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Classes in which I "studied harder" for the exam, it tended not to matter grade-wise. Classes in which I paid more attention over the course of the semester, it showed every single time. All my As are in classes where I cared about the subject matter enough to show up and listen in every class. Favorite gunner story was a kid who, at the end of a crimpro lecture, raised his hand. Professor had been talking for a while, looks up at the clock, sees it's about 2 minutes til class ends. He says "OK, but you can only have 2 minutes." Kid gets very offended by this and says, loudly and in a very offended voice, "But you already had 10 minutes!" Hated both the professor and the kid. Still laugh when I think about that.
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2011 14:11 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:35 |
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Nero posted:So we still haven't got grades back for one of my classes yet. The professor was an adjunct and it was her first class. She was an awful lecturer. She put everything she was going to say in the class on powerpoints and just read them for an hour and a half. Awful to sit through and since she put the powerpoints online almost nobody came after the second week. It was a graveyard in there. For what it's worth, I ran into the opposite situation with another professor. He was an adjunct, we loved him, he loved us, and he gave our class a very high curve. So high the registrar essentially wouldn't allow him to log it in. In the end he folded, several weeks late, and the curve wound up being almost dead on the school recommended curve. So, if you're lucky, that'll happen to you.
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# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 09:00 |
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diospadre posted:Is he trying to say you got the highest grade? Or that you should have gotten a higher grade? What the hell It's a mass email - the your would be collective. In other words "there's a curve I have to abide by and you guys got screwed."
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# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 20:59 |
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CaptainScraps posted:I've been tossing around the phrase "Law school is deliberately obtuse" but never realized how loving far my first year courses were from actual law until I've taken the bar review. Can't wait til you start working (well, for your sake, I hope you start working) and realize how far bar review is from actual law too. (Also, my first year property course was awesome.)
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# ¿ Jun 16, 2011 23:23 |
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methamphetamine posted:Popping in here to say that this is bad advice endlessly parroted by people who have no experience on the issue. Read the Examples and Explanations on Civpro, Contracts, and Torts if you have time. Read Getting to Maybe, but also read How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams by Delaney. Check out LEEWS if you have time. This is terrible advice, at least for a T14. You are not expected to memorize rules at a T14. Knowing the rules isn't quite optional, but having the little elements and whatnot is what your outlines are for. You need the in-class discussion of corner cases to do well on exams. On the other hand, wasting time on casebooks and prepping for cold calls might not have helped my grades, but it definitely helped when I needed to ask professors for recommendations and connections - which is when you want to be the person who spoke up in class and whose name they know. If PLS says don't read your casebooks and don't prep for cold call classes, it's wrong. (Within reason: I'm not saying memorize cases, but in classes that cold called, I knew basic facts and could talk the law of every case we were assigned that day.) So, my advice? (Graduated from a T14, journal, moot court, cum laude, etc. Yeah, gently caress you, I'm a gunner.) Do not under any circumstances read any law (actually, I'd argue that part is true for any law school). Do not read LEEWS - I've skimmed bits of their advice and jesus christ would it have been counterproductive for me on most, but not all, exams. The most but not all is even more of a reason not to do LEEWS - you need to learn how to figure out what a professor wants if you want to do well, and any system asserting "the one true way" will gently caress you on that. E&Es may be helpful (they would have been useless for my contracts/torts courses, but hey, professors vary and mine was a crazy but awesome race crit) but they will be more helpful when you have some clue what you're reading. Read Above the Law so you know what you got yourself into. Read fun books because it's the last real chance you're going to have to read for fun for the next couple years. And if you absolutely positively MUST read about law, pick up books like Anthony Lewis's Make No Law (or Gideon's Trumpet if you're more interested in criminal law than in defamation) or similar historical works slanted to a non-legal audience. They'll make you excited to be going to law school, which is going to be needed to counterbalance ATL. Basically, enjoy your summer. You won't know a loving thing worth knowing for law school til you actually get there, so stop trying so hard.
