Thursday, June 21, 2012

A brief note for Jessi Freud et. al.

Yesterday perpetually clueless baby boomer and (unwitting?) law school shill Victoria Pynchon lent her blog space on Forbes.com to prospective law student Jessi Freud, who wrote a short piece on why she's planning on going to law school this fall -- specifically Nova Southeastern.  Ms. Freud's motivations for her decision seem both laudable and painfully naive: she wants to help "the little guy," and "do something I believe in."

An army of commenters soon descended, and let her know -- for the most part politely but firmly -- why her career plan is at best unrealistic and indeed potentially quite disastrous.  The commenters were not nearly so gentle with Pynchon, who proceeded to indulge in demographically symptomatic levels of narcissistic grandiosity that are impossible to parody. Sample:

I’ve been working to change unfairness in the political and justice systems since I was an 11th grade student protesting the war in Vietnam and writing letters to the editor of the local newspaper urging passage of an Act to permit 18 year olds to vote. I wasn’t alone of course. But how about that? The war didn’t end as soon as we wanted it to but there’s no draft anymore (you’re welcome) and the voting age is 18.  [In a later comment Pynchon complains that her critics still refuse to thank her and others of her generation for "ending the draft." This is apparently not intended as a joke]
Pynchon also advises aspiring lawyers to commit malpractice in order to learn their trade:

I know many young attorneys today who hung out shingles immediately after graduation. They found mentors (I’ve mentored young attorneys) and learned the way we all learn how to practice law – by failing. Sure, I had advice from my young attorney employers, but you go to court for the first time alone. The Judge asks you “can you give me an offer of proof?” and you flip the papers in your file thinking “what’s an offer of proof, what’s an offer of proof” until the Judge takes pity on you and asks your witness the necessary questions herself. You take deposition testimony for the first time alone. Opposing counsel roughs you up. Finally, they tell you what you’re doing wrong because they can’t waste their entire day while you re-formulate questions in response to their foundational objections that you don’t need to re-ask. You try your first case alone with butterflies in your stomach, your hands shaking and your armpits sweating. One old grizzled defense attorney told me that if you didn’t gag over your toothbrush the first day of trial, you shouldn’t be trying cases anymore; you’d lost your edge. You enroll at Solo Practice University. You join Bar associations. You stay up all night reading. You pick up the telephone and ask for help. You start with small cases. You’re not representing people in capital murder cases. There’s not that much you can screw up. Just don’t blow the statute of limitations.
(No, I didn't make this up).

Anyway, Freud was given plenty of excellent reasons to reconsider her choices, to which I have nothing to add, other than to emphasize that the main reason going to law school to "help the little guy" is probably not a good plan at present is that the little guy doesn't have any money, and therefore he can't pay you, which you won't find out until you try to collect your bill (The two most critical professional skills for any non-government attorney -- getting clients and then getting them to pay -- are never touched on in law school, for the very good reason that no law professor in the recorded history of American legal education has ever acquired a client or collected a bill).

Again, all this represents progress.  Victoria Pynchon is almost surely beyond hope, but at least she's no longer allowed to broadcast her pernicious nonsense without being called to account by a host of passionate and extremely well-informed voices, including those of unimpeachable authority figures such as Deborah Merritt, who makes an appearance in the comments.

I do have one practical suggestion for Jessi Freud, and others in her situation:  Go to Florida's bar's web site, and do an attorney search for 2011 graduates of Nova Southeastern (Click on expanded search, and use the drop down tabs to search by year of graduation and law school).  Spend a couple of hours looking up what these people are doing, and asking yourself how many of them appear to have jobs -- that is, among those who have jobs -- that bear any resemblance to the kind of job you envision yourself going to law school to get.  Then call or email a random assortment of them, and talk to a dozen or so.  The life you save may be your own.


140 comments:

  1. Ninety-Seventh!!!!!!! YESSS!!! Wooo-WHOO!!!!! BUUUUWHAHAHAHAHAHAH! (Like that and all...)

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  2. So epic. Campos' writing is second to none.

    A+ blog.

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  3. I was waiting for this all morning, and it was so worth it. Thank you, LawProf!

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  4. All of my law professors were NOT mentors. They were mentorly retarded.

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  5. Jessi Freud is so attractive she can make any mistake she wants, and someone will bail her out.

    Men and unattractive women live in a harsher world.

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  6. "Demographically Symptomatic Narcissistic Grandiosity"

    LOL. Can I borrow that one and make it into a T-Shirt and bumper sticker slogan?

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  7. To Jessi and all the others who imagine it will be easy to walk into an entry level "public service" type job with just a little hard work and gumption, I offer this: the Social Security Administration recently posted an entry-level position in one of the crappier components of the agency, requiring relocation to Woodlawn, MD (one of the crappier "suburbs" of Baltimore), with a "non-negotiable start date" identified in the posting. The announcement was to remain open for only 3 days, or until 200 applications had been received. Guess what, those 200 applications were received within 1 day and the posting was closed.

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  8. Typical dumb baby boomer asshole, who wants credit for everything, gives you idiotic and impractical advice (hey moron, who the fuck is going to pay your rent while you're acting like an inexperienced in court and in depositions; and for that matter how are you even going to get clients when 100 experienced attorneys are chasing every client with an ability to actually pay money?)

    Fucking dumb bitch.

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  9. This was the most unexcusable comment from Pynchon:
    "There’s plenty of work to go around. Try bankruptcy, elder abuse, estate planning, tax."

    Demonstrably, monstrously, and irredeemably false.

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  10. Exactly 10:12. The only work of which there is "plenty" is clients with no money - not even for expenses - who want free representation.

    Dumb dumb bitch. Why does an utter idiot annoint herself into a position where she is GIVING FUCKING ADVICE IN A NATIONAL MEDIA OUTLET THAT COULD RUIN THE LIVES OF COUNTLESS PEOPLE?!?!

    It's one thing to be an idiot. It's another to be a harmful idiot.

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  11. "Jessi Freud is so attractive she can make any mistake she wants, and someone will bail her out."

    Not so. A pretty educated woman makes a good wife, sure, but inheriting her $200,000 student loan debt seriously drops her qualifications for such a position.

    That being said, I do know a guy who married someone like this and who constantly holds the monthly student loan bill over the wife's head in the constant mind-game that is a relationship.

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  12. I went into law to help the little guy too. Except my version of the little guy had deep and wide pockets full of cash.

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  13. You people are all being far too kind on this asshole.

    What she is really doing: taking a three year vacation and giving her three years to get an Mrs. -- all by stealing from the taxpayers.

    How she makes herself feel better about it: "I want to do good."

    ALL, AND I MEAN ALL of the "I want to do good" people that I knew in law school were the biggest hypocritical assholes you could ever know.

    Fuck you Ms. Freud.

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  14. Can someone invite Victoria to this post so that she can comment? Once I make some popcorn, I would really like to continue the debate.

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  15. Yeah, back during my brief stint on match.com (mistake, I know) I made a joking reference to being "awed" by the amount of my student loan debt (this was pre-recession), and I got so much hate mail from dudes saying that no guy would ever "take me on" when I had student loan debt, I should get used to being alone forever, etc. etc. etc. This when I had given no indication whatsoever that I even wanted to be married (I don't), or much less, that I would expect a partner to pay any part of my debt! There's a real hatred and scorn for "debtors" and I think it's even worse directed at men towards women (we're all assumed to be gold-digging whores even if we make a bigger salary than the guy we're dating, etc.)

