Did Paul Hastings write this headline?

HLR = TTT?

"the Review's new, left-leaning leadership "is running the journal into the ground with a cabal of radical ideologues"

Oh, give me a freaking a break. Freeper nutcase.

Instead of "tilting too far to the left," I would say "too intellectually lazy to develop a meaningful analysis." And before anyone says anything, these ARE two different things. You can be quite liberal without sounding like a high school student who just read Noam Chomsky for the first time ("My God, the kids in other countries don't even have shoes! SHOES!").

What's the fuss about? My bonus is directly proportionate to the number of babies I kill. And not just babies - unicorns, senior citizens, puppies, and the environment all count, too.

Wow....simply wow. Someone at HLR read themselves some OUTDATED Peter Singer and decided to rant about it? Seriously? Try reading Nozick to get some persepctive on the issue anonymous writer. Not to mention, when attempting to prove a moral justification don't rely on circular reasoning throughout your article. I'm guessing anonymous writer was a beneficiary of affirmative action or harvard law really is slipping.

The author of that Note is clerking next year for Judge Janice Rogers Brown.

This reflects the unfortunate view that powerful is inherently evil. Such a ridiculous position does not even rise to the level of sophistry, as it lacks even surface appeal.

In fact, this warped worldview (which unfortunately is widespread in academia, legal and otherwise) really should be discouraged as it represents enormous intellectual dishonesty and self-hatred.

HLR is people! ITS PEOPLE!!!

Maybe the author did need more footnotes: Turns out William and Mary is the oldest US law school, not Harvard.

4:16 -- You're kidding, right?

Are you sure you don't mean Judge Judith Rogers -- the OTHER black woman on the D.C. Circuit, but much more liberal?

(WSJ confused the two the other day.)

What's shocking to me is how it doesn't even attempt to confront those moral philosophers who disagree with the author's starting point (take Nozick or Hayek for example). This debate is quite complex and the author of the Note seems to suggest the answers are obvious. Regardless of the final merits of the author's position, the Note is poorly argued and supported. Pretty pathetic for HLR.

No, I mean Judge Janice Rogers Brown, not Judge Judith W. Rogers. Really.

4:14 -- that is exactly correct. This preening, idiotic drivel sounds like a high school junior wrote it in one long Red Bull-inspired night after reading some passages from Marx, Chomsky, and A People's History of the United States for the first time.

Also worth noting is how misleading the piece is in places. The author touts how much Public Defenders make (Text & FN21), but the source points to the median salary for PDs with *six years* of experience. That salary level is relevant to law *students* with *zero* years of experience trying to choose between BIGLAW and a PD job how?

Totally what 4:14 said. The problem isn't that HLR is staffed by liberals; it's that it's staffed by idiots.

If every law student went into the public interest sector, it would destroy it. All PI law is supported, directly or indirectly, by private industry. Don't know if the author has noticed or not, but the funds used to support such organizations certainly aren't coming from their clients.

And loan repayments of $500 per month. Ha ha ha.

Why does the author naively assume that human life is so valuable? My Ferrari and my class-time is worth much more to me than the life of some snot-nosed kid. Seriously, who cares?

My morally relevant reason for working at a big corporate law firm is because they keep throwing piles of money at me. That fat paycheck is hard to pass up.

That and all the puppies I can kick! We have a room full of old people to make fun of, anytime we want. And you wouldn't believe the starving kids we get to point and laugh at. It's great.

But seriously, I do it for the money.

I kill kittens. Does that count?

Wow - dont I feel like a selfish ass after reading this piece...
I hearby nominate this anonymous note writer to Sainthood!! but what to call him???? I got it! Saint Naive.

LAT = Former Yale Law Journal Editor = Trying to trash Harvard Law Review because it is a superior publication.

Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you got them made by little slave kids?
What are your overheads?

the multi-posting on this thread is ridiculous. Lat, can you clean it up a little? I'd like to read all the beat-downs on this 10th-grade intellect, but I'm not keen on sifting through dozens of multiple posts.

During my Presidency, those Harvard Law blackguards never ceased hectoring me over women's suffrage.

COMMENT POSTING TIP:

Your comment WILL go through. Just be patient. Do not try again... and again... and again.

