bl1y

CLE.

Continuing Legal Education.  Or, more accurately, Primary Legal Education, because come on, you know you didn’t get any legal education in law school and you can’t possibly continue that which you have not started.

All states have some CLE requirement, and I’ll just use New York’s rules as an example because it’s the legal capital of the world, and it’s the state I’m admitted to practice in, so those are the rules I have to follow.

In your first year of practice you have to take 16 hours of CLE classes; 3 hours of ethics, 6 hours of skills, and 7 hours of practice management/professional practice.  Second year is the same.  After that you are considered an “experienced attorney,” and need 12 hours a year (actually, 24 hours every 2 years).

Sometimes these classes can actually be useful.  I’m sitting in a day-long session teaching DUI defense and the information actually seems pretty practical is this is an area of law you practice in, or if you’re like me, and you drink a whole lot and don’t always make good decisions and may need this information for personal use.

But, for the most part these classes are a chore.  Almost every one of these I’ve been to has involved at least one person falling asleep.  Most people are playing games on their Blackberry, txting, or playing solitaire.  The credits I got from work dealt mostly with subjects that required baseline legal knowledge I simply didn’t have (do you know how LIBOR works?).  The one I got from school was an hour long rant about how evil banks are (but didn’t include any information about how banks actually operate, which would have been really interesting).

It’s a class, but there’s no test at the end, so all you really have to do is keep the chair warm and you get the credit.  It’s basically like majoring in Women’s Studies.

And, you have to pay for this shit.  If you’re at a big firm, you’ll be able to get a lot of classes in house for free, and most law schools offer free credits to alumni (and you can sometimes get free classes from other schools).  But, people at smaller firms who don’t practice near a decent university have to pay for the classes.  And, if you actually want something you might learn from, you’re definitely going to have to pay for it.

The class I’m in is worth 6 credits and costs me $360, which is probably about the norm.  So, we’re talking about $1000 a year for your first two years, and about $700 a year after that.  Not terrible if you’re earning $160,000 a year, though even then, you’ve got bills to pay, or hookers to hire, and can put that money to much better use.

Outside of a party in Lincoln Nebraska, a man called Anna Godfrey “fat.”

In retaliation, she tried to eat him.

Anna Godfrey ran the man down, tackled him, and bit off a chunk of his ear.

This just goes to remind everyone, if you’re going to call a fat girl “fat,” do it earlier on during the party.  Don’t wait until 3:00am when the food has run out and she’s got the munchies, ’cause heifer will fracking try to eat you.

In this installment of Another Crappy Cartoon, I invite you to find where in this picture is the Prophet Mohammad.  He could be anyone, but I will give you one hint: he isn’t the Jew.

Sorry about the crappy quality.  I would just re-scan it and see if I can do better, but I didn’t call this thing Another Crappy Cartoon because I wanted to get hung up on how good it looks.

To all the normal, rational Muslims out there who are offended by the depiction of their prophet, I’m sorry.  I generally try to avoid offending people holding a sincere religious belief.

But, to Zachary Chesser, Revolution Muslim, and militant fascist religious radicals everywhere, go fuck yourselves you fucking fuck fuck fucks.

@:-)>

“Racist” Harvard 3L e-mail goes viral.  The 3L in question sent out an e-mail after a dinner with some fellow conservatives.  The e-mail clarified his point of view regarding genetics and intelligence.  Here’s the e-mail, courtesy of AbovetheLaw.com:

… I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position.

I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.

I also don’t think that there are no cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores (statistically, the measurable ones like income do account for some raw differences). I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. One example (courtesy of Randall Kennedy) is that some people, based on crime statistics, might think African Americans are genetically more likely to be violent, since income and other statistics cannot close the racial gap. In the slavery era, however, the stereotype was of a docile, childlike, African American, and they were, in fact, responsible for very little violence (which was why the handful of rebellions seriously shook white people up). Obviously group wide rates of violence could not fluctuate so dramatically in ten generations if the cause was genetic, and so although there are no quantifiable data currently available to “explain” away the racial discrepancy in violent crimes, it must be some nongenetic cultural shift. Of course, there are pro-genetic counterarguments, but if we assume we can control for all variables in the given time periods, the form of the argument is compelling.

