please this cant be real. can it??

who are these people????

dammit. here i am fighting for respect in biglaw.. and im getting dragged down by this clown.

"I find myself being pushed in the direction of
the large firms as a result of my grades..."

Even if you're top of your class at Wayne State, is BigLaw breaking down your door? I doubt it.

Way to go Wayne State Career Services with confirming those interview times. Priceless attention to detail there.

Why is there a "[sic]" inserted after "make"?

Hilarious. Talk about a complete lack of perspective...

Because the word "the" is missing.

"I find myself being pushed in the direction of
the large firms as a result of my grades..."

Even if you're top of your class at Wayne State, is BigLaw breaking down your door? I doubt it.

Moreover, even if you are top of your class at Wayne State, you apparently struggle all the same when it comes to structuring your sentences.

What a 4th tier D-bag. Probably an Ivy undergrad who resents this pitiful 4th tier existence and, obviously, harbors a diluted superiority complex.

1:54--You must be at a tier 4 school, too. Read the sentence and ask yourself what word might be inserted there that would make the sentence grammatically correct.

Lat, c'mon, give us his name. That way, when he commands a very, very high level of respect, those of us who encounter him in private practice can stand him up, thus cementing his inferiority complex. ;)

lol at Wayne State. Tier 4 students stand up!

Seriously, unless this interview was in Phoenix (where WSU is KING) this guy needs to kindly kill himself.

That's hilarious. Until I hit the jump, I assumed this was related to an in-office callback interview. But this guy actually had this level of unwarranted entitlement simply on the basis of getting an open-to-all 15-minute OCI spot? Priceless.

The poor writing alone makes the interview thing moot--this guy couldn't possibly get a job anywhere decent.

OMG, that partner split an infinitive and used the passive voice three times!!1!!1!onehundredandeleven!!11!11

"A day will come when I command a level of respect that would make [the] idea of standing me up unimaginable...."

Wayne State Guy = MEGATRON

I love the gratuitous use of "sir" throughout, in faux-politeness.

I also love the partner's sign-off, "Regards." Nice work.

1:54 - Isn't something missing there? read the sentence slowly and think carefully...

Here's Wayne State's OCI Schedule:
http://www.law.wayne.edu/current/career_services.html

The only BigLaw-ish firm is Foley & Lardner. Which big firms is he talking about in Detroit? GM? Ford?

1:57: "diluted superiority complex"

"command a level of respect" !!!

who really talks like this... in real life and not on the teevee box? i have my doubts about the authenticity of this

Those e-mails are so indicative and typical - I transferred from a Tier-4 to Cardozo and surprisingly, the people in Tier-4 have more of a sense of entitlement than Cardozo.

Obviouslt Cardozo is not the best school in the country, but there should be more of a sense of entitlement than T-4

simply stunning (napoleanic complex)

eric cartman goes to wayne state?

One thing that I've learned in 15 years of litigation is that douches "who jump to conclusions and launch
accusations" are as common as in the legal profession as wingtips.

This guy will end up in insurance defense in Detroit or move to Phoenix where Wayne State grads can get BIGLAW.

It's the fate of all Wayne State grads, this guy is no exception.

"I assure you sir that a day will come..."

This guy is OVER THE TOP.

2:00 -- why is Wayne State king in Phoenix?

This cannot be for real. This is exactly the sort of person that is virtually guaranteed to never command any position of respect or power, and for good reason.

This guy will end up in insurance defense in Detroit or move to Phoenix where Wayne State grads can get BIGLAW.

It's the fate of all Wayne State grads, this guy is no exception.

"Is Wayne State gonna have to choke a bitch?"

He cannot get biglaw in Phoenix. Nobody can get big law in Phoenix.

Again. "diluted superiority complex." 1:57 belongs at a tier 4 school.

WSU douche now blackballed in that stellar detwa market.

Wayne State - #1 in BIGPHOENIXLAW

2:09 - It's a well known fact that WSU grads do very well in Phoenix due to their alumni base. They even have the Wayne State Club in downtown Phoenix.

Why are there alumni there? I'm not sure. I guess kind of how there are loads of French in Canada and Louisiana, but not so much in between.

what is the connection between Wayne State and Phoenix? what gives?

Wow, a TTT douchebag pwned again.

I wish I had OCI interviews, whether I get stood up or not. Unfortunately, at Loyola, if you're not top 10% you don't get to participate in OCI.

The entire career services department is devoted to placing the top 10% in firm jobs. What about the rest of us? We're shown the job board, in which the best and most competitive jobs look like this:
......................................................
Employer Name: xxx
Contact Name: xxx
Address: xxx
City: Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Telephone: xxx
Facsimile: xxx
E-Mail: xxx
Description: HOURS: Approximately 15-30 hours per week. Need someone who can begin work later in the day. Ideal hours would be from 1:00pm-8:00pm. Candidates must also be able to work 4-5 hours on one weekend day. SALARY: $18.00 per hour to start. STUDENT LEVEL: 2L, 3L JOB DESCRIPTION: Looking for a 2L or 3L student to clerk in a law firm, with lots of office experience to start immediately. Prior office experience a plus. The position pays $18.00 per hour to start, with raises as the student becomes more productive. 15-30 hours per week, often with 4-5 hours on one weekend day. HOW TO APPLY: Please submit resume via e-mail.
Date Entered: 09/25/07
Job ID: 417398

Wasn't there a WSJ article about Wayne State's dean using his NYC connections to get his top students interviews (and even jobs) with BigLaw? Coupla months ago.

The e-mailer is still a first-tier douchebag, but Wayne State's dean, on the other hand, seems a model for non-top-tier deans.

You better take one of those jobs and get some experience L2L! You need the experience!

WAYNE STATE DOMINATES BIGLAW!!!

Wayne State University Law School was traditionally a Tier 2 school. It slipped into Tier 3 only in the past decade. It only slipped into Tier 4 because the Career Services reported an erroneous employment percentage to U.S. News for 2006 grads.

If the number had been accurately reported, WSU would have been most likely back in Tier 2 for 2007.

Am I alone or does Loyola 2L need to stop bitching.

File your lawsuit and shutup.

"It only slipped into Tier 4 because the Career Services reported an erroneous employment percentage to U.S. News for 2006 grads...."

Between that and their inability to schedule interviews, it sounds like some heads should roll over at WSU Career Services.

Did they make that mistake reporting to USN&WR before or after they couldn't figure out how to schedule meetings.

$18/hr for a 2L part time? i'll take it.

The partner's response was very restrained. I admire him.

2:28: You're alone.

"[W]ith lots of office experience" . . . [p]rior office experience a plus." Is that firm looking for a law student to research and write or to manage the office?

2:26, I'm sorry, but Tier 2 is just as unworthy of accreditation as Tier 4. You have to have severely underachieved to miss the TOP 50 entirely. Really, if you can't do top 20, you're wasting your time and money.

In fact, Biglaw does hire from 4th tier, 3rd tier, and 2nd tier. Check your facts before launching disperaging comments.

Wayne State grads to 190K!

While you guys are posting here, the guy next to you is paying attention is going to get a better grade and get a better job where he is going to work harder while you get a job and look at the internet.

yeeeeeha. But, fwiw, I took some real crap from interviewers back in the day (you know, being lectured from some guy with pitstains and scuffed rockports on the importance of memorizing the interviewer's cv before coming to the interview) and, now that I am a little more experienced, I really wish I could go back in time and tell them to, you know, "respect my authority."

WSU TO ALL-YOU-CA-EAT FROOT LOOPS!!!

Phoenix to 4T status!

"In fact, Biglaw does hire from 4th tier, 3rd tier, and 2nd tier. Check your facts before launching disperaging [sic] comments."

Hm. Yeah. Ok.

"$18/hr for a 2L part time? i'll take it."
It's actually one of the best jobs on our board.

Plus, no one actually believes the Wayne St just "slipped" into Tier 3, and then one little misreported stat managed to shove them all the way down to Tier 4 when they really should have been Tier 2.

"What's the difference between a Tier 3 and a Tier 4 law school" is a rhetorical question. They both suck in every way. Don't try to rationalize it, WSU troll. The best you can hope for is a transfer to Loyola. wow

When was Wayne admitted to the union?

2:39--

Lots of legit people come out of Tier 2 schools (and many come out of Tiers 3 and 4). I, for one, could have easily transferred to a top-five school, but decided to stay at my T2 because I had a great scholarship, great teachers, and (I know this will come as a shock to you) very bright colleagues. I landed a COA clerkship and everything's gravy. Is that a rare occurrance? Probably. But it does undermine your assertion that you have to be "severly underachieved" to attend a T2 school. Your statement is both ignorant and offensive.

2:39: why top 50? b/c it's a round number? why not top 10? or top 75? why is school 51 so much worse than school 49? what if there's a three-way tie for spot 49?

really, if you can't get into HYS, why bother; you must be a moron. right? everyone knows that if you don't ace one three-hour exam, you're never going to be a good attorney.

Wayne State is the name of the school's top benefactor, idiot.

Just because you did not ace one three hour exam does not mean you will not be a good attorney. It does mean that you will not go to the elite schools and not get a job paying over 100K coming out of lawschool. As long as you know that and are realistic then go for it. It is fun being a lawyer and you will make more than most of your undergrad friends eventually.

I forsee him securing a job as a US Magistrate.

Mr. State was well known for the fortune he made in widgets. The name of his company was Wayne's Widgets. The movie Wayne's world is based upon his autobiography.

2:53, you have to "HAVE severely underachieved." Not "be severely underachieved," whatever that means. The GPAs and LSAT averages for even the number 20 school are not that high. For the schools around 50, they are pathetically low. Again: you have to have seriously f'd up if you're in a position of having to apply to those schools in the first place. And to 2:53, yes, thank you -- I did not personally apply outside the top 10; I figured I could do something more worthwhile with my time than go to a mediocre law school. My HLS education was truly edifying though, and well worth the cost.

2:39,
You said:
"2:26, I'm sorry, but Tier 2 is just as unworthy of accreditation as Tier 4. You have to have severely underachieved to miss the TOP 50 entirely. Really, if you can't do top 20, you're wasting your time and money."
Tier 2 is not a waste of time . . . if your parents will pay for it. I completely agree that you have to have severely underachieved to miss the tier one. BUT, if you get a good LSAT in spite of having goofed off and drank all day every day with your fraternity brothers in undergrad, and your parents will pay for it, then you get either A.) a second chance to excel academically OR B.) a second
(more like third, because if you had excelled in high school you would have gone to a good UG) chance to screw off for three more years on your parents dime. These are the only people who should go to Tier 2 schools, as they will be able to enjoy the accademic experience and gain better reading and writing skills without the burden of debt.

edifying is a word only a Harvard wannabe would use.

2:53 (1), you have to "HAVE severely underachieved." Not "be severely underachieved," whatever that means. The GPAs and LSAT averages for even the number 20 school are not that high. For the schools around 50, they are pathetically low. Again: you have to have seriously f'd up if you're in a position of having to apply to those schools in the first place. You appear to be the prime example of this: clearly you're a bright person, but you literally underachieved prior to law school -- you did not work to your potential and got stuck in a position where you were applying to a T2 school. You just happened to have cleaned up your mess and you're doing fine now.

And to 2:53 (2), yes, thank you -- I did not personally apply outside the top 10; I figured I could do something more worthwhile with my time than go to a mediocre law school. My HLS education was truly edifying though, and well worth the cost.

The jerk store called. They're running out of Wayne State Law Students.

HLS = Hofstra, 2:39/3:01. Just admit it and stop hating yourself for being TTT.

2:59, unfortunately everyone on earth is not as brilliant as you are. "Really, if you can't do top 20, you're wasting your time and money" is almost as laughable as the e-mail that started this nonsense.

Can you blame these people for being angry? Imagine yourself in the shoes of a tier 2 student.

No, 3:06, in that case I would have misspelled every word with three syllables or more. See, e.g., 2:41(1).

2:39- Look at mirrors much?

gotta feel sorry for people like 2:39. :(

It's true that tier 2 students are generally pissed off. During 1L everyone was so optimistic and happy. We all thought we had futures.
Then comes 3L, and most are just trying not to be one of the 40% who graduate unemployed. We scramble for awful, low paying jobs with small firms. These firms pay $50,000, an unlivable salary with tier 2 student loan debt, but we have no other choice.
We got screwed over by a bunch of deceptive top school grads who, tired of earning huge salaries in biglaw, decided to earn it by opening diploma mills.

3:01 - who cares, Loyola is their best seller!

Speaking of which, does anyone have suggestions for dealing with tier 2 anger?

2:39--

Thanks for the pat on the back (though I could do without the patronizing tone; not to mention that pointing out gramattical errors on blog posts is pretty anal). The problem is this: You, like so many others, think that law schools outside the top 20 are "mediocre" and incapable of providing "edifying" experiences. That's just not the case. I'm not saying T2 schools (and others ranked below the top 20) are equal to top 10 schools, but you err in thinking there is some massive distinction. I'm sure you work with some non-Ivy grads; would you tell them all you have said on here to their faces?

. . . (addendum to 3:13) . . . other than by posting on blogs, that is.

3:08, here's a caveat: unless you get a full-ride, in which case you're just (potentially) wasting your time. Obviously, some people like 2:53(1), who screwed around and skipped class through college, can get serious at law school and do fine. And obviously I was being a bit hyperbolic. But I believe the statistics do come close to bearing this out; isn't that the whole basis for L2L's whining? Less than 10% of graduates from these schools can make enough money to pay their loans (let alone build up a dime of equity)?

I've obviously been (too) snide, but seriously, people ought to consider the statistics before they go blow $150k plus on a less-than-stellar law school education.

3:15(2) = 2:39, btw.

L2L, "to their faces" necessarily excludes "by posting on blogs." Nice try though.

A good 4-5 people from our Wayne 1L class (Tier 4) transferred to UMich Law (Top 10) for their 2L and 3L years. Despite "severely underachieving" and "wasting their time and money" they wound up ok anyway. It's amazing an elite school would even consider pathetic Wayne 4th Tier drivel such as ourselves, right 2:39?

Michigan is top 10? I don't think so....

This is what happens when kids go straight through from undergrad to law school and never hold down a real job or live in the real world. This is immaturity and inexperience at its finest, and is not tier-exclusive.

i appreciate the time you took to edit your response and post it again. however, the reality is that the numbers are not that different between a #20 school and a #50 school...a few points, i.e., probably not statistically significant.

perhaps your definition of "having severely underachieved" is different than mine, but i would not describe a 4-5 point difference on the LSAT as such. while i understand that the LSAT is the best predictive tool available for schools, it's far from perfect, and the fact that someone didn't ace it is not necessarily indicative of doom in the legal profession. but i can't accept that anyone stuck applying outside some arbitrary number is either lazy or stupid.

either way, my "mess" has been likewise cleaned up, and i still have time to have a manhattan at lunch and argue on the internet in the afternoon. i am glad i didn't go to HLS, though.

I personally transferred from Wayne State to Yale this year: demonstrable proof that all Wayne State grads are just as good as YLS, and should be made partners at Cravath (after our top nine get Supreme Court justiceships and we fill the AG position, that is).

Hey now--

Let's give 2:39 some credit for admitting that he was a bit to snide. That's all I wanted to achieve, and I do appreciate the quasi-apology. Still, I think 2:39 is stretching the facts: Only 10% of T2 grads can make enough money to pay their loans?! That's the kind of hyperbole, spread through blogs and informal chats, that pisses T2 grads off just as much as anything.

3:20, I see Michigan as tied for #8. What rankings are you looking at?

3:20, I see Michigan as tied for #8. What rankings are you looking at?

3:20, I see Michigan tied for #8. What rankings are you looking at?

3:24 - Thanks for modifying "transferred" with "personally." Otherwise it was unclear who did the transferring. I personally thank you, and I myself wish you the best of luck.

