Yale Law Journal

Volume 100
Article 3
Issue 6 Yale Law Journal

1991

How Not to Succeed in Law School

James D. Gordon III

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj

Recommended Citation
James D. Gordon III, How Not to Succeed in Law School, 100 Yale L.J. (1991).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol100/iss6/3

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Law
Journal by an authorized editor of Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Essays

How Not to Succeed in Law School

James D. Gordon HIIt

I. SHOULD You Go TO LAW SCHOOL?

Would you like to help the less fortunate?

Would you like to see liberty and justice for all?
Do you want to vindicate the rights of the oppressed?
If so, you should join the Peace Corps. The last thing you should do is
attend law school.
People basically hate lawyers, and with good reason. That's why you'll
rarely escape from a dinner party without hearing at least one lawyer joke.
Indeed, literature reveals that people have always hated lawyers. Samuel
Coleridge wrote in The Devil's Thoughts:

He saw a Lawyer killing a Viper

On a dunghill hard by his own stable;

t Professor of Law, Brigham Young University Law School. B.A. 1977, Brigham Young University;
J.D. 1980, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Just for the record (in case I am
ever nominated for ajudicial appointment), I don't believe a word of this Essay. And if I do, I'm only being
tentative. And if I'm not, I promise to let my colleagues dissuade me from my position shortly before the
Senate confirmation hearings begin. After all, I watched the Bork hearings, too. I extend apologies and
thanks to Dave Barry, Eliot A. Butler, Linda Bytof, Johnny Carson, Steven Chidester, Jesse H. Choper,
Michael Cohen, Paul Duke, Vaughn J.Featherstone, J. Clifton Fleming, Jr., Frederick Mark Gedicks, Bruce
C. Hafen, Carl S. Hawkins, Gregory Husisian, Brian C.Johnson, Edward L. Kimball, Jay Leno, Hans A.
Linde, Thurgood Marshall, H. Peter Mueller, Richard Pryor, DeWitt Scott, Marjorie Maguire Shultz, Steven
D. Smith, John S. Tanner, Toby Alaska Threet, Mark Twain, Mark 0. Van Wagoner, Jan Vetter, J. Clifford
Wallace, Henry Weihofen, D. Robert White, Kevin J. Worthen, Timothy R. Zinnecker, and others.

1679
1680 The Yale Law Journal (Vol. 100: 1679

And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind

Of Cain and his brother, Abel.'

Even other species detest lawyers. Carl Sandburg wrote:

Why is there always a secret singing

When a lawyer cashes in?
Why does a hearse horse snicker
Hauling a lawyer away? 2

It is true that some lawyers are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral,
ruthless buckets of toxic slime. On the other hand, it is unfair to judge the
entire profession by a few hundred thousand bad apples. In fact, there are many
perfectly legitimate reasons for going to law school. For example, ask yourself
the following questions:
Do I want to go to medical school but can't stand the sight of blood?
Are my inlaws pestering me to death to do something meaningful (i.e.,
lucrative) with my life? Have I considered circulating petitions to ban inlaws,
but realized that it would only spawn stupid bumper stickers saying, "WHEN
INLAWS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE INLAWS"?
Did I major in English and have absolutely nowhere else to turn?
If these questions ring a bell, you might feel that law school is for you. Lie
down for a while until the feeling goes away. If it doesn't go away, prepare
yourself for the consequences. For example, your grandparents will immediately
scrape off their bumper sticker that says, "ASK ME ABOUT MY GRAND-
CHILDREN." You see, they grew up in a time when a person's word was his
bond, when a handshake was enough, when disputes were worked out amicably
and quickly among people of good will. Fortunately, you don't live in such
primitive times! Today, you can make a handsome income exploiting other
people's personal tragedies and society's declining sense of community. And
just in time, too-right when you are graduating from college. Talk about
lucky!

II. TAKING THE LSAT

Before you can go to law school, you have to take an exam called the
LSAT. Nobody knows whether the "A" in LSAT stands for "Admissions,"
"Aptitude," or "Arbitrary." The LSAT basically measures how well you can
use a number 2 pencil to fill in the little circles on the computer sheet. Be sure
to fill in the circles completely and carefully. Do not make any stray marks on

1. S. COLERIDGE, The Devil's Thoughts, in THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR
COLERIDGE 320 (1912).
2. C. SANDBURG, The Lawyers Know Too Much, in THE COMPLETE POEMS OF CARL SANDBURG 189
(1950).
1991] Law School 1681

the paper. This will lower your score. The instructions at the top of the exam
carefully explain that these are the grading criteria, but hardly anyone ever pays
any attention to them.
The old LSAT scores went up to 800, but a few years ago the LSAT people
(whoever they are) changed the exam so that now the highest possible score
is 48. This looks pretty suspicious, if you ask me. I mean, why 48? Why not
a nice round number, like 100? The secret truth is that a group of law profes-
sors who scored 48 on the old exam lobbied the LSAT people to make 48 the
highest score.
The old LSAT had-I am not making this up-a math section. After
conducting an exhaustive nationwide study, however, the LSAT people finally
realized that no one had asked a lawyer to solve a quadratic equation or find
the cosine of an angle for, probably, several centuries, and so they eventually
deleted it. This action was taken against their better judgment (using the term
loosely). After all, the math section provided a handy way to discriminate
among people of equal intelligence.
Frankly, the current LSAT isn't much better. It asks questions like, "Com-
pare Madam Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities with Huckleberry Finn in Huckle-
berry Finn." This makes no sense at all, since lawyers rarely address this
question.
Another typical question on the current LSAT goes like this:

Assume you have a fox, a goose, and a bag of corn. You need to row
them all across the river, but the boat will carry only you and one other
thing at a time. If you leave the fox and the goose alone, the fox will
eat the goose. If you leave the goose and the corn alone, the goose will
eat the corn. How do you get them across?

The answer is so simple a child could get it: you beat the goose silly with an
oar, and then take the fox across before he flees for his life. This question is
so stupid I don't even know why they include it.
It never seems to have occurred to the LSAT people that their test might
deign to include a few questions that actually relate to a lawyer's work. For
example:

(1) Abe is a lawyer who wins a personal injury lawsuit for Bet-
ty, a quadriplegic. Abe should take a contingent fee of:
a. 30%
b. 50%
c. 100%
d. (The correct answer) 100%, plus a bonus for taking
a public service case.
1682 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

Or:

(2) The judge receives a bribe of $5,000 from the plaintiff's

lawyer. He then receives a bribe of $10,000 from the
defendant's lawyer. The judge should:
a. Notify the state bar association
b. Notify the police
c. Notify the FBI
d. (The correct answer) Return $5,000 to the defendant
and try the case on the merits.

The LSAT people say that LSAT preparation courses do not help, since the
LSAT tests knowledge and skills that cannot be improved by last minute
cramming. Regardless of what the LSAT people say, however, you will notice
that there are several suspiciously solvent LSAT prep course companies who
are happy to take your money. Of course, you can always choose to "go bare"
and take the LSAT without any prep course at all. People who have done this
in the past are called "nonlawyers."
You take the LSAT in a stifling room crammed with five hundred sweating
people. It is immediately apparent that none of them has ever watched a
deodorant commercial in his or her entire life. Through a strange quirk of fate,
you have to sit right next to some moron who chomps loudly on Corn Nuts
throughout the whole exam while wearing those artillery-range ear protectors
that make it impossible for him to notice anything less than 7.5 on the Richter
scale. They also make it impossible for you to tell him what an inconsiderate
imbecile he is. Notice your feeling of panic and nausea as you take the LSAT.
Get used to it.
After you take the LSAT, they send you your score and a statement explain-
ing which "percentile" you are in. The "percentile" is the inverse percentage
chance you have of spending your life doing something honest.

