FIRST!

Lat, why don't you instead put up some info about this: WG + AG = WGWAG (white guys with asian girls) = the two most powerful, most intelligent demographic groups in law and biz...? Why are these two groups so much more successful than others, i.e. asian guys? Why do these two groups get along so well (is it because WGs have bigger dongs than asian guys?)?

By the way, I enjoyed hearing you on NPR today, Lat.

- King of WGWAG

ATL: good gossip, shitty commenters.

1:43 - Where have you been? Phil Telfeyan outed himself as the author of the Note weeks ago. His name is all over ATL.

This guy sounds like a massive putz and wannabe petty criminal. No wonder he didn't get the job.

Serves the guy right. No one is immune from rejection, even if you attend a particular school. This individual should be no different from the rest of the applicants who were also rejected.

How did he earn an A- average? I'll be a 1L in the fall and any advice about test-taking, outlines, and doing well would be appreciated.

What's the difference in salary and benefits between working at the DoJ and working for, say, the ACLU? Anyone with knowledge, please express the answer in number of babies killed (rounding up, of course).

1:54- He probably got a few A's and one B. That's just my estimation though.

The Harvard Law Avenger received cum laude honors, which puts him in the top 40% (GPA range of 5.6-6.2, 6.0 being an A-).
Not exactly that impressive. The story makes him sound like he got summa cum laude.

Ironic, considering the role the "preppy rioters" who "protested" the Miami-Dade manual recount had in making Bush president in the first place. Of course, those guys were actually paid to riot by the Republican Party, so I guess that's a little different.

1:56: I meant strategic law school advice. You interpreted the question too narrowly, albeit the comment was funny.

Boo whoo. Who cares?

1:56 made me lol
2:01 made me lol harder for falling for it

2:01. The better your perform on exams, the better your grades will be.

The Civil Rights Division has a pretty sad applicant pool when this guy is the best of the rejected applicants and deserved an appeal.

If you mess with the Harvard Law Review, they will get you back in the end.

How's my ass taste, Harvard Law Avenger?

- Michael Elston

What if the applicant had expressed a desire to be present at the fall of the Berlin Wall or Tiananmen Square. Weren't those "close to a riot" too?

"then the candidate would not hesitate to chain himself to the front steps of the Department if he did not like the way something was being done"

Heaven forbid the DOJ should hire this guy and then try to get rid of pajama day. All hell would break loose.

I fail to see the point.

This is an awesome and amazing coincidence.....

Instead of chaining myself outside, I just plan to botch whatever assignments I'm given that I don't agree with ideologically.

2:05: Really? Doesn't HLS count for something?

Yes, his Note was awful. But Phil Telfeyan is obviously a smart guy who is committed to public service.

2:13 - That apparently works if you work in the Manhattan DA's office - see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/nyregion/23da.html

1:44 - NOT first, and it's white girls with Asian guys, considering Lat himself is Asian, you douche.

Co-sign 2:20. Telfeyan may have some personality issues, but his credentials are amazing:

-- Harvard Law School

-- A-minus average

-- Harvard Law Review

-- published Note

-- national Moot Court champion

-- D.C. Circuit clerkship

At Harvard you get cum laude for being in the top 40%????????

I shoulda gone there. I was top 30 at Chicago and they didn't give me any special honors to put on my resume. Talk about grade inflation at HLS...

A few stiffs banging on a door because an election canvassing board is violating state law by conducting a recount in private=riot? You liberals are bigger wussies than I thought.

Wait -- I thought WGWAG stood for White Girls with Asian Guys (a much less common coupling than white guys and Asian girls)?

Please advise.

Telfeyan's credentials are amazing indeed. Never in the history of the Law Review has anyone written such a puerile, shoddy, juvenile, vacuous note. Amazing!

2:25, it does. A handful of white guys comes by every now and then to change it to fit their racist Asian fetish stereotypes. Cause, you know, Asian chicks TOTALLY dig racist white guys.

