Think and Grow Poor: Cultivating a Negative Mental Attitude Promotional Post

More than five and a half years ago, I mentioned that I was considering posting this book.  I declined to do so for "personal reasons":

 Later, this morning I decided against another, my most recent, still in its rough draft form and one I am not sure will ever be seriously revised, my NaNoWriMo project from last year, titled Think and Grow Poor: Cultivating a Negative Mental Attitude, a memoir of my life from July of 2007 through Election Day 2008--I decided against this for personal reasons, and though it is no small achievement, it is probably my weakest overall work, with only a few chapters in particular (maybe 5) that eclipse most of my other work."(http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2009/05/dst-promotional-post.html)

So having said that, five of these chapters are probably worth checking out more than the others:
"Pre-Existing Condition"
"Literary Criticism"
"The Launch" 
"I Want to Shroom at Disneyland" 
"Ashleigh"

This book is not great.  But the structure is what separates it from your "typical road novel."  Obviously, Kerouac is a major influence on this work.  I took a road trip and settled down for 9 months in L.A., then wrote about the experience in a very short period of time.  There are also several "themes" that run through the book and I would like to think that I present a near-expert perspective on each of them.

I did not want to put this up previously because it was "too soon."  But now, time has healed most wounds, and I can give this is its own blog.  I advertised this book on Facebook by asking the question of how many friends I might lose in the process of posting it, but I only dropped from 551 to 550.  While this is a book of creative nonfiction in its purest sense (only 2 name changes), I hope most people consider it "fiction" and do not decide to prejudge me on the basis of the activities described therein.  The majority of this action took place between August 2007 and September 2008, so I hope you realize that people have the capacity to change.  It was also written mostly in November 2008, and there are many, many changes I would make if I were going to sit down with it and publish it as a book.  I am mostly happy with the way it is (though I know it tends to drag on in self-serious, equivocating explanatory paragraphs), and was busy trying to complete NaNoWriMo in 2014 while posting each chapter in reverse chronological order and making "light edits" and trying to come up with something vaguely clever to tease each post on Facebook and Twitter.  It wasn't a big success, but also wasn't a huge failure.  To date it has 881 page views (which I know, sucks, but in comparison to DST, which is sitting at 2040 after 5.5 years, it can be counted as a slight success.  Then again, I never tried to do a similar promotional thing for DST.

There were about 10 people that seemed to regularly visit the site each day to see each new post.  I appreciate their attention and hope they found it worthwhile.  I hope you will consider checking it out, and letting me know what you think.  Because I've been very lazy lately, but really want to get back into writing the way I did in 2006 through 2009...and maybe even 2013.  I find myself strangely lacking motivation to try, but I know that eventually, I must.

http://thinkandgrowpoor.blogspot.com/

-Christopher J. Knorps
12/14/14 in Chicago, Illinois

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #24: Farewell (Ode to the Napping Room)

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #24: Farewell (Ode to the Napping Room)

By Christopher J. Knorps

“Is this thing on?
Can you hear me now?
Are we going?
Is this thing on?
Test, test, test, test, test, test...
Can you hear me now?

As we come to the close of our broadcast day
This is my farewell transmission
Signing off

Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea
Anyone within the sound of my voice
I've got 50,000 watts of power
I want to ionize the air
This microphone turns sound into electricity
Can you hear me now?
Out on route 128, the dark and lonely
I got my radio on
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
It's the end of radio

And that snare drum
That drum roll
Means we've got a winner!
If you're the fifth caller
Or any caller at all... 

Welcome to my top ten
I'd like to thank our sponsor
But... we haven't got a sponsor!
Not if you were the last man on earth….
She was prepared to prove it…
This one goes up to a special girl
But... there is no special girl!

It's the end of radio
The last announcer plays the last record
The last watt leaves the transmitter 
Circles the globe in search of a listener
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?

Is this really broadcasting if there is no one there to receive?
It's the end of radio
As we come to the close of our broadcast day

I got my radio on
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?
Can you hear me now?

This is the test 
If this had been a real emergency...
Hey, hey,

This is a real god damn emergency!”
-Shellac, “The End of Radio”

I.                     Introduction

When I started this column back in February of 2012, I took my cues from “Notions to Dismiss” by Michael Berman (for the name of the column) and “Legally in Love” by Lizzie B. (for the “sexiness” of the juicy gossip floating through our school—and yes, I think people still want to know who Lizzie B. was), but I had no idea I would complete 24 articles.  Before we go any further, I want to thank Steven Hasty for clueing me into the Advocate, Julie Adler for being the best editor I have ever  had, and Dwayne Thomas for allowing me to continue to express myself, as well as keeping me on guard when I would fall off the rails.