I wonder how many children could have been saved if the author donated the money he/she is using for their HLS tuition, room, and board to save dying children?

"Clearly the author wants associates and partners in large law firms to sit up and take notice"

What practicing Biglaw attorney actually reads Law Reviews...I thought those were just for display on the end table or bookshelf to emphasize your school connection.

Does anyone know how PI law is supported, either directly or indirectly?

4:27: No, after publishing this piece of intellectual garbage, the HLR is not a superior publication to the YLJ, nor is it superior to my self-published TreeHouse NewzLettr that I printed off my Apple II computer in 1991.

The amount of time anonymous author spent writing the article could have been spent building houses in Guatemala, or getting fresh water to a village in Zimbabwe. So in a sense, anonymous author killed quite a few children writing that article.

It's shameful, absolutely shameful.

What would happen if every law student went into the public interest sector? Who supports PI law anyway? I wonder if the funds are coming from the clients?

"Why does the author naively assume that human life is so valuable? My Ferrari and my class-time is worth much more to me than the life of some snot-nosed kid. Seriously, who cares?"

Depends. What year and model?

I think repeat posts are due to the lack of a confirmation after clicking 'Post Comment'. Get the IT dept on that.

4:29 - well, its Daddy's money, so it doesn't count. Duh!

It blows my mind that any board member of a law review would read this paper and think it deserves to be published.

Suck it, HLR.

4:28 = comment of the day

PI organizations get all their money, directly or indirectly, from private industry. Guess the author didn't notice that his PI clients don't pay the bills.

A lawyer's job is NOT to promote justice, it is to represent your client. If it was to promote justice, then your duty in representing a guilty murder defendant would be to help convict him.

Beyond belief stupid.

HLR to TTT!

Once an institution decides that it will judge people solely on the ideological position they take, then all those people will do is try and appease that position. And the more arguments those people make to try and appease the position, the stupider those arguments become because after awhile all the original material is taken.

My heart...is...bleeding..

Poor logic

Poor facts

Poor analysis

Poor writing

What fluffy stupidness.

How much do you want to bet that the author of this HLR piece has a trust fund that is better funded than some colleges and universities? Only someone who has wanted for nothing can be so dismissive of the difficulties in paying down student loans and a mortgage while raising a family on $57,000 a year.

Come on, don't be so harsh. Maybe Anonymous Author accidentally switched his/her Onion piece with the Note on accident.

I want a tuition refund. I paid all that money so I could spend three years drunk at Lincoln's Inn thinking that the diligent denizens of Gannet House would continue to uphold the HLS reputation. Might as well burn my diploma if HLR is going to continue printing rejected hippie admissions essays as notes.

Because of this Note I am officially no longer a liberal. I am asking all the charities that I have ever given money to - to send me a refund. This Notewriter is an idiot.

Sorry, I meant "accidentally on accident."

-4:38

The author of this note can go f*ck themselves. I work hard for my money. I have well over $100K in loans from undergrad and law school. And I live with a roomate in an 800 sq ft. apartment even though I'm 30 years old.

Why? Because someday I'd like to buy a modest house or apartment close to New York City in an area that isn't disgusting or infested with crime. I'd like to retire before this job kills me. And someday I might even have a child who might want to go to college and learn about the evils of capitalism too.

I don't need a lecture on why my choice is immoral. The 40% of each paycheck that I hand over to the government is more than enough to pay any debt I might owe society.

Won't someone think of THE CHILDREN?!?!?!one?!one

Clearly some dumbf*ck who's never worked a day in his/her life.

If there wasn't someone like me exploiting the poor, there would be no public interest job for this guy to go to after law school. This guy should thank me for creating his future charity case.

Sincerely,
Reaganomics

My..bleeding...heart...

sorry for mulitple postin

I'm a JD/PHD (philosophy) who spent three + years teaching and grading Ivy league undergrads about arguments just like the ones raised in this Note.

This Note is a simple application of well-known philosophical arguments to a not so new context. The application is straight forward and obvious. It adopts the discussion of obvious objections from Unger and others who have worked these arguments before, but doesn't address the more developed and nuanced opposing positions (as others here have noted). In short, its passable undergraduate level analysis, but much more polished than the typical last minute term paper (presumably due to the long editing process).