III. CHOOSING A LAW SCHOOL

There are lots of fine law schools to choose from. For instance:

Harvard.Harvard is number one, as you can learn by asking anyone who

went to Harvard. Or even if you don't ask. The only disadvantage of going to
Harvard is that the graduation robes are the same color as Balls 0' Fire Salmon
Eggs.

Yale. Forget about Yale. It's so selective that no one ever goes there. If you
find this statement doubtful, ask yourself this simple question: Do you personal-
ly know anyone who is going there now? Of course not. Oh, sure, there are lots
of people who say that they went there in the past, now that it can't be verified.
Don't you be fooled.
1991] Law School 1683

Michigan. This is a good school, except the official school drink is Prestone.
As each winter comes to an end, someone will have to remind you not to stare
at that big yellow ball in the sky.

Chicago. Learn how many Chicago law professors it takes to screw in a

light bulb. (Answer: None. The market will take care of it itself.)

Boalt Hall (Berserkeley). Boalt is built on a hill overlooking one of the

most spectacular views on earth: the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate
Bridge. Therefore, they naturally designed the building so that all its huge
picture windows face directly into the fraternity houses across the street. You
can't catch a glimpse of the Bay, but you do have a terrific view of fraternity
blobs sitting around in their gym shorts, drinking beer, belching, and listening
to the music of Twisted Sister at 300 decibels. Oh well.

Columbia. On the front of the law school building at Columbia, you will
notice a huge sculpture of a man who has put a noose around the neck of a
horse and is throttling it to death. You will not be able to understand the true
significance of this sculpture until several days into your first year at Columbia.

Northwestern.Northwestern deliberately charges the highest tuition, on the

theory-called the "Ray-Ban Theory"--that people will note the price tag and
conclude that it must be the best school. Its goal is that eventually people will
refer to Harvard as "the Northwestern of the Northeast."

Other Top Ten Law Schools. There are about twenty-five schools in this
category. Consult this week's AP and UPI polls.

The "Middle Group." The Middle Group includes all other accredited law
schools. These schools actually teach the law.

About Two Thousand UnaccreditedCaliforniaLaw Schools. For example:

Frank and Morty's School of Law and Cosmetology of the Lower Level of the
Seven Hills Shopping Mall. Don't let the classy name fool you. There are
basically two requirements for admission to this institution:
1. A pulse, and
2. $12,000.
The first requirement can be waived.

Be sure to avoid law schools with "Jr." in the name, such as "Leland
Stanford, Jr. Law School." These are actually junior law schools.
People often ask whether it's important that they attend a law school in the
state where they intend to practice. The answer, of course, is NO. A good law
1684 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

school's curriculum is not tied to the law of any particular state. This is also
true of the "elite" law schools, except that their curriculum is not tied to the
law of any particular planet. You should attend one of those schools if you
intend to practice law somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy.

IV. APPLYING TO LAW SCHOOL

You will need to submit applications to several law schools, which will cost
you fifty bucks a pop. Law schools have you fill out lengthy application forms
which require you not only to provide your GPA and your LSAT score, but
also to describe your unique abilities and experiences, and the ways in which
you might add to the rich fabric of the law school class. It takes you about
eighty hours to fill out each of these forms. It takes you even more time to
write and polish and repolish the "personal statement." Check over your
personal statement carefully to make certain that you have used the two key
words every law school looks for: "endeavor" and "cognitive." If all else fails,
slip in a sentence such as: "I have always endeavored to be cognitive in all my
cognitive endeavors."
When the law school receives your application, it banks your check, adds
up your GPA and your LSAT, and throws the rest of the application away. No
sane admissions officer is going to wade through 6,000 personal statements.
And no law school in its right mind would take the risk of letting you know
that your scores are all that matters. If you knew that, you might not apply in
the first place. Multiply fifty bucks times 6,000 applications, and you can begin
to see their point.
Anyway, after submitting the applications, you will receive several letters
saying, "CONGRATULATIONS!!! You are on the 'hold' list for getting on
the 'preliminary waiting list' to be considered for admission." They want to
make sure that they can fill their class and get the tuition money they need, so
they won't reject you until after they see how many students show up on the
first day of class. I mean, what does it hurt them if you give up your other
career plans and lifelong ambitions, right? Do you want to go to law school
or not? OK, then stop whining.
Then, finally, you get accepted.

V. THE FIRST YEAR

Remember those horror movies in which somebody wearing a hockey mask

terrorizes people at a summer camp and slowly and carefully slashes them all
into bloody little pieces? That's what the first year of law school is like. Except
it's worse, because the professors don't wear hockey masks, and you have to
look directly at their faces.
1991] Law School 1685

At first, it's not so bad. You get to read a semi-interesting medieval case
in which somebody says, "Forsooth, were it not that Birnam Wood had come
to Dunsinane, I would unseam thee from the nave to the chaps." But the hon-
eymoon ends when you have to go to your first class. The professor has a black
belt in an ancient martial art called "the Socratic method."3 After the professor
completely dismantles a student for sheer sport and humiliates several dozen
others, he then points out forty-seven different things in the two-paragraph case
that you failed to see and still don't understand. You leave class hoping that
maybe there is still a job opening at your brother-in-law's toothpick recycling
factory. You are beginning to learn why law school has been compared to a
besieged city: everybody outside wants in, and everybody inside wants out.
Many students write "case briefs," or one-page summaries of the cases,
before class, in case the professor calls on them. This is a good strategy if you
have the slightest aversion to utter humiliation. The brain is a truly wonderful
thing: it works from the instant you awake until you go to sleep, and it doesn't
stop until the moment you get called on in class, when it suffers a complete
and immediate core meltdown. Your professor and 150 other students are
waiting patiently for you to state the facts of a given case, and the only sound
in the room is a low gurgling rattle coming from the back of your throat.
The key to the Socratic method is that the professor never reveals what the
answer is. He keeps insisting that THERE IS NO ANSWER. Consistent with
this view, he spends the whole class period asking questions that no one even
begins to understand. To get the answers, you have to buy commercial outlines,
which cost $16.95 apiece and are published by the same people who publish
Cliffs Notes and Key Comics. The commercial outlines are written by the
professors and provide them with a handsome income on the side. To insure
that you will buy them, the professors tell you that, whatever you do, DO NOT
buy any commercial outlines, because they will make it TOO EASY for you,
and you will not develop the analytical skills and hard work ethic that law
school is supposed to teach. Pretty cagey, these professors.
At the beginning the people in your class seem like nice enough folks. But
gradually everyone begins to realize that their only hope of getting a job is to
blast the chromosomes out of their classmates in the giant zero-sum thermonu-
clear war game called "class standing." Class standing is what saves law school
from being a boring, cooperative learning experience and makes it the dynamic,

