MysTTTal, maybe you should continue to hide behind your many chins

Hey MysTTTal, still waiting on that non-"objective" SAT or LSAT question showing that standardized tests are racist against blacks, but not Asians or Eastern European immigrants.

Ellie, release your LSAT score please.

oh, I am sure all the law school deans and administrators and the folks who run the ABA and the state bars and the folks at the LSAC etc, would all love to be able to stop all the anonymous comments on how the law schools are lying about the income and employment prospects of their graduates.

If we had to give our real names, we would not be spilling the beans about the bogus law school stats.

But I am not going to give up my anonymity, sorry.

Jane D

Why in the world did Schachter give up what appears to be a nascently successful career in comedy to become a lawyer??? He will rue the day.

schachter's blog is terribly unfunny and boring

@3 here is your answer.

http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Linda_Sanchez_ED871847-26EF-4235-A695-18BA6A5C4B63.html

"Maybe commenters should stop hiding behind anonymity?"

Is that a veiled threat Mystal? Are you going to out the commenters?

Law students: don't follow Schachters approach to outlinling. What good is an outline organized by chapter? Organize by topic!

Exam day:

"Oh, good, a question on accord and satisfaction; ok, no problem, that's right here in my trusty outline that I blogged about so proudly. Accord and satisfaction, was that in Chapter 1? Well, I have an outline of chapter 1 right here, nope, no accord and satisfaction covered in chapter 1. Maybe chapter 2? Nope, not chapter 2 either. Chapter 3? Nope. Hmmm, accord and satisfaction... riiiiiight ... let's seeeeeee... what chapter was that again? D'OH!"

3 was pwned by 9.

That is all.

I'm depressed.

I suspect that Elie is collecting IP addresses for when he is summarily dismissed from ATL so he can reap revenge on the 'right wing nuts" he so loathes by posting same (anonymously) on the blog he plans to start to compete with ATL.

Elie,

Where did you go to high school?

@8--from your link: "In fact, until recently, the SAT continued to use items about polo mallets, lacrosse, and regattas. How likely is a poor kid from the inner city to spend his or her weekend attending a regatta?"

I believe that the answer to that lies in a thing called a book. you know, those things that have pages and words? Also, there's a thing called a newspaper, which uses words like regatta.

Perhaps if these "inner city" kids were taught to read books and newspapers, they'd establish a larger grasp of the English language instead of blaming evil white people for devising "code language" to deprive them of their futures.

I am reminded of my High School, a New York City test-based High School which suffered a similar fate for using "white" words in their admission test and "white" names which the poor "inner city" kids couldn't relate to. Result? After changing the test (i.e. making it easier), there are no more "inner city" kids attending today than there were 20 years ago, but there are more russians and chinese. back in the 80s it was all asians.

Moral: Read a book.

15-

Fill me with your man-seed. I wish to breed for you.

@8 - That's funny, I've never been to a regatta, either. But does that make for a 'racist' test? No. I seem to have fared just fine on tests with questions involving references to games that only fruity rich boys play.

Love,

Formerly poor white from hick town.

Awww MysTTTal doesn't like the commenters exposing and ridiculing his bigotry and lack of intelligence.

Seriously elie, reconsider your ridiculous insistance on turning everything into a racial issue you race-obsessed loon. Lat's success didn't rely on cheap attacks and inferior logic to attract readers.

Mystal, are your moobs fully marinated yet in scrotum yogurt?

I realize that anonymous posting encourages the airing of vulgar, irrelevant, and extreme points of view. However, it also allows people to say what they really think in a culture that often punishes people for having out of the main stream views. It is probably healthy that we have at least one outlet for people to express those views, less we all put our heads in the sand and pretend that they don't exist. Perhaps if we can see and respond to views we strongly disagree with it will help us better understand the society we live in.

Without anonymous posting I guarantee that you get maybe 1/10th the comments and all would be fairly tame.

"Maybe commenters should stop hiding behind anonymity?"

Oh please, we all know 95% of the comments are made by Elie or Lat

21 = RACIST

elie, read 20's comment and then read it again. While wholly unaffected by AA, I am opposed to it both as a matter of principle and believe its ineffective at accomplishing what it sets out to do. Would I *ever* bring it up in personal or professional conversation, even if handling the issue with kid gloves? Its social/career suicide. Don't get me wrong - anonymity enables a ton of bullshit, but also allows pretty unpopular arguments to be made in an honest and forthright manner.

