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Pook Good Mook posted:More realistically I'd prepare for the explosion in unaccredited JD mills. Why bother with anything but a BarBri course? EDIT: Time to invest in BarBri.
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Feb 24, 2015 22:36
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Look Sir Droids posted:Why bother with anything but a BarBri course? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh where will you learn to think like a lawyer?
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Feb 24, 2015 22:41
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mikeraskol posted:Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh where will you learn to think like a lawyer? in a truck stop restroom, like our forefathers intended
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Feb 24, 2015 22:51
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Look Sir Droids posted:The TN fucktard legislature introduced a bill to let anyone sit for the bar, whether they went to law school or not. I'll just patiently await the bill to refund me all of my law school tuition. well, it still has to pass. or so schoolhouse rock taught me. See? Who needs law school.
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Feb 24, 2015 22:54
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ActusRhesus posted:well, it still has to pass. Tennesseein' is believin'.
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Feb 24, 2015 23:01
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Also get ready to lose your reciprocity
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Feb 24, 2015 23:10
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Elotana posted:Also get ready to lose your reciprocity Yup. I'll take the Vegas odds someone in your state house has a kid who can't get into law school. ActusRhesus fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 23:32
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ActusRhesus posted:Yup. I'd rather they just shitcan some law school administrators or cut some funding. Why would a mouthbreathing legacy kid want to be a lawyer that bad? It won't pass but these people want babies to have guns, so uh.
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Feb 25, 2015 00:39
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Look Sir Droids posted:Why would a mouthbreathing legacy kid want to be a lawyer that bad? Look Sir Droids posted:legacy
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Feb 25, 2015 01:02
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evilweasel posted:we had a sovereign citizen who we were literally just trying to give money to and he refused to accept it out of fear of some legal magical trickery, so we're going to get a court order saying we don't owe him money because he refuses to accept it One of the sadder parts of being a lawyer is watching other people be stupid. I once represented a bank being sued by a pro se litigant who was bitching about his ATM check deposit not being credited in time for him to take advantage of an airline special offer. The bank, knowing what the prep/argument for the inevitable MtD would cost, and trying to be good-natured (for a bank), offered to settle for $1k. The guy turns it down, goes to a motion hearing, he loses badly (obviously). I don't even think his original request for damages was that much higher. Same with a defendant I had who was going to be sentenced post-appeal for a murder conviction, trial happened many years before I had the case. I took months of work, most of it unbillable since the firm had long since used up the court money available to the case, getting the prosecution to agree to giving the guy a chance for parole w/ the life sentence if he signed away his habeas claim (which was a piece of poo poo that had at best a 10% chance of getting a re-trial in front of a defense-minded judge, and 0% chance in front of the hanging judge it was in front of, especially since the meat of it was a re-hash of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim against his lawyer, who was now a judge in the same courthouse). This was his one bargaining chip, we'd developed this plan together and I had been haranguing/threatening/cajoling/bluffing the prosecution until we had the deal, and on the day of, he decides he doesn't want to give up his habeas claim and backs out. Judge sentences him to life w/out parole, we withdraw, dude files his pro se habeas that gets denied within about a week. Sovereign citizens don't have a monopoly on stupid, they just do it in a different language.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:50
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gently caress habeas.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:57
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ActusRhesus posted:gently caress habeas. Every single part of it is a disaster.
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Feb 25, 2015 03:03
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I'm just gonna post my situation and ask for general comments/advice. Went to law school right after undergrad, halfway through 1L 2nd semester at a top 25 school. My scholarship rocks - I will graduate without debt and the grade I need to keep it is so low that it wont be an issue. My grades first semester were not great, probably top 60% of the class bc I blew it on one final. Gov job lined up this summer with the doj in a department im interested in. Been enjoying it as I can, but have been leagues more diligent about grades this semester. I'm not looking to go outside the region, I dont want to do BigLaw (nor will I have any debt that might shackle one to a big law job). Been active in all the extracurrics except the ones that signal. Missed adr, trial team, and moot court but will try again 2L. Law review not yet chosen but with my grades writing in seems a long shot. Advice? Drop out now? Stick with it since I wont have debt to pay off?
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Feb 25, 2015 08:34
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Nonexistence posted:I'm just gonna post my situation and ask for general comments/advice. Went to law school right after undergrad, halfway through 1L 2nd semester at a top 25 school. My scholarship rocks - I will graduate without debt and the grade I need to keep it is so low that it wont be an issue. My grades first semester were not great, probably top 60% of the class bc I blew it on one final. Gov job lined up this summer with the doj in a department im interested in. Been enjoying it as I can, but have been leagues more diligent about grades this semester. I'm not looking to go outside the region, I dont want to do BigLaw (nor will I have any debt that might shackle one to a big law job). Been active in all the extracurrics except the ones that signal. Missed adr, trial team, and moot court but will try again 2L. Law review not yet chosen but with my grades writing in seems a long shot. Advice? Drop out now? Stick with it since I wont have debt to pay off? You're asking if you should drop out because you didn't make law review?
