Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:09 PM - By Elie Mystal
Yesterday, we told you that big tuition hikes could be coming to schools in the University of California system. But we didn’t know that Berkeley students had a plan to do something about it. They’re going out on strike! With university workers who want a raise! Or something!
Hey, it’s the Berkeley way. When they are pissed about something, they protest. It’s better than the Harvard way; when we’re pissed about something, we ask Daddy to fire somebody.
[Yale way = invite SCOTUS justice to speak about the issue, ask justice only clerkship application questions. UT way = shoot it. NYU way = wait to see how Columbia handles the problem. I could go on and on.]
The protest was scheduled for today. Those hardcore Berkeley students were even asking professors to reschedule classes so more people could participate in the strike.
(Wait for it)
Yes, you read that correctly. Students wanted to strike, but didn’t want to risk missing class.
After the jump, the Berkeley law blog, Nuts & Boalts explains the problems with this plan:
Tomorrow, November 18th there will be a meeting on the proposed budget for the California university system. The tuition numbers for law schools would be terrifying for prospective law students — if only they were able to exercise common sense.
First let’s look at the proposed tuition and fees for California residents at Berkeley and other California public law schools over the next three years:
Notice that these numbers are up from the proposal that was on the table just this past August. I can’t imagine what tuition will look like when we actually get to 2012 - 2013. By then they’ll be charging people in Euros and organ donations.
After the jump, we look at what these schools plan for non-resident students (hint, it’s obscene enough that I considered putting up NSFW warnings), and why UC administrators think students will accept the tuition hikes.
The stalk-and-eventually-marry-your-doorman phenomenon continues to enthrall the NYT weddings editors. This week they shine the spotlight on yet another bride — this time a producer at CNN — who found love in the lobby. LEWW encourages female Biglaw associates to embrace this trend. You’re in and out of office buildings all day, ladies — open your eyes to the lusciousness perched behind those security desks!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 6:52 PM - By Kashmir Hill
A Berkeley Law student has sent along an administrative e-mail that will confirm any preconceptions you have about the dirty hippies there. Boalt HallBerkeley Law Professor Bob Berring sent an e-mail out to students Monday asking them not to indulge in “feeding frenzies” in study areas and to clean up their own crazy food messes, due to “the limited number of overworked custodians at the law school.”
Berring says Berkeley can’t “hire extra teams of custodians” right now to tend to the dirty Berkies’ common areas.
On today’s Morning Docket, we mentioned that Dean David Van Zandt at Northwestern Law is reminding deferred 3Ls that they do not need to make monthly payments on their loans until they start working, leading a commenter to say:
Unless this financial mess eases, next to fall are the law schools. Deferring loan payments means the schools (especially the weaker ones) will start operating in the red. Just like the big law firms have discovered, operating in the red gets old fast—and eventually leads to dissolution. Fewer law schools is not a bad thing, and in fact may be unavoidable.
That seems a bit too gloomy and doomy to us. But apparently, Berkeley is keeping its budget lean by recruiting its students to do janitorial duty. Here’s an excerpt from the Berring e-mail sent out to all students, with the subject line “Food, Vermin and You. A Serious Plea for Help:”
The Student Center was built and furnished to a high standard in the hope that it would be enjoyed by you and future generations of folks like you. We are off to a bumpy start. Currently it appears that there are major feeding frenzies in a space that was designed primarily to be office and study space. Folks have been leaving seriously gross food messes on the tables in the lounge and conference rooms, on kitchen counters and in the sink.. If you leave out open food containers, rodents and roaches, who are even luckier than the ones in library, inevitably show up. Someone has to clean this mess up…
This is not a complex message: clean up after yourselves.
Berkeley isn’t the first law school with a “seriously gross” problem. Remember the “Cravath” bed bugs at Columbia? But based on what we’ve seen previously at UCLA, maybe rodents are the more appropriate California problem?
