You Want Rankings? We'll Give You Rankings

 Hey everyone! Rankings!  We know you love them and here at N&B we are all about the things that you love.

Top Party Place: Kip's
Top Trial Team Organization: BOA (They are knocking everyone's sox off)
Top Party Dean: Dean Edley - He knows you were nervous when Boalt slipped last year.  He took care of business.
Top Whiners:  The Big H.  Number 3?  That's not why your father paid for prep school.
Top Way to Complain: Barrister's was sweet, shut up already.
Top Law School: Boalt Hall, 2012.  Screw the official numbers.  We know we fucking rock.

So, that's the wrap up.

How to Make Boalt Suck

Howdy folks,

Today in our installment of "How to Make Boalt Suck" we're going to discuss how to leave passive aggressive notes in the study shacks in the library (or whatever they're called).

First, the text of our example note:

These carrels are meant to be available to all students. 'Reserving' them by leaving your computer for hours is inappropriate and unfair to others wishing to study. Please do not do this again.

As you can see, the note achieves admirable levels of passive aggressive gunning. Let me break it down for you so that you, too, can master the technique of library note gunning:

1. False authority. Make demands that you have no right to make and no way to enforce. End the note with a command that sounds serious but you know you cannot back up.

2. Be anonymous. The use of false authority along with anonymity bring the note up to truly magnificent levels passive aggressiveness. They'll think you could be anyone or everyone and it spares you having to actually be accountable for your behavior towards another law student. This step is crucial.

3. Liberal use of smear quotes. Don't like a "word," use a fucking smear quote! It makes you seem way more sarcastic and your criticism will be that much more pointed.

4. Cite a value most people will agree with and then pervert it to your gain. It's "unfair" for individuals to take up study spaces, but it's not unfair for you to use these tactics to make them feel bad about it.

5. Be inaccurate in your complaint. Use terms like "hours" instead of the real amount of time, which was more like 50 minutes.

6. Finally, and most importantly, complain at the least logical time to do so. Don't wait until exams or when the library's packed, make your complaint when you're not even inconvenienced! The fact that there are multiple other seating options directly next to the study cubby in question makes this note even more powerful and effective.

Follow these simple steps, kids, and we, too, can have a law school that sucks. Just ask the kids at UC...oh sorry, out of time!

(Thanks to DS for showing us this amazing example!)

Should We Boycott the Downlow?

If you're a student, I'm sure you've received the following email:

Hi everyone,

As many of you have heard, tonight's Bar Review will be taking place at the Down Low on Shattuck. However, many people are unaware that Lakireddy Bali Reddy, the landlord of the Down Low, is a convicted sex trafficker. In 1999, a passerby saw Reddy and a group of his employees trying to put the unconscious body of a 17 year old girl in a van. The girl had suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning while living in one of Reddy's apartments. She later died at Alta Bates hospital.

Through this event, school newspaper reporters at Berkeley High uncovered Reddy's criminal activities. Over a 15 year period, Reddy and his family brought an estimated 500 men, women, and young girls (the youngest was 13 years old when she was trafficked) from India to the United States using H1-B visas, convincing them that they would be working as computer programmers in the US.

Instead, Reddy used the immigrants as slave labor for his restaurants and apartment buildings, and used at least three girls as his own personal sex slaves, including the deceased 17 year old girl. During autopsy, the medical examiner found that the 17 year old girl was pregnant with Reddy's child.

Reddy accepted a plea bargain with the Alameda County DA's office for sex trafficking and served 8 years. He was released from prison in 2008. His adult sons were also charged with aiding in sex trafficking. The Reddys own 1,100 apartment units in Berkeley (under names like Reddy Realty, Raj Properties, and Everest Properties), as well as Pasand Restaurant. They are also the landlords of Down Low, so money from Bar Review will go directly towards the Reddys' rental fees.

We wanted to raise awareness about this because many people do not know of these horrifying crimes that took place right here in Berkeley and because the Down Low is a popular spot for Bar Review. We are involved in an effort to raise awareness of human trafficking/modern slavery, and will soon be putting on a week of events centered around anti-trafficking efforts. More information will be released soon.

Thanks for reading. We hope that you will forward this email on to others.

Trafficking weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress. It undermines our long-term efforts to promote peace and prosperity worldwide. And it is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.
-Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State

Human trafficking is horrible and is a major issue in the US and around the world. However, is boycotting a business that requires a liquor license and leases space (with the attached license) from someone who has been convicted and completed his sentence a legitimate way to address this issue? Most retail clothing companies that are popular among law students use or have used child labor, sweat shop labor, etc. Based on this logic, shouldn't any company that has engaged in this process be boycotted indefinitely? Shouldn't we, by transitivity, also not take money from these companies? Or work for firms who will be using fees for representing these companies to pay associates? Does it make a difference that the guy's been tried, convicted and served his time?