The real problem here is that law review editors fail to realize that they are not qualified to tell scholarly philosophy from regurgitation. People (or at least Harvard 3Ls) seem to think that any amateur can write philosophy. There are Ph.D.s and peer reviewed philosophy journals for a reason.

Is everyone on this blog a heartless literalist? I think the point of this article is to make you think, not assume everyone is going to not take biglaw jobs. How many articles proffer this point of view? not many. the commenters here are a good demonstration of why lawyers get a bad name.

4:48 = Anonymous Note Author.

LOL @ all the Fed Soc losers whining because they were too dumb to make Law Review.

William & Mary is the oldest law school. Good call 4:18(1).

Go Tribe. Hark upon the gale.

-Big Nick

Wow. Just wow. I'm having flashbacks to my college admissions essay. Should have submitted that to the HLR!

The worst thing about this is it's condescending tone, and the fact that the author's examples grossly over-simplify the nature of charitable giving. All of the author's examples involve direct interactions with people who are needy--those choices are much easier to make. But when we're talking about some kid in the middle of the jungle who will likely never see the money I sent because it's being used to pay the salary of some 23 year old "program assistant" in DC... that's a harder choice. I'd be much more willing to give money to kids in places like Congo if I thought they would actually get any of it. I'm not against charitable giving, but it's really naive and simplistic to suggest that throwing money at certain problems will fix them. It's not that easy.

Wait....

$57,000 gross salary
- $500 student loan payment per month
= $51,000 salary???

Where will our author get tax dollars for her social programs to help the poor?

"Is everyone on this blog a heartless literalist? I think the point of this article is to make you think, not assume everyone is going to not take biglaw jobs. How many articles proffer this point of view? not many. the commenters here are a good demonstration of why lawyers get a bad name."

Come on... I'm as liberal as they come, but this article is horrible. The issues are sooooo much more complicated. So to liken taking a big law job to letting a child drown is ridiculous. I think it would be fine if it was an article in a high school newspaper. Honestly, its probably an idea I would have written about when I was 17. But I would think HLR is beyond that.

And its not as if you go into human rights work and start saving the world. For one, you usually need some private sector experience to get trained to be able to help anybody. For example, I went to a conference about defending Guantanamo detainees. It is all big law firms and partners donating time. Firms are also donating time to help Iraqis get asylum in the US because they worked with American soldiers and are at risk of being killed for it. The firms have the resources.

I'm not saying we shouldn't think about those less fortunate. But a lot of the people who work on issues of poverty and injustice spent a lot of time in the private sector.

This type of article would never have been written at UVA.

Buying $200 worth of DDT will save a lot more children in Africa than giving it to UNICEF.

Get over it. Starting Big Law salary puts one in the top .27% of the global distribution of wealth. .73 * 6.8 billion justifies a goodly sum of incoherent whining.

I wonder if this anonymous author is playing a hoax by submitting what he or she knows is meaningless drivel, just to see if it gets published.

(This has been done before... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair )

I'm a biglaw attorney but I donate to NPR, so the article doesn't apply to me.

Multiple posts were unintentional - server error.

Not heartless literalists, but we did make a choice that we do not feel was immoral, and we don't appreciate someone telling us that we've done a bad thing, especially when the person's reasoning is flawed and he or she likely hasn't actually worked at a firm or had a career in the public interest, for that matter.

It's been a few years since I've been in Cambridge and I may be mis-remembering, but isn't the statue that provides the title some sort of memorial about the Irish potato famine?

WTF is "heartless" about assuming people mean what they say?

5:00 - of course it wouldn't be written at UVA. Who would put notes in a softball program?

Sounds like the Note acceptance policy is pretty lax over there. Word is that they just let whoever wants to publish a Note, publish. Too bad this one made me vomit a little in my mouth

Why go to law school at all? $200,000 in foregone tuition and fees = 1,000 children saved! Since oversimplified thought experiments seem to be in vogue, what if someone wants to go into Biglaw, become a fabulous partner, and donate $50,000 every year to save the lives of 250 children? Is that any less moral than helping 250 inmates - only a small portion of whom are actually innocent - avoid jail time?