See the full e-mail, with detailed cleaning instructions, after the jump.The pop culture references sprinkled throughout (i.e., study rooms as dirty as “Seth Rogen’s apartment”) lead us to believe Berring’s more hip than hippie.
Hello, West Coast readers. We want you to know that, although ATL is based in New York, we love you too.
So much so, in fact, that we’re paying you another visit (on the heels of our January trip to Los Angeles). Your above-signed scribe is giving a talk at Boalt Hall Berkeley Law tomorrow, from 12:45 to 1:30 p.m., on the subject of the legal profession and the economic crisis. The event is free and open to the public, and it includes lunch — a nice perk in these tough times.
For details, check out the event listing. Thanks to the Federalist Society for sponsoring.
Update: Thanks to Nuts & Boalts for the shout-out. Hope to see some of you there!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 3:50 PM - By Kashmir Hill
Notorious B.O.A.L.T. is a UC-Berkeley law school student who enjoys setting law school lessons to music. He appeared on our pages before, rapping his way through CivPro.
Now he’s back. Notorious has gone acoustic, but this song embraces the rebellious roots of rock & roll. Notorious writes, “As a protest against the lunacy of the Socratic Method and the staggering lack of imagination on the part of the Boalt Hall administration in clinging to a cobwebbed curriculum, I will not be taking any final examinations this semester.”
“Do the Torts Shuffle” is his submission to Professor Patrick Hanlon in lieu of a written final exam. He asks that Hanlon consider giving him a “sub-standard pass in the course.” Here it is:
We think rapping lends itself more easily to talkin’ ‘bout the law, but this is a worthy effort. The question is: is it a sub-standard pass level effort?
A lyrical excerpt, and speculation about the future of Notorious B.O.A.L.T., after the jump.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 6:35 PM - By Elie Mystal
If you are looking for a good reason for Stanford/Harvard to stay away from a modified pass/fail grading system like they have at Berkeley and Yale, here you go:
Yes, you are seeing that video correctly. That there was a self-styled Boalt student rapping the Rules of Civil Procedure, replete with dance interludes.
I can’t think that this will help you pass CivPro, but it might help you become the Court Clerk for the Miami-Dade County.
* Ex-judge Donald “Penis Pump” Thompson is back on the streets (but must register as a sex offender). [KTUL.com]
* Maybe Judge Thompson would have stayed out of trouble if a colleague had forced him to take estrogen. And that wouldn’t have constituted sexual harassment. [Dealbreaker]
Working with Greenfield/Belser, we sought to create a visual identity for our firm that best represented our firm’s personality:
* proud but not boastful
* self-assured but not cocky
* confident and competent but not arrogant
* decisive and resolute but flexible and adaptable
* enduring, built for the long haul but evolving with changing needs
We also sought to reinforce to existing clients and convey to prospective clients, the attributes that we are known for (in the view of our clients):
* a firm that gets what’s really important to me
* the best of both worlds, quality and excellence at a fair price
* real human beings, not robots
* genuine interest in me, my business and my concerns
* they tackle our problems like they’re their own
* they’re confident, determined, authentic, resolute, innovative and respected
Our New Brand
V is the first letter in the word “Venerable,” and “Victory,”and “Vision,” and…Venable. We have made very minor modifications to our logo. But we will now also incorporate a strong visual element throughout our materials – The Venable “V.” “V” is a powerful letter and we want to own it. It is strong and unique.
Very vinteresting.
The second re-branding campaign has been discussed before in these pages. Berkeley has issued a press release clarifying their name. An excerpt:
Names
* Our official name is the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. With external audiences, we will use our official name in full or in one of two abbreviated forms: UC Berkeley School of Law or Berkeley Law.
* We will continue to use the name Boalt Hall with alumni and with the internal law school community.