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  16. Should be "directed BY men towards women."

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  17. That's what you get for being honest 10:25. Now you know to get the guy to dump a baby in you before you disclose that fact.

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  18. During today's Barbri lecture on Con law, Chemerinsky used the following hypo to illustrate a situation when states may be sued in exception of the principle of sovereign immunity: A former student from a public, state university begin bankruptcy proceedings to discharge her outstanding student debt.

    I don't know whether he was being ironic, a dick, or just clueless.

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  19. What was Chemerinsky's reasoning exactly?

    Wow talk about academics being utterly incompetent lawyers. Ask him if he'll take such a case!

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  20. Prof. Campos, you neglected to mention Ms. Pynchon's indignation over a commenter mentioning that perhaps she had a boost in the legal profession by virtue of her father having served as the Commissioner for the Courts in CA. She went apeshit ballistic after that comment was posted.

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  21. This thread is in very real danger of being hijacked into an ugly debate regarding women, men, debt, and dateability.

    I vote that we focus on Victoria instead - she is just too good a topic to ignore.

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  22. "She went apeshit ballistic after that comment was posted."

    Typical hypocrital asshole.

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  23. Hey 10:29, why don't you stfu and let things develop organically into what they will?

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  24. 10:25:

    Of course the way the government has set up IBR, if you do get married someday, your non-debt owing spouse (assuming no student loans) salary will get counted towards your monthly payment. I hear you though.

    When I was internet dating, my automatic disqualification was student loan debt. I found that the only way to find someone without SL debt was to limit my qualification to those without a college degree. It worked. I am married to a very bright, debt-free non-college woman with a great job, great mind, and a great hot tight little body:).

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  25. Back to Vicki:

    What makes her unique is that she is the embodiment of everything that we are up against:

    Baby Boomer-and all the associations that go with it.

    Connected through her family.

    A shill.

    A benefactor of the current system.

    Clueless...even in the face of damning evidence to the contrary.

    Unbalanced?

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  26. If the quote above is accurate, Chemerinsky didn't say student LOAN debt - he said "student debt." This could be debt from a single unpaid tuition bill. As long as there wasn't a formal loan involved, this type of debt might actually be discharable - probably why schools won't let students register for another semester of classes if they have an unpaid balance on their account.

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  27. One thing that I seriously debated as I was reading the comment thread was whether or not she truly believed what she was saying?

    It seems pretty incredible to me that she could - - in good faith - - believe the truth of what she was saying, especially since she has a kid that graduated not too terribly long ago and is likely seeing the effects of what we are talking about first hand.

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  28. Professor Campos,

    Its the guy that constantly posts about union jobs.

    If you have some time, PLEASE go to the Forbes site immediately and address some of the things Ms. Pynchon is saying. For instance:

    "http://www.law.ucla.edu/career-services/Pages/employment-statistics.aspx Do you really think this is a bad bet? Do you challenge these statistics? you practice in Sacramento? Where did you go to law school and when? What would you be doing now if you hadn’t gone to law school? Would you recommend Harvard? Stanford? Yale? Any of the UC law schools? What is the effect of the recession on current job prospects? The recession hasn’t only hurt new lawyers but also people in academics, social service, government service, teaching, etc. Assume I’m a 20 something with a new liberal arts degree. Would you recommend business school? A skilled trade? Who would you trust to ask what the best bet would be for a recent college grad to chart a future in which she might be able to earn enough money to support a family?"

    Alot of people are getting angry there, and their anger is clouding their ability to deal with this person's arguments effectively. I was admitted to several Top 20 institutions (comparable to UCLA), and I know people that went to comparable places that are destroyed. Several people advised me to go to some of the T20s that admitted me using arguments and implications that are similar to those made by Ms. Pynchon. Now, I do not consider myself a success by any stretch of the definition of success, but graduating debt free from law school has made my hell more tolerable than had I been in debt. I was very close to taking out 200k in non-dischargeable debt to go to some of these places too. I AM CERTAIN THAT PEOPLE THAT ARE IN A SIMILAR POSITION TO MY 0L POSITIONS, AND LEMMINGS IN GENERAL, ARE READING HER RESPONSES NOW.

    You need to go to that site and handle things the way you know how, using arguments, facts, and statistics in a cool, calm and rational manner (with the occasional sophisticated smack down). IF YOU DO NOT GO TO THE SITE, THE ARGUMENTS WILL BE DISMISSED AS INCORRECT BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ADDRESSING THIS WOMAN’S POINTS IN A DIRECT AND FACTUAL MANNER, AND MORE PEOPLE WILL BE OBLITERATED.

    I REALLY HOPE YOU HELP. Sorry for the caps (I just do not want to see people wind up like me or worse).

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  29. @10:12

    bankruptcy = a tricky area of the law that is ripe for malpractice. Most newbies who make mistakes are not even aware of them.

    estate planning = only makes sense if you can get rich clients... but how can someone right out of law school with zero experience do that?

    tax = can only be done profitably for a wealthy client base

    elder abuse? what is that?




    , elder abuse, estate planning, tax."

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  30. Folks, may I make a suggestion. Lets try not to make comments about women being, well bed able, or guys not wanting in debt wives, or men being pigs (or abortion and law school debt). Apart from the detail that it is sexist and not pleasant it does not add to the credibility of the discussion. Similarly, no "b*tch," wh*re or @sshole comments.

    With respect to Pynchon I do wonder what her motivation is - can she be that badly informed. Also I am stunned that anyone would regard as total naïf like Freud (who has a bachelors and a multiyear masters degree) as remotely suitable to be a lawyer. In fact when I first read the Freud posting I thought it was a parody - someone mocking the sort of nincompoop who goes to a 4th tier law school thinking it is a golden ticket, and I was astonished to discover that Pynchon existed and was given a column by Forbes. I was even more astonished by the breezy way in which Pynchon described her starting errors at the expense of her clients. No one spends money even on a new solo practitioner unless they have a lot for them personally at stake - and we owe it to our clients not to use them as guinea pigs for our training

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  31. "Professor Campos,

    Its the guy that constantly posts about union jobs. "

    In other words, it's the lazy fuck bum who even though he is unemployed and has plenty of free time has to ask DJM and Campos to do all of his work for him.

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  32. Debate is fruitless. Lemming has already made up her mind. People under 22 years of age believe what they want to believe. At her age, I remember getting drunk and hanging off my 32nd story balcony. The world was a fuzzy, warm place. For the grace of God, I didn't get hurt, but I am afraid that this lemming's personal and financial future is going to go SPLAT!

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  33. Victoria Pynchon is a pretty relentless self promotor who has for example created her own Wikipedia page in which she adds every thing she ever seems to do, including every seminar panel she inveigles her way onto. One or two of the conferences she attended I recognise as being ones I turned down - I think some wanted me to pay to be a panelist (I usually get paid - but yesterday someone approached me to write a column in a major newspaper or magazine for which I would pay!!)