2:24: what's the cut-off for Honors at Chi?

How did you do so well?

Until I see a memo from Elston stating he had something against nasal-voiced beret enthusiasts, I'm reserving judgment.

2:23, I'll grant you the first three, but

- national moot court championship - few reputable schools participate in these. Do you anyone who did? Phil and his teammate won by beating such powerhouses as Seton Hall and South Texas.

- published Note - an anonymous Note in a journal that will publish almost any Note by an editor no matter how embarrassing. No editorial standards at all, like looking at the other side of the potato famine statue.
This also suggests that the Harvard Law Review is run by idiots and being a member is not that impressive.

- DC Clerkship - Phil is clerking for one of the most conservative judges on the circuit, JR Brown. Whether he hid his liberal leanings, and thus misrepresented other things as well, is left as a speculation to the reader.

How does the OP plan to re-pay his HLS student loans with public sector work and clerkships?

2:29, it's 19% for honors, 4% for high honors. The percentages are weird because it's based on a GPA rather than a percentage. So the percentage can very slightly, but not much because of Chicago's strict grade curve. I got my GPA by being a lazy genius.

1999 was a police riot.

Oh good God. "vary" not "very"

Big deal the DOJ rejected a Social Justice Malcontent. Who cares if he is smart? He has the same credentials as half my professors and they are as nutty as fruitcakes. He is destined to write articles about how he is oppressed as a _____ because he is a _____ in a _____ when the normative values are ______ . He has no place in the DOJ where criminal convictions are more important that your convictions.

can someone do a story on the creature who broke the law at DOJ? TYIA

2:08 FTW

2:28 - so white guys who like asian girls are racist -- and asian guys who like white girls are not?

How to get in the top 30%: Get higher grades than the bottom two-thirds of your class. This is not that hard, especially during 3L year.

How to get in the top 10%: Much trickier. If you are smart, take harder classes because the curve will be much more pronounced and benefit those who are at the top. Find classes that you are good at (e.g., an A in income tax will probably mean you'll also do well in corporate tax).

Who doesnt regret missing Seattle? Closest this country's come to real revolution since 1776...Though Inauguration DC 2000 was a close second.

Also, take classes where underachievers congregate. Due to affirmative action lowering admissions standards for underrepresented minorities, underrepresented minorities tend to underachieve in law school (with some exceptions).

2:46 beat me to it.

And I think you meant to say: "This guy sounds like a massive putz and wannabe petty criminal. IT'S A wonder he didn't get the job."

What I'm thinking (warning: buzzkill forthcoming) is that this is all far less amsuing than this post is making it out to be. No, to put it better: even amongst the 'without tongue in cheek' reportings of this whole mess, I don't think people are emphasizing how serious this all is:

The institutional structures of the DOJ were specifically designed to avoid politicization of the rank-and-file. It was always understood that politicization - to whatever extent it was benign and not in conflict with professional ethics - was to be expected for the executive appointments (typically in area of issue focus / area of issue neglect during the presidential terms). But multiple institutional-bureaucratic defenses - oversight committees / non-unified promotional structures / shifting department tasks / merit-based review / multiparty audits etc. were all constructed to PREVENT exactly what - as it is revealed - has happened over the last few years.

It's doubly depressing: 1. the worst thing that could happen - politicization of something whose form is of the apolitical - has occurred, and, simultaneously, 2. all these supposed 'defenses' have been shown to be inefficacious in the worst way.

So, in other words, things are more fucked up than people are letting on. This is really and truly not good. And, take note, no grand (or even evolutionary) solution has been proposed - people on both sides of the political spectrum are in witchhunt rather than 'fix it' mode. Likely because no one has a clue how to 'fix it' - our best efforts failed.

2:46, yes. Yes, that is exactly what I was saying.