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# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 02:04 |
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For what it's worth, some professors like a variant on IRAC type format where you *do* lead with the conclusion (CREAC - conclusion rule explanation application conclusion). What's the issue outcome, what's the general rule, how has that rule been applied in various similar situations to generate parallels, how does that rule come down here, restate your conclusion for good measure. Also, on exams, I never found starting with maybe to be helpful - instead I picked the side I wanted to argue and started arguing for and against that side. I found it easier to have a vantage point than to try to write the neutral point, even if the exam asked me to couch the answer in neutrality ("You are a clerk to Chief Justice Fishdog, write a bench memo", for example) - you dress up the answer in neutrality at the end, but advocating throughout can give a better structure (as long as you keep in mind that the answer is nearly always going to be a close question throughout so that you don't give conclusory answers). And now you know why anyone who claims that they know what professors want without knowing the professor is full of poo poo. You know how to figure out what professors want to see on exams? Read. Old. Exams. Your professor likely makes them available - go look at best exams and feedback memos and see what they actually liked and learn from that for the exam proper. And don't do any of this before week 7, especially during 1L. Even during 3L, I refused to think about finals (beyond doing the reading and going to class) until week 7. Kalman fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jun 22, 2011 |
# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 05:05 |
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What is this "articling" thing? Never heard of it (in my rampant US centricism).
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# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 07:38 |
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flog montresor posted:Wow, I got the crap kicked out of me second semester. My gpa for this semester was about 0.3 lower than my first semester GPA, and I studied harder/smarter in so many ways (or so I thought). I had a similar experience (1st->2nd drop of about 0.3, ending up around a 3.65 at a T14). No one asked me a thing about it during OCI. You're likely fine.
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# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 15:29 |
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Draile posted:The Harlan Fiske Stone Scholars are the best example of title inflation I can think of. You were in the top 1/3 of your class for one year? Congratulations, you are a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. But you can take Randy Barnett's "I'm on TV guys, I'm on TV ALL THE TIME" Constitutional Law II! It's exciting! (It's not. Don't take courses with Barnett.)
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# ¿ Jun 25, 2011 08:16 |
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Bathing Jesus posted:Has anyone published an article--not a note or comment--in a journal or law review before? And if so, any advice/thoughts on the process? Answer two questions and you'll get better advice and thoughts. Where in the process are you? (I.e. have you basically finished your article, have a decent draft done, just starting to write, just the germ of an idea, etc.) What are you? Student, practitioner? (We can safely assume you aren't a prof since you would have published if you were.) It matters which you are. I'm guessing practitioner?
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# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 10:46 |
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Bathing Jesus posted:To respond to everyone's comments at once - there's no plagiarism involved, the article isn't at all preempted, etc. I just graduated and will be working at a firm by the time the article gets published; my coauthor will be clerking on the 9th Circuit. Broadly speaking, the article is about trademark theory, which is the area I'm hoping to work myself into at my firm come this fall, so I'm certainly happy having my name attached to it. Fordham's law review (just their normal law review) tends to publish a number of IP articles, they may not be a bad bet either. Also Michigan's Telecoms Law journal - it's called telecoms, but publishes a lot of IP. GW probably has something too, I forget, it's been a while since I researched IP-specific publishing (though I'll need to hit it again come August). But honestly, here's the three pieces of correct advice you need: -You can submit now, but there's no reason to. Article submission windows are March-April (primary) and July-August (secondary). Things submitted in between, at most journals, are just kind of back burnered because they don't need to make offers yet. Also, it's summer and journal staff don't want to work. Keep working on it until July and then get it out the door. -See where respected IP folks publish to give yourself some ideas. Do au(x) searches for Lemley, Dreyfuss, Tushnet, Merges, Litman, Cohen, Netanel, Eisenberg, Samuelson, etc. - you know who you ought to be looking for here. See where they published recently and use that to build your list. -Now that you have that list, you're going to basically ignore it. Submit to loving everyone, and bargain up once you get your first offer.
