George Mason: Originalist Gangstas

Justice Scalia has been dead for a whopping forty-seven (47) days.  His death left a vacancy on the Supreme Court that may remain unfilled for some time.  But where there's a void, there's an opportunity, and George Mason, named for an early civil rights advocate who owned 3/5 a shit-ton of slaves, knows how to fill the gap with its hands extended:

The university announced Thursday that it has received $30 million in combined gifts to the George Mason Foundation to support the law school, the largest gift in the university’s history. The donations make possible three new scholarship programs. Twenty million dollars came from an anonymous donor, and $10 million came from the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to colleges in the United States.
...
Leonard A. Leo, a member of the Federalist Society who was close with Scalia and his family, was approached by a donor who asked that the university name the law school in honor of the late justice, and offered a $20 million donation.

In one fell swoop, the school has made itself a center of legal conservatism and raked in $30 million - that's, like, 1,000 lemming-years of tuition.  It's not every day that an anonymous donor just shows up wanting to pay the lifetime premiums of twenty lawyers to name a school after someone else, but George Mason was there to answer the phone when said donor hit its number on the robo-dialer.

While it sort of feels like being the guy at the party nearest the girl who needs convenient rebound sex instanter, this major coup for the marketing department is certainly fitting.  Scalia, as is widely known, was a fan of the diversity loved by legal education:

“When we speak about diversity, that includes diversity of thought and exposing ourselves to a range of ideas and points of view,” Cabrera said in the university’s statement.
...
Scalia was so divisive in his lifetime that even immediately after his death, people were arguing fiercely about his legacy.

Too forced?  Consider the word choice used here:

“These gifts will create opportunities to attract and retain the best and brightest students...

in contrast with Scalia's infamous remark about his clerk hiring policies:

 “By and large, I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into,” Scalia said. “They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, O.K.?”

It doesn't take a dictionary from 1802 to know that's a direct reference.  George Mason is about to experience a renaissance of attracting top-quality students.  Sure,George Mason is currently attracting LSATs in the 156-162 range with GPAs hovering around an inflated 3.5.  Sure, the law schools employment score is only 55%.  Sure, George Mason has had one (1) Supreme Court clerk and Justice Scalia wouldn't have dared actually hiring one of these sow's ears for his chambers.

But it's a new day, and it couldn't have come soon enough.

While it took Justice Cardozo 38 years to get a law school named after him, it only took Scalia 47 days for someone to exploit his legacy for the beautiful, anonymous bag of cash.

That's progress, folks.  Hopefully, by the time our next great jurist passes on, the paperwork is in order to transfer the check the day-of.  Because even though the country is running with an even-numbered Supreme Court, that's no reason to not use it as a golden opportunity to pour more gold in the law school money tank.

Good News Excerpts from the Gospel of Scam

CHAPTER 23

 Then the whole assembly rose and led it off to California state court.  ² And they began to accuse him, saying, “You're a scam!”

³ So the Court asked TJLS, “Are you a good law school?”
“You have said so,” TJLS replied.
⁴ Then the court announced to the his clerks, “I find no basis for a charge against this school.”
⁵ But they insisted, “It's a scam!”
⁶ On hearing this, Pilate asked if the school was accredited. ⁷ When he learned that the school was under ABA jurisdiction, he sent him to the ABA, who has representatives all over the country ready to serve America's lawyers.
⁸ But the ABA representative was conned and/or drunk. ⁹ Replacing him was some nefarious lawyer who plied the school with many questions. ¹⁰ The lawyer was vehemently accusing the school. ¹¹ Then a bunch of stupid bloggers and non-professorial alumni ridiculed and mocked TJLS. ¹² That day the Court lost its damned mind and agreed with some of the bloggers.
¹³ The court reconvened, ¹⁴ and said to them, “This is ridiculous. ¹⁵ I am dismissing the class allegations. ¹⁶ Da fuq.”
¹⁸ But the statistics-ignored crowd shouted, “Scam!” ^19
20 Wanting to release TJLS, the Court appealed to them again. ²¹ But they kept shouting, “Scam!”
²² For the third time he spoke to them: “Why? What crime has this school committed? I have found in it no grounds for the death penalty you seek. Therefore I will dismiss this stupid suit.”
²³ But with loud shouts about the basic elements of fraud they insistently demanded that TJLS be crucified, and their shouts prevailed. ²⁴ So the Court decided to grant their demand. ²⁵ He released a murderer for no plot point other than to show how stupid it was, and surrendered TJLS to their will.

