Stevens . . . told the students to “remember that your most valuable asset . . . is your integrity.”“If your adversaries and colleagues know that your word is good, you will be a successful lawyer,” Stevens said.
Even at places like Northwestern, students are feeling the pressure of lawyer oversaturation, offhosring, etc.
Take this Above the Law writer, for example:
I graduated from Northwestern Law in 2009. It is now 2011, my loans are coming due (real due — not the fake, put ‘em in forebearance, due of yesteryear), and I am currently “employed” doing two things: reviewing documents at an embarrassing hourly wage on projects that start and stop without any sort of consistency, and writing “jokes” about the Microsoft Zune every weekday morning, every other week.Yet, all he needs to "be a successful lawyer" is integrity? What a crock of insulting horseshit. It's like telling a starving African that all they need to eat like kings is hope and prayer. It sounds nice, but it just ain't true.
And to my mind, telling law students that all they need is integrity is especially egregious because their suffering is the result of a system that completely lacks integrity. Where is integrity in bogus and misleading employment statistics? Where is the integrity in training professionals by teaching them things other than the what the profession demands? Where is the integrity in price gouging a non-dischargable debt? Where is the integrity in numerical legerdemain to jump up 5 USNWR spots at the expense of your students' educations? Where is the integrity in drawing a 200k+ salary running an institution selling products 1/2 of the customers can never possibly use?
And all that is not to mention the obvious flaw with Justice Stevens' remarks: if your adversaries know your word in unflinchingly good, in this world, they'll play you like a sucker for it.
The pie-in-the-sky visions of inevitable legal success are insulting and offensive enough, but talking about integrity at a modern law school graduation? That's hypocrisy at its finest, even if the speaker himself has personal integrity to spare.
In non-law graduations, my quote of the day has to come from this Boise State graduate:
“It feels pretty good, it's more of a transition. Walking after law school, I'll be excited.” — Justin Jeppesen, BA in history, going on to University of Idaho law school.How about you check back in three years and tell me how "excited" you are, Justin, to get that Idaho degree?
I love the justified anger seething from this post. I laugh when apologist cockroaches and ingrates (i.e. Kimber Russell) say, "Why are so angry?"
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the law schools LIE about their employment and starting salary stats - for the purpose of enticing more applicants. These same commodes then charge $40K per year in tuiion - and do not even teach their students how to practice law!!
But we shouldn't be upset, should we?!
Nando:
ReplyDeleteYes, the schools lie, and in the past they were quite successful at it and controlled the information flow, a basic requirement in their scamming scheme. Now that law schools no longer control the flow of information and their lies have been revealed, we'll see how long they survive.