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# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 22:17 |
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Let me reemphasize: apply EARLY. I didn't, and likely got screwed on admits and financial aid as a result. Despite a 178/3.2 (in engineering at a very good engineering school, plus significant work experience, so it's not as bad a GPA as it might seem) I was still waitlisted at basically all of the T14s and didn't get a ton of money when I did get in. Apply as early as you can. If you wait til January like me, you will be very sad about yourself.
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# ¿ Jul 1, 2011 01:57 |
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Lemonus posted:If any of you are so kind please help a brother out with some advice. This post will probably cover far more than you need, but hey, why not. The whole zealous advocacy duty has been fairly heavily covered over the past few years, particularly in the context of the torture memos; you can find some light reading in the area in blog posts on the topic, most likely. Sourcewise, I will pimp my old journal, for one: the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. There's been quite a bit in there on both the actual and theoretical bases of the zealous advocacy duty over the past few years; basically the entirety of Volume 23 Issue 4 focused on lawyer duties to clients from a theoretical perspective, for example. Some writers you might want to look into (more from the theoretical perspective than the practical) include David Luban, Brad Wendel, Alice Woolley, Katherine Kruse, and Mit Regan (who's written fairly extensively about this area w/r/t corporate law - his book Eat What You Kill is a good read). While I don't recall the Journal having any NZ-related articles lately, there've been a few on law firm culture in Australia; check V24-2 for Parker & Aitken's article on the topic. Beyond that, I'd also point you to the Legal Ethics Forum and the LEF Blog, both of which have a number of posts you may find useful, and are basically an excellent starting point for any American legal ethics related
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# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 06:30 |
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Diplomaticus posted:I studied about 3-4 hours a day for a week or two, then about an hour a day for the rest of the time, and then about 15 hours a day the week before the bar. Stopped going to barbri and switched to the video lessons after about week 2. A solid half of my friends are taking Maryland. I hate each and every one of them. And, actually, basically everyone who doesn't have 22 subjects to deal with. Thanks, NY. But yeah, I switched to video after 2 days and the 2-3 up til now and 10-15 for the next week plan is mine as well. Even better choice after figuring out tm++ and watching video at 1.5x. Or 2.0x in the case of Paula. God I hate that woman.
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# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 07:29 |
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Blakkout posted:I just mailed out 98 clerkship applications this morning. The people at the post office in the Loop hate me, and I'm $125 further in debt. Here's to hoping someone calls me back. Are most of the judges who accept applications via OSCAR pretty flooded with apps? I'm trying to decide if it's even worth my time. Are you top 25% at Chicago (you said the loop, so I'm assuming you're UC - if you're HYS you can also enjoy this benefit)? Because if not, hahahahahaah have fun you won't get a callback. You're competing not just with your year, but the last two years of underemployed people who "might as well just apply for a clerkship!" (This goes for paper apps too, so you already wasted your time.) edit: Also, there is one sub-specialty of panda law where there are jobs: immigration. Want to do immigration work? DoJ will probably snatch you up right off the bat to go clerk for an immigration judge. They took a solid 10% of my classmates, if I remember right.
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# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 20:58 |
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Hey, I never said immigration law was rewarding or well paying (it can be one or the other, just not both), just that it is one of the forms of international panda rights law where there are some jobs available.
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 00:04 |
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MoFauxHawk posted:Isn't Chicago Law several miles south of the Loop? Northwestern Law's the one at the Loop. I'm moving to Streeterville from DC August 15th! Yeah, but a lot of Chicago students don't live in the neighborhood (because it's kind of lovely, tbh). If he's Northwestern, I'd almost tell him not to bother unless he's top 5% or has a personal relationship with a judge - that seemed to be the necessary qualifications at Georgetown, which is comparable enough to NW. I know that I, as a graduating 3L, won't be selling a thing off until later in August (nobody is selling stuff from now until after the bar, and very few people are moving August 1, most people who are moving are moving in the second half of the month), so I think you'll do okay on finding a bed - if not, check Craigslist, it's always good for cheap poo poo (might want a new mattress though).