Would this have been written or published absent HLR's silly anonymous note policy? And how long until we get to know the name of the author?

The structure of legal academic publishing is absurd -- just ask anyone in a real field where there is peer review etc. This is pointless drivel from a starry-eyed student with far too much time on his/her hands. But now famous on ATL....

"This Note is not arguing that nobody is ever justified in buying coffee.
The point is simply that, given the global context of suffering and
poverty, each one of our spending decisions must be scrutinized. We
have to live our lives in a manner consistent with our moral beliefs.
Each time we spend money on an item of luxury, we are like Phil,
standing next to that switch. The decision, in the end, is up to each
person to make for herself. But we have to make the decision each
time, and we have to justify why we are making the decision, because
it is simply unacceptable for Phil to walk away without so much as an
explanation about why he is letting that child die."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... that's so cute!

I agree with many of the concepts in here, but the paragraph discussing paying student loans on a $57,000 a year salary clearly shows the naivety of the students writing this piece.

Clearly, he/she has never had 40% of his/her paycheck taken before being paid, reducing a $57,000 salary down to $34,200 or $2,850 per month. With $1000 per month in student loans (not $500), I would like to see how comfortably this person pays for all other living expenses on $1,850 per month.

Note also that the "county public defender making $57,000" has SIX years of experience. Once you reduce the $1,850 figure to a level at which a first and second year lawyer is getting paid, the author's premise that even low paid lawyers are living on easy street is laughable.

i don't see how the logic of the argument fails. i mean the premise of what is good and just and all that might be wrong, but if you believe in the christian morality that jesus preached then shouldn't you be helping the poor? if you acknowledge that helping others in need is good or perhaps the best thing a person can do, shouldn't you do it?

By Anonymous Note Author's logic, if I offer to donate enough money to save 2 children if Anonymous Note Author kills himself, is he morally obliged to take the deal?

5:19-- Grown-ups don't believe in the tooth fairy or Jebus.

Wait, I'm starting law school so that I can kick puppies and throw cats out the window onto people in the street.

Plus, I live in Oregon, and there are WAY too many trees! We cut them down, and they keep growing back. That's why I want to do land use law, to finally take care of all the trees.

Apparently "Law Review" is now synonymous with "LiveJournal page".

Drowning children, salaries, morality and lame articles by anonymous authors at Harvard are passe.

(Yawn)

This note author is a hypocrite. The $150,000 spent on her HLS eduvation could save all the children in Ethiopia. S/he is a murderer.

Anybody here read "Liberal Fascism"?

This sounds exactly like what Goldberg was talking about: "The point is simply that, given the global context of suffering and poverty, each one of our spending decisions must be scrutinized."

How does defending Guantanamo detainees have any correlation to saving the world? If anything you are getting them out so they can go murder again.

Somebody should set up a donation page to hold a sum of $ in reserve to be donated to an appropriate charity if this clown's name is revealed. Or if he kills himself. Whatever.

5:19: I believe that making the most money I possibly can in my life will be the thing I can do to benefit the most number of people in the world. By working hard and making lots of money, I have almost completely given myself over to others: my family, people in my community who see the results of someone who works hard, any beneficiaries of my charitable giving (including my foreign relatives, who I send to school), all people who benefit more on net from the tax system than they contribute, and all people whose costs of living are slightly reduced because of the value I contribute to the economy. Because I live frugally, I could make a lot less money and be plenty contented with my life. I could work a lot less too, which would be nice. Nonetheless, I keep making gobs of money because the wellbeing of my family, my relatives, my community, and the world economy depends on me (and people like me) getting rich. Just because I can't physically see the overwhelming majority of people I help by being rich doesn't mean my contribution to the world is any less than it would be otherwise. Capitalism: Saving poor people one multi-millionaire at a time.

And how about Harvard itself sitting on something like a $60 billion endowment. How many children could they save with that?

I'm so confused. Is it moral to take a $45K job helping poor people in the U.S., when you can take a corporate job you hate that will let you give away $20,000 a year to save the lives of 100 children in the third world?

If a public interest lawyer goes home at 6:00 every night instead of working as hard as their corporate counterparts, is that like killing half a baby?