    She holds herself out as a mediator - it is not clear that she is that busy.

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  34. Victoria Pynchon is a shill for Solo Practice University. She talks about hanging a shingle like it ain't no big thing without exposing the potential landmines that plague the typical newbie solo. I saw a newbie solo get sanctioned by a court. When the newbie solo told the judge he didn't have the money to pay the sanction, the judge told him that he would bar him from appearing in the Courts until he paid the fine.

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  35. Thomas Jefferson grad. . .

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/tragic_battle_of_will_4c7vVUBIrNNHmjcw2sZ6hO

    MUST READ!

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  36. "for example created her own Wikipedia page in which she adds every thing she ever seems to do, including every seminar panel she inveigles her way onto"

    There was a guy who graduated from my law school who wrote his own wikipedia page. It was promptly deleted because he's a nobody, but holy shit does it make him look like a douche (and you cna find the deleted page any time you google him!)

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  37. "Raise a toast to Saint Paul Campos
    I think he might have been our only decent teacher
    Getting older only makes it harder to remember
    We are our only saviors
    We're gonna build something this summer."

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  38. From a PR standpoint what should be emphasized here is not that Jessi Freud's idealistic and commendable fantasies are somehow stupid and gender-tainted.

    That just makes us look like a flock of bitter misogynistic Republicans who resent women and public service.

    What should be emphasized is the hundreds of other gullible young people who will read Pynchon's advice and be led into statistically widespread harm. What matters is the spreading of a hurtful myth that helps student loan crooks, not whether Jessie Freud is exempt from disaster or not.

    I loved what Campos said here earlier about the shame of a system punishing those who want to work for public good.

    Unfortunately too many JDUnderground ilk would poison the debate with nihilistic cynicism. The idealism is not inconsistent with fighting the law school scam. To the contrary, the importance of law in society underscores why the scam is such a national shame and not just a comeuppance for wannabe law firm greedheads.

    - My grandpa filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court fair housing case.

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  39. @10:56

    I will say that the day after my father died WIkipedia had a page on him base mostly on his obits and a speech from the dean of his alma mater conferring an honorary doctorate on him (the only one he ever accepted)- the WIkipedia page was full of errors which I corrected with footnotes to 3rd party sources. I am embarrassed to have done it, but they were not going to take it down so I though it might as well be right. I still have no idea how it came to be created in the first place.

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  40. This Pynchon lady is so out of touch. She makes bankruptcy look so easy. The problem with most newbies is they believe bankruptcy is a forms filling practice. Ha. That's what this newbie thought and look what the court did to him:

    In re Jarvis Adventure Building, LLC, Case Nos. 12-31005 & 12-31011 (Bankr. S.D.Tex. 2012). The lawyer in that case tried to defend his incompetence by citing to his inexperience. The judge didn't buy it and referred him to the State disciplinary committee for further action.

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  41. In 2012 America, kids from stabile working class families have been deneutered and have been led to believe that Mommy and Daddy would never hurt them and will always be around to bail them out. The world looks less like the Darwinian jungle that it actually is, and more like a non-threatening overgrown adult playpen where one can play out their "helping the little guy" utopian fantasies. The problem occurs when law school deans and wolves like Victoria Pynchon enter the playpen dressed in sheep's clothing and play out the role of the fake paternalistic Mommy or Daddy figure.

    Will there be enough time for this lemming to figure out that there are dangerous wolves and predators in her midst like Victoria Pynchon who are encouraging her to undertake disastrous life decisions? I doubt it.

    This all goes back to parenting. Somehow we have lost our way and have found it necessary to shield our children from dangerous and ugly things that exist in our world. Every summer I make it my point to send my young children to summer camp in Wyoming Grizzly country, just so they learn that there are big, dangerous things out there that can kill and eat you if you don't trust your intuition, undertake proper precautions, and use common sense.

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  42. @10:42:

    1) I am employed and 2) I have no SL debt.

    3) A bum asks people to do things for him/her, I am not asking Professor Campos to help me, just to help other people from not making the same mistakes I made. I feel he will be able to formulate the best facts and arguments because he has already done so on this blog.

    Now as to who you are 10:42. There are only four possibilities. You are 1) a troll, 2) a scamblogger, 3) a person who profits from the LS scam or 4) a rich rentier boomer that wants the Federal Government to supply his rentier operations with cheap labor by indebting the young before they even start.

    Option 1 is the simplest and the most probable.

    You might be a scamblogger that thinks by speaking to people in this way it will motivate them to act. Brother, if that is the case, let me put that to rest for you. No one is going to band together or do anything because in this profession speaking out will ruin your career. It is a sad fact. (That is why I recommend joining professions where that is not the case). For instance, if I outed myself and tried to make something happen, I would be fired from my job, which has a chance of offering some advancement in the future (and then I really would be a bum, as you use the term. I think I am a bum because I make very little money, but I do not think that is what you are getting at).

    Option 3 is possible, but unlikely. If you were a law school scam advocate, you be trying to actually undermine the arguments made herein, even if you did so in a dishonest way.

    Option 4 is very possible. I know that you really do not care about morality or the tax payer. I think I have said this to you several times. If you cared about that, you would FIRST try to stop the stealing by the schools via the federal subsidization scheme, THEN you would go after the people who borrowed. This is true because, as I have said, if several people were robbing my house, and some were running out the door (borrowers), I would first try to stop the ones still inside the house (schools) from looting it, then I would chase down the people outside. You do not care about that at all.

    Hence, if you fall under option 4, given the emphasis you place on the borrowers, and the lack of attention you place on the subsidization scheme, you want the loan scheme to remain intact. Well, if you are a rich boomer, why would you want to pay higher taxes that are going to be caused because of the massive defaults in student loans? You believe the cheap labor benefit is worth the tax hike.

    So, if you are category 4, it is you who are the bum and leach. You want hard-working people, via tax-hikes, to pay for your slave labor, so fuck you BUM!

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  43. "ALL, AND I MEAN ALL of the "I want to do good" people that I knew in law school were the biggest hypocritical assholes you could ever know."

    When I told the Georgetown UG uber-liberal ex-gf I was visiting that I lost my lawyer job, she looked at me like I was a foul, foul loser in life. People like this fight (and get valuable job connections along the way) for cop killers to avoid execution (must be innocent)and espouse avoiding prejudice since there must be reasons BEYOND SOMEONE'S CONTROL why they are poor/a criminal. etc...yet if you are a white guy from a non-privileged background, if you ever have something against you , like law school loans and no job, they instantly judge you an undatable loser.

    Just saying. Improving our social and dating capital is a major reason for going to law school/business school etc.

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  44. I argued with Pynchon in the comments section of an article she wrote some months ago about affirmative action. I tried to convince her that the real issue affecting minority students in law school admissions was cost, as minority students are more likely to be from backgrounds where they have to take out loans and are less likely to possess the kind of networks that enable them to get internships and jobs after graduation (she keeps boasting about her son that graduated from UCLA in 2006 and other people she knew through friends).