I wrote this column because law school is not great, but it has so much potential to be great.  I wrote this column because people seemed miserable here, and I sought to enumerate the reasons why.  There may be more than 24 reasons (and I fully admit that the topics of my columns have sometimes overlapped—See the multiple columns discussing the “50/50 Rule,” now the “60/40 Rule”) but I have done my best to give any prospective or current law student a road map of the pitfalls of legal education.

I would also like to note that I received significantly more “hate mail” when I was a 2L, but that now, as a 3L, with my columns becoming arguably more and more esoteric, few people ever comment on them.  This is either because (a) I am obsolete, or (b) the haters have realized the error of their ways. 

I may very well be obsolete.  I was not named our class commencement speaker, but I did not compete for that position.  This happened in high school too, you know.  I made an audition to be class speaker, and the class clown ended up getting it.  It was fine by me, and I just wrote my own “commencement speech” into an article in The Log at Loomis Chaffee.  I am not doing that here.  I am offering the ultimate NIED.  Welcome to my top 10.

II.                  Top Ten Classes

#10: Contracts (Prof. Winnie Taylor)

                While I did not do well in this course (B-), and while I sat in the way back row of the classroom (top left) and was doomed to failure by anxiety and the belief I still hold that Contracts is one of the hardest classes in law school and should actually be taken over both semesters for six credits (as Prof. Taylor also believed), the reading was always a pleasure (go figure!).  Perhaps it was in this course that I realized I wanted to take a curriculum in Business Law (which may have decimated my GPA, but which I believe was worth it—at this juncture at least), but most importantly, this was a 9:00 AM class which met three times a week.  There was a ton of reading and I didn’t put it into a good outline, but Prof. Taylor brought so much energy into the classroom everyday that I couldn’t help but pay attention.  I may not have done well in the course, but I will always remember her writing “POOR BLACK WIDOW” on the chalkboard, and the way she would say, “Oh boy!”

#9: Administrative Law (Prof. Araiza)

                I did reasonably well in this course (B+) and I sat in the middle on the right side with a couple friends that helped keep me on track—but they weren’t totally necessary: Araiza is an excellent professor.  This course sounds boring, and sometimes it is a little boring, to be honest, but its importance is adequately understood: the “headless” fourth branch of government probably has more impact on our everyday lives than any of the other “big three.”  There are also sometimes fascinating cases that branch off into many different areas of the law.  My favorite case was the Cinderella case, and I will never forget the feeling of knowing the material so well, but knowing that I would not be at the top of the class because there were so many other top students in it, and because Araiza was just that good of a teacher.

#8: Trusts & Estates (Prof. Serkin)

                I did reasonably well in this course as well (B+) and I sat in the second row (which became my de facto seat during 3L year).  Serkin lived up to the hype.  Unfortunately there appears to be a joke that can be made about the SBA Transition Dinner: whoever wins faculty of the year also wins “faculty most likely to leave BLS.”  While many may be sad that they will not have the opportunity to take a class with Professor Serkin, I cannot fault him for wanting to move to Tennessee, for it is a great state that still remarkably flies under the radar.  This was a fun course to take, and the casebook certainly made things interesting.  By far, from all the classes I took, this had the most bizarre casebook (the footnotes alone made me feel like the writers were constantly getting stoned and just telling the ridiculous stories behind the cases—or giving their opinions on James Lipton—because they realized how boring the material could be otherwise).  Serkin also recommended we watch The Art of the Steal, which is a great documentary and served as a nice “study break” (watch for the one scene near the beginning where an art appraiser walks through a gallery and is like, “Oh, Barnes would never get this, this is terrible,” and later says it is impossible to quantify how much the Barnes collection is worth—perhaps billions(!)) as we studied charitable trusts near the end of the semester.  I didn’t learn the intestacy regimes as well as I should have, but I felt the final was one of the “fairest” I have ever taken, and I feel that Serkin taught this course almost masterfully.