...

⁴⁴ It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, ⁴⁵ for the sun stopped shining. ⁴⁶ TJLS called out with a loud voice, “please, stop this trial and dismiss these charges!"  But they continued the trial, each allegation and aspersion a spear in the side of TJLS.

⁴⁷ The jury, wrought by emotion and seeing what had happened, praised TJLS and said, “Surely this was a righteous law school.” ⁴⁸ When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. ⁴⁹ The jury was not impressed.


...

CHAPTER 24 

 On the fourth day of the week, very early in the afternoon, the jury came back. ² They found the metaphorical stone rolled away from the tomb of the beleaguered law school, ³ and they could not possibly continue such a trial and opted to acquit on all charges. ⁴  

...

³⁶ The other ABA law schools were quite distraught , TJLS appeared on a conference call and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
³⁷ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸ It said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹ Look at my employment statistics!  They are legit!”
⁴⁰ They looked and were astounded by the simultaneous accuracy and charlatanism. ⁴¹ And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, TJLS asked them, “Do you have more applicants?”  A bit of awkwardness ensued, but it was all good, because TJLS was truly an excellent school, and not at all like Trump University.  Not even remotely.  Eat a nut, scammers, this institution, contrary to your allegations of mortality, is flying to the heavens in a bath of white light and student loan dollars.

Scam Madness: 68 Alternative JD Advantage Jobs

That's right, friends, our most popular feature is back:  SCAM MADNESS!

This year, instead of having a scam-off of law schools that the LSTC half-asses and then fails to follow through on like an applicant who takes the LSAT without ejaculating that sweet, sweet tuition money, I'm listing out 64 jobs that a JD-advantaged person like Anna Alaburda can take without any issue.  Straight from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles!

Here's 68 to whet your JD appetite - and there's easily hundreds more!