    She was long on cliche and hyperbole and short on facts or even rational arguments. I gave up after awhile because I could not penetrate her bubble. What I did recall is that she seemed to be, like most limousine liberals, unaware that the battles of the 60s/70s were becoming increasingly irrelevant, that the very people she was supporting in academia were now sticking it to the young and that this wasn't something that could be blamed on Republicans. I'm glad to see that people managed to put her foolishness on record this time around.

    But ultimately it's a side issue. Her and Jack Marshall might be fun to argue with, but they don't run any law schools. I'm afraid the people who do would never commit the PR blunder of arguing in the comments section.

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  45. @ 11:51,

    We need one of our stronger advocates to muster an argument with links and facts on that site. If a Lemming reads the back and forth, its unlikely he/she will believe or understand the severity of the situation.

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  46. I have to say that as low has LP has sunk, reflected by his dutiful (good boy...good boy...) attack on this woman as requested by his blog masters, he may still be just intelligent enough to NOT be drawn in to go engage in the comments of her blog.

    Then again, Paul has proven me wrong several times in the recent past already.

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  47. Professor Campos, your last paragraph is the best piece of advice I've seen anybody give on just about any subject in a long, long time. That paragraph alone makes you a hero--or, at least, the sort of mentor Jessi Freud actually needs.

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  48. 12:06PM, shouldn't you be finishing that piece of shit law review article that no one is interested in reading? What's it called? "Timeline in Constitutionality: Whether Obamacare would be Approved by the New Deal Court?"

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  49. He's proven you wrong? Just who are you besides another nobody anonymous commenter?

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  50. @12:06,

    I was one of the first people asking Professor Campos to help precisely because he will avoid using both ad hominem attacks and rude/insulting language. The other people that posted in response to the woman's comments were very angry, and the substance of their points was muddled in the process. Lemmings can fall into the trap when such a situation arises.

    Professor Campos could calmly and firmly point out to her how the profession has changed (citing his vetted stats on tuition and salaries), showing her how some of the higher ranked schools can be trap schools (see above as to her UCLA comment), and inform her that while she may be well meaning, she does not understand the issue at hand.

    If I were a lemming reading her posts, I might be convinced that taking out 200k in debt for a T20 would probably be a good idea. I think Professor Campos can provide the counter-balance to that assertion, and in the process save a few souls.

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  51. 12:06pm, I guess this is the kind of anarchy that results when comments are actually permitted on a blog.

    Instead of another bullshit law review article that no one will read, why don't you publish a collection of your anonymous internet posts?

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  52. "Just who are you besides another nobody anonymous commenter?"

    You really don't know who 12:06 is?

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  53. @12:11

    Over? Did you say, "over"?

    Was it over when the Blog Masters bombed Pearl Harbor?

    Otter - (Blog masters?)
    Boon - (Forget it, he's rolling.)

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  54. @10:41

    elder abuse? what is that?

    --

    Elderly abuse is being a young inexperienced lawyer and taking on old client's case and f_cking it up...

    ReplyDelete
  55. Its probably better that Campos writes on his own blog than posts comments on another website, as that will diffuse energy in a back and forth between the writer and he, when the energy could be devoted to creating an essay on points made....IF NEEDED.

    What you can do is link his website on that blog, or any particular articles, so that Lemmings/Potential Sacrificial Lambs, have access to it.

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  56. As a prospective 1L, I have to admit that the passion some of you people have against the "scam" made me really investigate law school before I decided to accept.
    This was probably one of the most influential sites, even though I have decided to attend. I won't go into details of what it will cost me, because that's not relevant here.
    It's not what my decision was, but that seeing how some of you are so upset about law school that you spend tons of time posting on here that made me think I'd better crunch the numbers again!

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  57. I wish I went to a truly elite law school like Yale or the UniversiTTTy of Chicago!

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  58. If I just decide to go to paralegal training, do you think I'd like that as much as being a lawyer? Witg how bad things seem to look jobwise now it seems more worth it to just paralegal and then I could go to law school later if it seems like the lawyers are having more fun!

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  59. ^ business and WORK are never fun unless you are part of the 1% like Campos.

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  60. Aw, Prof. Campos is alright! It's understandable for a guilty man with a conscience to try to identify with people he's hurt, even if indirectly. That's where his passion comes from, but hey, it's gotta come from somewhere and maybe he will make a difference someday.

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  61. @11:56. I reached out this morning to Vicki, offering to write a guest column. She said she'd consider it. I'm hoping to find the time, but the risk of her just considering it and not publishing it might be too great at the moment.

    Kyle

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  62. @ 11:10

    "In 2012 America, kids from stabile working class families have been deneutered "

    "DEneutered"??? How does THAT work?

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  63. A lot of good points in Vicki's comment section, but the people posting with vulgarities and put-downs are never going to convince anyone of anything other than you're an immature, raving lunatic. Even if you're right, that delivery ruins the message.

    Lawyers or anyone who was intelligent enough to get into law school should be able to craft an argument much better that that. You don't need Professor Campos to go over and right with reasoning, coolness, and authority. If you can't do that, that explains a lot when it comes to why you're on here complaining about jobs.

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  64. @1:20,

    I agree with some of the substance of your points. However, the effects of the scam are so absolutely devastating that it can cause people to really lose it.

    Without debt, you lose three years of your life, 3 years of income, and you make yourself virtually unemployable outside the legal field. Your blood, sweat and tears is/was for nothing, and in many instances, possibly the majority, those of us that did not come from money are worse off than people with GEDs and municipal employment.

    Now, that is without. When you consider the debt, and the fact that it’s non-dischargeable, I can understand why many people cannot keep their composure.

    Campos always keeps his composure, and he always beats the shills, scammers, and the deluded. He wins almost every argument because he cannot be detracted with personal attacks, superior data, or better arguments.

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  65. "(The two most critical professional skills for any non-government attorney -- getting clients and then getting them to pay -- are never touched on in law school, for the very good reason that no law professor in the recorded history of American legal education has ever acquired a client or collected a bill)"


    ---Holy hell that was some hard hitting stuff. Can I get an amen?

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  66. Yes 1:20pm there are tons of legal job openings but they're not being filled because employers can't find anyone who can "right with reasoning, coolness, and authority."

    What do you know about writing with reasoning, coolness and authority, anyway? You never do.

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  67. 12:06 is brian leiter. there, i said it. unless lp or djm comes on here and says, "no, that is not leiter's ip," i'll take their silence as evidence that it is leiter. uchicago should be ashamed of this moron.

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  68. Ah, Brian Leiter...The Anti-Campos.

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  69. No, it can't be Brian Leiter. Remember, Leiter has been talking about the law school scam for the last decade.

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  70. Litter is a fucking assclown.... there i said it, sorry for being so unprofessional.

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  71. I don't know if its Leiter or another law professor, but clearly there is some law professor(s) who trolls here regularly. Its embarassing to imagine a law professor with nothing better to do than to be a comment board troll. No wonder they remain anonymous.

    Not that any criticism of Campos amount to trolling, certainly not. And when this blog first launched, we saw many law professors willing to attack Campos and this blog on their own blogs and under their own names. We do not see that anymore. A year of horrible headlines has vindicated Campos and left his critics with nothing to say except the kind of garbage you see above. He said the profession was turning to shit, and that law schools were trying to cover it up. And he was right.

