The fact that I no longer have a Facebook account means that I’m swimming against the tide when it comes to the popularity and pervasiveness of social networking. Clearly Facebook isn’t going anywhere, and all the signs seem to be pointing to an ongoing, steady increase in usage. So I thought it might be useful to provide a little guidance to the multitudes who still insist on parading each and every detail of their mundane lives on Facebook.
The following list contains things you must avoid posting on Facebook, both for your own sake and for the sake of humankind as a whole. Or, to put it another way, if you post any of the following things on Facebook, you’re a delusional, idiotic, desperate, attention-whore and completely lacking in self-awareness.
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May is such a mixed bag for law students. First finals, packing, then graduation, then summer, all in a span of about 3 weeks. It’s a whirlwind of activity and emotion, and getting enough sleep is almost never an option. You’re studying for finals and taking breaks for anything, accepting all distractions. Probably packing for the summer when you feel like it—any non-study activity is allowed if it can be written off as productive in any way.
Law students are hearing 3Ls talk about graduation and the bar exam and getting a job while 1Ls and 2Ls talk about trying to get summer jobs, maybe taking summer classes. Then, faster than you leave the law school on a Friday afternoon, you’re right in the middle of a final. Finals always seem to sneak up on people, even though the whole semester is a steady march toward them. Then, as quickly as they snuck up, it’s suddenly all over, and you’re walking out of the exam room of your last final. The sweet relief of summer beckons—unless you’re taking summer classes.
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QI’m finishing up my second year at Harvard. Thing is, I’m at the likely dead bottom of my class. Rather than doing a lot of studying, I’d spend time at a Red Sox game or hang out reading at various coffee shops and other places (museums and such). Now I’m at the bottom and wondering if I should stick it out and see what happens or give up the quest and move on to something else. Advice?
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As a lawyer, I hate all lawyers, and I really hate lawyer advertising. I have never seen an advertisement that made me want to hire that lawyer, but I have seen a lot of ads that made me NOT want to hire that lawyer. If lawyers actually conveyed the truth behind their ads, this is what they would actually say in these respective medias.
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For you 1Ls out there, networking is still something that is only a vague worry. But to the 2Ls and 3Ls it’s one of the last straws in our grasp as we seek to find someone willing to provide us with gainful employment as a lawyer. Unfortunately, the only guidance people have often comes from the school’s career services office, the same sort of people whose idea of good advice for students is telling them not to eat at cocktail receptions. When I was in consulting, a lot of my job was networking, and I’ve put together a few tips for those of us who are still working hard to land that first job in the legal field.
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CEASE AND DESIST DEMAND
TO: Men
FROM: Women
RE: The wearing of sandals for men (hereafter, “mandals”)
DATE: May 1, 2012
Dear Sir(s):
This CEASE AND DESIST DEMAND is to inform you that your repeated wearing of mandals has become unbearable for myself, along with the women I represent. Such anti-social behavior is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in any way, shape, or form.
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It’s that time again. Finals time. There are a variety of signs finals are approaching, including study groups.
Study groups are not for everyone and they aren’t for every class. But at least once in law school, almost everyone finds themselves attending some form of a voluntary group study session. While some study groups seem open to new people showing up and others seem to require sponsorship by a current member and proof of your projected contribution, most study groups are made up of more or less the same personalities. Note: these personalities are not mutually exclusive.
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QI’m completing my 2L year at a top school and having trouble finding work. Or appropriate work, as in paid work that is actually law-related. I have a background in software development and want to use it somehow in my legal career but I’m actually not that interested in patent work, which is what everyone tells me to do.
Recently I came across LegalZoom and, to be honest, I thought it was one of the coolest things around. It serves the low-end client, has set prices for people, and from what I can tell delivers a decent product. Probably not the best product but likely good enough. And good enough seems to be the new standard for legal services for regular people, like people I know and grew up with.
What do you think of my prospects of developing an online business that delivers attorney-reviewed forms like LegalZoom? Every lawyer I talk to says it’s a waste of time and that it’s teetering on the edge of unauthorized practice of law. A lot of folks—law students and professors included—think I’m nuts and basically going to the dark side. Would I be wasting my time and my degree pursuing something like this?
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It’s that time of year again. Spring is starting make the weather tolerable again for those of us in the more northern latitudes, and the student bar association is plastering the law building with fliers for this year’s gala, or, as many of us know it, Law Prom. So what’s to justify shelling out for overpriced tickets on a law student budget? Here are five reasons.
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QI’m a fourth year associate and I’ve been busted for steroids. Let me explain. I’m a former Division II college baseball player and did well in sports and school. After graduating from law school and joining my current firm, I ended up in an interfirm softball league. I think my baseball background may have made the difference in my getting hired, as the league is pretty serious and the firm partners and more senior associates take the games seriously. Very seriously, with each team having to assign a “stats rep” to track stats and report those stats to the “commissioner,” who then records the stats each year. Going back to 1984.
As it turns out, I set the single season home run record in 2010 when I was a second year associate. During that winter, though, I was into weightlifting and dabbled (I know, bad decision) with steroids. I saw short-term fantastic results in weightlifting. And I also smashed the softball league home run record by 9, which seemed incidental to what I was trying to do personally. In other words, I didn’t mess with steroids to hit home runs in a law firm softball league. I was just trying to stay buff.
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