Transfer students, including those from 3rd and 4th tier law schools, either maintain or increase their class rank when they transfer to T10's. So at least for the top 10-15%, what school you go to really doesn't say much about your academic ability.

Sorry to break it to those of you who feel soooo superior from the empyrean heights of your T3, T5, T14, T20, Twhatever lawschools.

Good luck getting a 50K a year job straight out of lawschool. Where is that job coming from?

2:39 may have a minor point to make; i know that i probably could have done better in college and studied (at all) for the LSAT, and doing so might have gotten me into a school ranked higher than min (~50ish). but to say that "outside the top 20 is a waste of time" is overreaching. certainly, as the school's rank drops, the risk of financial disaster increases, but people with good grades from, say, Villanova are doing just fine financially. you don't need a job at Wachtell or Cravath to make LS worthwhile.

3:00- I couldn't agree more. I got to a T2 and finally started trying, and it turns out I'm fairly intelligent when I'm sober.

transfer students do better because they still have something to prove. it's a small minority of 2ls and 3ls at top schools that still really care about grades.

3:20(1)

There has *never* been a year where US News has ranked UM outside the top 10.

3:20 -- what on earth are you smoking? Michigan is always ranked around #8, and consistently has been for at least 15 years (maybe longer, but that's when I started looking at law schools).

I did my 1L year at Wayne State, and I really enjoyed it. It was a great experience.

I was in the middle third of my class after my first year, and was able to transfer to People's College of Law in CA. I'm really happy with where I am at now. I'm now in the top third of my class, and I was recently offered a summer associate position at my uncle's air condition installation business.

hehe @ 342

"Good luck getting a 50K a year job straight out of lawschool. Where is that job coming from?"

If you interview well, network, try really hard etc. you can get a $50k job out of Loyola.

3:40(2): Actually, except for my first semester as a transfer, I didn't even work as hard at my T10 school as I had at my T100.

I knew a professor who taught the same class at a T10 school and a T100 school the same semester, guess which school produced the highest score on his final exam, and guess which school produced the lowest?

L2L,

You need to write a book. What do you think?

2:11(1), that's funny. Funny as hell.

2:14, the French in Quebec and Louisiana is not a mystery, but it does require that you . . . read a book. Tier 4 for you.

True story: Wayne State's mascot is the Tartar.

I'm an HLS grad and take exception at the arrogance, and frankly, the cruelty being displayed by some posters purporting to be HLS alumni. Please do not think this sort of behavior or smugness is typical of Harvard grads. It is not.

Hooray to Civil HLS grad!

2:39,
You said:
"2:26, I'm sorry, but Tier 2 is just as unworthy of accreditation as Tier 4. You have to have severely underachieved to miss the TOP 50 entirely. Really, if you can't do top 20, you're wasting your time and money."
Tier 2 is not a waste of time . . . if your parents will pay for it. I completely agree that you have to have severely underachieved to miss the tier one. BUT, if you get a good LSAT in spite of having goofed off and drank all day every day with your fraternity brothers in undergrad, and your parents will pay for it, then you get either A.) a second chance to excel academically OR B.) a second
(more like third, because if you had excelled in high school you would have gone to a good UG) chance to screw off for three more years on your parents dime. These are the only people who should go to Tier 2 schools, as they will be able to enjoy the accademic experience and gain better reading and writing skills without the burden of debt.

"I knew a professor who taught the same class at a T10 school and a T100 school the same semester, guess which school produced the highest score on his final exam, and guess which school produced the lowest?"

Who cares?

The lower tier school probably had more weight on the bottom end of the curve boosting the score for the top person.

WSU=Detroit=Murder Capital

This kid's lucky he wasn't killed on his way to OCI.

Da Murda Mitten!!

Wayne State's mascot is the Bang Bus.

It's a shame to see such a lack of congeliality in a profession reputed by its arrogance and competition. I would also advise the elitists out there to take a closer look at the leaders of our jurisprudence. Start with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. A couple from DePaul (3rd Tier), three from Marquette (2nd or 3rd Tier). Hopefully this will make you realize that it's name the name of the school on the diploma that will cause you to be identified as a leader in this field. The leaders in the judicial system got there by showing respect and humility despite their professional successes. Some of you could learn a thing or two from them.

3:12:

I slept with your wife!

I'm in a Tier-2 school and right now I'm looking to drop four offers from top 30 firms and choosing between Skadden and Sullivan. (I canceled a Cravath callback). Boy it really was stupid of me to take the full ride at a tier 2 when I could have spent my first few years paying off loans. But I guess being able to boast on a law board that my HLS experience was so edifying would be much better. 2:39 don't you have some hours to bill?

3:59

Correction. Wayne State's mascot is an abandoned/burned out building.

4:02 - you think academic elitism is exclusive to the legal profession? that's a jolly good one.

Uh, Lomax, the higher score. Not the higher grade. So before the curve.

In response to 4:05's post re: academic elitism:
Of course it's not exclusive, but no need to prove them right or throw fuel on the fire. Just remember that no matter how brilliant you are, there's someone more brilliant than you out there.

lomax-

actually, lower-tier schools usually have tougher curves. i think it's b/c it makes it tougher for top students to transfer out, but who knows?

i do know that Widener has a ridiculously tough curve, and the folks i know who transferred out (and those who finished at the top of their class at W) are extremely bright.

Lomax,

I think 345's point is that all the students took the same exam and received some sort of numeric grade. The curves were probably different at the two schools, but the highest numeric grade came from a t100 student and the lowest from a t10 student.

If that was his point, you are a clueless douchebag. (If that wasn't his point, then he had none and he is the douchebag.)

Grow up and stop arguing about how a freaking grading curve works. There is nothing worse than some lower ranked school person trying to claim that his fellow students are in fact smarter. That may be true, but it just sounds juvenile when you say it. Just relax and know it. If its true you don't have to prove it.

I'm just not thrilled with seeing people bash my classmates who stayed at a T100 when those same people would kiss my ass for graduating from a T10. The people who stayed behind are every bit as smart as I am, and every bit as smart as my T10 colleagues who started there.

Yes, there is life outside the T20, people. And thanks to dbs for getting the point.

PS, I happen to be female. Not that it matters.

I'm late to the party, but I can tell you that 1) WSU's mascot is no longer the tartars, it is now the warriors; 2) Wayne State bears its name from Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit and was itself named after General Anthony Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero; 3) people who do very well their first year at WSU have at least a shot at transferring to UM Law or even Michigan St, which is at least is a solid tier-two; and 4) I'm not sure I would have gone to WSU's law school, although they built a pretty new library while I was an undergrad student there! Oh, and that email exchange is very very funny.

I think it's more prestigious to name your mascot after a fish stick dip.

WSU was jumped by Michigan State, which has only had a law school for a few years.

I blame the UAW.

Despite the many negative comments with respect to Wayne State Law School, it is actually very well regarded by lawyers in Michigan. It's considered probably the best law school in Michigan next to U of M, and many large firms in Michigan actively recruit from it -- at least its upper tier students. While I don't think that the largest firms in Michigan are considered "biglaw," I assure you that a fine living can be made in Michigan as a Wayne State Law grad.

This comment should be in no way construed to defend the student's e-mail -- rather, I'm simply sticking up for Wayne.

Additionally, if there are any misspellilings or my grammer are wrong, I apologize. I did not have time to run it through spell check and have it proof read by my secretary.

Civil HLS grad is just mad because he couldn't get into Yale.

I'm still shocked the partner even bothered to respond to such a junior high school letter....

T2 is not necessarily bad. There are schools there that are more beneficial to certain students in terms of cost (state schools) and location (for those with families). I could've gone to a top 20 school (though probably not a top 10), instead I went to a T2 on a scholarship. Am I any dumber coming out of a T2 school, as opposed to the top school I got into? I doubt it. Additionally, I am now in my first month of of biglaw. While it is much more difficult to get biglaw outside of the top 30 schools, it isn't impossible, and depending on the situation T2 may be a perfectly viable option.

Students at lower-ranked schools study harder because only the top students have any chance of success. There is actually something meaningful on the line for them with each exam. Students at the top schools are all guaranteed their pick of law firm (there are a couple that are selective at even the top level - WLRK and a couple of boutiques), even if they finish nowhere near the top of their class, or even the top half of their class -- and thus don't study as hard.

Additionally, Lomax's post, while not entirely on point, isn't irrelevant. The fact that lower-tiered schools have much steeper curves (like, Cs and Ds are actually given out) obviously adds to the pressure to study non-stop.

4:23

Lawyers in Michigan is almost as funny as auto workers in NYC.

Is Wayne a commonwealth?

I still want to make sweet sweet love to Ivey

If Ivey would bang me, I'd transfer to Wayne State.

agree with 4:40 - where is the video of Ivy???
and also, I think those working at V100 need to submit to Lat some links to their co-workers bios of any hotties that they work with and have a beauty contest. Although, sadly to say I will not be able to send any from my firm, we don't have any that even qualify for lawyer hot :(

Don't knock the D.

Seriously, don't do it.

It's not funny.

4.44

V100 generally don't put up pictures or bios of their associates.

4:46 has it right. Don't diss the D. It's not all that bad.

4:49, what are you talking about? Almost all V100 (assuming you mean top 100) firms put up pictures and bios of their associates. A few stuffy NY firms (WLRK, Cravath) don't post associate pictures (even they have bio information), but they are in the small minority.

I know this hasn't been discussed for about 3 hours, but the use of [sic] should occur after the grammatical error in its entirety. As such the phrase should have read "a day will come when I command a level of respect that would
make idea [sic] of standing me up unimaginable."

Another example:
If I were to write: "This guy is a complete douche bag who doesn't deserve to deliver chinese food to law firms"

the quoter would write: "This guy is a complete douche bag [sic] who doesn't deserve to deliver chinese food to law firms"

and not: "This guy is a complete douche [sic] bag who doesn't deserve to deliver chinese food to law firms"

Based on the partner's email, isn't it possible that the mistake was possibly his? He never explicitly places the glitch on the school, just that there was a clerical glitch.

"The school had be scheduled in the morning" but "I was scheduled ...in the afternoon," sounds likeit could be his secretary's fault or his own.

I'm kind of thinking this guy would have sent a much tougher email if he had been right.

4:46

Sorry Kwame.

5:00 Poster is me:

I need some [sic] in my post. Change 'possibly' to 'entirely' and 'be' to 'me.' Of course, 'likeit' is 'like it.'

4:46

It's a little funny.

I just wasted my entire T10 education by reading all the comments on this blog. If Wayne State's mascot is the bang bus, I'd like it to run me over. If it's an abandoned/burned out building, I'd like it to fall on/burn me. If it's either a Tartar or a Warrior, please spear me. You are all a bunch of wankers. I wish you all the continued boredom you are apparently experiencing. By the way, this is what I really like about the law: everyone is such a dick when they can post anonymously. We should interview anonymously, then I wouldn't have had to spit out four hours of bullshit earlier today.

Regards,

Partner.

5:00 ... so? All it proves is that clerical glitches do in fact happen. Student shouldn't have assumed he was stood up and sent the obnoxious email without knowing the full story.

Or, maybe the lawyer is lying. Who knows. Even so, the student looks like the @ss and has burned some bridges. Lesson learned (maybe).

I shit money.

5:00 is dead on.

It never costs anything to be nice. The third paragraph is just over the top. People make mistakes but there is no reason to go postal. If you can't handle being "stood up", how are you going to handle the shitty life as a junior associate? It ain't like summer camp, gomer.

That being said, someone did owe him an apology for the no-show.

Nope. Not a winner and won't be working for someone with a (non-)theme song!

"I would also advise the elitists out there to take a closer look at the leaders of our jurisprudence."

...but not the supreme court?

This guy reminds me of a d-bag who went to my college. He claimed that he made a very high score on the LSAT, but chose to go to a non-top tier state school since he planned to remain in-state, but more importantly, because he would be the smartest person there. After arriving at said state law school, it is rumored that he sent the teaching assistant for his writing and research class a scathing email, complaining about the lower-tier education that he was getting at said school and noting that he could have gone to a better school, but did this school a favor by coming there instead. If it were anyone other than this tool, I wouldn't believe the story, but it is consistent with the way that he behaved in college. Apparently the teaching assistant forwarded the message along and it ended up being circulated to the entire faculty of the school. Ouch. Too bad ATL did not exist in the late 90's!

"Hopefully this will make you realize that it's name the name of the school on the diploma that will cause you to be identified as a leader in this field."

wait, you had it right. my mistake

A homeless man is ranked in the top ten percent at Wayne State.

02:06 PM, Cardozo isn't 4th Tier? If not, than what tier is it? And if its less than, say, second, what is the real difference?

Cardozo is perenially ranked in the second tier.

This just shows how USELESS tier 4 career services offices are...

Transferring to a T 10 doesn't count. No one respects transfer students.

Yeah, 7:13, no one but the judges and firms that hire us. And the profs. that ask us to RA for them.

7:13--

Do you actually believe what you just said? I'm calling bs.

"2:53, you have to "HAVE severely underachieved." Not "be severely underachieved," whatever that means. The GPAs and LSAT averages for even the number 20 school are not that high. For the schools around 50, they are pathetically low. Again: you have to have seriously f'd up if you're in a position of having to apply to those schools in the first place. And to 2:53, yes, thank you -- I did not personally apply outside the top 10; I figured I could do something more worthwhile with my time than go to a mediocre law school. My HLS education was truly edifying though, and well worth the cost."

I had always suspected that you still can achieve at high levels despite severe retardation. Thank you for the proof.

no i transferred from a Tier 4 school TO cardozo

Cardozo is Tier 2 (#52)

Is Wayne State somehow related to Stately Wayne Manor?

i'm confused- how does my 160 LSAT in any way relate to the fact that I finished my undergrad degree, from a T20 program with a 3.8 GPA?

Does my 160 mean that I wasn't trying hard enough in college- clearly not, as I've earned myself a Biglaw job from a tier 2 school. Turns out- I paid less to go to school than you 2:39, and will be earning the same amount of money- so which one of us came out on top?

Well anon, for those of us who care about intellectual enrichment as well as the money, he did.

12:56 if you care so much about intellectual enrichment then what are you doing reading blog comments about how crappy fourth-tier schools are? No matter where you go the faculty all graduated from Ivy League schools and we all read the same hornbooks and cases. Please do us a favor and shut up.

I did OCI for my firm this year at a T14 school and had a last-minute interview scheduled before I was told to arrive (and no one told me the interview had been added to my schedule). So I arrived "late" and the instant I found out I was pretty red-faced about the whole thing. The student at this T14 school, whose grades were perfectly decent, was extremely gracious and good-natured about the whole thing, and rescheduled the interview for later that day. I imagine his time must have been at least as valuable as this student's.

This story reminds me that some people are one hundred percent out of touch with reality.

Somehow along the way a debate about whether anything below a T1 could go BigLaw turned into a debate about whether T1s are smarter than T2,3,4s. The initial point was that generally T1s can go BigLaw and T2,3,4s can not.

So, generally, it can be said that the decision to take on T2,3,4 debt without the possiblity of the BigLaw financial bailout is very suspect financial decision making. If you're in this for nonprofit/helpthelittleguy/parentspayforit reasons, then your personal decision is more complex - and not the point at issue here.

For the average student, and speaking only in terms of money, T2,3,4's are a bum deal. So then, when some arsehole says T2,3,4s "HAVE seriously underachieved", he means that, on the whole, from the financial perspective, you blew the admissions process (not necissarily that you're not smart generally), and then still chose to take on T2,3,4 debt despite relatively little promise of return. All in all, then, you've both blown the admission process AND decided to gain a mortgage sized loan because you thought - but were wrong - that "any lawyer makes lots of money": and these two facts combined make that previously mentioned arsehole start to sound like the one with the winning point; though not the tact.

So, average T2,3,4-er, set aside the "we're just as smart" chip on your shoulder and accept the fact that the rest of the world has noticed that the statistics are against you. Maybe you'll be in the fortunate niche of those statistics. But it's unlikely unless you wake up, realize you're swimming against a financial current, and start to look for some floaties.