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  72. "It's embarrassing to imagine a law professor with nothing better to do than to be a comment board troll."

    Embarrassing, but not difficult.

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  73. Read the first part of Tamanaha's new book. You can preview it on Amazon. It discusses law professors getting paid to do almost nothing.

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  74. @ 12:06

    If LawProf has "sunk low" simply by doing the work of exposing the law school scam, then how much lower then are the shills and scammers themselves who perpetuate it?

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  75. 2:37,
    I think the substance of Campos' posts changed dramatically after the first week or two. In the beginning he was saying that law professors barely work and are lazy. Most of his posts now relate to rising tuition, poor job opportunities, etc. Still important, but I don't think it bothers the likes of Lieter and company as much.

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  76. @ 2:37pm

    The only real "attack" we now see is that since Campos (and Tamanaha, DJM, etc) are benefiting from the scam themselves they are hypocrites. There really isn't any attacks on the substance of the criticisms anymore.

    My response to that would be whether they are "hypocrites" or not is irrelevant as to whether law school is a "scam" or not. Not that I think they are, but even if they were, it doesn't change the validity of their arguments.

    Also while they have benefited from the "scam", I think some credit should be given to their speaking out. Much easier to just ride out the scam and hope that you're retired by the time the whole thing collapses then speaking out and actually hastening this collapse that can't really benefit you and can possibly harm you. Campos, Tamanahana and DJM teach at respective schools but not HYS where they can feel completely insulated when the SHTF.

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  77. "People like this fight (and get valuable job connections along the way) for cop killers to avoid execution (must be innocent)and espouse avoiding prejudice since there must be reasons BEYOND SOMEONE'S CONTROL why they are poor/a criminal. etc...yet if you are a white guy from a non-privileged background, if you ever have something against you , like law school loans and no job, they instantly judge you an undatable loser."

    11:35 - there is absolutely no inconsistency between (1) arguing that someone who has come from an abominable background rife with physical/sexual abuse, poverty, neglect, racism, organic brain damage, etc. should serve a life without parole sentence rather than be executed for the commission of horrific acts and (2) wanting to be romantically involved only with people who are employed/employable in their field and able to pay back their student loans. The latter is particularly true if you're looking at a long-term commingling of assets/liabilities via marriage, rather than just being judgmental of a prospective short-term dating partner.

    By the way, people doing capital defense work do not believe that all of their clients are, without fail, innocent. Also, what are these valuable job connections (outside of capital defense work) that a capital defense position leads to? If anything, there is a stigma attached to capital defense work even within the legal profession, and those doing it are arguably less employable outside of their niche field.

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  78. @4:08
    I hope he does return to such issues as the law professors' workload, the value of the "scholarly" production of non-peer-reviewed articles and the negative effect of tenure. We cannot possibly affect the problem at the T1.5-4 without a radical revision of the fundamental goals of legal education. Prof. Campos now has a bully pulpit from which he may speak with some power to those issues. Tall Paul is once again among us!

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  79. Prof Campos and commenters:

    Is there a way we can find out (or at least have a basis to speculate) whether Ms. Freud got a pecuniary incentive to write this guest post?

    These days, with many law schools better than Nova jumping the shark in all sorts of creative ways, I would not put it past them engaging in this kind of covert public diplomacy.

    Thoughts?

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  80. It's possible that Campos shifted away from exposing professors as a result of the negative response from his fellow profs, BUT, I also think that law professors workload and salaries are not fundamental to the problem and Campos knows that too. Fundamental to the problem: there aren't enough jobs. If there were, then nobody would care what professors make or do.

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  81. 5:39,
    I'm not blaming him or questioning his reasoning for shifting focus. Just pointing out that it's likely Lieter and company aren't bothered / don't care / whatever about this type of content as they were about exposing professors.

    LOC,
    I think there is still some focus on the low value of scholarship produced (I think there was a whole post on it not too long ago) but yes, much less on reduced work loads and other perks that law profs get.

    4:08

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  82. Wow, there are a lot of sexist jerks in this comments section. I want to feel sympathy because of the structural reasons why it's challenging to find good employment as a lawyer these days, but if any of this sexist venom comes out in real life I have to wonder if that's part of the reason why you're having trouble finding jobs. I'm really glad I will never work with most of you.

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  83. 4:41:

    So you see no inconsistency with no compassion and quick-draw disapproval by a young woman of elite education of a young man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, went to college and law school, passed the bar and got-then lost- his job... Yet that same privileged woman will work and work and work for some scumbag (who became a scumbag cop killer for various reasons you describe) to get life in prison instead of capital punishment?

    So a guy like me who worked as hard as I have deserved to be spurned while the scumbag deserves the sympathy and endless toil of woman like her?

    THAT is a perverse state of morality and values.

    I guess the working man (and hopeful lower middle class white striving for education and approval) really is the sucker. - A Bronx Tale.

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  84. Maybe she just didn't like you...

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  85. She sure as heck liked me- a lot-while I was still in law school. The thing that changed was my job status.

    This whole this is just about that: its all about the jobs (or lack thereof). And the inhumane suffering that happens to us when they disappear.

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  86. 6:08:

    Thanks for the input! You seem like such a lovely charmer yourself. I am sure you light up the room with your warm and inviting personality.

    HAHAHAHA

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  87. 6:30:

    You're drawing an analogy between two wildly different situations: capital defense work and dating standards. It's not that the woman in question thinks that you are less worthy than her client. She's not going to date or marry her client (one hopes, for legal ethics reasons if no other.) And if you were on death row - unless she is different than every capital defender I know - she would give you the same "sympathy and endless toil" as she is giving her current client, whatever your race (capital defenders represent white people too, by the way.)

    I wouldn't agree with a woman (or man) who rejected a man (or woman) for being temporarily unemployed. But it's certainly reasonable for someone who has done everything right (i.e., gone to law school, passed the bar, maintained steady employment, and paid down their loans) to decide that she will only financially entangle herself via a LTR/marriage with someone who is financially self-sufficient (i.e., employed in a position that allows them to pay down their loans).

    There is no inconsistency between wanting to help indigent clients with serious legal problems and not wanting to become involved in a serious romantic relationship that comes with significant financial baggage. It's one thing to feel compassion for someone and/or to give them legal assistance - it's another thing to make their problems your problems via a serious romantic entanglement.

    My take on this issue is that I'm willing to date someone who is struggling with the issues described here if we are otherwise a good fit, but I won't ultimately remain in a long-term relationship with them if they don't have a solid career and are not able to pay down their loans at a reasonable clip (i.e., not the ballooning issues with IBR debt that have been described here.) Ultimately, in a life partner, I'm looking for getting as good as I can give, in terms of being a financially responsible professional with a solid career whose student loans are now minimal and would not negatively affect a mortgage application. There is absolutely no inconsistency between that view and opposition to the death penalty.

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  88. can we stay on topic?

    1. jessi freud, either a) completely snookered by the scam, or b) on the take herself, which would not surprise me.

    2. brian leiter, troll, scum, sorry excuse for a human, sadly and mistakenly believes he matters to the world. bri, you don't.