Berkeley Law Students Applaud DOJ Report Findings, Torture Memo Lawyers Engaged in Misconduct: Urge Congress, State Bar and University to Investigate

[Update]: The Yoo situation seems all but settled as Congress is looking in to whether or not to hold hearings. The analysis below strikes me as a step in the right direction.

______________________________

From the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture:

The final report of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) released Friday found that former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo engaged in “intentional professional misconduct” and that Yoo's colleague, former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Bybee, engaged in “reckless disregard of his professional obligations” in their rendering of legal justifications for the Bush Administration’s torture policy. OPR Report, p. 252, 256. The OPR report concludes that “Yoo put his desire to accommodate the client above his obligation to provide thorough, objective, and candid legal advice, and that he therefore committed intentional professional misconduct.” OPR Report, p. 254.

Although Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis decided to downgrade the OPR findings to “poor judgment” and to refrain from referring the OPR findings to the relevant state bars, House Judiciary Committee chair, John Conyers, has disputed Margolis's decision and has scheduled Congressional hearings on the matter. Though the DOJ’s recommendation does not include sanctions, the contents of the OPR report also provide a sound basis for action by other entities with jurisdiction over the lawyers’ conduct, including the University of California and the Pennsylvania and DC Bar Associations.

“The Pennsylvania and DC bar associations and the University of California have refused to investigate the conduct of Professor Yoo until the release of the OPR report,” stated first-year Berkeley Law student [RH]. “Now they no longer have an excuse – they must fulfill their duty to investigate the professional misconduct and ethics violations spelled out in the OPR report.”

Student members of the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture (BAAT) at Berkeley Law School, where John Yoo is a tenured professor, applauded the findings in the report and expressed dismay over the new facts revealed, including that Yoo “knowingly provided incomplete and one-sided advice.” OPR Report, p. 252. As a tenured professor of law, the OPR report concludes “by a preponderance of the evidence” that Yoo “knowingly failed to present a sufficiently thorough, objective, and candid analysis” through “his failure to carefully read the cases, and his exclusive reliance on the work of a junior attorney.” OPR Report, p. 253.

“It was apparent that Yoo engaged in professional misconduct, but I’m still shocked by the report – that as a lawyer advising the President on a matter so important as torture, Yoo failed to carefully read the cases he was citing and relied on a junior attorney for critical legal analysis,” said first-year Berkeley Law student [TF]. “If I did the same thing on a law school assignment, I’d fail. Yet, Yoo is a tenured professor here at Berkeley.”

BAAT was formed by law students and student organizations to restore respect for the international prohibition against torture. The organization has been active in educating law students and recently sent petitions to the Justice Department, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and the University of California Faculty Senate urging investigations of the OLC lawyers. “Thorough investigations are essential if we want to ensure that human rights violations and civil rights abuses have stopped and that they never happen again,” says BAAT member and first-year Berkeley Law student [NGN].

Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture: http://sites.google.com/site/abolishtorture/

Excerpts from the OPR Report:

“Yoo committed intentional professional misconduct” and “knowingly provided incomplete and one-sided advice.” p. 252.

“Yoo put his desire to accommodate the client above his obligation to provide thorough, objective, and candid legal advice, and that he therefore committed intentional professional misconduct.” p. 254.

“Given Yoo’s background as a former Supreme Court law clerk and tenured professor of law, we concluded that his awareness of the complex and confusing nature of the law, his failure to carefully read the cases and his exclusive reliance on the work of a junior attorney, established by a preponderance of the evidence that he knowingly failed to present a sufficiently thorough, objective, and candid analysis of the specific intent element of the torture statute.” p. 253.

“Yoo knowingly provided incomplete advice to the client.” p. 253.

“[Yoo] knowingly misstated the strength of the Bybee Memo’s argument ‘that interrogation of [prisoners] using methods that might violate [the torture statute] would be justified under the doctrine of self-defense....’” p. 253.

“Yoo’s legal analyses justified acts of outright torture.” p. 252.

You can also check out Slate's take on the issue.

Lawyers Viewed Better than Congress, Wall Street Execs

It's a pretty low bar, but according to the latest survey from Bloomberg news (.pdf), lawyers aren't the least liked people in America:

For each of the following major U.S. institutions, please tell me if your impression is very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable, or very unfavorable. If you don’t know enough to give your feelings, just say so. (Rotate list.)