1. 110.167-010 BAR EXAMINER (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: law examiner
2. 111.107-010 JUDGE (government ser.) alternate titles: justice
3. 111.107-014 MAGISTRATE (government ser.) alternate titles: justice-court judge; justice of the
4. 119.107-010 HEARING OFFICER (government ser.) alternate titles: appeals board referee; referee
5. 119.117-010 APPEALS REVIEWER, VETERAN (government ser.)
6. 119.167-010 ADJUDICATOR (government ser.)
7. 119.167-014 PATENT AGENT (profess. & kin.)
8. 119.167-018 TITLE SUPERVISOR (profess. & kin.)
9. 119.267-010 ABSTRACTOR (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: abstract clerk; abstract maker; abstract
10. 119.267-014 APPEALS REFEREE (government ser.)
11. 119.267-018 CONTRACT CLERK (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: contract consultant; contract
12. 119.267-022 LEGAL INVESTIGATOR (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: legal assistant
13. 119.267-026 PARALEGAL (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: law clerk; legal aid; legal assistant
14. 119.287-010 TITLE EXAMINER (profess. & kin.)
15. 119.367-010 ESCROW OFFICER (profess. & kin.)
16. 050.117-010 DIRECTOR, EMPLOYMENT RESEARCH AND PLANNING (government ser.)
17. 051.067-010 POLITICAL SCIENTIST (profess. & kin.)
18. 052.067-010 BIOGRAPHER (profess. & kin.)
19. 052.067-014 DIRECTOR, STATE-HISTORICAL SOCIETY (profess. & kin.)
20. 052.067-018 GENEALOGIST (profess. & kin.)
21. 052.167-010 DIRECTOR, RESEARCH (motion picture; radio-tv broad.)
22. 054.067-010 RESEARCH WORKER, SOCIAL WELFARE (profess. & kin.)
23. 054.067-014 SOCIOLOGIST (profess. & kin.)
24. 054.107-010 CLINICAL SOCIOLOGIST (profess. & kin.)
25. 059.167-010 INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH SPECIALIST (profess. & kin.)
26. 059.267-010 INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST (government ser.)
27. 059.267-014 INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST (military ser.)
28. 090.117-010 ACADEMIC DEAN (education) alternate titles: academic vice president; dean of
29. 090.167-018 DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH (education) alternate titles: administrative analyst;
30. 090.117-022 DIRECTOR, ATHLETIC (education)
31. 090.222-010 INSTRUCTOR, BUSINESS EDUCATION (education)
32. 090.227-010 FACULTY MEMBER, COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY (education)
33. 099.117-030 DIRECTOR, EDUCATION (museums)
34. 099.167-014 CONSULTANT, EDUCATION (education)
35. 099.227-010 CHILDREN'S TUTOR (domestic ser.)
36. 100.127-010 CHIEF LIBRARIAN, BRANCH OR DEPARTMENT (library) alternate titles: principal librarian;
37. 100.167-038 NEWS LIBRARIAN (library) alternate titles: news information resource manager; news
38. 102.017-010 CURATOR (museums)
39. 102.117-010 SUPERVISOR, HISTORIC SITES (government ser.)
40. 109.067-014 RESEARCH ASSOCIATE (museums)
41. 131.067-014 COPY WRITER (profess. & kin.)
42. 131.067-046 WRITER, PROSE, FICTION AND NONFICTION (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: writer
43. 131.087-014 READER (motion picture; radio-tv broad.) alternate titles: script reader; story analyst
44. 132.017-018 EDITOR, TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS (profess. & kin.) alternate titles:
45. 132.067-010 BUREAU CHIEF (print. & pub.)
46. 139.087-010 CROSSWORD-PUZZLE MAKER (print. & pub.)
47. 141.061-034 POLICE ARTIST (government ser.) alternate titles: forensic artist
48. 159.124-010 COUNSELOR, CAMP (amuse. & rec.)
49. 159.647-014 EXTRA (amuse. & rec.; motion picture; radio-tv broad.)
50. 160.162-010 ACCOUNTANT, TAX (profess. & kin.)
51. 160.167-054 AUDITOR (profess. & kin.)
52. 160.267-026 INVESTMENT ANALYST (financial; insurance) alternate titles: securities analyst;
53. 161.267-018 FORMS ANALYST (profess. & kin.)
54. 165.017-010 LOBBYIST (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: legislative advocate
55. 165.167-014 PUBLIC-RELATIONS REPRESENTATIVE (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: public-relations
56. 166.067-010 OCCUPATIONAL ANALYST (profess. & kin.)
57. 166.267-046 HUMAN RESOURCE ADVISOR (profess. & kin.)
58. 168.167-014 EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY REPRESENTATIVE (government ser.)
59. 168.267-062 INVESTIGATOR (government ser.)
60. 169.107-010 ARBITRATOR (profess. & kin.)
61. 169.167-010 ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT (any industry) alternate titles: administrative analyst;
62. 189.117-034 VICE PRESIDENT (any industry)
63. 191.117-022 CIRCUS AGENT (amuse. & rec.)
64. 199.207-010 DIANETIC COUNSELOR (profess. & kin.) alternate titles: dianeticist; scientologist;
65. 241.367-026 SKIP TRACER (clerical) alternate titles: debtor; tracer
66. 243.362-010 COURT CLERK (government ser.)
67. 243.367-010 MAIL CENSOR (government ser.)
68. 359.367-010 ESCORT (personal ser.) alternate titles: guide escort

Freeing Law Dean Libido from the Shackles of Liberalism

There's trouble in Cali.

University of California at Berkeley School of Law Dean Sujit Choudhry has resigned in the wake of a sexual harassment complaint, school officials announced Thursday.
...
Tyann Sorrell, a former executive assistant to Choudhry, claims that from September 2014 to March 2015, he sexually harassed her with kisses to the cheeks, bear hugs and repeatedly rubbing her shoulders and arms...