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  89. 7:25: actually, it is fairly relevant to the raison d'etre of this blog if the damage done to people who are termed "victims" of the "law school scam" extends beyond the professional and financial realms even to their romantic prospects. Particularly given this blog's aim to educate 0Ls, it's one more thing that should give them pause - if they're going to a school that won't enable them to pay down their debtload, they may face romantic rejection as a result on top of their other issues. (Not law school specific, but even the New York Times has covered the phenomenon of people losing romantic relationships due to their student loans: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/your-money/04money.html?_r=1)

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  90. I feel awful for Jessi Freud. Reading her responses to the comments, it's evident she will be attending law school irrespective of how many horror stories or statistics she's presented with. As a recent grad from a so-called T6 who devoted himself to building a public interest resume, foregoing on campus interviews, and generally striving to help the little guy, I can attest that THERE ARE NO JOBS IN PUBLIC INTEREST LAW. I was fortunate to graduate near the top of my class, get a clerkship and then fall into the vaunted BigLaw job. But although I applied for dozens of public interest positions during my clerkship year, I received only one interview. If someone in my position can't land that $40K/year legal services job, I shudder to think of Jessi's prospects.

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  91. To the guy whose girlfriend left him when he lost his job:

    You're not alone. The comments on the mommy blogs are filled with women who lose sexual interest in their husbands after he's retrenched.

    The "game" blogs are right. Women are biologically wired to mate with the highest-status man they can attract. If you don't fit the criteria, you're history as long as she has enough sex appeal to land another man.

    While a few level-headed men will screen out women with debt, that's a small number which declines in proportion to the woman's beauty. If Megan Fox had major debts and was into you, you wouldn't care.

    Jessi Freud will take on a quarter million dollars in non-dischargeable debt, will never find a real legal job and will marry a successful local businessman. She will live in a large, well-appointed house with her golden children and a collie.

    Physical beauty is the back door out of the law school scam. But only women are allowed past that velvet rope.

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  92. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MVnfJSkZHE&feature=related

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  93. The poor girl may well end up as a shingle-hanger, judging by Nova Southeastern's placement stats.

    176 out of 302 of the Nova class of '11 found long-term full-time bar-required jobs, nine months out. However, an incredible 100 of those 176 are either solo-ing (9) or in firms of 2-10 attorneys (91). By comparsion, only 34 got jobs in the combined categories of government, public interest, and judicial clerkships.

    With nova s.e. being so obviously a feeder for small law, it could serve its students best by adopting a clinical model. A bar review type course at the beginning to teach the basics fast, followed by two years of clinics and externships to teach the kids to try a case, write an appeal, and represent clients in a few practice areas of their choice. These clinics should be supervised by adjunct practitioners, not by law professors who wouldn't know a courtroom from a faculty lounge.

    Of course, that would mean getting rid of the tenured "doctrine" professors. Tamahana, in his book, suggests buy-outs for law school faculty deadweight. However, southern Florida is home to the endangered north american crocodile, so it might be greener and more cost-effective to utilize that resource to trim faculty size.

    dybbuk

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  94. 728- all the talk about status and debt adversely affecting one's ability to find, bed, and keep a mate is only peripherally related to this post, and really only because (ostensibly) you and others find ms. freud attractive. this post is more specifically related to freud's total credulity, pynchon's total tone-deafness, and the scam wheedling its way into a major publication blog. if tomorrow lp writes a post about how one's status as a massive debtor has deleterious effects on one's ability to find and keep a partner, then have at it. as i recall, he posted an email from a reader on this very topic, but the reaction against it was swift and condemning. why? because this topic is almost always discussed from the perspective of the male figure, and it almost always sounds pretty pessimistic about and degrading toward women. i'm not saying it's not a legitimate thing to discuss. but it's not a central aspect of this discussion, and when you do bring it up, you've got to be careful how you do it, and show your work.

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  95. Different sets of people are affected by the scam in different ways, and it is entirely appropriate to dissect the scam by category of person affected.

    Men and women with monied parents -- can afford to gamble three years on the degree.

    Men and women with legal connections or pre-arranged jobs in the family firm -- not taking much of a risk.

    Men and women with LSAT scores between 150 and 165 -- taking a sizeable risk

    Men and women with LSAT scores below 150 -- better off in their current jobs.

    Beautiful young women -- taking little actual risk because a man with cashflow will always be willing to hire or wed them.


    9:55 -- I suspect that you're upset at the reality that there is a gendered and aesthetic component to the ramifications of law school debt. Too bad, and please use capitalization.

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  96. It's funny how everyone's assuming that rich men grow on trees. Even if there were tons of unmarried rich men for every pretty girl, they're not really interested in marrying outside their class. No one wants to marry a pretty girl with mountains of loans. So let's not push the notion that unemployed, male law graduates have it harder than their female counterparts. Especially since you've given up a good portion of your youth by staying in school for an extra 3 years.

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  97. All else being equal, would you rather your resume have a line about being the intramural chess champion or about being a catalog model?

    All else being equal, would you rather walk into a job interview as an overweight white guy or a trim blonde?

    11:37 is correct in that the stats suggest that there are more beautiful women in any population than there are high-status males (since human female beauty is objective while male rank is a zero-sum competition).

    But, as anyone who has been to law school knows, there are precious few Jessi Freuds walking around and all of them seem to be married to a partner or a gunner associate within two years of graduation and are playing full-time kids-and-dogs by the fifth-year reunion.

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  98. All things being equal, I'd rather walk into a job interview as a fit, attractive white man. You're more likely to be hired and at a higher salary as man than as a woman.

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  100. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  101. This is going to make me flame bait one way or another. When I went to law school (1992) at GULC there were a few very politically correct young ladies, all with ample trust funds, who lectured us about public interest law, and a few young ladies clearly working on the Mrs. degree, and there was the very organised classmate who produced three infants and switched to the evening program so they would be weaned by the time she graduated - incidentally top of the class - and took a clerkship on a highish court - and there was the professor who worked his way through the section, blond, brunette, redhead. There was also an obnoxious group of frat-boys who behaved like rabid ferrets on vaigra towards some very nice women, and always bragged tastelessly afterwards, and one or two very rich boys. One classmate was a very nice guy, but with terrible taste in women - one of his girlfriends was dubbed the "girl with the cash register eyes," while my roommate had a stalker! And there was a little coterie of young women (mostly from Mount Vernon College) who gathered at the Irish Times hoping to pick up a law student - but always seems to fall for the perfectly pressed guys in suits who arrived un-rumpled from "work" in fresh crisp white shirts at 7:30pm on a Friday (conversations with these young women were difficult, you had to glean meaning out from be "like, you know, oh my god, like, uhhh you-know..." Mount Vernon was sort of finishing school/college for dim daughters up on Foxhall road (dumb sons were sent somewhere else.))

    The relationships between young men and young women in US society are somewhat dysfunctional and there is a high degree of hypocrisy (I remember listening to Diane Rheem and Naomi Wolfe mock a guy who called up Rheems' show about his male "friend" (obviously himself) who was in a relationship with a physically abusive female partner.) It shows on dates where in the US, the guy always pays and if he does not, he is denounced as cheap, but his date's affections are of course not "negotiable." It shows up in the idea that a man should spend a proportion of his pay on an engagement ring (1 month in Europe, 2 months now in the US (it used to be 1), 3 months in Japan (no one say if this is pre-tax or post-tax)) and women in DC and New York you over-hear appraising engagement rings at 30 paces (I have actually heard it.) You can rant about this all you like, but it is not that likely to be fixed anytime soon. Or maybe student debt will fix it -because the number of eligeable men without debt is falling like a stone, which means that the mercenary girlfriend may face a long time single.

