Justice Ginsburg
The sight of a Supreme Court justice on stage twirling around with her hands in the air to a goofy song next to a spinning 6-year-old girl is not one that I can soon forget, no matter how many times I undergo hypnosis.
– Boston University law professor Jay Wexler, describing what it was like to attend an interactive school musical with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while working as her clerk.
We talk a lot around these parts about the versatility (or lack thereof) of a law degree. Does a J.D. help you grab non-law related jobs? Maybe, maybe not.
But for certain brave — or maybe just kooky — individuals, there are jobs for which a J.D. is really neither here nor there. Think truck driver, sommelier, or a guy who lives in the woods and extracts venom from poisonous rattlesnakes for a living. You might have to sacrifice the corner office, but you make up for it with the thrill of dangerous living. The pay ain’t so bad either…
Continue reading “Career Alternatives: Rattlesnake Venom Extractor, a.k.a. ‘Pure Badass’”
Father of Our Country, Juggalo Washington
What is a juggalo?
Let me think for a second
Oh, he gets butt-naked
And then he walks through the streets
Winking at the freaks
With a two-liter stuck in his butt-cheeks
At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Pat Buchanan announced that America was in the midst of a culture war. In his view, this war was being waged between descendents of the 60′s counter-culture and those who sought to protect “traditional” values. In the field of law, this idea found a home in (who else?) Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Romer v. Evans, in which he famously wrote that “[t]he Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite.” Something about the original German sends a shiver down the spine, doesn’t it? Anyway, we can all surely agree that these two yahoos wouldn’t know a culture war if it slapped them in the face with a bottle of Faygo soda.
There’s a real culture war going on, ninjas. And it has nothing to do with gay marrying or abortions or the third rail of American politics, cockfighting. It has to do with the FBI’s insane decision to categorize Juggalos — i.e., fans of the Insane Clown Posse hip-hop duo — as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang.” It has to do with real persecution and honest-to-God discrimination against the Juggalo people.
Luckily for me and my fellow Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse doesn’t know the meaning of backing down. And that’s not a slam at all, it’s just a turn-of-phrase. They know the meaning. They just refuse to back down. Is what I’m saying….
Continue reading “Insane Clown… Plaintiffs? Juggalos Consider Suing the FBI”
Remember back in your first year of law school when you learned about Hawkins v. McGee, aka the “hairy hand” case? Students were supposed to learn about damages, but most were pretty disgusted by the fact that the palm of the plaintiff’s hand looked like it belonged to a Wookiee.
Today, we’ve learned about a pre-law student who seems to be trapped in a continuous loop of House. Her medical mystery definitely reminded us of the “hairy hand” case, except here, this woman doesn’t have a hairy hand. In fact, she doesn’t have any hair at all. Instead of hair, FINGERNAILS are now growing out of the hair follicles all over her body.
Let’s find out more about this unfortunate woman’s hair-raising experience….
While many would-be lawyers were busy taking the bar exam in July, actual lawyers (and law students) were allegedly busy behaving badly. We’ve singled out a lucky few for our Lawyer of the Month honors.
Some of our nominees have adopted unusual career alternatives, and others have allegedly adopted unusual sexual relationships. But who will come out on top in our monthly contest?
Take a look at our nominees for July’s Lawyer of the Month and find out….
Here’s the problem with running a law school that publishes a laughable rankings system that magically ranks your school second in the nation. If the school is willing to do that, it makes it possible to question (and laugh at) every single thing that comes out of the school.
Hell, the shoeshine boy who tried to troll Staci couldn’t be dismissed out of hand because he said he was a Cooley grad.
It’s not entirely fair, but the school brings it upon itself, at least in part. That’s probably why I received a number of tweets about the new statue at Cooley Law.
At a regular law school, nobody would take much note of a sculpture of the school’s namesake. At Cooley, it’s pretty easy to read in a hilarious motive….
Why should you let bad grades get in the way of a good job?
Last year, we reported on the strange arrest of Joshua Gomes. Gomes was charged with breaking into the registrar’s office at UVA Law School and trying to steal a ream of transcript paper.
If you think that there’s only one reason that a person would want to steal transcript paper, you’re not going to be disappointed by Josh Gomes’s guilty plea. It’s that familiar story of a person popping his collar while wearing no pants….
What a weird situation…. [But Justice Scalia] is an incredible game player, using intellectual honesty as a trope, and that is the kind of thing that David Wallace would just love.
– Elizabeth Wurtzel, the successful writer turned lawyer and legal commentator, on the surprising friendship between her close friend, David Foster Wallace, and Justice Antonin Scalia.
(The background behind Justice Scalia’s interest in Wallace, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quote of the Day: What Do Liz Wurtzel and Justice Scalia Share in Common?”
No one likes a lazy welfare zombie.
How a person handles a semi-serious discussion of the zombie apocalypse can be an important indicator of a person’s sense of humor and general pleasantness to be around.
At my old apartment in Oakland, my friends and I would often discuss barricading the front door, disabling the elevator, transforming old liquor into Molotov cocktails to hurl off the balcony, how best to make use of the convenience store across the street… some actual thought went into our analysis. (We also lived in Oakland, so there’s that.)
But it’s not just weirdos like me who enjoy this stuff — turns out law professors do, too. Last week, we read about a law prof analyzing Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” And today, we take a look at one legal academic’s investigation into the crazy problems the U.S. government must manage once it is forced to maintain revenues in the face of the rise of the undead….
Okay, now imagine this with a shotgun.
A truly bizarre story is coming out of the woods of Indiana. An attorney, Peter Raventos, has been accused of staging his own shooting.
Police now believe that Raventos rigged a shotgun to shoot him in the back on June 25 at McCormick’s Creek State Park.
Thing is, nobody really knows why. Police haven’t released a suspected motive, and Raventos hasn’t commented on the allegations. But police have found the materials to make an elaborate booby trap that they contend Raventos set for himself.
See, this is the kind of weird ass stuff that happens to Midwesterners with too much time on their hands. I’ve lived in Indy, and there’s only so much time you can spend in the Steak ‘n Shake before you start thinking about things you can do with shotguns….
Continue reading “Lawyer of the Day: Midwestern Attorney Allegedly Sets Trap On Himself”
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
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