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 03:36 |
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MoFauxHawk posted:Wow mean. I'm going to believe HR's advice over yours both because it serves me and because Northwestern is more a Duke-level school than a Georgetown-level school. I hope you're right about the furniture though, thank you for the input. This was last year. It might have gotten better. (Not counting on it.) I wasn't trying to be mean - I was in the same boat. You know how people say "don't go to law school"? Well, once you're in law school, "don't count on a clerkship if you're not top 5%/HYSC/friends with the judge." Also, I was talking about offers, not interviews, when I said 5%/know the judge. Plenty of top 1/3 got interviews. Maybe you are that special snowflake that HR talks about (they fed me the same line last year; did not get an offer).
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 03:56 |
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MoFauxHawk posted:I just meant it was mean that you were saying Northwestern was comparable enough to Georgetown and so far below Chicago. For clerkships? Chicago is a feeder school for clerkships in general, and is generally ranked 4th/5th overall. Northwestern is at the bottom of the top tier along with Georgetown. Had it been a UT student I'd have said the same thing (though UT is in a position where they're at least advantaged for Texas judges - NW isn't because they're competing with Chicago students for local bias, and Georgetown isn't because DC judges don't really exhibit local bias.) Looking into it a bit more, I was actually wrong - Chicago doesn't do as well as I thought! Nor does Georgetown. Chicago does slightly better than NW, and Georgetown does slightly better overall but places fewer into federal clerkships as opposed to state and Article I clerkships. However, Chicago massively outperforms when it comes to SCOTUS clerkships.
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 04:13 |
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srsly posted:Oh wait I forgot I get to "bill" my lunch with summer associates yesterday. I'm fairly sure the "billing 0 hours per day" group would trade you. (Also, how the hell are you billing lunch with summers? Unless it was lunch with summers who are working on a matter with you?) Kalman fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Jul 22, 2011 |
# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 11:41 |
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CaptainScraps posted:How do you guys feel about putting references on resumes? If they wanted your references, they would have asked for them.
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# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 18:01 |
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NJ Deac posted:A good friend of mine's girlfriend is an associate in their Palo Alto office. From his descriptions, it doesn't sound any better or worse than most other Biglaw gigs - crazy hours, exorbitant salary, some of her coworkers/bosses are cool, most are dickbags. That was standard; it's mixed now whether any given firm is a true up and out (make partner or leave - e.g. Cravath, classically, and I believe still) or whether they allow some alternative to partner.
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# ¿ Nov 1, 2011 01:46 |
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qwertyman posted:New York Bar? Give me something hard to pass. Never. Ever. Again. (I passed, it's pretty exciting.)
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# ¿ Nov 2, 2011 06:46 |
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Sulecrist posted:I wonder if there's any chance of it dropping behind Boalt and UVA now Penn is not Penn State.
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# ¿ Nov 18, 2011 08:03 |
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blar posted:David Segal is making a career out of law school hatchet jobs. I love how he interviews law professors and then uses the titles of their "scholarship" to show how worthless the whole system really is. I like how one of his examples of worthless scholarship in the legal academy is a philosophy article title, written by a philosophy professor and placed in a philosophy journal (“What Is Wrong With Kamm’s and Scanlon’s Arguments Against Taurek” from The Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy). Not saying he doesn't have some points, but that article is sloppy as gently caress.
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# ¿ Nov 21, 2011 01:18 |
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Tetrix posted:I'll be working in DC for the federal government next year and don't know what bar to take. Most people in the office took either MD or VA. I guess the biggest plus for MD is that there is no annual CLE requirement. I don't have any long term plans to relocate to another state either. If you're working in DC for the government, take whatever the hell bar you want. No one will care. MD/VA are more common mostly because of people who want a little more flexibility within the region. I took NY and work in DC (also with no plans to relocate). Others in the office are actually mostly NY bar, with a couple randoms (I think we have a FL bar?) Basically, you're going to waive into DC anyway, so as long as you take the MBE whatever bar you want is going to be fine. Pick based on price, difficulty, potential to move, and CLE requirements.