21 = Kash

22 = Elie

24 = 25 = 26 = Lat

Why won't Elie tell us his LSAT score? The fact that he's been repeatedly asked to, but won't, is suspicious. His deafening silence only encourages the widespread belief that he got into HLS because of his skin color, not his numbers.

Just tell us, Elie. Prove us wrong.

8, yes, because recent immigrants from China or Russia have so much personal experience with regattas, polo, and lacrosse. Here's a hint: not all white and Asian people were born rich. In fact, only a very small fraction are rich.

11, aka 8's mom, I don't think "pwned" means what you think it means.

If Elie turns off anonymous commenting, most people (at least those smart enough) will set up bogus gmail accounts, register a screen name, and get back to posting anonymously (don't kid yourself, pseudonymity is just as effective as anonymous commenting given that the site registers your IP address when you hit "post comment"). Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Certainly nothing to freak out about.

Also, 171 LSAT/3.96 ugrad GPA, JD class of 2005 from CCN. I've never heard of a fucking regatta (had to google it just now), and I'm from an upper middle class white family from the landlocked heartland. Read zillions of books as a kid, thought most of them were sci-fi. I just don't fucking care about boring "old money" crap, country club bullshit, sports, or any of that nonsense. Doesn't mean I'm not intelligent or well-read, asswipes. Just means I didn't grow up with all the east coast snots who feel important for owning boats. Now, ask me about the barrel racing I did as a kid and the dude ranches I spent time at, and now we're talking. That's what culturally biased means, idiots. Valuing certain knowledge and experiences over others for no particular reason other than that the test writers think the way they were brought up was the very best. It's like a Norman Rockwell painting, only it's raping non-east-coast-rich-kid SAT takers in the ass.

What?? How is a standardized test question involving a regatta, polo, or lacrosse, culturally biased? It's not as if they're asking questions about those sports ("How many positions on a polo team?") they're asking objective reasoning or math questions, using a random activity/event as an example. For crying out loud, if you can't use context to figure out what you're being asked, even though you've never engaged in the activity being written about, you shouldn't even be sitting for a standardized test.

And why do people assume this only works one way? How many white people have had to sit through the cultural diversity essay on the reading comprehension section of the LSAT? How many absurd names like "Yolanda" and "Renene" have been used on the logic games section in a weak attempt to insert diversity, only to distract some of us for a precious second to think to ourselves, "Are there really people out there named Yolanda?" For all I know, that extra second cost me a whole point on the LSAT.

Grow up, minorities. Your song and dance is getting old.

http://www.topix.com/forum/city/copiague-ny/TTE7IFFLV0V4G7RF1

"The Suffolk Legislature's former Deputy Presiding Offficer Elie Mystal will surrender next Monday to answer felony charges of falsely claiming that he lived in his legislative district rather than Florida when..."

ELIE!,

Are you Elie Mystal Jr.?

31,

Yes, he is a Jr. And his dad is a corrupt, Long Island politician. It explains so much, really.

The sixth comment down on that topix.com link is hilarious.

31. You're an uninspired troll, you haven't been reading the comments, or you failed the reading comprehension part of your LSAT. Whatever you are, you're way behind the times.

30. For the most part, I agree with you about the polo, regatta, etc. However, in the link 8 posted also contained a valid culturally biased answer. If the answer to an SAT question was "church:silence," that is a clearly culturally biased answer. This question would favor white churchgoers, who worship in silence, over black baptists, or latino churches (which, according to the link, frequently have mariachi bands).

Here's a link with a photo of Elie's dear old dad, and a report about his felony larceny and uttering arraignment.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09162008/news/regionalnews/residency_felony_rap__vs__li_pol_129330.htm

Notice the resemblance? It's Elie! Just, about 30 years older, a few shades lighter, and a good 231 lbs. lighter.

33, most Asian immigrants don't go to church. Jews and Muslims also don't go to church. Many "white" churches also have singing and noise, especially Pentecostal churches. A single poorly-written question is hardly evidence of racism.

You need to provide a "culturally biased" question that penalizes blacks and Hispanics but not Asian or Eastern European immigrants. I'm not sure why this is so hard, when the SAT and LSAT are so obviously biased in so many questions, for how else could the black achievement gap be hundreds of SAT points or 10-20 LSAT points?

I'm depressed.