In conclusion, I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true. Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case.

While this was obviously a dumb thing to memorialize in an e-mail, especially in the internet gossip age, I don’t think there’s anything inherently racist or sexist here.

Everyone agrees that some qualities are determined, or at least heavily influenced by genetics.  As the Harvard 3L points out, hair and skin color are basically genetic features, and many genetic features strongly correspond to race (black people tend to have dark skin, duh).  We also know that genetic differences are not skin deep.  Black people are far more likely than whites to have sickle cell, which can cause anemia, but also protect against malaria.  Women have monthly periods and their hormone cycle can affect moods.  (That’s not controversial, that’s just what hormones do, to fracking anyone, just think back to puberty.)  Girls develop language skills faster than boys, and boys are faster thinkers when it comes to spatial awareness.

But, despite all the known ways that genetics affect us, it’s racist to even suggest that there might be a genetic correlation to intelligence.  Bullshit.  If it’s there, it’s there.  It’s a question of fact, not of social policy.  And that’s what this all comes down to, policy.  The 3L did not advocate denying rights to people who are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.  There is a huge difference between what the facts are and the way we, as a society, choose to respond to them.

Human beings cannot fly.  Fact.  We still do anyways, because we’re human beings and built planes.

We can’t breathe under water, so we invented SCUBA gear.  We have vaccines to reprogram our immune systems and can surgically install a pig’s heart valve or a metal joint into a person’s body.

What makes being human such a special thing is that we can look at nature, decide we don’t like it, and tell it to fuck off.  If there is an ethnic group out there that is genetically less intelligent, we’re still allowed to treat them equitably.  And might not it be a good thing to find out, so that we can adjust our educational policies to put everyone on equal footing?

If dyslexia is genetic (and it very likely is), wouldn’t you want to know that it was genetic so that we can better screen for it and get help to kids as early as possible?  Although, with how widespread stupidity is, we may just want to try to treat the whole population, regardless of genetic markers.

On Monday, Porn saved the Hollywood sign.  …That’s a bit of an over statement.  Hugh Hefner donated the final $900,000 (of a total $12.5 million) needed to purchase the sign from the private company that owns the land it is on, and donate to the city so it can become a protected site as part of a government owned park.  Hefner was moved to make the donation in part by his admiration of the Hollywood film industry and the role its iconography has played on Playboy.  He undoubtedly got the money to make such a large donation from pornography profits.  So, in a not-too-roundabout way, porn saved the Hollywood sign.

But, it’s done so, so much more than that.  Gail Dines, professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College, and rabid anti-porn warrior, explains at the Feminist Antipornography Conference that porn has basically caused every major technological and societal advancement the world has ever seen, from the ranch-style open floor plan to high speed internet access.

Now we often think of pornography as benefiting from technological advancement.  It is actually the other way around.  Technological advancement grows because of the pornography industry.  Let me just give you an example of what pornography pioneered on the internet.  They pioneered streaming audio and visual, flash and chat, the click-through ad banner, the pop-up window, and high speed internet connections, as well as security improvements for a new form of a la cart pay services.

That’s right, she thinks the internet and all its bells and whistles were basically developed for the sole purpose of spreading pornography.  There is no doubt that the porn industry has benefited from these advancements and may have even contributed to them, but of course she provides no evidence any pornography research and development departments working on this technology, or research grants from porn companies to develop new technologies.

But you know what?  I’m just going to take her at her word and believe this is true.  Why?  Because it’s awesome if it is.

The internet has revolutionized communication around the world.  Social networking is redefining how we think about relationships.  Print on demand and other long tail economic models, which need global internet connections to function are revolutionizing industries and the economy and may be the single greatest step mankind will ever see in the creation of a truly free, fair, merit-based economy.  If Professor Dines is correct, pornography will lead us further into the stars and to discovering intelligent life on other planets, the greatest discovery mankind will have ever known, just for the purpose of having a new market to sell porn to and new festishes to develop locally.

Kudos to you, pornographers of the world.  Keep on allowing women who may not be able to find gainful work elsewhere to make more money in 10 days than doctors make in two months, and in a cleaner, safer, less-disease ridden environment.  And please, keep advancing our civilization.  I want a hover car by the time I’m 40, and damnit…I’ll watch all the porn it takes to get me there.

