If you've ever wondered whether practicing law is more interesting and fulfilling than driving kids to the orthodontist, take a look at Moms Who Won't Quit on The Careerist.
My kids asked me once why I wasn't a "real mom." I answered that if I stayed home all day, I'd vacuum holes in the rugs, alphabetize all their books, and stack their toys by color and size. I kept my day job and we all got by.
Anyone who is still looking for an interesting Fall course should consider Insurance Law. Of course, I may be biased in saying so, but the subject is not only timely, it is a perfect "capstone" course. Insurance law can be thought of as advanced contracts, advanced torts, as well as a course on policy and complex financial regulations. Insurance touches on all areas of the law, and is sure to raise some thought-provoking issues. For example, Bloomberg just released this story on secret profits in life insurance death benefit payouts. What's not to love?!
For thousands of recent law school graduates, today is day two of the bar exam. The elation of graduating has faded and the reality of the test is upon them. I feel vicarious anxiety for all examinees. I doubt any attorney can think of someone sitting a bar exam without feeling a pang of sympathy. The bar is a rite of passage, and the experience of it is not likely to fade from memory any time soon.
For me, day two of the bar exam was a blur. I sat the exam in California, a three-day state. I couldn’t share in the excitement of my peers in Pennsylvania who were anticipating the glorious feeling of finishing the exam, and my own energy was waning. Day two is the multi-state day, and it was all I could do to stay focused on each question as it was hurled in front of my attention. It was hard to set aside the feelings about my performance on day one, and equally challenging to realize that I had another full day of testing yet to go. Friends and professors had encouraged us all to think of the exam as a “test of minimum competence,” but could we? In retrospect, that is exactly what it was, but that is certainly not how one approaches studying for such an important endeavor.
I would guess hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on bar preparation each year between the costs of professional bar review courses, hours invested in studying and sitting the test, and lost wages, etc. The period leading up to the bar exam can be a black hole of expense. Expense alone is a strong motivation to pass the thing on the first try. Unfortunately, however, after today (or tomorrow), the takers will have a long time to wait before hearing the results.
For me, the results came out Thanksgiving week – a full four months after I left the San Diego Convention Center. I wish I could say that I left the results in God’s hands and ceased thinking about the test. Sadly, I can still tell you the subjects of each essay and the order in which I wrote them. I replayed the test and my answers in my mind ad nauseam. This exercise in futility did little to ease my stress, though it did occupy my mind.
I can’t honestly encourage examinees to put the test out of their mind completely, because I don’t believe it is feasible or even wise. I think there is something to be gained from reflection. What I wished I would have done, though, is to give myself a time constraint in my own reliving of the experience. And so I will encourage the July 2010 batch of examinees. Give yourself a week or two (at the most) to reflect on the test itself. Talk about the questions with others, look up the “right” answers, if you desire, and then at the end of your set time, let it go. Write down all of your fears and concerns on a piece of paper and then shred it. The die has been cast, and the results will be revealed in time.
For now, sip a sangria and enjoy a much-deserved break. By taking the test, you have joined a fraternity of professionals who are eager to welcome your skills. Be proud of what you have achieved, and look forward to great things.
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SDG
The New York Times reports that at least ten law schools have raised their grade curves in the last two years. The new rationale for this timeworn response is that students need a competitive edge in a tight job market and higher gpa, however contrived, is just the thing. Ironically, by outing the culprit law schools, the New York Times has probably reversed any advantage their students might have reaped from the sudden lift in gpas.
The premise that a law school can give its graduates the edge in the job market simply by raising their gpas across the board is offensive. Rank in class and rank of law school provide much more useful comparative data than gpa, so the premise that higher gpas, all other things equal, will translate into more job opportunities is dubious. Even assuming that raising the grade curve for all students yields a benefit among a segment of the market (gpa fetishists), the benefit to students at a particular school is at best a wash. Students with otherwise lackluster gpas benefit at the expense of the top of the class who find it increasingly difficult and pointless to distinguish themselves from their peers. If everybody is special as a matter of law school policy, why bother with the time consuming ritual of studying?
Raising the grade curve may make a law faculty feel compassionate in the short run. But all it really accomplishes is to make the faculty less relevant to the market as an evaluator of relative quality. Expert faculty differentiation among students (via competitively awarded grades) is a huge part of what makes a JD valuable. If the market doesn’t perceive any meaningful differentiation among students on the basis of the grades we assign, we’ll be out of business in the blink of an eye. At the very least, we won’t be worth our current salaries.
Two things remain true regardless of the winds of grade inflation. I’d hire someone with a C+ in Corporate Tax over another with an A in (fluff of your choice) any day of the week. And, all students want A’s until the day everybody gets them.
Ironic, isn't it, that proponents of federal overhaul of financial services industry regulation criticize structured finance transactions, derivatives trading and the interconnectedness of national and global financial systems on grounds of complexity. The implication is that mortgage backed securities and other collateralized debt obligation deals were so complicated that even the most sophisticated investors couldn't understand the risks they were incurring.
The bill before the conference committee, Restoring Financial Stability Act of 2010 (H.R. 4173), is over 1600 pages long.
The recent Supreme Court opinion handed down, as they say, in the case of Berghuis v. Thompkins, allows law enforcement to continue questioning a suspect, and to use what that suspect says against him in court, in the absence of an express declaration, either in writing or orally, that the suspect is invoking his right to remain silent.
As with other issues of its kind, this one managed to split nine identically educated lawyers five to four.
Mr. Thompkins, who refused to sign a declaration acknowledging he had been read his Miranda rights, was going along fine maintaining his silence in the face of questioning, until he was done in by the God wheeze:
Detective: "Do you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?"
Thompkins: "Yes."
The jury at trial was presented with this dialog and, inter alia, finding praying for forgiveness for an act evidence of having committed the act, convicted Mr. Thompkins.
Justice Sotomayor dissented in grand fashion, offering a document longer than the opinion. In it, she at least avoided the tired phrase that the majority had stood (Miranda here, but substitute any statute/rule/doctrine) Miranda on its head. In its place, she offered this equally prosaic but less hackneyed synonym: "Today's decision turns Miranda upside down." Justice Sotomayor, seizing on an apparent contradiction flowing from the ruling, writes, "Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent- which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak."
Of course, criminal suspects could say nothing at all. The guilty ones could add that restraint to their tool kit, already containing, for example, guns and knives and such. Mr. Thompkins, perhaps and poetically, was done in by the same lack of impulse control (his own) that did in his victim.
Now we'll find out if the new principle, universally applied, is on balance salutary or not.