Here's a tip Elie: Don't be begin your non sequitur posts with "Here's a." It's a bit like people who use "get" in writing; it makes you look stupid.

Also, why is non sequitur hyphenated? Has it always been this way or is this an Elie MysTTTal development?

@37: You're a dick and your stellar grasp of English grammar really isn't all that exciting or special. What are people's takes on the new drug cert testimony thing? http://dailyahole.com/2009/06/27/the-supreme-court-is-a-bunch-of-assholes/

Mystal,

Besides the obvious moral and constitutional arguments against AA, post #4 is the next best argument against AA. The fact is, AA will haunt you and follow you around your career for the rest of your life. Maybe you don't care, but others in your position do.

I have a friend that is mixed raced, scored in the 170s on the LSAT and refused to mark down that he was a minority on his applications because he didn't want AA to diminish his accomplishments. He got into plenty of top schools and went to Stanford. Unfortunately people will still assume he got into Stanford due to his skin color but he refused to allow AA to rob him of his pride and hard work. He gets it. Clarence Thomas gets it. W.E.B. DuBois got it. You don't for some reason. Probably because you're in denial and don't want to believe what you must know to be true - your accomplishments are tainted. What I want to know is what is so wrong with my friend believing this? Do you resent him?

I compare AA to performance enhancement drugs in baseball. One of the most unfortunate results of the PED era is that it taints the accomplishments of the players that were clean. Similarly, AA taints the accomplishments of minorities that got into top schools on their own merits. Besides whites that get robbed because of this injustice, minorities with stellar credentials get robbed as well.

Mystal,

Besides the obvious moral and constitutional arguments against AA, post #4 is the next best argument against AA. The fact is, AA will haunt you and follow you around your career for the rest of your life. Maybe you don't care, but others in your position do.

I have a friend that is mixed raced, scored in the 170s on the LSAT and refused to mark down that he was a minority on his applications because he didn't want AA to diminish his accomplishments. He got into plenty of top schools and went to Stanford. Unfortunately people will still assume he got into Stanford due to his skin color but he refused to allow AA to rob him of his pride and hard work. He gets it. Clarence Thomas gets it. W.E.B. DuBois got it. You don't for some reason. Probably because you're in denial and don't want to believe what you must know to be true - your accomplishments are tainted. What I want to know is what is so wrong with my friend believing this? Do you resent him?

I compare AA to performance enhancement drugs in baseball. One of the most unfortunate results of the PED era is that it taints the accomplishments of the players that were clean. Similarly, AA taints the accomplishments of minorities that got into top schools on their own merits. Besides whites that get robbed because of this injustice, minorities with stellar credentials get robbed as well.

@39 -- Clarence Thomas gets it? The sole dissent in the Voting Rights Act case and in the school strip search case? Are you kidding me? He has no idea what being a judge is about, or the power of the Supreme Court. At least Roberts understands the need for consensus on hot button issues. Thomas is the most perfect example of Republican hypocrisy -- the most misguided AA possible, when it serves a cynical and spineless principle.

But it's okay -- I hear he's such a nice guy in person.

Sorry -- meant @40. Long day.

--41

41,

Being a judge means never being wrong, or being the lone dissent?

@43 -- of course not. But look at his dissents. And look at how well-qualified (technically proper hyphenation) he was when nominated. These are not Oliver Wendall Holmes dissents. They are they dissents of someone completely outside even the fringe mainstream of Constitutional theory. The Court should have competing and compelling philosophies (something a Scalia adds admirably). But we don't need extremist freaks. The dialogue in this country needs to become less fractious.

44: Thomas is about as outside the mainstream on the right as some of the Warren court justices, like Douglas, were on the left.

Wait, so does the no nameless BLOGGERS and commenters policy apply to "Hope Winters" (if that is your real name, which it's not)?

I'll sidestep most of the AA discussion only to say - seriously 33 - f***ing mariachi bands? How f***ing racist and condescending can you get? Most hispanics don't even listen to mariachi bands (AFAIK, they're only prevalent in Mexico). Among those Mexican immigrants that do, the vast majority are Catholic. I don't know if you've ever been to a Catholic church, but when I attended Spanish mass at the college town where I attended school, they didn't have a f***ing mariachi band. I haven't bothered to do a survey, but my guess is you'd find a considerably higher percentage of new age non-denominational Christian churches that have guitars and other instruments associated with Christian rock than you would churches attended largely by hispanics that have mariachi bands.

