Why go to Law School When You can Get a Fake Diploma?

I know diploma mills are not new, but with e-commerce now in the mainstream, they are perhaps more brazen than ever. Just look here. The fake law diploma at the bottom of the page is absolutely priceless. (Actually, it's only $18.95 for two graduate degrees--maybe I'll order some.) Sadly, some lawyer-wannabees probably have these very fakeplomas hanging on their wall, fooling helpless innocents.

And lest I be accused of favoring one diploma mill over another, link to a Google search for "fake diploma" here. I certainly want to be an equal opportunity disparager!

In fact, I'd post copies of some of the fakeploma images I've found here, but chances are I'd get sued for copyright infringement--which would be the irony of all ironies, because you'd have a diploma mill suing a lawyer. Lots of public sympathy for that one. It'd be like having two drunk drivers involved in a car accident and taking each other to court. Sadly, both couldn't lose. So instead, I'll take the safer road, if not the higher one, and exercise my freedom of speech rights by talking about fakeplomas.

My advice? Either go to a real law school and get your own degree, or don't go, and do something else with your life. After all, pretending to be a lawyer is not really the best way in our society to win friends and influence people. You doubt me? Go to a party sometime, and use the following pick-up line: "Hi, I'm [your name here]. I sue people for a living. What's your name?"

I'll bet you $18.95 and a fakeploma you strike out.

What NOT to do as a Summer Associate

There's loads of advice on the web about how not to act stupid as a summer associate. Much of it is funny, in the "Wow, I'd never do that!" kind of way. But there are more subtle, less egregiously dumb ways to put your career in peril.

Take a look, for example, at a recent post on Lack of Scienter, which advises that generally "you're not supposed to bring your friends to Summer Associate events," and suggests that doing so may demonstrate a decided lack of judgment. Something, by the way, that I totally agree with. (Look at the post soon; the blogger deletes old posts.)

That's true for a couple of reasons. First, your friends weren't invited, were they? You will be called upon to exercise judgment and discretion as a lawyer, and encouraging people to crash a function with you doesn't demonstrate either attribute.

Second, and just as important, you will be attending the function with a bunch of overworked, overstressed lawyers who are prone to grumpiness. I've been there. In the face of too many deadlines and too much stress, goodwill and compassion sometimes fly out the window--and the summer associate who fails to exercise good judgment can be caught in the crossfire.

So your goal as a summer associate is to not do things the firm's jerks or good-people-gone-bad will think are stupid. Your primary goal is to get an offer for full-time employment. And if that's not you're goal, then I might question your judgment. Unless you are perhaps royalty and are just spending the summer slumming with the commoners. No joke--I've seen members of royal families working as summer associates at big US law firms. With secret service details and all. They were obviously not there for the paycheck. Yet even if you are in the line of royal succession, you'll still be thought of most highly if you eschew special treatment and play by the same rules as everyone else. Even if you do keep your security detail. (Which, come to think of it, you probably could bring to events uninvited.)

More Good Discussion of Life as a Summer Associate . . .

. . . and this time it's not from me. It's on Inside Opinions' Legal Blog Watch. How do I know it's good? Because it cites to this blog! In all seriousness, it's a good post, and worth checking out.

Law School: Exercise - So Important

You may think that post does not apply to you. You may think that you do not have time or energy now to exercise, so why would you have time during law school, when you will already be so busy. If you really, truly believe this, then skip post and read on.

Making time for exercise, even if it is very moderate exercise will do wonders for you during law school. I am a huge advocate of making exercise a priority. I cannot speak for all of my former classmates, but I know that for myself, my productivity with schoolwork went down dramatically when I did not make time for a workout on a regular basis. Exercise can help you in a number of ways. First, it allows you to take some time for yourself, to feed your body something that is good for it. It allows you to get away from the stress of case briefing, study groups, and the general mêlée of law school. It allows you to see another part of the campus, which is rare because you will likely be taking your classes all in the same building during law school. Exercise also gives you stamina and energy later on, especially during exam preparation time and during exams. As well, because you will be forced to sit in a desk chair for so many hours every day, establishing some muscle base will allow you to continue to burn calories, even while you are stationary.

I chose to workout three to four times per week for 1 hour per day during my first two years of law school. I tried to go with a friend as often as possible. This kept me accountable, and provided some much needed social interaction, which I felt deeply deprived of. During my last year, I chose to train for a triathlon, something I had been wanting to do for years, and for which I felt I had more time to concentrate on with a lighter course load and less anxiety about finding a job.