I couldn't even finish reading the Note. Wow, what a bunch of ridiculously stupid, poorly-reasoned, BADLY written drivel. It reads like a long column from a law school newspaper, not a Note for a law review. Yech.

I wonder if the author will read any of these comments? If so, here's a special bit from me to him/her: Your writing is pathetic, and your thesis is so naive as to be laughable. The contempt with which you view your classmates and future colleagues is an index of your profound self-absorption and self-righteousness. Grow up, unclench, and try on a world view that doesn't cut other people's choices to the quick. And if you ever take a high-paying job or indulge in any personal luxuries, may your own hypocritical bile choke you before you can enjoy any of it.

As a law graduate who is actually in public service, and making somewhere around the $57,000 quoted in the Note, I have to agree with 5:17...loan payments are made after taxes. A $57,000 salary translates to about $3,000 a month after taxes...even if, in fairy tale land, someone had a loan payment of only $500 a month -- which is appropriate for someone who went to law school in 1950 or is repaying the loans over a 120 year period -- that's still a fairly significant chuck of salary to be paying. A near 20% hit significantly impacts quality of life. The author of the Note, and the editors, should have figured that out. Makes them look naive and trustafarian.
A larger point, and somewhat missed in the Note and the comments, is that we public interest people are a dedicated bunch of lawyers. We work long, hard hours for a cause. We dont want every 24-year old kid who went out of law school coming in to do public service when they really dont know what they want to do with their lives. We want dedicated, smart individuals who care about what they're doing -- that will get them through the low salary. The rest of the people -- go to BigLaw, you'll be more fulfilled with the paycheck then simply taking a public interest position you're not excited about and which pays a very low salary.

Is it me, or did someone at HLS rip off the the general plot from the movie "With Honors" and turn it into a Law Review note?

wtf? im just going to quit my biglaw job and free ride off liberals.

Is it me, or did someone at HLS rip off the the general plot from the movie "With Honors" and turn it into a Law Review note?

Since the free market rewards people financially in direct proportion to their contribution to society, people contribute the most to society by making as much money as they can.

Lol at the author's simplistic views about homelessness at the end of the article. Sure, it's sad that there are homeless people, but the author just whines about it and then doesn't offer any solution. And the reason the author can't offer a solution is because there isn't one--people aren't outside in the cold because lawyers are mean and greedy, they're outside because they can't stay in a shelter because they keep breaking the rules, or don't want to stay in the shelter. I feel bad for homeless people but it's really simplistic to start crying about them at the end of the Note without offering a solution or acknowledging that resources do exist to help them. In this day and age sleeping outside in the U.S. is largely a choice--it's a choice to not abide by whatever rules a shelter or assistance program would impose on you (eg don't drink booze, take your psych meds). So it's silly that the author acts like this is somehow Harvard's fault or responsibility.

only at harvard. even a TTT law review would have had enough sence to not publish that.

I'll be sure to think of the moron who wrote this article next time I am at Marquee drinking $400 bottles of Grey Goose (while wearing my Armani jacket).

If nothing else, it is a real credibility drain for the author to disregard any differences among law firm jobs, using the layperson's term "corporate lawyer" to describe all of the HLS grads going to practice in "private practice" (the term used on the HLS OCS website). Even if you are talking about just biglaw firms, I don't think most civil litigators would call themselves "corporate lawyers." It is indefensible for the HLR to publish a note lumping together all lawyers in "private practice" as corporate types working for (wait for it) "the mega-corporations." And to then say people go to those jobs out of laziness. Come on.

I cannot believe I tried (and failed) to write onto the HLR. This is ludicrous.

Somebody please out the writer.

The rule of ten percent rears its ugly head once again. Ten percent of any crown falls into several categories: asshole, moron, psycho... The rule still applies to HLS students. Maybe it is the rule of fifteen percent at HLS though.

And the oscar for best irony in a coked-up ranting goes to:.......

"It is well beyond the scope of this Note to make substantive arguments about jobs that promote justice better than other jobs."

If the author of this note actually did read the comments here, she would likely get her feelers hurt, decide that capitalism and Western culture are simply pure evil, join the Taliban and go to Afghanistan to make IEDs to kill American soldiers.

