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Is wearing jeans on Friday something people still think is a big deal? Is it a big deal in Biglaw? It definitely is nice; the company I worked at before law school had "Denim Friday" and it actually did make it easier to get up for work on Friday, it was weird. But then the company just went casual.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 18:35 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 06:29 |
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either I had a stroke in my sleep last night and my brain is slowing dying or ~ my paralegal ~ really did show up to work today in a loving kimono.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 18:36 |
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I'm a 2010 grad from a T14. I'm a patent prosecutor at Biglaw in DC, with a focus on post-grant proceedings. I worked punishing hours for my first two years, and then realized that my firm doesn't demand a masochistic work ethic from its associates. I now bill around 45 hours a week, and I telecommute as much possible.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 19:35 |
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TenementFunster posted:either I had a stroke in my sleep last night and my brain is slowing dying or ~ my paralegal ~ really did show up to work today in a loving kimono. You show me yours and I'll show you mine.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 19:56 |
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2012 grad from non-T14 tier one. It was a really good school for the Atlanta market, only I decided to move out of state for personal reasons. That's one of the many reasons I wish I'd listened to this thread before going, law isn't exactly a field that gives me much capacity to move around. Now I'm clerking part time for a firm I interned at my 2L summer and getting paid crap. Once (if) I pass the February bar hopefully I'll be able to get a real job in someplace that isn't in the middle of nowhere.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 20:33 |
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MoFauxHawk posted:Is wearing jeans on Friday something people still think is a big deal? Is it a big deal in Biglaw? It definitely is nice; the company I worked at before law school had "Denim Friday" and it actually did make it easier to get up for work on Friday, it was weird. But then the company just went casual. I've been wearing nothing but boxers at work all week
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 20:39 |
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Soylent Pudding posted:It was a really good school for the Atlanta market... Haha, no such thing. Go to a local school? Eh, the school isn't high ranked so we're going to be really picky and ding you for some bullshit reason. Go to a high ranked school outside of Georgia? WELL YOU WENT TO SCHOOL OUTSIDE OF GEORGIA SO CLEARLY YOU DON'T WANT TO LIVE HERE! Atlanta is ridiculous.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 20:46 |
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HiddenReplaced posted:Haha, no such thing. yupppp.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 22:04 |
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HiddenReplaced posted:Haha, no such thing. Well, as good as you gonna get in the atlanta market. I guess what I was saying was that there at least was an alumni network there which made it easier to network (not that it really mattered for me).
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 22:41 |
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HiddenReplaced posted:Haha, no such thing. This is my personal kryptonite. Atlanta firms are incredibly frustrating.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 23:46 |
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The political cartoon thread figured out what has happened to all the biglaw jobs. Thanks Obama.
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 23:51 |
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Meatbag Esq. posted:The political cartoon thread figured out what has happened to all the biglaw jobs. This is stunning. Quick poll: How many misinformed opinions about the theory and practice of legal prosecution did you hear after the Aaron Swartz story broke?
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# ? Feb 13, 2013 23:54 |
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I'm a 2007 grad in Chicago. I left my first job after a few months since I couldn't handle the environment and started doing doc review while looking for a new one. Then 2008 happened. Now I'm in undergrad again working on an engineering degree!
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 01:15 |
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HiddenReplaced posted:Just got the most awesome complaint ever. Like an EEOC complaint?
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 02:36 |
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Graduated Flyover State Law School, 2011. Spent a year in the mountains honing my bear-wrestling skills. Now work at non-profit Flyover Region health insurance company. I like it. My boss graduated law school with me. Little known secret about law school: networking and alumni connections can work out.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 02:41 |
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Baruch Obamawitz posted:I've been wearing nothing but boxers at work all week You'd be one of the best dressed in my lectures
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 02:44 |
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schzim posted:Quick poll: How many misinformed opinions about the theory and practice of legal prosecution did you hear after the Aaron Swartz story broke? You post is the first I'd heard of it. It sounds like any Monday morning, 9AM at the prosecutor's office, with the exception that a nice Jewish boy is involved. Suicide risk? Let's see how you like solitary in a paper gown in a 65 degree concrete cube with a plastic mattress.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 03:08 |
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joat mon posted:Like an EEOC complaint? No, a federal court complaint.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 05:43 |
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schzim posted:This is stunning. All of them. Every. Single. One. (Except Kerr's pair of posts, which isn't surprising given he was a computer crime prosecutor.)
