Author Archive for Casebook Sherpa

Interview with Catholic Law Grad, Elizabeth Getman

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 07/01/08
in Catholic Grads and Interviews
. 2 Comments

We recently had the opportunity to sit with Elizabeth Getman, a recent graduate of The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law and now an associate at Sandler, Reiff & Young, P.C., to discuss her role in Davis v. F.E.C. (recent SCOTUS decision on the “Millionaire’s Amendment” in McCain-Feingold).

Her role in the case was recently profiled in Roll Call, but we thought we’d get the inside story. She’s here, naturally, of her own accord and not as a spokesperson for any clients or employers.

So… be nice. (that means you, BigShow)

Fight The Hypo: Elizabeth, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for our readers. I’m sure it will provide excellent reading during our summer classes!

Elizabeth Getman: No problem at all. Better to get me now before I dive into my next Supreme Court case (just kidding, just kidding). I could see this becoming addictive, though. And if you’re looking for a quick primer on the subject, the Davis opinion is one of the shortest campaign finance opinions out there.

Continue reading ‘Interview with Catholic Law Grad, Elizabeth Getman’

Google Knows It When People Search For It

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/25/08
in Law and News You Can Use
. 1 Comment

So, the New York Time reports that in order to prove what the “community standards” are regarding obscenity in Pensacola, FL, a lawyer representing a porn website operator offered as evidence the fact that Google Trends shows that residents in the area search the web for “orgy” more than they do for “apple pie.” And “what could be more American than apple pie,” he asks.

Continue reading ‘Google Knows It When People Search For It’

PR With a JD

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/23/08
in Career Prospects
. 1 Comment

I’m a full-time PR guy and moonlight as a law student. So, I was intrigued to read the latest in a series of posts at Above the Law looking at alternative careers for attorneys: public relations. David Lat quotes an e-mailer who writes about PR:

While I have nothing quite as clever as Manager of Legal Sea Foods, I can propose a career that has unlimited earning potential, bonuses and still allows a JD the opportunity to be involved in interesting and high-profile issues: public relations. Several of the top agencies today, including those specializing in issues management or crisis communications, have positions available for lawyers (or recovering lawyers).

At my last agency, I worked with a total of seven, most of whom attended Top 15 law schools. Most of our clients were involved in product recalls, discrimination lawsuits, predatory lending practices, patent disputes, etc. The work was highly confidential and occasionally involved a good courtroom battle, aside with the typical battle with the NYT. Since we dealt with the general counsel’s office most of the time, it was a tremendous asset to have someone who understood their “language.”

I can’t disagree with the writer (except for the “unlimited earning potential” part). But it’s important to remember something up front. If you go into PR you need to appreciate the role that media and communications plays in the process. You will not be developing and defending your theory of the case or writing briefs or in the courtroom or negotiating for clients. You will not be doing the substantive legal work you trained for during law school.

However, communications can impact - and, at times, change - the outcome of the substantive legal process - or whateve process we’re talking about. Well-timed, well-executed communications can make up for a host of shortcomings in your client’s work and, more importantly, can help bring attention to the strengths of your client’s position, products, or issues. You become an expert at boiling your client’s problem/issue/message into a form that will play in the media and with those audiences. But you don’t develop the substance of those messages or issues - you just communicate them in the most effective way.

It’s fun. There’s no doubt about that. Just know what you’re getting into before you make the jump.

A Two-Year JD Program?

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/23/08
in At The Law Schools and News You Can Use
. 2 Comments

Interesting stuff… The WSJ Law Blog reported on Friday about Northwestern’s plan to offer a two-year JD program. WSJ quoting the dean of Northwestern Law School:

Tuition: Don’t expect to save money. Northwestern announced the program but won’t answer the $42,672 question of whether the compressed plan will be cheaper. Van Zandt told the Law Blog that, rather than the prospect of a cheaper degree, the financial attraction of the program is more likely to be the ability to be earning a salary a year earlier. (And yes, the $42k figure is NU’s annual tuition.)

Time This is a five-semester program that will begin in May. The 25 to 60 students expected to join will take the same number of credits as students in the three-year program. They’ll take extra courses each semester and pick up one or two credits through mini-courses between semesters.

Curriculum While the two-year option will have the same curriculum as the traditional program, the two-year students will be the first to test two new required courses: quantitative reasoning, including accounting, finance and statistics; and the dynamics of legal services behavior, including skills such as teamwork, leadership and project management.

Admission Applicants will be required to have two or three years of “substantive work experience” after college. People with work experience are likely to have “the good time management” necessary to success in the program, Van Zandt told Insider Higher Ed.