#7: Employment Law (Prof. Minda)/Debtors’ & Creditors’ Rights (Hon. Martin Glenn) (tie)

                Most of my classmates from these courses must think I am crazy for putting them in the top ten, but Employment Law gave me the highest grade I received in a 3 credit course (A—and though the results are not yet in from this year, I’m not optimistic) and Elizabeth Warren wrote the casebook for Debtor/Creditor and it was the best one I studied in law school.  Employment Law was a fascinating area to study and I am glad I read From Widgets to Digits and also glad I wrote a paper in lieu of a final exam (the only time I got to do that).  Debtor/Creditor was a tough class, and made tougher by a Judge-Professor taking on the MF Global case around Halloween, and though I may not have done well on the final, nobody did, and I got a B+.  So I think it was the only time a really hard final worked in my favor.

#6: Constitutional Law III: First Amendment (Prof. Araiza)

                Araiza gets two mentions, but this course ranks higher because it has some of the most fascinating jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.  It was in this course that I finally realized Justice Douglas was my favorite of them all, and that I should try to live up to the standards that he set for himself.  Araiza never talks about his clerkship on the Court, but it hung out there in the back of my mind, and I wanted badly to ask him about all the things that happened while he was there, but I understand if that must be kept confidential.  Regardless, hearing his eminently reasonable and incisive interpretations of the Court’s opinions was a true highlight, and I bemoan the fact that I will never be able to take a course with him again.  Not only was he a good professor—he was a good person, and made himself more available to students than any other professor I had.  I will never forget him saying, “Pardon my language, but I’m just quoting: ‘We’ll take the fucking street later!’” or the last time a group of us sat in his office and discussed how obscene internet videos had to get before the Court would say they fell outside the protection of the First Amendment. 

#5: Evidence (Prof. Pitler)

                This is another one that a lot of my classmates might disagree with, but Pitler did not try to pull any tricks.  He told us that if we just did the problems, we would do well.  And I did.  While I only got a B+ on the exam, he told me he boosted me to an A- because I came into every class prepared to offer up my answers to the problems he had assigned.  I appreciated that there was very little reading.  Also, Pitler delivered a stirring lecture in our final class on the Crawford case and the Confrontation Clause that was one of the most entertaining and informative talks I have ever attended.  The school should have video recorded that class, because it was a definite highlight for me.

#4: Criminal Procedure (Prof. Baer)

                Professor Baer warned me that if I took Crim Pro with her, she would “kick my butt.”  She “kicked my butt” in Corporations (giving me a B, while admitting I earned a B- on the exam, but participated well in class and therefore got boosted) even though I appear (very briefly, and in a friend’s beret!) on the school’s website in a video from that course.  It was not a bad course, but I bemoaned her use of Powerpoint.  She did not use Powerpoint in Crim Pro, and this was easily one of the most fascinating courses in law school.  The reading was usually quite interesting (some people call it Con Law IV because it is all Supreme Court opinions) and Prof. Baer always assigned a reasonable amount of reading for each class.  I never felt overwhelmed and felt that she used her time in class very effectively.  And I do not think she will kick my butt, because I took the course pass/fail (and update: I passed).

#3: Interviewing & Counseling (Prof. Schultze)

                Everybody should take a class with Prof. Schultze.  He is a popular professor, and for good reason: there really is not much work to do.  This is a 2 credit class.  But it can be a little bit stressful when you are on the chopping block!  Prof. Schultze could have his own reality show based on his classes.  While the class was easy, it was also fun and useful—learning how to appropriately approach clients is a fine art, and it is one skill that I will leave law school believing I have learned well.

#2: Business Reorganizations (Prof. Gerber)

                Also known as “Debtor/Creditor Part 2,” this was a fun 3 credit class to take, and Prof. Gerber is one of the best at BLS.  I will never forget his drawings of pies to represent chapter 7 and buche-de-noels (or twinkies) to represent chapter 11 (and I am sort of sad I missed taking the class after Hostess declared bankruptcy) and his drawings of pigs to represent banks, nor his mentioning that his brother wrote the comic book Howard the Duck or that he went to high school with Sheldon Toibb.  While the course can sometimes be challenging, Prof. Gerber always made it comprehensible through his classes, which blended lecturing and calling on volunteers.  He did not try to “trick us” on the final, and I was very pleased to get an A- in that course—it is one of the grades that I am most proud of in law school.  It was also through this course that I found my “dream area of practice” and at least got a shot at a couple bankruptcy judge clerkships.  I didn’t get them, but Prof. Gerber made time to help me try.  Also, it is perhaps worth noting that I sat in on his Contracts class in the Spring of 2010, and that it was the best class I attended at any of the law schools I visited, and that his style and presence as an “interim Dean” made me feel reasonably secure (not totally secure!) that I had made the right decision by attending BLS. 

#1: Securities Regulation (Prof. Fanto)

                I just mentioned Fanto to another student a couple hours ago and she said, “Oh, Fanto’s a god.”  That about sums it up.  Securities Regulation may be one of the most difficult classes in law school (I personally found Corporate Finance more difficult because of all the math, and Federal Income Taxation more difficult because of all the material), but it was always a pleasure to attend the lectures, even when Fanto admitted that he hated teaching the material (on Regulation S).   Simply put, I was very lucky to take a class with him.  I will never forget him shouting, “you have to be quiet!” during the first few classes or hearing his opinions on Congress (“they don’t have any idea what’s going on anyways…”) and our unfortunate position of needing to implement the JOBS Act into our understanding of the securities laws.  Also now whenever I go on a road trip, I will try to pick out abandoned bowling alleys, because he says it is usually easy to do—and that underscores my opinions on this course: it’s incredibly important stuff, but it’s contained in these incredibly dense and archaic statutes.  Fanto was great at making us understand just how important it was, and while I do not know my grade yet (perhaps I did terribly), I will always remember those classes very fondly. 

III.                 NIED #23 ½ : Restriction on the Right to Practice

90% of us will be staying in New York City post-graduation.  That is the figure that gets tossed around as a student begins their law school journey.  90% of law school students stay in the same jurisdiction (or is it state?) as their school.  A problem arises when a student’s attitude towards their “law school home” sours over the course of three years. 

Sometimes it is not too big of a deal.  You don’t like New York?  Well go to Connecticut, or New Jersey, or Massachusetts.  Take 2 Bars.  You can do it; it’s fine.  BLS “strongly recommends” taking the Bar Exam in two states (i.e. New York and New Jersey), and updates information for these two states but leaves the rest up to the student. 

I don’t know the deadline in California, I’ll admit.  But I do know the deadline in Illinois is February 15, and the total fee (if filing is timely) is $850.  It then jumps to $1,050 for “late” registration if done by March 31, and $1,450 for “really late” registration if done by May 31.  I never looked into this matter until a fellow Chicagoan told me it wasn’t possible to do Illinois and New York at the same time.

It would have been fine, for me, a student without a job who is torn between two states, if that other state was New Jersey, but it’s not.  Perhaps it’s the difficulty of traveling between two states on a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (or can you take the Bar in a different state in your home state?  I don’t think so…), but you cannot take the New York and Illinois Bar exams because they are both two day exams on Tuesday and Wednesday (i.e. the MBE on Tuesday and the “state test” on Wednesday).  

The deadline for New York (we all knew) was April 30, so it is still possible for me to file “really late” in Illinois, and forfeit the NY Registration fee of $250, but I’ll have spent $1,700 in the process and will probably incur about $1,300 in moving expenses, and then who even knows about residency in Illinois.  Furthermore, switching at this late stage of the game is exactly the type of distraction that seems tailor-made for Bar Failure. 

This is the last NIED column because it goes to the last complaint about law school: when you don’t have a job, and aren’t sure where things will be better for the long term, nobody can give you satisfactory advice.  You just need to stick to your guns, pick one, and pray.  The state of indecisiveness is a horrible one that can make even the most talented minds wither under pressure.  It’s not like we’re Lebron James and we can orchestrate a television special to state which city will be so lucky as to have our legal talents.  We’re the opposite.  There’s too many of us, we’ve been told, so which city is unlucky enough to have to support one more mediocre (if grades are any indication) lawyer?  After all if we were destined to be a great lawyer, we would have a job by now, right? 

I throw my hands up and say once and for all that this is one area in which I cannot offer persuasive advice.  The best advice I’ve been given is to take the New York Bar, stay here until December or so, see if I have a job by then, and if not, return to Illinois and take the Bar there in February, because the MBE score will transfer.  This is easier said than done, though, as my remaining funds will likely dwindle down to almost nothing by that point.  And who really wants to take the Bar Exam twice? 

It’s all cold comfort this time, I suppose.  You should just pick your law school in the region where you’re sure you want to live.  If you didn’t do that, then you must be sure you want to return home, and you will already have your plan in place.  Unfortunately there is no back-up option—except if one happens to be from Washington D.C. (or Alaska, I’ve been told), where you can “waive in” immediately. 

In order to promote fairness, law students should be able to “waive in” to every state.  There are questions on the MPRE (which—surprise, surprise—applies nationwide) which state that non-compete clauses in partnership agreements are unenforceable because they constitute a restriction on the right to practice.  The Bar Exam is the ultimate restriction on the right to practice, because it forces a person to say, “This is my home, and I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.” 

I loved going to school in New York from 2001-2005 (the “honeymoon period” after 9/11 truly made me believe that New York was the greatest city in America, and that there was nowhere else I’d rather be) so it seemed to make sense for me to pick New York over Los Angeles (and Chicago) for law school between 2010 and 2013.  Now I just see it as an overcrowded bundle of nerves, anxiety, car-lessness, high rent and claustrophobia (or maybe I only feel this way because I lived in Brooklyn Heights for 3 years) and I wish I had more “contacts” in other cities so that I could confidently believe that it would not be a bad career move to leave this place.   

The ABA should definitely consider broadening the right to “waive in” because while 90% of us may be staying, it may not be the most “voluntary” decision we make after starting.  Many of us are simply not the same people we were three years ago. 

There is a quote in the library (a gift from the class of 2010) from a movie that is not about law school, but is thought to apply to law school.  I have one other such quote: “I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you…stranger.” 

IV.                 Top 5 Hardest Exams

#5: Property (Prof. Macey – Spring 2011)

While I earned a B+ in this course, and do not feel I did all that well on the exam, I was pleasantly surprised by this grade.  Property, it has been said, is the most useless first year course in law school.  That may be so, but sometimes it can touch on interesting and/or “useful” areas of the law (I remember hating the Mark Rothko case in Property, but then embracing it during Trusts & Estates).  In any case, many students complained about how hard this exam was, and I had no real reason to complain, but it was a very difficult exam to finish properly in the time allotted (there were “too many issues”).

#4: Accounting for Lawyers (Prof. Hauptman – Fall 2012)

While this exam was not necessarily difficult, the course itself was certainly the hardest 2 credit course I took in law school.  Our professor told us there would be no “tricks” on the exam, but this is a tricky course, and because I did not put in the requisite amount of effort throughout the semester, I suffered on the final.  My advice is not to underestimate this course if you plan to take it.  It is not “easy,” as a student a year ahead of me claimed. 

#3: Civil Procedure (Prof. Schneider – Fall 2010)

While this was the most “pleasant” grade I received in my first semester of law school, question #4 was the hardest question I have ever had to answer on an exam.  It made me want to cry.  I wrote two short paragraphs as an answer to #4 (which had a lengthy and confusing fact pattern about two and half legal-sized pages long) and apparently did as well or better on that question than any of my other percentages.  I guess it was one of the few times that everyone else was just as flummoxed as me.

#2: Corporate Finance (Prof. Myers – Fall 2012)

While I did not do all that poorly on the essays on this exam, I badly fouled up the multiple choice section.  This was one of the most difficult classes in all of law school because (like accounting), I did not put in the right amount of effort in during the semester.  It was a strange exam.  It was completely “open.”  We could use any and every resource at our disposal.  A lot of the other students probably hit “Control + F” and cycled through their outlines and cut-and –pasted their answers.  I didn’t have the presence of mind to do that, nor did I have the presence of mind to know all of the Microsoft Excel functions like the back of my hand.  A tough course and exam primarily because of the math involved.

#1: Debtors’ and Creditors’ Rights (Hon. Martin Glenn – Fall 2011)

I will never tire of talking about this course, nor the impossibility of this exam.  This exam caused both vomiting and tears (not from me, but other students taking it).  I was pleased with my grade on it (as noted above) but found the experience of taking it to be excruciating.  It was like a really scary roller coaster ride but gave off no great feeling of relief and accomplishment at its end. 

V.                  Areas for Reform and Conclusion

Brooklyn Law School is not a terrible place, but there are certainly some changes that would go a long way towards making it better.  I offer my own idiosyncratic suggestions here:

First, BLS should offer its students $50.00 per year on their printing account.  $25.00 (or $12.50 per semester) is insufficient for a typical student’s printing needs.  Further, there should be an option for students that never use the printing stations in the library to have a zero balance.  The former President of the SBA rebuffed this recommendation saying, “You need to raise tuition to do that.”  Well, our tuition was raised roughly $3,000 over the course of our three years and our printing account amount never went up, so to that I say, “No.”

Second, BLS should offer one color printer in the library.  It is sad when a student asks me if we have color printing and I sheepishly send them to 1 Boerum Place, even though I am not 100% sure there is a color printer there that they can use.  Just one color printer would be a nice addition to the library. 