::eyeroll::

2:49, if you think it's "not that hard" to make top 30 at Chicago, you clearly did not go there. Even the seminars have a curve, albeit a higher one. And *every* class has enough douchebag suckups to fuck the curve. And yes, kissing up does make a difference (ESPECIALLY in upper division classes) bc having lunch with the prof every day makes you more likely to understand what he or she wants you to say on the exam, which is THE SOLE determinant of your grade. The best way to get good grades in law school is not to learn the law; it's to learn the professors.

Umm, 3:01, my 2:49 post made no mention of Chicago. The fact that Chicago does not do top 30 / top 10 distinctions should also have tipped you off.

I know it's hard to believe, but there are other schools besides Chicago. Sorry you go to such a TTT school where everyone is a grade-grubbing gunner who sucks up.

What's the curve, 3:01? Does it really assign C grades to 1/3rd of the class?

Chicago seems like a tough school -- even harder than HLS.

3:01

couldn't disagree more. Not sure what fucked up education you had, but I've intercoursed with a great deal of professors - yes, that's right, I just wrote intercoursed and we all know what it means - and 100:1 if you know your shit and are able to write it well AND provide cogent objective analysis when it is warranted, they won't fault you - indeed, will reward you - where you disagree with 'their' viewpoint, whatever that may be.

This whole 'know what your professors want, not what the law is' trite truism is tiring. It's just not true. It's usually spouted by the retards who mistook a question with a 'correct answer' or at least 'correct analysis framework' for 'opportunity to spout off' and then whined when they received a C.

3:01: "The best way to get good grades in law school is not to learn the law; it's to learn the professors."

This is pretty much the secret to life.

3:01

couldn't disagree more. Not sure what fucked up education you had, but I've intercoursed with a great deal of professors - yes, that's right, I just wrote intercoursed and we all know what it means - and 100:1 if you know your shit and are able to write it well AND provide cogent objective analysis when it is warranted, they won't fault you - indeed, will reward you - where you disagree with 'their' viewpoint, whatever that may be.

This whole 'know what your professors want, not what the law is' trite truism is tiring. It's just not true. It's usually spouted by the retards who mistook a question with a 'correct answer' or at least 'correct analysis framework' for 'opportunity to spout off' and then whined when they received a C.

2:53-- Imagine how that DC 2000 riot would have gone had people known how unbelievably shitty GWB turned out to be. Wow.

I agree with the notion that understanding what the professor is saying is a way to a good grade, but I also think that being an excellent writer and a smart person in general is another route--sometimes to an even higher grade.

I hate this kid from a distance, and I am ashamed (though not surprised) he went to my school. I think he would have been substantially happier in the Peace Corps or, worse yet, Yale.

Still, is it fair to pile on this guy at the start of his career? Clearly the internet has kicked his ass twice already (DOJ, shitty HLR note). Maybe ATL can retire this guy's number.

Grade inflation doesn't matter so long as you have percentage cut-offs for honors.

HLS also distinguishes between cum laude and magna cum laude. Magna is top 10%. Cum laude is top 40% excluding magna.

It seems likely to me that Elston and the committee weren't so much concerned about Telfeyan’s anti-WTO sympathies as they were about his maturity. We're talking about a guy who launched a hunger strike and chained himself to a tree to protest the injustice of a school's administration declining to endorse rampant pajama wearing.

In the magical world of numbers we call that: '60th - 90th percentile'

Phil pwns 99% of all of his haters

3:01: "The best way to get good grades in law school is not to learn the law; it's to learn the professors."

That is the dumbest statement ever. Just learn what's important and what's not...no need to re-read entire cases, find the rule, memorize it and then be able to apply it to whatever lame ass fact pattern you get on an exam. Law school is not hard, anyone who spends their time out of class in the library studying is wasting their time. It's a game, once you know how to play, it's easier than college.

I'm not opposed to refusing an appeal based upon a 3 day hunger strike (chained to a tree) to protest the abolition of pamaja day.

Granted, it was in high school--but that still is only about seven years ago. And it does show serious judgment issues. I think it's a fair concern that the same person is going to chain themselves to some DOJ doorknob on some other "principled" position.

