Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

«‹›1550 »

echopapa: Jun 2, 2005; El Presidente smiles upon this thread.

joat mon posted:

Wow. You really have to take a personal and professional risk to sign on to the 'Rebel' 'manifesto.'

You can tell by the mani-photo:

Very rebelicious. How mavericky.

I have a standing policy that I will never join an organization that has a fist in its logo.

My roller derby league has put me in charge of re-drafting their contract with their promoter (despite the fact that I'm a divorce lawyer). I'm digging frantically through my business associations outline to see if the league and the promoter accidentally became a general partnership last year.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 03:18

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 12:54

The Arsteia: Nov 17, 2008

# ? Sep 4, 2010 03:54

The Arsteia: Nov 17, 2008

*organization that is mandatory for all members of a profession to join attempts to radically change own field by making a blog post urging all its members to very, very gradually and almost undetectably alter their actions toward a more undefined and altruistic end while at the same time recognizing that the profession in its current state is inherently indispensable to reaching their goal of changing the profession* are u mother fuckers ready for the new covenant

# ? Sep 4, 2010 04:03

7StoryFall: Nov 16, 2003

Finally, a call back... and I was talking with the admins about withdrawing.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 04:24

franzkafka: Jun 30, 2006; kafkabot mk. II: stronger, faster & more alienated

After begging for an IT job at a gym, I finally re-enter the legal assistant arena next week.

Snagged a clerkship at a ~~snazzy local real estate firm~~[sic] automated foreclosure machine that rep's Fannie and Freddy. $15/hour to merge petition documents for cookie-cutter cases... I'm considering it a temp job until my applications for Federal Law Enforcement pan out in six months to a whenever.

I'll be laughing maniacally at the failed house-flippers and silly wanna-be homeowners all the way to the bizank. CHA-CHING!

_{tl/dr: don't go to law school, again.}

# ? Sep 4, 2010 06:16

sigmachiev: Dec 31, 2007; Fighting blood excels

7StoryFall posted:

Finally, a call back... and I was talking with the admins about withdrawing.

Keep at it bud, and congrats.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 06:49

fougera: Apr 5, 2009

Am I boned if I don't get the offer right after the callback? I had it on Monday and am wigging out.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 12:18

7StoryFall: Nov 16, 2003

fougera posted:

Am I boned if I don't get the offer right after the callback? I had it on Monday and am wigging out.

I've heard of people getting an offer a few weeks afterward.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 15:24

Defleshed: Nov 18, 2004; F is for... FREEDOM

The Arsteia posted:

*organization that is mandatory for all members of a profession to join attempts to radically change own field by making a blog post urging all its members to very, very gradually and almost undetectably alter their actions toward a more undefined and altruistic end while at the same time recognizing that the profession in its current state is inherently indispensable to reaching their goal of changing the profession* are u mother fuckers ready for the new covenant

It's not mandatory to join which is precisely the reason this new "image" is being put out there. Someone somewhere convinced ABA Leadership that this would attract new members.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 15:53

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

fougera posted:

Am I boned if I don't get the offer right after the callback? I had it on Monday and am wigging out.

No. Especially now, when they don't have a firm idea of yield numbers.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 16:59

Mookie: Mar 22, 2005; I have to return some videotapes.

fougera posted:

Am I boned if I don't get the offer right after the callback? I had it on Monday and am wigging out.

Yes, abandon all hope.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 18:10

A.s.P.: Jun 29, 2006; They're just a bunch of shapes. Don't read too deeply into it.

atlas of bugs posted:

I hope there are more of these people out there. When I tell other hobos that I dropped out of law school they usually look at me with this weird mixture of confusion and disdain, like I must hate money or something. It's kind of a relief (for me, not him) that my girlfriend's father is the only surviving consultant of a gutted firm, because when I said I dropped out of law school to suck dicks his response was "good choice." That understanding is a mild solace, but it's nice to know that at least some people get it.

None of this would have happened at Fordham.

Wait what? I didn't know you dropped out... where were you, and what are you doing now?

# ? Sep 4, 2010 18:46

Ganon: May 24, 2003

amishsexpot posted:

Wait what? I didn't know you dropped out... where were you, and what are you doing now?

What did you decide to do?