First of all, a law dean rubbing shoulders and kissing cheeks isn't sexual.  Everyone knows that when a law dean gets sexual, more than the shoulders get rubbed.  Somewhere there's a minor earthquake, a brief power outage, an unexplained blip on the radars of scientists.  All that core energy has to go somewhere...it's science.

In any event, did we learn nothing from Larry Mitchell saga?  For those who don't recall, or just don't want to remember because of the trauma, Larry Mitchell is the former Case Western dean who understood that law degrees were fucktastic and that a private law school education is the surefire way to make one live the high life.  Then some silk sheets and some pesky strict constructionists (constrictionists?) got in the way and the next thing we knew, legal education lost a valiant soldier and oddly creepy Youtube poetry had gained a poetaster.

Do we really want that to happen again?  Do we?  Haven't we let ideas of liberalism and equality and "safe" employment run so wild that we're now stultifying the greatness of the true alpha?

Law deans are a different species.  They have to be high energy to lasso in the lemmings, even at a school like Cal.  They're some of the most accomplished, dynamic people in the country.  If their bang-bang personality sometimes spills over into riding the underlings roughly or being touchy and/or feely with students, staff, or non-tenured faculty, so be it.  This isn't blaming the victim, but rather recognizing the standard occupational hazard of working in a white collar feedlot with a Machiavellian-by-necessity CEO.

Basically, don't go to law school if you don't want to get fucked.  #FreeLawDeanLibido

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson Enduring Hokey Show Trial

This morning, sophisticated consumer Anna Alaburda took her legal rampage against Thomas Jefferson - he of founding document drafting, he of our third president, he of the founder of the University of Virginia - by vicariously going after a law school in San Diego.  Alaburda's iconoclastic nonsense is an affront to American virtues, but in an age where millenials are voting for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in Mussolinian droves, a constitutional bonfire should surprise no one.

Of course, the preceding paragraph is total nonsense, but why tell the truth?  Lord knows the media isn't bothering.  See, for example, CBS News' write-up:

Anna Alaburda, who, 10 years after she graduated in the top tier of her class, still can't find a job as a lawyer.

The blame for that failure isn't hers, she maintains -- rather, the fault lies with her alma mater.

I mean, that's not true, but why bother with such technicalities as "reality"?  You think we live in a world of truth or something?  No way, 'ho say.  It's all about what makes people feel good when they pompously talk out their asses.  Law graduates were defrauded with misrepresentations?  Poppycock, education isn't the sort of thing can can lead to fraud, even when they expressly lie to induce direct financial benefit, my asshole says.

Speaking of talking out one's ass, check out this entirely unsourced statement slid in as easy as a glistening hot dog on a mustard-blasted bun:

Despite the cost, a law degree can more than make up for its cost, increasing earnings $30,000 to $60,000 annually over a bachelor's degree alone. 

Holy shit, does America kick ass or what?  You can just insert irrelevant, random, dubious facts in a national article.  Shit, let me try and make up shit.  Did you know that watching GI Joe cartoons can improve your blood pressure if you shout "cheese blintz!" every time Cobra Commander shows up?  Were you aware that owning a rotisserie oven and using it once a week reduces property taxes by 13% in non-Korean neighborhoods?  Did you know taking just one (1) aspirin a day can reduce your water bill by $3.00 a month and totally prevent gestational diabetes in full-term pregnancies?

Sure, these facts are all made up, but if you repeated them often enough, they would become as unassailable of truths as the estimable virtue of post-graduate education and the good faith of non-profit academics.

Notice how the author, straying even further from the subject matter at issue, takes Simkovic & McIntire's research on timing law school as fact?  Notice how they drop the BLS "median" of $115k with "above average" growth?  Notice how the negative facts after that, the ones actually relevant to the article, are presented as some sort of "view" from Paul Campos?

Wait, what we were talking about again?  Oh, right - Anna Alaburda's show trial against James Madison or something.

Should she prevail in her suit, law schools may finally have to provide more transparency into employment statistics...

Kids, this is game over.  This trial was won before the complaint was filed, before TJLS sent her an enrollment letter, and in fact before she was born.  The sterling reputation of all our Founding Fathers whose names wind up on things will remain intact and it's going to be "case dismissed" for Ms. Alaburda and her million dollar degree.

