for the summer has fallen through, so I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I’m the only 2L who still has no job. This sucks big time and I have no idea what to do. If I don’t find something by Friday I may have to resort to blind calling attorney’s from the yellow pages and beg for work.

The only thing I’m fairly certain of is that this summer I won’t be in Austin.

I suppose I could register for Summer classes, but I don’t think that would benefit me very much. You see, I’ve made some commitments that are year long in Austin, so even if I graduate in December, I’ll still have to be around the school taking care of things I thought I’d be a student to do.

Man, this bites. Bites hard.

I need a (few) drink(s).

If anyone out has any ideas about how a desperate law student can find employment, please post a comment or email me.

Eliminating finals

At the risk of sealing the Debaucherous One’s thunder, I think I came up with an idea to eliminate finals. Someone told me one of his classes was changed to pass/fail status a few weeks ago once a significant breach of anonymity occurred.

My idea is to have a large portion of students in any given class email the professor their exam ID. You would have to make sure the ID is in the subject field so the prof can’t get out of this by saying he didn’t open the email. Of course not everyone will do this, since the people who have been outlining since February are confident in their A+, but I’m sure there has to be some critical point in which the anonymity s sufficiently compromised so that the class has to be changed to pass/fail.

Who’s with me in testing out my theory?

I’m getting forgetful in my old age

It seems I forgot to wish every one a good day for Vladimir Lenin’s Birthday, also known as Earth Day.
So if it’s not too late, I hope you have a good one.

Just Curious…

…why someone who has a blog would post things and then later pull them.

I would assume that the majority of regular readers come by the blog to see the author’s thoughts, observations, opinions, or, in my case, the occasional incoherent ramblings. In reality, I have no idea why anyone would come to this blog. Why then, would a blogger write something and later take it down. I have considered taking down posts I’ve put up in the past, but pretty much see it is trying to un-ring the bell and, to the best of my memory, have never done so.

What’s the point of this post? I don’t know. I guess I’m being too preachy and offering unsolicited advice when I am the last one who should be giving advice on blogging. I guess my final thought on this is, think twice, then think twice again before posting. Now, take care of yourselves – and each other.

Heart Attack

That little pop you heard was the sound of my heart exploding when I learned today that my seminar paper is due one week before I thought it was.

Legal Marketing

I’m sure I’m not alone in noticing how horrible the legal profession, as a whole, is at marketing. Sure, most BigLaw firms are pretty good especially when it comes to websites, but I’m talking more about small firms.

Take the image below which I stole from a small firm’s website. They picked a nice one for the family law section, but couldn’t they have picked a better photo for their criminal defense section?

It seems to me that the image you should use should be one that engenders sympathy. You see the happy family and if you need a family lawyer, you might think “gosh darn it, I want my family to be like that so I’m going to hire this firm.” Makes sense, right? Then how do you explain using a line of cocaine to promote your criminal practice? I suppose it could have been worse. After all, they do mention “sex crimes defense” so they could have shown a dirty old man with a lollipop calling a little kid.

Wishful thinking

Just in case any of my regular readers and wondering what to give me for my birthday, here’s a suggestion. I believe that it is currently only available in authorized La Casa Del Habano stores.

Sho Bid’nes

I don’t normally call this kind of thing, especially this early in the year, but I smell Oscar®.

Ascher

I just don’t get people’s infatuation with Prof. Acher.
I had the misfortune of taking him for FIT. Maybe it was just the subject matter, but I didn’t like the class at all. His dry, monotone style and humor, was pretty good at first, but got to be boring and annoying by the end of the semester.

I honestly couldn’t stand the thought of taking W&E with him. I took Johanson for the class and in the class he assigned some of Ascher’s writings and I can’t honestly imagine him teaching the course.

Oh well, diff’rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

And just a flashback to the most satisfaction I got out of taking Ashcer for FIT:
And to answer a few questions I got last time I posted this: Yes, that is me burning the Tax Code. Yes, that was the book from the course. Yes, I probably could have sold the book. Yes, it was worth it.

Sad News

Sad proof that no Bee Gee should ever, ever, own anything once owned by Johnny Cash.

So wrong

SadKermit.com is so wrong on so many levels. I thought the part with Kermit and the picture of Miss Piggy was the worst it could possibly be, then came the scene with Rowlf. Oh, Rowlf, say it ain’t so.

Hoppy Easter

Yes, it was nearly one year ago this email was sent:

Dean Sharlot is canceling tomorrow’s (Friday, April 14) class and wishes you a "hoppy" holiday.

Cleaning out the Law Mail

From the CSO:
The 2007 CCS Professional Etiquette Dinner is sponsored by Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Philip Morris USA.

I’m sure there is a logical reason to pair up these two companies to sponsor an event for the law school, I just don’t see it.

I don’t recall either of them at OCI. Maybe they are building themselves up for next year.