A. Small business: 92 percent favorable, 3 percent unfavorable
B. Lawyers: 39 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable
C. Corporate executives: 29 percent favorable, 57 percent unfavorable
D. Doctors: 85 percent favorable, 10 percent unfavorable
E. Wall Street executives: 18 percent favorable, 66 percent unfavorable
F. Congress: 29 percent favorable, 61 percent favorable
G. The White House: 51 percent favorable, 39 percent unfavorable
H. The military: 87 percent favorable, 8 percent unfavorable
I. Insurance companies: 36 percent favorable, 55 percent unfavorable

For reference, the only other institution or public figure to have the exact same favorable/unfavorable spread as lawyers: Sarah Palin. So perhaps the headline of this post should have been Americans like lawyers about as much as they like Sarah Palin...

John Yoo Saves Half the Library from the "Fire"

I was sitting in the library Atrium when the fire alarm went off and of course I dutifully shuffled into the exit stairwell with about 30 other students. We descended a flight to the marked exit only to find said exit locked.

So, we turned around and marched back up, bumping into other students who were coming down. Right as I was about to re-enter the library proper, John Yoo burst through the door saying, "No, come with me this way. I have the key."

And just like that John Yoo saved us all from our hypothetical fiery death. It was awesome.

Anyway, more thoughts on the alarms.

Check out this scenario:

1. You know campus police are all busy over at the protests.
2. You know there're millions of laptops and other valuable shit at the law school.
3. You set off the fire alarm, run in while everyone's outside, and steal shit.
4. The man who came up with this theory sees someone younger looking and not dressed like a law student poke his head into an IP class that has just resumed. Perhaps looking for valuables?

Sneaky.

Also, I'm gonna try and get some live blog action down at Wheeler later assuming the rain doesn't dissuade me.

Everyone's a Winner*

Over the weekend the New York Times ran an article about lawyers and online social media like Facebook and Twitter. The article explains something that should be obvious: trial lawyers who blog or tweet about their judge are asking for trouble, as is the attorney whose facebook page suggests a week of partying, after the judge granted a continuance for a death in the attorney's family. (Seriously. That happened. And now the guy is all over the New York Times.)

The article implied,correctly, that judges play a substantial role in regulating attorney conduct. It reminded me of three questions from a Wall Street Journal Law Blog post two years ago -- questions law school hasn't answered for me:

• Why is a legal malpractice case so much harder to make out than a medical malpractice case?
• Why is the attorney-client privilege the oldest and most jealously protected of all the professional privileges?
• Why are lawyers the only American profession to be truly and completely self-regulated?

*Click the title of this post for an explanation.

Big Changes in Big Law?

I don't check the Shark very often, but was prompted by a commenter in the thread below.

TWO rather interesting tid-bits that work well together for a merged thread here:

First, Orrick announces tomorrow that it officially drops lock-step salaries. Very interesting (albeit confusing) system they're announcing there.

Second, law schools are conspiring with law firms to standardize OCI in the spring.

For as little change as these systems have seen over the years, the widespread implementation of either would be a rather groundbreaking event.

L'Affair Layoffs

Like I said, I have some thoughts running through my head on this topic that I'll be exploring in greater detail. One that's troubling me is the "Cravathization" of firms. I think I may have read a while back somewhere (possibly on Adam Smith, Esq.?) about how a lot of firms mimicked the Cravath model of promising the top talent at top rates. This resulted in all sorts of absurdities, such as a bunch of firms all raising salaries because one of them did. Under the Cravath model, there is no room to be seen as "below market." Now that there is no market to speak of, those decisions are coming back to haunt the very same firms. I have Orrick in my crosshair. They led the Westcoast rise to 160 and now lead the worldwide fall of the 300. Why? How was a market downturn not foreseeable in 2007?

Consider this an open thread on this broad topic.

Edit: Folding McWho's open thread on this into this post.

Here's the Keker

Looks like a new firm is springing to life in SF. (Website here). Of course Mark Lemley is the former Boalt professor who formed 1/3 of the big wig IP trio. And Ragesh Tangri was a visiting professor at Boalt a while back.

Cal Bar Prez Takes Aim at Billable Hours

Jeff Bleich, former Boaltie and current President of the California State Bar disfavors billable hours.  He recently offered up some compelling reasons for is position, in what the WSJ Law Blog dubbed a "manifesto" calling for reform.

First, Bleich offers a professional angle . . .