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# ¿ Nov 30, 2011 07:31 |
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CaptainScraps posted:My cousin wants to go into the FBI and recently told me he took the LSAT because all they're taking is lawyers. Very, very hard. DoJ entry level lawyer hiring is down more than almost anywhere else. If he's going for the law entry path to the special agent track, I don't know how down hiring is, but: quote:Serving as an FBI Special Agent is a demanding job. A Special Agent is often placed in situations that make great demands on his/her physical capacity. In these instances, physical fitness is often the factor that spells the difference between success and failure — even life and death. Therefore, all candidates for the position must be in excellent physical condition with no disabilities which would interfere in firearm use, raids, or defensive tactics. For more information on the physical fitness requirements, please see the Special Agent Physical Requirements portion of this site. So, smack him til he's in shape, then smack him some more because that is an incredibly stupid reason to spend 3 years of your life and 200k on law school. (I *liked* law school, and I'd still kill myself if that had been my reason.)
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# ¿ Dec 10, 2011 21:18 |
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Big Slammu posted:Here's my explanation, but before you guys jump all over me I want to preface it: please please PLEASE realize that I am not going to jump into law school unless I'm getting into a school where 1) debt isn't a terribly overwhelming consideration (HYS) or 2) a T14 with a very good scholly. I've turned down law school before (following your advice), and I'll do it again if need be. I am terribly debt adverse. http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml. If you get into Yale, and think you'll be top 10% (hint: 172/3.85? You probably won't be top 10%), AND like to write, a lot, then you might, might, MIGHT be able to wind up a teacher. (No one in government gives a gently caress about your law degree unless you want to work in one of the legal policy areas - if you're interested in doing econ work, or health, or anything outside of judiciary issues, a law degree ain't that helpful.) If you get into HYS, yeah, okay, consider it, you'll probably get a job (in a field you have no interest in working in according to your post). If you get into a T14 and a full ride, I suppose you can consider it even though you're still going to walk out owing 50-70k between living expenses and bar costs. But you keep saying things that amount to "I don't want to be a lawyer", so, I'd take your own advice. (In my gov't office there are two different grads of T14s who don't have jobs and are on 6 month fellowships from their schools. Don't assume a T14 is a good plan right now - it might be better by the time you get out, but it also really might not.)
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2011 08:24 |
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Just for a comparability thing: if you want to teach, you basically want to get an appellate clerkship AND a Ph.D. If you do that, you're a reasonable candidate. If not, hope you get a SCOTUS clerkship. That's not an exaggeration - go look at the number of professors under age 40, even at lower tier schools, who did not clerk and do not have a Ph.D. and did not go to Yale. It's essentially zero. You need two of those three markers, and even then you have a better shot at finding a job with a history Ph.D. as compared to being a law prof. (Jobs with state reps, assuming he's currently a staff assistant, go: staff assistant, legislative correspondent, legislative aide, sr legislative aide, legislative director, chief of staff. If you have a law degree, you can be a counsel/chief counsel instead of an LA/LD. At any point after LA, you can usually break off and go into government affairs/lobbying for either private practice or non-profits, though that's more common for national positions. Titles may vary from chamber to chamber - those titles are the ones I'm familiar with from the US Senate.)
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2011 14:48 |
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Kudaros posted:Would a PhD be very helpful? Or only marginally so? It will be helpful in getting hired as a patent attorney. Patent prosecution firms in particular love to swing their "we have THIIIIIIS MANY PHDs" dick around and love recruiting people with advanced degrees in scientific disciplines. (But an MS is almost as good.)
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# ¿ Jan 5, 2012 01:54 |
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Baruch Obamawitz posted:We're desperate for people who can speak english and have good technical skills and an applicable bachelors. A PhD won't hurt. You're not currently hiring, as far as I can tell. http://usptocareers.gov/Pages/PEPositions/Jobs.aspx - "Currently, we have no available vacancies for Patent Examiner positions."