There are many other opportunities to be active. Our law school had a running club. They also had a rugby club, and quite a few intramural teams. We also had a yoga club. Many of my classmates worked out at the gym, got involved in intramurals on their own, and some even joined a modern dance class on campus. The school that you choose will offer many opportunities as well.

What I saw too often during law school were people who said they did not have time to exercise. They spent hour upon hour in the law library, trying to tackle the mountain of material in front of them. You could almost see them begin to wilt by early afternoon, and many of them were head-down on the desk by early evening. I think that if they had chosen to take an hour break and go move their body a bit, they would have enjoyed a much better rate of return for their study time later on in the day.

Exercise also sets good stress relief habits that will be needed throughout your career, so you may as well start the habit in law school, if you haven’t set it already.

Rock Paper Scissors

So it seems I am ahead of the curve. A federal judge in Florida recently got mad at the parties in a lawsuit over their inability to resolve some discovery matters, so he ordered them to play rock, paper, scissors to settle their dispute. And now the story is all over the internet. Robert Ambrogi reports on the matter here and here (both posts include the language of the judge's order). Professor Eugene Volokh weighed in about it on the Volokh Conspiracy. And just now I opened my MSN web browser, and there it was, right on my MSN home page: a link to an article called "Judge orders 'rock paper scissors' to settle dispute."

Volokh's post is a good one (no surprise there), as are Ambrogi's. The story obviously tickles our funny bone because RPS is a silly way to to resolve a legal dispute. But as I said, I was apparently ahead of the curve and ahead of my time, because for the past 2 years I have used rock, paper, scissors tournaments in one of my seminars.

In my National Security Law seminar, the students have to present their research papers in class. It's a good way for them to hone their public speaking skills, and I think the presentations are one of the best parts of the course. But some of the students are nervous about their presentations, especially since I grade them on it. So to diffuse the tension, I make the students slated for the day's presentations engage in an RPS tournament. The winner gets to choose the order of the presentations that day. If there are only 2 presentations then it's easy--it's a best of three series. But if there are 3 presentations scheduled, then we are in double-elimination tournament territory. Before you know it, students are arguing over the game's technical rules and the mechanics of double elimination, and everybody is loosened up a bit. Then, when the presentations start, people are more relaxed.

But what I like the most about this approach is that the students who aren't wild about the approach (and there are a few) are absolutely insistent that if they had to do it, then everyone else has to, too. They get quite passionate about it, and it's fun to watch.

Adding an element like this to the class made the seminar more memorable, more enjoyable for students, and therefore better. And apparently rock, paper, scissors is a critical skill for lawyers these days, so that's a big plus too.

Beauty Contests and Legal Fees

There's an interesting article in the June 2006 issue of the ABA Journal about the rising popularity of RFPs, or Requests for Proposals, in corporate transactions. That is, clients are increasingly putting large legal projects out for bidding to a selected number of firms. Then the client compares the bids and decides which firm to pick. This is generally known as a Beauty Contest. The article isn't posted online to my knowledge, but the ABA does have some materials on RFPs on its ABA Journal website.

Some of the primary points made in that article are as follows:

• RFPs are partly counterpressure to the rising costs of outside counsel, who charge fees triple what they were a decade ago.
• RFPs are mercantilistic--meaning they are a zero sum game. You either get the work, or you don't. And if you get it, someone else loses it.
• Even if you get awarded the project, that does not mean the project will go forward. It may die.
• Even if the project goes forward, your estimates of the work involved may have been way off, and you may lose money on the project (or suffer significant opportunity costs).

In other words, RFPs make lawyers think like business people and take big risks (and risk big losses) like business people.

During my time in private practice, I saw RFPs become increasingly popular. They were sometimes hard to respond to--was the proposal what the client wanted? Was our price in the client's "sweet spot," or was it too high? Or (heaven forbid) was it too low? RFPs certainly added some stress to an already stressful job. Working on an RFP meant taking time away from billable projects and sinking it into a nonbillable proposal that might go nowhere. I suppose you might say that being beautiful was hard work.

But interestingly enough, RFPs were also fun, in a challenging way. Overall, I think they are a positive development in the private practice of law.

Clearly RFPs are good for clients. Legal fees too high? Then cap them, or make lawyers compete for your business. As long as there are lawyers wanting to do a client's work, then the client can set some of the terms. The outside law firm is free to walk if the terms are bad--and maybe the client will have to modify its terms to actually get the kind of legal service it wants. But in my experience, law firms are reluctant to fire clients. Clients pay money, and that gives them leverage.