Lawyer/author Scott Turow has captured this conflict well by describing what a truly candid disclosure to a client might sound like: “If you hire me, I promise that my billing system will reward me for solving your problems at the slowest possible pace, with as much duplication of effort as possible, and where I will face economic penalties for exercising any judgment that limits or focuses our work. I will, under this system, have strong incentives to embrace any opportunity to engage in discovery wars where the work is the easiest and the financial rewards are the greatest. And you can be assured that every member of my team will have a real financial inducement to exaggerate the amount of time they devote to every task.” . . . The problem with this system is that even if lawyers are not corrupted by it, it still casts a shadow over the choices we made. 

Second, he offers a human resources angle . . .

Young lawyers have fewer client contacts, less ownership of a case and fewer opportunities to actually solve a problem. As they advance, they aren’t asking the questions that will allow them to one day lead their firms and the profession: what experience am I getting, what sorts of colleagues are we developing, what is our culture and philosophy? Instead they think more and more about profit targets, hours targets and what their exit strategy is.

I sympathize. The number of hours spent on a project is perhaps an indicative, but hardly a conclusive, measure of the work's quality. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can think of a better incentive structure.

And for that matter, Bliech might not be able to think of one either: he suggests 1700 hours (as opposed to 2100) is a more reasonable number . . . and . . . yet . . . according to NALP . . . his own lawyers at Munger, Tolles & Olson appear to clock in at around 2000 hours!

To point that out may have been a cheap shot on my part, because Bliech only one of many partners in his firm. But it underscores part of the problem -- a big reform like Bliech proposes seems unlikely to emerge from within the BigLaw community itself. That has nothing to do with the merits of the proposal. It has to do with whose interests the present scheme serves.

Think: clients partners in law firms.

Washington and Lee Cuts Class for its 3L's

A commentator in an earlier post asks: what's wrong with the current structure of legal education?

The Dean at Washington and Lee, supported by a unanimous faculty, answer that question thusly: "For some time, members of the legal profession, practitioners, judges and scholars alike, have urged law schools to place greater emphasis on professionalism and learning in context."

His solution? Replace the entire third year curriculum with "experiential" learning, including actual interactions with clients. It's being implemented as we speak.

Here are his words, a National Law Journal article, and a WSJ Law Blog post.

3L status remains far, far over the horizon for this chap. But, which should I value more: the opportunity finally play lawyer, or the opportunity to finally take Wine Law?

Is Law School Really That Awful?

The law blog reports on a pamphlet that will be distributed as part of a "mental health toolkit distributed to ABA Student Division Presidents. I do not downplay stress and depression. These are serious threats to health and well being of young people in general—not just law students. And the pamphlet, which is based on “two generations” of law students, teachers, and lawyers trumps my anecdotal accounts, but . . . I’m sitting in a lecture hall full of people who seem pretty cheerful. These people really do look happy. Is my school (or maybe just my property class) an anomaly, or is there a much darker picture under the social exterior?

Seriously?

What the?

WHAT?

My Con Law professor just explained that the Mann Act is a relic past its prime. I wish.


***
Update:

Now that I have recovered a bit, I can register my disappointment. Other Boalties with whom I have spoken today have given me knowing smile or a wise nod, and said things like: "I'm not overly surprised. You know how it is with men in power."

Well, sure.

But prostitution? From Eliot Spitzer? There are many things about him that I have admired -- particularly his aggression toward white collar crime and Wall Street -- and I think my my admiration is why today's news feels like such a kick in the crotch. I have always kind of hoped to see Spitzer as US AG. Maybe even a Presidential candidate.

Well, forget it now.

No matter where you come down on the right/wrong of Prostitution, or adultery, or even the Mann Act, Spitzer's move is a special knife-wrenching kind of hypocrisy. This is exactly the kind of thing Spitzer is supposed to be against, both professionally and personally. It sounds childish, but the truth is my feelings are hurt.

He has angered a lot of people in the last decade. People hate him. People are gunning for him. And he KNOWS all this. So, what on Earth was he thinking?


In other, much more hopeful news, a quick nod goes to Boaltie David, the latest Boaltie to be interviewed at the Shark, as part of a series of interviews to include both students and faculty.

Brain Enhancement is Wrong, Right?

A commentator in another thread recently mentioned drug abuse for intellectual inhancement. The NY Times ran a story about the ethical implications of this phenomenon today, and it is worth a read.

The piece asks some interesting questions. Is there a meaningful distinction between substance abuse in athletics and academics (because unlike athletes, intellectuals' successes drive social progress)? Is there an ethical distinction between a scenario in which an employee chooses to use, say, Adderall, and a scenario that person is asked to use Adderall by their employer? Will we someday put asterisks after Nobel Prize winners' names?

One comment in particular caught me off guard. A graduate student interviewed for the article said, "You can usually tell who’s using [stimulants] because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they don’t want to be bothered."