"It's a game, once you know how to play, it's easier than college."

Can you elaborate?

What else is in the cases besides the rules?

I think Phil Telfeyan is a pretty cool guy. eh writes crappy student notes, gets rejected from DOJ, and doesn't afraid of anything.

I hate to get in the way of people insulting one another, but does it bother anyone that this guy basically got dinged for expressing an interest (as a college freshman) in exercising his free speech/free assembly rights?

3:38

So a typical case can be a dozen to 20 pages or more. Some people read it all and try and understand everything the jduges say. But the reason you are reading the case is because it stands for some rule that often can be summed up in a sentence or two.

I just knew so many ppl in law school that would re-read every case and try and understand every argument made, when it was such a waste of time for the way law school exams are set up.

Ridiculous-

I actually thought is note was good, statute-issue and lack of legal analysis notwithstanding. And what is wrong with protesting the WTO? Heaven forbid someone advocate for economic justice and protection of the environment in this day and age.

As for the think in high school - it was in HIGH SCHOOL. Who cares? I don't.

Give the guy a break.

ATL and this tipster get 1000 Drew Carey points for finding this and making the link. I'm impressed.

Drew Carey

I'd be on the lookout for Phil to start a blog in defense of his DOJ job candidacy.

3:46: if that's the case, then why do they teach you to brief?

4:07, nobody at HLS told me to brief. I have never briefed a case from a casebook.

Who taught you to brief?

I briefed precisely one case in my HLS career, for the first or second day of my property class.

Of course, I didn't get cum laude either. I guess I'd call it a wash.

4:09: then what do they tell you to do with the cases? Just read them?

Guys in my high school used to chain themselves to the Department all the time. It was no big deal.

3:48, Phil is that you? It's statue, retard!

4:20: you went to HARVARD?! Wow.

4:09, most people in law school either don't do all the reading, or show up to few of the classes. Read all the assigned materials carefully (even the minor squibs and commentary between cases), jot down the major points of the cases, and go to all the classes, and you'll be ahead of half the class.

briefing is only worthwhile if you brief the rule only and maybe some procedural issue (because that is the stuff that 1Ls get tripped up on) for memory's sake...it is useless to brief entire cases. you are better served reading hornbooks and commercial outlines.

Its very rare in life to see karma come full circle. We should all be proud that we go to see a rich jackass talk down to hard working attorney AND withing about a month get whats coming to him.

Kudos to you karma, and Mr. Elston

**got to see
**Attorneys

- Also, it just dawned on me, I wonder if karma will get me back for the comment I just made. Probably.

Looking at the honor's list at my school, here is how to know you will get in the top 10%:

1. Be male
2. Be white, preferably Jewish.
3. Do not be a black person. Asians and Hispanics are ok.
4. Have an undergraduate major that does not have grade inflation (e.g., sciences).

The school has blind grading, so the differences are not because the professors are sexist or racist. Simply affirmative action and liberal arts grade inflation at work here.

Oh and
5. be a transfer
6. spend a semester abroad, or two semesters on exchange with another school.

To those who would criticize the rejection of an applicant for chaining himself to a tree in protest of the loss of school-sanctioned pajama wearing:

- I have no problem with someone being dinged due for unjudicious use of his free speech rights. Neonazis, racists, and NAMBLA-enthusiasts can freely express their viewpoints. But that doesn't mean we have to associate with them.
- So what if it was in high school? The DOJ was no doubt dealing with a stack of super-qualified, very polished applicants. They have to make distinctions based on something. And extremely poor judgment seven years ago is as good a basis for that distinction as anything---especially considering that he proudly endorsed his earlier actions much more recently in a widely-disseminated news source.

I truly despise Bush and conservatives generally, but I may agree with 4:41. Phil the Hat Lover clearly has terrible judgment, and I think dinging an applicant because they tend to chain themselves to trees and partake in hunger strikes over minor issues like the ability to wear pajamas to one's high school is probably OK. I mean, it'd clearly be OK if the DOJ people googled an applicant's name, found that he had a history of badmouthing former employers on his blog or MySpace page, no?