[And as a final note against the irksome suggestion that we look toward benches for measuring law schools: first, the discussion was about finances and we all know the finances of judge-dom; second, those now sitting went to school long ago in a legal academic period wholly unlike todays market.]

what about a a [sic] for "an naive law student"

oops, and a [sic] for me a [a]

What big firms is this guy talking about? Foley collects resumes, and that is it. Damn that is bleak.

2:11, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Most students at Wayne State Law School were referred to the Law School by Wayne State's GED equivalency program.

disgruntled intellect- who is to say that your intellectual experience is far greater than mine? Being that the rankings have an awful lot to do with how much money the school gets from alum, and how much prestige the school already has- I'd venture to guess that the actual LEARNING part of law school is pretty similar across the board. Unless your class read a different International Shoe than the International Shoe we read in my class, and unless your UCC is different than my UCC, I'd imagine the education we got is pretty similar.

anon

Your general premise is might be right--that law students get the same amount of learning from (almost) any school--but I think your justification is a bit off.

The cases or casebooks don't, by themselves, determine what you learn. It is also the students and professors. I'm not saying that the professors or students are necessarily better at better schools, just noting that it should be part of the calculus.

I don't think either email is all that newsworthy.

If anything makes the world think that lawyers are arrogant, elitist, myopic fucks, it's this thread. Do any of you who spend 75 hours a week in mergers & acquisitions at Skadden actually think you're better people than the folks who do estates and DUIs in small firms in the Midwest? Just because you make a lot of money? And if you do, I hope you enjoy Hell.

Are top of the class at a tier 2 more deserving the middle of the pack students at a top school? One tier 2 professor thinks so:

Some neat things about teaching at a moneylaw school . . . In hiring, the top of the class is valued over the identity of the school because at any school people who finish in the top 10 are smart, ambitious, and driven. (The other schools hire for credentials even though they are as reliable as cubic zirconium as an indicator of value.)

http://money-law.blogspot.com/2007/09/some-neat-things-about-teaching-at.html

There should be a "[sic]" in between "an" and "naive."

Also, a tier one student's snarky email would have been written more eloquently.

Take the partner’s advice and don’t jump to conclusions without checking the facts.

what is wrong with you people? seriously?

If, ten years out of law school, you still think that a school’s tier makes or breaks a lawyer, then you have wasted the last ten years.

I transferred to Michigan Law from Wayne State after my first year. Mainly because I had the opportunity to and wanted to move out of state. I found my classmates at Wayne to be very intellectual and, to be honest, a little more grounded and personable than my U of M counterparts.

While I'm very happy with my location and starting salary, I have friends who stuck around at Wayne and earned jobs starting around $120k at big Detroit firms. Which is actually quite a comfortable salary considering the fact that the cost of living in the Detroit Metro area (not nearly as ghetto as you all may suggest) is dramatically lower than New York , Chicago, etc.
So, to all of you snooty bastards out there, not only can Wayne grads make comprable money to you, they can also hold non-narcissistic conversation and are way more fun at social gatherings than you'll ever hope to be.

How do you know when someone went to an Ivy League school?... Oh, they'll tell you.

Who wrote this email? I am dying to know. Though I have my guesses...

Most of you apparently think you command quite a degree of respect.

G.A.L. "Get a life" -- you're all a bunch of loser associates who get pushed around by the same partners whose asses you kiss at social gatherings.

At least we'll be the ones doing the pushing around one day . . . and you'll be cleaning the toilets at my firm.

This guy is CRAZY. CRAZY is something that transcends law school tier-status and law firm caliber. There are CRAZY ASSHOLES from Harvard and Yale in Biglaw just like there are CRAZY ASSHOLES from Wayne State. Give me a break.

"If anything makes the world think that lawyers are arrogant, elitist, myopic fucks, it's this thread. Do any of you who spend 75 hours a week in mergers & acquisitions at Skadden actually think you're better people than the folks who do estates and DUIs in small firms in the Midwest? Just because you make a lot of money? And if you do, I hope you enjoy Hell."

Nope. Prior to reading your post, and immediately after posting this note, I'll be the first and last M&A guy at Skadden to ever contemplate your existence! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to counting money. But keep up the good work--The alchohol industry is counting on you!

If you hadn't been such a prick, I wouldn't have said it, but.... Wealthy M&A Associate is posting at 2 am in the wee hours of a Sunday morning... who else thinks he just got home from work?

There is absolutely nothing interesting about this email… who cares? what a lame story.

When do Illinois Bar results come out?!

9:53 am -- thanks for noting that Wealthy M&A Assoc is posting at 2 AM on Sunday morning. But I think you're wrong to assume he just got home from work.

I'm pretty sure he actually went out with some nerdy friends to a bar in Murray Hill on Saturday night, and came home at 2 AM and posted on ATL. In my book, that's even sadder than working late on a Saturday night.

Cost of forwarding this e-mail to abovethelaw.com instead of dealing with the law school’s career services office = $0

Number of Wayne grads who will consider working for this firm in the future = 0

Agreed -

I would rather work for a firm that stood me up for an interview than one who trashed my law entire law school because of one student's mistake.

Where is Wayne State?

You said law twice.
What is more annoying - your typo or the fact that I am editing a blog posting?

I think that partner is clearly afraid of a rising star in the law field. If the law student made it to the appointment on time the partner should have also! Wayne State is a great school! I know an attorney who graduated from there and he is a partner in a law firm who would be more understanding about wasting someone’s time. I believe that the partner of that law firm scared away a potentially great opportunity and he will regret it down the road.

You guys have it all wrong; it is the partner at that law firm who is elitist! That partner probably went to U of M or something and I think I saw him running in the naked mile!

my husband and I are both tier two students. He is clerking at Vinson and elkins this summer. He will graduate making in excess of 120 grand a year. Top twenty isn't everything. Sometimes people cant afford it. Sometimes there are family issues. To assume that tier two students must be underachievers and cant receive the se amount of respect or achieve the same opportunities is ridiculous.

I cant believe people actually attend lawschools that are not in the top 50. What a waste of time. Everyone knows it. And if they don't, all they would have to do is read these posts to figure it out. Even a tier 4, rock chewing, moron law student knows that anonymity is unreliable. Story is hilarious, posts are inane and self-aggrandizing.

Hay annoyed, your husband is not making 120 grand a year out of law school from a low ranked school. Keep dreaming and popping out those kids!

It amazes me how many panties get bunched up when people rip off a few jokes about Wayne State, which apparently is a law school somewhere. This guy is getting ripped b/c he is an arrogant jerk, and the fact that he does not go to a great school makes it even more laughable. He's like someone walking around with a swagger bragging that they make $65,000 a year like they're loaded. You should never brag about how much money you make, and especially not if you make $65,000. UNJUSTIFIED ARROGANCE

Wayne State is in Detroit. It's well respected in the metro-Detroit area, considering most UofM grads are from out of state and statistically do not stay in Michigan. That being said, the tier doesn't necessarily make the job or the paycheck, so get over it. You can still be a dumb prick from T10 with no job.

The student didn't handle the situation with grace, and just another sad example to perpetuate the lawyer stereotype.

Wayne State is in Detroit. It's well respected in the metro-Detroit area, considering most UofM grads are from out of state and statistically do not stay in Michigan. That being said, the tier doesn't necessarily make the job or the paycheck, so get over it. You can still be a dumb prick from T10 with no job.

The student didn't handle the situation with grace, and just another sad example to perpetuate the lawyer stereotype.

Wayne State is in Detroit. It's well respected in the metro-Detroit area, considering most UofM grads are from out of state and statistically do not stay in Michigan. That being said, the tier doesn't necessarily make the job or the paycheck, so get over it. You can still be a dumb prick from T10 with no job.

The student didn't handle the situation with grace, and just another sad example to perpetuate the lawyer stereotype.

What is funny is that these OCI's are like 15 minutes long and he probably wasted at least that much time trying to figure out the perfect balance between the usage of "sir" being respectful and condescending. What a tool.

Ummm...Yes he is. A good friend of ours stayed in the same state as our school and is making 95 grand in a much smaller market. Believe it or not, it is possible if you work hard and do well. V&E starts associates at 140-160. More than 95% of their clerks receive job offers.

Meanwhile, a friend from UVA who was in top 20% has gottan no job offers from firms in our area. None.

This isn't as black and white an issue as people make it out to be. People go to lower ranked schools for free a lot of the time. A 3.8 GPA and a 168 on the LSAT may get you into a lot of tier one schools, but the money they offer you will be insignificant in comparison to the tuition. There are other considerations to these kinds of decisions. And I'm sorry, the difference between a school in the 40s and in the low 60s is going to be insignificant.

So, U of M, you enjoy your 100 grand plus in debt and graduate making no more than my husband who will have no debt. As for the popping out of babies...Wow. You're hysterical.

I agree generally with annoyed's anti-elitism comments, but her comments are also a bit odd. I'm at V&E and am not sure why her comments refer to making more than 120k a year and V&E starting out associates at 140-160k. V&E's starting salary for all first years is currently $160k. There is no "sliding scale." Also, we don't have "clerks," we have summer associates. Seems like she would be familiar with our pay scale and terminology if her husband had an offer here, particularly if she is also a law school student . . .

I know as a law student everyone I know refers to jobs as "clerkships" in the summer. That could be the discrepancy *shrug* Maybe that is whys he is confused. And didn't V&E just up their salaries in the last year or so? My grades aren't nearly good enough for a big law firm like that though, so I could be way off the reservation on this one.

I'm in a barely tier one school at Tulane, and I will say that low-level tier two school in my state, LSU, has a higher bar passage rate than we do as well as equal job placement numbers, and they're in the high 80s or something? Man, this is why I never want to work in big law (not that I could). You guys have fun killing yourselves for half your life trying to make partner. ;-) The stress of proving whos tier has the biggest you-know-what is even stressing you people out.

I know as a law student everyone I know refers to jobs as "clerkships" in the summer. That could be the discrepancy *shrug* Maybe that is whys he is confused. And didn't V&E just up their salaries in the last year or so? My grades aren't nearly good enough for a big law firm like that though, so I could be way off the reservation on this one.

I'm in a barely tier one school at Tulane, and I will say that low-level tier two school in my state, LSU, has a higher bar passage rate than we do as well as equal job placement numbers, and they're in the high 80s or something? Man, this is why I never want to work in big law (not that I could). You guys have fun killing yourselves for half your life trying to make partner. ;-) The stress of proving whos tier has the biggest you-know-what is even stressing you people out.

As said above, he calls it a clerkship, and so do his friends. It is a mental blip or something, because all his jobs he has called clerkships? I don't know. I guess that explains the summer pay being so much higher than the traditional "clerkships" that happen. I stand corrected, and thanks for pointing it out. And the money wasn't just for V&E, it was in general at big firms.

My main point is that there is oppurtunity for advancement amongst the "lowly" 50-100 schools. Awesome firms like V&E DO in fact recruit below the top fifty, and thus to imply that people will be poor or unsuccsessful without going to a Tier 1 or T20 school is just silly and arrogant.

That being said, he did very well. You have to work hard and maybe prove yourself more, but my limited experience has shown that law is maybe even more about the ability to put your nose to the grindstone than it is about your natural smarts or ability.

The greatest joy I have when I read an arrogant and condescending remark from a Tier 1 law school graduate is knowing that my Tier 3 a$$ makes more money working less hours than she/he does. If you want perspective, look at the volumes of bottom tier graduates who are among the most successful and most respected lawyers in the nation. The only truth this interaction brings to light is the naivety and lack of professionalism shared by all law school students, regardless of tier stature.

I am a 2L at Wayne State in top 20%. I have a part-time job making $25/hr (as do many other students in my class) and I have call-backs at several law firms that pay $100k + per year. (not quite big law dollars, but pretty good considering the Michigan economy).

That being said, success in interview and landing a job is mostly based on personal skills, experience and how much a firm likes you. Going to a top tier school and getting good grades will get you an interview, and maybe a job, but will not make you a successful lawyer.

By the way, the WSU Career Services Office is pretty pathetic.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I basically go to school for free!

Gotta love scholarships at tier 4!!!

I think that partner is clearly afraid of a rising star in the law field. If the law student made it to the appointment on time the partner should have also! Wayne State is a great school! I know an attorney who graduated from there and he is a partner in a law firm who would be more understanding about wasting someone’s time. I believe that the partner of that law firm scared away a potentially great opportunity and he will regret it down the road.

You guys have it all wrong; it is the partner at that law firm who is elitist! That partner probably went to U of M or something and I think I saw him running in the naked mile!

I have a WSU Law Grad painting my house right now--who said they don't get jobs?

I think that WSU law grad was trying interview with The Law Offices of Sam Bernstein. Can someone confirm that?

It was not Sam Bernstein, they were not scheduled on Sept. 21

I think that the law student was right . . . he shouldn't have been left holding his dick in his hand in the interview room by some low-life lawyer.

You're an idiot Skip S. . . . the law student reminds me of a guy I know . . . one mistake and you're on his shit-list for life. People need to lighten up and learn to give people a break. This guy, and my old "friend" are examples of what is wrong with the world today -- just can't give people a break.

I know guys like that too -- they come into your life, live at your house, and complain it's too loud and dirty. Live and let live.

Wow, plenty of tier 4 bashing on here. I'm a Wayne grad myself; I chose the school out of naivete, believing that if I was at the top of my class, I could get a good job regardless of my school. Also, even with a 172 LSAT score, I was a little concerned about being in the bottom 10% of my undergrad class. Little did I know how elitist law firms were when it came to credentials....yet, all the same, I felt like I got a great education.

Now several years out, I'm on a short partnership track at a small firm working with people I really like, and I've enjoyed more than my fair share of success in practice. I generally work a mere 40-50 hours per week and live very comfortably in my local economy. On top of it all, I only had $60k in law school debt to pay back.

So, to those bashing the school, I'm sorry you are so unhappy with your own lives that you feel it necessary to put down others in order to aggrandize yourselves. And to the tier 2, 3, and 4 students, there's more to life than Biglaw - and if you don't work there, you can still have one.

Get real Wayne Grad. Big law rocks -- girls, $, and prestige. Betcha don't see that at your small firm.

I am a Wayne State JD/ MBA alum of '04. It was a tier 2 law school that recently went to tier 4 because of our past butt head dean. She is correct but maybe should have gone about it a different way. If you are at the top of your class, Big Firms will recruit you (even over those who would go to a tier 1 like Michigan). I am a living example of that so don't front on Wayne.

Well, Anon, I'm already married, so I'm not so concerned about the girls. While my salary is certainly not up to Biglaw standards yet, the partners at my small firm would be considered wealthy by anyone's measure, and that's what I'm working towards. As for prestige, I feel that I'm well respected among my peers in Southeastern Michigan, and I don't care much beyond that. There are hundreds of thousands of lawyers out there; how much "prestige" do you think any of us really have, outside of Supreme Court justices and the like?

Anonymous, I'm an '04 grad also, and like you, I applied to a tier 2 school and graduated from a tier 3 school that has since become a tier 4 school. I'm not thrilled with Wayne's administration over the past decade either.

Just a reminder that Wayne Law just 3 years ago was a second tier school. While there have been some issues in the last few years, it is still a respected graduate school with a large alumni network. Furthermore, it is the only truly instate public law school in Michigan.

Side note I work in a DC firm and I drive my expensive car just like all those top tier graduates, so we can get jobs and we are not just a big group of losers

Let me tell you, Wayne Grad, there is alot of prestige when you cut it at Biglaw. No better feeling.

a general comment ....