Third, BLS should have a more robust academic advisement program.  We are given an academic advisor in our first year (one of our professors, I presume) but that professor may not necessarily want to engage the students in talking about their long-term goals and how best to achieve them.  While I am generally satisfied with my course selection, there were two or three classes that I wish I hadn’t taken.  The school does offer a panel every year on how to choose your upper-class curriculum, but more student-specific counseling should be mandated in the way that career-counseling is only “suggested.”

Fourth and finally (and this list is by no means exhaustive, just specific things I would have liked), the school should offer the option of a retroactive pass/fail.  This could be used by students to “nix” a grade that destroyed their GPA if the course had a pass/fail option that was not elected by the student during the course of the semester.  While this may have caused internal problems earlier, with the bright-line 80% standard the school has set for scholarships, just as remedial statutes should be interpreted broadly, such a standard would improve student morale and remove the problem of students “shooting for a D” on exams they know will be graded pass/fail.  If there were concerns about abuse, it could be changed to only allow for retroactivity in the third year (and not be available for the incoming 2-year-program).

In conclusion, it has been a long and often boring ride, but I hope that I have played a small part in helping to make this school a better place for students.  Some of the best moments I have enjoyed were in the “napping room” (104M in the library), and it is my hope that one day I can return to the school and officially have that room designated as such in my honor.  Students need a place in the library where they can relax for a few moments in an anxiety-free zone, and sleep if they must.  Everyone that knows the “napping room” is for this purpose will agree that it is one of the best “student-made” changes in the school.  And it is my hope that other students’ suggestions will bring about positive changes in the future in different areas of the school.   

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #23: Scamblogs

The penultimate NIED column.  #24 will be my farewell column, and is yet to be written.  While this post replicates some of the material linked to in the first paragraph, I felt that an update on the matter would be instructive in determining of how many legal educations "scams" at certain institutions continue to exist.  My slight complaint about the version appearing on BLS Advocate is that they did not seem to get my point about the Claims Adjuster position posted on our school's job board...

On June 1, 2011, I posted a long “special comment” on so-called “scamblogs.”  That may be found here http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2011/06/special-comment-scamblogs.html.  As previously understood between me and the BLS Advocate staff, I will complete Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress with 24 articles.  I felt that since I was nearing graduation, it was time to reconsider scamblogs, and see how the landscape has changed in the past two years.

                First, we consider http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com, which has just said “goodbye” on February 27, 2013, after 500 posts.  One statement bears excerpting:

19 months and 499 posts later, it turns out that the core message of this blog – that legal academia is operating on the basis of an unsustainable economic model, which requires most law students to borrow more money to get law degrees than it makes sense for them to borrow, given their career prospects, and that for many years law schools worked hard, wittingly or unwittingly, to hide this increasingly inconvenient truth from both themselves and their potential matriculants – has evolved from a horrible heresy to something close to conventional wisdom.

                So the scamblogs have gone away because people got tired of repeating themselves over and over again, until people at the ABA decided that it was time to take their concerns seriously.  I personally dislike this blog because he brags about getting 50,000 comments (I have about 100 comments and 30,000 page views, but I would like to think that I have written on a far more diverse range of topics).  I also have little sympathy for law school professors that write about how they know they are “duping” their students—if you believe that strongly about it then get out (maybe it’s all he’s qualified to do, though). 

                Next up we have the always popular “ATL.”  I will not say much about this website as I have written at length on it in my previous special comment linked to above, but I will just say that I was very distressed to see them report on the resignation of our Director of Career Services, with a “hot tip” from a BLS student who bemoaned the fact that a position of “Claims Adjuster” was listed on Symplicity.  Note to self: Claims Adjuster is not a “legal job” but it’s at an insurance company and they always need lawyers so they wouldn’t be posting there if that wasn’t at least part of the concern.  Plus those jobs pay pretty well, and the lead singer from the band Pissed Jeans is a Claims Adjuster for his day job so I think it would actually be kind of cool to do that. 

                I hate “ATL.”  I have visited it less and less over the years.  It loads slowly.  It’s TMZ for nerdy lawyers and law students.  They make all their money off advertising from various “legal companies” and then they don’t exactly bite that hand that feeds them, but might as well [tell everyone that if they score beneath 170 on the LSAT don’t go to law school].  I have very little respect for this website and hope that my blog will never fall prey to being such a sell-out.

