Dodo 'Dozo Student Makes Some Laugh, Others Cry

If you attend or graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, you most likely knew this post was coming. For the rest of you, let me bring you up to speed.
Cardozo Law is trying to connect students who want extra tutoring with students who are willing to help. Cardozo’s office of student services asked willing tutors to submit the following information.

1) Your name and class year
2) What course(s) you are interested in tutoring
3) What semester you took the course(s) in
4) What professor you had for the course(s)
5) What grade you received for the course(s)
6) How you wish to be contacted by other students

Hey, from the administration’s perspective, they’re all in the “employed upon graduation” hunt together. If some of the high-achieving students are willing to help some of the stragglers avoid a life of poverty and sadness, why not?
The information requested is appropriate for the position sought. You can’t offer yourself up as a tutor with crappy grades. In fact, the only way there would really be a “story” here is if some amazingly careless gunner submitted his qualifications and accidentally hit “reply all” to the school-wide email.
And really, who’d be stupid enough to do that?


Many, many tipsters told us what happened next. I’ll use the following quote because it is the most tasteful:

[A]n ambitious student answered but accidentally hit reply to all so his email went out to the entire student body.

So, do you want to see the kid’s stats? (That was a rhetorical question.)

From: [Redacted]
Subject: RE: Seeking tutors for the spring 2010 semester
Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 4:10 PM
To: Class of 2010, Class of 2011, Class of 2012, LLMs, Visiting and Exchange Students
Hi [Redacted],
I am a third year student who is interested in tutoring. The best way for students to contact me would be through my school email, [Redacted]
.
I would be interested in tutoring the following subjects:
Con Law I–Spring 2008, Professor Rudenstine, A
Contracts–Fall/Spring 2007/08, Professor Brickman, A+
Criminal Law–Spring 2008, Professor Minzner, A
Property–Spring 2008, Professor Sterk, A
Securities Regulation–Spring 2009, Professor Goldman, A
White Collar Crime–Spring 2009, Professors Weinstein & Schoeman, A
Ethics in Litigation–Spring 2009, Professor Ross, A-
Thanks,
[Redacted]

Sponsored

Oh gunners, always remember that people are laughing at you, not with you.
According to the time stamps we’ve seen, the original email from student services went out at 9:38 a.m. on January 19th. The response from the student was sent at 4:30 p.m., the following day. Given the timing, it doesn’t appear that the kid was overly eager to trumpet his grades to the world. Instead this strikes me as a classic CHECK YOU REPLY ALL.
The most interesting part of the story has been reading and hearing about the reactions of Cardozo students. At first the response was overwhelmingly: “What a DOUCHE.” I chose this tipster’s report because it was the most tasteless:

Elie, please check out this d-bag full of gunner crap. Even if you don’t use, I hope the knowledge that many of his classmates are emailing ATL right now makes him go home and [cry himself to sleep].

Gunner is as gunner does, but let’s not wish “crying” on anybody, okay?
But soon, the reaction on the ground began to change. We started receiving comments like this one:

As you can see he got really good grades (and his professors are actually some of the hardest in our school) — so for most of the day everyone was talking about the Douche bag who tore it up and let everyone know about it.

That’s the spirit. I mean, sure, the kid hit the wrong button, but that can’t totally diminish the fact that he seems to have done really well in law school. We don’t know how he did in the classes he didn’t want to tutor, but hey, a big part of life is knowing your strengths and playing to them.
Of course, these are law students we’re talking about. I wasn’t at all surprised when I started getting emails like this one:

Sponsored

I think I’m having a panic attack. [Redacted]’s grades are the kinds of grades I need to get at Cardozo to have any shot at Biglaw and I don’t have them. I DON’T HAVE THEM!

Okay, calm down.

Very weird on campus today. Everybody seems more focused. I think we all had a good laugh yesterday and today we realize we have a lot of work to do.

I see where this is going:

Gunners win. They suck. [Redacted] sucks. But he’s going to get a job. Do I have to be more like him to get a job in this economy?

And now the circle is complete. Law school is what the Amazons used to call “a bitch.” It toys with your emotions and sense of self worth — and it can spin you around to the point where you envy what you openly mocked just hours earlier.
I don’t know what to tell you guys. When I was in law school, this would be the mental state where I started drinking. Heavily. Not for fun.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Cardozo Law School