Email Scandals

NYU's 'Party Law' SBA President Strikes Again

We're coming towards the end of Party Law's reign (I assume we're nearing the end; not that I want that, I wish Party Law could be elected President of the NYU SBA for life). Perhaps he's trying to exercise a little dead-hand control over the SBA? Let's see who Party Law is trying to squash now...

By  
on

It seems to me that the Student Bar Association president at NYU Law School is drunk with power. And considering we’re talking about the “power” of a freaking law school SBA, that’s pretty funny, like watching the tallest midget insult all the other midgets by calling them “shorty.”

We’ve written about this guy, who we’ve dubbed “Party Law,” before. In September, he was busy removing the SBA treasurer because of alleged financial shenanigans. The treasurer denied wrongdoing and hilarity ensued.

But that was back in September, during those halcyon days at the beginning of his term, when all was sunshine and hope. Now we’re coming towards the end of Party Law’s reign (I assume we’re nearing the end; not that I want that, I wish Party Law could be elected President of the NYU SBA for life). Perhaps he’s trying to exercise a little dead-hand control over the SBA?

Let’s see who Party Law is trying to squash now…

I’m gong to breeze through the backstory here: a person who wanted to run for social chair made some mistakes with his paperwork to be on the ballot. We’ll call that kid “Ineffective Lawyer” since he will soon learn that handling paperwork is way more important for a practicing lawyer than mastery of argumentative techniques.

Anyway, Party Law decided to have the kid kicked off the ballot because of these mistakes. Whatever, it’s douchey to kick people off of student government ballots given how few people care about student government enough to run for anything, but on the other hand, law students who can’t follow rules are in the wrong business to begin with. As per usual, there are no winners when we’re talking about people involved in your law school SBA.

Sponsored

Now, I feel like normal people would kind of let the situation die there: maybe Ineffective Lawyer goes up to Party Law in the dining hall and calls him a dick, but at the end of the day, who really cares?

Well, these guys care. To the NYU Law student mass email machine! I guess the true ridiculousness started when a student who wasn’t directly involved took up the cause for Ineffective Lawyer. I’ll call her “OCCUPY SOMETHING” since she seems like she needs to be fomenting revolution in a small country instead of sitting in law school until she inevitably sells out to a Biglaw firm:

You may have seen on Coases or heard that Ineffective Lawyer, a candidate for Social Chair, was removed from the SBA election on Friday, March 16, 2012, at 3:30pm, leaving the two positions uncontested. The Election Committee released this decision at the very last minute, without giving Ineffective Lawyer any opportunity to be heard and or challenge this decision before the opening of voting this morning. The SBA reversed its prior statement that Ineffective Lawyer was eligible to run…

This is only one of all too many frustrations that students have had with the SBA this year and with the election process. The SBA Elections Committee made last-minute decisions regarding election protocol including changes to election timing, and made changes to bylaws without general notice to the student body. If you agree that there are serious issues of transparency and accountability in the current SBA governance, it is up to us to make a change.

Occupy Something then lists a five-point plan for students to “get involved.” Not surprisingly, it would require NYU Law students who should be busy hustling for a job to spend hours in meetings or emailing people about stuff they fundamentally don’t care about.

But Ineffective Lawyer isn’t just going to let others speak on his behalf. He knows how to send out a mass email just as good as anybody else:

Sponsored

Dear friends and colleagues,

Given the recent string of events that have taken place, I wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to all of you.

As some of you know, I was enthusiastically contesting the election for Social Chair this year until Party Law and the Election committee sent me an email saying they were throwing me off the ballot at 3:30 pm on Friday, 1.5 business hours before the start of voting with no chance of appeal. They said it was because there were omissions and problems with the paperwork pertaining to my candidacy. Yet mysteriously, despite having my paperwork since March 5th, they waited two weeks and until the end of business on a Friday to send me this email, knowing perfectly well that it would leave me with absolutely no opportunity to do anything about it before voting started.

They have completely and totally ignored my plea to at least let me remain on the ballot and to have a hearing on the matter at a time when students can actually be there as opposed to making these decisions when we’re all busy and distracted over spring break. I didn’t even get a response. I totally understand that maybe Party Law was too busy. Maybe he had to study a lot, maybe he was sick, maybe he had a family emergency to deal with. If that is the case, why wasn’t responding to me delegated to the Vice President or someone else? There are supposed to be a bunch of people on the election committee, not just one, but they all totally ignored my request to have a contested election as opposed to two unopposed candidates.

Let me be clear, I am NOT trying to say that I perfectly submitted the paperwork or that I am without fault, not at all… [Ineffective Lawyer makes a long mea culpa]

If my paperwork was still a problem, why didn’t they just ask me to come fill it out? Is the more logical reaction to wait until we are all on spring break and then throw me off the ballot right before the vote?

Guys, for those of you who dont know the SBA HAS COMPLETE DISCRETION OVER HOW TO SPEND A SIX FIGURE SUM OF MONEY EVERY YEAR. That money belongs to you, it belongs to all of us. Don’t you guys think that we should have an election to decide the fate of this money? Or are we ok with the current system in which most of the races are not competitive and/or completely uncontested? Doesn’t that make the “election” a bit of a joke?

The message goes on, sometimes with additional ALL CAPS and underlines. I think whoever runs the NYU Law legal writing program should get fired because these kids have never met an argument they can’t repeat multiple times in one email. But the upshot of all this seems to be this statement from an unaffiliated tipster:

Dear Above The Law,

this may or may not be worth sharing on your site, but I am so sick and tired of Party Law and his obsession with controlling the school.

That sums up a lot of what I’m hearing from NYU Law people. Regardless of whether or not you think Party Law is right, all the drama under his regime is ridiculous. It’s the freaking SBA, not a partisan presidential primary.

In any event, Party Law has a response… of course he does.

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , , ,