If that gal’s a problem, somebody better tell this guy.
But seriously, folks…
I’m a male 3L, about to graduate and looking for a job. (Anyone here hiring? I’m not proud.) If a student at my school were to do something like this, I wouldn’t care a whit. It wouldn’t even occur to me that it might affect my own job prospects.
However, there was a situation last year when a classmate of mine started an anonymous blog, poking good-natured fun at some of our more ivy-covered professors. There was a bit of an outcry about it, and the student was threatened with some kind of sanction if the blog remained on-line. (I don’t have any more details than that.)
The kicker, though, is that it wasn’t the professors who raised a stink about it; it was some of our classmates, who were concerned that this anonymous blog, which used no names and would be meaningless to anyone who’s not a student here, might affect their post-graduation employment. The blogger took it down and issued an apology, which was probably the right thing to do for the sake of future business relationships, but was nonetheless galling.
Edit:Walloon, I think the magazine in question is a free weekly sort of thing. I may be wrong, though.
If that is the case, then the number of idiots allowed to be lawyers must be massive, because only the dimmest of bulbs could actually think that the actions of a single person represent all the characters of all the members of the entire student body.
I would hope that the OP or anyone with any sense of decency and self-respect would refuse to work for people who could possibly believe that line of thought could be defensible.
Campion knows whereof she speaks about BigLaw. It’s a world I’ll never see, but it does exist, and offers nice perks for those willing to play by the rules. Those firms will take a new hire and pay him more than I’m ever likely to earn per year before the kid can even find the Courthouse with a map. He’ll spend the next few years pulling 80 hour weeks of grunt work, and won’t be lead counsel on anything for the forseeable future, but he will make some serious bank.
Hell, if I had a do-over, I’d try a lot harder to make it in that world. Tilting at windmills doesn’t pay very well.
What about an intelligent answer? I Dunno, maybe you would be able to say something like “Well, I don’t know the girl in question, but I thought the situation itself was quite interesting, because the media attention and general controversy seems to have been generated largely by the complaints of the people most concerned about the media attention and general controversy.”
You think this is bad? I was in graduate school with a girl who auctioned off her top on a street corner (sorry, this was before the Internet, no link) and not only that but she vowed to do it in all 50 states. She made Playboy (among other publications) and she was in the same track I was. Of course it wasn’t law (it was comparative literature). This didn’t even affect me at the time, let alone months or years later. Nobody ever once said, “Oh, you got your degree at OU, wanna take your shirt off?” Total non-issue.
I would not at all be bothered by this, for all the reasons mentioned above. If your school started it’s own dedicated skin mag or something, then it might get wierd. But this is nothing at all like that. Nobody will remember this. And even if they did, they would not care. You are WAAAAY over reacting here.
Let’s put it this way. I share a name with someone quite imfamous for her sexual behavoir. Every once in a while someone notices and comments. Then we all laugh, I say it’s not me, and it’s over. No reduced job prospects. No problems. Nothing.
Sharing a school with someone who appeared one time in a small-circulation magazine has so little of a connection to you that the idea that it’s something you might care about is laughable.
I don’t intend to take your quotes out of context, but I felt the need to express my POV.
It’s not an exclusive club if no one else wants to get in.
Seriously, if you aren’t safe from sexually charged questions at a law firm interview, the *you people * don’t have the reputation that you think you have.
Well, if ‘the rules’ are that one judges large populations by the actions of individuals, then ‘Big’ or not, they’re morons and don’t deserve the respect they get (not that lawyers are all that high in popularity, anyway).
If you’re 25 years old and that firm is offering a six figure salary, and you’ve mortgaged your soul to pay for law school in the first place, you shut up, smile, do what you’re told, and cash the checks. Or you end up like me. And nobody wants that.
Let me clarify. At an interview for a waitstaff position at Hooter’s, I wouldn’t be shocked if the manager asked a question about my classmate’s nudie pics. But at an interview at a law firm, I might construe a direct question about my fellow student’s saucy pics as inappropriate or harassing in nature.
Sure, I would take the job if I needed the money. But accepting a job from the leering head of a law firm who felt it appropriate to discuss the nudity of my classmate at interview would cause me to seriously question the ethics and morality of my career choice.
Ethics and morality are nice. So are groceries and car payments. Shots at the big time don’t come around often, if ever. Yeah, you can walk away. Then, twelve years later, all of your classmates are making 2-5 times what you make (or more), you owe more in student loans than you can ever repay, you drink too much, smoke more and sometimes you wonder why you don’t put a bullet through your skull. Maybe one day you will. If you do, somebody will say nice things about the sacrifices you made, blah blah blah, and they’ll bury with with all that morality. The world will remain the same harsh place it was when you thought you could make a difference, and people will forget you ever lived.
Fair point. Law school is hard , and stressful, and very very expensive. I love it, but if I thought one of my classmates was doing something that even might keep it all from paying off, I can see how I’d be annoyed. Now, I can’t imagine thinking that the actions of Really Hot 1L Girl might fall into that category, but still.
Remember: All law students, myself included, are more than a little crazy.
I understand. You see, this social worker has a career that wreaks of ethics and morality. Yet I’m not fabulously wealthy and last time I checked I am not next in line for sainthood.
So… go, make your money. Be successful. And when you are sportin’ those distinguished graying temples, engraved shingle, and an esquire hitched to your last name- promise me you won’t ask the impressionable young graduate about her classmates smokin hot bod during your interview.
Think maybe you ain’t grokking what I’m saying here. I ain’t on the money making end of the law business. I’m the guy that gets called at home by the local shelter, so I go open the office and interview a client with her eyes still swollen shut from her most recent beating. I send her off to borrow the money for the filing fee while I draft the paperwork for her TRO, and I wonder why she doesn’t come back. Then later I learn that the filing fee money went towards the abusers bail, and he repaid her by putting her in the emergency room before fleeing the state with his other girlfriend.
Unfortunately, that’s how the human mind often works, even among the highly intelligent. We develop impressions based on incomplete (or even scanty) evidence, and those impressions tend to affect our decision making processes – often in ways that are entirely subconscious.
Yeah. I know you. Have probably shaken your hand a time or two. I’m the chick who runs the shelter where the victim spends one night and doesn’t return until the next time she has been beaten senseless.
The thing is- you aren’t the lawyer who popular culture lampoons, nor are you the lawyer who needs worry that his reputation is in question for the actions of either his clients or his classmates. Choosing to represent the needy and the downtrodden automatically grants you immunity from public scorn. Thanks for doing what you do, and please keep doing it.
I appreciate the sentiment…but I ain’t no hero. If I had the chance to switch gigs with Campion, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I want the corner office, the beamer, the big house, the blue chip portfolio, the fancy clothes, and all that stuff. I just wasn’t good enough or smart enough to get them. Had I taken advantage of the chances I had, it might have worked out differently. But I was just too damn cool for that. I wasn’t gonna sell out to the man. I was gonna make a difference and stuff. What a crock of shit.
I spend my days tilting at windmills, and generally getting knocked flat on my ass. My armor hasn’t been shiny in years, my noble steed is actually a jackass, Dulcinea is a lesbian, and Campion has more deducted for taxes than I make in a month.