Approved
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Berkeley Law
Boalt Hall (within the “family”)
Discouraged
Berkeley School of Law
Berkeley Law School
Boalt Hall School of Law (or other permutations)
Please notice the Boalt logo at the top of the press release page. Mixed messages… we’re confused…
Berkeley paid a public relations firm $25,000 to come up with the brilliant new moniker, UC Berkeley School of Law. We wonder why they didn’t take ATL readers’ (free) advice and call it the White Guys With Asian Girls School of Law.
Relax, folks. We are aware that the 2009 law school rankings of U.S. News & World Report have leaked, in advance of their official Friday publication date. They’re all over the blogosphere and the message boards (links collected below).
We’ve been sitting on this item for a little while — coordinating with our other posts this morning, taking into account our traffic patterns, etc. There is a method to our madness.
Ideally we’d hold this item even longer (which would allow us to do a more detailed write-up). But it’s clear that you’re all dying to talk about the rankings RIGHT NOW. And we don’t want to get any more emails and comments of the “why aren’t you writing about U.S. News” variety.
So here you go. Rankings and discussion, after the jump (i.e., click on the “Continue reading” link below).
Dean Christopher Edley, listen up. The people have spoken, and here is their verdict. UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall should be renamed… the White Guys With Asian Girls School of Law!
Don’t like this idea? That’s okay. At least we didn’t charge you $25,000 for it.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 2:30 PM - By David Lat
As we mentioned last week, U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law hired a brand consulting firm to come up with a new name for the school. The effort ended somewhat anticlimactically. Boalt paid $25,000 to Marshall Strategy Inc., which came up with this brilliant new moniker: “UC Berkeley School of Law.”
Oh well. But since we already took the time to read through hundreds of suggested new names for Boalt Hall, we’re going to conduct this reader poll anyway.
* U.C. Berkeley has settled on a new name for its law school. Check it out, it’s quite brilliant. [Blogonaut]
(But we’ll probably still conduct the reader poll mentioned here, just for the heck of it.)
* Strained attorney-client relations between Britney Spears and Anne Kiley? Apparently Brit has “trust issues” (in addition to that whole missing-panties problem). [OK! Magazine]
* Wow, this guy is quite a tool. Thankfully he’s not a lawyer — which you could infer from the facts that (1) he lives in Atlanta and (2) he brags about his compensation. [Gawker; follow-up here and here from DealBreaker]
* Exciting happenings this weekend: (1) the CSPAN rebroadcast of the Clarence Thomas book party, and (2) the nuptials of the Wall Street Journal’s Peter Lattman. Congratulations and best wishes, PL! [WSJ Law Blog]
Attention, ATL readers — your wit and wisdom are needed. From Cal Law (via Blogonaut):
Boalt Hall School of Law has hired San Francisco brand consulting firm Marshall Strategy Inc. to poll students, faculty, alumni and others in aid of devising a “single brand” name for the school, a Boalt spokeswoman said.
San Francisco Bay Area locals call the school Boalt Hall. But outside of California, that colloquialism often draws blank looks. Thus, what has been dubbed the “identity project”—to come up with a more readily identifiable name for the prestigious law school.
The school officially goes by University of California, Berkeley School of Law, according to spokesperson Susan Gluss. But in its its newsletters, Web pages, and other places, there are “about a dozen different names and iterations.”
Speaking of “a dozen different names,” that’s what we’d like from you. In the comments to this post, please offer suggested new names for Boalt Hall. We’ll pick the ten or twelve we like the most, hold an ATL reader poll, and forward the winning nomination to the Boalt Hall administration, for its consideration.
Our personal nomination: the Marsha Berzon School of Law, named after the distinguished and delicious Ninth Circuit judge (and Boalt Hall alumna). But whether our pick prevails will be up to you, the readership, when we hold the poll. We look forward to receiving and reviewing your nominations.
P.S. While we’re talking about Boalt Hall, an ATL shout-out to the talented (and handsome) Josh Keesan, Boalt ‘09, who composes and performs clever songs with legal themes. From a tipster:
Forget Nixon Peabody, Boalt has the newest singing sensation. Check it: www.joshkeesan.com.