I'm a tier 1 grad who quit her biglaw job within the first 3 weeks because of the miserable miserable existence based purely on a soul-sucking money grubbing culture. Now I make a healthy living working for myself. No better feeling than being your own damn boss, making your own hours, and having something not a soul at biglaw had...free time. If you're seriously hating on the tier 2, 3, and 4, and not just posting things on here to be some goofball jerk, then that's just so sad. It's sad either way. Some people have other priorities than money and cars. If you're worried about how other people view you, how about you stop and take a good look at yourself instead of being an elitist weirdo?

If all you value yourself for is prestige in other's eyes and lots of money than go for it, I support you. Just don't be so negative of others who don't think like you.

:-)

Can I take you out on a date anonygirl?

My favorite part of this thread is the way all Wayne State grads jump to the defense of there alma mater. While it is true that Wayne State is well respected LOCALLY, I think the same can be said for most local law schools set in cities where the "major" law firms are stocked with local law school graduates. Wayne State also consistently proves to be a holding pen for students that could not get into to UofM, yet steadfastly defend their "decision" to not to go to UofM, followed closely by their application stats (LSAT, grad point, all that other stuff no one should care about after sitting for the bar).

Furhter, I went to law school in Michigan, but did not go to Michigan or Wayne State. At the time my class was applying, Wayne State was (at leat reported as) a tenuous member of the "Top 100". Accordingly, at call-back interviews and other social situations, Wayne State students assumed the rest of us didn't go to Wayne because we didn't get in. Since that time, Wayne State has slid into the fourth-tier, has lost its dean under suspicioous circumstances, and struggled with both bar results and placement of its students. Simultaenously, MSU new lawschool has grown in leaps and bounds and the inner-city little-brother, Detroit-Mercy, has drawn national recognition for its strives towards improving mediocre legal education and training (mild successes, at best - but shoot, at least they aren't getting worse).

What's my point? This e-mail (and thread) is funny, particularly to someone like me who has witnessed the Wayne State arrogance mysteriously surface in the past.

And yes, I failed to correct several typographical errors, particularly in the second paragraph. Let the sacrastic (derogatory) commentary begin.

http://www.manteselaw.com/

This is the law firm that sent the e-mail, stood up the student.

http://www.manteselaw.com/

This is the law firm that sent the e-mail, stood up the student.

http://www.manteselaw.com/

This is the law firm that sent the e-mail, stood up the student.

http://www.manteselaw.com/

This is the law firm that sent the e-mail, stood up the student.

I cannot believe that so many people would waste their time blogging about this -- especially since they are supposedly "Big Law" lawyers. I have never heard of a concept so stupid. I think what what this email exchange, and, particularly, the law student's email, shows is that people need to really start showing respect for one another. I mean, if someone cannot show respect in the context of an interview, when is he going to do so. Many times, in school, at work, and in life, you may feel disrespected or "stood up" as this law student seems to have felt, and never will anyone really command a level of respect that would make "thought of that unimaginable." Totally absurd. In fact, if you cannot live with that you should go into some profession other than the law, because the law requires somewhat of a thick skin. If you are going jump up and down every time someone doesn't give you the level of respect that you believe that you deserve then you should really get out now.

HOKAY, SO: You've been a slave for untold years. You want to enter the glamorous world where you can be pretentious and have people call you doctor. You want to have a silly hat and a cape. But to reach these goals, you need to produce a doctoral thesis.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'doctoral thesis' as: A completely worthless document that will not be read, but which is apparently important to someone, because it requires nearly impossible tasks to complete. This definition is spot on. Not a single person, aside from possibly (but not likely) your committee will read this pile of tripe that you create. But many, many things will happen to it. And you.

Step Zero: Pain. The design, construction, and implementation of such a worthless document requires time. Less time than you think, but more time than you have. Unfortunately, this means you will have to give up some of the finer things in life. Food, sleep, bathing, websurfing, and civility towards other humans are nice, but simply are not within the scope of a thesis writer. You must give them up. It will hurt, but you must. Loved ones will forgive you, since they will be deluded into believing that after the process is complete, you will have a sense of achievement, and more earning potential. They are wrong, but their misguided justifications for still loving you will last just long enough to get it done.

Step One: Do Stuff. In all likelihood, you have been a student for a long time. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, you actually did research. Think back. Nestled in the years spent terrorizing your office-mate(s), drinking coffee, eating horrible food, playing video games, and surfing the internet, you must have done something which constituted research. Find that stuff. A good place to look is all the papers that were written, apparently by you (et al.). Pilfer them for all that it's worth. Make a note that if you change just a few things from those papers (try commas and semi-colons first, they're easy), you dont have to fill out nasty copyright forms. Don't be tempted to do new stuff. You simply do not have the time for that.

Step Two: Do More Stuff. Now that you have used the wonders of 'cut-n-paste', you may be forced to make them coherent. Don't worry, this is simple. Use chapters liberally. Also throw in words like, 'a full treatment of $ISSUE was given by $AUTHOR et al.' Take some of the tables you had, and split them into more tables. See? Now you have LOTS more pages than before. Make sure to add lots of papers to your bibliography, since that looks like you have read stuff, even though you haven't. If you are plotting data, make sure to 'visualize' the same data in at least 5 ways, since it's one plot per page. After you take all these steps, you should have at least 100 pages worth, and you are ready to proceed.

Step Three: Look Professional. Nothing says quality like a table of contents, a table of figures, and a table of tables. Even better, these things add bloat, and bloat is good. Throw in a signature page, a copyright page, a vita, and some acknowledgements, and you are really hitting your stride. The acknowledgements page is important, since this is the last time you will have to suck up to your advisor, unless of course you plan on ever going anywhere after the thesis is written.

Step Four: Act Cool. In the thesis, you can have a quote for the thesis, and oftentimes, quotes for each chapter. Quotes give you a chance to look witty. You aren't, but hey, delusions of grandeur are fun. Believe for just one second that noone else ever thought that one quote by Einstein was really good, or that putting something in by Homer Simpson shows flair. And remember, quotes take up real estate on the page, which is always good. Moreover, you can use funky things like italics and indentation, which makes you look like a pro.

Step Five: Add it Up. You should now have everything in place. Don't bother spell-checking, since it wont be read anyway. Print out every page. All told, the output should be about an inch thick. If this is the case, you are well on your way to success in this quest. If not, split up a few more tables, and add some more graphs. Consider an appendix of worthless tables, as it adds girth. Go ahead and print it out a second time. There is no reason to do this, but it will make you feel better.

Step Six: Send it out. Find each member of your thesis committee (you did remember to get one of those, didn't you?), and go by their office with a copy of the draft. Consider having it bound, since this makes it look better, and they will believe it must be good, and thus not worth even skimming (and requiring change). In most cases, they will not be in their office, because the stench down the hall from your cubicle has informed them that you are writing the thesis, and will be finding them soon. Remember, they had to do this too, and old wounds run deep. Be like the ninja. You will need your strength for the next step.

Step Seven: Do the Impossible. Once you have cornered your prey (committee member), float out the ideas you have had for a defense date. Note: whatever day you choose will be too early, since they will claim, falsely, that they have to read the thesis through. Be strong. Make up something about wanting to be at commencement. Claim that your parents are visiting for the defense. Lie through your teeth. You will have to repeat this process for each of the committee members. It is a well known fact that the three body problem of celestial mechanics has no solution. For you, it is worse: you must get five professors to be in the same room, at the same time, and with as little animosity towards you as possible. Hint that free booze will be offered post-defense.

Step Eight: Fear the Ruler. It should come as no suprise that institutions like universities actually pay someone good money to sit down with a ruler and make sure that the strict and completely stupid rules of margins be obeyed with your document. These people exist because univerisities take a copy of your thesis and stick it in the library, where it will rot, unread, until the heat death of the universe. Nevertheless, you must obey the rules. You will delude yourself into believing that silly things like margins can be fixed after everything else is done, but you are wrong, since when that time comes, you have no time left. All that bloat you added in the form of tables and figures will make havoc with margins. All those witty quotes will make things run just a few points too wide. And they will find all of it. On every page. Budget at least 4 days for cursing, and a few more days to fix these problems. Budget at least one more for sacrifice to the gods of 'maybe the librarian will just flick through it and not notice.' Budget 5 more to realize that all the prayer in the world is meaningless in the face of hundreds of years of anal-retentive bureaucracy.

Step Nine: Wait. Arguably, this is the hardest part. If you have done your job properly and deceived everyone involved, you will wait through the time until your defense firmly ensconced in the belief that no changes will be needed. You are wrong, but it's a nice thought to have. Make the changes without question. It makes the committee feel important, and it breaks that last bit of will you have. Suck it up, it's almost over.

Step Ten: I have to do what? You might think that the culmination of many years of pain, and many weeks of thesis writing would be a sense of accomplishment, and euphoria. You are dead wrong. What you have neglected is the paperwork. Universities, by design, thrive on endless piles of paperwork to prove that you were, in fact, there. They thrive even more on paperwork to let you leave. Find the forms you will need. Fill them out, and turn them in. Think you are done. Be wrong, and get the other forms they forgot to tell you about. Fill them out too. Entertain thoughts of killing the chancellor of the university when you find out that you need a few more forms. Don't act on these thoughts, just fill out the forms. Pay the university whatever it is it costs to process your PhD. Then pay them the fees for the library. The people taking your money will laugh and say 'sure it costs a lot, but hey, you'll have a PhD, you can afford it soon!'. Don't strangle them with the phone cord, it's the only joke they have.

If you follow these steps, you are sure to succeed. Whether or not you succeed in writing a thesis is up to debate, but I'm sure you'll succeed at something.

Oh, and by the way, don't forget to write your dissertation defense presentation.....

