Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Tao of Frank Wu

Frank Wu may have stepped down from being dean of the Million Dollar Express depot known as UC-Hastings, but like any good academic he can't help himself but to continue serving heaping ladlefuls of his beatific wisdom to the wisdom-starved assholes who show up at The Huffington Post.  So, so much wisdom.  Like can we call him Frank Wu-Tang?  Yes.

Let us read the wisdom.
I hate hyperbole. And that’s no exaggeration.
...
So-called scam bloggers allege legal education is worthless and ruins lives.
...
People who in fact had no great wish for [a law degree] were told it would enable them to do everything.
Frame the wisdom, hang it on your unfinished drywall with a rusty nail, and reflect upon its holy gleam for meditative hours.
[Y]ou are more persuasive in a court governed by rules by emphasizing reason over rhetoric.
Smash it on a mirror and snort the wisdom.
It is as important to offer the best question as it is to provide the best answer. 
Molest the wisdom and blame your shitty childhood.
[Evaluating law school] includes appropriate weighing of the opportunity cost.
...
For some people, legal education can be virtually free, and at that price it can be recommended with enthusiasm.
Slice the wisdom with a jigsaw, blend it with rum and choice citrus fruits, and chug until you reach nirvana.
The truth is most law school graduates are employed. Yet they may well be underemployed relative to their credentials.  Their grievances are well founded. They cannot but be heeded. They reflect the anxieties about the hard edge of global competition.
Douse yourself in gasoline and burn with the wisdom.
For someone who wants to be a lawyer, who is given financial support, and who is realistic about what being an attorney involves, law school is a fine choice. 
If anything, Wu shows us just how powerful a law degree is.  You, too, can go to law school and, years later, still fail to thoroughly grasp basic, ground-level truths of the industry in which you have spent many adult years and are cited as a leader (global competition?  reason over rhetoric because a court has "rules"?).  You, too, can publish witless, empty nonsense that says nothing of substance while positioning yourself as some sort of fart-sniffing, rational centrist from the comfort of your climate-controlled Ivory Tower.

If decade-late piffle like this can make it to the HuffPost, surely special you can make it in criminal defense or patent law, eh, Skip?  Enroll today.

6 comments:

  1. What the heck does he mean by "who is given financial support"? You mean they can obtain loan money?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, he means being born with a silver spoon up one's ass.

      Delete
    2. —— People who in fact had no great wish for [a law degree] were told it would enable them to do everything.

      And who, pray, was telling them that? Why, none other than a certain Frank Wu, who eight years ago published in scam-tabloid You Ass News a piece entitled "Why Law School Is for Everyone" (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/applying/articles/2009/04/22/why-law-school-is-for-everyone).

      Now he is telling people to "[c]hoose wisely" and chiding them for treating law school as a "default" rather than weighing the costs and being realistic about the prospects of a good outcome. So law school is for everyone, except that it isn't.

      Wu, you're a goddamn mother-fucking hypocrite.

      —— [Evaluating law school] includes appropriate weighing of the opportunity cost.
      ...
      For some people, legal education can be virtually free, and at that price it can be recommended with enthusiasm.

      In light of the "opportunity cost", for whom is law school "virtually free"? Is any law school anywhere giving anyone free tuition plus enough cash to offset the opportunity cost, or whatever part thereof Wu considers "appropriate" in the "weighing"?

      Again, utter garbage out of Wu's snout.

      Law school can no longer "be recommended with enthusiasm" to anyone. It's a reasonable option for the rich, a risky one for a few other people (young people who get into an élite school, preferably with a fat scholarship), and sheer folly for almost everyone else.

      —— The truth is most law school graduates are employed. Yet they may well be underemployed relative to their credentials. Their grievances are well founded. They cannot but be heeded. They reflect the anxieties about the hard edge of global competition.

      Oh, yes, blame "global competition". The law-school scam is altogether off the hook, isn't it, scamster Wu? After all, law schools aren't growing fat off a state-funded program that sells degrees that turn out to be worth little or nothing.

      Delete
    3. That article eight years ago caused me to start a scamblog. Frank Wu even wrote that a restaurant owner could benefit from law school, because he would be able to understand codes and regulations better. But he "forgot" to mention that it's FAR cheaper and less time-consuming to hire a goddamn lawyer to do those things for you. Pig Woo encouraged EVERYONE to go to law school.

      Delete
    4. Wu's words: "Students have been ahead of their teachers for some time. They have long been coming to law school planning to adapt their training to myriad pursuits. They benefit from their ability to interpret a statute, even if they end up opening a restaurant."

      A few points:

      1) Few law students plan to pursue anything but law. Many end up in "myriad pursuits", such as selling women's underwear or unclogging pipes, but not by design. A JD is useless for ringing up brassieres at the cash register.

      2) Few graduates of law school can interpret a statute competently, and even fewer acquired that ability during law school.

      3) That comment about "opening a restaurant" bespeaks Wu's class background, not graduates' reality. Nobody with $250k in non-dischargeable debt from law school is going to open a goddamn restaurant.

      Delete
  2. Hypocrisy, the lifeblood of the scam.

    ReplyDelete