Thursday, February 23, 2012

The least among us

Founded in 1990, the California State Bar Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization affiliated with the State Bar of California, dedicated to building a better justice system for all Californians. Through the voluntary donations of California lawyers and other donors and the contributions of our corporate sponsors, the Foundation distributes grants to nonprofit organizations, courts, and bar associations for law-related projects; awards scholarships to law school students committed to public service; runs a legal literacy program for high school students; promotes and encourages the philanthropic and charitable efforts of California's lawyers; and supports an array of other education and outreach programs.
From the California Bar Journal:

Listening is job one for new Bar Foundation chief 

Bringing with her a deep understanding of disparities within the American justice system, Sonia Gonzales’ self-imposed goal as the new executive director of the California Bar Foundation is to listen.
Sonia Gonzales
Sonia Gonzales
Listening, explained the former acting head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, is key to expanding the universe of those who support the foundation’s mission to increase access to justice. Gonzales’ official first day with the foundation was January 17.
“The legal community as a whole has a responsibility to help improve access to appropriate legal services for all Californians, especially those from low-income or ethnic minority communities,” said Gonzales, a product of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law. “We will be judged on how we treat the least among us.”

Professor C.,

Feel free to publish the letter below. I sent this to the CA Bar Foundation and a section of the CA Bar itself. It galls me that they prominently feature the new foundation director talking about helping the poor when they can't do anything for their poor attorneys. I am waiting for a response. 

I am really poor. I grew up poor and thought I could change that by going to law school. Instead I'm poorer than my parents ever were with 6 children and one income (at least they didn't have loans to deal with). 

(Excuse the errors in the letter, I was really mad when I wrote it. It's just so unfair; we're in a crisis and institutions like the bar and law schools and even legal employers act like everything is the same as it's always been.)

I want to scream. Even my twin brother tells me it's my fault because I chose to move to California! Imagine that. After years of school, how dare I decide where I want to live? He's under the delusion that if I move elsewhere, I'll have a chance to get a job and that I can apply for federal government positions because I have a JD. It's so depressing all around. We (unemployed law grads) are invisible.

Dear Ms. Gonzales:

It is rather ironic that the Bar Foundation and the Bar Association make such a big deal about caring for "the least among us." The most that they can offer new attorneys who haven't been able to find a job is a meager fee reduction that apparently can't be applied if the deadline is missed. In any regard, the fee reduction is useless if you can't find employment anywhere. 

I have been looking for work in this illustrious field since 2010. I don't have family connections unfortunately. I was the first to go to college and my parents had five other children, thus there isn't any money from them to fall back on. So, while the bar goes on about helping those who are the least and listening to people, I would hope that they would listen to me and the many others like me. Not everyone has a silver spoon or good fortune. I didn't imagine that almost two years after graduation, I would still be unemployed. I never wanted to be rich; I just wanted to be able to provide for myself like my parents weren't able to do.  

I've applied for thousands of jobs and contacted alumni; I would volunteer but I don't have the money to afford to. 

I rue the day I thought that law school was a path to better future. All I have to show for it is a JD that does nothing for me. I had an okay job as a Paralegal before, but I thought (foolishly) that getting a law degree would have been a better option. Now, I see the folly of my decision and it is too late. 

The legal profession does not care about the least among us. Most people only care about people with experience and if you don't have the experience, then you don't matter. It's very funny and bitterly ironic that I will probably get suspended for failure to come up with the fees for my membership because I haven't been able to find a job while the bar association claims to care about people from my social status. 

I'm sure that in the offices and nice board meetings and in the foundation of the Bar Association they are listening to the dozens and dozens of new grads who are struggling to survive when they demand that we pay fees we can't afford. If you really were listening, you would change the system. Even if I found the money later on to pay, I'd always have the fact that I couldn't reflected on my record for the entire world to see, as I willfully chose not to pay. 

You ought to a) excuse fees for people who genuinely can't afford them and b) not tar them with this fact forever on their record.

I realize that this is unorthodox but it is galling to see how injustice goes unchecked within the Bar Association/Foundation and the legal community at large. I guess, if I lose my license, I can take comfort in knowing that while I can't practice law, I can turn to the foundation for help.