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Feb 25, 2015 11:46
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Could one of you guys fill me in on what habeas means down there? I take it that it's just an appeal but...it can't be. Here it's an extraordinary remedy that's generally only used if your guy's bail hearing is delayed or he's otherwise in custody unlawfully. I brought one once when the jail calculated my client's time left incorrectly, for example.
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Feb 25, 2015 12:28
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ActusRhesus posted:You're asking if you should drop out because you didn't make law review? It was more the bad grades, but yes please factor a lack of signaling extra currics.
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Feb 25, 2015 13:24
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Do you want to be a lawyer?
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Feb 25, 2015 13:37
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Your position (low debt at a reasonably good school) is about as good as it gets for a law student. The main cost to you of law school is the opportunity cost of foregoing three years of career advancement on a career track that isn't garbage. Actus Reeses has cogently identified the key question, because she has nothing better to do from within the confines of her cushy government sinecure. However, because as a private practice attorney I am superior to her in every way, I will expand on her line of questioning: 1.) Do you want to be a lawyer? 2.) Are you sure? 3.) Really? What's wrong with you? 4.) What else would you be doing if you dropped out of law school right now? If your answers to the above are "yes," "totally," "my mom drank a lot while she was pregnant with me," and "well, my band is getting pretty good at these DMB covers, we might try to go on tour," then you should probably stay in law school.
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Feb 25, 2015 14:11
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See, pie king? I help people too.
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Feb 25, 2015 14:13
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You should probably wait until you do the DOJ job to decide. Maybe you just don't like law school but you'll like the real work. 2L and 3L are much easier to tough out. Until then, do as much as you can to lord it over your classmates that you won't have any debts.
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Feb 25, 2015 14:26
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Soothing Vapors posted:Actus Reeses has cogently identified the key question, because she has nothing better to do from within the confines of her cushy government sinecure. However, because as a private practice attorney I am superior to her in every way, I will expand on her line of questioning: I have plenty of better things to do. Starting with putting in an obligatory appearance for this morning's motion docket to remind people I exist, and then returning to my antisocial fortress of appellate doom where I will spend the next several hours Which reminds me of this question: CmdrSmirnoff posted:Could one of you guys fill me in on what habeas means down there? I take it that it's just an appeal but...it can't be. Here it's an extraordinary remedy that's generally only used if your guy's bail hearing is delayed or he's otherwise in custody unlawfully. I brought one once when the jail calculated my client's time left incorrectly, for example. It's supposed to be an extraordinary remedy here as well. It's not an appeal though. Essentially defendant argues his confinement is unlawful for reasons. Sometimes they have merit e.g. when I was clerking we got a federal habeas because the prison was violating a court order to limit prisoners to x per cell. Generally on the federal side (correct me if I am wrong, I don't do federal any more) the matter is resolved on the pleadings alone. However, our state, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that a. prisoners have an absolute right to bring habeas complaints, to include collateral attacks on their convictions, AT ANY TIME, and therefore, they also have a right to counsel. And then they have a right to counsel if they want to bring another habeas complaining that their first habeas counsel was ineffective. Oh, and they have a right to a full hearing on the matter. Whether one is needed or not. And because since 90% of them are bullshit claims that boil down to "my public defender was ineffective for not putting on my completely fabricated alibi defense that would have backfired and all but guaranteed my conviction" the PD's office is conflicted out and the state has to pay a "special public defender." There are like 4 firms that pretty much do all the habeas work. They are sweatshops for new lawyers and of course, because they bill by the hour, pretrial and post trial briefs ARE ESSENTIAL TO THEIR CASE. We tend to be pretty reasonable...if we see in a habeas petition something that is an obvious injustice, we just fix it for them. E.g. we got one where defendant's conviction was partially vacated on appeal, but his sentence was never modified to correct that. So rather than go forward on the habeas, we called his lawyer, told him we were going to file a motion to correct the sentence with the trial court and all was resolved. Unfortunately, that is the slim minority of these cases. Most are ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Meh. Keeps me employed I guess...as they also have a right to appeal the inevitable denial of their habeas petition.
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Feb 25, 2015 14:44
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ActusRhesus posted:Meh. Keeps me employed I guess... The system works!