3. This form of mayhem has, of course, nothing to do with the technique by which Socrates gently
sought to have his students teach themselves the truth hidden inside each of them. The only connection that
the law school version of the Socratic method has with education is that it teaches you to hate the sound
ofyour own name. Christopher Columbus Langdell of Harvard was one of the first advocates of the Socratic
method of law teaching. His teaching style was so unpopular that Harvard's law school enrollment
plummeted, and rumors circulated that Langdell might be fired. When law professors across America learned
how much students despised the method, however, they immediately rushed to adopt it, and Langdell's job
was spared. See R. STEVENS, LAW SCHOOL: LEGAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA FROM THE 1850'S TO THE
1980's, at 52, 66 n.15 (1983).
1686 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

exciting, survival-of-the-fittest, cutthroat, competitive, grueling treadmill of

unsurpassed joy that it is.
Class standing does irreparable psychic injury and scars bright and creative
people for the rest of their natural lives. Following law school graduation, it
often happens that a bright and creative person is about to do something bright
and creative, but then thinks, "No, I was only number 67 out of 150 in my
class. I'm probably not capable of any mental activity greater than picking slugs
off zucchini plants." So she doesn't do anytlng.
To make sure that the message gets through, the professors are not content
with the demeaning and humiliating exercise of calculating class standing. No.
First, they tell students that class standing and grades do not matter. Not at all.
They know that the students will remember the episode with the commercial
outlines and will therefore conclude that nothing else in the entire universe
matters except class standing and grades. Then, to strike the final blow, the
professors adopt a grading system straight out of the seventh level of Dante's
Inferno. They take students who have undergraduate GPA's of A-minus, and
who have never gotten a B-minus in their entire lives, and they give them-get
this-all C's!!! This will prove that the professors know the law better than the
students, in case that point was somehow overlooked. Most law students never
recover from this act of evil genius. They spend the rest of their lives figuring
out how to get even with the rest of humanity4 This is also the reason that
Supreme Court Justices are always so testy with each other in their opinions.
An example: "When two of our esteemed colleagues left the majority and
joined the dissent, it raised the average IQ in both groups by thirty points."
HA! The Justices are still hopping mad about that C-minus they got in civil
procedure forty years ago.
During the first year, the law students quickly divide into three groups:

The Active Participants:Overconfident geeks who compete with each other

to take up the most airtime pointing out that before law school, when they were
Fulbright Scholars, they thought of a question marginally relevant to today's
discussion. Their names appear on the class' "Turkey Bingo" cards, a game
you win if five people on your card speak during one class period. The Active
Participants stop talking completely when first-semester grades come out and
they get all C's.

The Back Benchers: Cool dudes who "opt out" of law school's competitive
culture and never prepare for class. They sit on the back row, rather than in
their assigned seats, so the professor can't find them on the seating chart. They
ask if they can "borrow" your class outline.

4. This all-consuming desire for vengeance is called "appropriate lawyerly zeal."

1991] Law School 1687

The Terrified Middle Group: People who spend most of their time won-
dering what the hey is going on, and why don't the professors just tell us what
the law is and stop playing "hide the ball" and shrouding the law in mys-
tery/philosophy/sociology/nihilisticrelativism/astrology/voodoo/sado-masochistic
Socratic kung fu?

The cases are, of course, dreadfully boring. There are, however, a few
interesting characters you will meet in the legal literature, like the "fertile
octogenarian," the "naked trespasser," and the "officious intermeddler." It is
best to keep these three people from spending much unsupervised time together.
Also, there are a few interesting cases, such as Cordas v. Peerless Transporta-
tion Co.,5 in which the judge was apparently a frustrated playwright

This case presents the ordinary man-that problem child of the

law-in a most bizarre setting. As a lowly chauffeur in defendant's
employ, he became in a trice the protagonist in a breath-bating drama
with a denouement almost tragic. It appears that a man, whose identity
it would be indelicate to divulge, was feloniously relieved of his porta-
ble goods by two nondescript highwaymen in an alley near 26th Street
and Third Avenue, Manhattan; they induced him to relinquish his
possessions by a strong argument ad hominem couched in the convinc-
ing cant of the criminal and pressed at the point of a most persuasive
pistol. Laden with their loot, but not thereby impeded, they took an
abrupt departure and he, shuffling off the coil of that discretion which
enmeshed him in the alley, quickly gave chase .... 6

This judge was obviously having such a good time it's hard to believe that the
point of all of this humor was (chuckle, chuckle) to hand down a decision
7
againsta woman and her infant children who were injured by a runaway taxi.
Another strange, but interesting, example of our judiciary in action is United
States ex rel. Mayo v. Satan and his Staff,' in which the plaintiff sued Satan
under federal statutes for violating his civil rights. He alleged that the defendant
had on numerous occasions caused him misery, plagued him with unwarranted
threats, placed deliberate obstacles in his path, and caused his downfall, and
therefore had deprived him of his constitutional rights. The court denied the
plaintiff's application to proceed in forma pauperis, holding:

We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over

the defendant in this judicial district. The complaint contains no allega-
tion of residence in this district. While the official reports disclose no
case where this defendant has appeared as defendant there is an unoffi-

5. 27 N.Y.S.2d 198 (N.Y. City Ct. 1941).

6. Id. at 199.
7. Id. at 200.
8. 54 FR.D. 282 (WD. Pa. 1971).
1688 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

cial account of a trial in New Hampshire where this defendant filed an

action of mortgage foreclosure as plaintiff. The defendant in that action
was represented by the preeminent advocate of that day, and raised the
defense that the plaintiff was a foreign prince with no standing to sue
in an American Court. This defense was overcome by overwhelming
evidence to the contrary. Whether or not this would raise an estoppel
in the present case we are unable to determine at this time.

We note that the plaintiff has failed to include with his complaint
the required form of instructions for the United States Marshal for direc-
tions as to service of process.9

The plaintiff in Mayo sued without a lawyer, because suing the devil would
present lawyers with an obvious conflict of interest.
But most cases are, in Mark Twain's phrase, chloroform in print.10 Show
me a person who finds them fascinating, and I'll show you a charisma coach
for Calvin Coolidge.

VI. THE LAW FACULTY

The law faculty is a distinguished group of prison guards who sit in attack
formation at law school assemblies. If you want to know what kind of people
law professors are, ask yourself this question: "What kind of a person would
give up a salary of a jillion dollars a year in a big firm to drive a rusted-out
Ford Pinto and wear suits made out of old horse blankets?" Think about this
carefully before asking your professor's opinion on any subject.
A law professor's greatest aspiration is to be like Professor Kingsfield in
the movie The PaperChase. One professor who saw the movie decided (this
is a true story) to act out one of the scenes from the film in his class. He called
on a student, who replied that he was unprepared. The professor said, "Mr.
Jones, come down here." The student walked all the way down to the front of
the class. The professor gave the student a dime, and said, "Take this dime.
Call your mother. Tell her that there is very little chance of your ever becoming
a lawyer." Ashamed, the student turned and walked slowly toward the door.
Suddenly, however, he had a flash of inspiration. He turned around, and in a
loud voice, said, "NO, Clyde." (He called the professor by his first name.) "I
have a BETTER idea! YOU take this dime, and you go call ALL YOUR
FRIENDS!!!" The class broke into pandemonium. The professor broke the
student into little bitty pieces.
Politics are often divisive at law schools. In the 1960's, the faculties were
conservative and the students were liberal. In the 1980's, the students were
conservative and the faculties were liberal-the professors having spent their

9. Id. at 283.
10. M. TWAiN, ROUGHING IT 132 (1901).
1991] Law School 1689

formative years as members of the Grateful Dead entourage. The 1970's were
a difficult transitional period during which, for an awkward moment, faculties
and students were able to communicate. They discovered that they did not like
each other.
When law professors are not doing important things like writing commercial
outlines, they are writing casebooks. Of course, they make you buy their
casebooks for their classes. One of the cardinal rules of casebooks is that they
must have as many authors as there are soldiers in the Montana National Guard.
The more authors the publisher can recruit, of course, the more classes in which
the casebook will be adopted.
Just to prove that at heart they are really gentle, fun-loving people, profes-
sors will occasionally do something a little bit zany, like wear a costume to
class on Halloween. This makes the students laugh and cheer. Before you laugh
and cheer, however, you should check your calendar. It is often difficult to tell
whether a professor is wearing a costume or not.

