Duke Law

Which Top Law School Has the Highest Percentage of Underemployed Graduates?

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We know that our readers simply cannot get enough of these employment rankings, so we decided to bring you some more. This time, we’ll be taking a look at the law schools that people dream of attending: the 14 most elite schools in the nation, more commonly known among the legal community as the T14. Everyone knows that graduates of these fine institutions are able to get jobs — in fact, many of these schools are able to boast “employed at graduation” rates of over 90 percent.

But some graduates from these hallowed halls experience the same problems as those of their brethren from the lower echelons of law schools. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to find full-time, long-term employment as lawyers, not even graduates from the best-ranked law schools in country.

Wouldn’t you like to see which top law school has the highest percentage of underemployed graduates? Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled T14ers….

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A Message from Career Services: Ladies, Please Learn How to Dress Yourselves

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This is probably a fashion don't.

We’ve been down this road before, but society still seems to think that female lawyers and law students don’t know the basics of fashion. Maybe it’s true, especially given the number of events on this topic that repeat the same information ad infinitum. We’ve seen seminars on how to have fashion sense for the workplace, followed by lessons on fashion dos and don’ts. When will the madness end?

We thought that we had gotten the point across on this in October: ladies, if you dress like hookers, the only jobs you’ll get will be underneath a partner’s desk.

But apparently that message fell on deaf ears, because one law school’s Career & Professional Development Office had to co-sponsor an event with the school’s Women Law Students Association on how to properly dress for an interview….

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Did You Attend Today’s ‘Killing Spree’?

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If you’re a law student, you probably checked your email first thing this morning for one reason or another. Maybe you were waiting to hear back from a professor. Maybe you were praying for a snow day and hoping that classes were canceled. Either way, you probably weren’t expecting to see something like this from your law school:

What the hell? If the proposed war on gunners started today, Above the Law didn’t get the memo. Which law school sponsored a “Killing Spree”?

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Celebrity Summer Associate: A Star Athlete

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Recruiting athletes isn’t just for sports coaches. Many law firm hiring partners like to acquire athletes as well. The thinking is that successful athletes possess many of the traits sought in talented attorneys.

Athletes are disciplined, hardworking, and mentally tough. They are focused and strategic thinkers. If they play a team sport, then they probably excel at teamwork too.

So it shouldn’t come as a shock that Williams & Connolly, a firm full of fearsome litigators who love to win, has a great athlete among its 2011 summer associate class. This individual, who has traveled around the world playing his sport, is our latest celebrity summer associate. (We’ve previously profiled actor Wai Choy, a former co-star of Lindsay Lohan, and Phil Alito, son of Sam.)

Who is this star athlete turned Williams & Connolly summer associate, and what sport does he play?

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Estate Tax Compromise Could Save Thousands of Lives (of Millionaires)

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Late last night, Congress passed a compromise tax bill that will, among other things, cap the estate tax at 35% (with a $5 million exemption). If not for this compromise, the estate tax would have returned in 2011, at rates as high as 55 percent (with a $1 million exemption).

Hallelujah. Anytime you can save wealthy dead people millions of dollars during a time of crushing federal deficits, that’s something you just have to do. Way to go, Obama. When I voted for you in 2008, really I was just trying to vote for four more years of Bush’s ruinous fiscal policies.

Obama isn’t just saving money for all the dauphins eager to get their hands on their inheritances; he could be saving lives. Duke Law professor Richard Schmalbeck apparently thinks that rich old people might have killed themselves in droves over the next two weeks. Schmalbeck suggests that after spending a lifetime working hard and earning money, hundreds “or even a few thousand” of the aging rich might have committed suicide in the waning days of 2010, in order to pass on as much of their money to their children as they can before the estate tax returns in 2011.

I shudder to think that somebody would commodify their own life in such a way. But then again, I’m not rich. Maybe you only get rich in this country by being the kind of person who would gladly kill yourself if the price is right…

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Duke Undergrads Expelled From Duke Law Library in Preparation for Finals

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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…

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Tucker Max Gets Sued By Duke Law

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You know what scares me? There’s a version of my career where I end up as the bizzaro version of Tucker Max. The “fat, black, and married” version of Tucker Max. The “other guy” who used douchebag behavior to get through elite institutions, just like Tucker Max.

It’s like, if I everything goes wrong for me but I end up with a book and a movie deal, I’ll be a Tucker Max clone. It’s not likely, but the mere possibility of it keeps me up at night. I’m a nice guy, really, I am. I’m not nice to, like, people or anything, but I have a good soul. I don’t want to be the black Tucker Max! And I’m not.

But then I read things like Max’s latest tweet, and I think “Dear God, is that what I could become?”…

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Duke Law Turns to Craigslist to Fill Key Administrative Role

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Any of you guys want a job at the law school?

If I reported that Duke Law School was turning to Craigslist to find its next dean, the U.S. News people would issue “revised” rankings to knock Duke out of the top tier. Heck, if I told you that Duke Law was looking for a new 1L contracts professor on Craigslist, at the very least that report would be met with widespread ridicule.

Of course, Duke would never grab a new dean off of Craigslist. Deans are in charge of making the law school money, and there’s no way Duke would rely on Craigslist, even in part, to fill that responsibility. And picking up a law professor off of Craigslist would make the school look intellectually weak, so there’s little chance of that ever happening either.

But when it comes to providing services that Duke Law students actually need — well, then Duke is just fine leaving the professional futures of its students in the hands of whomever Duke can find hanging out on the CL….

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