Special Comment: I will say this twice

First of all, I'd like to apologize.  I haven't written a post in what, two months?  And no hiatus message?  Clearly, other things have been going on.  Rest assured, a review of The Big Short will be coming down the pipeline in the next week, so stay tuned.

Second, I'd like to apologize for writing this post.  I really don't want to do it.  It forces me to say a lot of things I'd rather not say.  I am sure I could say nothing and just let it die, and I'm afraid if I do this it will start things back up again.  I've never been one to attack strangers on the internet, and I don't want to do it.  But I have to defend myself.

For those of you that don't know, I have had my pathetic little fifteen minutes of crappy fame.  I don't even want to post a link here.  You can just google my name.  Luckily only one of the two posts shows up in the first results.  Unfortunately there were some pretty terrible pictures (or one, at least) that I just had to "report" on google.

I could launch into a full-on screed about cyber libel and how I should really turn this unfortunate event into a life lesson for all the scambloggers out there, but I don't want to invite any more speculation about what is or is not possible.  I kindly left a comment after the first story was posted and it was deleted.  I would rather not kindly ask anymore because if it goes down voluntarily, then it won't be as satisfying as, oh, returning the punch.

Because that is what we're told.  In Catholic school at least.  Do not get into fights.  If someone hits you, do not hit them back.  Turn the other cheek.

If I were making a six figure salary right now, I probably could do that.  However, while I really didn't want to make substantive comments about scamblogging, I think I have to.  Because I have to set things straight:

#1: I am not Mr. Infinity.

A lot of people think I am, for some reason.  I will tell you this: I really did not do myself any favors by writing a special comment about scamblogs.  I featured two of the blogs (maybe there was a third, but it had no fallout) in the comment.  One of them responded in truly vicious fashion, and the other one wrote, "Thank you very much for featuring my blog, 'Law School Fail' on your analysis.  Sincerely, Mr. Infinity." Now, I had already read the first post about me, so this did not come as a happy comment.  I wanted to be like, "WTF dude, didn't you see that everyone thought I was you? Why didn't you tell them we're two different people?" Instead, he just linked to Flying Houses on his blogroll.  I do not get very many hits from him.

But I'm not mad at him.  I could speculate that he's a made-up person, too, but I don't want to fuel speculation that I'm paranoid schizophrenic.

However, I am not him.  And the people that set out to destroy me (and if you think I'm being dramatic by saying that, you haven't read all the comments yet) probably won't believe that, but they should listen to reason and read the rest of my posts here.  Flying Houses is my only blog (apart from http://daylightsavingstime-jk.blogspot.com/, which was my way of putting my first novel online) and it has always been primarily about book reviews.

I rarely get into trouble with book reviews.  And in fact, the authors of some of the books I've reviewed have actually found them, and taken my criticism to heart.  So blogging is not a totally stupid thing to do.

However, writing a column called NIED was probably not the smartest thing to do.  I expected to get a lot of hate mail for what I wrote, and I did get a fair amount.  But some of this hate mail crossed the line.  Still, I am proud of (most of) my work for BLS Advocate.  Of course I wrote 24 pieces, and some of them became extremely esoteric (i.e. http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/negligent-infliction-of-emotional_16.html), but overall, I think I wrote relatively well.  Some people just didn't get the joke.

#2: I never said the scamblogs were wrong.

This is what infuriates me most: the only reason I became a target is because I made some very mild comments!  I called the blog in question "an especially vicious site that seems to revel in parade after parade of horribles."  I guess the really offensive thing is that I may have expressed what appeared to be sympathy for a person that has been skewered about ten times worse than I have, but who truly can "turn the other cheek" because fighting back is beneath her and she would rather have everyone wonder what she does than answer why she needs to get paid like half a million dollars a year, but whatever.  What would be really cool is if she would notice what was going on, and pay me to "take care of the situation"--but I am sure she would rather pay her personal attorney than one of her "victims."

#3: I never took the NY Bar Exam.

And I did pass the Illinois Bar Exam.  You can check iardc.org now if you need proof.
Actually, those commenters on story #2 alerted me to the fact that there was one more hoop to jump through after being sworn-in: registering.  I registered a couple weeks after the comments came in that I was a liar.

Why did I not take the NY Bar Exam?  I really don't think I need to explain myself, but people seem to want to know.  First of all, let me agree with the person that said I was a "fucking idiot" for going back to Illinois.  I know--it was a mistake.  It is very hard to start off in a "new" city, even if you were born here and did your post-2L summer internship here.  I certainly made more "contacts" in NYC, but most of those contacts were at the places I interned.