With regrets,

[Name redacted. The writer is a 2010 graduate of a top 25 law school, and a member of the California Bar]

I had a conversation yesterday with a younger colleague, i.e., someone who doesn't have the excuse of suffering from Baby Boomer Delusion Syndrome, who on some level simply refuses to believe that the unemployment rate (this means people who have no job of any kind) for our graduates nine months after graduation is nearly 20%.  He insists that a lot of these people could get jobs as lawyers -- mind you, not just jobs, but jobs as lawyers -- if they really wanted to. "Really wanting to," according to him, would include things like getting out of Colorado, where as even a lot of our faculty is finally starting to notice, it's real hard to get a job as a lawyer.  I asked him where they were supposed to go, and he suggested Wyoming (pop. 568,158), Iowa (our CSO is currently listing one job available for a lawyer in the state of Iowa), or Houston.  
At least he didn't say California.
He also suggested that part of the problem is that some people come to law school, especially our law school, wanting to practice international environmental human rights law, and won't "settle" for a six-figure private firm job if they can't get the kind of work they prefer.  (He actually said this).  
Part of the problem here -- "here" being within a ten-minute drive of some of the world's best rock climbing canyons, and an hour away from first-rate ski slopes -- is that there probably are around a dozen or so trustifarian slackers in every graduating class who are going to law school more or less on a whim, and all it takes is a conversation or two with a couple of these people to start imagining that their circumstances are typical of that large portion of our graduates who are either severely underemployed, or simply not employed at all. 

Whatever gets you through the night.






86 comments:

  1. Sounds like your younger co-worker is an idiot. The law school problem is all over and it's not going to go away anytime soon.

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  2. I feel bad for this guy.

    The guy at your school is a moron.

    The bar doesn't care. Why should they?

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  3. From her linkedin profile, it looks like Ms. Gonzalez couldn't hack it in biglaw since she left after only just 6 months.

    See http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sonia-gonzales/6/51/869

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  4. My peers have always regarded the bar associations claims to represent lawyers - i.e., ABA, NY, DC, Law Society as a bit of a joke. They look after the interests of the big firms - and don't care about most lawyers. They also seem to be populated by "legal networkers," that is to say the ubiquitous faces at legal conferences where lawyers go to impress other lawyers (which does not secure many clients.) When it comes to issues like disguised layoffs, or loaded arbitration clauses (the associate gets to choose from a set of big law partners to arbitrate vis-a-vis his/her big law firm) they have been almost totally silent. As I have become more senior in the profession my contempt for bar associations has deepened with every rare encounter.

    Your young colleagues comments I find deeply troubling - is this clown tenured? As someone who practices "international [....] law I would like him to know that he most certainly would not get hired at any firm I have anything to do with because he is so shockingly unaware of what is happening in the profession. Indeed, what worries me is that UC would see fit to employ as a professor at a Law School someone so profoundly unaware of the current state of the legal economy as this buffoon - may he be at the top of the list when the layoffs come - and I wish him good luck on his interviews - he will find it a harsh world out there.

    MacK

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  5. Couldn't hack it? Most of the comments on this site portray Big Law as a horror show. Why is leaving Big Law automatically about not being able to "hack it"?

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  6. Oh dear - looking at Ms. Gonzalez's resumé she is in fact the classic professional group networker - but what is startlingly apparent on her resumé is that she never actually practiced law. She got a poll-sci BA in 199 - ant to a "legal assistant" job for one year at Skadden (read file clerk) and since then she has gone from job to job - a summer at Pillsbury (no offer), less than one year at MoFo - and every other job has been a director/policy role.

    Executive Director
    Interim Executive Director (some org did not get the job)
    Managing Director
    Assistant Director
    Associate
    Extern (??)
    Summer Associate

    I am sorry - but what role does a gilded child with no actual practice experience have as a DIRECTOR!!! let alone a managing director?? huh! Why are lawyers being asked to pay for someone to work in a role for which her only apparent qualifications are networking, political connections and self-promotion.

    MacK

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  7. 6:32 - I think you need to read this young lady's resumé - she has moved from role to role very fast - if I were interviewing her it would raise major red flags

    MacK

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. What did this woman do to have her face plastered on this site, (the first ever) people combing over her resume, and making vile insinuations about her? We do not know what her response was to the letter. The post says her first day on the job was just a month ago, right? Foul stuff.

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  10. 6:54 -

    I don't think I have made any vile insinuations about this young lady - I have pointed out that she has zero practice experience but has successfully managed to get herself into a series of jobs as a Director and Managing Director of lawyers providing such services - a bit like becoming a person teaching people how to be lawyers who has never really practiced as a law professor. I have also suggested that this is classic for Bar Associations

    macK

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  11. 6:54 - She accepted a very public position, and she displays her resume online for the entire world to see. Both of these open one up to positive and negative commentary.

    Her job hopping is a major red flag. Not that she can't be a competent employee, but most people with that kind of resume are leaving jobs before their decisions and work product can ever be judged. But perhaps she would be a great Career Services Officer - it's obvious she has learned how to leverage little experience into getting good jobs.

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  12. @ 7:06, I agree. She put her resume out there.