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:04 |
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Is there an argent that the prosecutor was not overaggressive? I'm sure there could be one, I just haven't read anyone who isn't from the pro-Swartz camp.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:13 |
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I dunno, dude broke into a computer system, got caught and stopped, continued to do what he had been told not to do, got caught in the act. It's a little weird it got turned into something where the secret service (?) was involved, but I don't think a prosecutor would have to be particularly rabid to see a public interest in prosecution. The "ugh, he stole free articles and was going to go to jail for a hundred years!!" stuff is mostly from the media's bad habit of reporting the maximum possible theoretical liability for an offense as something that the person potentially could have gotten
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:25 |
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HolySwissCheese posted:Is there an argent that the prosecutor was not overaggressive? I'm sure there could be one, I just haven't read anyone who isn't from the pro-Swartz camp. The prosecutor did essentially nothing unusual and offered multiple plea bargains, including offers with terms that are not typically available to defendants (e.g., offer a counter argument to the judge to the AUSA's proffer without the AUSA'S withdrawing the proffer). Swartz did a lot more than the pro-Swartz camp admits he did and there was a pretty clear case worth taking up, it's not like he picked some random act and made a case out if it. Basically, if Heymann was over aggressive, all prosecutors are over aggressive. The CFAA has problems, but this really isn't a great example of those problems. I'll again recommend Orin Kerr's take on it at Volokh - too lazy to track down links but it shouldn't be hard to find.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:26 |
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Soylent Pudding posted:law isn't exactly a field that gives me much capacity to move around.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:32 |
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Haha emigrate to a modern state, nooblords. We don't even have to take an exam if we want to move to another province. also re: the aaron swartz thing, it probably would have been appropriate for it to be dealt with by diversion or probation, but whatever the outcome was, the guy would have been set for consulting jobs or whatever else he wanted, career-wise. There's kids getting prosecuted for bullshit drug charges that don't have even that cold consolation. Dude who gets caught wilfully breaking a kind of dumb rule in a dumb way, gets prosecuted isn't the worst injustice out there also here's the volokh conspiracy thing it's pretty good terrorist ambulance fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:38 |
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Kalman posted:Basically, if Heymann was over aggressive, all prosecutors are over aggressive. They. . .kinda are? I mean, Swartz isn't a great poster child for it, and it may be unfair to single out Heymann personally, but I can't say I'm particularly upset about seeing the issue of coercive plea bargaining getting some attention (and, let's face it, middle or upper class dude with connections is probably the best chance for it to get any publicity, even if he doesn't fit the profile of the vast majority of victims). Long as we're linking law profs: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/langbein.html Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 06:57 |
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Also injustices other than plea bargaining?