GridSim: A Too
. GridSim supports the creation of
repeatable and controllable Grid environments for quicker performance evaluation of scheduling strategies
under different scenarios such as varying number of resources and users with different requirements. A
recipe for developing application scheduling simulators using the GridSim toolkit is presented at the end.
5.1 Introduction
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of resource brokers and associated scheduling algorithms, their
performance needs to be evaluated under different scenarios such as varying the number of resources and
users with different requirements. In a real Grid environment, it is hard and perhaps even impossible to
perform scheduler performance evaluation in a repeatable and controllable manner for different
scenarios—the availability of resources and their load continuously varies with time and it is impossible for
an individual user/domain to control activities of other users in different administrative domains.
The designers of resource management and scheduling systems and algorithms for large-scale
distributed computing systems need a simple framework for deterministic modeling and simulation of
resources and applications to evaluate their design strategies and algorithms. When access to ready-to-use
testbed infrastructure is not available, building it is expensive and time consuming. Also, even if the testbed
is available, it is limited to a few resources and domains; and testing scheduling algorithms for scalability
and adaptability, and evaluating scheduler performance for various applications and resource scenarios is
harder to trace and resource intensive. Researchers and educators in Grid computing have also recognized
the importance and the need for such a toolkit for modeling and simulation environments [61]. We have
developed a Java-based discrete-event Grid simulation toolkit called GridSim. The toolkit supports
modeling and simulation of heterogeneous Grid resources (both time- and space-shared), users and
application models. It provides primitives for creation of application tasks, mapping of tasks to resources,
and their management. To demonstrate suitability of the GridSim toolkit, we have simulated a Nimrod-G
like Grid resource broker and evaluated the performance of deadline and budget constrained cost- and timeminimization
scheduling algorithms.
Our interest in building a simulation environment arose from the need for performing a detailed
evaluation of deadline and budget constraint scheduling algorithms implemented within the Nimrod-G
broker [100]. We performed many experiments using the Nimrod-G broker for scheduling task farming
applications on the WWG (World-Wide Grid) [111] testbed resources with small configuration (like 2
hours deadline and 10 machines for a single user). The ability to experiment with a large number of Grid
scenarios was limited by the number of resources that were available in the WWG testbed. Also, it was
impossible to perform repeatable evaluation of scheduling strategies as the availability, allocation, and
usage of resources changed with time. Also conducting performance evaluation on a real Grid tested for a
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number of different scenarios is resource intensive and time consuming task, which can be drastically
minimized by using discrete event simulation techniques.
The GridSim toolkit supports modeling and simulation of a wide range of heterogeneous resources, such
as single or multiprocessors, shared and distributed memory machines such as PCs, workstations, SMPs,
and clusters managed by time or space-shared schedulers. That means, GridSim can be used for modeling
and simulation of application scheduling on various classes of parallel and distributed computing systems
such as clusters, Grids, and P2P networks. The resources in clusters are located in a single administrative
domain and managed by a single entity whereas, in Grid and P2P systems, resources are geographically
distributed across multiple administrative domains with their own management policies and goals. Another
key difference between cluster and Grid/P2P systems arises from the way application scheduling is
performed. The schedulers in cluster systems focus on enhancing overall system performance and utility, as
they are responsible for the whole system. Whereas, schedulers in Grid/P2P systems called resource
brokers, focus on enhancing performance of a specific application in such a way that its end-users
requirements are met.
The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 5.2 discusses related work with highlights on
unique features that distinguish our toolkit from other packages. The GridSim architecture and internal
components that make up GridSim simulations are discussed in Section 5.3. Section 5.4, discusses how to
build GridSim based scheduling simulations. The final section summarizes the chapter along with
comments on adoption and usage of the GridSim toolkit.
5.2 Related Work
Simulation has been used extensively for modeling and evaluation of real world systems, from business
process and factory assembly line to computer systems design. Accordingly, over the years, modeling and
simulation has emerged as an important discipline and many standard and application-specific tools and
technologies have been built. They include simulation languages (e.g., Simscript [15]), simulation
environments (e.g., Parsec [90]), simulation libraries (SimJava [29]), and application specific simulators
(e.g., OMNet++ network simulator [5]). While there exists a large body of knowledge and tools, there are
very few tools available for application scheduling simulation in Grid computing environments. The
notable ones are: Bricks [62], MicroGrid [46], Simgrid [43], and our GridSim toolkit.
The Bricks simulation system [62], developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, helps in
simulating client-server like global computing systems that provide remote access to scientific libraries and
packages running on high performance computers. It follows centralized global scheduling methodology as
opposed to our work in which each application scheduling is managed by the users’ own resource broker.
The MicroGrid emulator [46], undertaken in the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), is
modeled after Globus. It allows execution of applications constructed using Globus toolkit in a controlled
virtual Grid emulated environment. The results produced by emulation can be precise, but modeling
numerous applications, Grid environments, and scheduling scenarios for realistic statistical analysis of
scheduling algorithms is time consuming as applications run on emulated resources. Also, scheduling
algorithms designers generally work with application models instead of constructing actual applications.
Therefore, MicroGrid’s need for an application constructed using Globus imposes significant development
overhead. However, when an actual system is implemented by incorporating scheduling strategies that are
evaluated using simulation, the MicroGrid emulator can be used as a complementary tool for verifying
simulation results with real applications.
The Simgrid toolkit [43], developed in the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), is a
C language based toolkit for the simulation of application scheduling. It supports modeling of resources
that are time-shared and the load can be injected as constants or from real traces. It is a powerful system
that allows creation of tasks in terms of their execution time and resources with respect to a standard
machine capability. Using Simgrid APIs, tasks can be assigned to resources depending on the scheduling
policy being simulated. It has been used for a number of real studies, and demonstrates the power of
simulation. However, because Simgrid is restricted to a single scheduling entity and time-shared systems, it
is difficult to simulate multiple competing users, applications, and schedulers, each with their own policies
when operating under market like Grid computing environment, without extending the toolkit substantially.
Also, many large-scale resources in the Grid environment are space-shared machines and they need to be
83
supported in simulation. Hence, our GridSim toolkit extends the ideas in existing systems and overcomes
their limitations accordingly.
Finally, we have chosen to implement GridSim in Java by leveraging SimJava’s [29] basic discrete
event simulation infrastructure. This feature is likely to appeal to educators and students since Java has
emerged as a popular programming language for network computing.
5.3 GridSim: Grid Modeling and Simulation Toolkit
The GridSim toolkit provides a comprehensive facility for simulation of different classes of heterogeneous
resources, users, applications, resource brokers, and schedulers. It can be used to simulate application
schedulers for single or multiple administrative domain(s) distributed computing systems such as clusters
and Grids. Application schedulers in Grid environment, called resource brokers, perform resource
discovery, selection, and aggregation of a diverse set of distributed resources for an individual user. That
means, each user has his own private resource broker and hence, it can be targeted to optimize for the
requirements and objectives of its owner. Whereas schedulers, managing resources such as clusters in a
single administrative domain, have complete control over the policy used for allocation of resources. That
means, all users need to submit their jobs to the central scheduler, which can be targeted to perform global
optimization such as higher system utilization and overall user satisfaction depending on resource
allocation policy or optimize for high priority users.
5.3.1 Key Features
Salient features of the GridSim toolkit include the following:
· It allows modeling of heterogeneous types of resources.
· Resources can be modeled operating under space- or time-shared mode.
· Resource capability can be defined (in the form of MIPS as per SPEC benchmark).
· Resources can be located in any time zone.
· Weekends and holidays can be mapped depending on resource’s local time to model non-Grid
(local) workload.
· Resources can be booked for advance reservation.
· Applications with different parallel application models can be simulated.
· Application tasks can be heterogeneous and they can be CPU or I/O intensive.
· There is no limit on the number of application jobs that can be submitted to a resource.
· Multiple user entities can submit tasks for execution simultaneously in the same resource, which
may be time-shared or space-shared. This feature helps in building schedulers that can use
different market-driven economic models for selecting services competitively.
· Network speed between resources can be specified.
· It supports simulation of both static and dynamic schedulers.
· Statistics of all or selected operations can be recorded and they can be analyzed using GridSim
statistics analysis methods.
5.3.2 System Architecture
We employed a layered and modular architecture for Grid simulation to leverage existing technologies and
manage them as separate components. A multi-layer architecture and abstraction for the development of
GridSim platform and its applications is shown in Figure 5.1. The first layer is concerned with the scalable
Java’s interface and the runtime machinery, called JVM (Java Virtual Machine), whose implementation is
available for single and multiprocessor systems including clusters [146]. The second layer is concerned
with a basic discrete-event infrastructure built using the interfaces provided by the first layer. One of the
popular discrete-event infrastructure implementations available in Java is SimJava [29]. Recently a
distributed implementation of SimJava is also made available. The third layer is concerned with modeling
and simulation of core Grid entities such as resources, information services, and so on; application model,
uniform access interface, and primitives application modeling and framework for creating higher level
entities. The GridSim toolkit focuses on this layer that simulates system entities using the discrete-event
84
services offered by the lower-level infrastructure. The fourth layer is concerned with the simulation of
resource aggregators called Grid resource brokers or schedulers. The final layer focuses on application and
resource modeling with different scenarios using the services provided by the two lower-level layers for
evaluating scheduling and resource management policies, heuristics, and algorithms. In this section, we
briefly discuss SimJava model for discrete events (a second-layer component) and focus mainly on the
GridSim (the third-layer) design and implementation. The resource broker simulation and performance
evaluation is highlighted in the next two sections.
Basic Discrete Event Simulation Infrastructure
Virtual Machine (Java, cJVM, RMI)
PCs Workstations Clusters
. . .
SMPs Distributed Resources
GridSim Toolkit
Application
Modeling
Information
Services
Resource
Allocation
Grid Resource Brokers or Schedulers
Statistics
Resource Modeling and Simulation (with Time and Space shared schedulers)
Job
Management
Single CPU SMPs Clusters Load Pattern Reservation
Application
Configuration
Resource
Configuration
User
Requirements
Grid
Scenario
Network
SimJava Distributed SimJava
Resource
Entities
Output
Application, User, Grid Scenario’s Input and Results
Figure 5.1: A modular architecture for GridSim platform and components.
5.3.3 SimJava Discrete Event Model
SimJava [29] is a general-purpose discrete event simulation package implemented in Java. Simulations in
SimJava contain a number of entities each of which runs in parallel in its own thread. An entity’s behaviour
is encoded in Java using its body() method. Entities have access to a small number of simulation primitives:
· sim_schedule() sends event objects to other entities via ports;
· sim_hold() holds for some simulation time;
· sim_wait() waits for an event object to arrive.
These features help in constructing a network of active entities that communicate by sending and receiving
passive event objects efficiently.
The sequential discrete event simulation algorithm, in SimJava, is as follows. A central object
Sim_system maintains a timestamp ordered queue of future events. Initially all entities are created and their
body() methods are put in run state. When an entity invokes a simulation function, the Sim_system object
halts that entity’s thread and places an event on the future queue to signify processing the function. When
all entities have halted, Sim_system pops the next event off the queue, advances the simulation time
85
accordingly, and restarts entities as appropriate. This continues until no more events are generated. If the
Java virtual machine supports native threads, then all entities starting at exactly the same simulation time
may run concurrently.
5.3.4 GridSim Entities
GridSim supports entities for simulation of single processor and multiprocessor, heterogeneous resources
that can be configured as time or space shared systems. It allows setting their clock to different time zones
to simulate geographic distribution of resources. It supports entities that simulate networks used for
communication among resources. During simulation, GridSim creates a number of multi-threaded entities,
each of which runs in parallel in its own thread. An entity’s behavior needs to be simulated within its
body() method, as dictated by SimJava.
Jobs
Appli
cation
Scheduler
User #i Broker #i Output
Input
Output
Input
Resource #j
Job In Queue
Job Out Queue
Process
Queue
Output
Input
Resource
List
Information
Service
Internet
Report
Writer #i
Statistics
Recorder #i
Shutdown
Signal
Manager #i
Figure 5.2: A flow diagram in GridSim based simulations.
A simulation environment needs to abstract all the entities and their time dependent interactions in the
real system. It needs to support the creation of user-defined time dependent response functions for the
interacting entities. The response function can be a function of the past, current, or both states of entities.
GridSim based simulations contain entities for the users, brokers, resources, information service, statistics,
and network based I/O as shown in Figure 5.2. The design and implementation issues of these GridSim
entities are discussed below:
User – Each instance of the User entity represents a Grid user. Each user may differ from the rest of the
users with respect to the following characteristics:
· Types of job created e.g., job execution time, number of parametric replications, etc.,
· Scheduling optimization strategy e.g., minimization of cost, time, or both,
· Activity rate e.g., how often it creates new job,
· Time zone, and
· Absolute deadline and budget, or
86
· D-and B-factors, deadline and budget relaxation parameters, measured in the range [0,1] express
deadline and budget affordability of the user relative to the application processing requirements
and available resources.
Broker – Each user is connected to an instance of the Broker entity. Every job of a user is first submitted to
its broker and the broker then schedules the parametric tasks according to the user’s scheduling policy.
Before scheduling the tasks, the broker dynamically gets a list of available resources from the global
directory entity. Every broker tries to optimize the policy of its user and therefore, brokers are expected
to face extreme competition while gaining access to resources. The scheduling algorithms used by the
brokers must be highly adaptable to the market’s supply and demand situation.
Resource – Each instance of the Resource entity represents a Grid resource. Each resource may differ from
the rest of resources with respect to the following characteristics:
· Number of processors;
· Cost of processing;
· Speed of processing;
· Internal process scheduling policy e.g., time shared or space shared;
· Local load factor; and
· Time zone.
The resource speed and the job execution time can be defined in terms of the ratings of standard
benchmarks such as MIPS and SPEC. They can also be defined with respect to the standard machine.
Upon obtaining the resource contact details from the Grid information service, brokers can query
resources directly for their static and dynamic properties.
Grid Information Service – It provides resource registration services and maintains a list of resources
available in the Grid. This service can be used by brokers to discover resource contact, configuration,
and status information.
Input and Output –The flow of information among the GridSim entities happen via their Input and Output
entities. Every networked GridSim entity has I/O channels, which are used for establishing a link
between the entity and its own Input and Output entities. Note that the GridSim entity and its Input
and Output entities are threaded entities i.e., they have their own execution thread with body() method
that handle the events. The GridSim model for communication between entities is illustrated in Figure
5.3. The use of separate entities for input and output enables a networked entity to model full duplex
and multi-user parallel communications. The support for buffered input and output channels associated
with every GridSim entity provides a simple mechanism for an entity to communicate with other
entities and at the same time enables the modeling of a communication delay transparently.
5.3.5 Application Model
GridSim does not explicitly define any specific application model. It is up to the developers (of schedulers
and resource brokers) to define them. We have experimented with a task-farming application model.
However, it is possible to use GridSim to model other parallel application models such as process
parallelism, DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs), divide and conquer etc., described in [70].
In GridSim, each independent task may require varying processing time and input files size. Such tasks
can be created and their requirements are defined through Gridlet objects. A Gridlet is a package that
contains all the information related to the job and its execution management details such as the job length
expressed in MI (million instructions), disk I/O operations, the size of input and output files, and the job
originator. These basic parameters help in determining execution time, the time required to transport input
and output files between users and remote resources, and returning the processed Gridlets back to the
originator along with the results. The GridSim toolkit supports a wide range of Gridlet management
protocols and services that allow schedulers to map a Gridlet to a resource and manage it through out the
life cycle.
87
EA
Output_EA
Input_EA
EB
Output_EB
Input_EB
body()
Send(output, data, EB)
…
…
body()
body()
…
…
body() …
body()
…
body()
Receive(input, data, EA)
…
…
Timed Event Delivery
data, t2
(Deliver data @ t2)
Figure 5.3: Entity communication model via its Input and Output entities.
5.3.6 Interaction Protocols Model
The protocols for interaction between GridSim entities are implemented using events. In GridSim, entities
use events for both service requests and service deliveries. The events can be raised by any entity to be
delivered immediately or with specified delay to other entities or itself. The events that are originated from
the same entity are called internal events and those originated from the external entities are called external
events. Entities can distinguish these events based on the source identification associated with them. The
GridSim protocols are used for defining entity services. Depending on the service protocols, the GridSim
events can be further classified into synchronous and asynchronous events. An event is called synchronous
when the event source entity waits until the event destination entity performs all the actions associated with
the event (i.e., the delivery of full service). An event is called asynchronous when the event source entity
raises an event and continues with other activities without waiting for its completion. When the destination
entity receives such events or service requests, it responds back with results by sending one or more events,
which can then take appropriate actions. It should be noted that external events could be synchronous or
asynchronous, but internal events need to be raised as asynchronous events only to avoid deadlocks.
A complete set of entities in a typical GridSim simulation and the use of events for simulating
interaction between them are shown in Figure 5.4 and Figure 5.5. Figure 5.4 emphasizes the interaction
between a resource entity that simulates time-shared scheduling and other entities. Figure 5.5 emphasizes
the interaction between a resource entity that simulates space-shared system and other entities. In this
section we briefly discuss the use of the events for simulating Grid activities.
88The GridSim resources use internal events to simulate resource behavior and resource allocation. The
entity needs to be modeled in such a way that it is able to receive all events meant for it. However, it is up
to the entity to decide on the associated actions. For example, in time-shared resource simulations (see
Figure 5.4) internal events are scheduled to signify the completion time of a Gridlet, which has the smallest
remaining processing time requirement. Meanwhile, if an external event arrives, it changes the share
resource availability for each Gridlet. That means the most recently scheduled event may not necessarily
signify the completion of a Gridlet. The resource entity can discard such internal events without processing.
The use of internal events for simulating resources is discussed in detail in Section 5.3.7.
89
User1 Grid
Broker Entity
Grid Resource
Entity
(Register Resource)
Grid Information