That said, the reference to the WTO protests does seem more ideological than character-based. On the other hand, finding Phil's pajama-day protest ridiculous doesn't strike me as an ideological bar, but rather as a strike against a person as immature and likely to be an unmanageable employee.

I don't get it. What exactly is law school trying to teach you?

Brief, don't brief. Outline, don't outline. IRAC, don't IRAC. Issue-spotting, Policy. Think like a lawyer, analyze the issue. What's the point of all of this?

4:55, law school teaches you that it is acceptable to have a $150k-three-year barrier to entry to the legal profession, in order to drive up wages and demand.

4:55 - The point is to get a job.

Fine. "What am I learning in order to do well on the test?" might have been a more appropriate question.

Sounds like the DOJ practice may have been justified after all.

Any net that catches this clown has something going for it.

cum laude at HLS used to me something like top 70% - i shit you not people.

it is a fucking joke of an "honor"

Yeah, thanks a lot, DOJ. Now this D-bag is doing his summer at DLA.

I am not certain why ideology should not play a role in hires. The majority of civil servants (especially lawyers) in Washington D.C. are Democrats. Thus, the administration has to worry about employees stifling their agenda. As such, ideology should at least play some role in hiring decisions.

5:39 -- seriously??????

Phil the Harvard Law Avenger is working for BIGLAW (i.e., DLA Piper) as a summer associate before starting his clerkship for conservative diva Janice Rogers Brown this fall????

You must email Lat about this -- the irony of it all is too hilarious given his Note excoriating all who work in the private sector (basically)

5:42 -- the reason is that statutory and constitutional law bars ideology/partisan politics as a consideration. These positions are merit-based, career civil service jobs. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that partisan loyalty cannot be a factor in hiring/firing individuals in non-politically appointed government jobs.

yeah Lat, and these are the people you want to perpetuate in office by electing McCain. Great.

The Avenger works at DLA? Then he must be a stud as DLA only hires the best!

5:44 -- Seriously. And, in addition to touting his love of bowling and having taken more philosophy classes at Harvard than anyone else E-V-E-R, his bio says he is into "creative writing." Indeed.

1:54 PM - He went to Harvard. A- is the standard "good" grade.

Grades are meaningless without curve context.

6:27 -- Momentary minute of insanity aside of Telfeyan aside, DLA, in my oh so humble opinion, DOES only hire the best. I blame Lat. He should have published his Avenger story earlier in the hiring process. Would have made for good interveiw material:

Partner - "Soooo, Mr. Telfeyan, can you explain a bit more in detail why you think I am a baby-killing prick for working at BIGLAW?"

Telfeyan - "Uh... how about if I just show you my hat collection and moot court certificate."

Partner - "How about if I just show you the door, ass-hat?"

Attention LAT:
Telfeyan's father is a highly placed democratic party operative in Sacramento and a teacher at University of Pacific McGeorge school of law; his entire office door is plastered with fuck bush style cartoons, stickers, news articles, and comics.

6:29 -- you must email this information to Lat. That Phil the Hat Collector is working in Big Law this summer is just too perfect & ironic a capstone to whole sorry, craptackular episode of his "BIGLAW = Baby Killers" Note

The Telfeyan information TOTALLY warrants the Drudge-esque breaking news siren. This is the biggest story of the summer....

This is why the south is filled with stupid wonder bread fed hicks.

2::49, sorry, saw the "30%" and assumed you were referencing my post above mentioning 30% at Chicago. My bad.

