The last time we wrote about somebody on the Emory Law faculty trying to “help out” struggling, jobless Emory Law students, we were covering the train wreck of a commencement speech by professor Sara Stadler. She told graduating law students, many of whom didn’t have a job, to “get over” their sense of entitlement.
You’d think that the Emory faculty wouldn’t risk condescending to their students again, even in the name of trying to help them. But sitting in my inbox is a series of emails from Sarah Shalf, the director of the Emory field placement program, offering students the opportunity to babysit kids and “network” at her Super Bowl party.
Condescending? For a certain point of view, absolutely. But Shalf is honestly trying to help, and she’s using her party to do more for students than Emory Law career services is really doing right now. It’s not her fault that Emory Law students are so desperate for job opportunities that babysitting at a Super Bowl party where judges and lawyers will be represents a good deal.
Such a good deal that Shalf had to devise an application process for the babysitting gig….
* Time to separate the men from the boys (but don’t tell Sandusky). An accuser has hired Jeff Anderson of clergy sex abuse fame, and he wants damages. [Wall Street Journal]
* RajRaj is trying to stay out of jail. He thinks he’s got a shot at getting his Galleon convictions vacated, but he’s probably got a better shot at curing diabetes. [New York Law Journal]
* And speaking of Galleon, lawyers, take note: “you don’t get a pass.” Ex-Ropes & Gray attorney Brien Santarlas was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday. [Bloomberg]
* Twenty people have been charged with luring illegal, eastern European beauties to work in New York strip clubs. Prepare for some new job listings from the NYU Law career services office. [CNN]
* Ira Schacter’s lawyer on his client’s propensity to give out rings worth more than $200K: “He’s just a generous guy.” No, he’s just a Biglaw partner. [The Careerist]
* From Russia Israel with Love: Emory Law student Ilan Grapel has been released from Egypt and will be arriving back in the U.S. today. Welcome home! [New York Times]
* A guy was convicted of selling black market kidneys? I thought that only happened in urban legends, but apparently it happens in good old Jersey. [Bloomberg]
* Next time you want to hold porn auditions at your house, make sure you have the girls sign all of the necessary release forms before you drug and assault them. [Miami Herald]
* How dare you prevent Vince Young from making it rain and then sue him over it! When a man asks you to give him $8,000 in one dollar bills at a strip club, you do it. [New York Post]
* Cloudy with a chance of dismissal for Steve Sunshine, Sprint’s Skaddenite. During oral argument, a judge reminded him that antitrust law didn’t exist to protect competitors. [Wall Street Journal]
* Israel trades prisoners like Pokémon cards. Pending approval from the country’s security cabinet, Emory Law student Ilan Grapel will be swapped for 25 Egyptian prisoners. [Los Angeles Times]
* Premeditation? Sam Friedlander, the solo practitioner who massacred his family, bought a shotgun after getting the short end of the stick in a custody arrangement. [Journal News]
* Do drug tests constitute unreasonable searches and seizures? Maybe not, but thanks to a temporary injunction, welfare recipients in Florida will live to toke another day. [Washington Post]
* You know you’re screwed when law school folks are coming after you. A University of Hawaii Law dean has jumped aboard the “sue Facebook for wiretapping” bandwagon. [The Republic]
* Walk like an Egyptian? Emory Law student, Ilan Grapel — who was detained by Egypt on espionage charges — may soon be released in an exchange with Israel. [NBC New York]
* Lindsay Lohan’s probation was revoked, and she’s facing up to a year in jail. Judge Sautner doesn’t like her, so here’s hoping that LiLo’s single and ready to mingle. [New York Daily News]
* Heather Mills is being sued by her hairdresser over $80K in unpaid bills. After getting $50M in her divorce, she can’t cry poverty — she wouldn’t have a leg left to stand on. [Daily Mail]
* Being sexy and using kinky props for a song entitled “S&M” aren’t options anymore, because David LaChapelle has settled his copyright suit against Rihanna. [Rolling Stone]
Who is the real spy? Ilan Grapel (left) or Austin Powers?
As we mentioned yesterday, a student at Emory Law School by the name of Ilan Chaim Grapel was arrested in Egypt on Sunday, and ordered held for 15 days. The Egyptians allege that Grapel is a “highly trained” spy, working for the state of Israel.
Ilan Grapel is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. And he did serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prior to law school, as a paratrooper (which sounds pretty awesome bad-ass).