# ? Sep 4, 2010 19:15

Daico: Aug 17, 2006

Ganon posted:

What did you decide to do?

S/he decided to skip the middle man of law school and go straight to blowjobs for bus fare.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 20:05

Draile: May 6, 2004; forlorn llama

The New York Times posted:

Craigslist Blocks Access to �Adult Services� Pages

Craigslist, the popular Web site for classified ads, has blocked access to its �adult services� section and replaced the link with a black label with the word �censored.�

The action on Saturday follows a wave of criticism by law-enforcement officials and groups that oppose human trafficking, who have said that the ads on the adult section of Craigslist were facilitating prostitution and the selling of women against their will.

Craigslist, while promising to provide more rigorous oversight of the ads, has defended its right to run them and says it is protected from liability by the Communications Decency Act � a position that judges and legal experts have generally agreed with. . . .

But law enforcement officials have argued that sites need to take more responsibility for ads or content that can facilitate criminal activity. In 2008 attorneys general from 40 states began pressuring Craigslist to do a better job of screening adult ads.

Since May 2009, Craigslist has said, all adult services ads have been manually screened by a lawyer before being posted to the site.

A job!

# ? Sep 4, 2010 21:53

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

yes....I could do that job

# ? Sep 4, 2010 21:57

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Draile posted:

A job!

A job that has been lost thanks to our nanny state.

# ? Sep 4, 2010 22:21

Bro Enlai: Nov 9, 2008

drew another thing

Click here for the full 1200x1000 image.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 00:24

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

Red Bean Juice posted:

drew another thing

Click here for the full 1200x1000 image.

This is amazing.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 00:35

The Arsteia: Nov 17, 2008

# ? Sep 5, 2010 00:37

The Arsteia: Nov 17, 2008

Unless that's for the next square...

Pennoyertron: MARCUS NEFF I HEREBY SERVE WITH YOU PROCESS IN THE STATE OF OREGON. SUBMIT TO JURISDICTION

Neff: t(-_- t)

# ? Sep 5, 2010 00:40

7StoryFall: Nov 16, 2003

nm posted:

A job that has been lost thanks to our nanny state.

It was also a job created by the nanny state. Nanny state give, nanny state take (alternatively, tax).

# ? Sep 5, 2010 01:18

Mr. Fictitious: Jul 9, 2002; by Ozmaugh

evilweasel posted:

This is amazing.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 01:59

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Draile posted:

A job!

Ainsley McTree posted:

yes....I could do that job

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/technology/19screen.html

NYT posted:

Policing the Web�s Lurid Precincts

Ricky Bess spends eight hours a day in front of a computer near Orlando, Fla., viewing some of the worst depravities harbored on the Internet. He has seen photographs of graphic gang killings, animal abuse and twisted forms of pornography. One recent sighting was a photo of two teenage boys gleefully pointing guns at another boy, who is crying.

An Internet content reviewer, Mr. Bess sifts through photographs that people upload to a big social networking site and keeps the illicit material � and there is plenty of it � from being posted. His is an obscure job that is repeated thousands of times over, from office parks in suburban Florida to outsourcing hubs like the Philippines.

With the rise of Web sites built around material submitted by users, screeners have never been in greater demand. Some Internet firms have tried to get by with software that scans photos for, say, a large area of flesh tones, but nothing is a substitute for a discerning human eye.

The surge in Internet screening services has brought a growing awareness that the jobs can have mental health consequences for the reviewers, some of whom are drawn to the low-paying work by the simple prospect of making money while looking at pornography.

�You have 20-year-old kids who get hired to do content review, and who get excited because they think they are going to see adult porn,� said Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer at MySpace. �They have no idea that some of the despicable and illegal images they will see can haunt them for the rest of their lives.�

David Graham, president of Telecommunications On Demand, the company near Orlando where Mr. Bess works, compared the reviewers to �combat veterans, completely desensitized to all kinds of imagery.� The company�s roughly 50 workers view a combined average of 20 million photos a week.

Mr. Bess insists he is still bothered by the offensive material, and acknowledges the need to turn to the cubicle workers around him for support.

�We help each other through any rough spots we have,� said Mr. Bess, 52, who previously worked in the stockrooms at Wal-Mart and Target.