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Feb 25, 2015 14:50
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sullat posted:The system works! case I'm arguing tomorrow is an appeal from the denial of his FOURTH ineffective assistance of counsel habeas. It's gotten so bad that we have started raising the special defense of laches...and winning.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:02
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Nonexistence posted:I'm literally asking if I should drop out because I didn't make law review. You're not alone: in fact, most people are "going to law school" instead of "training to become a lawyer." Its possible (though not guaranteed) that your first job out of law school will care about your grades/extra curriculars. Every one after that will only care about what you did at the job before and what you're bringing with you to the next firm. Go to your summer job, see how you like it.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:22
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Thanks to those who replied, I have 0 doubts about my enthusiasm for the law and working as a lawyer. I've worked as a legal assistant before and loved it, I love the subject areas im specializing in, my summer job scopes out to be very cool. I really couldn't see myself doing anything else, the only thing that could ruin it for me is, of course, not getting hired for having mediocre grades and not "the right" extracurrics.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:30
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ActusRhesus posted:I have plenty of better things to do. Starting with putting in an obligatory appearance for this morning's motion docket to remind people I exist, and then returning to my antisocial fortress of appellate doom where I will spend the next several hours
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Feb 25, 2015 15:38
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Soothing Vapors posted:Remind me, why am I not working for the government again? They have to want you to work there in order for that to happen
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Feb 25, 2015 15:41
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:Could one of you guys fill me in on what habeas means down there? I take it that it's just an appeal but...it can't be. Here it's an extraordinary remedy that's generally only used if your guy's bail hearing is delayed or he's otherwise in custody unlawfully. I brought one once when the jail calculated my client's time left incorrectly, for example. Different things in different places. My state only has 'traditional' habeas corpus; e.g., if the sheriff hasn't released a prisoner he's supposed to release. Around here, 'post-conviction relief' seems to be our version of AR's habeas - but it works a bit differently. First, application is made to the trial court; if you didn't like the result of your trial or plea, you have to ask your trial/plea judge to give you relief. There is no right to counsel, though the trial judge, at his/her sole discretion, can appoint counsel for you. If you're denied relief at the trial level, you can appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Again, there is no right to counsel, thought the court can appoint counsel. If you lose there, you're done. You can try for Federal habeas or the US Supreme Court, but no right to counsel. The regular appeal process works like this: you get counsel for your trial. You get counsel for your one state appeal. (If you have court-appointed counsel and the office has spare money to go to the US Supreme Court and you can convince you boss its worth a shot, the you can try that.) Otherwise, one appeal and you're done. Capital cases get appointed counsel for state trial, state appeal, US Supreme Court, state post conviction, federal habeas, US Supreme Court.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:46
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Soothing Vapors posted:Remind me, why am I not working for the government again? I just lurk here, but I don't think you have what it takes to show up to court for thirty minutes and then spend the rest of your day reading about video games and gossiping with your investigators.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:48
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blarzgh posted:You're not alone: in fact, most people are "going to law school" instead of "training to become a lawyer." While I don't disagree with your overall advice to do the summer job, I do not think this statement is entirely correct. I have lateralled twice since law school (as a second year and a fourth year), and every firm I interviewed with during those lateral processes wanted to see my law school transcripts. Law school grades become less important later on, and I'm sure they're mostly irrelevant after you have 5 or 6 years of experience, but if you're planning to move before then expect that someone will at least want to see your law school transcript.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:51
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Grades/extras definitely still come up in interviews, quite a lot. Even for government jobs these days.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:57
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mikeraskol posted:They have to want you to work there in order for that to happen Treemeister posted:I just lurk here, but I don't think you have what it takes to show up to court for thirty minutes and then spend the rest of your day reading about video games and gossiping with your investigators. 
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Feb 25, 2015 16:00
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I took the Tennessee bar in 2009 and at the time you didn't have to have a law degree to get licensed here. Having a JD from an accredited school basically qualifies you for reciprocity but otherwise it was free to sit.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:09
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Always drop out of law school
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Feb 25, 2015 16:18
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If you can pull your grades up, then you've got a chance to get something together. Even if you can't, if your school is the best in the local region and you can find a firm/someplace to work that likes you, then you can still be just fine. The problem I see is that most government gigs get so many applicants they either look for someone at the top of the class or someone with 5-ish years of experience (or both). So make sure to line up a backup plan in case this government gig doesn't turn into a full job.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:22
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JesustheDarkLord posted:I took the Tennessee bar in 2009 and at the time you didn't have to have a law degree to get licensed here. Having a JD from an accredited school basically qualifies you for reciprocity but otherwise it was free to sit. TN Supreme Court Rule 7 says otherwise: quote:ARTICLE II. EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION http://tncourts.gov/rules/supreme-court/7 Amended in 2010, but pre-amendment still required graduation from a law school. Look Sir Droids fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 16:23
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NJ Deac posted:While I don't disagree with your overall advice to do the summer job, I do not think this statement is entirely correct. I have lateralled twice since law school (as a second year and a fourth year), and every firm I interviewed with during those lateral processes wanted to see my law school transcripts. Law school grades become less important later on, and I'm sure they're mostly irrelevant after you have 5 or 6 years of experience, but if you're planning to move before then expect that someone will at least want to see your law school transcript. I had the same experience--transcripts still matter, at least for some firms. I also never had any sort of questions about whether I was bringing any business; I don't think larger firms expect associates to be hauling around their own book.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:24
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Summary: grades matter for most jobs, but not all jobs. If you're bringing portables, grades matter less. 1L: finish your first year, see if your grades improve or you make law review or a decent journal. If you have other job prospects (e.g. engineer, military), go do that. If you have no other prospects, stick it out and hope you turn that doj internship into real work. Lots of government agencies like to hire former interns, so ride that horse hard. Government life is great most of the time.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:38
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Treemeister posted:I just lurk here, but I don't think you have what it takes to show up to court for thirty minutes and then spend the rest of your day reading about video games and gossiping with your investigators. ActusRhesus makes so much sense now
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Feb 25, 2015 16:49
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nm posted:Always drop out of law school
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Feb 25, 2015 17:22
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