3:05, knowing the law better than your entire class won't necessarily even earn you an A, much less the highest grade you deserve, if you don't know how the professor likes his or her questions answered. No, I don't mean "you must always agree with the professor," and I would think that would be pretty damn obvious. But to make it abundantly clear to you: what I mean is that the professor likes to have legal ideas spouted back to them IN A WAY THEY WOULD FASHION THEIR CONVERSATIONS or articles or classes or whatever. Professors like people who sound like them. Like, I will have much more respect for, say, a conservative who presents arguments in a way that I think is legitimate, than I will for a liberal who argues in a completely different way I do, even though I agree with the liberal more. If you can key yourself in to how the professor thinks, then your exam will read like the professor's internal monologue. All professors think they are brilliant, ergo, someone who thinks like them must also be brilliant, even if they reach a different conclusion.

Seriously, I thought this was like really really basic stuff.

7:53 - you seem to move back and forth between something I could agree with completely (and think is highly insightful) and basically a reiteration of your earlier point, which I maintain is: a. incorrect, and, b. something separate from what you are (at least partially) saying in your post.

If you mean that a superb way to maximize one's grade for any given level of ability is to utilize frameworks of information analysis and transport which are favored by the Professor grading the Exam, I couldn't agree more. Too few people grasp this in law school - it's kindof an 'insider secret' to doing well, IMHO.

However, that's hugely different from: a. saying what the professor wants you to say (your earlier post) and/or b. putting things in a manner that will - at least with a high likelihood - stoke the professor's ego. (what you seem to suggest in this post in addition to the aforementioned 'use same framework'). It's not ego stroking - it's communicating in their language.

Let me try to synthesize what I'm saying with the large part of your post that I do agree with: if you use the proper (read: what the professor advocates) analysis/writing framework AND the professor is an ethical practitioner of pedagogy, he will reward an apt analysis even if it yields a conclusion which he finds to be discordant with his own views / opinions. This is not, however, the same as parroting what the professor wants to hear, or needing to say 'x, y, and z' (assuming we're dealing with a wiggle area of policy etc. - if the question is objective then you should say x, y, z) to get an A.

"So a typical case can be a dozen to 20 pages or more. Some people read it all and try and understand everything the jduges say. But the reason you are reading the case is because it stands for some rule that often can be summed up in a sentence or two."

That might work great at your second-tier school. T14 profs operate differently. I had no fewer than 2 classes 1L year -- and received As in both -- in which the professor included, as an entire question on each exam, the details about random, small, NOT "the point of the case as we learned it in class" stuff, that I had bothered writing down in my class notes (neither of these questions could have been answered by the textbooks), and 85% of everyone else hadn't. Sometimes profs pull shit like that, and understanding how the PROF thinks will often make the difference between an A and a B, or a high A and a low A, whereas understanding the law better than your classmates might not give you the same advantage. It's not that it doesn't matter; it's all a sliding scale, but passing the prof personality exam slides the scale a lot farther.

And this does apply through the rest of life too. Think about it: why are idiots that people (for some reason) *like* on a personal level (e.g., 90% of politicians and celebrities, being conservative) so much more successful than autistic geniuses? Because, at the margins, PERSONALITY MATTERS MORE THAN SMARTS. Just like marketing matters more than a quality product. Etc., etc. Huge smarts with merely adequate personality, yes, will get you very far. But if you switch the smarts and personality levels on the scale, you'll get even further.

7:53, what you're saying now is obvious and completely different from what you said before. Obviously if the professor wants to know more about theory, your answers should emphasize theory. If he likes policy arguments, you would work that in there. Anybody who took the class and read the exam would know what to emphasize. Gee, do you spend a lot of time on scholarly articles, or on Tort Stories.

Following the format and structure of the professor's curriculum is miles different from kissing up to the professor to "understand what he wants you to say on the exam", with the implication that one should repeat to the professor his own substantive arguments.

"It's not ego stroking - it's communicating in their language."

Potayto, potahto. You can attribute it to whatever you like. The pragmatic point, though, remains the same.