I will pay Lat $200 not to ever subject me to this kind of silliness again.

I will also pay anyone who can identify this doofus $200 so I can be sure to ding him when he interviews at my firm.

Someone should have told Bill Gates about this author's theory before started Microsoft, earned billions upon billions, and then created the world's largest private charity.

Undoubtedly Mr. Gates would have done more good and saved more lives as a 19-year-old Harvard dropout than by the method he is pursuing presently. After all, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation only has $38.7 billion (and growing) at its disposal to implement its global health, development, and education initiatives. Surely such paltry efforts pale in comparison to the "good" an unemployed, uneducated, and unfunded Mr. Gates would have accomplished instead.

Please, future wealthy philanthropists, abandon your dreams! No amount of money and global charitable reach will save the children! Only renouncing your BigLaw position and joining the PD, ACLU, Peace Corp, or similar organization can save them!

Follow your conscience!!!

Guys at my high school used to publish rather embarrassing, bleeding-heart Case Comments all the time. It was no big deal.

FRAT STUD

HLS Anonymous Note Author = obnoxious Trustafarian

So, wait... if I'm reading this right, if I drown a kid in jambalaya, and run over someone with my Ferrari while they're standing on train tracks, I can get a job in Biglaw?

"Hello, Border Cafe? I'd like to place an order for takeout..."

Just another piece of dogshit published in the HLR.

WTF is this author doing wasting time and money at HLS? Donate all of your money and spend all of your time (except of course the time you spent to write this Note) helping the dying children!!

Sally Struthers went to HLS? Who knew?

Who wrote this? HLR Note authors are not supposed to be secret--the no-name policy is just because Notes go through such a thorough editing process (or at least they used to!) that Notes are seen as the product of the Review itself. But people can and do claim authorship of their Notes all the time. Mine's listed in my firm bio. So someone out this person already!

Given the smug tone of the article, I doubt the author would be persuaded by reading these comments. S/he would probably assume the criticism arises from a desire to justify an uncaring lifestyle, rather than the sheer naivety and illogic of the piece.

Only a child who came here straight from undergrad would miss the possibility that some of us would be entirely miserable at a non-profit. I spent years at bleeding-heart charity jobs, kid. I was spinning my wheels. It isn't always just about the money.

Your $200 offer is tempting, 6:03, but no one likes a tattle-tale. A lot of people know the name, so it will come out soon enough.

And the rest of you can complain and trash-talk all you want because the author is staggeringly brilliant and is going to do amazing things in life (but will not interview with your law firm, in case you couldn't tell) So go suck a lemon.

"Staggerly brilliant and going to do amazing things?"

With horse**** publications like this one?

There is no way this person is "staggeringly brilliant" having written this crap.

FACT: THE WRITER OF THIS IS A COMPLETE DUMBASS.

6:28 = anonymous author (or AA's mom)

Nice try. But simply by writing this piece of intellectual trash, this person has already achieved an irreversible and epic FAIL at life.

Better luck next time!

Hello, my name is Roger Lou, and I am number 1 corporate lawyer in america. I come from china to the number 1 law school in america the america university. I first considered going to number 1 law school in asia that is harvard.
Sirs, and if you are mrs, i do greatly apologize, i am deeply ingrated to the fates of buddah that did not allow me to attend number 1 law school in asia--for i would not have fit in well there with bleed heart liberal such as this author. i leave china so i can forget about the starving chinaman, not so i can have my nose rubbed in him! i too believe in the greatness of america and the fatedness of rich american lawyers, for why would anyone try to become rich other than to ignore the poor? Tell me this. i do not understand the cultural viewing of some of the american snot nosers at harvard why do they wan t to help the poor? do they not realize that this will only hurt their own richedness? in china everyone wants to be rich, a true poor chinaman knows the only way not to be poor is to be rich. those that do not become rich know that their fate is to have their childs be destroyed by the american corportate lawyer forces who sometimes parachute in by nightfall. this is buddahs will, and i have risen above this. with luck my status as americas number 1 corporate lawyer will allow me to parachute in with the american corporate lawyer forces and i will finally be allowed to take my rightfull place as the number 1 american corporate lawyer baby killer. the poor people of china will be proud of me-and fear me.

with warmest regards,

Roger Lou
语/漢語

"the author is staggeringly brilliant and is going to do amazing things in life"

I'm assuming furthering the field of economics is not one of them.