                Lawschoolfail.blogspot.com is our next stop on the tour, and this site at least opens up with a nice post (dated December 26, 2012) asking whether the scamblogs are wrong.  Now this is an interesting question.   The scamblogs may have been right, and they may actually have effected a grassroots-type of change in the legal profession, now that US News & World Report has changed the way they list employment figures for graduated law students.  But do we really need scamblogs anymore? 

                The blogger makes an interesting point:

What is the point in not getting married or not trying in life because you did not get a job after law school?  What is the point in feeling sorry for yourself over the internet year after year?  There has to honestly come a time when you get off the internet and start striving again.  I just can't get over the fact that law school has broken so many people.  I can't come up with any other conclusion than these people were very weak individuals.  Some seem to literally revel in their own self pity, wallowing in the perceived idea that they are pariahs.  Many act as if they have given up on life, instead of trying to do something else, they just say "I can't do anything with my degree." 

                This is basically the point I wanted to make here.  Law school is not for babies.  If you’ve never had a job before starting law school, then you may not know what it is like to search for a job, and how demoralizing it can get.  It’s probably going to suck.  But things are different in 2013 than they were in 2012 or 2011 or 2010 or 2009 or even 2008.  They still pretty much suck, but they are, ever-so-slowly (we are told to believe) getting better.

                ThirdTierReality.blogspot.com is an especially vicious site with offensive imagery that seems to revel in parades after parades of horribles.  In the past, this blog has taken pot shots at BLS and our President.  Now, many of us may feel strongly about our President, but nobody really knows how much of a role she plays in our school.  She is higher up than the Dean, no?  She is the at the very top and has done her best to plug holes in the sinking ship that is a law school of our caliber in New York City in these economic times.  As much as people might love to hate on her, the fact is many of us have not even spoken to her, and have no idea what she is doing behind the scenes.  We will not pay any more attention to the woman behind the curtain.   

***

                Higher education may indeed be a scam, but it is a scam with which we must live.  Persons concerned that they are not getting their money’s worth should avoid private education.  (Though it is worth noting that many public institutions have rather inflated tuitions for law school—see University of Illinois at $38,250 a year (in-state); I base my statement on the cost of attending Northern Illinois University, however, which most people would consider reasonable at $19,811 a year (in-state).)  Many people from my generation will find it necessary to obtain a higher degree because they have found out that liberal arts degrees are a a-dime-a-dozen and they are simply not competitive in the labor economy.  I would not say “the hard is what makes it great,” but I would say “the hard is what makes you prepared to accept the terms of reality.”  I’m not going to make $160,000 in my first year out of law school, and indeed may not even get a job paying $57,000.  But I am not going to blog about how I wish I had known better.  Law school has been a rigorous education and has opened up a few more job possibilities than were open to me with a B.A. I will continue to blog about literature, film, music, and interesting legal matters.   I will never suggest that BLS “tricked” me into attending (though I may file a complaint against them in small claims court for $6,000), and whenever I give my “unauthorized tour” of the library to prospective students, I tell them that it is a very good school, and the tragedy is that because we are all so well-qualified, a fair number of us will just get left in the dust because there will always be employers that only care about class rank. 

                BLS has cut back the number of students per class, and ultimately this is the wisest resolution of the “hyper-saturation problem.”  We may never be as good as NYU or Columbia, but my hope is that one day (hopefully soon) we will be recognized as a school on equal footing with Fordham.  And I do not think that is an unrealistic hope.  

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #21: Monthly Expense Project and Moral Hazard

NIED #21: Monthly Expense Project and Moral Hazard

By Christopher J. Knorps

                On January 25, 2012, I had an inspiration.  The germ of this idea came from a period in early 2008.  I had recently gone on a road trip and managed to spend about $10,000.  While I could track most of my expenses through credit card statements, obviously I had not been diligent about keeping receipts from cash transactions.  Thus, I became paranoid that someone was taking money out of my account—recognizing that I was traveling (filling up my tank about once a day, paying for a hotel almost every night, buying snacks and meals) and incurring heavy expenses, and believing (perhaps correctly) that they could slip a withdrawal or purchase under my nose. 

                But it took four years for me to realize that a more eloquent system had to be constructed for personal finance.  Starting on February 1, 2012, I kept track of every dollar (nearly every penny) that I spent.  On February 1, 2013, I had completed one year of what I called “Monthly Expense Project” (or MEP).  Here were my totals (for the 5 main categories out of 16):

Total: $27,207.15 ($2,270.46 per month average)
Transportation: $2,344.75 ($195.40 per month average)
Food: $3,820.72 ($318.39 per month average)
Recreation: $4,923.93 ($410.33 per month average)
Academic: $1,877.67 ($156.48 per month average)

                More important is the disparity between “fixed” expenses and “discretionary” expenses.  Here, my 1 year MEP shows an interesting trend—as my fixed expenses dropped, my discretionary expenses grew (the disparity arose from a summer spent in Chicago, where I paid about $450 per month in rent as opposed to about $1,000 per month in Brooklyn). 