Ummm . . . right.

Who has been spiking my coffee?

A firm-issued iPhone?

Secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope that your firm is the first to adopt the iPhone to replace the Blackberry?  

Apple's taken one step closer to allowing that to happen today when it announced the beta version of "Enterprise" - software that makes the iPhone work with your firm's existing email and calendar exchange servers.

I'm a huge fan of the iPhone's interface - especially the web browser.  I have yet to find one that's as intuitive or effective at capturing what the site is actually supposed to look like.

Big downside in this realm, of course, will be the lack of a real keyboard.  Hopefully through beta testing Apple will address this issue (such as allowing you to turn it sideways for a wider keyboard when sending emails).

Maybe ready by September 2009?  Please?

Michael Clayton

I watched Michael Clayton last night, and I thought about doing a little review, until I discovered that Slate had already done a far better, far more thoughtful job than I ever could.

Instead, I'll point you Slate's way, and share three moments from their review that I found thought provoking:

Moment 1: Do the studies showing high rates of depression among lawyers tell us something about the profession or the people who go into it?

Is it possible to design study that would answer this question?

Moment 2: As a former prosecutor turned perpetual associate turned fixer for the firm, Clayton is dispatched to get Edens under control."You are a senior litigating partner at one of the largest, most respected law firms in the world," he says. "I'm an accomplice," Edens shoots back.

Do people who feel this way actually end up Edens' position, and if so, what do they do next? Drink? Crack up? Try to trace what Slated called the series of incremental compromises that defined their life?

Moment 3: Whatever the explanation, Michael Clayton offers an only slightly exaggerated portrait of a profession undergoing a kind of slow-motion existential crisis. It does so at a time when in the real world, midlevel associates are dropping out in droves. 

What on earth do they mean by a profession undergoing a slow-motion Existential crisis? Is the implication here supposed to be that concern over being and existence is related to associate turnover rates? Doesn't it make more sense to suggest that associates are undergoing a personal crisis, rather than an industry? And if so, what is their crisis?

Moment 4: " . . . The ending of Michael Clayton . . . as Clayton walks out into the bright sunlight on Sixth Avenue and hails a cab, he's enacting a fantasy nurtured by many a weary associate (and acted on by a number I know). He's extricating himself from the firm, overriding the risk-aversion instinct, and walking away—without a new job or a backup plan. "Give me $50 worth," he tells the cabbie, in a sly reminder that we are all paid for our labor and our time.

Uh-oh.

"Work Spouses"

Time for a somewhat light-hearted reprieve from the recent string of more serious blog posts.

I stumbled across this article about platonic work flirting and found it amusing because I think it applies to our law school more than most work environments. It's definitely worth a read. From the article, "23 percent said they had a 'work husband' or a 'work wife.'"

Here's the moral of the story:

Is your "work marriage" crossing the line?

• Would you behave the same way if your romantic partner were standing next to you?

• Are your flirtations consistent with the way you normally behave?

• Are you thinking about your "work spouse" while not at work?

• Do you compare your "work spouse" to your real romantic partner?

If so, you have a problem. [Sorry, no toll-free hotline number included for help.]

Do you politically match your law firm?

This article will hopefully be interesting to the 80% of you Berkeley students who plan to head off to the world of Big Law.

From the article:

DLA Piper has given the largest amount to date, gifting $356,100 (£180,300) to Hillary Clinton’s cause, making the firm her top contributor. The donations have come from individual partners rather than the firm.

Sidley Austin has donated $203,325 (£103,000) to her main Democrat rival, Barack Obama. The candidate and his wife both previously worked in the firm’s Chicago office.

Other firms to have contributed include Kirkland & Ellis, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Greenberg Traurig, Patton Boggs and Latham & Watkins, all of which have given more than $100,000 (£50,600) to Clinton’s campaign.

UPDATE: try this link for more donation openness: here.

Welcome to your life...

Hey Boalties: the New York Times would like to give you a wonderfully depressing look at your future - here.

My favorite quote: "Forty-four percent of lawyers recently surveyed by the American Bar Association said they would not recommend the profession to a young person."

Now that's something we can include on our updated "UC Berkeley School of Law" brochures (which have been notably stripped of any reference to the word "Boalt"). I guess it may be a good thing law school feels like it ages you 10 years - we're not "young persons" anymore...

My response to the article: I can see how some lawyers 10+ years out of law school can feel duped, but given as much as this has been talked about over the past couple years (read: Loyola2L), does anyone currently in law school have a right to feel the same? I'd chalk that up to not reading N&B before applying to Boalt.