Service Entity
Grid Shutdown
Entity
(Get Resource List)
(Get Resource Characteristics)
(Submit Gridlet1)
[Gridlet1 completion
event]
(Gridlet1 Finished)
(Submit Gridlet3)
(Submit Gridlet2)
[Gridlet2
completion event]
(Gridlet2 Finished)
[Gridlet3
completion event]
(Gridlet3 Finished)
(I am Done)
[If all Users
are “Done”]
(Terminate)
(Get Resource
List)
(Terminate)
Grid Statistics
Entity
(Record My Statistics)
Grid User1
Entity
(Submit
Expt.)
(Done
Expt.)
Report
Writer Entity
(Create Report)
(Get Stat)
(Done)
(Asynchronous Event) (Terminate)
(Synchronous Event)
Internal Asynchronous Event:
scheduled and delivered to
indicate the completion of
Gridlet.
Figure 5.5: An event diagram for interaction between a space-shared resource and other entities.
5.3.7 Resource Model – Simulating Multitasking and Multiprocessing
In the GridSim toolkit, we can create Processing Elements (PEs) with different speeds (measured in either
MIPS or SPEC-like ratings). Then, one or more PEs can be put together to create a machine. Similarly, one
or more machines can be put together to create a Grid resource. Thus, the resulting Grid resource can be a
single processor, shared memory multiprocessors (SMP), or a distributed memory cluster of computers.
These Grid resources can simulate time- or space-shared scheduling depending on the allocation policy. A
single PE or SMP type Grid resource is typically managed by time-shared operating systems that use
round-robin scheduling policy (see Figure 5.8) for multitasking. The distributed memory multiprocessing
systems (such as clusters) are managed by queuing systems, called space-shared schedulers, that execute a
Gridlet by running it on a dedicated PE (see Figure 5.11) when allocated. The space-shared systems use
resource allocation policies such as first-come-first-served (FCFS), back filling, shortest-job-first served
(SJFS), and so on. It should also be noted that resource allocation within high-end SMPs could also be
performed using the space-shared schedulers.
Multitasking and multiprocessing systems allow concurrently running tasks to share system resources
such as processors, memory, storage, I/O, and network by scheduling their use for very short time intervals.
A detailed simulation of scheduling tasks in the real systems would be complex and time consuming.
Hence, in GridSim, we abstract these physical entities and simulate their behavior using process oriented,
discrete event “interrupts” with time interval as large as the time required for the completion of a smallest
remaining-time job. The GridSim resources can send, receive, or schedule events to simulate the execution
of jobs. It schedules self-events for simulating resource allocation depending on the scheduling policy and
the number of jobs in queue or in execution.
Let us consider the following scenario to illustrate the simulation of Gridlets execution and scheduling
within a GridSim resource. A resource consists of two shared or distributed memory PEs each with MIPS
rating of 1, for simplicity. Three Gridlets that represent jobs with processing requirements equivalent to 10,
8.5, and 9.5 MI (million instructions) arrive in simulation times 0, 4, and 7 respectively. The way GridSim
schedules jobs to PEs is shown schematically in Figure 5.8 for time-shared resources and Figure 5.11 for
space-shared resources.
90
Simulation of Scheduling in Time-Shared Resources
The GridSim resource simulator uses internal events to simulate the execution and allocation of PEs share
to Gridlet jobs. When jobs arrive, time-shared systems start their execution immediately and share
resources among all jobs. Whenever a new Gridlet job arrives, we update the processing time of existing
Gridlets and then add this newly arrived job to the execution set. We schedule an internal event to be
delivered at the earliest completion time of smallest job in the execution set. It then waits for the arrival of
events.
A complete algorithm for simulation of time-share scheduling and execution is shown in Figure 5.6. If a
newly arrived event happens to be an internal event whose tag number is the same as the most recently
scheduled event, then it is recognized as a job completion event. Depending on the number of Gridlets in
execution and the number of PEs in a resource, GridSim allocates appropriate amount of PE share to all
Gridlets for the event duration using the algorithm shown in Figure 5.7. It should be noted that Gridlets
sharing the same PE would get an equal amount of PE share. The completed Gridlet is sent back to its
originator (broker or user) and removed from the execution set. GridSim schedules a new internal event to
be delivered at the forecasted earliest completion time of the remaining Gridlets.
Figure 5.6: An event handler for simulating time-shared resource scheduling.
Figure 5.8 illustrates the simulation of time-share scheduling algorithm and the Gridlets’ execution.
When Gridlet1 arrives at time 0, it is mapped to PE1 and an internal event to be delivered at the time 10 is
scheduled since the predicted completion time is still 10. At time 4, Gridlet2 arrives and it is mapped to the
PE2. The completion time of Gridlet2 was predicted as 12.5 and the completion time of Gridlet1 is still 10
since both of them are executing on different PEs. A new internal event is scheduled, which will still be
delivered at time 10. At time 7, Gridlet3 arrives, which is mapped to the PE2. It shares the PE time with
Gridlet2. At time 10, an internal event is delivered to the resource to signify the completion of the
Gridlet1, which is then sent back to the broker. At this moment, as the number of Gridlets equal the number
of PEs, they are mapped to different PEs. An internal event to be delivered at time 14 is scheduled to
indicate the predicted completion time of Gridlet2. As simulation proceeds, an internal event is delivered at
time 14 and Gridlet2 is sent back to the broker. An internal event to be delivered at time 18 is scheduled to
indicate the predicted completion time of Gridlet3. Since there were no other Gridlets submitted before this
time, the resource receives an internal interrupt at time 18, which signifies the completion of Gridlet3. A
Algorithm: Time-Shared Grid Resource Event Handler ()
1. Wait for an event
2. If the external and Gridlet arrival event, then:
BEGIN /* a new job has arrived */
a. Allocate PE Share for Gridlets Processed so far
b. Add arrived Gridlet to Execution_Set
c. Forecast completion time of all Gridlets in Execution_Set
d. Schedule an event to be delivered at the smallest completion time
END
3. If event is internal and its tag value is the same as the recently scheduled internal event
tag,
BEGIN /* a job finish event */
a. Allocate PE Share of all Gridlets processed so far
b. Update finished Gridlet’s PE and Wall clock time parameters and send it back
to the broker
c. Remove finished Gridlet from the Execution_Set and add to Finished_Set
d. Forecast completion time of all Gridlets in Execution_Set
e. Schedule an event to be delivered at the smallest completion time
END
4. Repeat the above steps until the end of simulation event is received
91
schematic representation of Gridlets arrival, internal events delivery, and sending them back to the broker is
shown in Figure 5.4. The comparison between the arrival, execution start, execution finish, and elapsed
time of Gridlets when deployed on time and space shared resources is shown in Table 5.1.
Figure 5.7: PE share allocation to Gridlet in time-shared GridSim resource.
PE1
PE2
G1
G2
G3
G1
G2
G2
G2
G3
G3
P1-G1 P1-G2 P3-G2 P2-G3 P1-G3
Time
G1
G1: Gridlet1 Arrives
G3 G1F
G1F: Gridlet1 Finishes
G2 G2F G3F
Gridlet1 (10 MIPS)
Gridlet2 (8.5 MIPS)
Gridlet3 (9.5 MIPS) P2-G2: Gridlet2 finishes at the 2nd prediction time.
P1-G2: Gridlet2 didn’t finish at the 1st prediction time.
Tasks on
PEs/CPUs
2 6 9 12 16 19 22 26
P2-G2
Figure 5.8: Modeling time-shared multitasking and multiprocessing based on an event scheme.
Algorithm: PE_Share_Allocation(Duration)
1. Identify total MI per PE for the duration and the number of PE that process one extra Gridlet
TotalMIperPE = MIPSRatingOfOnePE()*Duration
MinNoOfGridletsPerPE = NoOfGridletsInExec / NoOfPEs
NoOfPEsRunningOneExtraGridlet = NoOfGridletsInExec % NoOfPEs
2. Identify maximum and minimum MI share that Gridlet get in the Duration
If(NoOfGridletsInExec NoOfPEs */
MaxSharePerGridlet = TotalMIperPE/ MinNoOfGridletsPerPE
MinSharePerGridlet = TotalMIperPE/(MinNoOfGridletsPerPE+1)
MaxShareNoOfGridlets = (NoOfPEs - NoOfPEsRunningOneExtraGridlet)*MinNoOfGridletsPerPE
92
Table 5.1: A scheduling statistics scenario for time- and space-shared resources in GridSim.
Time-Shared Resource Space-Shared Resource
Grilets
Number
Length
(MI)
Arrival
Time
(a)
Start
Time
(s)
Finish
Time
(f)
Elapsed
Time
(f-a)
Start
Time
(s)
Finish
Time
(f)
Elapsed
Time
(f-a)
G1 10 0 0 10 10 0 10 10
G2 8.5 4 4 14 10 4 12.5 8.5
G3 9.5 7 7 18 11 10 19.5 12.5
Simulation of Scheduling in Space-Shared Resources
The GridSim resource simulator uses internal events to simulate the execution and allocation of PEs to
Gridlet jobs. When a job arrives, space-shared systems start its execution immediately if there is a free PE
available, otherwise, it is queued. During the Gridlet assignment, job-processing time is determined and
event is scheduled for delivery at the end of execution time. Whenever the Gridlet job finishes and the
internal event is delivered to signify the completion of scheduled Gridlet job, the resource simulator frees
the PE allocated to it and then checks if there are any other jobs waiting in the queue. If there are jobs
waiting in the queue, then it selects a suitable job depending on the policy and assigns to the PE, which is
free.
A complete algorithm for simulation of space-share scheduling and execution is shown in Figure 5.9. If
a newly arrived event happens to be an internal event whose tag number is the same as the most recently
scheduled event, then it is recognized as a Gridlet completion event. If there are Gridlets in the submission
queue, then depending on the allocation policy (e.g., the first Gridlet in the queue if FCFS policy is used),
GridSim selects suitable Gridlets from the queue and assigns it to the PE or a suitable PE if more than one
PE is free. See Figure 5.11 for illustration of the allocation of PE to Gridlets. The completed Gridlet is sent
back to its originator (broker or user) and removed from the execution set. GridSim schedules a new
internal event to be delivered at the completion time of the scheduled Gridlet job.
Figure 5.9: An event handler for simulating space-shared resource scheduling.
Algorithm: Space-Shared Grid Resource Event Handler ()
1. Wait for event and Identity Type of Event received
2. If it external and Gridlet arrival event, then:
BEGIN /* a new job arrived */
· If the number of Gridlets in execution are less than the number of PEs in the resource, then,
Allocate_PE_to_the_Gridlet() /* It should schedule an Gridlet completion event */
· If not, Add Gridlet to the Gridlet_Submitted_Queue
END
3. If event is internal and its tag value is the same recently scheduled internal event tag,
BEGIN /* a job finish event */
· Update finished Gridlet’s PE and Wall clock time parameters and send it back to the broker
· Set the status of PE to FREE
· Remove finished Gridlet from the Execution_Set and add to Finished_Set
· If Gridlet_Submitted_Queue has Gridlets in waiting, then
Choose the Gridlet to be Processed() /* e.g., first one in Q if FCFS policy is used */
Allocate_PE_to_the_Gridlet() /* It should schedule an Gridlet completion event */
END
4. Repeat the above steps until the end of simulation event is received
93
Figure 5.10: PE allocation to the Gridlets in space-shared GridSim resource.
Figure 5.11 illustrates the simulation of space-share scheduling algorithm and Gridlets’ execution. When
Gridlet1 arrives at time 0, it is mapped to PE1 and an internal event to be delivered at the time 10 is
scheduled since the predicted completion time is still 10. At time 4, Gridlet2 arrives and it is mapped to the
PE2. The completion time of Gridlet2 is predicted as 12.5 and the completion time of Gridlet1 is still 10
since both of them are executing on different PEs. A new internal event to be delivered at time 12.5 is
scheduled to signify the completion of Gridlet2. At time 7, Gridlet3 arrives. Since there is no free PE
available on the resource, it is put into the queue. The simulation continues i.e., GridSim resource waits for
the arrival of a new event. At time 10 a new event is delivered which happens to signify the completion of
Gridlet1, which is then sent back to the broker. It then checks to see if there are any Gridlets waiting in the
queue and chooses a suitable Gridlet (in this case as Gridlet2 is based on FCFS policy) and assign the
available PE to it. An internal event to be delivered at time 19.5 is scheduled to indicate the completion
time of Gridlet3 and then waits for the arrival of new events. A new event is delivered at the simulation
time 12.5, which signifies the completion of the Gridlet2, which is then sent back to the broker. There is no
Gridlet waiting in the queue, so it proceeds without scheduling any events and waits for the arrival of the
next event. A new internal event arrives at the simulation time 19.5, which signifies the completion of
Gridlet3. This process continues until resources receive an external event indicating the termination of
simulation. A schematic representation of Gridlets arrival, internal events delivery, and sending them back
to the broker is shown in Figure 5.5.
G1
G2
G3
G1 G3
G2 G3
P1-G1 P1-G2 P1-G3
Time
G1
G1: Gridlet1 Arrives
G3 G1F
G1F: Gridlet1 Finishes
G2 G2F G3F
Gridlet1 (10 MIPS)
Gridlet2 (8.5 MIPS)
Gridlet3 (9.5 MIPS)
P1-G2: Gridlet2 finishes as per the 1st Predication
Tasks on
PEs/CPUs
2 6 9 12 16 19 22 26
PE1
PE2
Figure 5.11:Modeling space-shared multiprocessing based on an event scheme.
Algorithm: Allocate_PE_to_the_Gridlet(Gridlet gl)
1. Identify a suitable Machine with Free PE
2. Identify a suitable PE in the machine and Assign to the Gridlet
3. Set Status of the Allocated PE to BUSY
4. Determine the Completion Time of Gridlet and Set an internal event to be delivered at the
completion time
94
For every Grid resource, the non-Grid (local) workload is estimated based on typically observed load
conditions depending on the time zone of the resource. The network communication speed between a user
and the resources is defined in terms of a data transfer speed (baud rate).
5.3.8 GridSim Java Package Design
A class diagram hierarchy of the gridsim package, represented using unified modeling language (UML)
notation, is shown in Figure 5.12. The specification of each class contains up to three parts: attributes,
methods, and internal classes. In the class diagram, attributes and methods are prefixed with characters
“+”, “-”, and “#” indicating access modifiers public, private, and protected respectively. The gridsim
package implements the following classes:
class gridsim.Input – This class extends the eduni.simjava.Sim_entity class. This class defines a
port through which a simulation entity receives data from the simulated network. It maintains an event
queue to serialize the data-in-flow and delivers to its parent entity. Simultaneous inputs can be
modeled using multiple instances of this class.
class gridsim.Output – This class is very similar to the gridsim.Input class and it defines a port
through which a simulation entity sends data to the simulated network. It maintains an event queue to
serialize the data-out-flow and delivers to the destination entity. Simultaneous outputs can be modeled
by using multiple instances of this class.
class gridsim.GridSim – This is the main class of Gridsim package that must be extended by
GridSim entities. It inherits event management and threaded entity features from the
eduni.simjava.Sim_entity class. The GridSim class adds networking and event delivery features, which
allows synchronous or asynchronous communication for service access or delivery. All classes that
extend the GridSim class must implement a method called “body()”, which is automatically invoked
since it is expected to be responsible for simulating entity behavior. The entities that extend the
GridSim class can be instantiated with or without networked I/O ports. A networked GridSim entity
gains communication capability via the objects of GridSim’s I/O entity classes gridsim.Input and
gridsim.Output classes. Each I/O entity will have a unique name assuming each GridSim entity that the
user creates has unique name. For example, a resource entity with name “Resource2” will have an
input entity whose name is prefixed with “Input_”, making input entity full name as
“Input_Resource2”, which is expected to be unique. The I/O entities are concurrent entities, but they
are visible within GridSim entity and are able to communicate with other GridSim entities by sending
messages.
The GridSim class supports methods for simulation initialization, management, and flow control. The
GridSim environment must be initialized to setup simulation environment before creating any other
GridSim entities at the user level. This method also prepares the system for simulation by creating
three GridSim internal entities—GridInformationService, GridSimShutdown, and GridStatistics. As
explained in Section 5.3.2, the GridInformationService entity simulates the directory that dynamically
keeps a list of resources available in the Grid. The GridSimShutdown entity helps in wrapping up a
simulation by systematically closing all the opened GridSim entities. The GridStatistics entity provides
standard services during the simulation to accumulate statistical data. Invoking the GridSim.Start ()
method starts the Grid simulation. All the resource and user entities must be instantiated in between
invoking the above two methods.
The GridSim class supports static methods for sending and receiving messages between entities
directly or via network entities, managing and accessing handle to various GridSim core entities, and
recording statistics.
class gridsim.PE – It is used to represent CPU/Processing Element (PE) whose capability is defined
in terms of MIPS rating.
class gridsim.PEList – It maintains a list of PEs that make up a machine.
class gridsim.Machine – It represents a uniprocessor or shared memory multiprocessor machine.
95
Figure 5.12: A class hierarchy diagram of GridSim package.
96
class gridsim.MachineList – An instance of this class simulates a collection of machines. It is up
to the GridSim users to define the connectivity among the machines in a collection. Therefore, this
class can be instantiated to model simple LAN to cluster to WAN.
class gridsim.ResourceCharacteristics –It represents static properties of a resource such as
resource architecture, OS, management policy (time or space shared), cost, and time zone at which the
resource is located along resource configuration.
class gridsim.GridResource – It extends the GridSim class and gains communication and
concurrent entity capability. An instance of this class simulates a resource with properties defined in an
object of the gridsim.ResourceCharacteristics class. The process of creating a Grid
resource is as follows: first create PE objects with a suitable MIPS/SPEC rating, second assemble
them together to create a machine. Finally, group one or more objects of the Machine to form a
resource. A resource having a single machine with one or more PEs is managed as a time-shared
system using round robin scheduling algorithm. A resource with multiple machines is treated as a
distributed memory cluster and is managed as a space-shared system using first-come first served
scheduling policy or its variants.
class gridsim.GridSimStandardPE – It defines MIPS rating for a standard PE or enables the
users to define their own MIPS/SPEC rating for a standard PE. This value can be used for creating PEs
with relative MIPS/SPEC rating for GridSim resources and creating Gridlets with relative processing
requirements.
class gridsim.ResourceCalendar – This class implements a mechanism to support modeling
local load on Grid resources that may vary according to the time zone, time, weekends, and holidays.
class gridsim.GridInformationService – A GridSim entity that provides Grid resource
registration, indexing and discovery services. The Grid resources register their readiness to process
Gridlets by registering themselves with this entity. GridSim entities such as the resource broker can
contact this entity for resource discovery service, which returns a list of registered resource entities and
their contact address. For example, scheduling entities use this service for resource discovery.
class gridsim.Gridlet – This class acts as job package that contains job length in MI, the length of
input and out data in bytes, execution start and end time, and the originator of job. Individual users
model their application by creating Gridlets for processing them on Grid resources assigned by
scheduling entities (resource brokers).
class gridsim.GridletList – It can be used to maintain a list of Gridlets and supports methods
for organizing them.
class gridsim.GridSimTags – It contains various static command tags that indicate a type of
action that needs to be undertaken by GridSim entities when they receive events. The different types of
tags supported in GridSim along with comments indicating possible purpose are shown in Figure 5.13.
public class GridSimTags {
public static final double SCHEDULE_NOW = 0.0; // 0.0 indicates NO delay
public static final int END_OF_SIMULATION = -1;
public static final int INSIGNIFICANT = 0; // ignore tag
public static final int EXPERIMENT = 1; // User Broker
public static final int REGISTER_RESOURCE = 2; // GIS -> ResourceEntity
public static final int RESOURCE_LIST = 3; // GIS Broker
public static final int RESOURCE_CHARACTERISTICS = 4; // Broker ResourceEntity
public static final int RESOURCE_DYNAMICS = 5; // Broker ResourceEntity
public static final int GRIDLET_SUBMIT = 6; // Broker -> ResourceEntity
public static final int GRIDLET_RETURN = 7; // Broker ResourceEntity
public static final int RECORD_STATISTICS = 9; // Entity -> GridStatistics
public static final int RETURN_STAT_LIST = 10; // Entity =experiment.GetDeadline())||(Expenses>=experiment.GetBudget()) )
break;
scheduled_count = ScheduleAdviser();
dispatched_count = Dispatcher();
received_count = Receiver();
// Heurisitics for deciding hold condition
if(dispatched0)
{
double deadline_left = experiment.GetDeadline()-GridSim.Clock();
GridSimHold(Math.max(deadline_left*0.01, 1.0));
}
}
}
... // Code for actual scheduling policy
... // Code for dispatch policy
}
}
Figure 5.16: A sample code segment for creating a Grid resource broker in GridSim.
5.5 Summary and Comments
We discussed an object-oriented toolkit, called GridSim, for distributed resource modeling and scheduling
simulation. GridSim simulates time- and space-shared resources with different capabilities, time zones, and
configurations. It supports different application models that can be mapped to resources for execution by
developing simulated application schedulers. We have discussed the architecture and components of the
GridSim toolkit along with steps involved in creating GridSim based application-scheduling simulators.
The implementation of GridSim toolkit in Java is an important contribution since Java provides a rich
set of tools that enhance programming productivity, application portability, and a scalable runtime
environment. As the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) is available for single, multiprocessor shared or
distributed machines such as clusters, GridSim scales with them due to its concurrent implementation.
Also, we were able to leverage the existing basic discrete-event infrastructure from SimJava while
implementing the GridSim toolkit.