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 07:04 |
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OK, so he asks 4 questions: 1. Was punishing Swartz appropriate? 2. How much punishment is appropriate? 3. Who is to blame if government conduct is overzealous? 4. Should we reform the law? I only read his short answers, so here we go: His answer to (4) is fine. His answer to (3) is basically, there was probably some injustice, but it's the ordinary everyday injustice that happens to everyone, and you're a hypocrite if you only care about Aaron. This is dumb as heck thing to say, since usually it's one charismatic person getting hosed before we notice the everyday injustice. See Lilly Ledbetter. By saying this sort of everyday injustice happens to poorblacks every day therefore we should care less about Aaron, he's totally missing the point. His answer to (2) is kind of troubling, since conduct that materially contributes to a person committing suicide is per se in excess of special deterrence. Saying its a balancing thing beyond his ken is a cop out. I saved (1) for last because its really the dumbest, a great exercise of victim blaming. The author holds (a) that civil disobedience, even that with which we agree should be punished, which is ok because (b) Aaron wanted to be punished. ("Indeed, usually that is the point of civil disobedience: The entire point is to be punished to draw attention to the law that is deemed unjust.") Aaron was wandering around town in a skirt too short hoping to get prosecuted! News flash: the goal of civil disobedience is to effect change. All of the unpleasantness in between, getting prosecuted, hosed down, shot, etc., is a cost. If bearing these costs causes awareness, then great, but getting arrested isn't a goal. If you asked Aaron"Would you prefer to be prosecuted and cause awareness or would you prefer to not get prosecuted and also the dumb law is repealed?," guess which one Aaron would choose? To say his goal was to be prosecuted as a way of forgiving the injustices of (2)–(4) is totally missing the point. It's a decent article, so I will admit that there is a cogent argument in the pro-prosecutor side, but I just don't agree with it. I don't think there's any upside to punishing civil disobedience with which the bulk of us agree. Couldn't we have avoided jailing Mandela for 30 years, or was that all OK because apparently his specific goal was to get locked up? HolySwissCheese fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 14:50 |
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Sir John Falstaff posted:They. . .kinda are? I mean, Swartz isn't a great poster child for it, and it may be unfair to single out Heymann personally, but I can't say I'm particularly upset about seeing the issue of coercive plea bargaining getting some attention (and, let's face it, middle or upper class dude with connections is probably the best chance for it to get any publicity, even if he doesn't fit the profile of the vast majority of victims). I don't disagree. The system has problems. But Swartz was a terrible example, since he actually didnt face the kind of bargain random lower class accused face, and the people complaining are complaining about prosecutorial misconduct in this specific case, not about the general concept. They're not saying prosecutors are overly aggressive - they're saying this specific prosecutor was overly aggressive against an Internet baby because Internet freedom. And you should read Kerr's other post, the substantive analysis of law, not just the moral analysis - it's far more useful in answering the question of whether the prosecutor was being overly aggressive.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 15:07 |
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Kalman posted:I don't disagree. The system has problems. But Swartz was a terrible example, since he actually didnt face the kind of bargain random lower class accused face, and the people complaining are complaining about prosecutorial misconduct in this specific case, not about the general concept. They're not saying prosecutors are overly aggressive - they're saying this specific prosecutor was overly aggressive against an Internet baby because Internet freedom. Right, but again, that's really the only way the problem will get attention, if "middle or upper class dude with connections" gets in trouble. So, of course the attention will mostly focus on that one case, but the hope is that it raises the issue in the minds of people who would otherwise not be exposed to it at all. And no, he's not a great example, as again I pointed out, but he's what we've got. In fact, to the extent it permits those who do know about the problem to say "well, yeah, but that's common practice/even worse for poor people/etc." it at least lets those views be aired. Now, admittedly, it's less a matter of Heymann being overly aggressive than of the system as a whole being overly aggressive, because that's the way the system is currently designed, but that's why I said it was maybe unfair to single out Heymann personally. What he did may be no more than what prosecutors ordinarily do, and it can still be overly aggressive. And I'm not entirely sure how the substantive analysis of the law makes a better argument regarding the application of prosecutorial discretion. Here's James Boyle's response to Orin Kerr, which is well worth reading: http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2013/01/18/the-prosecution-of-aaron-a-response-to-orin-kerr/ Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 16:07 |
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quote not edit
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 16:27 |
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That reddit moron was a stupid son of a bitch. what did he think was going to happen? gently caress that guy and gently caress reddit for thinking he was some kind of martyr. the American legal system victimizes an unknowable number of people every drat day. I have zero sympathy for some idiot with an Internet fan club
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 16:42 |
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builds character posted:3. Just wondering what happened to everyone who posted in this thread two/three years ago. Finished undergrad in 2009. This thread convinced me to not go to law school. Took a summer research gig at a law school and it confirmed that I'd made the right decision. Happened to get a job in higher ed admin where I was paid for posting stuff on the Internet and mentoring really awesome undergrads. Did that for a few years before moving into a fully-funded grad program where I get paid to research, present at conferences, write papers, and hang out with the law school profs I liked (instead of paying through the nose to be their slaves). When this is over I may go back to my old job or I may do something else. I'm not making biglaw money but I'm also not in crippling debt, and I'm surrounded by creative, hyperintelligent people. I suppose I could go to law school if I went the JD/PhD route. But I almost certainly will not. And anyone reading this thread almost certainly should not either.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 17:03 |
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Every once in a while, you find an attorney who's been doing the same poo poo for 30 years. Except instead of being stuck at it, they're GOOD at it. I just totally got TROUNCED this morning. gently caress.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 18:02 |
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Sir John Falstaff posted:Here's James Boyle's response to Orin Kerr, which is well worth reading: I just don't get it... Coming at this with a blank slate towards either side: A guy knowingly and repeatedly tried to circumvent network protocols to download valuable material that wasn't his. That's a felony. Bam. The end. Like I read this guy's article, and it's all about sympathy and mitigation. It's all true. But it hadn't even gone to trial. The prosecutor floats a deal for 6 months, guy commits suicide. It's extremely tragic, but it's like getting mad at the stoplight for making you late. My take-away from this article is: "Woah woah woah, if people commit ticky tacky felonies they can go to JAIL????????".
