Thursday, April 27, 2017

The Week in Quotes: Teenage Superlawyer; Charlotte Sometimes Triggers Investigation, and Cincinnati Irony

The Good:
“My goal is to become the youngest lawyer in America and from there I want to change the world,” said [Danya] Hamad.
...
Danya said she plans on taking the summer off, then it is one more year for her bachelor’s and three years for her law degree all at Capital University. She hopes to graduate from law school at 19-years-old which would be another record.
The Bad:
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has opened an investigation into Charlotte School of Law...Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for Stein, confirmed in an email to Morning Education that the office “is investigating the school under the state’s civil consumer protection laws and is very concerned about the current situation at the school.”
...
The timing of the school’s possible closure might limit students’ ability to obtain a federal “closed school discharge” of their student loans. Education Department rules allow students who are attending a college that suddenly collapses to have their federal loans wiped out. That protection also extends to students who withdrew from the school in the 120 days leading up to its closure, a clock that is now ticking for the hundreds of students who fled Charlotte School of Law in late December and January. 
The Deliciously Ironically Ironic:
The dean of the law school at the University of Cincinnati, who was placed on administrative leave last month, sued the university Friday.
...
[Jennifer] Bard's complaint asserts Landgren and UC illegally placed Bard on administrative leave in March immediately following her response to local media reports about financial deficits at the law school and faculty members’ responses to her efforts to reduce those deficits.
...
“There is a certain irony here that the very institution tasked with teaching future lawyers and jurists about due process and the constitution is violating those very sacrosanct principles,” [Bard Attorney Marjorie] Berman said in a statement.
Some weeks the sparks of inspiration, those flecks of atomic light in the great distance that we strain our pupils to see, just don't appear against all hope and the Author wonders if the proverbial well has run dry as he stares into the dark, bricked abyss of cyclical, soulless repetition, pondering, on a broader level, the black hole of human existence, its intense gravity suffocating true ingenuity and innovation into a balled, banal mishmash of perpetual bludgeoning to the human spirit until we have formed into fungible ball bearings rolling in a cruel, monotonous machine, clinging and pinging along like controlled pinballs, and perhaps, maybe, this shtick has run its course, but then - zounds! - a spate - an assault, if you will - of the Good News hits the Author's inbox and all is good in the world.

Scam on.

12 comments:

  1. The goal of "becom[ing] the youngest lawyer in America" exudes narcissism.

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    1. But does come with six extra years added for free to your lifetime of regret.

      Seriously though, I have known two people who finsished law school at a very young age. One had an o.k. but not spectacular career and the other (at least at the time the youngest woman to ever pass the bbar in a very large state) ended up in small law and then wound up in a mental institution when her partner looted the clients' funds account. Whenever I see people like that I wonder whether its really worth never going to a senior prom. A person's development as a person is like a line of people running across a field holding hands. If one person is a lot faster and stronger than everyone else and decides to run out ahead of everyone else it is highly likely that some of the other people are going to fall flat on their faces.

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    2. At my law school, we had a few law students who got in after their junior year undergrad. They were all smart kids but at law school, their performance was uniformly poor-to-mediocre and not a single one went into big law or inhouse. They were intelligent but just not sufficiently seasoned to handle law school. Notwithstanding all of the maturity issues, I can't imagine how a law firm would view an associate candidate who was a minor with all of the potential liabilities multiplied a million times because of her minor status. If a typical associate of majority hears a dirty joke, it can be harassment. If a minor hears a dirty joke, it's much more serious.

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  2. Replies
    1. She should skip the bar and become a law professor.

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    2. All I can say is, "Good-bye Barristers' Brawl."

      Seriously, my barely-first-tier trap private law school was desperate for marks and started admitting students who had completed just enough credits to be a senior in undergrad. One- just one-- of the students was under twenty-one and it was the biggest pain in the ass to accommodate that one student at law school functions. There was either a university rule or actually maybe a state law that mandated that at university functions where minors (under 21) were invited, no alcohol could be served. If there's a similar rule at Capital, they'll have to get creative with a work-around.

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  3. Youth is wasted on the young.

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  4. I trust that we have all read about Simon the giant bunny rabbit who died onboard a United flight to O'Hare (actually not a joke) after being placed onboard the plane at Heathrow by his breeder, a former playboy bunny model (still not a joke). Before you grab your ears, join the bunny-hop around the United corporate headquarters, and chant "justice for Simon!" you should understand that there is apparently some misinformation about the incident. According to a United representative, Simon died at a pet holding facility after his arrival at O'Hare and not onboard the plane. PETA though claims that United treated Simon "like an old suitcase."

    Simon hopped gently into the good night but his death does not have to be in vain. Hopefully, Simon's voyage into the darkness with its many complex, transnational legal elements will provide the inspiration for a whole new legal synthesis, which of course will be taught at one of the nation's finest law schools by an impeccably credentialed professor of law. So, which august institution will be the first to provide their marks, er, students with the opportunity to take Hop Hop Law? Perhaps we can take bets here at LSTC.

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