There is no fraud where American law schools are concerned, even when they expressly defraud their students.  Implicit immunity.  You won't find it in any American case, but the absence of existence in law does not imply an absence of truth.

You go to law school, you know you will profit.  If you don't, you knew better.  It's not the law schools' fault you chose to rely on information provided by the law schools for you to rely upon.

Your bad.

Law Schools Increasing Financial Literacy Among Dumber Students, Minorities

Note the comma in the title; minorities aren't always dumb students and dumb students ain't no minority.  Bah-dum, ca-ching.

From the ABA Journal:

The increased cost of attending law school falls most heavily on blacks, Hispanics and those with low LSAT scores, according to results from a 2015 survey of law students.
...
The debt disparities between groups were most intense in 2015. In 2006 the disparities were only marginal and in 2011 they began to emerge.  [pure coincidence, -ed.]

At first blush, some college sophomore might say hey, wait a minute, that seems directly counter to any sort of goal to bring racial balance and harmony to the Great Battle of Social Justice but thankfully most of those naive fuckers wind up graduating.  Most of them go on to being capitalists whose enlightenment elevates them about rudimentary ideas about things like "exploitation."  The fuck does that even mean?

The capitalist, on the other hand, understands the importance of financial literacy.  And what better way is there for poor, minority, and/or intellectual deficient students to learn the laws of finance and economics than to be saddled with six figures of debt that they try to pay back on meager drone wages?  It's easy being rich.  Trying to make $12/hr stretch to make ends meet with a monthly stipend going to some thumb-up-the-ass student loan servicer?  That's an education.  Once these students come out of that booby-trapped jungle in their mid/late-50s, they'll be ready to take the world by storm.

Law school critics always want legal education to be more hands-on.  Is there anything more hands-on than making someone a de facto indentured servant?  Picture them staying up late at night reading bankruptcy code and case law trying to escape their own Kafkan hell.  It's one thing to study how to do it, and another still to assist some client in a clinic setting where the stakes are only as high as one's emotional investment in giving a shit about others.  But to give them the debt is to throw them in the pool or to let go of the guided bicycle.  Drowning and crashing is histrionic hyperbole.  No, they're going to learn.

Law school: the institution that never stops teaching you how to deal with shit. 

And now for some financial literacy of another kind:  Prices are stable!  Never going to be lower!  Timing law school doesn't work, so act now!

Valpo Reformers Endangering Appropriate Legal Market Saturation

Just a few years ago, we built a brand spanking new spaceport for rocketing million-dollar careers in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  You might know it as Indiana Tech.  Before they built it, they did a peer-reviewed feasibility study upholding the highest in scientific and statistical virtue that showed, very clearly, that the state of Indiana was facing a dire lawyer shortage and had an unmet demand for legal education.  The rational conclusion, based on all the available science, was to build another law school.

Now, Valparaiso - a mere 100 miles away - is downsizing its law school.

Facing a sharp decline in student applications and enrollment at its law school, Valparaiso University is offering tenured faculty and those with multi-year contracts a buyout.
...
[Spokesperson Nicole] Niemi said the purpose of the buyouts is to align the size of the faculty with the expected future law school enrollment.

I understand I'm normally fully supportive of how America's accredited law schools teach the next generation of white-collar juris-heroes how to kick injustice in the dickhole.  But good God, what a confused message.

Contrary to the reasoned analysis of Indiana Tech's study, Valparaiso's decision smacks of knee-jerk irrationality that essentially caved in to short-sighted thinking.  We know what the future holds for the legal profession, and it's a tidal wave of Baby Boomer Barrister's dying and retiring, falling like dominoes that jeopardize the Rule of Law in North America, leaving rural areas functioning with only 1 lawyer to every 0.6 actual, lawyer-able legal issues, a ratio of great peril for the genetic fiber of our society's judicial branch.

Departing from this truth because you want to save a few dimes here and there is not only reckless, but "right-sizing" sends the wrong message to students: that there's somehow less demand for lawyers despite our expanding population and increasing justice gap.

