Born 3 years, 8 months apart, they dress alike, finish each other's sentences, both drive restored classic Mustangs and have no plans to leave Stockton.
No, not one of those creepy couples that you dread seeing in public, but brothers who are both attending the Humphreys College Laurence Drivon School of Law in Stockton, California. The older brother, Connor, entered at age 18 and may take the bar by 21. The younger brother, Parker, started at 16.
Neither is gung-ho about practicing law. The older one says he put off medical school to attend law school. The younger says he's focused on law school "now" and "may" go into criminal defense.
The article does not mention why the school admitted these individuals (what's the point of an admissions process, anyway?), but I'd love to hear the dean explain how admitting a 16-year old to a law school is proper without saying "he paid his tuition!"
The kicker? People actually think this is an example of "good parenting:"
Joanne Shelton, 51, said she and her husband, Terry, 53, always encouraged their boys to study hard and get a good education. They didn't expect this.
She's been asked plenty about her secret to good parenting.
"I wish I knew the magic answer," Shelton said. "I could bottle it up and sell it."
You could sell snake-oil, too.
If you think sending this boys to a non-ABA law school at 16 and 18 is an example of "good" parenting shining through, you need to sue your own parents for not passing along any common sense.
I don't care if these kids have 160+ IQs, they'd probably be better off smoking pot for three years than studying at a non-ABA school. Who knows? Maybe they'd be painters or musicians or writers. They could have used the tuition money to travel, start a business, attend a real four-year college, get a degree in something with more transferability or personal fulfillment. They could have lived off the money and volunteered or even - gasp - get a real job and develop the part of their resumes that's almost always a positive (strip clubs and doc review not included).
Doogie Howser is just television, people. It's no way to raise a child, and running through one's "education" to rack degree after degree ASAP is not a civic virtue to celebrate.
Truth is, if these kids pass the bar (despite mandating things like Wills (2 quarters), Family Law, and 3 quarters of Business Entities, Humphreys has a 54% 1st-time bar passage rate), they'll find it very difficult to ever actually practice. Because they're moving at an accelerated speed, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume they're not working on the side. Employers will have even less use for them than they do for Pacific or Golden Gate grads. They're probably not developing any social skills in these year - at least not enough to outwit and outlast the other solos in nabbing clients. And the immediate family doesn't have a background in law:
Terry Shelton is a general contractor who manages their rental property. Joanne Shelton helps with the family business and is also a homemaker.
Unless there's an uncle or something, these kids are going to be screwed out of the job market (here's a test: would you hire them?).
So if they ever want to practice law, it was a dumb move. If they don't want to practice law, it was also a dumb move. Law schools, especially non-ABA ones, are professional trade schools. I could see maybe going to certain training-type schools for pleasure, like computer programming. But law? Why? You have a "passion" for learning how to use Westlaw and draft a lousy intra-office memo? You have a "passion" for reading stuff like Pennoyer and memorizing minority rules from other jurisdictions in areas you don't care about? Why?
If you are really interested in hashing out ideas of social justice, freedom, regulation, etc., why not study philosophy? Why not study sociology? Why not study political science? Why not going to the public library and reading book after book on the subject?
And why do we still think paying for products one never uses is "good parenting?"
I don't get it, either.
ReplyDeleteA REAL accomplishment would be having a kid who is some type of protege in chemistry or biology, closing in on a CURE for something, or a breakthrough in some critical process valuable to society. Now THAT scenario could, and should, make parents proud.
But the sending off of not one, but two, children to a toilet-bowl of a law school, what parent would be proud of that? Do these morons not read the papers, like the Wall Street Journal, and have terefore some semblance of an idea as to how truly fucked the legal job market is now, when it is tough for grads of REAL law schools to find work?
Idiots.
I heard some unaccredited schools are setting up booths in high schools, trying to recruit sophomores, as long as their parents can pay their tuition. Maybe law school will just turn into some course like shop, getting a law degree will be an elective for high school.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of unaccredited law schools have minimal admission requirements. I heard at some, the Con Law exam is a coloring book, where you use crayons to color different pictures of the Amendments, like a guy holding a gun.
ReplyDeleteThey sound creepier than the Olsen twins.
ReplyDeleteI could say all kinds of things about the parents, and some of you could say all kinds of things about non-ABA accredited law schools. So I'll leave those comments to others.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what's weird about this situation is that no one would applaud the kids or parents if the kids went to one of those "dumb rich kids'" colleges. You know, they're the ones with high tuition and minimal or no admissions standards. One would expect pubescent geniuses to, at the very least, attend a well-known and well-respected state university.
I don't know why, but this post really bugs me. It's the feel-good story that isn't.
ReplyDelete