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  13. Thanks for posting that letter, LawProf. It is strong, because it relies on moral conviction and simple facts. There simply are not enough jobs. The priest of the "profession" merely want to pontificate on how the "profession" seeks to help the poor, destitute and persecuted - but they conveniently "forget" to point out that this field best serves the wealthy and powerful.

    With regards to your younger colleague, he is willfully ignorant, a liar or an idiot. Seeing that he is presumably a "law professor," I lean towards the one of the first two options.

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/the-lawyer-surplus-state-by-state/

    Send this to your colleague. As anyone with basic reading comprehension will note, from 2010-2015, there will be a need for 40 new attorneys each year. In 2009, a total of 113 people passed the state's bar exam. For mathematically-challenged lawyers and "law professors," this figure would be enough to essentially satisfy the state for three years.

    When these cretins say "Go to Iowa" or "Head to Nebraska" - such as child of privilege and "law professor" Sara Stadler - it shows that they simply do not give one damn about their students and recent grads. if they really believe this nonsense, then THEY should quit academia - and work in those states as lawyers.

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  14. Lawprof, have you seen this?
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2004597

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  15. Ms. Gonzales and Barack Obama have a lot in common. Other than having JD degrees, they are both being used by the power brokers to serve as red herrings to the disenfranchised. Barack Obama is an agent of Wall Street and the wealthy. Sure, they put a Black man in the White House to change things up and make minorities believe they have a stake in the nation's political agenda, but it is all a dog and pony show. Ms. Gonzales is another example of a smoke and mirrors show. I have met many minority attorneys who have been destroyed by the decision to attend law school. Do you think Ms. Gonzales loses any sleep over them? The ABA represents biglaw and no one else. In the past 20 years, the practice of law has been made much more onerous on solos and small firms while biglaw benefits from the ABA's policies (e.g., Formal Op. 08-451). At the end of the day, Ms. Gonzales serves her masters at the expense of those who will mistakenly look up to her as a representative of their own.

    Ms. Gonzales is on her way to having a fine career. I only hope she put a high premium on her soul. She actually reminds me of someone I went to law school with. After graduation, my former classmate jumped from one organization to the next holding all these empty "director" titles. She never practiced law one day in her life and never conducted a trial. Today, thanks to her connections, she sits as a State judge. Talk about judicial inefficiency.

    I know it has been said many times but connections trump hard work and sacrifice. I feel terrible for the person who wrote that letter. I also feel horrible for the person who had to ask me yesteday whether he was obligated to pay into the client protection fund even if he has no clients. The answer is an obvious YES. And if you don't, the Bar will come for your law license. It's a pay to play system kids. Know the rules of this game before you decide to embark on a 3 year fools' errand and wind up with six figure non-dischargeable debt.

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  16. MacK-- Geez, it's not all about you. Did you see the comment above mine about how she has gotten jobs? Unless you made that comment, mine was not directed at you. Anybody with half a brain would know exactly what kind of comments this post and picture would elicit-- comments about women sleeping their way to the "top" and complaints about undeserving people of color. And that is what has happened.

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  17. She is a perfect representative of all the academics/admins I've encountered throughout my time in school. Clueless social warriors crying about their little pet issues, patting themselves on their little self-satisfied backs for their sensitivity and ability to fight for "the people." meanwhile all around them rome burns and people are seriously getting hurt....and when you confront them about it all they get this blank look on their face and say something to the effect that lawyers are not their main concern. The worst kind of hypocrites.

    And I just love the people commenting here, wringing their hands over Ca,pos dissecting her very public position.

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  18. Did Gonzales get back to this person? At least he or she wrote a letter rather than anonymously commenting all day on a blog.

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  19. @9:06 - wow I really feel that burn. Discussing an issue on a blog....that really hurts. And what are you doing here?

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  20. I think the post has some relevant things to say about the California Bar. They do offer a fee waiver program, but you need to be making under $40,000 to qualify for the program, and all you get is a reduction in the fees, not a full on waiver. I think it would be far more fair to scale the fees based on income: If you are a biglaw partner making $500,000, perhaps you could pay $800 in fees instead of $400.

    Also, I don't like the way that the CA Bar plasters "Inactice - MCLE Non-Compliance" or "Inactice - Failure to Pay Par Dues" all over a members online profile. This is a huge red flag for potential clients or employers which does is not merited by the seriousness of the offense.

    Lastly, I don't see why people are giving Sonia Gonzalez such a hard time. She is just a cog in a large machine, and probably could not single-handedly change the status quo even if she wanted to.

    CA Bar No. 263***

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  21. Does Ms. Gonzalez get paid to run the foundation? If so, does anyone know how much? Or an estimate?