Last month, an industry group established by Congress recommended that the federal government provide financial incentives for companies to �address the psychological impact on employees of exposure to these disturbing images.�

Mr. Nigam, co-chairman of the group, the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, said global outsourcing firms that moderate content for many large Internet companies do not offer therapeutic care to their workers. The group�s recommendations have been submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which advises the White House on digital policy.

Workers at Telecommunications On Demand, who make $8 to $12 an hour, view photos that have been stripped of information about the users who posted them. Rapidly cycling through pages of 300 images each, they are asked to flag material that is obviously pornographic or violent, illegal in a certain country or deemed inappropriate by a specific Web site.

Caleris, an outsourcing company based in West Des Moines, Iowa, says it reviews about 4.5 million images a day. Stacey Springer, its vice president for support operations, says the job is not for everybody and that �people find they can do it, but it is usually a lot harder than they thought.� The company offers counseling as part of its standard benefits package for workers.

Ms. Springer says she believes that content moderators tend to become desensitized to the imagery, making it easier to cope. But she is called on to review the worst material, like sexual images involving children, and says that she finds some of it �hard to walk away from.�

�I do sometimes take it really personally,� she said of the pictures she reviews. �I remind myself, somebody has to do it.�

A common strategy at Web sites is to have users flag questionable content, then hand off material that needs further human review to outsourcing companies that can do so at low cost.

Global outsourcing firms like Infosys Technologies, based in Bangalore, India, and Sykes Enterprises, based in Tampa, Fla., have leapt to offer such services.

Internet companies are reluctant to discuss the particulars of content moderation, since they would rather not draw attention to the unpleasantness that their sites can attract. But people in the outsourcing industry say tech giants like Microsoft, Yahoo and MySpace, a division of the News Corporation, all outsource some amount of content review.

YouTube, a division of Google, is an exception. If a user indicates a video is inappropriate, software scans the image looking for warning signs of clips that are breaking the site�s rules or the law. Flagged videos are then sent for manual review by YouTube-employed content moderators who, because of the nature of the work, are given only yearlong contracts and access to counseling services, according to Victoria Grand, a YouTube spokeswoman.

For its part, Facebook, the dominant social network with more than 500 million members around the world, has relied on its users to flag things like pornography or harassing messages. That material is reviewed by Facebook employees in Palo Alto, Calif., and in Dublin.

Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesman, said the company had tried outsourcing the manual review of photos but had not done so widely.

Outsourcing companies are also reluctant to discuss the business on the record, since their clients demand confidentiality. One executive at a global outsourcing firm, who did not want to be named, said that large Internet firms �are paying millions a year to do this kind of thing and essentially provide some type of control over the beast that is the Internet, which for the most part is uncontrollable.�

�If they don�t do it, their commercial interests will completely die,� he added.

One major outsourcing firm with staff in the Philippines was aware of the risks of this type of work and hired a local psychologist to assess how it was affecting its 500 content moderators. The psychologist, Patricia M. Laperal of Behavioral Dynamics, said she had developed a screening test so the company could evaluate potential employees, and helped its supervisors identify signals that the work was taking a toll on employees.

Ms. Laperal also reached some unsettling conclusions in her interviews with content moderators. She said they were likely to become depressed or angry, have trouble forming relationships and suffer from decreased sexual appetites. Small percentages said they had reacted to unpleasant images by vomiting or crying.

�The images interfere with their thinking processes. It messes up the way you react to your partner,� Ms. Laperal said. �If you work with garbage, you will get dirty.�

Sounds like law school!

# ? Sep 5, 2010 03:23

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Red Bean Juice posted:

drew another thing

Click here for the full 1200x1000 image.

I want to take whaling law

# ? Sep 5, 2010 05:29

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

So I am in a very lovely motel watching the police stop a vehicle.
They are searching the hell out of the car, and I want to yell out "stop consenting to searches." But I also want to not get tased, so i am holding back.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 07:21

GamingHyena: Jul 25, 2003; Devil's Advocate

nm posted:

So I am in a very lovely motel watching the police stop a vehicle.
They are searching the hell out of the car, and I want to yell out "stop consenting to searches." But I also want to not get tased, so i am holding back.

Moreover, stop consenting to searches when you know you have drugs in the car. What did you think was going to happen after you said yes? I have yet to hear of a cop say "well, I had a hunch you had contraband in the car but since you gave me permission to search you obviously must be an upstanding individual who is only high on civic responsibility."