VII. LEGAL WRITING

During your first year, you take a class called "Legal Writing." The sole
objective of this class is to make you write like real lawyers as little as possi-
ble. Virtually all lawyers write as if they were paid by the word. Some write
as if they were born in a parallel universe. For example, here is the legal
translation that has been offered for the simple, everyday phrase, "I give you
this orange."

Know all men by these presents that I hereby give, grant, bargain,
sell, release, convey, transfer, and quitclaim all my right, title, interest,
benefit, and use whatever in, of, and concerning this chattel, otherwise
known as an orange, or citrus orantium, together with all the appur-
tenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds, and juice, to have and
to hold the said orange together with its skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds, and
juice for his own use and behoof, to himself and his heirs in fee simple
forever, free from all liens, encumbrances, easements, limitations,
restraints, or conditions whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfers
or other documents whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary
notwithstanding, with full power to bite, cut, suck, or otherwise eat the
said orange or to give away the same, with or without its skin, pulp,
pip, rind, seeds, or juice."

This kind of supernatural incantation is designed to perpetuate the perceived

mysticism of the law and its official high priests. Legal writing teachers,
however, tell you that it is preferable to use concise language and simple, ev-
eryday words. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Never use a long word when a

11. Plain Wayne, WIS. B. BULL, Feb. 1975, at 61.

1690 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

short one will do." Of course, he was a printer, and he had to set the type by
hand. Naturally, he preferred "pay" over "remuneration."
Lawyers like to use "lawyerisms," like "aforementioned," "hereinafter," and
"mortgagee." They also invoke ancient Latin phrases, such as "res ipsa loqui-
tur." This means, "The thing speaks for itself." They never explain, however,
WHAT the thing says. The phrase literally says, "The thing for itself speaks."
Notice that the words are out of order. No wonder Latin is a dead language.
Sometimes people can't understand you when you use big words. When the
loan officer asked Archie Bunker if his home was encumbered, he replied, "No,
it's stucco and wood." A writer who uses words unknown to his reader might
as well bark.12
Lawyers do strange things to language. For instance, they add "-ize" to all
sorts of words. They don't say "use"; they say "utilize." They also say "actual-
ize," "initialize," and "prioritize." If you ask me, it's enough to make you
"externalize" your breakfast. They should try harder to "laypersonize" their
language.
Lawyers also write "said" alot. For example, one complaint stated:

[B]eginning at a point on SAID railroad track about a half mile or more

north of a point opposite SAID curve in SAID highway, large quantities
of highly volatile coal were unnecessarily thrown into the firebox of
SAID locomotive and upon the fire contained therein, thereby prevent-
ing proper combustion of SAID coal, resulting in great clouds of dense
smoke being emitted from the smokestack of SAID locomotive....
[Defendant] knew SAID smoke would fall upon and cover SAID curve
in SAID highway when SAID engine reached a point on SAID railroad
tracks opposite
13
SAID curve, unless SAID smoke was checked in the
meantime.

The judges who quoted this language, realizing that they had not yet used up
their daily quota, then added another sentence containing eight more "saids."14 '

Said practice is supposedly invoked for precision, but said precision is illusory.
Since the author referred to only one locomotive, "said" is unnecessary. If he
had referred to two, "said" wouldn't tell you which one. " The real problem
is that "the" doesn't sound important enough to lawyers, so they instead write
said "saids."
Another sin of legal writing, as we have noted, is verbosity, which is
exacerbated by the practice of using pairs of duplicative words, like "cease and
desist," "null and void," "free and clear," "suffer and permit," "devise and

12. The Difference Between Writing and Yelping, CAL. LAW., Oct. 1989, at 136 (quoting an editorial
in the San FranciscoChronicle (1941)).
13. Button v. Pennsylvania R.R., 115 Ind. App. 210, 213-14, 57 N.E.2d 444, 445 (1944) (en banc)
(emphasis added).
14. Id. at 214, 57 N.E.2d at 445.
15. See Wydick, Plain Englishfor Lawyers, 66 CALIF. L. REv. 727, 740 (1978).
1991] Law School 1691

bequeath," and "idiot and senator." This practice supposedly stems from periods
in history when English lawyers had two languages to choose from: first, Celtic
and Anglo-Saxon, then English and Latin, and later English and French. But
who really knows for sure whether this is true and correct?
A select group of judges have pursued the virtue of conciseness with a
passion. For example, a taxpayer in the U.S. Tax Court testified, "As God is
my judge, I do not owe this tax." Judge Murdock replied, "He's not, I am; you
do." 16 Another example is Denny v. Radar Industries.1 7 The opinion in that
case contains very few words beyond the following language: "The appellant
has attempted to distinguish the factual situation in this case from that in [a
prior case]. He didn't. We couldn't. Affirmed."' 8
Another common boo-boo in legal writing is the mixed metaphor. This is
a figure of speech that begins with one image and then, as slick as Elvis' hair
grease, shifts to another. For example, a bar association committee reported that
it had "smelled a rat and nipped it in the bud."' 9 Donald Nixon complained,
"People are using Watergate as a political football to bury my brother."' Even
Jiminy Cricket told Pinocchio, "You buttered your bread-now sleep in it."'"
Therefore, before wedding a mixed metaphor to the very fabric of your argu-
ment, be sure to run it up the flagpole of microscopic scrutiny. Otherwise, the
sacred cows will come home to roost with a vengeance.?
Lawyers also use a lot of cliches. They say things like, "The case is open
and shut. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face." And, "To think that you
will escape the day of reckoning in the cold light of reason is the height of
absurdity barking up the wrong tree." So bite the bullet and avoid trite cliches
like the plague.
Legal writing also often uses double negatives. The U.S. Supreme Court
has truly refined this art, writing the world's first and only-believe it or
not-quadruplenegative: "This is not to say, however, that the prima facie case
may not be met by evidence supporting a finding that a lesser degree of
segregated schooling in the core city area would not have resulted even if the
board had not acted as it did."' 3
Government cryptographers have been trying to decipher this sentence for
years. So far, they have been able to tell that it has something to do with
schools.
The second half of your legal writing class is "moot court," a thrilling little
death march in which you prepare a hundred-page document that is called,

16. As quoted in H. WEIHOFEN, LEGAL WRITING STYLE 41 (2d ed. 1980).

17. 28 Mich. App. 294, 184 N.W.2d 289 (1971).
18. Id. at 294, 184 N.W.2d at 290.
19. See G. BRANDRETH, THE JOY OF LEX 227 (1980) (quoting Boyle Roche).
20. As quoted in G. BLOCK, EFFECTIVE LEGAL WRITING 42 (2d ed. 1983).
21. Pinocchio (Walt Disney 1940).
22. G. BRANDRETH, supra note 19, at 227.
23. Keyes v. School Dist. No. 1, 413 U.S. 189, 211 (1973) (Brennan, J.).
1692 The Yale Law Journal [Wo. 100: 1679

appropriately enough, a "brief." Then you have the privilege of getting in a

heated argument with another student in front of a panel of judges composed
of extremely experienced second- and third-year students who have never in
their lives set foot inside a courtroom.
The worst part of legal writing is having to learn the legal citation system.
This is set forth in literally thousands of subrules in a book whose name
nobody can remember, but which everybody calls the Bluebook, mostly because
it's blue (or, as lawyers put it, "blue in color").
The operating principle of the Bluebook is that "NATURE ABHORRETH
A VACUUM," so the Bluebook has provided a way to cite every single source
since the invention of papyrus. And, because there's no logic to the system, you
have to look up each rule every time. For example, for books you must give
the initial of the author's first name, but for law review articles you don't,
which I guess is supposed to be some sort of stupid reward for writing books.
You are never permitted to give the author's first name for articles, even though
there are 4,000 law professors named "Smith." This rule governs unless, of
course, the author is a student, in which case you don't give her name at all,
which in the past the law reviews also didn't do, but now they do. (Are you
following this?) An article by a student is called a "note" or a "comment," but
nobody can ever agree on which is which, so people just call it whatever they
want. The Bluebook is just chockful of idiot rules like these.