And I really did want to stay in NYC.  I interviewed with one of those places where I did an internship, and I made it to the final round--but alas, I was not hired.  At that point, I had registered for the NY Bar Exam.  However, I cancelled that registration, and received a $250 refund (so for all the hesitant bar takers out there--it is possible!  But you may need to show them a copy of your bank account balance).  And, yes, I paid $1,450 to register in Illinois.  It hurt, but so did paying like $1,800 to have my stuff (which wasn't even very much stuff!) shipped from Brooklyn to Chicago and stored for two months.  And it hurt paying $1,080 for first month rent + security deposit without knowing when I would (or if I ever would) have stable income again.

But, I knew it wasn't likely that I would get a job at any of the other places I interned.  They just weren't the types of places to be able to hire all (or most) of their past interns.  I guess most places that do internships (and not summer associate-ships) are like that--but I always did my best at internships, with an eye towards the future.  It almost worked out a couple times, but in the end it didn't, and while it was a painful decision, I just didn't want to face the horrible reality of taking the NY Bar while trying to find an apartment with a dwindling cash reserve and no proof of stable employment.  I would have had to move out of my place two days after I took it.

So for the person that said it was "well-known" that I stayed in New York until August, you are correct!  I flew back to Chicago, stayed here a few days, took the Bar, passed it (somehow--and I find it offensive that some of these commenters think I am a cocky POS when I have always been painfully honest about my grades and general level of intelligence), flew back to NYC, packed up my apartment, and then went to my sister's wedding in Massachusetts.  I stayed so I could go to that wedding, and because I was working two days a week at the library.

#4: I did not move to California (that happened six-and-a-half years ago)

Seriously, why would I take the NY Bar if I was moving to California?  The only time I contemplated moving to California after law school was when I interviewed for a bankruptcy clerkship in Oakland.  I would never voluntarily go to CA to take the Bar there.  That is the hardest bar exam in the country by a lot.  However, if I was dead-set on moving there, I would have taken it over the NY Bar because it really would be retarded to think I'd be competitive in the job market there without in-state licensure.

I did move to Calfornia in 2007.  But this is going to get into the fact that my life is "all sorts of epic fail," a comment that especially made me want to kill myself.  Oh, don't let me confuse the issues here!  This is not about cyberbullying; this is about cyber libel.  It's not like I have a great reputation, okay, but when they swore us in on Halloween, all they wanted to talk about was that constant refrain that it takes years to build your reputation and minutes to destroy it, so be careful.  And I have been pretty careful.  People may think I'm reckless, but honestly, I have always been paying attention to the things I write and post online and the way I carry myself in day-to-day reality.

I moved there, and--what happened there, I will not tell.  I'll let other people try to figure it out for themselves.  But I will admit that Flying Houses was born in West L.A.

I'll also admit that I've pretty much said what I wanted to say, and unfortunately, I just have to record everything else that everyone got wrong.

#5: I am not a vegan.

But I wish I could be.

#6: I never wrote an e-book called "Derailed at my Law School"

And I would never publish a 25-page e-book.  A 25-page book is probably not worth $0.99 (especially if it's electronic).

#7: I do allow comments on my site.

Even negative ones.  But I delete spam.

#8: I don't always defend BLS.

I was complimenting the comment about the entering class size at BLS being too big.  Some people just do not want to say a single nice thing about anybody.  :(

#9: I am not Odnan.

I really didn't want to have to get into this either, but I seriously would not be so lame as to make a "copycat blog" or to write another e-book called "How to Win at Law School." While those may be uncanny parallels (perhaps Mr. Infinity does moonlight as Odnan), when I write an e-book, it's going to be called "TTT" or "A Mark" - not something lame and generic.  I also wouldn't waste my time creating mirror blogs to make it seem like I have more fans than I really do.  I'm proud of the fact that I have 52,000 page views.  My audience is limited, but I care about creating quality content--not becoming a limited public figure.

#10: I am not going to address all of the comments after story #1.

It would take too long and get too tedious.

#11: I did not talk down to JD Painter.

And I would never make fun of someone who was deeply in debt and unable to get a decent job in the legal industry.  That is just mean.  And yes, I guess we are now in the same boat.

#12: I am not $300,000 in debt.

But I may be after 24 years of IBR at $30/month or whatever it ends up being if I attempt to live off tips.  Wait for my blog and new pseudonym: JD Waiter.

I have nothing more to say except that I have always intended for my writing to bring other people a brief moment of happiness, or to feel less alone.  I would never write about a person to try to destroy them unless they had done something pretty bad to me or someone I loved.  I don't think I've done that and don't feel I deserve to be treated this way.  People feel free to act like dicks on the internet because they can hide behind a pseudonym or declare themselves anonymous and nobody will ever call them out on that.  But I honestly hope that one day all of the hurtful and insensitive comments, made with reckless disregard for the truth, will be treated as unprotected speech, as they are words that, by their very utterance, tend to inflict harm.

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.