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  22. The sad fact is that the letter writer, a CA lawyer for pity's sake, cannot make the distinction between the Bar and a charitable foundation associated with it. Gonzales, whatever her merits or shortcomings, cannot do a damn thing about bar fees for unemployed lawyers. Indeed, the Board of Governors of the Bar don't determine this either: the CA Legislature does. So any pain I feel in empathy toward this letter writer is mitigated by his or her appalling lack of awareness about the very basics of the system. It is another demonstration of the fact that it is far too easy for some who should not be attorneys to become attorneys.

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  23. Agree with 10:18.

    Also am appalled by the sexism of commenters earlier in this thread ("golden pussy pass"? "Young lady" for a lawyer several years out of law school?) You people deserve every bit of under/unemployment with which you have to contend. Disgusting.

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  24. I'm always amused by the pearl clutching of legal academics. Confronted with evidence of the vast human catastrophe they've created, they'll do anything to change the subject, even if that requires collapsing onto their fainting couches while engaging in the most egregious victim-blaming.

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  25. "pearl clutching"-- 10:49, he just does not get it. He is more upset about your comment than a comment alleging that a woman none of us knows slept her way to jobs.

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  26. lol, the reason I could never be an academic is because I didn't want to travel wherever.

    I wanted to get a "real" job to give me some flexibility in where I live. But now, apparently, being a lawyer is like being an academic: "Take what you get and be happy!"

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  27. LawProf @ 10:57 - if I'm (10:49) the one you are accusing of pearl-clutching and collapsing (in somewhat gendered, sexist language as well): I'm a practicing attorney, not a legal academic. I have very little love for the US legal academy. What I am saying is: I feel no sympathy at all for unemployed attorneys who show their misogynist, sexist colors. That's not victim-blaming: that's saying that I don't care about the welfare of victims who happen to be outrageous bigots. (Similarly, I would feel little regret if outright racists were unable to find employment as attorneys. The racists may be victims of unrelated wrongs, but really, I just can't bring myself to care.)

    11:03: exactly.

    - 10:57

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  28. Er, I meant to sign the above comment @ 11:17 as "10:49," not "10:57" - sorry.

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  29. 11:17 is a woman for sure. Men just don't complain like that.

    -Man

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  30. "pearl clutching"... and images of people who object to sexism or racism as "collapsing on their fainting couches". Anything associated with women=bad.

    It's not changing the subject. When you are in a conversation and someone makes racist or sexist comments, it's good for people to point that out and object. That is not a weakness, folks. It's a strength. That is how society has made progress in these areas. Not enough, of course, but a lot. The conversation about substance can continue. That's how bigots keep their game going. They throw bigoted comments into conversations that, of course, don't require bigoted comments, and if you say, "Hey, that's not needed. We can talk about the problems with this system without all that", they come back and say you're trying to change the subject. They want to tell their "nigger"/woman jokes without challenge, in other words to normalize their toxic viewpoints by injecting them into everyday conversation.

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  31. She is a perfect representative of all the academics/admins I've encountered throughout my time in school. Clueless social warriors crying about their little pet issues, patting themselves on their little self-satisfied backs for their sensitivity and ability to fight for "the people." meanwhile all around them rome burns and people are seriously getting hurt....and when you confront them about it all they get this blank look on their face and say something to the effect that lawyers are not their main concern. The worst kind of hypocrites.

    Exactly. A law professor who cares so deeply about social issue X couldn't possibly be taking advantage of an unfair system.

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  32. "He also suggested that part of the problem is that some people come to law school, especially our law school, wanting to practice international environmental human rights law, and won't "settle" for a six-figure private firm job if they can't get the kind of work they prefer. (He actually said this). "

    Of course he did. He's a law professor, i.e. an asshole who can not distinguish his imagination with reality. Whatever he can think of in his mind, is scientific fact. That's why law is the least helpful segment of academia - it adds nothing but lies to the world, often due to no reason other than the speaker's stupidity and ignorance.

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  33. "They want to tell their "nigger"/woman jokes without challenge..."

    You're behind the times. A big law partner is about the last person you'd be likely to hear today making anti-Black jokes. You will still hear woman jokes in certain settings, but they tend to be as offensive as a Ray Romano routine.

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  34. @ Terry Malloy-- no, it's not the tolerance police, it's the "white man ain't go no more rights" crowd. They've been around much, much, longer than the so-called tolerance police.

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  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  36. @ 11:43, you don't know the real world.

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  37. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  38. I apologize for my earlier quasi-trolling. That is a bad habit.

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  39. @11:43-- Who said anything about big law partners? Where did that come from? Ray Romano, huh?

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  40. @11:49-- I wouldn't dream of it...

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  41. I wrote the letter and I sent to the blog. I sent it to Ms. Gonzales (and to part of the Bar as well).