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# ¿ Jan 8, 2012 21:21 |
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Baruch Obamawitz posted:I could be a judge (although I don't know if the judges are still just hired by the director or if they "fixed" it so that you have to get nominated and go through the Senate; let's just say that if it's the latter, I hope my facebook page doesn't see the light of day) Last I checked, administrative patent judges aren't advise and consent (thank loving god, I hate nominations work). There are actually a few APJ openings up on USAJOBS right now.
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# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 06:48 |
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diospadre posted:It's really a June + July thing. If you cram in June you will forget everything by the end of July. Don't expect to do zero prep during July and pass. I worked pretty much full time in June, then took July off and passed without any problems. It wasn't really that hard. (Doing the reverse would have been terrible though.) VVVVVV: this was critical to my successful bar preparation. Kalman fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Jan 11, 2012 |
# ¿ Jan 11, 2012 04:39 |
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Feces Starship posted:1.) in the interests of DEPRESSION what kind of student loan situations do we have in this thread? i owe 160K after law school and undergrad and I went a public undergrad and got a partial scholarship to law school. played out my repayment scenarios last night and i will owe 2K a month for 10 years, welp 1) A lot. At least nearly all of it is public! (Whatever, I'm never paying it off anyway, it'll either be IBRed out in 25 years or PILR in 10.) 2) I worked full time during June bar study. Took July off from work entirely, though. It's not that bad, just download the videos while you're at work and watch them sped up when you get home.
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# ¿ Jan 13, 2012 03:09 |
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Lilosh posted:I go to one of the most expensive schools, so take this with a grain of salt, but: You forgot interest accrued while you're still in school, which will add a solid chunk of change to that 210k. I am right at the breakpoint where if I was working in biglaw, I would make just enough to have IBR and 10 year repayment break even.
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# ¿ Jan 15, 2012 01:05 |
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Roger_Mudd posted:I think there should be term limits for SCOTUS judges. Justice Thomas couldn't stay awake during the inauguration, Justice Ginsberg's chin is on her chest at the State of the Union. Let's not penalize them for being no different than 90% of the people watching.
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# ¿ Jan 25, 2012 14:25 |
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It doesn't matter where you go, you're still going to wind up on a short term fellowship sponsored by your school so they can pump up their employed at 9 months numbers.* (*Statement may not be true of HYS. Statement is also probably not true of terrible law schools, because they're not even bothering to fund short term fellowships.)
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# ¿ Jan 26, 2012 08:05 |
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MrMojoJak posted:Am I wrong in thinking, that going to an ok school for free and returning to my small town is the best option if I wish to practice? Thanks. What would you be doing after returning to your small town? Is this actually a realistic option (i.e. do they need another lawyer in an area you think you want to practice in)? Is anyone in your small town going to give a gently caress about your degree from Indiana, Bloomington (which is a loving boring town, by the way) or are they just going to hire people from the lovely law schools near them because they know the dude who taught Property to their new hire and he said "hey, this guy's alright, hire him would ya"? And, after all is said and done, are you sure you want to sacrifice three years of your life (and your income) on the chance - which, as I've noted above, ain't that great - that you can find a law job in your small town?
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2012 07:33 |
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joat mon posted:
You should probably read White-Smith before you get on a high horse here. You know. The case that made it eminently clear that there was no copyright protection at the time (prior to 1909) for sound recordings, and that copyright in musical compositions extended only to reproductions of the sheet music? It's almost like someone out there wanted to get copies of records without paying the artist. I bet they justified it by saying more people would go to the artist's shows, too.
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# ¿ Feb 3, 2012 15:34 |
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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 09:35 |
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Agesilaus posted:Are you joking? IUB is on that list, and has far better job prospects than what you said. It's ranked in the mid 20s last time I checked, the career resources were genuinely helpful in my experience, and the people I knew in law school seem to be work at a variety of firms and government positions. I myself am working at the government office I spent my summers at, and at the end of 3L I was strictly an average student, if not worse (very high 1L grades, then very steep decline 2L and 3L). You graduated before things went to poo poo, didn't you. The only reason MSU is worth going to* is because it's free. IUB isn't worth going to if you're paying sticker for it, or even close to sticker. *still not worth going.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2012 22:26 |