    However, what really needs to be understood is the impact of student debt. Money and finance has always been one of the largest factors in marriage breakup. Law graduates are typically in their mid-twenties and face, even if things go right, a serious debt burden to their mid-thirties, as well as horrendous work loads for those with jobs. The consequences of student debt don't just impact the student, they also have serious negative consequences for spouses, partners, children, parents and other family members. For law students and both male and female debt will cloud the years when most would normally get married, buy a home and start a family. Arguably, for the young women, who do after all have to typically make a decision to start that family by their mid-30s or so, the impact of debt may mean no family at all - when the men have the choice to marry someone younger when their debts are paid off.

    By the way, with rare exceptions, it seems unlikely that any man Jesse Freud may meet at her law school, or even after, is likely to be able to support a lifestyle that involves her being "married to a partner or a gunner associate within two years of graduation and are playing full-time kids-and-dogs by the fifth-year reunion." And Jesse Freud has to be in her mid twenties based on her degrees - late 20s to 30 when she graduates law school.

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  102. The suggestion was made by Pynchon that we should follow up on how Jessi is doing 10 years from now. I suggest we follow up on how she's doing a year from now and whether she really thinks Pynchon gave her the straight goods.

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  103. Pynchon = The worst type of boomer liberal.

    All that matters is her intention.

    As a feminist, she gets it both ways in this little scenario.

    She gets to play "cool mom" and shout out "you go girl!" while advocating the entry of a woman into a profession formerly dominated by males. If the young woman succeeds, all the better.

    But, if is more likely, the woman runs headlong into a mountain of debt with no prospects to pay off said debt......well, then it's just another victim of the patriarchal legal profession, or predatory lending agencies, or some such. If the young woman fails, in Pynchon's view it will not be because she attended a fourth tier law school, but rather because of mistreatment due to her gender. Mark my words on this one.

    What actually happens to this young girl is of very little concern to Ms. Pynchon. If it were, she'd put her money where her mouth was, promise to stake her financially and bail out her student loans if things went south.

    But given the school, the debt, and the prospects, that would be a pretty silly thing to do, wouldn't it?

    What is important to Pynchon is to continue emoting and to continue what appears to be a state of perpetual delayed adolesence, where she encounters the real world as if it were some sort of video game she can turn off, instead of being filled with actual lives that wind up ruined under mountains of unsecured debt.

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  104. And yes, Pynchon was basically advising fresh grads going solo not to worry about malpractice. The thought that maybe this kind of situation:

    "The Judge asks you “can you give me an offer of proof?” and you flip the papers in your file thinking “what’s an offer of proof, what’s an offer of proof” until the Judge takes pity on you and asks your witness the necessary questions herself."

    Or this kind of situation:

    "Opposing counsel roughs you up. Finally, they tell you what you’re doing wrong because they can’t waste their entire day while you re-formulate questions in response to their foundational objections that you don’t need to re-ask."

    Might actually result in the client losing their financial security or even their liberty, and in the short solo carrier of the fresh attorney ending in ignominy and ruin, does not appear to have occurred to her. Can she really be this irresponsible?

    Oh, and regarding inexperienced lawyers making a hash of capital trials - is it really true that this never happens?

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  105. "Might actually result in the client losing their financial security or even their liberty, and in the short solo carrier of the fresh attorney ending in ignominy and ruin, does not appear to have occurred to her. Can she really be this irresponsible?"

    Exactly. Once again her "concern" for the masses is on display once again.

    Apparently the poor that she advocates helping are just "practice" clients anyway. Sort of like mice in a medical research facility.

    Sorry you got three years in prison and a lifetime record as a felony, but it's not like you're going to death row, right? Now may not seem like the best time, but rest assured, by the time you're out of jail, you'll be able to come and see how much I've grown as a lawyer!

    Sorry I screwed up your parents' will. But we all gotta make our own way in this world, right? In the meantime, take solace in the fact that while you may no longer have a claim to their home, you've helped ME build a foundation for my legal career since I won't make that mistake again!

    There is a very dangerous level of irresponsibility here.

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  106. I feel sorry for you guys that apparently you are meeting/dating exclusively horrible women. I feel sympathy, as I have encountered many horrible men in my dating adventures, but on the other hand, maybe it is your attitude or "standards" that is making you choose exclusively assholes? Either way, it's not really relevant to this blog. Jessi is screwed because she's going to a toilet school, and it's true that anyone she meets there will have the same toilet degree, so they can be unemployed together. It's pretty laughable to imagine that she's going to that crap school trying to get a "gravy train" marriage ticket. Why not hang out at McDonald's instead?

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  107. Doesn't Pynchon know that any type of legal work that might be "harmless" to make a mistake on has either long since been computerized by forms or if not, certainly does not draw the type of fees that keep a solo lawyer's bills paid?

    Quite simply, if very little is at stake, people will pay very little to protect it.

    If people are willing to pay actual legal fees for a service, there's a pretty good chance that "mistakes" by the lawyer would result in serious consequences for the client.

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  108. I have a question for Pynchon. Would she be personally willing to co-sign Jessi's loan? Even assuming the young woman keeps her scholarship, she'll still need to eat and keep a roof over her head. Cost of living (and assuming her scholarship doesn't cover everything) could easily come to 80 or 90 grand after 3 years, including interest. Easily. If Pynchon believes so strongly that Jessi will do well, would she actually co-sign? Would she actually loan Jessi the money personally? If she wouldn't look at the numbers and consider Jessi's legal education to be a good bet for her own personal financial investments - then maybe Pynchon shouldn't be giving this girl advice.

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  109. One of my fellow associates loved to tell the story of how her husband proposed to her on vacation -- and how she couldn't wait to get back home to have the ring appraised.

    (As far as OT topics go, attorney dating is better than Long Island civil service.)

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  110. @5:01

    I did not date them (well not many) and my wife is far from that category of women - actually, she was the person who came up with the name for ____ "the girl with the cash register eyes." _____ was indeed very transparently mercenary. I would also add that the mercenary conduct is very logical in a world where women are paid less than men and are less likely to be hired for the best jobs.

    Years ago my father was very senior in a largely male dominated organisation - and did in fact promote many women to senior roles - some of whom were profiled (first woman to....) The weirdest experience my mother had was the wives of some of the men in the organisation complaining to her about my father promoting women at the expense of their husbands (it was still only a few women as compared to men promoted.) Yes, highly educated supposedly liberated women living vicariously through their husbands and complaining about women being promoted when husband did not get the slot. Go figure...

    In my experience more women select partners and marry for mercenary reasons than men, often ignoring the guys looks, and men are much more likely to select a partner based solely on looks, ignoring... In practice the view that lawyers are high earners, especially male lawyers tended to attract such mercenary women to many male lawyers, as opposed to I suppose dental technicians - it also explains bankers and models.

