I’ve never been a fan of U.S. News obsessing over how much money law schools spend on their facilities. I feel it artificially inflates the cost of going to law school in a digital age where so much of what you need can be found online.
But there are some things that you can’t do online. Not yet at least. Like going to the bathroom. Perhaps if Steve Jobs were still alive, the iPoop and the Waterless iPoop would be just around the corner. But we were robbed of that great man.
Maybe all you need to know about the difference between top law schools and not-so-hot law schools really does come down to toilets. At Harvard, they name them after rich alumni. At North Dakota Law School, they barely have them….
Continue reading “Adventures at Low-Ranked Law Schools: Don’t Call It a ‘Toilet,’ They Don’t Even Have Toilets”
Last week, we asked our readers to submit possible captions for this photo:
On Friday, you voted on the finalists, and now it’s time to announce the winner of our most recent caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Winner: Ugh, Our Library Is Such a Dump”
Earlier this week, we asked readers to submit possible captions for this trashy photo:
Let’s have a look at what our readers were able to come up with, and then vote on the finalists….
Continue reading “Caption Contest Finalists: Ugh, Our Library Is Such a Dump”
Every year at the end of finals, law students contemplate doing crazy things with their books. While some people want to set them on fire, others want to roll up a page or two and just blaze. These are creative options for creative people.
Others will settle for the simplest solution possible, tossing those babies straight into the nearest trash can. But what happens when a law school does it for you?
Here’s the photo for our latest caption contest….
Continue reading “Caption Contest: Ugh, Our Library Is Such a Dump”
And no, we’re not talking about the guy who sits in the front row of Federal Jurisdiction and always has his hand in the air.
We’re speaking more literally — about a man with his hand not up in the air, but down in his pants….
Continue reading “Watch Out: There’s a Wanker in the Library!”
If you took the bar exam last month, you might be trying hard to forget the experience, or you might be flying far, far away on an exotic vacation. Maybe you are counting the days until results come out in November, or maybe you’re frantically searching for employment before those organ bill collectors start knocking.
This is the final installment of the Bar Review Diaries. We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into the lives of three recent law school graduates as they prepared for the bar.
Let’s check in one last time with Mariah, Christopher and Mike, to see where they are headed next.
And if anyone has cool bar trips coming up or strange end-of-summer plans, please share them with us in the comments….
Continue reading “Bar Review Diaries: The End Is The Beginning”
* The hotel maid behind DSK’s extended stay in New York has now sued her alleged attacker. Remember, this is all about the truth. It has nothing to do with money. [CNN]
* Should you be worried about the stock market’s seppuku yesterday? If you like money, then probably. If you like your job as an M&A attorney, then definitely. [The Recorder]
* Illinois is giving sex trafficking victims the chance to vacate their prostitution convictions. Even if Reema Bajaj gets convicted, she still couldn’t use this law to clear her name. [Chicago Sun-Times]
* Therapy dogs aren’t just for law school libraries anymore. Now they’re appearing in courtrooms. But is an adorable dog unfair to defendants? Only if you hate dogs… and justice. [New York Times]
* Frank McCourt is still on deck for his at bat with Bingham McCutchen. The good news is that the Dodgers can keep on sucking in the interim. [Los Angeles Times]
* We’re happy that the Breaking Media dress code doesn’t include “Tube-top Tuesday” and “Wet T-shirt Wednesday.” An employee in Utah claims she isn’t as lucky as us. [Salt Lake Tribune]
Justice John Paul Stevens
* Opponents of “three strikes” hope that the SCOTUS decision requiring California to reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates will help them to repeal three strikes. Four balls, standing eight count, and wicked googly are among sports terms vying to take its place. [San Diego Union Tribune]
* A law firm librarian in New Jersey is suing her old firm and police for being falsely arrested and accused of pulling a fire alarm in the law firm’s building. This lawsuit is long overdue. Dewey even need to check out the complaint? Folio microfiche rare books. [New Jersey Law Journal]
* An in-depth look at the legal issues facing moral exemplar and top-shelf human being John Edwards. [Charlotte Observer]
* Utah became the first state to recognize gold as legal tender, momentarily sending the price per ounce skyrocketing to 5.7 wives. [International Business Times]
* Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, at 91, remains as spry as ever. At an age when most men are dribbling pudding onto their shirt, he is dribbling it onto his bow tie. [New York Times]
* “Again?! Egypt bizman busted at Pierre hotel.” [New York Post]
I was explaining to new Above the Law helper Natasha Lydon how things work in the ATL, and I said: “Basically, from now until finals, we’ll be able to run a ‘stupid law student story’ every day. The kids are stressed, and it’s starting to show.” On cue, I received an email from a law student tipster, with the following subject heading: “Bozo the Clown.” Hilarity ensued.