    "The sad fact is that the letter writer, a CA lawyer for pity's sake, cannot make the distinction between the Bar and a charitable foundation associated with it. Gonzales, whatever her merits or shortcomings, cannot do a damn thing about bar fees for unemployed lawyers."

    I know where I sent it. I sent to her and to a part of the bar that deals with helping the least fortunate, for lack of a better phrase. I know that she does not set the fees, but she has influence. I sent it to her because she makes some very strong statements regarding "the least fortunate" and because she is prominently featured on the Bar's website. It's time that the system changes.

    As you point out, it is the CHARITABLE foundation of the bar. I also understand that there likely are currently rules in place concerning how their money is distributed, but I don't think it's asking too much for "charity" to be extended to the people within the bar who need it. (You will see that I also ask that they also cease to permanently brand people for the inability to pay, which costs nothing.)

    In my opinion, the Bar, like too much of law school, is running on an outdated model. All of the rhetoric about giving back and helping means nothing when you ignore members of the bar who need help. The way I see it is if the bar makes it a priority, they can lean on legislature to bring about changes. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing the bar lobbies and has connections with the legislature. The legislature is more likely to listen to the bar than to me, a single unemployed attorney.

    I don't know why on earth someone,especially in these times, has to be branded as not being able to pay. Understand, that after being reinstated, the person is still listed as not having been able to pay at one time. That never goes away, under the current system.

    My goal is to get people thinking about why this is so and to ask their bar associations to think about their policies and the affects they have on people who can't pay due to current employment climate. We're in an emergency situation, in my opinion.

    I don't think it's fair to attack Gonzales personally. She is where she is for whatever reason, but I want to call attention to the need to help members of the bar itself who are in dire need of help.

    I am still waiting for a response from the bar or the foundation.

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  42. @ 11:44,

    This thread is now about whatever the non-genedered version of pearl clutching is. "her or his accessory" clutching?

    I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

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  43. I'm personally not familiar with the phrase golden pussy pass" (a check of the Urban Dictionary doesn't help). I took it as a crude reference to the undeniable fact that appearance matters in employment, and that appearance matters much more for women than for men, because of sexist gender norms. I realize it could be interpreted in a more derogatory fashion, to mean an accusation that somebody slept their way into a job, but I didn't take it that way.

    In any case, it's a classic rationalization to dismiss the wrongs done to an enormous and diverse class of people because some portion of them supposedly have this or that character flaw. Indeed that's the "logic" behind victim-blaming via stigmatization.

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  44. "I may be wrong, but I'm guessing the bar lobbies and has connections with the legislature."

    Understatement of the decade.

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  45. No one is dismissing the wrongs done to people. That is not it at all. The correspondent has raised an important point worth talking about.

    You are old enough to know that pussy means a lot of things, but one of its major meanings refers to sex. Sex aside, it's not explained in the post how what she looks like relates to whether she can help the person who wrote to her. Putting her picture there-- again the first time I think I've ever seen a picture on this site--was an invitation to the kind of comments that appear on the Internet when the pictures of women, particularly those who are being made targets of the article/post, appear on sites. If you think what she looks like, and speculation about how she got her job, is relevant to helping this person who needs help, that should have been (should be) spelled out. Otherwise, it looks like a diversion, a cheap shot diversion at that.

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  46. Actually, Ms Gonzales has the perfect qualifications to head a bar foundation. She is young, attractive, a good networker, probably a good speaker and able to speak of the bar's concern for and committment to the underserved at some length without giggling. No actual legal or administrative skills are required in such a job. Bar foundations are PR operations designed to improve the bar's image by doing a few high profile projects providing "legal services" to the poor and unfortunate and seeing to it that these meager and mostly pointless, effortsare highly publicized.

    By the way, the truely poor, with a few exceptions, rarely need "legal services." They need money. If you asked one of my old welfare clients whether she would rather have $50,000 in legal services from some white shoe law firm to fight her eviction or $10,000 cash to find a decent appartment she would take the money every time.

    And the "golden pussy" comment was simply vile.

    RPL

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  47. @12:05
    I am going to make this simple. If you cannot pay $125 to go inactive, then resign from the Bar. You can have the patina of social prestige from being a former member without the stigma of the public realizing you couldn't pay a small fee to maintain your membership.

    It's not about bar fees. It's about the oversupply of lawyers for the market. AS LawProf has pointed out repeatedly, there are too many schools churning out too many JDs who become attorneys with no prospect of employment with a firm and rarely sufficient practice skills to hang a shingle and make a profit.

    The pyramid has always crushed some people. The difference now is that those people getting crushed also have >$100K in non-dischargable debt.