Please note that my discussion about the pending lawyer shortage isn't completely concocted like the Great American STEM Shortage.  This shit's real, and we to scold schools like Valparaiso for disregarding rationality and making possible a future where the yellow pages may not be stuffed with solo and small-firm attorneys chasing the legal dragon.  Bad, Valpo.  Bad.

UC Davis Laying Pipe to Diverse Candidates

The ABA doesn't just work to maintain lawyering as a great profession with a bright future for all practitioners, it also likes to reward those institutions working tirelessly to make our noble profession a little less white and a little less schlub-y.  Appropriately, then, it's rewarded UC-Davis for its pipeline program:

KHOP has been a staple of the school since the program’s inception in 2001. It is designed to not only aid students from underrepresented communities in the law school admissions process, but also in receiving mentoring and pre-law advising during their academic career. Students receive tips, and learn the writing, analytical and reasoning skills needed to strengthen their skills in their academic pursuits. [hopefully there is a wine bar involved, -ed]
...
According to ABA, 100 students have at least one year finished at KHOP to date, while 240 students have finished the two-year program. In addition, 41 percent of the students involved have graduated or are entering a law program, and 99 percent of the alumni involved are graduates from four-year universities. 

That's the sort of delightful pipe one can smoke; if you dislike that I'm suddenly mixing metaphors, you can "suck it," as the kids say.

Given that there's never been a better time to go to law school (remember, when the smart money sells, it's always time to buy!), UC Davis is doing marvelous things having a program specifically laying pipe for these students to swim through, then to be gloriously discharged into serving the American public and preserving the Rule of Law.

The career boost given to that 41% of students in the KHOP program who go to law school can't be quantified.  I mean sure, we can calculate up the modest tuition payments to American law schools, and we could hire a mathematician and figure out how much money a 160k median salary figures to be after middling debt payments, but the real value of legal education is intangible.  Knowing that we have a body of warm bodies ready to sacrifice themselves on grenades of justice, well, shit, money can't buy that.  The comfort in having that group of people becomming sligthly darker and speaking with more of an accent?  Well, that assuages centuries of social injustice, when minorities weren't allowed to find out how wonderful being a justicei crusader can be in a world that is desperate for them.

It's, frankly, enough to inspire anyone who understands the value of legal education to start laying pipe, too.

Response to Vermont Law School Request for Public Comment

Vermont Law School is being evaluated for the NEASC, its regional accreditation body.

Vermont Law School invites the public to submit comments regarding the institution as part of a New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) evaluation.

You've got until March 23 to submit comments to the contact information on the link.

But why wait for such an obvious answer?  Here's the basic LSTC public comment regarding Vermont Law School, with descriptive phrases, adjectives, and verbs underlined so readers can simply copy the form and change the positive-vibe-y words for themselves!

Vermont Law School is a/an _excellent__ institution that _assists__ its graduates by providing them a/an _orgasmic and valuable_ legal education for a _ relatively modest_ tuition price.  The average Vermont graduate is _set___ for life because in exchange for that __check that - insanely low__ tuition price, those _brilliantly clever_ students receive __life-changing_ skills such as _thinking like a lawyer_, __dressing like a lawyer__, and _drinking socializing like a lawyer_.  With these __totally necessary__ skills in their arsenal, VLS graduates are _gently placed__ onto the American legal marketplace, which is _always desperate for more and better justice warriors in the unending battle for social justice that just won't stop no matter how many lawyers we pump out because these evil corporations keep hiring lawyers or something__.  Once there, new VLS lawyers learn that _a significant number of them (that's not actionable, is it?)__ of them are employable in full-time legal jobs that typically earn somewhere between _models___ and __bottles___.  _Multimillion-dollar_ degrees, indeed!  For those who _voluntarily decline_ to work as a _commodore__ in the _royal navy_ of _liberty on the high seas of jurisprudence__, the world is their oyster as the Juris Doctor is _the most versatile degree in the history of degrees including a master's degree in fucking versatility_.  Simply put, the world needs more law degree holders like it needs _more waterbeds! everyone loves a waterbed!_.  Even among all the _certainly not cancerous mole-like third and fourth tier_ law schools in the United States, VLS is extra special because it is __the only school in an entire heavily populated state with a border that must be guarded - immigration law!__ and offers excellent programs in _shit that makes you think of Bernie Sanders - GO BERN!_.

