It’s my pleasure to start the week off by introducing you to my friend, classmate, and new writer on Fight The Hypo - Sally Proust. I think you’ll find her mix of sass and sweetness refreshing. Here’s a little Q&A I did with Sally recently…
Fight The Hypo: First things first, Sally. Our readers are dying to know whether there’s a Mr. Sally Proust?
Sally Proust: Negative on that front. Still holding out for a quality guy who is willing to be part of my juggling act and hang out with a great gal. That’s actually how a friend described me to Lance Armstrong at our chance meeting in Georgetown.
FTH: Great is a good word for you, but I’m still wondering what the heck Lance Armstrong was doing in Georgetown that night. I think we’d all agree on that one. So what are you going to write about here at Fight The Hypo?
SP: In addition to the ups and downs of law school I struggle with the dating game. It’s not easy, but c’est la vie. I can empathize with readers who are enduring the same. If you don’t start law school with a serious relationship it’s hard to establish one because you don’t have the time to invest in building it. There’s no question relationships take time and work, which law students lack. Continue reading ‘Introducing New Contributor Sally Proust’
Copyranter points us to this priceless ad on sexual harrassment that ran in the Chicago area. It’s the case study method of print advertising which can sometimes be quite effective.
This ad is brilliant! Sort of. Okay not really. Kind of disturbing actually and far from effective. Look at the guy in image #2 looking at the alleged harasser over his glasses!! Hilarious.
(And more on law firm marketing and advertising soon. Did you know local Bar Associations often screen and reject law firms’ ads?)
This is from our Torts reading for tonight. Make sure you test the floor of the Port-O-John next time…
The case for the plaintiffs was that they were tenants of the defendant, which controlled the house wherein they lived and also the adjoining house, and provided a detached privy for the use of both houses; that Mrs. Rush having occasion to use this privy, went into it and fell through the floor, or through some sort of trap door therein, descended about nine feet into the accumulation at the bottom, and had to be extricated by use of a ladder. The defendant denied that there was any pit at all, and claimed the floor was only about nine inches above solid ground.
Rush v. Commercial Realty Co., 145 A. 476 (1929 (emphasis added).
Update: to quote Dr. Bombay who was asked last night to brief this case, “This might possibly be the most disturbing line in a case I’ve read.”
Sadly, those seeking to use the courts to hold the Cheatriots accountable for their racketeering have chickened out. [update: Fox News and CNN today are hot on the story of Matt Walsh, the Patriots' purported videotaper. He claims to have an incriminating tape of the Patriots' cheating ways and is discussing with the NFL. The plaintiffs in this suit claim that they withdrew their complaint in order to see what, exactly, Walsh has to say.]
Dr. Bombay said then (as did others) that the suit was likely to be dismissed. The question remains though - how can you sue a pro sports team? I’ve been thinking that there must be a way to sue teams for deliberately tanking all or parts of a season in order to get a better draft pick.
Continue reading ‘Can A Fan Sue When His Team Loses On Purpose?’
Everyone who has been through the law school application process knows exactly where their school sits in the rankings. The general perception is that the entire legal education market is a pyramid, and if you get better LSAT scores, you go to a better school, which gets you a better job, etc. (e.g. “If I go to law school at Harvard, I will get a top job at a New York firm and make lots of money.”) The converse is also assumed to be true.
Something has always seemed fishy about this to me. Looking over the data reported to the ABA, the so-called “T-14” only produces about 4600 graduates per year, or roughly 10% of the total number of law school graduates. Are they the only lawyers to get good paying jobs? Is everyone else out on the corner selling pencils? Of course not.
Continue reading ‘Top 25 Best Values in Law School’
Despite the fact that we’re just 1Ls, a lot of the folks in our program are concerned with job prospects after school. A friend of mine recently interviewed for a non-legal position at one of the top law firms in town here, and while I’m not surprised at what he found during the interview, it does make me question some of the facts of life in our profession.
Early on in the interview, the associate who was interviewing my friend made the comment, “You know, this firm would never recruit out of your school. What do you think about that? How do you distinguish yourself from your education?”
Now, one of the unspoken things at our law school is the fact that we’re not top-tier. Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it. So my buddy was taken aback by the fact that the associate came right out and said it, but he kept his composure. He replied that while he wasn’t happy hearing that, his experience outside of law school made him qualified for the current position etc. Anyone who knows my friend would be impressed with his credentials.
Continue reading ‘Your School Sucks - Why Should We Hire You?’
I just caught up with a good friend who graduated recently from my law school. She’s currently looking for a new career - not because she doesn’t love the law (she does, actually), but because her personality doesn’t take well to much of the work involved in being a lawyer (i.e. hours spent in an office reviewing contracts).
It makes more sense to hear my friend tell the whole story, but she said something interesting that she and several of her friends have realized: when you become a lawyer, no matter what you end up doing (teaching, business, doing PR, day trading, etc), you have instant credibility because you’re a lawyer who is doing these things. The idea is that having a J.D. and being admitted to the bar is, in and of itself, worthy of respect - it is, in a sense, a universal credential.
I’m not sure I’d endure law school because of that and I wonder if the same could be said of any graduate degree (because it sets you apart from the legions of other undergrad degree holders). But it’s an interesting way of looking at it.
Do you think that’s true? Perhaps it’s stating the obvious? Or maybe they’re off their rockers?
