Monday, January 23, 2017

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Well, Charlotte Law, the doctor's leather shoes are walking back to the examination room and the news isn't good.  You've got the law school equivalent of a perplexing malignancy, so many tumors in so many bad places - bile duct, brain stem, blood, stomach, you name it - they're not even sure how to label your particularly malady and they're not sure it's worth the effort because you should have died months ago, ya fucked-up harlot.

Probation.

Federal loan funding vanished.

Faculty layoffs, up to two thirds.

The executive branch is... not primed for a bailout.

It's a lot to be pessimistic about, as the school is basically on life support pending how many of its students can sell enough drugs and/or plasma and/or false promises to relatives to make a few tuition payments. In such times, cynicism becomes an alluring philosophy, to scowl at the world and fortune and God, to ask "why me?!" and keep telling yourself that you just wanted to do good things.
“We all know in our hearts that Charlotte School of Law could have been a good school and done a lot of good.

“Then for all of it to come crashing down, and in a way that met our worst fears. … The levels of frustration have just become overwhelming. We were all trying to do something good, and it just went bad.” 
Tragic, when all a group of people want to do is make an unreasonably high income making easy profits doing lax work for a shady corporation that harvests government-backed funds from sub-marginal professional school candidates with relatively low chances of career success, and they just get curb-stomped by  a cruel, cold system wearing the stormtrooper boots of pseudo-fascism.

So let's look on the bright side!

On the bright side:
  • the school has a chance at survival, these fires of adversity forging and hardening its steely resolve
  • the students who remain at the school will get first-hand experience in what it's like to work in a fledgling law firm that could shutter its doors at any moment, valuable experience for many of them
  • It's never been a better time for UNC-Charlotte, Winthrop, Davidson, Gardner-Webb, Catawba, or Queens to explore adding a law school
  • the school is now an experimental hotbed for alternative methods of financing personal investment products that show, typically, on average, routinely, etc., a million dollar lifetime premium
  • students are still earning JDs there, meaning one of them might grow up to be the next Kellyanne Conway!  #LifeGoals
  • while professorial turnover is high, the worst case scenario is that the Charlotte metropolitan area will be blessed with a dump-load of experienced practitioners ready to step into partner-level positions providing their expertise to the region's well-known banking and tech corporations
  • there's still any number of fun wealth-transfer schemes for the moneyed and credentialed to deploy and exploit socioeconomic advantage; get creative!
That's a lot of positives that shine through despite the dark clouds of oppression.  So keep scammin', but just in case no one rescues Charlotte Law from the cross on its own American Golgotha, there's plenty of bright side for all involved.  That's the power of law. 

Whether you slowly wilt from thirst and starvation or a merciful creature slits your throat, look skyward, Charlotte, and whistle in a major key.

3 comments:

  1. "It's never been a better time for UNC-Charlotte, Winthrop, Davidson, Gardner-Webb, Catawba, or Queens to explore adding a law school"

    And don't forget NC State. After all, why not start another "badly needed, inexpensive" public law school?

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    Replies
    1. Lately a few editorials promoting the "need" for a law school in Charlotte, preferably built with public funds, have appeared in the Charlotte media.

      The argument seems to be:

      1) I live in Charlotte.
      2) Therefore, Charlotte is a great place.
      3) Therefore, Charlotte needs a law school.

      Not exactly worthy of the LSAT, is it?

      Typically that patently foolish "argument" is dressed up with a vague claim that lots of people in the Charlotte area would be interested in studying law. Sounds like Indiana Tech all over again.

      Delete
  2. Excellent reference-as-metaphor, LSTC...

    ReplyDelete