Law School Discussion

In at Chicago via e-mail!

I take it this is definitely not pants.

Congrats!

Quote from: WheelsUp on February 23, 2009, 08:24:32 PM

And, yes, as LawDog mentioned, I'm concerned that we're the ONLY ones in this discussion that have even mentioned that the OP needs to seek out his legal options. This is his whole career on the line. I understand that the knee jerk reaction is to say, "we have enough lawyers, we don't need rotten ones." But that's not our position to say. There's a lot of facts we simply don't know, specifically about the level of authorization the boss has permitted the OP. What some have advocated is the equivalent of telling a criminal, "Well, you've committed a crime. You're a bad person, and I would never do what you did. You don't deserve a defense, because there is simply no justification for theft."  If you think this is an exaggerated analogy, here are a few lines from this ongoing discussion:

“… I don't want you as member of my profession. Lawyers already have a bad name and we don't need people like you making it worse…”

“you are a bad person. Bad people fake their own LORs and forge people's name. Yep.”

“Honestly, if I knew who you were I'd contact the schools that admitted you. Be thankful for that.”

“… you deserve to have your admissions rescinded…and if LSAC had never called your boss, you would feel no remorse.

 “…there is NO justification for what you did. None.”

Thanks for snipping all my quotes! Now here's one by you:

"I understand that the knee jerk reaction is to say, "we have enough lawyers, we don't need rotten ones." But that's not our position to say."

YES, IT IS OUR POSITION.

What do you not understand about that? The legal profession is self-regulating. We are the ones that will decide the rules of conduct that apply to our profession. It is our "position" to say "we don't need rotten" lawyers.

The people in law school now -us- will be the ones that sit on benches and committees that will write and interpret rules of professional conduct. Not some separate body of non-lawyers but the legal profession itself.

As lawyers to be we have every right to advocate on behalf of a better profession. A profession without people like nola.

Quote from: WheelsUp on February 23, 2009, 09:50:54 PM

I agree with you, TTom, up to a point. We WILL one day be those people. But we are not yet those people. We do not have the full experience, expertise, and understanding of the profession to say whether the OP will be a good lawyer or not. Nor do we know whether he'll be a rotten lawyer based on this one-time incident. As I've said many times before, and this still goes unrefuted, the OP's fate is not sealed. As far as we know, the OP has not shown a pattern of this behavior, and, given what little we know of this incident, I believe reform is still possible.

Secondly, we are not sufficiently in command of the facts to say whether the OP's conduct was justified. For this reason, among others, I believe that the OP deserves a vigorous defense that gets all the facts presented in the most favorable light possible. Heaven knows that LSAC will do what it can to present the opposite. As LawDog, Como te llamas, and I have said, the guy deserves a defense.

I've have never said that nola shouldn't try to defend him/herself. Only that I don't wish nola luck in succeeding, because I find nola's action indefensible.

Although I agree that we don't know "all the facts," there are NO facts that could reveal themselves that would justify what nola did. Seriously, what possible facts would justify making up a letter of recommendation and forging someone's name? Even IF nola's boss said nola could (and nola's boss did not give nola permission), this still would not have justified it.

Jesus Christ I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're a troll or just an ass.

If you are not a troll nor an ass and are actually impassioned by Nola's malfeasance, you are making a mistake by judging Nola in a vacuum. It should be obvious why it's a problem to determine morally corrupt character on a single instance of poor judgment that is relatively minor.  If s/he was a serial killer, your passion would be vindicated, but I would think a reasonable person would need more evidence to leap from morally corrupt decision to morally corrupt character as you seem so eager to do.

And this ignores the notion that people have the capability of learning from their mistakes, but it seems in his perfection TTom is unaware of such a phenomenon.  For all we know, Nola will become the most ethically rigid and ethically just individual in the world because of this event.

I think we may need a thread for everyone to discuss their most unique soft factors (negative and positive) along with an analysis regarding how much they helped or hurt you.

That actually would be quite useful I imagine.

Quote from: tcwhat on February 20, 2009, 11:27:46 AM

Waitlisted at Duke, really I'm kind of surprised about it.  Was expecting a rejection.

tcwhat,

I saw your lsn profile. What did you get arrested for?

Which time?

tc, Duke seems to care about about GPA - more than most of its peer institutions, so this was somewhat promising opposed to your other shocking dings.

Is there something about your application that you haven't shared which explains why we all feel badly for you?

Perhaps.  I plan on being more forthright upon the completion of my cycle since I do have some very usual aspects about my app.

Waitlisted at Duke, really I'm kind of surprised about it.  Was expecting a rejection.