Pepperdine Law School Flashmob

Three Ridiculous Statistics about USF Law

1. The current tuition for USF Law is about $40,464, excluding living expenses, making it one of the more expensive law schools in the country, despite the fact that it is ranked by US News in bottom 100 of all accredited law schools.

2. According to US News, USF Law students graduate on average with a whopping $124,982 in loans, placing them in the top 10th percentile of indebtedness among all law school graduates.

3. For the fiscal 2009 year, the school paid its dean Jeffrey Brand $329,340 in total compensation, while also paying in total compensation Professors Jack Garvey, Ronald Micon, Julie Nice and Steven Shatz between $254,015 and $277,108.

Fucking Joke.

2011 USF Law T-Shirt Contest Review

Below are a few submissions for the upcoming USF Law T-Shirt contest. While some are interesting, others are extremely boring. Check them out below.

No. 1 Why is the U bigger? SF isn’t Miami. Or better yet,  what’s with the new diamond thingy T-Shirt

No. 2 The T-shirt that if made, will make ZERO profit

No. 3 The Guaranteed Never to Win a Contest Ever T-shirt

No. 4 The Definition of Boring T-Shirt. The SF skyline is the best you could do?

No. 5 Intriguing, but It looks like tire treads attached to a gavel T-shirt.

No. 6 The Jersey Shore T-Shirt. Absolutely Ridiculous

No. 7 The Truly Uncreative I ♥ ___ Shirt

No. 8 The I’m going to write USF Law in Two Fonts T-shirt

No. 9 The Connect Four T-shirt

Click HERE for the full contest. Vote by Friday, October 14!

Sex and the Single San Francisco Law Student

Sooner or later, “single law student” is a redundant phrase. You may hear early on that nearly half of all marriages fail during the 3 years that one spouse is in law school and more than 90% of unmarried couples will not survive. You ask me, prospective lawyers should view romantic interests the way a fool should look at money: they were lucky to get together in the first place.

But there’s an up side to the bleak statistics. Anyone who would want to spend their life with an expanding, balding, slowly ulcerating egomaniac who will work nights and weekends consistently for the next 40 years can’t be right in the head. If you’re thinking about going to law school, it’s likely that you, too, are not really quite right in the head. Two people so handicapped do not, in fact, cancel each other out. Rather, they annoy others and raise similarly nutty children. So if you insist on eventually being both a lawyer and married, at least have the good sense to wait until you’re actually a lawyer before you settle down with someone, who you’ll at least know is only marrying you for your perceived income potential and not because he/she is crazy (by the way, if you meet your future spouse in the neighborhood where Hastings is located, it’s entirely possible that he/she is a singular designation and not an expression of mutually exclusive alternatives.)

In the mean time, you will be a law student, and you will remain nominally human and inhumanly tense. Therefore, you will continue to have human needs during your three years in hell. For this reason, I have prepared a primer on all things related to sex and law school. These rules are not necessarily unique to USF Law. Apply them as you like to your own law school.

1. He’s not hot, he’s law school hot.

Take a look around you on your first day of class. Make a note of who you find attractive. Seriously, make a note. Write it down and tuck it away somewhere where it won’t get mixed in with an outline that you’re likely to share with others later in the year. If there are more than 3 people on that list, you are being overinclusive. Now swear to yourself that you will not sleep with anyone who is not on that list. Trust me, 3 months from now, you will look at the troll who just said something really funny about the Palzgraff case in your Torts class, and think to yourself, “Hey, she’s pretty hot.” Trust me, she’s not. She’s only law school hot. You have been blinded by the fact that you see the same 85 faces every day, all day. Let familiarity breed contempt, not misplaced lust. Do not be seduced by his double entendre about “accord and satisfaction.” You will regret it later if you do.

2. Resist the Siren Songs of Market Street

You’ll hear it somewhere else sooner or later, so I might as well let the cat out of the bag right now: Prostitution is legal in San Francisco. I mean, it’s not really legal, but it is, and everyone knows it. The DA doesn’t want to prosecute “lifestyle” crimes, so you can feel free to stop by Market Street’s medical marijuana club and smoke a blunt on your way to one of the many Tenderloin massage parlors. But I don’t recommend it. Minka the 56DD sex goddess appearing this week only at the Crazy Horse may seem an appealing alternative to sorting out the intricacies of pendant and ancillary jurisdiction, but she will charge you a lot for her services (I’m told by a cousin of a friend of a classmate of mine who once went) and you haven’t graduated from law school yet. In fact, you’re a first year. You may not ever graduate from law school. Why don’t you wait until the money’s in the bank before you go blowing it on hookers and drugs, okay tiger. You’re going to need that money when you don’t have a paying legal job during first summer.