# ? Sep 5, 2010 08:01

michelleke: Aug 10, 2002

Petey posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/technology/19screen.html

Sounds like law school!

I've moderated an image host in the past. It involved removing hardcore, young looking pictures, etc. etc. You do not want to do this. After about 3 months i just plain refused to work on this site. A site that accepts user uploaded content is open to some of the worst things you never wanted to see. Horrible memories.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 08:13

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

GamingHyena posted:

Moreover, stop consenting to searches when you know you have drugs in the car. What did you think was going to happen after you said yes? I have yet to hear of a cop say "well, I had a hunch you had contraband in the car but since you gave me permission to search you obviously must be an upstanding individual who is only high on civic responsibility."

Car getting towed. (And this si right outside fo my room, could they do this quietly?)
People in handcuffs.
Me thinks they found something. Morons.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 08:14

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

michelleke posted:

I've moderated an image host in the past. It involved removing hardcore, young looking pictures, etc. etc. You do not want to do this. After about 3 months i just plain refused to work on this site. A site that accepts user uploaded content is open to some of the worst things you never wanted to see. Horrible memories.

But how much does it pay?

Also where do I apply :/

# ? Sep 5, 2010 09:10

Konstantin: Jun 20, 2005; And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

GamingHyena posted:

Moreover, stop consenting to searches when you know you have drugs in the car. What did you think was going to happen after you said yes? I have yet to hear of a cop say "well, I had a hunch you had contraband in the car but since you gave me permission to search you obviously must be an upstanding individual who is only high on civic responsibility."

Yeah, sometimes I watch some of those crime shows where they show detectives investigating crimes, and almost every time the suspect voluntarily submits to police questioning. The vast majority of the time the cops don't have near enough to even get an arrest warrant on the guy, but criminals are stupid enough to actually voluntarily go to a police station and talk to trained interrogators to try to 'prove' their innocence. They don't even need to be Mirandized since they aren't in police custody.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 09:30

Defleshed: Nov 18, 2004; F is for... FREEDOM

Konstantin posted:

Yeah, sometimes I watch some of those crime shows where they show detectives investigating crimes, and almost every time the suspect voluntarily submits to police questioning. The vast majority of the time the cops don't have near enough to even get an arrest warrant on the guy, but criminals are stupid enough to actually voluntarily go to a police station and talk to trained interrogators to try to 'prove' their innocence. They don't even need to be Mirandized since they aren't in police custody.

My wife refuses to watch "Cops" with me for this. My dad, on the other hand, writes down everything I say.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 13:16

Wyatt: Jul 7, 2009; NOOOOOOOOOO.

Konstantin posted:

...criminals are stupid...

That's the beginning and end of the analysis right there. They sure are.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 14:01

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

michelleke posted:

A site that accepts user uploaded content is open to some of the worst things you never wanted to see. Horrible memories.

The experience of anyone who has ever read GBS.

# ? Sep 5, 2010 14:11

Tetrix: Aug 24, 2002

me with the woman cutting my hair today at super cuts:

"so what are you studying in school"
"oh, i'm actually in law school"
"oh really, my sister does that in LA, she's in celebrity law"
"oh great..."
"yeah its tough i hear, but if you get the right cases i guess you can make good money"
"yeah, and that must be tough to break into. tough to get good clients"

:gonk:

# ? Sep 6, 2010 00:07

JohnnyTreachery: Dec 7, 2000

i know a couple people who do celebrity law too, only they have the grace to call it specializing in right of publicity to sound less like a tmz whore

# ? Sep 6, 2010 00:39

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

I'm considering getting into sex law

# ? Sep 6, 2010 00:50

Lykourgos: Feb 17, 2010; by T. Finn

Ainsley McTree posted:

I'm considering getting into sex law

I hear you need prior experience, though.

# ? Sep 6, 2010 01:13

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

If anyone needs me I'll be in the burn ward, drat

# ? Sep 6, 2010 01:17

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 12:54

Ainsley McTree posted:

If anyone needs me I'll be in the burn ward, drat

Don't think Medicaid covers a burn that bad, sorry...

# ? Sep 6, 2010 02:27

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

«‹›1550 »