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 18:45 |
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The felony part is by far the worst part of the offer. Okay, six months in jail seems harsh, but the problem is the felony. That was going to gently caress him over when he was 65.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 19:01 |
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woozle wuzzle posted:I just don't get it... Of course a person can go to jail for "ticky tacky felonies." The question is whether they should, and that's where the issue of prosecutorial discretion enters the picture. The prosecutor can choose what charges to bring, and what punishments to seek. Quoting Boyle: quote:To put it differently, I think Orin’s postings would have been more accurate had he said. “The facts in this case are hotly disputed. The defense argues that a prosecution for violating code-based restrictions is unreasonable and unfounded and that the prosecutor would have to rely against a theory about terms of use that I have specifically condemned in the past (and which the defense also argues is factually implausible.) The prosecution offers a very different account in which Aaron violated both terms of use and code based restrictions. I should note that this point is relevant not only to the application of the law, but to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Losing your wedding ring at the beach could be prosecuted as littering, but the degree to which the facts – while technically fitting the legal definitions – do not actually seem to fit the spirit, is something most prosecutors I know would want to consider. My point is not that the result of that inquiry at trial would inevitably favor Aaron – I don’t know, and I don’t think Orin does either – it is that Orin’s account of the facts sounds more conclusory than I think the evidence warrants. Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 19:07 |
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the dude was obviously trying to challenge copyright law by doing something bold. mission accomplished, homeboy.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 19:11 |
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Ronald Dworkin is dead. May the right answer thesis be interred with him.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 19:18 |
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quote:Losing your wedding ring at the beach could be prosecuted as littering, but the degree to which the facts – while technically fitting the legal definitions – do not actually seem to fit the spirit, is something most prosecutors I know would want to consider. There's no mens rea with losing your ring at the beach. But Schwartz was a giant ball of mens rea. The prosecution may have had difficulties proving the technical act due to a lack of MIT user agreement. But what Schwartz did is definitely against the "spirit" of computer fraud crimes. Whether or not he technically committed computer/wire fraud, he certainly intended to. Let's say he was downloading the digital cut for the next Die Hard movie, with the same repeated attempts and clean record. He'd get a offered a felony. The money value involved here is big. Whether it's a bad Die Hard movie or public domain cure to cancer, it wasn't his. The offer just doesn't seem out-of-whack to me. So to answer the question of should he have been offered a felony and no less, I'd say: Sure. Why not. If that series of acts ain't a felony, it besmirches the good name of felonies. woozle wuzzle fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 19:23 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 06:29 |
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HolySwissCheese posted:News flash: the goal of civil disobedience is to effect change. All of the unpleasantness in between, getting prosecuted, hosed down, shot, etc., is a cost. If bearing these costs causes awareness, then great, but getting arrested isn't a goal. If you asked Aaron"Would you prefer to be prosecuted and cause awareness or would you prefer to not get prosecuted and also the dumb law is repealed?," guess which one Aaron would choose? To say his goal was to be prosecuted as a way of forgiving the injustices of (2)–(4) is totally missing the point. Solid Lizzie fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Feb 14, 2013 |
# ? Feb 14, 2013 20:03 |