VIII. EXAMS

Studies have shown that the best way to learn is to have frequent exams
on small amounts of material and to receive lots of feedback from the teacher.
Consequently, law school does none of this. Anyone can learn under ideal
conditions; law school is supposed to be an intellectual challenge. Therefore,
law professors give only one exam, the FINAL EXAM OF THE LIVING
DEAD, and they give absolutely no feedback before then. Actually, they give
no feedback after then, either, because they don't return the exams to the
students. A few students go and look at their exams after they are graded, but
this is a complete waste of time, unless they just want to see again what they
wrote and have a combat veteran-type flashback of the whole horrific night-
mare. The professors never write any comments on the exams. That might
permit you to do better next time, which would upset the class ranking.
Another reason that law professors give only one exam is that, basically,
they are lazier than three-toed sloths. They teach half as many hours as other
professors, are paid twice as much, and get promoted three times as fast. Then,
they whine like three-year-olds because they have to grade one exam per class.
I mean, this is every single semester, year in and year out. The constant grind
is enough to kill a person, I tell you.
1991) Law School 1693

Since professors won't tell you how to do well on your exams, I will.
Because you cover so much material, you need to make an outline for each
class. You can do this alone, assuming you have about an extra thousand years
to kill. An easier way is for your study group to divide up the classes, with
each person outlining one class. This differs from the prior approach in that it
is humanly possible. You are likely, however, to open up your study group's
contracts outline the night before the exam and find a sentence like this: "An
offer is the manifestation of gooberness to enter into a something or other (I
didn't catch what the professor said here) so made as to justify another person
in understanding that [illegible] is invited and will gyre and gimble in the wabe.
Or something like that." You then realize that the classmate who wrote this
dropped out six weeks ago and is inaccessible by telephone, and you run around
the room screaming like the lunatic that you are. So it's really better just to buy
the commercial outline and forget it.
Then, memorize the outline. As you pour it in the top of your head, most
of it will run out your ears. Keep scooping up the stuff that runs out your ears
and pour it back into the top of your head. Eventually, a little of it will begin
to stick. You should also use acronyms, or "pneumatic devices," to help you
memorize. For example, the prima facie case of a tort action for negligence has
several elements: an Act or omission, a Duty, a Breach, Actual cause, Proxi-
mate cause, and Damages. The first letters of these elements are A, D, B, A,
P, and D. Now, think of a sentence using words beginning with those letters.
For example, Ann Drop-kicked Bunnies And Pretty Duckies. See? You will
never forget the elements of negligence again. You can use this technique to
remember everything you learn in law school. Using this method, one student
was able to reduce his entire civil procedure outline to one word, and finally,
to one letter. Then he forgot the letter.
Next, get some of the professor's old exams from the library and try to
answer them. As you read them, note that you don't have the foggiest idea what
they are asking. You can't even tell what the subject matter of the class was.
Put the exams away. This year's test will probably be easier.
Then the two-week exam period begins in earnest, and the typical student
begins to feel like a nine-lived cat run over by an eighteen-wheeler. To take
their minds off the crush of exams, students engage in a variety of activities,
such as:

Trying to concentrate while panicking.

Having anxiety attacks while panicking.
Having diarrhea while panicking.
Panicking while panicking.

I strongly recommend that you type your exams instead of writing them.
There are several advantages to typing. For instance, you can bring a "memory
1694 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

typewriter," and when the exam begins you can push a button and your type-
writer will reproduce your entire outline. This is very handy.
You might find it a little difficult to concentrate in the typing room, because
all those typewriters pounding together sound like a herd of elephants doing
an impersonation of Gregory Hines. If somebody starts typing before you have
even finished reading the first paragraph, don't get upset. It probably means
nothing, except that someone is a genius and how are you supposed to compete
with a genius and what are you doing in law school anyway!! Take a deep
breath. Take several deep breaths. Now you are hyperventilating and are going
to pass out. Cease breathing.
The sound of the typewriters is not the only reason you're having trouble
concentrating. You have not slept or eaten for two days. Also, you have not
changed your clothes or bathed for a week, and things are beginning to get a
little bit itchy. You are wearing a hat to hide the fact that your hair looks like
the La Brea tar pits.
Try to hum a tune (to yourself, so that the person next to you doesn't bash
you on the head with his typewriter) to help yourself relax. Suddenly-and you
have never noticed this before-you realize that "La Bamba" has exactly the
same chord progression as "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" and "Twist and
Shout." This will probably be hard to do, but let it go for now. You can think
about it later-like during your next exam. Twist a little closer to your type-
writer, and try to write something quasi-intelligent. Do not shout.
If there is a power failure or your typewriter breaks, don't panic. Calmly
remove the paper from the typewriter, gently pick up a pen, and scrawl across
the page in ink mixed with blood: "TYPEWRITER BROKE!!!! I WRITE
NOW!!!!" Then pass out. To avoid power and equipment failures, you might
want to bring in a wheeled cart with about seventeen extra typewriters and a
twelve-volt car battery. Better yet, drive a pickup truck full of typewriters into
the exam room and open the hood for access to the battery. It would be
thoughtful to place a drip pan under the transmission. Also, be sure that the
carriage on your typewriter is working, so that you don't end up typing 2,000
letters in one very black spot. This can make your answer hard to read.
The exam questions are usually absolutely hilarious fact situations that just
slay students and send them into paroxysms of helpless laughter. Law profes-
sors learn how to write these witty exams at a seminar for new professors,
"How to Make Up for Your Humorless Teaching Style on the Final Exam."
Try not to let the laughing get out of hand.
If your professor has stressed theory all semester and has insisted that there
are no legal rules and that only an idiot would believe that there are rules, her
exam will test you on the rules and the rules alone. These rules are printed in
heavy black typeface in the commercial outlines, and are therefore called "black
letter law." Do not confuse them with black letter theory, which will do you
no good whatsoever on the exam.
1991] Law School 1695

You should use the "IRAC" method on the exam. "IRAC" stands for Issue,
Rule, Application, and Conclusion. Be sure to discuss each part of the formula,
except that you can skip the Conclusion, because it doesn't matter which way
you come out. Also, there is no time to do the Application, because the exam
is so chockful of issues that you barely have time to list them and try to state
some semblance of a rule using only key words. It shouldn't really be called
the "IRAC" method, but "IR" looks kind of stupid and makes it sound like law
school exams test only memorization skills. Which, of course, is what they do.
Be sure to confront any ambiguities in the exam. They probably wound up
in there accidently, but the professor will never admit this and will insist that
they were deliberately placed there for pedagogical purposes (a phrase you will
hear a lot). For example, suppose Don throws acid at Pat. (Notice that "Don"
begins with a "D," as does the word "Defendant," and that "Pat" begins with
"P," as does the word "Plaintiff." These professors are geniuses.) The exam
doesn't tell you whether the acid made contact-i.e., a harmful or offensive
"touching" (what a moronic word)--with Pat. You should confront this ambigu-
ity and write the following:

The facts don't say whether the acid touched Pat. If it did not, it
was an assault. If it did, it was a battery. Of course, it was clearly a
battery if it was-battery acid!!!