The funny thing is that in my view, RFPs are also good for lawyers. You really have to be at the top of your game all the time, but isn't that what you are paid for? I am not a big fan of the corporate grind/due diligence routine, whereby attorneys do boring grunt work for hundreds of dollars per hour. I'd rather take on a challenge and earn my high hourly rate. Those who can't handle this challenge don't get the work that really pays. Those that do get the high end work have to consistently excel to continue justifying it. And that includes being very, very efficient, so that the client can get its lower (capped?) fee, and the law firm can still make its desired profit margin.

So I am saying hurray for market forces, and hurray for Beauty Contests. The astute reader will notice that I am not suggesting that monopoly rights to practice law be lifted, which likely would lead to more lawyers and perhaps lower fees, at least in certain areas of practice. That's an important subject, but it's one for another day (and one I have blogged about previously). Suffice it to say for now that, even with the current restrictions on legal practice (have to go to law school; generally have to be admitted to the bar), there are self-correction mechanisms such as RFPs at work within the legal sector of the economy.

Law School: The Law Review

Not all law schools have a Law Review or similar student run academic journal. If your chosen school does not, please ignore this post.

If your school does have a Law Review or other student run academic journal, you should seriously consider participating on its editorial board or committee.

In the U.S., Law Reviews are very serious business. Depending on the Canadian law school, Law Reviews can be serious business as well. In most U.S. law schools, only those who are invited get to sit on the Law Review editorial board. Only the cream of the crop ever gets the opportunity. Law Review is considered very highly by employers, and is almost always a requisite for graduate studies in law or professorship.

As an example, the Alberta Law Review, a publication that has been in print for 51 years (established in 1955, with its predecessor, the Alberta Law Quarterly, established in the 20’s), follows the same basic format as the U.S. Review system. Second year students (i.e. those who are entering 2L) apply to the Law Review, and applications are reviewed by the Law Review executive (Co-Editors-in-Chief, Treasurer) and Faculty Advisors (usually four). Each of these people is given one vote, and out of those votes 14-16 new members of the Editorial Board are chosen. It is a big honour to be selected to the committee. Many applicants are turned down. For the most part, grades are the prime criterion for selection. However, as the Editorial Board is broken down into various committees, it is possible for a student to gain acceptance, even if their grades are not at the very top of their class, if they can offer unique and useful skills that will help the Law Review to run smoothly. The Alberta Law Review is a business with an operating budget of over $100,000. As a result, committee members are given a lot of responsibility, and it is very important to ensure that committee members have the requisite skills to complete their particular tasks. Being good at law exams does not necessarily indicate this requirement.

If you are selected to the Editorial Board (you apply in the first week of 2L), you will have a 2-year commitment, consisting of 52 hours of work per year for each of the two years for a total of 104 hours. These 104 hours are broken down into editing and committee work. Each member of the Editorial Board must complete a minimum of two full edits (usually 20-80 hours of work each) over the two years. The rest of the time is made up with committee work. As a reward for your hard work over the two years, you are given credit for one 3-credit course in the last year of your last semester. As well, as a member of the Editorial Board, you have the option of registering for the Law Review Research Paper course, which requires you to write a 20-page case comment and to present this comment to a group consisting of Editorial Board members. These two credit opportunities can really take a load of pressure off your shoulders during your last year of law school.

Other benefits of being on the Alberta Law Review include a personalized letter from the Alberta Courts inviting you to apply for clerkships with the Alberta Courts. This is a nice “in.” More importantly, recruiters tend to look very highly upon experience on the Law Review. Inclusion indicates that you are most likely the best of the best, that you have gained considerable experience in legal research and writing, that you have developed an eye for detail, and that you are aware of a number of current legal issues. As well, if you are considering graduate school in law, inclusion on a Law Review will go a very long way for you, especially if you apply in the States. It is a well-kept secret that Law Review does not hold quite the same status in Canada as it does in the States.

A further opportunity comes in your third year of law school if you are elected as Editor-in-Chief (as I was). This is a full-time paid position during the spring/summer of after your second year, and a part-time paid position during your third year. This is an excellent opportunity to beef up your curriculum vitae, to make amazing contacts, and to learn leadership skills. I was able to converse often with leading academics, practitioners, and judges during my term. I also had the opportunity of having dinner with the Chief Justice of Canada, and of having dinner meetings with former members of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Queen’s bench of Alberta. Among some other key things, I attribute this opportunity to landing me so many interviews and subsequent job offers during the articling recruitment period.

Each law school will have a somewhat different process and organization for their law journal. Be sure to inquire with your law school early and find out how you can become involved. Some schools will offer more or less credit than the Alberta Law Review.

If you have any questions about the Law Review experience or process, send me an email.