I bet Bob Dell has a small one

Since when do whites go to silent churches? Catholic churches have singing, sermons, organ music, and all sorts of stuff going on. I suspect protestant churches do, as well.

The single example anybody could come up with to demonstrate a cultural bias in a standardized test, isn't an example of cultural bias at all, but merely an artlessly drafted question that isn't biased against any one culture.

* Maybe commenters should stop hiding behind anonymity? [What About Clients?]

Mr. Mystal, have you ever heard of the Federalist Papers?

Can we get Lat back stat!?

1 = Roxie

Someone needs to report about the Amlaw A-list ranking. A notable highlight is that Cravath and Simpson both fell off the ranking, which is hardly surprising if you know what is happening internally there (layoffs).

A couple of firms took a steep fall off the A-List. Simpson Thacher fell the most: dropping 23 places, to thirty-seventh place. The firm slipped in every category, but the drop was particularly acute in associate satisfaction, where its score fell from 102 to 75. Cravath, which shared fourteenth place with Simpson last year, also tumbled, coming in thirty-third.

@31, 32, 34- you guys are COMPLETE. FUCKING. ASSHOLES... getting off on someone else's family tragedy. WTF is your problem? Just because Elie makes typos, and you might not like the topics he posts on, is no excuse for calling attention to his family's problems. I'm sure your writing is flawless and holds its readers' rapt attention, right? I understand that being subjected to the ruthless wit (and, in many cases, idiocy) of commenters goes with the territory of being an editor of a blog like this, but why bring in the very personal attacks? Stick to the moobs, if you must. I would love to know what firm you're from, because I would NEVER, if I ever had the opportunity, refer work there, and would likely seek to actively spread info about the species of shit-eating fucks, like yourself, that such a firm hires.

I am all for anonymous posting--I think it generates hysterical comments, for the most part. However, you have crossed the line and hit below the belt, and you should be ashamed of yourself. No wonder people hate lawyers--you've demonstrated there are plenty of them out there (I'm sure you run with a pack of other spineless shits) who still subsist on blood sucking.

Yeah. Twitter is going to make everyone rich.

No one else noticed what happened to journalists when salaries went down? Nick Denton is rich. All the wanna-be Nick Dentons are not. People work harder for less money, and no benefits. It's already happening in law.

Sure one or two people will be far enough ahead when the race to the bottom starts that they can make money on it. Most likely these are the non-lawyers giving advice on how to get ahead of everyone else in a race to go online and outsource everything - because people will pay for that advice. The people who take the advice aren't getting much for their money, though, because getting ahead in a market that pays individuals nothing is really hard and somewhat up to luck.

So start your business advising lawyers on how to market now. It's probably already a little late to start cornering the market on desperate former lawyers.

Yeah, I'm with 52. Stop with that shit. It's lame and leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. also stop with the LSAT comments. To me, it's evident from his commentary that he's a bright person. You can oppose a his positions without getting so fucking personal, idiots.

Agree with 52 and 54. Leave family out of it. Elie gives us enough ammunition to attack him as it is.

54 & 55 - So we can continue with the "Did you ever pass the bar exam in any state?" line of questioning? All is good then!

#1 - Its a May entrance program thats offered. I think you go through the summer and then take less classes with the incoming 1L class in the Fall. Or it might be the accelerated program in which you finish in 2.5 years as opposed to 3.

29 rocks.

58 = 29

59 = rocks

SO LONG, SUCKERS! I'M STARTING MY OWN BLOG AND IT WILL BE ABOUT GOOD NEWS! Enough of this negative stuff which attracts the trolls en masse.

Dear 59:

I'm not 29. You clearly failed the logical reasoning section of the LSAT. If not, I shudder for my profession. Either way, get a clue and get a work ethic.

Signed,

58.

Dear 62 (formerly 59 and 29),

Lick my nuts,

59

Arguments like 40's make me laugh. "AA is bad because it will cause people like me to make racist assumptions about minorities." What bullshit. You would be racist with or without AA. Using your own racism as an excuse not to combat racism is circular and sophistic, not to mention disingenuous. It also proves your own intellectual acumen isn't exactly up to par. Fucking retard.

7- thanks.

10- i've got a table of contents. :)

schachter

I see. It is now racist to theorize that a designated minority is a beneficiary of AA when they are the sole intended beneficiaries thereof. Beautiful logic.