Professors just love humorous asides like this, and will probably give you
several points of extra credit.'
After the exam, do not review-or "post-mortem"--the exam with other
students. This is very depressing---especially if you can't even agree whether
it was a torts exam or a contracts exam. On the other hand, if some persistent
bozo absolutely insists on reviewing the exam with you, be sure to point out
several issues that were not on the exam. This will cost him several days' sleep
and, probably, thirty pounds.

IX. THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS

The second- and third-years are about the same as the first year, except that
you are a cool second or third year student, and you get to choose your teachers
(this is called forum shopping) based on the difficulty of their grading curve.
The professors believe that you choose their class based on their teaching
ability and the centrality of their course to your future career, so it's wisest not
to reveal this little secret. The professors describe their courses in a list called,
appropriately enough, "Course Descriptions." They try to make the courses
sound like interesting and important educational opportunities that no person

24. Or flunk you immediately. Either way, don't blame me. I can't help it if your professor is a prune.
1696 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

who calls herself a lawyer would dare overlook. They do this because if no one
attends their class, the dean might fire them. Or worse, make them teach
Property.
An honest list of course descriptions might look something like this:

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). How people resolve disputes without

lawyers, because a simple dogbite case takes five years and $50,000 to get to
trial. Learn how to recognize ADR and squash it.

Banking Law. Discover why banks throw billions of dollars away, but keep
those 98-cent pens chained to their desks.

Civil Procedure.Learn about the paper wars of litigation. Discover why, every
time a case is filed, another forest dies.

Commercial Law. How to perfect a security interest in guano at a fertilizer

factory.

Conflict of Laws. Memorize thirteen different ways of saying, "If you play in
my yard, you play by my rules."

ConstitutionalLaw. Ridicule people who still believe that the Framers' intent
has any relevance whatsoever.

Contracts.Study rules based on a model of two-fisted negotiators with equal

bargaining power who dicker freely, voluntarily agree on all terms, and reduce
their understanding to a writing intended to embody their full agreement. Learn
that the last contract fitting this model was signed in 1879.

Corporations.How to abuse creditors, shareholders, employees, consumers, the

IRS, and the environment for fun and profit. Mostly profit.

CriminalLaw. Study common law crimes that haven't been the law anywhere
for more than 100 years. Then, to bring things up to date, study the Model
Penal Code, which is not the law anywhere today.

CriminalProcedure.Learn enough about the rationale behind the exclusionary

rule to defend yourself at cocktail parties.

EnvironmentalLaw. Discover why, if you put an empty oil can to your ear, you
can hear the ocean roar.
1991] Law School 1697

Evidence. Memorize the hearsay rule and its 50,000 exceptions. Good for
people with a photographic memory and gangs of free time.

FederalCourts. How to administer prisons, schools, and most of society from

the bench.

Income Taxation. Prepare to be a tax lawyer. A tax lawyer is a person who is

good with numbers but who does not have enough personality to be an accoun-
tant.

Jurisprudence.How to be a jurisprude.

Landlord-Tenant Law. See how medieval English feudal law has a modem
application.

Lawyering Skills. Spend your hard-earned tuition money to learn what your first
employer will pay to teach you anyway.

Legal Ethics. Learn why "honest lawyer" is an oxymoron.

ProductsLiability. Set yourself up for life by finding a cockroach in your Jolt

Cola.

RICO. Learn how to use this powerful anti-extortion law to extort large settle-
ments out of honest business people.

Roman Law. In case you need to sue a Roman.

SecuritiesRegulation.See why humans are the only animals that can be skinned
more than once.

State and Local Government. Learn how the broadest governmental powers in
America have been reserved to a city council composed of two real estate
developers, a retired earthworm inspector, and a proctologist.

Torts. Study a compensation system in which the transaction costs generally

exceed the payments to the injured parties. Fortunately, most of the transaction
costs occur in the form of attorney's fees.

Wills and Estates. Dead people and their things. Also known as "Stiffs and
their Gifts."
1698 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

Also, if it hasn't happened already, during your second or third year you
will be exposed to two relatively new schools of thought. Although these
schools of thought are a little unusual, they are not to be rejected out of hand.
They are to be carefully considered and weighed. And then rejected.
One of them is called Critical Legal Studies (CLS). Critical Legal Studies
rests on the following irrefutable syllogism:

Major Premise: Lots of cases could be decided either way.

Minor Premise: I don't like the way a lot of cases have been decided.
Conclusion: The law is a crock.
Practical Application: Come the revolution.

When you ask what happens after the revolution, it gets really fuzzy. The
"Crits" talk a lot about abolishing "hegemony," "illegitimate hierarchies," and
other multisyllabic evils. Some of them argue that, to eliminate illegitimate
hierarchies, all jobs should be rotated. (I am not making this up.) So try this.
Ask your CLS professor how come he hasn't, even once, let the building
custodian teach his class while the professor scrubs out the toilets in the third
floor bathroom. Huh? How come? He'll tell you to get the hey out of his office,
and to take your hegemonic positivist thinking with you. Suddenly, it dawns
on you that in the Crits' post-revolutionary world, some people will be wielding
the levers of power and others will be wielding the scrub brushes. Apparently,
there are illegitimate hierarchies and legitimate ones. If you know what I mean.
Crits talk funny. One famous CLS article s sounds like "a pair of old
acid-heads chewing over a passage in Sartre." An example:

It is not inconsistent to, on the one hand, realize the projective temporal
character of human existence, in which no one is identity, and the living
subject is continually not what he or she is by moving into the next
moment in a creative and constitutive way.2 7

Crits also talk about "intersubjective zap"'' and "unalienated relatedness."2 9

They speak in this manner because if they just openly announced that, what
the hey, we should overthrow American democracy and replace it with a
Marxist"0 utopia, people would start wondering why the only Marxists left in