Above the Law has a long and proud history of documenting the thievery of law students. Who can forget the Tulane Law student who stole a piece of Americana, a shoe worn by Mr. Rogers, from the Louisiana Children’s Museum? Going even further back, there was the Michigan Law student who liked to go around stealing other people’s sandwiches.
Today we’re going to add to that tradition by telling you about the apparent theft — or liberation, depending on how you look at it — of Bozo the Law Library Clown…
UPDATE: Bozo has been found! Read more below…
Continue reading “Law Library Misplaces Tortured Clown”
* Ex-Marc Jacobs International CFO is suing the company for allegedly making him look at gay porn. Wait, you can sue people for that? [Fashionista]
* Monty, the Yale Law School Therapy Dog, is already being billed out to the max. How long before Monty develops a superiority complex and a coke habit? [NPR]
* Judge Judy was rushed to the hospital, but she’s okay. Phew, for a second I thought I was going to have to start watching Judge Joe Brown. [New York Post]
* The Bronx Zoo cobra has been recaptured. I thought the Dred Scott decision had been overturned, but apparently cobra wars have just begun. [Village Voice]
* Why would I need to drink a “Raging Bitch” when I could just go to Michigan and marry one? [Legal Blog Watch]
* Wisconsin Democrats don’t want to show up for work, Wisconsin Republicans don’t want to follow the law, and the state is basically a functional anarchy. Is @aaronrodgers12 waiting for a personal invitation to come fix this? Let’s go MVP, you don’t think we give out championship belts just for playing football do you? [WSJ Law Blog]
* The folks at Oyez have developed a new app to help you stay on top of the latest SCOTUS developments. Let’s just hope Scalia doesn’t try to use it while he’s driving. [PocketJustice / Oyez]
* The Above the Law jobs board has some new entries. We’re trying to do our part to help the UVA Law kids. [Above the Law]
You know an email has gone viral when we get unsolicited emails asking us to not post something we just received from a bunch of people all at the same time. Let’s hope Wake Forest School of Law is ready for its closeup.
Someone — claiming to be a Wake Forest law student, and calling himself or herself “Wes Law” — apparently woke up this morning with a bug up the ass. The object of pain was apparently the law librarians at Wake Law. And so the supposed student asked a rhetorical question: “Is there someone who can please explain why do we even have librarians at this law school anymore, and to what purpose they serve?”
What followed was a tirade against the services provided by the librarians, naming names in a flurry of accusations and insults. The entire campus is talking about it, with a few people even trying to answer the question.
I’ve never been to Wake Forest, so I’ll have to answer his question with my own rhetorical question: U mad, bro?
Continue reading “Purported Wake Forest Law Student Slams Wake Forest Law Librarians”
Charlie Sheen
* Former New York assistant AG Simone Levine is attempting to reverse the assistant AG jinx, accepting a job with the police monitor’s office in New Orleans. I have nothing to add here other than to say Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans owned. [NOLA.com]
* Brooke Mueller is allowing the restraining order against Charlie Sheen to expire. Winning! That’s still cool to say, right? Very nice! [MSNBC.com]
* Barry Bonds’s jury will consist of 8 women and 4 men. Giants fans were disqualified for an inability to be impartial. Mets fans were disqualified as suicide risks. [Bloomberg]
Better than a book? Monty, the dog you can check out at the Yale Law library.
* Jared Lee Loughner will be sent to Missourah for a mental evaluation. [CNN]
* Rajabba Rajaratnam and the meaning of inside information. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Easy on the tube tops and assless chaps, guys. Apparently, lawyers are still a bunch of squares. [The Careerist via ABA Journal]
* The New York Times is hip to the dog-lenders in the temple of legal learning, Yale Law School. [New York Times]
Monty, the Yale Law library dog
In the past week, we’ve learned about the best law schools for getting rich and the best law schools according to law firm hiring partners. So let’s do one more ranking: the best law schools for dog lovers.
This ranking, as it turns out, looks a lot like the U.S. News law school rankings: there’s Yale Law School at #1, and then there’s everyone else.
How many law schools let you “check out” a certified therapy dog from the library, for thirty-minute periods of stress relief? As far as we know, YLS stands alone.
We kid you not. And this time around, YLS isn’t denying it….
Continue reading “The Best Law Schools — For Dog Lovers”
I’m on record as being generally uncomfortable with hate crime designations. I’m not against hate crime laws across the board. You show me a guy with a demonstrable history of bigotry who then goes around beating people of some particular group, and I’m all for enhanced punishment. But in general I don’t think the state should be involved in punishing what’s in a man’s heart. If you murder someone, you are a hater; does it really matter why you hated the person?