3. Some People Think Lawyers Are A Catch, Snag Them Before They Learn Better

If you’re in law school right now, there’s a 25% chance that your dad is a lawyer. Think about it, do you like him? Of course not. Do you think his ex-wife – your mother – likes him? Do you think she thought he was a catch, even before she left him for the cabana boy in Cabo because he brought a laptop and drafts of an appellate brief with him? No. And yet, the stereotype persists, largely because our mothers just can’t help but want to say, “My son the lawyer; my daughter the doctor, blah blah blah.” Our parents and grandparents want us to be, or to marry, lawyers so they have something to say to their friends during mah-jong tournaments and on the golf course. Anyway, that’s one of my theories. The point is, the myth persists. There are plenty of bars in San Francisco, and a great many of them are not loud, so you can meet people, talk to them, and casually mention that you’re a lawyer. Since everyone in San Francisco who is not in law school is either a dot-commie or works at a coffee house (and dot-commies are still in front of the computer when you’re at the bars), the cappuccino maker that you just met will see you as an opportunity to move out of the living room that she and her friend from back home pay 800 bucks a month to crash in, and she will have sex with you.

What? It could happen.

Note that it matters not that you are only a law student and not an actual lawyer. No one was ever censured by the bar for practicing without a license in this manner. What we’re going for is plausible deniability here, folks. Throw a res judicata her way and she won’t know the difference.

4. The Import/Export Business

Against all odds, you probably had a girlfriend or boyfriend at some point before you started law school. One that isn’t the same person who left you when he got sick of listening to you scream, “Who’s the freakin’ plaintiff in Pennoyer v. Neff!” You may have even had several. But those people knew you when you were a chronically drunk 5th year at State U / Tower Records stock clerk with no real prospects. Now you’re a chronically drunk law student with no real prospects, but he/she doesn’t know that. He/she just knows you’re a law student, and is likely to think, “Wow, he finally got his stuff together, maybe I’ll give him/her another shot.” At which point you either import the ex-romantic interest or export yourself to them. They have had sex with you before, so it won’t be so bad for them to do it again, even after they’ve discovered that you haven’t really changed all that much.

You scoff, I know, but the import/export business is a viable concern at every law school in the nation. Ask around, you’ll see.

5. The Vacation Rule is in Effect

A slight variation on the import/export business is the vacation rule. You all know how this one works. 26 year olds don’t really get to go on that many vacations, and when they do, it’s not like they’re jetting off to Paris or cruising the Carribean. They stay in-country, but they want the same adventure they imagine they would be having in St. Thomas. They substitute the exotic locale with what – sex with people they hardly know. This is why spring break towns are such a hotbed of chlamydia. And if you’re at USF Law, you’re ahead of the game in terms of tapping into the Vacation Rule. Everyone loves San Francisco. Everyone wants to visit San Francisco, Everyone’s happy to have a friend who’s place they can crash at in San Francisco. Imagine if you had decided after all to go to University of Indiana – Bloomington because of that great labor studies program. Where would that get you when it came time to apply the Vacation Rule. Nobody wants to visit you in Bloomington. San Francisco, you can have a different visitor every weekend. You’ll fail Civ. Pro. but you’ll be much less tense. Trust me.

In conclusion: Look, you have plenty of time to not have sex once you become a lawyer, and plenty of clients and partners to not have it with. If you follow my few simple rules, you will be a happier law student, and your classmates will be happier when you don’t tie yourself to a tree and light yourself on fire.

5 Signs You’re A Stage 5 Clinger

Most male law students hate Stage 5 Clingers in law school and it’s difficult to hold this against them — clinginess is annoying and, in some relationships, can be exhausting for both parties. Of course, women aren’t the only ones who get clingy; men can be quite clingy as well, and it’s every bit as much of a turn off. Therefore, this article isn’t being written as a guide for females; it’s a guide for anyone who finds themselves acting in this manner. If you’ve been called a Stage 5 clinger, take a look at the list below; if any of that sounds like you, you’re probably a Stage 5 Clinger

1. You ALWAYS call him or her first — and you call ALL the time.

Sometimes before you’ve even gotten out of bed in the morning. And then loads of other times during the school day. The love of your life can’t call you first, because you always beat them to it. Not to mention, you call them so frequently that they could guess it was you calling and be right 98% of the time. Yo — you’re obsessed. Put the phone down for 5 minutes and open your law books!