But does that make Ilan Grapel a spy? Some observers, including classmates of Ilan’s from Emory Law, find the allegation highly dubious….
At this year’s Emory Law School commencement, Professor Sara Stadler urged graduates to think outside the box with respect to their career options: “You might not be able to land that [top-choice] job…. You might have to move to Nebraska.… You might have to join a small firm where they don’t make the big bucks.”
Or you might have to… become a spy in the Middle East? Emory law student Ilan Grapel has been detained in Egypt, by authorities who allege that he is a “highly trained” spy working for Israel.
Yesterday I wrote about the Emory Law School commencement address delivered by Professor Sara Stadler. In it, she told graduating law student that their own “sense of entitlement” was standing in the way of their happiness.
I’ve got nothing against Professor Stadler or Emory Law, but I personally thought this was the wrong note to strike at a commencement address — and so did some Emory Law students, who contacted us about this in the first place.
But other Emory Law students disagreed. And after yesterday’s post went up, some students emailed Above the Law to express support for Professor Stadler and her message. They stated that she is an excellent teacher and was speaking at commencement by popular demand — Emory students voted on which faculty member they wanted to hear from.
Nobody raised a factual issue about what she said, and you can experience the full speech on YouTube. It’s just that some of the students really liked her address.
Fair enough. Professor Stadler’s critics have already had their say. Now let’s hear from some readers who appreciated and enjoyed her graduation remarks…
Honestly, I think it’s time to feel sorry for the Emory Law class of 2011. Things are tough for a lot of graduating law students, but the way the Emory administration and faculty have treated the class of ’11 is simply shocking. If you ranked ABA-accredited law schools based on how the administration reacts to student concerns, Emory would have to rate near the bottom.
We can’t know how Emory has been treating the class of ’11 internally, but the ridiculous public behavior started when U.S. News released its most recent law school rankings. Emory plummeted eight spots, one of the biggest drops within the first tier. Since then, the Emory administration has gone to such lengths to cover its ass that there’s been a run on butt plugs in Georgia.
All of the self-serving rhetoric and “blame the students” mentality crested during commencement, where the class of 2011 couldn’t even receive their diplomas without being scolded and condescended to…
Many people, especially law school administrators, bemoan the U.S. News law school rankings. Sure, they have their pedagogical reasons for hating the rankings, but there are larger issues here. When schools drop in the rankings, heads tend to roll.
Of course, law schools deans rarely admit they were ousted because of the U.S. News. But now is the season of administrative resignations. There are a couple of them floating around out there, but one in particular caught my eye. The dean of a law school that took a substantial hit in this year’s rankings has resigned. Not to take a job elsewhere or spend more time with his family. No, he’s putting down the deanship to rejoin the faculty.
And now things get interesting. As we continue to run through the U.S. News 2012 law school rankings, we get to a crucial set of schools. The schools in this batch are certainly top tier, but they’re not “top 14″; for the most part, though, they charge like top 14 schools (especially the private ones).
So this is the batch of schools where we usually hear questions like: Should I go to this school at full price, or a much lower-ranked school for free? And our answer is usually, “How much lower-ranked are we talking about?”
The bottom line is that when people get into schools like Duke, or Penn, they are going to end up going to that school. But when people get into some of the schools on this list, they do seriously consider other options. Should I retake the LSAT, score better and apply again? How much financial aid am I getting? What’s the job market like in the [secondary market] this school is located in, just in case I get stuck there? Is it worth it to go into this much debt for a degree from that school?
These factors should come into play no matter which law school you get accepted to, but at this point on the U.S. News list, cost factors take on increased importance…
Further down the list, we start to see some volatility. Now, every year there needs to be some change in the rankings; how else is U.S. News going to get people to buy new magazines? When you cede control of your legal education system to the list-making skills of a for-profit magazine, those are the kinds of realities you just have to live with.
But the way U.S. News tweaked its methodology this year is special. This year, U.S. News tweaked things ever so slightly to make their rankings just a little bit more output-oriented. While the rankings are still unabashedly focused on the qualifications of students on the way in than what those kids end up doing on their way out, this year’s list pays more lip service to the employment outcomes of recent graduates. We recently quoted this section of a letter U.S. News editor Brian Kelly sent to law school deans: “[E]mployment after graduation is relevant data that prospective students and other consumers should be entitled to. Many graduate business schools are meticulous about collecting such data, even having it audited. The entire law school sector is perceived to be less than candid because it does not pursue a similar, disciplined approach to data collection and reporting.”