                On a very general level, I can tell that my fixed expenses come close to equaling my discretionary expenses.  Of the $27,207.15, about $11,000 of that is attributable to rent.  Thus, my total income after taxes should be about $33,000 (applying the general principle that rent should equal 1/3 of net income).  My total expenditures after rent totals approximately $16,000.  Thus, I would have roughly $6,000 to dispose of in other ways—it could go into savings, but after graduation, a good portion of that should go to loan payments.

                But more interestingly, how do these totals stack up to the approximations that Brooklyn Law School provides for its incoming students?

Add $49,976 to my total and you get $77,183.15 (the school estimates $75,536—not bad!)

                However, the school estimates housing in the amount of $17,200 (probably the cost of a fairly nice room in Feil Hall).  Subtracting $6,000 for me, the school estimate drops to $69,536. 

                Now this starts to look fishy.  Am I really spending almost $8,000 more dollars than the typical law student?

                What about transportation?  The school estimates $950 for that category, and I spent $2,344.75, about a $1,400 difference. 

                A word about transportation: over the summer, I took the El Train to work every day, and had monthly CTA cards, but at BLS, I rarely use the subway (I walk to campus).  However, I have also taken a number of plane trips, and this is probably responsible for my high totals (though there is certainly an argument to be made that this transportation expense is misleading).

So now, we’re down to $6,600—but let’s get to my favorite category: living expenses. 

                The school estimates that the average student will spend $5,880 on miscellaneous and living expenses.  Now, I did spend roughly $3,800 on food, which leaves about $2,000 for recreation, toiletries and various household expenses like cleaning and laundry. 

                If you add my recreation and food totals, it equals a whopping $8,744.65—almost $3,000 over the school estimate. 

                Still, there is about $3,600 difference lurking in the shadows.  My academic expenses equaled $1,877.67 and the school estimates “books” at $1,300.  Down to $3,100. 

                You could take out another $1,400 for health insurance—which I was on last year until I realized I could qualify for Medicaid (the school factors $0 into health insurance and does not widely distribute information about Medicaid—perhaps an attempt to drive up business with their provider, Aetna).  Still, there is a $1,700 shortfall.  I would imagine that cell phone and other utility bills makes up this difference.

                I advertised MEP as best as I could.  One other person participated in the November MEP.  My total was $1,999 and “Jackie Chan’s” total was $1,955, so the average was $1,977.

                My goal with MEP was to show that the school’s estimates were inaccurate and misleading.  People often criticize for BLS for its massive tuition and the expense of living in what is perhaps the most expensive area in Brooklyn. 

It is questionable what kinds of figures the school is “estimating” for food and recreational expenses.  It is not surprising that MEP has failed—but I am not a quitter and I demand that one more attempt be made.  The point of MEP was to write a scholarly article about personal finance, and to send it to Elizabeth Warren for comments.  In Chapter 13, disposable income is separated from fixed monthly expenses, and the debtor pays the court each month, and the court distributes that amount to creditors.  The point of the article would be to see if those amounts allocated by the court ($280 for food per month, for a single individual, from what I recall…) matched up to reality. 

Of course MEP is a larger project, but it has its seeds at BLS, and my experience of going from “fairly wealthy” to “broke” from 2007-2013—and I do not think my experience is unique.

I urge you to join me in the March 2013 MEP.  I know I will have at least three other participants, but of course greater participation equals greater accuracy.  Please visit this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIznoCng3Oo to watch a 28-minute video of the MEP Presentation.  I will e-mail you the slides from the Powerpoint if you prefer not to see the comedy.  I realize that MEP can be a tedious exercise, but it has been a valuable one for me (it has helped me figure out what kind of salary I should aim to earn), and I would be very pleased if you join me in this endeavor.

Christopher J. Knorps is a 3L.  He enjoys studying Bankruptcy and Constitutional Law.  He is organizing a Monthly Expense Project “reporting” for March of 2013—please e-mail him at Christopher.knorps@brooklaw.edu if you are interested in participating.  He is also organizing a 2^nd Annual Open Mic and seeking performers so please contact him if you are interested.