Accreditation is important for law schools, as it proves the administration is capable enough to place a sheet of paper in just the right place for a rubber stamp to fall atop it.  It's a very fine art.  Please help VLS by submitting a comment about VLS's value as a civic and educational institution in the justice-desperate northeast.

Justice Scalia Now as Deceased as Non-Living Constitution

As the informed reader has no doubt heard, Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia has passed away at the age of 79.  May he rest in peace.  This unexpected twist reduces the Catholic majority on the court to a mere 5-3 advantage and removes a stalwart conservative with firm principles onto which he obdurately held in the face of social change with only a few select exceptions when they got in the way of important votes like Bush or Citizens United.  For Scalia, making law was like making love: you do it the same way they did it 200 years ago, except for the occasional whim when you want to fist it in the ass and piss all over it.

As a witty, staunch defender of the Rule of Law and limousine lecturer to America's finest law schools (now more than 200 locations!), he will be irreplaceable and greatly missed. The nation now faces a political stand-off in replacing him.  President Obama has already announced his intent to nominate a replacement for Senate consideration.  Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have already decided (over a weekend, no less!) that the next Supreme Court appointment should be made by the next President, preferring the Donald Trump dice-roll to a former constitutional law professor.  Let us all hope that a compromise candidate is named and America be blessed with the next Anthony Kennedy.

Such political maneuvers, though, are not our focus on this blog.  Instead, we celebrate Scalia's contributions to legal education beyond his annual tour.  In Scalia's view, legal education didn't teach much, but was invaluable as a three-year sorting function for separating gods and clods:

By and large, I’m going to be picking [clerks] from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into,” Scalia said. “They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest, O.K.?

Words that will live on.  In an age where people are constantly wanting law schools to teach "practical" skills, Justice Scalia understood that the purpose of law school is not to be schooled in law, but to acquire a stamp on one's curriculum vitae to certify genuine intellect and societal worth.  The Supreme Court, with its grand tradition of well-reasoned opinions that guide the nation's legal superstructure, depends not on practitioners with real-world abilities, but rather on an endless conveyor belt of Harvard and Yale graduates to pontificate, that innate skill held by elitists who clearly earned every promotion that they were quickly given.

It doesn't take real-world skills to write twenty pages that punt the most important issues in a case; it takes pedigree.  Justice Scalia understood this concept.  Sure, nothing stops a 174 LSAT from staying home and going to Florida State or Colorado, and nothing stops Georgetown from admitting total nincompoops and laughing about it in the faculty lounge.  But to use that sort of "logic" would jeopardize the Rule of Law, if not America.

Law schools simply aren't designed to teach.  They weren't designed to do so in the 60s and therefore they shouldn't be amended to do so now.  Their purpose is to let silk purses be silky and sow's ears to be sow-y.  Such a stable system provides the public with confidence that their legal sector is well-maintained, enforcing a stable framework where words like "Harvard Law School" and "AV Preeminent!" mean something dating back to Thomas Jefferson, all to preserve the almighty Rule of Law.

Reform, then, is not only superfluous, but potentially dangerous.  If you enforce some sort of useful pedagogy or merits-based consideration, even for a minority of schools, it may set a troubling trend where the best and the brightest may not leave the best and the brightest.  While we at the LSTC encourage law school experimentation as a cheap marketing exercise to rubes, to have the ABA or any other regulatory body make substantial changes to law school imperils the natural order and would undermine the Rule of Law.

So the best way to celebrate Justice Scalia's legacy would be to maintain the status quo: a system where our nation's best and brightest pay a hefty sum to take a three-year study vacation that teaches them little outside a selection of pleasant, antiquated writings and pseudo-philosophical conversations where windbags blow past each other.  Then, they would stride into good jobs where they then learn the actual craft of law as relevant to their station.  Recycle graduates of the most prestigious institutions for the top positions and leave the remainder of law schools to educate those who will serve the grossly under-served remainder of the population. 

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.