U.S. News placed a little more emphasis on employment after graduation this year, and some schools took a significant hit because of it.
And now? Well, my friends, now we get to hear a couple of law schools squeal — just like their graduates have for the past three years….
In December 2008, then-Chief Judge Jack Camp (N.D. Ga.) gave an interesting interview to the Fulton County Daily Report. In explaining his decision to enter the semiretired state available to certain federal judges known as senior status, Judge Camp said that senior status would allow him to do some things “I really want to do, but never had a chance to do.”
Things like cocaine, marijuana, oxycodone, and a prostitute named Sherry Ann Ramos — if law enforcement allegations are to be believed, that is. (Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, especially the exalted legal deities known as Article III judges, and Judge Camp’s attorney has stated that His Honor plans to plead not guilty.)
Let’s behold the hottie who may have been been the Georgia jurist’s downfall — and hear from some folks who have interacted with Judge Camp….
Eugene Ahn, aka Adam WarRock. (Photo credit: Victoria Ruan)
Eugene Ahn developed an alter ego to explore his creative side while working for a small litigation and employment law firm in Washington, D.C. The Emory Law grad goes by Adam WarRock in his creative projects, which include musical pursuits and a side gig as a contributor to the FakeAPStylebook Twitter account.
This summer, he let the alter ego take over. After three years with his firm, he quit his job in June to pursue his music full-time.
He caught our ear with this Girl Talk-like mash-up, “Starving Artist”:
He caught the attention of Public Radio International, though, last year with a single entitled Ira Glass, about the host of This American Life. PRI’s CEO liked it so much that she blogged about it. On Friday, Ahn and his Ohio-based DJ released a commercial version of the Public-Radio-praising song.
Ahn’s now giving himself a year to make it in the artistic world. What’s his plan?
When times are tough, the tough get… whiny? A law student at Emory is frustrated by the lack of jobs being offered up by Career Services and circulated an email airing his or her discontent. Addressed to “My Fellow Emory Law Students,” it lambasts the employees charged with helping Emory grads land jobs.
It’s available in full after the jump, but here’s an excerpt:
This has gotten absolutely ridiculous. When we first entered Emory Law School, jobs were plentiful and career services could sit around and do nothing. Things are much different now. In 2008, the market collapse stunned the legal job market. Those $160,000+ jobs went from plentiful to a rare commodity, yet our tuition continues to rise and our loans accrue.
What has career services done? Nothing. Remember this item on Abovethelaw from exactly a year ago? Apparently, they’ve been a little too calm in this storm. Nevertheless, they still operate under their prior m.o. (sit in the office, do nothing but play solitaire, and expect jobs to walk into their office). Whenever students complain about the lack of OCI jobs (that will be discussed in another paragraph below), their response always references the down economy. When we ask for advice, we are told “Network.” Upon further inquiry about networking tips, we are told, “Talk to people.” They haven’t even attempted the extremes at Duke or SMU Law; options exist, but they don’t want to do the work.
Have Duke’s Bridge to Practice and SMU’s Test Drive set a new bar? Is it a fair expectation that part of your law school tuition go towards paying someone to hire you?
We reached out to Emory’s career services office for their response to the criticism. Assistant Dean of Career Services Janet Hutchinson took a break from solitaire to get back to us…
Given the legal economy, prospective students should clearly be shooting for law schools in the top-15. But, not everybody can rock the all powerful LSAT. Going to a law school in this group can still result in Biglaw jobs for graduates who want them — especially if the school is located in the market where you ultimately want to practice.
17. Vanderbilt
18. USC (Gould)
19. Washington University in St. Louis
20. George Washington
21. Illinois
22. Boston University
22. Emory
22. University of Minnesota
22. Notre Dame
26. Iowa
27. Indiana University
28. Boston College
28. William and Mary
28. U.C. – Davis
28. Georgia
28. UNC
28. Wisconsin
Thoughts on these schools? I’ve got some thoughts on this particular group of rankings as a whole…
We suppose it’s fitting that on Yom Kippur, when our Jewish friends are fasting at home, today’s Legal Eagle Wedding Watch is a total WASP-fest. (Last weekend was Rosh Hashanah, which explains the unusual dearth of Jewish nuptials in the NYT announcements.) We look forward to receiving plenty of tasteful feedback about how there are “too many gentiles” this week.
