Elie Mystal

Elie Mystal joined ATL in 2009 by winning the ATL Idol Contest. Prior to joining ATL, Elie wrote about politics and popular culture at City Hall News and the New York Press. Elie received a degree in Government from Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was formerly a litigator at Debevoise & Plimpton but quit the legal profession to pursue a career as an online provocateur. He's written editorials for the New York Daily News and the New York Times, and he has appeared on both MSNBC and Fox News without having to lie about his politics to either news organization.

Posts by Elie Mystal

The Decision: Should A Minority With Asperger’s Even Bother?

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When I discussed the NALP mental health panel, I noted that we are going to see more and more law students with mental health problems in the future. As mental health services get better in high school and college, people who would have washed out are going to do well enough to get into law school.

But should they go to law school? Today, we have a question from a person suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome. He got into a Top 6 law school, with scholarship money. But he wonders if he should even bother if he’ll get shut of Biglaw because of his symptoms.

Let’s see what you guys think….

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Adding Athleticism To Law School Graduation Ceremonies

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You got to have some big testicles to pull off doing a backflip right before you receive your law school diploma.

Look, clearly the only thing anybody wants to talk about today is the heartwarming retrieval of three kidnapped women in Cleveland. Okay, that’s a lie. The only thing we should be talking about is the amazing interview given by Good Samaritan Charles Ramsey who helped Amanda Berry escape her captors. If you haven’t seen the interview, go check it out. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

…

It’s one of the best things you’ve ever seen, right bro?

I don’t have a video that is as good as that. I don’t have ten videos that add up to being as good as that. But I do have a guy doing gymnastics before getting his J.D. It’s cool enough. I would definitely eat ribs and listen to salsa music with this guy….

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Departure Memo of the Day: I’m Running Away To Join The Circus

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Less demeaning than working in Biglaw?

Do little kids actually threaten to run away and join the circus anymore? Do people still go to the circus anymore? When I think of “circus,” I think of “vaguely mistreated animals and freakish humans objectified for the amusement of the masses.”

Or, if it’s “not that kind of circus,” then I think you are talking about homosexual, ambidextrous French people.

Either way, I’m not thinking of “fun for the whole family,” and I’m certainly not thinking of a place that people run to in order to be free and live beyond society’s rules and prohibitions.

But I’m no longer a Biglaw lawyer. If I was, maybe leaving my job to join the circus would be like living a dream…

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Clarence Thomas’s Bitterness Runneth Over

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These guys do not look the same to me.

I don’t want to give a lot of burn to this story today, because sadly it is not news when a “Republican” Supreme Court justice takes a shot at the president of the United States. Conservative justices are just allowed to say crappy things about the president — this president — with everybody just accepting their partiality without calling for recusals. And depending on who gets to write what in Fisher, we’re going to have another opportunity to talk about Clarence Thomas’s ongoing jihad against black people in America who are not like him.

But we do have to at least mention Thomas’s latest slam at black people. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Justice Thomas suggested that Obama only got to be president because he was a black man who said things “approved” by the media and elites.

Funny, I’d think that talking about his long dong silver would be exactly the kind of thing elites expected to hear from a black man.

What’s really happening is that Thomas continues to think that people hate him because he’s a black conservative, when really people hate him because he’s a black a**hole…

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February Bar Exam Results Are Fine In Texas, Pathetic In New York

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I don’t think the bar exam should be easy. When you look at the proliferation of law schools and how easy it is to get into law school, I think that the bar exams become the limiting factor of last resort.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shame that the bar doesn’t test skills that lawyers actually need to serve clients. It’s a shame that the bar is basically reduced to a test of memorization, information ordering, and most importantly, reading comprehension. The bar is just a barrier to entry, not a true licensing test.

But when you have a record number of people taking the damn thing in February in New York, right in the middle of a market that doesn’t have enough job for lawyers, I don’t really have a problem if half of those people are broken by two days of the New York bar.

So it’s not going to come as a surprise that I’m glad New York is New York and not Texas….

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How To ‘Win’ Final Exams: A Law Professor’s Advice Irks A Student Who Doesn’t Think It’s A Race

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The night before my first final exam every semester in law school, I’d pop in my Rocky DVD, fast forward to the point where Rocky goes to the arena the night before, and watch through to the end. The movie reinforced my approach to law school exams.

“I can’t beat him.” But if you can go the distance, if you can still be standing by the time the exam is over, then you’ve achieved your own personal victory.

Of course, there are winners and loser every finals period. The damn things are graded on a curve. Today, we’ve got a law professor who took the time to tell his students how to “win” his upcoming evidence exam — just some standard exam tips, plus an explanation of what he particularly looks for.

Sounds nice enough? Well, not for one 3L. This student took the opportunity to post some kind of hippie screed as if law students are supposed to get together and sing kumbaya and reject competition or something.

In other words, this law student thinks law school is a damn show, she doesn’t know it’s a damn fight…

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Could Law Schools PLEASE Stop Whining About The Nine Months After Graduation Statistic? You Sound Like Babies.

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New Rule: The next law school person who wants to bitch about the unfairness of the “employed nine months after graduation” metric must offer to make loan payments for all students who don’t have a job at nine months until they find one. If law schools are going to knock up their recent graduates they should at least have to throw in some child support.

Oh, wait, NO law school dean wants to actually be on the hook for student loans from when they come due six months after graduation until… whenever this unnamed point in the future comes when students can expect to have jobs. Given that, I don’t really want to hear about how your school is so freaking “unfairly” treated because CONSUMERS of legal education need to know if they will be employed within shouting distance of when they will start having to pay back their loans.

Fine, you want a compromise? It looks like we’re moving to ten months anyway…

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Everything That Is Wrong With The Above the Law Law School Rankings

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Yesterday, we released the inaugural ATL Top 50 Law School rankings. A lot of us here worked really hard on it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of the effort.

But I haven’t made my career based on liking things. I hate things. If anybody else released a new law school rankings, I’d be critical of it. There’s no reason I should give ATL special treatment.

No rankings are perfect — ours certainly aren’t — so we should talk about the problems. And I mean the real problems, not the stupid interview answer of, “I think my biggest weakness is that sometimes I try too damn hard.”

Let’s douse these new rankings in a cold shower of haterade….

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Morning Docket: 05.02.13

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* New York lawyers now must disclose how many hours they work pro bono. How about we get a form that lets lawyers disclose how much they sleep? [New York Law Journal]

* Everything is coming up Penn! They finished fifth in our law school rankings. They won an award for their website. Even their satellite campus in Dickinson is doing well. [National Law Journal]

* Look at me, I’m Sandy Day, bloomin’ with equivocality. Don’t like the right, but didn’t stay to fight, I can’t, I’m Sandy Day. [Slate]

* Speaking of Sandy, co-ops aren’t eligible for disaster relief. [New York Times]

* The Justice Department is coming after Plan B. Sometimes, I wish we had two parties and one of them was progressive. [Washington Post]

* Brian Tamanaha comin’ yo’. Shots fired. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

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Morning Docket: 05.01.13

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* Gun nuts want to prevent THE PENTAGON from buying too many bullets. [Talking Points Memo]

* Subway employees can be held liable for not helping police officers. I’m a legal genius. [New York Law Journal]

* Employment lawyers get catty on their way out of the door. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Do top firms even have compliance departments? [Corporate Counsel]

* Colleges are cracking down on Adderall abuse. So… it only took administrators about a decade to figure out that was going on. [New York Times]

* Okay, now Obama is going to close Guantanamo. And by “close,” I think he means “finds other excuses to leave it open.” [SCOTUSblog]

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