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  111. A man attempts to mate the most beautiful woman his status can attract.

    A woman attempts to mate the highest-status man her beauty can attract.

    There's nothing more to it than that.

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  112. "Yeah, back during my brief stint on match.com (mistake, I know) I made a joking reference to being "awed" by the amount of my student loan debt (this was pre-recession), and I got so much hate mail from dudes saying that no guy would ever "take me on" when I had student loan debt, I should get used to being alone forever, etc. etc. etc. This when I had given no indication whatsoever that I even wanted to be married (I don't), or much less, that I would expect a partner to pay any part of my debt! There's a real hatred and scorn for "debtors" and I think it's even worse directed at men towards women (we're all assumed to be gold-digging whores even if we make a bigger salary than the guy we're dating, etc.)"

    As a match.com serial dater and attorney, I'm always surprised when guys (and occasionally women) vent their anger on someone who writes them a polite inquiry. The norm is to simply not reply to such inquiries since its a waste of time to tell someone why you don't want to consider them which often results in an argument about the 'good' or 'bad' nature of your criteria.

    Hypo:

    Me: I don't want to date a women with 10 children.

    Mad mom: I love every one of my children! I would never date a man that did not feel the same!

    The things you learn the hard way.

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  113. Use OKCupid, not Match.com - fewer angsty, perfectionist weirdos. I mean, who cares whether a guy/girl with good personality and looks has student debt?

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  114. OkCupid is full of people stuck in a stunted adolescence. Never had a positive experience with that site.

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  115. "OkCupid is full of people stuck in a stunted adolescence"

    Must have made such a change after law school . . . but to each their own.

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  116. I mean, who cares whether a guy/girl with good personality and looks has student debt?

    A person considering a life partner. I have a significant other that tearfully confessed 40K in defaulted student debt just prior to her moving in after a year of dating. While I love her, had this been known at the outset, I don't know that I would have chosen her.

    Also, I won't marry her. Her credit rating is somewhere better than Zimbabwe and worse than Spain. I want to buy things, big things, with credit.

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  117. "I have a significant other that tearfully confessed 40K in defaulted student debt just prior to her moving in after a year of dating. While I love her, had this been known at the outset, I don't know that I would have chosen her."

    Have to be honest and say that I still don't see this as a deal-breaker - it would come down to whether it showed they were a significantly different person to what you had thought them to be.

    Lots of people have secrets. A relative of mine didn't find out that his (now) wife had been the victim of child abuse during her childhood growing up in the Jehovah's Witnesses that rendered her infertile and incapable of intimacy until they'd been together for a year or more. A secret? Yes. One with a material impact on their relationship? Certainly. Not her fault though, and he still went ahead and got married to her.

    Basically, don't mess up a perfectly good relationship over money, and try not to regret choosing you heart over your wallet. As for marriage, it only really matters if there's kids involved. If there are kids involved, your families might not like it, but if they know the score they will understand.

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  118. I was even more astonished by the breezy way in which Pynchon described her starting errors

    Hey! Leave me outta this!

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  119. This post was SO great. Love the hilarious writing - keep it up!

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  120. 6:48, it was even worse than that: these were guys who contacted me out of the blue to yell at me about my debt. I had not sent any of them messages! I guess they just felt it was their "duty" to tell me how much they think I suck. Yeah, lots of winners on the internets.

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  121. For all of you who think that a woman or man having student debt is such a deal breaker, maybe consider that there are worse things. Like, for instance, the woman could be Victoria Pynchon, or the man could be Brian Leiter. I bet neither of them has any debt.

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  122. The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen. Link. Recipe: 1) Read it. 2) Have mind blown.

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  123. @7:21, then dump her now and quit fraudulently robbing her of her best years, you absurd douchebag.

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  124. "6:48, it was even worse than that: these were guys who contacted me out of the blue to yell at me about my debt. I had not sent any of them messages! I guess they just felt it was their "duty" to tell me how much they think I suck. Yeah, lots of winners on the internets."

    6:48 here. I wish that my fellow male match.com members had not behaved so horribly. Often that's a sign that no one is responding to their own ads, and they start going nuts trying to tell the internet "what to do".

    My favorite bad internet attorney dating story came when I was working for a government agency years ago, and I disclosed where I worked to a potential JD date. She called one of her friends in the building,(who apparently happened to hate me) G-2ed my identity, and wrote back, "not only are you not Mr. Right but you're not even Mr. Right Now!" I couldn't even duck in time to avoid the spray of contaminated kitty litter.

    Hopefully she has since fallen for the wrong guy and is now spending her days in family support court in Connecticut.

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  125. I noticed that many of Pynchon’s “responses” were nothing more than quoting her earlier responses. Now, while that has merit in some cases, those second responses were to new and different questions.

    I graduated in 2099 from a CA non-ABA school, passed the CBX in 2010 on my second try, have no debt left (non-ABA costs less and my husband returned the favor of my having put him through graduate school). I am not practicing for a variety of reasons.

    In the mid-1980s, it took my parents, born in the early 1930s, over ten years to understand that things were not as had been--regarding jobs, school, housing costs, etc. I’m afraid that many of these Boomers are in complete denial. They were catered to their entire lives; they can’t imagine not having it so.

    BTW, I was born in 1963; I do not consider myself a Boomer. In 1970, I was 7 years old; the oldest Boomers were 25. What could we have in common? I was learning basic reading and math; they were already out of college--after having “ended the draft,” according to Pynchon.

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  126. Does anyone else think that the issues in law school might apply to most or all of higher education? Sometimes I can't help but think that a lot of people don't understand the difference between skills or knowledge and a degree, which is a piece of paper.

    This video is from right leaning libertarian website and it attacks President Obama's position on the matter but I am hoping to hear what this blog's readers think of the larger issue regardless of ReasonTV's ideology.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCecGGdELOQ

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  127. Pynchon deleted the comment thread.

    Another boomer act of valor.

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  128. We should update her Wiki page and include the Prof Paul Campos article.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Pynchon

    http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/06/brief-note-for-jessi-freud-et-al.html

    and our own discussion on the topic

    http://www.jdunderground.com/all/thread.php?threadId=28826

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  129. Someone requested that her Wiki page be deleted

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Victoria_Pynchon_Article_-_Request_For_Deletion

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  130. This page appears to have been created by Ms. Pynchon herself. It does not satisfy the notability requirement, as its contents describe nothing more than a garden variety attorney in career twilight. While the article states that Ms. Pynchon is known for the ForbesWoman "She Negotiates" blog, this blog is not noteworthy, and garners few views. It appears that Ms. Pynchon is deliberately holding herself out as a writer for Forbes, however this is not the case. Forbes permits anyone to operate a blog on their site, much like blogspot.com.

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  131. OMG its a wiki lawyer!

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  132. lol. someone should email her this post.

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  133. I did. I sent it to everyone in the San Diego office of her husband lawyer. About 20 associates and partners.

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  134. The Paul Campos review was added to her wiki page. Then she removed it. Then it has been added back in again.

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  135. Please help us get this boomer scum's wikipedia page removed. It is a glorified resume and vanity bio. She is not notable at all except for being a self-absorbed twat.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Victoria_Pynchon

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