Here are your six finalists — all Biglaw associates, as it happens:
What did you miss if you didn’t peruse last Sunday’s NYT weddings section? The marriage of Theodore Roosevelt V, for starters. Also, a whole lot of gayness! We counted seven same-sex weddings on this week’s list, which we suspect is a an all-time high. (And how sociologically interesting that all seven were men marrying men!) None of this week’s same-sex weddings made it into the finals, but LEWW is delighted to reflect (in a rare moment of seriousness) on how much has changed since August 2002, when the paper announced that it would include same-sex weddings for the first time. Long live love!
In response to yesterday’s post about recent events in Emory Law School’s career services office (which has generated an insane number of comments), we received an email from Dean David Partlett. We thank Dean Partlett for his message. Here it is:
Dear David,
I write regarding questions surrounding Laurie Hartman’s resignation from Emory School of Law a few weeks ago. Given the level of discussion surrounding this topic, I feel a little clarification is necessary.
Laurie Hartman served as Assistant Dean of Career Services at Emory for three years. During that time, the law school underwent an extensive external review of the office and received high marks for the strength of the services provided by the office. Dean Hartman, after serving for three years, decided to resign from her position to pursue other career opportunities. Her resignation was amicable. As you know, there is never a good time for a staff member in an office as important as Career Services to leave. Given the critical nature of services provided by this office, the administration of the law school moved quickly to address the vacancy.
Read the balance of Dean Partlett’s message, after the jump.
Finding a decent legal job is hard enough as it is. Having a career services office that’s in complete disarray doesn’t help. From a tipster:
Emory Law’s Career Services Office has imploded. The latest departure was the Dean of Career Services, Dean Laurie Hartman, last month. She left under mysterious circumstances….
Students are asking lots of questions. They organized a facebook group, asking for an explanation, or an explanation for “if you can’t tell us what is going on, can you tell us why you can’t tell us what is going on?” Many law students went to their university paper, the Emory Wheel.
Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past five years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com
Happy Chinese New Year! We were extremely busy the past few months, including most of our US based team working from our Hong Kong offices during November and December.
As a follow up from our recent post, which listed our 62 US associate and counsel placements in Asia last year (vast majority in HK / China), please note that thus far in January ’12, we have already made seven US associate and counsel placements in Asia. This is an especially impressive number, considering the biglaw lateral hiring market in Asia is down right now (see state of the market brief overview below). These new placements are of new hires in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, who were interviewing with their new firm for a month or more and they are spread out among different practice areas, including project finance, litigation, fund formation, M&A and cap markets. We are close on four additional new associate placements, in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, that we expect to close soon. We do not discuss partner placements in these articles, but the pace of partner recruitment in Asia (a large part of our business) has continued.
Hedge Fund In-House Openings in Hong Kong
We are seeing a small run of new in-house openings in Hong Kong at hedge funds. We are currently filling three different in-house positions at three different hedge funds in Hong Kong, two of these searches we are handling on an exclusive basis. All three will most likely be filled by a US associate, with about 4 to 6 years of experience. Mandarin not required. Candidates from NYC and London will be considered, but at one of these funds the new hire will likely come from Hong Kong / China or Singapore (with HK being the strong preference).
Please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com if you are interested in these hedge fund openings. As you probably would expect, the competition for these spots will be fierce and the funds will be very selective when choosing which candidates to interview.
In 2009, a small group of Harvard Law School students noticed an absurd monopoly in the bar prep space, held by an unchallenged leader with a non-evolving product. In response, these students teamed up with Harvard Law alumni to launch BarMax on January 14, 2010.
The mission: democratize bar prep by embracing new technologies to provide the very best bar exam review courses at a fraction of the cost normally associated with these courses.
Since then, with the encouragement of thousands of students and an unwavering commitment to their success, BarMax has established itself as a comprehensive alternative to the stagnant, over-priced status quo.
As we continue to expand, we do not want to lose sight of the basic premises that led us to create BarMax in the first place. If you are a law student who believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with being forced to take out yet another loan to pay for a $4,000 bar exam prep course, you are not alone.
The last time we wrote about somebody on the Emory Law faculty trying to “help out” struggling, jobless Emory Law students, we were covering the train wreck of a commencement speech by professor Sara Stadler. She told graduating law students, many of whom didn’t have a job, to “get over” their sense of entitlement. 
Continue reading “Emory Law Students Rush to Apply for Babysitting ‘Opportunity’”
In December 2008, then-Chief Judge 
In response to yesterday’s 