ABC :

A Short Introduction to the ABC Language
Ada :

Ada 95
Ada Home Page
AdaPower
Special Interest Group on Ada
Ada Information Clearinghouse
ALGOL :

The ALGOL Programming Language
AWK :

The AWK Programming Language by Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, and Peter J. Weinberger
APL :

Apl Language
APL
B :

The Programming Language B (abstract)
Users' Reference to B by Ken Thompson
BASIC :

The Basic Archives
Visual Basic Instinct
Visual Basic Resource
True BASIC
REALbasic
BCPL :

BCPL Reference Manual by Martin Richards
C :

The Development of the C Language by Dennis Ritchie
Very early C compilers and language by Dennis Ritchie
The C Programming Language (book)
Programming languages - C ANSI by ISO/IEC (draft)
C Programming Course
C++ :

The C++ Programming Language (book)
C and C++: Siblings (pdf) by Bjarne Stroustrup
C# :

Visual C# Language by Microsoft.
Caml :

The Caml language
Objective Caml
The Objective-Caml system
CLU :

CLU Home Page
COBOL :

IBM COBOL family
COBOL Portal
TinyCOBOL
COBOL User Groups - COBUG
CORAL :

Coral66
Computer On-line Real-time Applications Language Coral 66 Specification for Compilers (pdf)
CPL :

Combined Programming Language (Wikipedia)
Delphi :

Delphi 2005 by Borland
Pascal and Delphi
A brief history of Borland's Delphi
Eiffel :

Eiffel
EiffelStudio by Eiffel Software
Visual Eiffel by Object Tools
SmartEiffel
EiffelZone
Flow-Matic :

Flow-Matic and Cobol
Forth :

Forth Interest Group Home Page
Fortran :

User notes on Fortran programming
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Haskell :

Haskell Home Page
Icon :

The Icon Programming Language
Icon
History of the Icon programming language
J :

J software
A management perspective of the "J" programming language
Java :

Java by Sun Microsystems
Java Technology: an early history
Programming Languages for the Java Virtual Machine
James Gosling's home page
JavaScript :

Cmm History by Nombas
JavaScript Language Resources from Mozilla
Standard ECMA-262
Lisp :

The Association of Lisp Users
An Introduction and Tutorial for Common Lisp
Mainsail :

Mainsail from Xidak.
Mainsail Implementation Overview by Stanford Computer Systems Laboratory.
M (MUMPS) :
M technologies
M[UMPS] Development Committee
What is M Technology?
ML :

Standard ML
Standard ML '97
Modula :

Modula-2
Modula-3 Home Page
Modula-2 ISO/IEC
Oberon :

A Brief History of Oberon
A Description of the Oberon-2 Language
The Programming Language Oberon-2
Oberon Language Genealogy Tree
Objective-C :

Objective-C
Objective-C FAQ
Introduction to The Objective-C Programming Language by Apple
Objective-C: Links, Resources, Stuff
Pascal :

ISO Pascal (document)
Pascal and Delphi
Perl :

Perl Home Page
Perl
Larry Wall's Very Own Home Page
PHP :

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
PL/I :

Multics PL/I
IBM PL/I family by IBM
Plankalkül :

Plankalkül
PostScript :

PostScript level 3 by Adobe
PostScript and GhostScript by Jim Land
GhostScript Home Page
Prolog :

Prolog Programming Language
The Prolog Language
Python :

Python Home Page
Rexx :

IBM REXX Family by IBM
The Rexx Language Association
Ruby :

Ruby Home Page
Ruby programming language (Wikipedia)
Ruby - doc
Sail :

Sail (Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language)
Sather :

Sather History
Sather
GNU Sather
Scheme :

Scheme by MIT
The Revised5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme (in PostScript)
Schemers Home Page
SCM
Self :

Self Home Page from Sun
Sh :

Korn Shell of David Korn
Bash from GNU
Zsh
Simula :

Simula by Jan Rune Holmevik
Smalltalk :

Smalltalk Home Page
Smalltalk FAQ
The Early History of Smalltalk
The Smalltalk Industry Council web site
VisualAge Smalltalk from IBM
VisualWorks from Cincom
The history of Squeak
ANSI Smalltalk
SNOBOL :

Snobol4 Resources by Phil Budne
Introduction to SNOBOL Programming Language by Mohammad Noman Hameed
Snobol4
Tcl/Tk :

Tcl/Tk Information

AUTHOR:
EMAIL:
IP: 216.150.233.15
URL:
DATE: 11/14/2007 03:04:02 PM

http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2007/04/wayne_state_the.html

For those trashing WSU

Wow. Good find. After all the discussion and national publicity of the US News and World Report, that one thread on that one obscure blog definitely "rights the course." Also, you're right: the best way to defend Wayne's valor and ranking is to undermine the credibility of the very rankings being defended. The other time it was listed as a top-tier school were probably right and they count, and this time was just a mistake and due to the poor standards in place to ensure the credibility of the rankings, blah blah blah. You're probably a UofM football fan, too.

