Ruin a friend's life, win an ipod.

Despite having a record number of LSAT takers for 2009, being in a state with a shrinking population and therefore a shrinking legal market, and significant tuition increases, my school wants me to sell out my friends' futures for an ipod. Now, if they offered straight up cash, that would be a different story . . . Below is a copy of my school's desperate gimmick.

We have high expectations here at xxxxxx Law and are proud to welcome each entering class. This year, in an effort to continue our tradition of accepting thehighest quality of applicants possible, we are introducing a new incentive for our current students to refer potential applicants.

The "Refer and Win" program is simple.  Refer a friend to xxxx Law. Should they apply, the application fee will be waived. If they enroll at xxxx Law, you will be entered to win an iPod touch. (There is no limit to the number of students you refer.)

 Your experience at xxxxx Law doesn't end when you graduate with your law degree. You will forever be connected to this institution and to each other as xxxx Law alumni. Refer a friend today.

Among the many, this is officially the dumbest reason to enroll in law school. And by the way, that last paragraph is both threatening and ominous.

Evaluation

While I think that expressing one's self is important and feedback is the scalpel of improvement, I don't evaluate professors for the following reasons:


1. Because finals are upon us, I am filled with hate for all of my professors and I choose to hate them equally. I really don't feel the need to individually notify my instructors as to specifically why I hate them in particular. 


2. A blank form is the best expression of my truest feelings about their class. 


3. Turning in an evaluation for a Professor is like getting a restraining order against a stalker. Sometimes it works and they will adjust their maladaptive behaviour, other times they just see it as proof that you noticed them and thus you really do love them.


4. Time is valuable and I'd rather catch up on celebrity gossip. 

In Google we Trust....

With Google's new legal scholar feature you can be your own lawyer, without going to law school or selling your soul to Lexis or Westlaw! Now, if Google Scholar only had a rewards program . . .

Counting My Law School Blessings

There is a lot of complaining on this blog (and pretty much everywhere else on the internet), so today, with durable gratitude, I enumerate life's little things that make law school tolerable.

1. Hulu: Odes poems and sonnets/ could never put a bonnet/ on your episodes shown sequentials / with sponsored but limited commercials / without which I would surely vomit.

2. Pre-Made Outlines: You are smarter and pithier than my professor, and you never humiliate me, therefore my adoration never ends.

3. The Smokers at my School: As a former smoker and current patch addict, I *heart* you. Whether I'm lingering for a chat or a much needed whiff of second hand smoke (what can I say? my body craves nicotine) together we stand in unanimous hostility against the buildings of oppression. (But still, don't be a casualty to cancer - quit smoking).

4. The Food Cart Staff: You are the unsung heros of my days in drudgery. When I am feeling undecided about my lunch and career, you let me stand (with the door open, no less) in front of the refrigerator for as long as I want. Let's just say that the career office never lets me do that.

5. My lovely, lithe, laptop: I love you more than Hitler loved killing.

Hug your local Hipster

No one ever admits to being a hipster, but that's okay because they are easily identified by their American Spirit cigarettes and their PBR filled beer guts spilling over their slim-to-skinny jeans. Even though I'd secretly like to be a hipster, I know that I'm too poor, I shop at Ikea way too much, and I am too afraid of bicycles to be a real hipster. However, I recognize that hipsters are an important part of our society. After all, as an over-educated asian woman raised in suburban privilege who else can I make fun of and still be politically correct?

I Am Against Torture.

Figuring out my schedule is like picking out complicated ways of being tortured. Would I rather be gagged, hooded, with needles inserted under my fingernails but only on Mondays and Wednesdays, or is it better to get water-boarded every Tuesday and Thursday? Personally I think torture and law school are crimes against humanity.

Lawyer vs. Drug Dealer

Its that time of year when all law students everywhere start to consider alternative career options. Given law students' astonishing powers of reasoning, substitute careers are not simply plucked at random (we already made that mistake with law school), but rather law students need to consider a substitute career based on something we know about.

How Drug Dealing is better than Lawyering:
(1) More flexible hours: Although I am not sure if drug dealers work any less hours than lawyers, I imagine that they get to set their own schedule.
(2) More exciting work: The law can be boring, lawyers can be boring and so are the clients. Drug dealers take road trips to exotic places to pick up their product and the world is their office.
(3) Less arguing over stupid stuff: Who the hell talks policy with their dealer?
(4) Less costly barrier to entry: Let's just admit it, the only barrier to entry in the legal profession is the cost of law school. Drug dealers, really only need a few hundred dollars of up front capital and a reliable form of transportation.

How Drug Dealing is the same as Lawyering:
(1) Collecting on delinquent accounts: Of course, both dealers and lawyers should always get a retainer (especially for new clients) but failing that, tracking down people for payment is always a pain in the ass.
(2) Confidentiality, its hard to keep secrets: In both professions, blabber-mouths get penalized; lawyers get disbarred, drug dealers get killed, jailed or at least experience a decrease in revenue.
(3) Disparate Earning Capabilities: Some law students graduate to a 160k/year salary with a dinner stipend and cab service, others have to bartend on the weekends to make rent. Some dealer's get to schmooze it up with clients like the 160k/year lawyers, others are on the corner with the local sex workers.

How Drug Dealing is worse than Lawyering:
(1) High mortality rate/ Incarceration: Even though lawyers are known for killing themselves and for general dis-health - they are also capable of working well into senility. Dealers, are in constant danger of either being killed by their clients, law enforcement or other dealers. At the very least, drug dealing often results in incarceration.
(2) Health Insurance: Lawyers usually get health insurance as one of their perks, dealers don't. See, just another reason for universal health-care.
(3) Income Tax Ambiguity: I've read cases, where tax payers report the income from their illegal activities, apparently they fear the IRS more than the police. For drug dealers it's a hard tax problem.
(4) Lack of Social Approval: Even though most people say they don't like lawyers, there is a certain amount of misplaced respect for attorneys. Socially drug dealers are silently being judged.

On balance, I guess I'd rather be bored than in jail or dead. Lawyering wins.