Stanford Law School

You Can Transfer the Student into Stanford, But You Can’t Transfer the Stanford into the Student

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When you are a transfer student, you are constantly fighting for respect. If you don’t think your non-transfer classmates look down on how you gunned your way into their school despite whatever faults kept you out the first time, you really aren’t paying attention to your surroundings.

But most transfer students do feel the sting, and they try like hell to prove that they belong.

Which is just weak. Come on, there’s nothing worse than trying to interact with somebody who has a huge chip on his shoulder. Actually, the annoyingness of transfers is directly related to the rank of the school: the better the ranking, the more annoying the kids who transfer in.

Call it “elite law school problems.” One of the pleasures of going to an elite school is that you get to spend time around people who aren’t frustrated that they couldn’t get into a better school with better prospects. There’s a calmness on campus; everybody’s doing their thing, everybody feels like things are going to work out. Then the transfers get there and they’re gunning, and annoying, and have ridiculous bro stories about bombing the LSAT, “But it’s ALL GOOD, ’cause I’m HERE NOW buddy, YEAH. I’m taking a class with PROFESSOR FAMOUS PANTS which will really help in my CALLBACK at [mid-tier firm that is actually a fallback option for people at elite schools] DAY.

Sigh. At least that’s how transfer students talk to non-transfers. We don’t often get to see how transfer students talk among themselves.

But today, we’ve got a whole transfer student email thread from Stanford Law School — and boy, like Fredo in the Godfather, they want respect….

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California Bar Passage Rate Holds Steady; Shame For Underperforming Schools Deepens

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The picturesque Richard H. Chambers Courthouse in Pasadena, home of the Ninth Circuit.

California has released some macro-level results from the July 2011 administration of the bar exam. The California bar is notoriously difficult, and every year we like to take a look at which schools prepared their students well for the exam, and which schools did not.

Last year, the overall pass rates were 68.3% for all takers and 75.2% for graduates of the twenty ABA-approved law schools in California. This year, overall pass rates clocked in at 67.7%, while students who went to ABA-accredited law schools in California passed at a 76.2% clip.

But you might be surprised at which California law school had the best passage rate on the California bar. Hint: it’s not Stanford, or Boalt Hall, or UCLA….

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Congratulations to the 2012 Skadden Fellows

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It’s that time of the year again. No, we’re not talking about the Above the Law holiday party, which happened already. Or the ATL holiday card contest, which is now underway.

It’s time for celebration of a different sort — time to celebrate, and congratulate, the latest class of Skadden Fellows. The winners of these prestigious public interest fellowships were just announced, as they are every December.

As explained in the Skadden Fellowship Foundation’s press release, the 28 new fellows are graduating law students or judicial law clerks who are devoting their careers to public interest work. They’ll be working for organizations located in nine states and the District of Columbia, “focusing on issues ranging from the health and safety of low-wage immigrant workers in California to representing Russian-speaking victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking in New York.”

(Baby Jesus would be proud of what they do. Unless they work for the ACLU and try to ruin his birthday.)

Who are the Skadden fellows for 2012? Which law schools produced the most fellows? And what’s different about this year’s program compared to past years?

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UC Irvine Announces Better Clerkship Numbers Than Almost Everyone Else

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Ever since the UC Irvine School of Law opened its doors in 2009, the fledgling institution has been garnering rave reviews. It has already been labelled one of the most selective schools in the country. Every single member of its inaugural class had a job last summer. And that same first class goes to school for free.

Over the weekend, the emerging West Coast powerhouse added a new impressive statistic to its quickly filling trophy case. This year, the school boasts one of the highest federal clerkship placement rates in the country.

Keep reading to see which elite law schools have been edged out by UC Irvine….

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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Buckeye Edition

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Not surprisingly, we’ve noticed a sharp uptick in same-sex weddings in the NYT since New York legalized gay marriage this summer. If you’re planning your own same-sex celebration, don’t miss this article on “Dressing Two Grooms.” Apparently lesbians are on their own.

Although we don’t have any gay finalists this week, we’ve unintentionally chosen a slate of opposite-sex finalists that looks like a United Colors of Benetton ad campaign. Here are our fabulously diverse contestants:

Mayumi Kawashima and Darius Kharabi
Adiya Dixon and Erin Wiggins
Darpana Sheth and Gregg Nunziata

You can find the juicy details on these couples, plus pictures, after the jump….

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Madness and Tear Gas in Oakland; Lawyers Join the Fray

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A wheelchair-bound Oaklander in the tear gas fog. That's hardcore.

It has been a strange couple of days. I woke up on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. to finish some writing. It was still dark, but I heard several helicopters buzzing near my house. I checked Twitter and discovered several hundred police officers were clearing out the Occupy Oakland tent city a few miles away.