I pity the fool who don’t follow these links.

A couple weeks ago, some friends were discussing someone who is arguably one of the greatest thespians of our time. I’m speaking, of course, of Mr. T.

Before you know it, we’re (I'm) checking out the Mr. T Wiki page learning all kinds of interesting facts about him. For instance, did you know his legal name is Mr. T and his middle name is the .?

Screw Chuck Norris, I’d take T over Walker any day.

Back to Mr. T, no online conversation about him would be complete with this link. Not only is he a great actor, but that video proves him to be a genuine “triple threat.” He can act, sing, and dance. Too bad he didn’t write the lyrics, I understand those are attributed to his presumed (by me) son, Ice T.

He also a fount of wisdom (“Be somebody, or be somebody’s fool”) and has great, timeless, fashion sense.

Conversation

This is a rough transcript of a conversation I had with a friend. I will not disclose which party I was.
Friend 1: I’m on my 5th taco, is that bad?
Friend 2: Depends. Is this a snack or dinner?
Friend 1: For me, dinner. If it were you, snack.
Friend 2: If loving tacos is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Email from the Dean, Annotated [and shortened]

Many of you will have learned that while UT Law held its own in the annual reputational survey conducted by U.S. News [What ever happened to the “and World Reports” in the name?] among lawyers, judges and law professors, we slipped in that journal_s [I hate it when the cut-and-paste function changes ‘ to _ ] overall ranking of Law Schools. Our scores in the reputational survey placed us at 14th, in a cluster with Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern and several other leading law schools. Our overall ranking, however, was 18th. I am writing to assure you that this is wholly the result of a reporting anomaly that will affect us in no future year. [So, pretty please, don’t fire me the way U of H fired their Dean over rankings. After all, it’s only been a year.]

Last February, the Law School reported its graduate employment data to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP)… [The short version of this is that Law Schools manipulated their data in a way different from how we chose to manipulate our data.]

This will not happen again [damn it!]. Leslie Oster [I’m glad it’s not my name in this sentence], our Assistant Dean for Strategic Planning, has become an expert in the U.S. News process [so suck on that, Brian Leiter]. In the future, we will conform [read: manipulate] our reporting practices to those of our peer schools [since we now know how they do it]. And, faced with the unfairness and confusion caused by the studying-for-the-bar category, NALP, the ABA and U.S. News are seriously contemplating abandoning that category altogether. [After all, Law School itself, with, among other things, its forced and arbitrary grading system, is completely fair.]

All this is very annoying, of course [as is this email]. But it is a one-time [*fingers crossed*] hiccup. [I hope.]

I will not be satisfied until UT Law is comfortably in the top 10 [ya hear that, Duke, I ain’t satisfied]. But, in the meantime, we can confidently [hopefully] expect measurably better results next year. [In order to help us fulfill this goal, we plan on losing some great faculty members, reduce the offerings of popular classes, and keep our most prominent and distinguished professors teaching first year classes and no upper level classes. We will also ensure that the food in George’s Café remains putrid and overpriced. I’m not sure how that will help us, but food quality is not measured by USNWR. But most importantly, before any decision is made, we will think twice, then think twice again, for a total of four times we will think about it.]

[So again, please don’t fire me. After all, you like President Dean Powers, don’t you? I’m his friend, and he picked me to be Dean. Isn’t that enough?]

--Larry Sager

Time for a change.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, mainly over the last 20 or so hours.
My law school life sucks.
I have en enormous workload that I just don’t care about (see a previous post I’m too lazy to link to).
I have a seminar paper I have done no work on due in roughly a month.
I ran for a position in a student organization and lost miserably.
My journal work has been returned to me because I did it all wrong and the EIC asked if I was planning on staying on the journal.
I have no job.
I have no prospect for a job.
I don’t even have hope for an interview.
My GPA has me on academic probation, or whatever the hell they call it here.
CSO has suggested a take the summer off to relax.
The three classes I really want to take in the Fall all conflict.
I spend more time writing lame posts on my blog than I do preparing for class.

I know, you are probably thinking, why doesn’t this guy just quit bitching?
You’re right. I need to quit bitching. What is it they say? “Shit or get off the pot.”

If there’s one thing my Dad didn’t raise, it’s a quitter. So I won’t quit. I withdrew all my class selections for the fall and I don’t plan on returning after this summer.

I don’t see this as quitting, because I can still use the classes I’ve taken. I found a great school here in Austin that will let some of my classes carry over for credit. I’ve checked it out with the State Bar, and it looks like it’s on the up-and-up.

Wish me luck in my new endeavor.

I don’t know if I will keep up the blog in the Fall, so I want to thank my regular readers for the support you’ve given me in the past. I hope that I can still count on your ongoing support and well-wishes. If I choose to post elsewhere, you’ll have to Google it, I just can’t stand the thought of reliving these last two years.

-Ex.Coll.