    You are wasting time waiting for a reply from the Foundation. A quick glance at their annual report will show you that they are nothing but a pass-through for the guilt offerings of the BigLaw firms in California who need to appear concerned about diversity and legal outreach to under-served minorities. They are not going to help you.

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  48. LawProf is very subversive. This is simply his way of causing the white male commentariat to expose its true loathsomeness.

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  49. "He also suggested that part of the problem is that some people come to law school, especially our law school, wanting to practice international environmental human rights law, and won't "settle" for a six-figure private firm job if they can't get the kind of work they prefer. (He actually said this). "

    I am trying hard to get my head around this comment. Lawprof, are you sure you heard him correctly? Perhaps the other commenters will laugh at me for my own cluelessness regarding law professors, but it just staggers the imagination that even a law professor in 2012 could be this dense to the situation around him. Does he not talk to his students? Has he ever met the director of career services? When he made this statement, did you ask him to elaborate or confirm that he was not being facetious? How long has he taught?

    I am not questioning your veracity; its just that his statement is a much further journey into the Land of Obtuseness than the usual "its the recession and it will get better".

    Tricia Dennis

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  50. Oh shut the fuck up. Nobody cares. You wished all the ills of no employment and 6 figures on people because of what YOu perceived as sexist. Thats is a million times worse than what the worst sexist can come up with. Now take those pearls and shove them up your ass...if you can manage to loosen up your sphincter, that is.

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  51. ...comment above aimed at the pearl clutter.

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  52. @12:13,

    Indeed.

    The CA Bar's Executive Director/Lobbyist is Joe Dunn, a former State Senator from the less glamorous part of Orange County (a moderate Dem, as the CA GOP is irrelevant statewide).

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  53. As a woman, I agree the "golden pussy" comment was vile; but as a human being, not a fraction as vile as what law schools and enablers like state "Bar Foundations" are doing to over-whelming numbers of young people whose only crime was they wished to enter the practice of law. "Bar Foundations" are established for two purposes: 1) to convince the public that lawyers are not as vile as it thinks we are; and 2) to have annual award dinners to stroke the egos of BigLaw and convince themselves that what they do to the public (in some cases) is not as vile as the public believes it to be.

    Tricia Dennis

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  54. LawProf, regarding your colleague's inability (or unwillingness) to comprehend the current state of the legal market, have you ever considered that law professors are sort of a giant Milgram experiment? Law professors and Milgram's unwitting subjects are not entirely analogous, of course, but in a fundamental sense both are inflicting great pain on others by obeying authority - the Milgram subjects followed explicit orders while law professors follow more amorphous "authorities" such as the desire for pecuniary gain and the perceived increase in social status resulting from employment at a more prestigious (and expensive) institution. The only significant difference between the Milgram subjects and law professors that I can identify is that the Milgram subjects actually acknowledged the cries for help from their victims and felt remorse for their actions.

    Here’s a quote from Milgram’s book, as true today as the day it was written:

    “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

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  55. Yes, attacking vile with vile is the way to go.

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  56. The "golden pussy pass" comment is both offensive and pointless - it lowers the standard of discussion, introduces crude and irrelevant speculation and should be deleted.

    MacK

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  57. I'm with MacK. It is pretty offensive. Deleting a comment like that seems within Prof. C's discretion. I think it should go. (and this one petitioning for its deletion).

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  58. Tricia,

    I added the parenthetical because I knew outsiders would find that comment literally unbelievable. All I can say is that there's no way I would have believed the extent to which many legal academics are in absolute and total denial if I hadn't seen it myself first hand. (Not *all* legal academics of course).

    This level of cluelessness is, in my view, largely a product of a combination of class privilege (these tend to be people who have never had anything like a serious economic problem in their lives) and unconscious self-protective repression.

    12:44: Excellent point about Milgram. That's a frame well worth thinking about when trying to understand how we've gotten where we are.

    Per several requests I've deleted the offensive comment. (The only reason Gonzales' photo showed up is because I cut and pasted the portion of the article in which the photo was embedded.)

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  59. LawProf: Re your young colleague. It is a very hard thing to realize that an enterprise in which you have invested a large chunk of your life, which you rely on for your livelihood, and which you always believed was worthwhile, has become deeply corrupt, even when the evidence is staring you in the face. Let us hope he comes to that realization, however painful it may be.

    RPL

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  60. Thanks for removing the post, Law Prof.

    About your colleague, have you tried organizing a more general discussion about these issues among your faculty? Talking to one person is better than nothing, but a more widespread discussion might be better.

