This Law School Mixer Had A Lot Of Alcohol In It

I predict this will be a year of extreme inebriation among law students, led by the new class of 2015. We've got our second story of drunkenness, and it's only the first week...

I hereby dub the class of 2015 the class of the drunks.

Yes, I know, it seems a bit unfair to nickname an entire class based on their first week of classes (and only at a few schools). But think about it this way: you already have to be kind of drunk to start law school in 2012 anyway.

Earlier this week, we did a story about kids drinking in the law school library. Now we’re getting word that a law school mixer, a freaking first week meet-and-greet, turned so drunken that people were passed out “half naked” in the bathrooms.

I’m telling you, we’re going to get stories like this throughout the 2012-2013 year. We’ve already pretty much established that people applying to law school now are dumber (at least by LSAT scores) than people in previous years. I think that as it sinks in for these 1Ls that all the information they ignored before showing up on campus was true, they will increasingly turn to the bottle….

Apparently the “Buddy Mixer” at Rutgers-Newark School of Law got out of hand this year. Apparently, it gets out of hand every year, but this year especially so, according to a tipster:

Rutgers-Newark law has a buddy mixer every year to welcome the 1L’s and introduce them to the wonders of drinking cheap alcohol from plastic cups in the law school. And every year without fail there are always incidents involving drunken law students. Last year we had people urinating in classrooms, people throwing up in the law school, people getting into fights and knocking over signs. But this year it seems like things went a little too far because for the first time the SBA sent out an email (below). From what I’ve heard in addition to the usual fights there were people found drunk and passed out half-naked in their own bodily fluids in the law school bathrooms prompting the SBA to send out the following sternly worded email.

Sponsored

I bet every one of the students passed out in the bathroom with their pants around their ankles thought, “I’ll be in the top ten percent of my class, no problem.”

Our tipster did send over the SBA email, which is a little weird:

Dear Fellow Students:

It has come to our attention that a few incidences occurred subsequent to the night of Buddy Mixer. First off, the Student Bar Association does not condone excessive or binge drinking and hopes that all students at these events conduct themselves in a professional and self-respecting manner.

Secondly, the SBA would like to extend our deepest apologies to any student who might have felt uncomfortable by the presence of alcohol at the event. As we are all well aware of, alcohol has a tendency to appear at a majority of student and professional events within the legal community. However, alcoholism and the dominance of this disease within the legal profession is not a joking matter. Events like Buddy Mixer are held to promote and bring together the entire student body and if any student felt embarrassed or distressed then we failed our goal.

Don’t you hate it when a few binge drinkers who can’t handle their liquor ruin it for all the functional alcoholics in the crowd?

You can read the full SBA email on the next page. I’m a little confused by their use of the phrase “uncomfortable by the presence of alcohol at the event.” Is this Rutgers-Salt Lake City? If not, I think the mere “presence” of alcohol is something that shouldn’t cause a stir.

Sponsored

Or maybe they mean that there were alcoholics at the event who were trying to stay on the wagon and were “distressed” by the freely available alcohol? That’s a tough spot… but all joking aside, if you are an alcoholic, you had better get comfortable having seltzer water when alcohol is freely available. You’re not Josh Hamilton — no law firm is going to create an alcohol-free zone so you can manage your temptations.

But, again, I predict that this is just the beginning. Starting law school in 2012 means that you are resistant to information and have an irrational belief in your own abilities. Those sound like EXACTLY the kind of things that are running around in a person’s head before they say, “Sure, I’ll have another.”

Should be a fun year….