But, no, I did not mean you say "x, y, and z." I did mean that, whatever you say, you make it sound as much like the professor is saying it, as you can. There's a great analogy to be derived from a copyright case I read in law school -- if you want to write a dramatization of the O.J. trial as told by Dr. Seuss, you might get the pertinent details of it correct by telling the story in limerick -- and might even be extremely clever for doing so -- but you aren't making it sound like Dr. Seuss. If you make it sound like Dr. Seuss, you still have to get the details mostly right, but what is *more* important between the two is the sound of the writing. It matters less that you lay out the details of Mark Fuhrmann's racism than it does that you structure your writing "the glibbledorf's lawyer, his grin in a glit, said 'the glove doesn't fit so the crowd must acquit!'"

Wally, is that you?

http://frum.nationalreview.com
"On pp. 20-21, we find the numbers that establish that the DoJ career staff in 2002 nominated twice as many identifiable liberals as identifiable conservatives for the Honors track program: 100 vs. 46.

And on page 27, we read that the DoJ bureaucracy advanced nearly three times as many identifiable liberals as conservatives for summer internships that year, 81 vs. 29.

If anything, the ideological bias of the DoJ bureaucracy seems to have become more entrenched with time. In 2006, it nominated five times as many liberals as conservatives for Honors track positions, 150 v. 28, and more three times as many liberals as conservatives for summer internships, 68 v. 16. (See p. 41 and p. 54.)

The evidence suggests that DoJ hiring was contaminated by ideology long before the Bush administration came to town. The Bush administration may have erred and over-corrected. But let's not allow the permanent government and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) to get away with spreading the claim that things were done in a neutral fashion beforehand."

Isn't the timing off for the person in the report to be this guy? Elston left DOJ last summer, and if this guy applied to DOJ, it would have been this fall after Elston left.

I only knew one person that briefed cases all three years, but she did graduate first in the class.

That said, I'm not sure the return is worth the effort. Law school is a test taking contest. Taking lots of practice tests and getting very comfortable with IRAC and issue spotting is the best way to do well.

You don't get cum laude at HLS for being top 40%. What an idiot.

It is all about the time you put in (getting good grades). My friend who made law review at HLS started studying for his exams around Halloween. He didn't see his family for Thanksgiving because he was studying so much. And he finished first year with an A- average.

8:43 - OK, what does it take to get cum laude at HLS?

8:43,

(58 + 174)/580 = .4
(56 + 169)/563 = .4
etc.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/registrar/2007-08/honors_cutoffs_2008.php

12:53 wrote:

"I only knew one person that briefed cases all three years, but she did graduate first in the class."

I did that as well and I was first in my class, as well. It wasn't a huge investment of time, IMO. After the first semester of 1L, my briefs were really to the point and I did it almost automatically as I read.

I read every case and ALWAYS read the footnotes.

I did not, however, join a study group, read commercial outlines, or, in most cases, make my own outlines. To me, those things seemed to have the lowest return on investment.

Brief the cases, then hit the bars.

why has this thread been hijacked by those giving banal advice to incoming 1Ls? i smell a diversionary tactic by telfeyan and friends... but seriously, take it to the community section, people.

People seem to be overstating the importance of briefing. I think that the type of person who would brief a whole lot would also be a diligent studier and anal-retentive in general, so it would be no surprise that she would do well. Correlation, not causation.
Doing well requires enough attention to detail so that your answer would stand out.
I bet if you asked the top students if they briefed any cases in their A classes, most would say no.

8:43, try looking at
http://www.law.harvard.edu/ocs/employers/HLS_Grading_System.htm

The next 30%, after the top 10% (magna cum laude), are cum laude. 30 + 10 = 40%. Everyone at HLS knows this. You, sir, are the idiot.

So, did Phil summer at DLA Piper last summer and he's just back for a half-summer before clerking, or was he no-offered somewhere else after last summer?

10:01 - The Inspector General report covers politicization of hiring in (1) the Honors Program AND (2) the Summer Law Intern Program.

Minnesota high school bans hats!
http://www.startribune.com/local/south/21812274.html?location_refer=South%20Metro:highlightModules:1

Too bad Phil ("Hat Boy") Telfeyanl's not there to "avenge" this injustice, presumably by chaining himself to a tree.
http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=121870