25. Gabel & Kennedy, Roll Over Beethoven, 36 STAN. L. REV. 1 (1984).
26. Luban, Legal Modernism, 84 MICH. L. REV. 1656, 1671 (1986).
27. Gabel & Kennedy, supra note 25, at 19.
28. See, e.g., id. at 4.
29. See, e.g., id. at 1. Crits argue that all power structures, including language, are propped up from
the inside, perpetuate hierarchy, and exclude others. Therefore, Crits use an untranslatable, circular, self-
referential vocabulary that supports their arguments from the inside, perpetuates the hierarchy of the Crits
as Gnostics who pretend to know a Mystery, and excludes others. See Card, ProphetsandAssimilationists,
SUNSTONE, Feb. 1989, at 39.
30. Since Crits are radical nondeterminists, they quite naturally advocate one of the most deterministic
political ideologies ever created: Marxism.
1991] Law School 1699

the entire world teach at American universities. The Crits' strategy has worked
pretty well, considering that they have been able to last nearly two decades on
about ten minutes' worth of ideas.
The other school of thought is called "Law and Economics." While Crits
believe that all law is aimed at SUPPORTING free market capitalism, the
"Econs" believe that all law is an unwarranted INTERFERENCE with free
market capitalism. Other than that, the two groups pretty much see eye to
31
eye.
Econs basically believe that material wealth is the highest human value, and
that justice, fairness, dignity, and protecting the helpless all cost money and are
therefore "economically inefficient." The money would be better spent on much
more transcendent things, like pet rocks, hemorrhoid pads, and other items
needed to satisfy AGGREGATE DEMAND.
Econs prove their theories by devising little mathematical formulas which
assume whole truckloads of untrue things and then come to a particular conclu-
sion. The conclusion is always-get this---"the market will take care of it it-
self." According to the Econs-I am not making this up, either-there is a
GIANT INVISIBLE DISEMBODIED HAND that magically takes care of
everything. Before you get too excited about this, remember that this is the
same invisible hand that gave us the invisible GREAT DEPRESSION. Oh. That
invisible hand.
When you point out that the assumptions in the formulas are simplistic (a
euphemism for "false"), the Econs get really testy and tell you that you don't
understand the discipline 3 2 Besides, although sitting in an office and writing
little mathematical formulas may not be the most effective way to solve the
world's problems, it is at least one of the highest paid, and you can't have
everything. Moreover, Law and Economics doesn't require any empirical
studies, which, after all, would be tedious and time consuming. So the Econs
don't want to hear you say that their beautiful theories are about to be murdered
by a brutal gang of facts. Also, they have no time to listen to you, as they are
too busy trying to get the math section back on the LSAT.
Let me give you an example of Law and Economics. Suppose Seller has
signed a contract to sell widgets to Buyer. Then Third Party comes and offers
Seller one dollar more than the contract price. Many Econs believe-now listen
closely-that Seller has a MORAL OBLIGATION to breach his solemn
contract with Buyer and pay damages so that the widgets will go to their
highest and best use. Econs call this greedy and wretched act of treachery an

31. Compare the debate between liberals and conservatives. Liberals want to regulate business activity
but not sexual conduct, while conservatives want precisely the opposite. In short, each group wants to
regulate the other.
32. "Economics is a closed system; internally it is perfectly logical, operating according to a consistent
set of principles. Unfortunately, the same could be said of psychosis." J.JONES & W. WILSON, AN
INCOMPLETE EDUCATION 124 (1987).
1700 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

EFFICIENT BREACH. Never mind that Buyer has to scramble to find other
widgets. Never mind that BUYER should have the opportunity to sell the
widgets to Third Party and get the profits, instead of that breaching grimeball
Seller. Never mind that the certainty and stability of contracts will be under-
mined, resulting in fewer contracts and ultimately less economic exchange.
Although Econs admit that this free-for-all law-of-the-jungle
auction-without-a-gavel may be unjust, justice is mere chickenspit compared
to wealth. While money may not buy happiness, it at least affords us the
particular kind of misery that we most enjoy.
So the Crits attack from the left and the Econs from the right. The Crits are
negative and the Econs are positive. Wouldn't it be fun to put all the Crits and
Econs in the same room and see whether, like ions, they combine to form one
humongous molecule of inert gas? Unfortunately, since most of these people
refuse to get in the same room with each other, modern science will never
know whether it would work. I bet it would, though.

X. COCURRICULAR PROGRAMS AND STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

Being fully committed to providing the best possible educational opportu-

nities for every student, law schools offer cocurricular programs, like law
journals and moot court. Then, quite naturally, they let hardly anyone par-
ticipate in them.
The most elitist organization is the law review, which is generally restricted
to the top ten percent of the class. These students are given this special honor
so that employers will not overlook them just because they are at the top of
their class. Law review editors spend their time doing meaningful educational
tasks like checking the citation form of articles they don't understand. They are
the big snots around the school.
Many law schools have also started other law journals. These journals
usually focus on a specific area of the law, and have names like The Journal
of ComparativeFuneralLaw, or The Review of InternationalAgreements Gov-
erning Intestinal Tapeworms (Northern Hemisphere). They concentrate in a
particular area so that they don't have to be named The Second-String Law
Review, which they would consider somewhat demeaning.
The second type of cocurricular program is upper-level moot court. These
students are the ones with bared fangs and fire in their eyes, who can't wait
to get out of school and litigate the living corpuscles out of every warm-
blooded creature. So they start doing it in law school. They also get to go to
competitions in distant places, like Eyesocket, Nevada. Compared to attending
law school classes, this is pretty exciting.
There are also student organizations. Some of these ostensibly focus on a
particular topic or interest, like "The Coalition for the Legal Empowerment of
Undersea Protozoa," or "Future Trial Attorneys for the Clinically Brain Dead."
1991] Law School 1701

However, they really exist only to provide resume padding. A student wants
to be able to say that he is the Exalted Grand Excellent Potentate of the Ancient
Royal Order of Back Benchers. This is supposed to impress employers.
Other student organizations, like legal fraternities, don't make any such
pretense. They openly admit that they exist to advance people's careers. They
put up posters showing that five of the presently sitting Supreme Court Justices
(a working majority) belong to Beta Grabba Fee. The posters also include
testimonials from lawyers basically saying that it's who you know that counts,
and that if they had not belonged to that particular fraternity, their careers
would have been in the toilet. So give us your sixty bucks, These organizations
perceive no need to have an independent reason for existing, since fear and
greed can legitimately stand on their own.
Another organization, the Federalist Society, has appeared at some Ameri-
can law schools and is attempting to return us to that golden age when states
were as yet unencumbered by the Bill of Rights. Their organizational efforts
have been impeded, however, by the fact that Federalist membership dues must
be paid in gold coins, since the Society refuses to recognize paper money as
legal tender.

XI. INTERVIEWING FOR JOBS

It used to be that, at the beginning of their second year, students would

participate in on-campus interviews for employment nearly two years later.
Employers quickly recognized, however, that this was not nearly early enough.
So, job interviews now begin in the fall semester of the students' first year,
nearly three years before they graduate. The students work for the law firms
the following summer and have a dandy time being escorted around to fancy
restaurants and on trips down the Colorado River. Of course, much as the
students appreciate these flattering jaunts, they cannot help but notice that they
never meet any lawyer who actually works for the firm in any of these places
(other than those who are actually engaged in chaperoning the law students).
Before you interview, you will need to prepare a "resume." It is also called
a "curriculum vitae," a Latin phrase meaning "preposterous fable." There is
a fine art to interpreting resumes. "Top 10%" means "top 20%." "Top 20%"
means "top half." "Middle of the class" means "bottom half." Law schools get
extremely angry when students pad their resumes like this. They give moralistic
lectures telling students that it is just plain dishonest. Because they are the
nation's leading law schools, the twenty-five schools in the Top Ten get
particularly huffy about it. One final suggestion: to avoid unwarranted federal
interference, take care not to send your resume through the mails.
People realize that it is impossible in one twenty-minute interview to learn
enough about a firm to decide whether you want to trust to its care your career
training, your professional reputation, the financial security of you and your
1702 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