I know Lat has already visited the Occupy Wall Street protests, and Dealbreaker covered a dire drum circle problem in New York as well. So I didn’t worry about it too much.

Well, I wasn’t expecting the morning’s eviction to turn into a national media s**t storm. By Tuesday evening, somewhere around 500 people were marching through downtown Oakland. Police told them to go home, but they didn’t. People started throwing things at police. Police launched tear gas. By the time things wound down at around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, police had fired several rounds of tear gas and beanbags at protesters, and there were various semi-confirmed reports of rubber bullets, flash grenades, and even a sound cannon.

Why do you care? Well, it turns out these protesters are not just deadbeats and drug addicts. There were several lawyers in the crowd, too. We spoke with a few of them, starting with Shahid Buttar. He is a Stanford Law School grad and the Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. He spent Tuesday afternoon lecturing on privacy in a UC Berkeley journalism class, then spent the night getting tear gassed in downtown Oakland….

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Quote of the Day: But It Would Bring Out Your Eyes!

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Deborah Rhode

I don’t wear makeup, nor do I wish to spend 20 minutes applying it.

– Deborah Rhode, professor at Stanford Law School and author of The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law (affiliate link), commenting on the results of a recent study funded by Procter & Gamble, which concluded that women who wore makeup were considered more competent.

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Morning Docket: 10.04.11

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Karolina Stefanski

* Anna Nicole Smith is still screwing old white men from beyond the grave. Biglaw firms want Heller Ehrman’s claims to be decided in federal court, not bankruptcy court. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Kirkland & Ellis is pledging $2.75M to Stanford Law over the next five years in an effort to convince more students to take douchey pictures in front of their office signage. [Stanford Daily]

* Slow and steady wins the race, especially when it comes to reporting the news. A few news sites were eager to let readers know that Amanda Knox lost her appeal… except she didn’t. [Atlantic Wire]

* The Supreme Court has rejected yet another Obama birther lawsuit. Legal reasoning? “STFU, we’ll probably only have to deal with this dude for another year.” [CBS News]

* TWU to NYPD: Please don’t force us to listen to these Occupy Wall Street fools. We’d rather have our regular crazies on board. Of course, their lawsuit says it a bit more eloquently. [Wall Street Journal]

* Karolina Stefanski is being sued by an ex over some blank checks to the tune of $80K. Seriously, who cheats on a Playboy model? I mean, come on, boobs. [New York Post]

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Morning Docket: 08.26.11

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Don't 'defamate' me because I'm beautiful.

* With four states sounding their emergency alarms, will this weekend’s hurricane be the next natural disaster to rain on the legal world’s parade? [Los Angeles Times]

* Should we deregulate the practice of law? Do you want someone like me to be an actual lawyer? Easiest debate ever. I should’ve been on moot court. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Even if Justice David Prosser needed to choke a bitch, he’s not going to face criminal charges over it. That’s one way to address workplace safety. [Bloomberg]

* Want a Biglaw job? There’s an app for that! Don’t say Skadden never gave you anything for free (sorry, but the pizza doesn’t count). [DealBook / New York Times]

* Man, it must be nice to have so much money that you can talk bribe kids into skipping out on college. Are all Stanford Law grads so generous? [Reuters]

* Rapper Pitbull was shocked when he found out that Lindsay Lohan was suing him. See that suit and tie? He’s an upstanding gentleman. He’d never “defamate” a soul. [Houston Chronicle]

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Stanford Law School: Why Are Your Professors Writing Books That Sound Like They’ve Been Written By Bloggers?

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Ralph Richard Banks

Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about black women. Things can be tough. African-American women get all of the sexism white women have to deal with, and all of the racism black men have to deal with. Successful black men tend to fulfill their own self-loathing destiny by running away from black women (not me, I’m married to one). Cultural representations of them are used to sell syrup or chicken, or involve a black dude dressed up in a fat suit (if William Tecumseh Sherman were still alive, he’d be waging war against Martin Lawrence and Tyler Perry). And law professors at prestigious universities try to profiteer off of their difficulties.

That last one is somewhat recent. But I don’t know how else to describe the new book by a Stanford Law professor, Ralph Richard Banks. His upcoming book is entitled Is Marriage for White People? (affiliate link).

Now, if I were a blogger looking to make a quick buck, that’s exactly the kind of book I’d write. In fact, look for my upcoming book, “Why White People Can Afford To Piss Away Time & Money in Law School, But Blacks Can’t.”

But Ralph Banks isn’t a blogger, he’s a Stanford Law professor. Shouldn’t we expect less sensationalized bullcrap from him?

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