Florida

Padding Your Bra

I never understood falsies, and not just because I am an ass man, mind you.

Here is my thinking.

1. You have to be comfortable with who you are and what you bring to the, er, table. Everything else flows from that.

2. There is nothing more seductive or alluring than self-confidence (as opposed to a false or inflated sense of self).

3. There is nothing attractive about uniformity. "Perfection" is a myth.

4. Eventually, the real you will, ah, come out, right? And doesn't that disclosure kind of define the relationship going forward?

Which is pretty much how I feel about the growing trend of law schools padding the grades of their students.

According to the New York Times, Loyola Law School Los Angeles is the latest law school to join NYU, Georgetown, Golden Gate (huh?), and Tulane to retroactively inflate every grade recorded in the last few years. Yup. Just tack on .333 to every grade. The goal is to "make their students look more attractive in a competitive job market." What the hell are we talking about again?

Note to self: cozy up to the new UM Law Dean next time she visits The Firm to ask for money, and talk to her about how much it would cost to raise everyone's grades going back, oh, twenty six years or so.

Other schools, like Duke (whatever) and its competitor Southern Methodist University pay people to hire their students on internships. That's hilarious. Only Duke. Duke's like the pimp of law schools.

?For people like me who have good grades but are not in the super-elite, there are not as many options for getting a job in advance,? said Zachary Burd, 35, who just graduated from Southern Methodist University. A Dallas family law firm will receive $3,500 to ?test drive? him this August.

?They?ll get me for a month or two, for free, to try me out,? he said. ?It?s safer for them, and it?s a good foot in the door for me.?

Zach, here are a few tips: 1. never start a sentence with "for people like me..." 2. what the hell are you talking about, "getting a job in advance"? 3. You went to law school in Texas. 4. Family "law"? You went to law school for that? Really? 5. You are 35 years old. Two words: "PERENNIAL STUDENT." 6. Your "good" grades are FAKE!

What the hell is wrong with that guy?

Or this:

?If somebody?s paying $150,000 for a law school degree, you don?t want to call them a loser at the end,? says Stuart Rojstaczer, a former geophysics professor at Duke who now studies grade inflation. ?So you artificially call every student a success.?

Hey Stu? Allow me: LOSER! How is it possible for Duke to attract so many crybabies with an entitlement mentality?

Or you could just be like Yale/Harvard, and eliminate grades altogether. Which kind of makes those schools the Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan of law schools. Think about it: elitist; poorly behaved but only in rarefied circles; no real accountability once you're in the family; basically anyone will have you, at least for a little while, no matter what; eventually, everyone who has you, tires of you.

Here is a message, folks: YOU HAVE TO EARN IT. YOU HAVE TO WORK. YOU HAVE TO PRODUCE. YOU CAN'T FAKE IT, AT LEAST NOT FOREVER.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I encourage you to patronize the Arts and check out the collaboration between Christian Louboutin and photographer David Lynch.

N.B. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of South Florida Lawyers. Except for the whole Yale/Harvard thing. And the Louboutin pumps.

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).