Journal of Libertarian Studies
Volume 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 73Ð89
Ó2004 Ludwig von Mises Institute
www.mises.org
73
PRAXEOLOGY AS LAW & ECONOMICS
Josef Sima*
[The law] has acted in a way contrary to its own end; it
has destroyed its own object: it has been employed in
abolishing the justice which it was supposed to maintain,
in effacing that limit between rights which it was its mission
to respect, it has put the collective force at the service
of those who desire to exploit, without risk and without
scruple, the person, liberty, or property of others; it has
converted plunder into a right, in order to protect it, and
legitimate defense into a crime, in order to punish it.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished?
What have been the consequences of it?
Ð FrŽdŽric Bastiat1
The law & economics movement has become one of the most
dynamic schools within economics. Its origin is often dated back to
the University of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, but insights about
the interconnections of economics and the law can be found in the
works of earlier economists.
OLDER APPROACHES TO LAW & ECONOMICS
Despite this contemporary idea that the law & economics movements
started in the 1950s, older scholarly works touched upon the
problem of economics and the law, and make cases for other scholars
*Deputy Department Chair, Department of Economic Policy, Prague University
of Economics; and Director for Publications, Liberalni Institut, Prague,
Czech Republic. sima@vse.cz.
1FrŽdŽric Bastiat, The Law, in FrŽdŽric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political
Economy (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education,
2001), p. 53.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
74
to be the founding fathers of the discipline. For example, recent scholarship
has brought attention to the period of 1830Ð1930. In a review
of Heath PearsonÕs book Origins of Law and Economics,2 Juergen
Backhaus writes:
There is a consensus on the American side of the economics
profession that law and economics . . . is a phenomenon
which originated at the law schools of the University of
Chicago and Yale University after WWII. . . . This consensus
is laughable.3
Wolfgang Dreschsler identifies two other antecedent traditions from
the same time period. One such tradition is from the Netherlands, and
the other is the German tradition of Staatswissenschaften.4
One of the movementÕs foremost thinkers, Richard Posner, cites
Jeremy Bentham as Òthe first economist of non-market behaviorÓ and,
as such, an intellectual ancestor to the modern law & economics paradigm.
5 Likewise, Armen Alchian, in discussing his famous article The
Theory of Property Rights, acknowledges that Ò[o]ne canÕt help to see
the whole issue in Adam SmithÕs famous section on the university.Ó6
2Heath Pearson, Origins of Law and Economics: The EconomistsÕ New Science
of Law, 1830Ð1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
3Juergen Backhaus, review of Origins of Law and Economics: The Economists
Õ New Science of Law, 1830Ð1930, by Heath Pearson, European Journal
of Law and Economics 5 (1998).
4See, e.g., Wolfgang Drechsler, ÒEtienne LaspeyresÕs History of the Economic
Thought of the Netherlanders: A Law & Economics Classic?Ó European Journal
of Law and Economics 10, no. 3 (2000); see also entries on the history
of law & economics scholarship across countries denoted as Ò0300 Survey
of Non-English Publications,Ó in Boudewijn Bouckaert and Gerrit De Geest,
eds., Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, vols. 1Ð5 (Cheltenham, U.K.:
Edward Elgar, 2000); also Wolfgang Drechsler, ÒOn the Viability of the Concept
of Staatswissenschaften,Ó European Journal of Law and Economics 12
(2001).
5Quoted in Edmund W. Kitch, ÒThe Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law
and Economics in Chicago,Ò Journal of Law and Economics 26 (1983), p. 228.
6Quoted in Kitch, ÒThe Fire of Truth,Ó p. 228.
Of course, SmithÕs work on both economics and the law is well known.
See, e.g., Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). He even promised,
but never wrote, a treatise on Òa system of those principles which ought to
run through, and be the foundation of the laws of all nations.Ó Adam Smith,
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
75
Political economists in general did not avoid discussing the relationship
between economics and the law, and some schools of thought,
including Institutionalists and the German Historical School, emphasized
their intersections. George Stigler, a Chicago-School economist
and 1982 Nobel laureate, comments on these traditions:
When Adam Smith discussed the economics of the primogeniture
system, that seems to me like a traditional
analysis by a competent economist. And when John S.
Mill and Marshall discussed land tenancy systems . . .
they were addressing some economics to what were institutional
and legal questions. . . . The German historical
school had big names in it. . . . All had treatises in which
there were books devoted to legal institutions.
However, that is not to say that these earlier schools were engaged in
the same type of analysis as were the later law & economics scholars.
Stigler continues:
If you look at themÑI havenÕt gone through all of them
Ñit is my impression that you will be dissatisfied with
them on the ground that they were largely descriptive
rather than analytical. But they werenÕt discriminating
against law and institutions.7
Stigler had a similar judgment on the English historical school.
There were people like Cliffe Leslie and Cunningham . . .
and Bagehot, in a way became the English historical
school. While they talked a lot about the importance of
studying environmental conditions and the like, they
paid no real attention to the institutions and the law.8
We might have a similar view of the analyses by the old institutionalists.
All who believe in the usefulness of their exercise should
read their classics such as Thorsten VeblenÕs The Theory of the Leisure
Class and try to derive any theoretical lesson from it. We might
then tend to agree with Mark Blaug that a Òmuch better description
of the working methodology of institutionalists is storytelling.Ó9
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1982),
p. 342.
7Quoted in Kitch, ÒThe Fire of Truth,Ó p. 169.
8Quoted in Kitch, ÒThe Fire of Truth,Ó p. 216.
9Mark Blaug, The Methodology of EconomicsÑor, How Economists Explain
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 126, emphasis in original.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
76
An interesting point about a link between anti-theoretical institutionalism
and theoretical interventionist Keynesianism is made by
Wallis, who claims:
All of a sudden, the very same people who opposed all
abstract reasoning were seizing upon [Keynesianism]
because it supported the conclusions for which they had
previously thought there was no theoretical basis, and the
very same individuals (I suppose Alvin Hansen is the
most striking case) jumped from being institutionalists to
being abstract theorists.10
Some of the least known and appreciated insights into economics
and the law are those of the French tradition whose authors had a broad
grasp of social processes and, thus, were able to accommodate much
more than narrow economics. Almost completely forgotten is a systematic
work of AbbŽ de Condillac, Commerce and Government Considered
in their Mutual Relationship,11 presenting a theory of state interventionism
(legal regulation of the economic system) and subsequently
classifying these interventions and describing their consequences.
This tradition gave rise to French ÒharmonismÓ led by Bastiat and
Molinari, who understood well that law affects economic performance,
and also that economics is important in law, i.e., that scarcity shapes
and limits the sphere of law. They pleaded for making all spheres of
social life open to competition, and were well aware that the quality of
law will not come out of the blue. Rather, law is costly to create and
protect. So writes Bastiat about the scarcity when rights are protected,
giving a lesson that is yet to be fully learned:
[E]xact justice is something so definite that legislation
which had only justice in view would be virtually immutable.
It could vary only as to the means of approaching
ever more closely to this single end: protection of menÕs
persons and their rights. . . . Moreover, the forces of government
would attain this goal all the better because they
would all be applied to preventing and repressing misrepresentation,
fraud, delinquency, crime, and acts of violence,
instead of being dissipated, as at present, among a
host of matters alien to their essential function.12
10Quoted in Kitch, ÒThe Fire of Truth,Ó p. 173.
11AbbŽ de ƒtienne Bonnot Condillac, Commerce and Government Considered
in their Mutual Relationship (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1997).
12Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy, p. 122.
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
77
The French economistsÕ search for economic harmonies entailed
an effort to find general principles of social organization that could
lead toward peace and prosperityÑexactly the same as the ultimate
objective of law & economics. This effort also enabled the French
economists to identify the problem with the monopoly of legal provision:
the state. Hence, Bastiat wrote in an unsurpassable style about
Òlegal plunderÓ in his The Law,13 and Molinari became the champion
in his revolutionary discussion of private production of security.14
Though French harmonists made many contributions to the field of
law & economics, their influence vanished paradoxically as economic
education spread in law schools. As Joseph Salerno explains, instead
of using Ògood economicsÓ to make Ògood law,Ó the government, by
decreeing an increase in the number of economics departments, managed
to outnumber good economists by the bad ones, and subsequently
used their Òbad economicsÓ to make Òbad law.Ó15
It is clear that the more modern the era we study, the more candidates
we have for founding fathers of law & economics. Thus, the
idea that the movement originated in the 1950s Òmay overstate the
originality of the movement.Ó16 However, is there any other time in
the history of economic thought that could with good reason be defended
as the proper beginning of law & economics?
MENGER AND THE RISE OF MARGINAL ANALYSIS
The introduction of marginalist ideas enabled economics to explain
the principal mechanism guiding peopleÕs behavior, thereby
delivering the missing piece to economics. Since law & economics
strives to bring insights stemming from the mixing of approaches, it
is useful to permit this mixing only after economics is ready for it.
13FrŽdŽric Bastiat, The Law (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for
Economic Education, 1996).
14Gustave de Molinari, The Production of Security (New York: Center for
Libertarian Studies, 1977).
15See Joseph Salerno, ÒThe Neglect of BastiatÕs School by English-speaking
Economists: The Puzzle Resolved,Ó Journal des ƒconomistes 11, no. 2/3
(2001). The good/bad lawÑgood/bad economics concept comes from James
M. Buchanan, ÒGood EconomicsÑBad Law,Ó Virginia Law Review 60, no.
3 (March 1974).
16Ejan Mackaay, ÒHistory of Law and Economics,Ò in Encyclopedia of Law
and Economics, vol. 1, p. 66.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
78
Only after we understand how values transform into market prices
which guide peopleÕs market behavior are we able to understand how
property is formed, that is, how, as LŽon Walras said, Òmankind determines
and carries out the appropriation.Ó17
It is notable that Carl Menger, who memorably played a part in
the emergence of the new science of marginalist economics, was a
lawyer who contributed to the development of law. In his Principles
of Economics, Menger described the crucial link between economics
and the law:
Thus human economy and property have a joint economic
origin since both have, as the ultimate reason for their
existence, the fact that goods exist whose available quantities
are smaller than the requirements of men. Property,
therefore, like human economy, is not an arbitrary invention
but rather the only practically possible solution of the
problem that is, in the nature of things, imposed upon us
by the disparity between requirements for, and available
quantities of, all economic goods.18
Menger, therefore, qualifies as Òa leader in both the marginalist
revolution and in the new science of law.Ó19 His theory is not timeand
place-contingent, and keeps a strict logical status. In short, he
derives a logic of social action. MengerÕs new Austrian school, with
its Ògeneral theory of human actionÓÑpraxeology, worked through
later by Ludwig von Mises20Ñhad a broad enough grasp to include
the analyses of legal processes as an integral part of its study.
Though this Mengerian-Misesian tradition was for many years
part of the mainstream of economic science, it lost its impact after
WWII, when economic science narrowed its focus to a more technical
analysis. The Austrian school was too much of a social science
to be part of a narrow, technical, economics.
Over time, however, the post-WWII economics mainstreamÑa
formalized, propertyless economicsÑbecame ever more irrelevant to
the real world, thereby allowing new economic schools to bring pieces
17Quoted in Pearson, Origins of Law and Economics, p. 32.
18Carl Menger, Principles of Economics, trans. James Dingwall and Bert F.
Hoselitz (New York: New York University Press, 1976), p. 97.
19Pearson, ÒThe Fire of Truth,Ó p. 151.
20See, e.g., Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes,
1966), p. 3.
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
79
of relevant social dimensions back to economics. Some of the schools
that successfully challenged the mainstream were Chicago Law &
Economics, New Institutional Economics, Public Choice Theory,
and Property Rights Economics. These schoolsÑrespected by the
mainstreamÑhave some interesting pieces to contribute toward understanding
of the legal-economic nexus.
Nonetheless, Austrians, such as Menger, Mises, Hayek, Kirzner,
and Rothbard, with their broad praxeological approach, understand
much more. Not only did they predate the discovery of the pieces of
knowledge that other schools claim to be of their origin, but, more
importantly, they did it being aware of the whole picture of the legaleconomic
nexusÑthe need for competition in all spheres of social
life, including generation and enforcement of rules, the role of profitseeking
entrepreneurs, etc. Part six of MisesÕs Human Action (entitled
ÒThe Hampered Market EconomyÓ) and Murray N. RothbardÕs
Power and Market21 qualify as the best works in law & economics,
systematically exploring the consequences of legal barriers to efficient
functioning of economic system.
Despite the existence of these great systematic works, Armen
Alchian and Harold Demsetz, in their celebrated 1973 article ÒThe
Property Right Paradigm,Ó claim that:
Economics textbooks invariably describe the important
economic choices that all societies must make by the
following three questions: What goods are to be produced?
How are these goods to be produced? Who is to
get what is produced? This way of stating social choice
problems is misleading. . . . It is more useful and nearer to
the truth to view a social system as relying on techniques,
rules, or customs to resolve conflicts that arise in the use of
scarce resources rather than imagining that societies specify
the particular uses to which resources will be put. The arrangements
for [solving conflicts] run the full gamut of
human experience and include war, strikes, elections, religious
authority, legal arbitration, exchange, and gambling.22
No economist familiar with Austrian scholarship can consider
such a claim legitimate, or such an article pioneering. As we have
21Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews
and McMeel, 1977).
22Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz, ÒThe Property Right Paradigm,Ó
Journal of Economic History 33, no. 1 (March 1973), p. 16.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
80
shown above, it was Carl Menger who, a century before, envisaged
the common nexus of economics and the law. Subsequently, his
followers published works developing both the economic and the
legal (property) parts of the picture. In 1927, Ludwig von Mises, in
Liberalism, defined the legal part by explaining why a propertybased
social system is Òthe only workable system of human cooperation
in a society based on the division of labor.Ó23 Building on
this, Mises worked out the economic part in 1944 in Human Action.
ROTHBARDÕS UNHERALDED INSIGHTS
In the 1950s and 1960s, Murray Rothbard started to integrate economics
and the law in his writings culminating in Man, Economy, and
State24 and Power and Market. In these works, Rothbard practices the
approach suggested by Demsetz and AlchianÑthe nature of violence
and peace is identified, and human activities are analyzed using this
dichotomyÑand phenomena like socialism, war, slavery, strikes, customs,
and problem solving are discussed.
In RothbardÕs works especially, one finds several insights that
are generally attributed to other authors. For example, in DemsetzÕs
famous 1967 article ÒToward a Theory of Property Rights,Ó his Indian
story is used to highlight the entrepreneurial aspect of appropriative
activitiesÑthat costs determine whether or when property
rights will be established.25 DemsetzÕs argument, considered truly
pioneering, was fully anticipated by Rothbard more than a decade
earlier. Not only did Rothbard write about scarcity as a pre-requisite
for ownership (this has been pointed out for centuries), he also explicitly
spoke about profitability of appropriative activities, i.e., costs
as determinants of ownership. In his 1957 criticism of the single tax,
Rothbard explained that Òthe site owner must decide whether or not
to work a plot of land or keep it idle,Ó26 and it may happen that as a
23Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation
for Economic Education, 1985), p. 19.
24Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von
Mises Institute, 1993).
25Harold Demsetz, ÒToward a Theory of Property Rights,Ó American Economic
Review 57 no. 2 (May 1967).
26Murray N. Rothbard, ÒThe Single Tax: Economic and Moral Implications,Ó
in The Logic of Action Two (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1997), pp.
297Ð98.
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
81
result of higher costs and Òlocational chaos,Ó ownership may be discontinued
and some sites may be Òabandoned altogetherÓ27 by their
former owners. This insight definitely cannot be of DemsetzÕs provenience.
Some other insights belong to Rothbard, too. For example, Yoram
Barzel, a leading property-rights economist, refers to Alchian and
AllenÕs point that human rights are only a derivation of property rights:
The distinction made between property rights and human
rights is spurious. Human rights are simply part of peopleÕs
property rights. Human rights may be difficult to protect
or to exchange, but so are rights to many other assets. See
Alchian and Allen ([Exchange and Production, 2nd ed.,
Wadsworth], 1977, p. 114).28
Rothbard previously dealt with this issue in detail in Power and Market,
29 and even made two references to his earlier articles.
In a similar case, Tom Bethell credits Armen Alchian for calling
attention to the insight that we can own and sell shares in private property
but not in public property.30 Rothbard makes exactly the same
point when talking about ÒThe Myth of Public Ownership,Ó31 and
makes a reference to F.A. HarperÕs 1949 book Liberty.32
We could easily list more examples of RothbardÕs property-based
economics. For example, Peter Boettke mentions this story of the rediscovery
of Rothbardian ideas:
Following Mises, Rothbard argued prior to the property
rights school that Òthe important feature of ownership is
not legal formality but actual rule, and under government
ownership it is the government officialdom that controls
and directs, and therefore Ôowns,Õ the property.Ó Compare
that with Yoram BarzelÕs statement 27 years later:
27Rothbard, Power and Market, p. 129.
28Yoram Barzel, Economic Analysis of Property Rights (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), p. 2 n. 1.
29Rothbard, Power and Market, pp. 238Ð40.
30Tom Bethell, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the
Ages (New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 1998), p. 313; and Armen A. Alchian,
ÒSome Economics of Property Rights,Ó Il Politico 30, no. 4 (1965).
31Rothbard, Power and Market, pp. 187Ð89.
32F.A. Harper, Liberty: A Path to Its Recovery (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.:
Foundation for Economic Education, 1949), esp. pp. 106, 32.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
82
ÒThe claim that private property has been abolished in
communist states and that all property there belongs to
the state seems to me to be an attempt to divert attention
from who the true owners of the property are. It seems
that these owners also own the rights to terminology.Ó33
When we add RothbardÕs ability to apply economic principles
into areas traditionally omitted by social scientists (such as decentralized
conflict solving)34 and his extensive work on natural rights,
ethics, and the nature of the state,35 it must be clear that Rothbard
developed Misesian praxeology to the point where it not only covers
the whole legal-economic nexus, but also understands the logic and
requirement for free competition on all margins. The broad grasp of
the logic of social action that gave rise to the legal-economic nexus
can be understood as an extension of RothbardÕs Òwelfare economics
schemeÓ envisaged in his article ÒToward A Reconstruction of
Utility and Welfare Economics.Ó36
HAYEK AND RULES
No other Austrian has surpassed Rothbard as a system builder of
law & economics, though there have been other famous Austrians
who dealt with particular issues of the relationship between economics
and the law. Most prominent was 1974 Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek.
It is generally believed that Hayek switched from economics to general
social sciences in the later part of his career, but this claim is true
only if we perceive economics as a very narrow discipline. When economics
properÑthe theory of social action as envisaged by Menger
Ñis taken as a benchmark, Hayek can be considered to have remained
an economist. As Ludwig Van Den Houwe reminds us:
33Peter Boettke, ÒThe New Comparative Political Economy,Ó Forum Series
on the Role of Institutions in Promoting Economic Growth, Forum 6 (April
4, 2003), p. 15. n. 14, inner references omitted.
34See, e.g., Rothbard, Power and Market, chap. 1; Murray N. Rothbard, For
a New Liberty (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1978), chap. 12; and Murray N.
Rothbard, ÒLaw, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,Ó in The Logic of Action
Two, chap. 6.
35See Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University
Press, 1998).
36Murray N. Rothbard, ÒToward Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics,
Ó in On Freedom and Free Enterprise, ed. Mary Sennholz (Irvingtonon-
Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1994).
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
83
It is HayekÕs emphasis on this theme of the interrelation between
the system of rules and its systematic outcome at
the level of the order of actions that qualifies him a Lawand-
Economics theorist.37
As Hayek himself sets the objective of his book Rules and Order:
Nowhere is the baneful effect of the division into specialisms
more evident than in the two oldest of these disciplines,
economics and law. Those eighteenth-century thinkers
to whom we owe the basic conceptions of liberal constitutionalism,
David Hume and Adam Smith, no less than
Montesquieu, were still concerned with what some of them
called the Òscience of legislation,Ó or with principles of
policy in the widest sense of this term. One of the main
themes of this book will be that the rules of just conduct
which the lawyer studies serve a kind of order of the
character of which the lawyer is largely ignorant; and
that this order is studied chiefly by the economist who in
turn is similarly ignorant of the character of the rules of
conduct on which the order that he studies rests.38
CONTEMPORARY AUSTRIANS
HayekÕs work was, however, largely limited to a particular (though
very broad) themeÑintertemporal dimensions of the use-of-knowledge
problem, i.e., the evolution of rules and emergence of order through
cultural evolution. Similarly ÒlimitedÓ are the research interests of
other Austrian authors who have explored parts of the legal-economic
nexus, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Peter Boettke, Dominick Armentano,
Stephan Kinsella, Walter Block, Jšrg Guido HŸlsmann, George
Selgin, Lawrence White, Pascal Salin, Huerta de Soto, Israel Kirzner,
Bruce Benson, etc.39 All have contributed important pieces of knowledge,
although none have reached RothbardÕs qualities as a system
builder.
37Ludwig Van Den Houwe, ÒEvolution and the Production of RulesÑSome
Preliminary Remarks,Ó European Journal of Law and Economics 5 (1998),
p. 88.
38F.A. Hayek, Pravidla a rad, vol. 1 of Prado, zakonodarstvi a svoboda
(Praha: Academia, 1991), p. 11. This is the Czech translation of HayekÕs
Rules and Order.
39See the Bibliography for selected works by these authors. For a more complete
list of Austrian contributions, see Jšrg Guido HŸlsmann, ÒEconomic
Science and Neoclassicism,Ó Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 2,
no. 4 (Winter 1999).
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
84
Gregory Scott Crespi offers an interesting overview and source
of reference to other groups of scholars who belong to the Austrian
school, broadly defined.40 He surveys major Austrian contributions
and contributors to law & economics that gained appreciation in mainstream
law journals. The article includes discussion of the works of
Mario Rizzo, Gerald OÕDriscoll, Christopher Wonnell, Roy Cordato,
Michael Debow, Thomas Arthur,41 Michael Spicer, Thomas Sowell,
and Linda Schwartzstein.42 These authors show the application of
Austrian real-world law & economics based on dynamic markets,
disequilibrium, and imperfect knowledge, as opposed to widespread
neoclassical legal and economic modeling. As Crespi says:
[T]he Austrian approach . . . presents a coherent and comprehensive
alternative framework which incorporates a
number of important insights largely overlooked in most
neoclassical theorizing, and which does not rely upon
some of the more unrealistic neoclassical premises. . . .
[T]he Austrian approach . . . has advantages as a pedagogical
framework that can effectively focus law studentsÕ
attention upon certain processes and constraints highly
relevant to the operation of the legal system that tend to
be obscured by the neoclassical paradigm.43
Thus, Austrians benefit from more than 130 years of elaboration
on a broadly conceived legal-economic nexus. Their analysis remains
both relevant (by focusing on real world issues) and at the same time
theoretical (firmly rooted in economic and legal principles). This
approach allows Austrian scholars to see the whole legal-economic
nexus, and to formulate basic principles of the science of law & economics:
laws of social action.
40Gregory Scott Crespi, ÒExploring the Complicationist Gambit: An Austrian
Approach to the Economic Analysis of Law,Ó Notre Dame Law Review 73,
no. 2 (January 1998); and Gregory S. Crespi, ÒTeaching the New Law and
Economics,Ó University of Toledo Law Review 25, no. 3 (1994).
41Arthur is not explicitly Austrian, but uses a critical assessment of the United
States Supreme Court opinion issued in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical
Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992), based on works by Austrians such
as Hayek and Kirzner and questioning the perfect competition framework
using the concept of Òrivalrous competition.Ó
42Also, see the bibliography for articles by Laurence S. Moss, Dieter Schmidtchen,
and Eirik G. Furubotn.
43Crespi, ÒExploring the Complicationist Gambit,Ó pp. 320Ð21.
Sima Ð Praxeology as Law & Economics
85
No other school of thought can match this achievement. Some
schools can provide very interesting case studies about the operation
of the real world and the interplay between law & economics, but
lack the underlying theory to make any general claim (such as Law
and Society, or the Bloomington research program of Vincent and
Elinor Ostroms). Some have a sophisticated theory, but remain largely
irrelevant because they try to squeeze people into their models rather
than adjust the models to work with real people (Chicagoan mainstream).
And some refuse to admit the necessity of a non-monopolized
legal system (Public Choice).
CONCLUSION
The Austrian approach to law & economics, therefore, must be
considered a powerful alternative to the prevailing mainstream views.
Its emphasis on the need to base social theories on existing peopleÕs
choices (as opposed to someoneÕs guess about possible future choices)
is the source of different requirements for judges to base their decisions
upon. As Ludwig von Mises put it:
No sensible proposition concerning human action can be
asserted without reference to what the acting individuals
are aiming at and what they consider as success or failure,
as profit or loss.44
Instead of looking forward and trying to calculate an optimal outcome,
the Austrian approach urges judges to look backward and try to
find the way to the resolution of the conflict in the contractual relations
between the parties, social norms, or logic of private property.
It would become crucially important, for example, who came first to
the place, what is implied by the title of ownership, who promised
what, etc., instead of who is the least-cost-avoider, what are market
prices of goods sold, or what the judges think about the future.
Respect for peopleÕs values and choices must form the core of the
science of law & economics. For decades, the Austrian approach has
remained devoted to this principle. In the process, it has given us many
important insights into the logic of social processes.
44Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (Princeton,
N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1962), p. 80.
Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004)
86
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