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  61. When I passed the CA bar in early 2010, the CA Bar Association had a fee waiver signed under penalty of perjury for annual fees if the respondent made under $20,000. 2 years later, in 2012, there is no fee waiver, only a fee "reduction", of less than half the total amount (I believe the annual fee is $400 and the reduction is $150 off, for a total of $250 due). I guess enough people were waiving their fees (most likely due to the fact that they do not have jobs) and CA Bar Association caught onto this. If there is anything I have learned about legal academia and credentialing, its that the administrators/professors/directors/etc. WILL get paid.

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  62. "I guess enough people were waiving their fees (most likely due to the fact that they do not have jobs) and CA Bar Association caught onto this."

    Probably true. Fucking assholes.

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  63. It's also amazing how efficiently and swiftly the CA Bar Association acted in remedying this "problem". There were no panels, or forums, or conferences held to debate and discuss the fee waiver, as is the case when the "leaders" of our profession meet to discuss problem areas such as tuition reduction, legal employment, and academic reform in multiple locations for cocktail conferences and never come to an answer. I guess when the problem directly affects one's interest they have more incentive to act effectively and swiftly. Weird.

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  64. A few years ago the Governator vetoed the annual legislation authorizing the bar to collect fees because the state bar failed to investigate several thousand complaints attorney misconduct relating to foreclosures. Also there was an accusation that some State Bar employees embezzled a hundred thousand dollars as well.

    I remember it being a big shock, at least to the state bar, and they sent all sorts of letters to their members (including me) decrying the governor's move. My take is that although the assembly passes the law, it usually just rubber stamps the bar's recommendations, so to the extent that the above poster cites the ignorance of the subject writer I encourage her to think cui bono, especially since a portion of the voluntary funds go to these sorts of foundations.

    I think it would be interesting to see if complaints to California assembly and senate members about the bar collecting fees from impoverished and new attorneys might result in a further or complete reduction. As a member of three bars (tough market means I needed a WIDE net), I'd certainly be willing to write a letter. Anyone else with me?

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  65. 2:30: I've had some limited success in getting a formal institutional discussion going regarding these subjects. I've also had lots of informal discussions with various co-workers. Progress is happening, hard as that is to believe on many a gray day.

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  66. Yes, it looks like you're right, 2:31: http://www.calbarjournal.com/February2011/TopHeadlines/TH4.aspx

    I'm a bit torn on this one, as an active, practicing California bar member. I was unemployed for nine months total split between late 2010 and early 2011, but I was ineligible even for the partial fee waiver because my income for the first part of 2010 was too high. I asked the bar to consider allowing me the partial waiver, given that I could document that my income had dropped to $0. The state bar responded to my thoughtful, detailed request documenting my financial hardship with this terse note:

    "Fee scaling is based on last year’s income.

    Thank You

    MBS"

    I bit the bullet and paid the $400, snarling royally. It was unclear to me what services the bar was providing me as an unemployed, incomeless lawyer that warranted my having to pay $400 - or even deal with the administrative hassling of going active, paying $125, and possibly having to pay more later to reactivate my membership. Nor is it very clear to me why our bar dues are so expensive relative to many other states, in the first place.

    Then again, I'm not comfortable with the original writer's analogy between unemployed attorneys (who honestly are not likely to be low-income in the long-term) and impoverished low-income individuals of all professions who are likely to remain so in the long-term. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the Bar Foundation to choose to focus its efforts on the latter group. But I would like an accounting of why $400/year is necessary for any of us to pay, such that no full waiver can be granted even for people whose earnings are zero.

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  67. 2:45 here. Note: the above exchange with the state refers to payment of 2011 dues. I was employed for 2012 and my employer paid my bar dues, as seems fairly standard in this field.

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  68. I don't think the analogy was simply to unemployed professionals, I think it was to all poverty stricken people which, I think, is more problematic.

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  69. this is 2:45/46: yes, I intended to write that the author had drawn an analogy to all poverty-stricken people. When I wrote "of all professions," I meant "of all occupations" - whether they would be considered white/blue/pink collar. And yes, I agree with you, 2:59, that that makes the original writer's analogy more problematic.

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  70. Is anyone here hip, or are you all squares? Play some jazz and daddy-o.

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  71. "I'm not comfortable with the original writer's analogy between unemployed attorneys (who honestly are not likely to be low-income in the long-term) and impoverished low-income individuals of all professions who are likely to remain so in the long-term. "

    I don't know that I am not likely to be low-income in the long-term. I graduated in 2010, this is beginning to feel long-term to me. I think there is a class bias. It's assumed that because one has a law degree he isn't one of "them."

    That may be true for some, but it isn't for me. I know from first hand experience that most people in law school came from a different class from me. I'd be surprised if 5% of my class came from my social class. We're not talking "lower middle class" either.