2. You have no life of your own

Do you spend every bit of your free time outside of law school with your man? Do you spend most of your day thinking about your next date with your woman rather than preparing that outline you need to do? Do you put your law school friends and hobbies on hold unless your man announces that he’s going out with the boys? Unless you’ve just met this person and are riding that “new love” high, you’re being clingy. And obsessed.

3. You’re constantly worried about getting dumped.

Insecurity is at the heart of a Stage 5 Clinger, so if you’re experiencing this one, you need to think about why. It’s this fear that makes you want to constantly be around the other person, so you can reassure yourself that they are still there and haven’t dumped you. If you are more insecure about your relationship than your law school classes, you may be a stage 5 clinger!

4. You’re willing to be bored out of your mind just to spend time with them.

If he tells you that he’ll be spending the weekend reading for his law school classes and won’t be able to talk much, do you then ask if you can drop by to watch him read it? Or maybe you’re more clever than that; maybe you just offer to clean his watch so you can watch him without seeming as obsessed as you apparently are.

5. You’re not happy on the inside.

Being Stage 5 Clinger is a big mix of insecurity, obsession and other self-esteem issues. Men and women who are clingy are rarely happy for more than the initial few moments when they see the person they’re obsessing over, because they immediately start to worry about how they’re going to feel when the date is over.

InfoGraphic: The Law School Bubble

A 1L’s Guide To Highlighter Colors

Typical Law Joke

A juggler, driving to his next performance, is stopped by the police. “What are these matches and lighter fluid doing in your car?” asks the cop. “I’m a juggler and I juggle flaming torches in my act.” “Oh yeah?” says the doubtful cop. “Let’s see you do it.” The juggler gets out and starts juggling the blazing torches masterfully. A couple driving by slows down to watch. “Wow,” says the driver to his wife. “I’m glad I quit drinking. Look at the test they’re giving now!”

This Form is Your Form

Bar Turtle

My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out. There are going to be times in your life when you’re going to have to stick your neck out. There will be challenges and instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them.

I will be a turtle sticking my neck out during the bar exam.

How to Celebrate Finishing the Bar Exam

The Good, The Bad, and the BarBri

Getting your post-graduate education force fed to you in thirty-five 4-hour long classes is bad enough, but having to endure a whole new crop of students really pours salt in the wound. Though I’m sure every law school has a group of insufferable ego monsters, Barbri found a way to unearth some real county-fair blue ribbon winners in my class. They are often hard to detect until class begins and then once it does you are perilously trapped in their surrounds having to endure their awfulness.

For those of you who have any idea what kind of person I am talking about… I know, and I am sorry – it is a nessesary evil to this profession. But for those of you who may find yourself one day in a Barbri class somewhere you can better know, spot, and avoid these types with these easy to follow illustrations:

 

10 More Reasons to Legalize Marijuana

(Click to Enlarge)

How Law School Graduates Talk

I noticed yesterday that law school graduates, at least the ones I know, no longer speak traditional English. We now all speak some version of legalese, but it’s not like we’re talking about legal matters. Usually, it’s related to romantic or dating interests.

Here is a partial list of phrases I have heard from recent law school graduates in the past month:

1. “In the interest of full disclosure…” [insert some personal revelation here, like "I'm dating someone else besides you," or "I hooked up last night," or "I got so drunk I spent the night praying to the porcelain gods..."]

2. “I concur.” [to be used instead of "That sounds good to me," or "I agree with what you're saying."]

3. “My docket is full,” or “I have room on my docket.” [referring to people you are dating, and whether you may or may not have room to date additional people]

4. “Was it reasonably foreseeable….?” [that she would have a girlfriend, that the movie would be sold out, that you would bomb the simulated MBE BarBri exam]

and my personal favorite…

5. “I got her to admit that she was constructively dating [insert woman's name].”

6. “It’s great that X wants to date Y, but Y has to want to date X, too. It’s got to be a BILATERAL CONTRACT.”

7. This morning’s gem: “I don’t play ‘hide the ball’ with her” [referencing clear, open communication about relationships.

Proof Law Students Aren’t As Crazy as MBA Students