A couple of days ago, an attorney sent in an email to the New York State Bar Association listserv. Like many people, the attorney was looking for a job. He decided to ask the listserv for some helpful tips:

Subject: [nysba-nonres] (somewhat) new attorney still seeking first FT position From: [Redacted] To: nysba-nonres@lists.nysba.org

Its a difficult time for new lawyers graduating with gigantic student loan debts and a bad economy. I’ve been searching for two years sending out hundreds of resumes and applying for an online jobs every chance I get but it now seems hopeless.

I’m a Fordham Law School graduate and have an internship working at a small bankruptcy/divorce/immigration firm and also have been doing debt collection in state court and attending 341 hearings as a per diem attorney. I also have an interest in criminal law and litigation and therefore took hands on courses in law school: civil litigation drafting, trial advocacy, fundamental lawyering skills, criminal procedure.

I want a full time position but contract work would be helpful also.

If anyone has any suggestion as to where to apply or what to do please advise.

Everybody tells you to network to find a job in this economy. But what if you don’t know anybody? One can understand how the state bar association listserv could seem like a viable option to a recent Fordgam graduate.

Were the employed attorneys helpful to the young Fordham ram? What do you think?

From two distinguished commentators: lawyer and law firm consultant Bruce MacEwen, of Adam Smith Esq., and Professor Daniel Filler, over at the Faculty Lounge.

Above the Law reader sentiment generally supported Fordham Law School and Dean William Michael Treanor. Interestingly enough, both MacEwen and Filler side with Reed Smith. MacEwen confesses to being mystified by Dean Treanor’s handling of the situation; Filler argues that Reed Smith’s late withdrawal from OCI was a minor infraction, and that Fordham’s “punishment” of the firm will only hurt students.

Check out their analyses via the links below.

In This Corner, AmLaw #16… [Adam Smith, Esq.]
Fordham Law v. Reed Smith, Or, How To Scare Away Firms From OCI [The Faculty Lounge]

Earlier: Fordham Law v. Big Law: Reed Smith’s Response
Fordham Law Lashes Out at Reed Smith Rudeness

Yesterday we covered the decision of Fordham Law School to ban Reed Smith from recruiting on-campus for the next five years, in response to the firm’s last-minute withdrawal from on-campus interviewing at Fordham. The decision was announced by Dean William Treanor in a strongly worded email message.

Dean Treanor’s email, while harsh, seemed to be well-received, at least among ATL readers. In our reader poll, over 80 percent of you deemed it an appropriate response to Reed Smith’s late pullout from Fordham EIW (Early Interview Week).

Reed Smith has now addressed the situation. From the Legal Intelligencer:

Michael B. Pollack, global head of strategy at Reed Smith, said this certainly isn’t a situation the firm was looking for and he suspects the ban isn’t a good situation for the firm or the students. He said he hopes Treanor would reconsider.

“We’re trying to run a business just like he’s trying to run a law school and I appreciate the pressures that he is under and I would hope he would appreciate the pressures we’re under,” Pollack said.

Additional comments by Pollack appear in Gina Passarella’s article.

We also reached out to Reed Smith, which sent us a detailed — and dignified — statement. Check it out, after the jump.

We’ve heard from many frustrated law students who bid on a particular law firm for on-campus interviewing only to learn, after using up a bid or an interview slot, that the firm in question wouldn’t be coming to OCI after all. We’ve even heard from students who were told, mid-interview, that the office they were supposedly interviewing for wouldn’t be having a summer program (but more on that later).

Law firms are certainly entitled to pick which schools they want to interview at. But, as a matter of basic professional courtesy and respect, they should make those decisions as early in the process as possible. When a law firm withdraws from the fall recruiting process at a given school at the eleventh hour, it causes great inconvenience to law students and schools.

What do most law schools do when firms pull out from OCI at the last minute? As far as we know, nothing. In this economy, law firms are in the driver’s seat. They’re the people with jobs to dole out.

But at least one law school has decided to take a stand against rudeness. After Reed Smith announced its late withdrawal from the recruiting process at Fordham Law, the school struck back, banning the firm from recruiting at Fordham for the next five years.

Dean William Treanor announced the move to the law school in a saucy email that truly puts the “F.U.” in Fordham University. The Fordham law folks are located at Lincoln Center rather than Rose Hill, but this message suggests they can brawl like their Bronx brethren.

Update (8/13/09): The firm’s response to the situation appears here.

Read the dean’s complete email message, and vote in our reader poll — yes, another one, we can’t help ourselves (we love to get your opinion on such matters) — after the jump.

Graduation usually marks a high point in our lives. Ceremonies celebrate graduates’ achievements and their bright futures. But this year, grads are faced with a rocky economy, a terrible job market, and predictions that things will stay this way for quite some time. A sign of the dire times: Harvard grads used their ceremony as a staging ground for a protest against layoffs.

New York Magazine conducted an unscientific survey of 2009 graduates to see what they think about the future. New York City may be ground zero for the fiscal meltdown, but NY Mag managed to find people who are bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and hopeful about the future:

We were startled by the fact that, circumstances be damned, we found very little bitterness at all — caution, yes; worry too — but judging from the responses to our questions, this is a reflexively optimistic cadre of graduates, feeling, if anything, existentially freed up by this era of radical change. They’re nervous about the job market but figure it’ll sort itself out.

The survey included 200 students from 10 schools. Among the allegedly hopeful lot are a bunch of Fordham Law students, photographed above.

If your depression over the End of Biglaw is still weighing on you, read on. Maybe the delusional optimism of the 2009 grads is contagious. (Or read on if you’re curious to find out when the majority of those surveyed lost their virginity.)

We’re pleased to announce that HLS grads Tracy Zuckerman and Ryan Van Grack triumphed in a high-turnout vote to win ATL Couple of the Month honors for April. Kudos!

On to this week’s contest. Once again, it’s too close for us to call, so get your voting fingers ready; there’s a poll after the jump. Here are the entrants:

1. Elizabeth Arens and Christopher Mathews

2. Jennifer Toll and Brett Schulman

3. JoAnn Kamuf and Rusty Ward

Check out these couples’ resumes and photos, after the jump.

I’ll admit, I’ve never really understood the utility of cheating on a test. Even if you don’t get caught, what have you really gained from getting a couple of extra questions right? A third of a grade? A full grade? It just strikes me as ridiculously hypocritical. If you really care that much about your grades, isn’t it better to just put in the work over the course of the semester? And if you don’t care about your grades, why do you suddenly lose your nerve at the very end?

In any event, I suppose the terrible economy is making a lot of people think creatively about what their transcript will look like when it comes time to find a job. It looks like a spate of cheating scandals has erupted among some New York law schools.

The Syracuse University College of Law is so worried about the problem that it is cracking down on people with weak bladder control:

Students can now use the rest room only once during an exam, which can last four hours, because some are suspected of using cell phones or looking at papers in the bathrooms. Students with medical reasons to use the rest room more often than once per exam must provide medical documentation to a dean.

“During this exam period, we have received a significant number of reports from (first-year) students alleging academic dishonesty,” read an e-mail sent by law school deans to first-year students.

Forty years I been asking permission to piss. I can’t squeeze a drop without say-so.

While Syracuse adopts the Depends Honor Code, Fordham hasn’t decided if it will do anything at all. Details after the jump.