I just threw up a little in my mouth. "Staggeringly brilliant"? No. No one who merits that designation writes and publishes a hapless tear full of lazy journalistic sins, not the least of which is referring to the reader as "you."

Lame.

I'm currently on HLR and know the author well. She is frankly amazing. The note was widely critiqued and accepted.
The comments posted here are obviously by people who have not carefully read the note or not read it at all.

It's Roger LUO not LOU, you stupid fucking racist moron.

6:39 -- bullshit. I'm clerking with an HLR member from last year who knows the author & assures me it's a guy. And an idiot too.

6:28, 6:39, 6:41
apparenlty the HLR board has arrived en masse.

6:39 -- so you admit Lat is correct...

6:39 if by "widely critiqued and accepted" you mean read and cheered on by other bleeding heart idiots, i'm sure you're correct.

How is this a "Case Comment"? There isn't a SINGLE case cited (let alone actually discussed) (let alone analyzed intelligently) in the entire 22 pages.

Can't wait to see the name associated with that twaddle. Really does a disservice to the 5:42-types doing God's work in the trenches.

But it did have a nice effect: I'm playing my bootleg Tracy Chapman instead of Tsaichovsky while motherf*cking opposing counsel in the case. Nothing quite so sweet as knowing the author's had a positive effect on somebody in the real the world.

Chump.

-- ET!

6:48 -- uh, it's a Note. Check the URL http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/may08/notes/never_again.pdf

That said, it's still the dumbest Note ever published.

Seriously, the publication of this Note ought to dump Harvard several dozen places in next year's USNWR rankings. Idiocy this spectacular cannot go unpunished. Every person serving on HLR should be deeply, deeply ashamed. I know that HLR alums certainly are.

As smart as typical HLS students, particularly those on HLR, are, I can't believe that this utterly elementary drivel was published. HLR's reputation will be temporarily stained since this Note will be the most visible association with HLR.

Can someone please post the names of the HLR Board, nevermind the writer? Those enablers allowed this piece of crap to be published.

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/editors.shtml

Here is the entire membership: http://www.harvardlawreview.org/editors.shtml

Every person involved with editing & approving this piece should be deeply ashamed. Every junior editor involved in "cite-checking" this piece should be deeply ashamed for not raising hell about this piece as well. Seriously, publishing this intellectual turd is a scandal. The writing and "argumentation" in this piece is so terrible that it would stand out as poor even among the pro se filings that I've seen while clerking.

Can't we just feed the poor to the hungry?

-- J. Swift

I like that the author thinks there is only "marginal additional prestige" to be had at a Cravath job when compared with an unpaid internship at the free legal clinic.

Also that the Cravath job represents the "path of least resistance"

This writer is the Aleksey Vayner of public-interest-loving Note authors. I can't imagine that even those who generally feel that people should choose public interest over private practice would objectively look favorably on this drivel.

The failure of Barack Obama to drop out of the Democratic presidential race is sexist, racist, and constitutes a disenfranchisement of the good people of Michigan and Florida on par with slavery and apartheid. It probably also kills babies in Africa.

--Hillary R. Clinton

Per 6:39, "The note was widely critiqued and accepted."

Dear 6:39 + HLR editorial board:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_think

"Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. "

Terrible. Just shockingly poor. A complete embarrassment.

The author may raise some valid points, but 23 footnotes in 22 pages?! The piece is nothing more than a lengthy op-ed, and it does not belong in a law review, much less the HLR.

As a former editor of another top law review, I find it pathetic that the HLR editorial board published this as a "note."

The author is plainly a tool. As are the editors that let this through.

The President of the HLR should immediately commit hari-kari/seppuku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku)

God I love the Marine Corps

4:41

titcr

HLS to #15 in 2009 US News rankings!

There are almost 200 comments to this post . . . and yet still no name. With dozens of HLR members out there, surely someone is willing to spill the beans.

"Welcome to a world where inexperienced editors make articles about the wrong topics worse."

Richard A. Posner

Please see: http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2004/review_posner_novdec04.msp