Not being a traditional JD student myself it’s hard to say whether this is a good or bad development or whether, in the words of one critic it will produce “substandard lawyers.” Other than the shorter time horizon, it’s hard to see what value this adds for the student. Or maybe that’s value enough?

Is Your Scratch-off Ticket Stale?

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/19/08
in News You Can Use
. 2 Comments

“It’s for the kids.” Ah, yes. The great justification for just about any government program. Of course, it’s the central justification in most states for the Lottery. Revenues are directed into the education department’s coffers for use in schools. That’s all fine and good, but the agreement the ticket purchaser enters into with the state is: I give you a dollar and you promise to give me a chance to win a prize.

Then there’s this:

After a business finance professor tried a Virginia Lottery scratch game for the first time, he became suspicious about how the game was being run. It seemed to him that the rate at which Beginner’s Luck paid out its $75,000 prizes defied the laws of statistics.

His concerns ultimately led him to conclude that the Virginia Lottery continues to sell tickets to its scratch games statewide even after all the top prizes for the game have been claimed.

Monday, a Roanoke law firm announced its intention to sue the lottery on behalf of Scott Hoover, an associate professor at Washington and Lee University who teaches applied business statistics. The letter that lawyer John Fishwick sent to the state claims the lottery has violated its contract with scratch ticket buyers by purposefully selling tickets that have no chance at all of winning a top prize.

“We estimate that since 2003, the state has sold over 26.5 million losing tickets in this way, pocketing an estimated $84.7 million in purchase prices from the shell game,” Fishwick said. “The state cannot continue to boost revenues by knowingly selling its citizens defective tickets based on hollow promises of an opportunity that does not exist.”

Basically, the state gave away all the prizes, but kept selling tickets. Talking with WAMU today, Mr. Hoover said this gives rise to multiple claims against the state, the most serious of which is fraudulent inducement to purchase the tickets.

He’s filed a claim with the state (basically a notice stage required before filing a lawsuit) alleging that the state has misled citizens and that it must rectify the situation. His lawyer told WAMU that they aren’t necessarily looking for damages, but are primarily looking for the state to acknowledge it’s doing something wrong and change the process.

The Source of the Law: What Is Your Duty To Your Fellow Man?

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/18/08
in Law
. 27 Comments

In light of our discussion on the FLDS case, Christopher suggested a thread on the origins of law. I liked that idea and have a few drafts started. But it struck me that it might work better as a series of questions that pull out various views of the law and its role (or source) in our society (or any society). Perhaps this can be a sort of wiki effort at developing and teasing various views of the law and its source.

Question #1: What is your duty to your fellow man (and by “man,” of course, I mean “human being”)? And from where does that duty arise?

[Full disclosure: this question is lifted from our course on Social Justice and the Law that several readers and writers of this blog are taking this summer.]

Just Answer My Question!

Published
by
Casebook Sherpa
on 06/10/08
in Career Prospects and Law School Experience
. 0 Comments

Maybe it’s just the heat, but I’m a bit frustrated at my school. The law school cafe isn’t open during the summer. I’m still waiting on grades (just one left, though). The financial aid office hasn’t been very communicative. So I’m probably over-reacting to a minor exchange I had with the career office this week.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not seriously looking for a job. I am however trying to figure out what I’m going to do with this degree (answers range from staying where I am to working for the public defender). That means if there are chances to interview or talk with people in the legal profession, I’ll take them.

This week’s exchange with the career office left with the same question I’ve had several times since I started law school at Catholic U: Would it hurt to JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION?

We’ve been getting e-mails about fall recruiting on campus. I noticed a link to the Fall Recruiting packet during a recent login to our online jobs database. So I read through it and hadn’t seen anything about whether 2Es could participate. I returned to the database and noticed that most (perhaps all) of the employers interviewing on campus are only interviewing students who are 2D, 3D, 3E, and 4E. Makes sense, right? You want to catch students during their last summer.

I was still curious, however, as to whether there were opportunities for 2Es during fall recruiting. If there were I’d at least submit my resume. If there weren’t I wouldn’t go through the trouble of updating my resume, etc. So I emailed the career office, asking if there would be chances for 2Es to interview during fall recruiting and that I had reviewed the packet and the OCI opportunities and wasn’t sure. The answer I got was: “Follow the provided link to our Fall Recruiting packet. It contains all of the information for participation and deadlines. Let us know if you have any other questions.”

Of course, I went back to the packet and noticed that the definition of “all students” did NOT include 2Es. So I got my answer. But obviously I had missed that in my review of the packet. Would it have been so hard to just say: “Employers don’t typically interview 2Es during fall recruiting, but we’re happy to sit down to discuss options with you.”

One answer (the one I got) says: do it yourself. The other one says: here’s how we can help.

I know which one I wish I was paying for.