And hate crime laws seem to force law enforcement into ridiculous positions. They’ve got to try to use physical evidence to prove or disprove what people were thinking when they did something. That’s like trying to figure out why I smoke based on my ashtray.
A great example of the problems with hate crime legislation is what’s going on at Harvard University right now. People found books in one of the undergraduate libraries were soaked in urine. But the books were about LGBT issues. HATE CRIME ALERT!
Or is it? Harvard police don’t really know, so they are being forced to say some absolutely ridiculous things…
Continue reading “Are Urine-Soaked Harvard Books Evidence of A Hate Crime?”
Last spring, Duke Law students had a fit because Duke undergrads were taking up valuable space in the law library. I admit, I enjoy having a little bit of fun with Duke Law students (haters gotta hate), but I’m with them on this one.
Undergraduates have two or three libraries (or maybe more, I don’t know if Duke is one of those schools where every major department has a library in its campus headquarters) where they can go play footsie and pretend to study. Or they can go to the business school library (the MBA kids are all at the bar “networking”) or the medical school library (the would-be doctors are busy being bought by drug companies or conducting unnecessary tests).
But at the law library people need to work. You can’t learn the law without spending a lot of time quietly reading the opinions of old white men (shut up “law firms,” nobody spends three years and $100K to learn practical lawyering skills). Those cases aren’t going to brief themselves! Law students need a quiet environment to think deeply and prepare for the eight hours of terrified regurgitation to come.
It looks like the administrators of Duke finally got the message…
Continue reading “Duke Undergrads Expelled From Duke Law Library in Preparation for Finals”
The library at Brooklyn Law School is fast becoming the most sexual law library in America. Last week, the class of 2010 dedicated a plaque inside the library warning students, “It’s supposed to be hard.” This week, we’ve learned that the law library also plays host to some hard bodies.
Apparently, Brooklyn Law allowed models from Diesel Jeans to use its law library for a photoshoot. The jeans didn’t stay on for long. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the law library for the 67th best law school in America….
WARNING: The pictures after the jump should be safe for work — there’s no nudity — but they are mildly risqué. Read on at your own risk.
Continue reading “Hot Models Get Busy in Brooklyn Law Library”
U Can't Touch This (dog).
Earlier this week, we reported on the Yale Law School library apparently allowing students to “check out” a stress-relieving dog named Monty, for 30-minute periods. This precious pet perk was not offered during my time at YLS (but we barely had a library for two years, due to extensive construction).
Alas, the commenter who noted that “Monty has been withdrawn” appears to be correct. The link to Monty’s catalog entry is dead.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Booktryst blog explains why….
Continue reading “Who Let the Dog Out? Not the Yale Law Library”
Monty: It's a dog's life at Yale Law School.
I routinely make fun of the U.S. News law school rankings for taking into account the size of a law school library when ranking law schools. We live in a world where you can get everything online.
Well, not everything. Leave it to the perennial U.S. News darling, Yale Law School, to come up with a library offering worthy of the school’s number 1 ranking. Here’s the wonderful catalog listing:
NOT CHK’D OUT – Ask at Circ. – DOG BASKET BEHIND CIRCULATION DESK – ASK AT CIRC:
Description
1 dog (border terrier mix) : brown hair, 21 lbs. ; 33 cm at shoulder.
Yep, at the Yale Law School library you can check out a dog…
Continue reading “Yale Law School Going to the Dogs?”
* The DUI of an MD from UBS results in Bess Levin’s field trip to Beamers Cafe, “Stamford’s premier strip club.” [Dealbreaker]
* Georgetown law prof Patrick Glen: “[A] candidate who received his or her legal education [at a school other than Harvard or Yale] should lower their aspirations. They may very well attain a seat on a federal appellate court, or perhaps a state supreme court, but if past is prologue, they will have no hope of setting up an office in the Marble Palace.” [Economix]
* Speaking of law schools, if you’re thinking of going, this is the kind of analysis you should undertake. [Advise-In]
* An analysis of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in the appeal brought by Wesley Snipes. [White Collar Crime Prof Blog]
* How to avoid sending annoying firm-wide emails asking for precedents and templates. [Above the Law (sponsored content)]
* Are BYU law students allowed to use the Harold B. Lee Library? It sounds pretty awesome — check out the video, a clever parody of this Old Spice commercial, AFTER THE JUMP….
Continue reading “Weekend Non-Sequiturs: 07.18.10″
I have criticized U.S. News for caring about the number of books available in a law school library. I’ve criticized the Thomas Cooley law school rankings for caring about the size of a law school library.
Clearly, I don’t know what a law school library should be used for. But students at UC Davis do.
Continue reading “UC Davis Law Students Need to Get a Room”