    That's what makes me so mad. People seem to think that everyone with a law degree is from the middle class and above. For some of us, that's not the case. How many people in law school had a mother who picked up cans to support herself? How many had parents who borrowed from them as a teenager because they didn't have money? Or used brown paper bags as toilet paper? Anyone ever get food from thrift stores?

    I suspect not too many.

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  72. 3:35: thanks for sharing your experiences. Please note that I didn't say that there were no attorneys of lower-class origin. But I stand by my point that attorneys are extremely unlikely to remain in the lower class throughout their careers.

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  73. @4:22 you do know that there are less jobs than attorneys, right? and you do understand that many students have six figure loans to contend with, right? I'd like to know why you think that they're unlikely to remain lower class, given the realities of the legal profession.

    businesses are balking at paying through the nose like before, new grads are working for free just to get an entry-level position, work is being outsourced to other countries.

    Last year the NY TIMES has a story about new, sophisticated computer programs replacing human document reviewers (and that's the basement of legal work).

    What used to be done by rooms full of attorneys can be accomplished by only a few.

    Each year ~46,000 new attorneys are dumped onto the market. The NY TIMES also had a story referencing that law in no longer the "golden ticket" it used to be.

    I think your statement may have been true in the past, but I doubt it's "likely" to be true in the future. I mean no disrespect, but I believe it's attitudes like yours, sincerely held, that permits the severity of the situation to go unnoticed.

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  74. I don't think we know that.

    Are many attorneys/J.D.s unlikely to remain *truly destitute*? One hopes; and one can reasonably suppose that hard-working, somewhat intelligent individuals will manage to remain at least able to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves.

    But poor? I think the jury's out. There are plenty of hard-working, reasonably intelligent people who are poor, and who have limited prospects of social and economic advancement.

    Wishing upon a J.D. is what got so many of us into this mess.

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  75. Above's addressed to 4:22, of course.

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  76. "Nor is it very clear to me why our bar dues are so expensive relative to many other states."

    Because California is a bankrupt mess. You have prison guards and highway patrol officers retiring in their 40's with outrageous pensions for life. Illegal aliens are provided with free access to health care and education. Who do you think is going to pay for all this? You are.

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  77. I can't pay my bar 2012 bar dues. Don't know when I'll be able to, either. The late fees are piling up, which is hilarious to me, because if I can't pay the dues, I certainly can't pay the late fees either.

    The state bar doesn't care--they want their $$$.

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  78. 4:52: While I support each of the things you describe - I don't think that most law enforcement officers are retiring in their 40s, exactly, but I'm fine with 20/30-years-to-generous-pension options - I don't believe that I'm paying for them via my bar dues.

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  79. In my opinion, someone's level of wealth is best reflected by his assets versus the amount of debt he has. Someone who borrows a lot of money to buy a lot of fancy things is not wealthy, even if they drive an expensive car or have a huge tv.

    It's true that people who get a law degree probably won't always be unemployed and earning rock bottom poverty-level wages. Lawyers may have a worthless degree and the obstacle of being overqualified to contend with but in my experience, they are smart and hardworking people and that is an advantage, even for low-paying unskilled labor positions. A stereotypical impoverished person is less likely then an impoverished lawyer to increases his wages but he is also unlikely to accumulate anywhere near the unsecured debt that the impoverished lawyer has. The stereotypical impoverished person also has the opportunity to try and start over through bankruptcy if they get into debt, something an indebted lawyer would not have the opportunity to do so.

    Even though lawyers will probably make more money in income then the type of person the California bar would like to help, I doubt the lawyers would in reality ever be wealthier than them.

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  80. "I can't pay my bar 2012 bar dues. Don't know when I'll be able to, either. The late fees are piling up, which is hilarious to me, because if I can't pay the dues, I certainly can't pay the late fees either.

    The state bar doesn't care--they want their $$$.'

    This pretty much sums up the state bar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs

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  81. "the above exchange with the state refers to payment of 2011 dues. I was employed for 2012 and my employer paid my bar dues, as seems fairly standard in this field."

    My employer won't pay sh!t for me. You are lucky.

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  82. Yeah, I have one of those "luxurious" federal jobs and my employer doesn't pay my bar fees either.

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  83. 5:26/6:04 - If you work for the feds, you have generally better benefits and pay than me, at least in my region. I work for the State of California, which pays bar dues for attorneys in JD-required positions. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that the federal government had the same policy for JD-required positions. I know that they didn't pay my bar dues as a law clerk, but that's at least partly because you don't need an active bar membership to be a law clerk.

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  84. @5:25. Nice clip.

    If you have a job, at least you may be able to pay dues.

    What do dues get us? There isn't even a job board (or if there is, I can't find it...maybe because I haven't paid?)

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