family, and all your waking hours for the rest of your entire life. Doing that
takes at least two or three twenty-minute interviews. For this reason, law firms
invite you to make a "call-back," a "fly-out," or a "dogsled-ride-back," depend-
ing on where they are located. Whatever they call it, you get to spend a day
at the firm and learn all there is to know. Pay special attention if you are
walking down the hall and an associate cracks open a door and whispers to you,
"Pssst. Get out of here while you still can!" This is generally not a good sign.
You should ask how many hours associates are required to bill. In some
firms, associates bill as many as 3,000 hours a year. Sometimes this is accom-
plished through "triple billing," a technique by which an associate works on
client A's matter while flying to a city for client B, and he thinks that the issue
may possibly somehow someday be relevant to client C. So he bills each client
full bore. It is also accomplished through a time warp on the 14th floor, which
allows associates to bill fifteen hours in a ten-hour day.
In any case, associates work very hard. One student asked if the associates
ever do anything fun together. "Sure," the interviewer replied. "About two
o'clock, we knock off for an hour and go play a game of racquetball." The
student observed, "What a great way to break up the afternoon." The inter-
viewer responded, "Afternoon?"
Lawyers are defined as "professional employees" and are therefore exempt
from the federal labor laws, which set forth the minimum standards of human
decency. If during your visit to the restroom you see cots and complete changes
of clothing, this is a bad sign. It is an especially bad sign if the law firm is
having its offices rezoned as "residential."
Let me explain how large law firms work. The partners hire associates, pay
them about a third of the income the associates bring in, and keep the rest.
Naturally, the more associates and the fewer partners, the better. After the
associates have billed a gazillion hours a year writing memos for seven years,
the partners throw them out on their ears and hire new associates.33 Large law
firms therefore combine the best features of an indentured servitude, a sweat-
shop in the garment district, and a pyramid scheme.
If you make partner, life is not much better. The definition of a partner is
a "self-employed slave." Partners spend most of their lives squabbling like a
pack of hyenas over the firm's profits. This is what it means to practice at the
highest level of a noble profession dedicated to the ideal of public service, to
be the defenders of liberty and the architects of social worlds. It is also what
it means to be a hyena. So all in all, the big firm scene might not be for you.
Particularly if they don't make you an offer.

33. During the recent economic downturn, however, law firms found that normal attrition was
inadequate, and partners could be seen throwing associates out of windows like sandbags.
1991] Law School 1703

You should not get discouraged, however. You should remember that there
are many job opportunities and lots of different types of work that lawyers do.
For example:

Corporate Work: drafting documents for scumsucking corporations that

poison huge numbers of innocent people.

Litigation: defending scumsucking corporations that poison huge numbers

of innocent people.

Criminal Defense: defending scumsucking individuals who poison a few

innocent people at a time, mostly because they lack the capital and technology
to poison huge numbers of innocent people.

Public Interest Work: suing scumsucking corporations that poison huge

numbers of innocent people. Lawyers doing this work earn less than what the
law firms on the other side of the litigation pay their pencil sharpeners.

Weigh your options carefully.

If you want to delay making a choice, or if you want to wean yourself from
poverty slowly, you might do a judicial clerkship for a year. This is an opportu-
nity to hone your skills polishing the shoes and ironing the robes of some
political hack with life tenure. You might get to clerk for an "Associate Justice"
of the U.S. Supreme Court, or maybe even a "Full" Justice. If so, you get to
write constitutional decisions that dramatically change the entire structure of
Western Civilization (drawing broadly on your vast experience as a law student
and your undergraduate degree in Sports Medicine), while your Justice whiles
away the time sharpening the teeth of his prize pit bull with a chainsaw, or
whittling the heads off dolls. Also, you get to write repeatedly the two words
most commonly used by Supreme Court Justices: "Habeas denied."

XII. MAKING YouR GETAWAY

Before you graduate, when you have almost completed law school, you take
a test called the "Professional Responsibility Exam." This test asks you ques-
tions about ethics and morality. If your answers reveal that you have the
slightest trace of a conscience remaining, you are scheduled for surgery. During
the surgery they remove the particular lobe of the brain that is causing the
problem. This procedure may seem harsh, but without it you would be com-
pletely incapable of functioning as a normal lawyer. Perhaps you have noticed
that many young lawyers wear sporty sweatbands on their heads when they play
racquetball. They do this to hide the scar.
1704 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

After you have graduated, you have to go through an initiation rite similar
to those of certain college fraternities and sororities. Initiates to those groups
get off easy, however, since they only have to eat live chickens and stuff
goldfish up their noses, whereas you have to go through eight weeks of projec-
tile vomiting called "Preparing for and Taking the Bar Exam." The state bar
association says that bar exams are designed to ensure the competency of the
practicing bar. You learned about them in your antitrust class, under the topic
of "Market Entry Barriers." They make it possible for people who are already
admitted to the bar to make a living wage (i.e., about $200,000 a year). You
will probably feel somewhat better about the exam's rationale after you pass
it.
You will need to take an intensive, eight-week course, costing a drillion
dollars, to prepare for the bar exam. Wait a minute, you say. Why did I borrow
ten drillion dollars (exceeding the national debt of some third-world countries)
and spend three years of my life going to law school? Didn't law school teach
me the law? No, you idiot. Law school's purpose is not to teach you the law.
Law school taught you to THINK LIKE A LAWYER, unless you attended one
of the elite schools, and then it taught you to think like a medieval philosopher,
or a business school dropout. So you have to take the bar preparation course.
Before you take the bar and become a "full-fledged" ' lawyer, you must
do one more thing. You need to ask your law school dean to write a letter
recommending you for admission to the bar. The dean's time is very limited,
since he teaches a full three hours out of a forty-hour week. Your dean will
probably send a recommendation letter that looks like this:

34. As in "vulture." The principal difference between a lawyer and a vulture is that the vulture doesn't
take off its wingtips at night.
1991] Law School 1705

Dear Sir or Madam:

I have been asked to write a letter recommending

for admission to the state bar. Since I write a lot of these let-
ters, I trust you will not object to the format below. I have
checked the appropriate blanks. In my judgment, this person:

Integrity
- Is as pure as the driven snow.
- Is as pure as the driven snow after it has lain on the ground
for a couple of days and gotten yucky stuff all over it.
Slithered out of a Dickens novel.

Intelligence
Is as brilliant as Einstein, but has a better hairdresser.
Meets the implied warranty of merchantability: is fit for the
ordinary purposes for which lawyers are used.
Received an F-minus in my class. Giving this person an F
would have been unfair to the people who failed normally.

Knowledge
Understands the Rule Against Perpetuities, and has explained it
to me several times.
Knows what "unalienated relatedness" means.
Realizes now that no other success can compensate for being a
total failure.

Aspirations
Desires world peace, equal justice, and an end to hunger and
poverty. Also wants a red Porsche with mink upholstery.

Therefore, I do __ do not - recommend this person for admis-

sion to the state bar.

Filbert Q. oxbr ~th iv

Dean and Grand Pooh-Bah

Since your dean took the time from his crushing schedule to write this letter
for you, he must not be such a bad person after all. In fact, from now on he
will make you one of his personal pen pals. Even though he didn't have two
seconds for you in law school, you will suddenly become his close, first-name-
basis, bosom buddy forever. Throughout your entire mortal existence, no matter
where your career takes you, through all the ups and downs of life, your dean
will regularly write you thoughtful and personally computer-generated let-
ters-asking you for money. You just can't put a price on a friendship like that.
He, however, does have a ballpark figure in mind.
1706 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 100: 1679

So now you know all there is to know about law school. If you haven't yet
decided whether to go to law school, you should consider it carefully. If you
are in law school now, you should also consider your options. But if you want
my objective, even-handed, carefully considered advice, I'll tell you:

GET THE HEY OUT OF IT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!