You will not get a big law job.

This year Northwestern sent the highest percentage of its students to the big law jobs almost all law students covet.  But, even at the top of the pack, Northwestern managed to secure these positions for only 56% of its students, and that number includes students who have seen their start dates deferred and might ultimately never start at a big firm.

Yes, we’re in a recession, and hiring is way down.  But, even in a great year, like 2008 where graduates had seen two massive pay increases during law school, the top school only got 71% of its grads into big law.  So, best case scenario, 71%, and that’s the best school in a top hiring year.  It’s all down hill from there.

Now, yes, not all students want to go into big law, and that affects the numbers.  A lucky few will land clerkships, and others will opt to do public interest work or go to a midsized or small firm, not out of necessity, but choice.  Still, the vast majority of law students want the big law job and the big law paycheck, and the odds on getting it just aren’t very high.

Unfortunately, there is not yet any sort of survey that compares the jobs students got to the jobs they would have preferred, so any survey is of only very limited utility.  I knew of two people from my graduating class who were unable to find work at a firm.  One of them, after about 40 OCI interviews didn’t manage to eke out a single callback.  That’s just the people I knew about, so there were undoubtedly many more.  This was at a top 5 school.

You may looking at your T3 school and thinking “Whatevs, I don’t want to work 3500 hours at Skadden or Cravath.  You can’t pay the loans with prestige.  I won’t look at the super-prestigious firms, hell, I won’t even look at the top 100!  Big-ish Law, here I come!”

The survey data doesn’t consider Big Law to be the mega-prestige houses, or even the AMLaw 100.  “Big Law” for these purposes are the largest 250 firms.  That’s like considering a “top law school” to be anyone in Tier 1 or 2, or Sarah Silverman to an HB10.

Just because I like reminding people that Al Gore is a giant douchebag, and because I don’t feel like weighing in on the congressional hearings going on today (because I’ll reveal how little I know about the whole financial crisis other than my own personal encounter), here’s a throw back from an older hearing involving explicit lyrics in music from Mr. Al Gore:

It is totally unreasonable in my view to expect parents to sit down and listen to every single song in the albums that their children buy in order to fulfill their responsibilities as parents.

Oh my garsh! Parenting is hard! I can’t spend a whole HOUR listening to an album!

What a fracking joke, how do left wingers worship this guy?

If you don’t have enough time to listen to every album your kid buys, you’re giving your kid too God damn much money.

Go over to Bitter Lawyer today and read the second installment of the Lawyer Wimps panel featuring The Philadelphia Lawyer, Dr. Rob Dobresnki, and your handsomest BL1Y.

From YouTube to Tosh.0 to me to you and back to YouTube.
Walrus sucks own dick.

Bully pantsed.

For those of you who are bored enough to care about this kind of thing (ie: people reading this while at work at a law firm, or sitting in a law school class room), I am down to a sexy 164.1 lbs.  My suit pants still don’t fit, but I am down a full 2.5 lbs from last week’s weigh in of 166.6.

I’m sure most of it was just sweat and I haven’t burned much fat, but I’m still going to keep at it.  I’m exercising somewhere in the realm of “moderate effort,” and try not to pig out on McNuggets every day.  And, aside from getting to wear the rest of my wardrobe and finally finding out whether my abs still exist, I have one really big reason to lose weight:

To spite fat people.

I can’t stand the Fatty McFatfats who go on day time TV shows and talk about how they “can’t” lose weight.  Ohh Dr. Phil, I exercise and eat right and I still don’t lose weight!  Help me Oprah!  Tell me I’m a good person and it’s not my fault!

The truth of the matter is yes, some people do have a harder time losing weight than others.  Some people have slow metabolisms, making it harder to lose weight.  But, there still is this thing called the Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy.  Your body cannot create energy out of nothing.  If you burn more calories than you consume, you will necessarily have to lose weight.  It’s simple physics.  If you spend more money than you earn, you have to dip into your savings.  Same deal.

And for those of you wondering about how I’m going to manage to diet and exercise while still being a drunkard, that’s kinda the point.  I want to do this without starving myself or giving up everything that’s good and holy in the world (=whiskey), just to make the victory that much sweeter.