This kid is the love child of Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Mayer. Plus, in the aftermath of the Nixon Peabodyatrocity, your readers need something to cleanse that awful taste in their mouths/ears.
He’s taken Boalt by storm. The screams of his groupies at the annual public interest auction last year were deafening. So, give the West Coast some love, and post it!
More about Josh Keesan from the WSJ Law Blog. Maybe Boalt Hall could be rennamed the “Josh Keesan School of Law”?
It has been a week since the distressing events involving a Boalt student’s threat —a hoax — against the community at Hastings College of the Law. I am writing to let you know that all our actions following the incident have been taken with the intention of securing the safety and well-being of our community and that at Hastings, while respecting the procedural rights of the student.
On Wednesday, April 25, 2007, the Law School filed a complaint with the U.C. Berkeley Judicial Affairs Office against the law student who claimed responsibility for posting the threat on a website. We, the administrative leadership of Boalt, believe that the student’s action is clearly in violation of a number of regulations detailed in the Student Code of Conduct. The case will be adjudicated by Judicial Affairs according to campus regulations. Those regulations prohibit us from disclosing the name of the student against whom we are proceeding.
Based on the facts as we understand them today, we have recommended expulsion. This is based not only on the intrinsic wrongfulness of the act itself, but also the disruption, turmoil and emotional toll on the Hastings community and, to a more limited extent, the Boalt community as well. I have received ample evidence of this through a great many emails, some of them painful to read.
This incident has once again confirmed for me the strength and qualities of the Boalt community. Even in this challenging circumstance, you have engaged in thoughtful and productive discussions. We should all take some pride in this, imperfect though we are.
Christopher Edley, Jr.
Professor of Law and Dean
Does the punishment fit the crime here? Judging by some of the comments to this thread, some readers think expulsion would be an overreaction. Pre-Virginia Tech, what kind of behavior would get you expelled from law school?
A Boalt law student could be facing criminal charges after allegedly posting online threats toward Hastings:
UC Hastings officials were alerted on Wednesday afternoon of a blog post threatening a copycat murder-suicide in reference to the events at Virginia Polytechnic Institute Monday, said UC Hastings spokesperson Lorri Ungaretti.
“The threat did not specifically reference it, but it felt clear that that was what it was,” she said.
UC Hastings officials contacted the San Francisco Police Department as well as the San Francisco branch of the FBI, and cancelled classes for the rest of the day, Ungaretti said.
“The FBI investigated and found it was a student at Boalt and that it was a hoax,” she said. “Classes resumed as usual (on Thursday).”
Our personal preference is to ignore such people and things (which is what we’ve been doing until now). But several of you have emailed us about thisincident, which has been covered in the MSM; so interest in it is obviously high.
Here’s what one source had to say:
As you may know, Hastings College of Law was evacuated [on Wednesday] as a result of an asinine post on autoadmit threatening Virginia Tech like violence, which, it turns out, was posted by a Boalt 1L. It turned out to be a tasteless joke, but the problems it has created seem to be never ending, including an ID checkpoint in front of the campus, the cancellation of numerous events including a journal symposium, and now, unacceptably, our bi-monthly ration of free beer and the Law Revue that was to follow it.
So read the links collected below, and discuss in the comments if you’re so inclined. Thanks.
Yesterday, we told you that big tuition hikes could be coming to schools in the University of California system. But we didn’t know that Berkeley students had a plan to do something about it. They’re going out on strike! With university workers who want a raise! Or something!
Continue reading "Berkeley Law Students, How Did the ‘Not Ironic’ Strike Go?"
(161) Comments
Relax, folks. We are aware that the 2009 law school rankings of 
As we 
* U.C. Berkeley has settled on a new name for its law school. Check it out, it’s quite brilliant. [
P.S. While we’re talking about Boalt Hall, an ATL shout-out to the talented (and handsome) 
Actually, make that the “Very Bad Ideas” file.
