So the other day I started writing this post, the third in my series, and then this thing happened, and then I had to rename part 3 into part 4 because now part 3 has to be about this thing that happened.

Here’s what happened. I was doing a whole bunch of things at once, a practice we innovators call multitasking, and one of those tasks I was multi-ing was watching my Twitter stream. I follow between 450-500 people on Twitter at any given time. I follow all sorts of people: reporters, people who blog about politics from the left and the right, people whom I just find to be entertaining for some reason, and even a few celebrities. But mostly I follow law students and lawyers. I mean, it’s what I am and what I aim to be. This isn’t rocket science. If it was, I’d follow rocket scientists.

Anyway, there I was, multitasking like a champ, and this comes across my Twitter stream:

Anyone who tells you to take the summer off before law school instead of preparing, either made “B”s or has a very short memory.

Now y’all. There is so much wrong with this statement I hardly know where to begin.

For starters, since when is a B such a bad thing? You’ll recall (because I know you read part 2 of this series, in which I explained in so many words that B is the first letter in BFF) that the orientation gurus will tell you over and over that a C is a good grade in law school. To hear this guy talk, though, a B is the Mark of the Law School Flunkie. Wrong. There is nothing in the world wrong with a B, especially if you go to a school that curves to a C+ or even lower. And considering how many law schools are starting to either inflate their students’ grades or drop the grading system altogether in favor of a modified pass/fail system, grades are becoming more and more meaningless anyway.

Also, WTF Captain Generalization? This guy makes all kinds of assumptions about people’s grades and their memories based on the advice they give regarding what to do the summer before you start law school. Does that make any sense? Does that seem responsible? Of course it doesn’t. I mean, this guy wasn’t directing his comment at me specifically, but as someone who has most certainly advised you to take the summer off before law school, it ruffled my feathers a bit.

But really, the thing that just made my outrage-ometer soar off the charts is this: the guy who tweeted the above statement? He’s an author. Oh hey and guess what kind of book he’s selling? Oh wow, that’s weird. This guy sells a book that’s all about how to spend the summer before you start law school PREPARING FOR LAW SCHOOL.

Huh.

So wait. You’re saying there’s this guy who sells a book (and presumably makes a profit of some sort) that professes to tell you how to prepare for law school, and that same guy also says that anyone who disagrees with him either must have gotten B’s or has a short memory?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

So, being the snarky bitch that I am, I tweeted this in response:

Anyone who sells books about preparing for law school either couldn’t hack it as a lawyer or has a very short memory.

I mean, two can play at this game.

But really, this whole episode got me to thinking. Who are the people who advise you to do all this preparatory work the summer before you start law school?

Almost invariably, they are people selling you the (best) means by which you are to prepare.  (I say “almost invariably” because I do know anecdotally of one current law student who recommended a specific pre-law-school prep program to an incoming 1L.) If you search for “law school” on amazon.com, you get 28,972 results (at the time of this writing). The book written by Captain Generalization above is somewhere on the first page of the search results, along with however many other bazillion books that claim to have the secret to law school success. But did you ever wonder whether all those books have the same secret? I mean, there can’t be that many different secrets to law school success, right? Weird.

No matter how you slice it, there are a bunch of people out there making a shit-ton of money preying upon the insecurities of future 1Ls. An entire industry has grown up around the concept that law school is this dark, scary, mysterious place where gunners stealthily deploy biological weapons against unsuspecting classmates and professors randomly behead students who can’t withstand the Socratic scrutiny. Now, all I can speak about with any authority is my own law school experience. And in my experience, this is simply not the case.

Now I know you guys already know this because you read part 2 of my series, in which I told you in so many words the dirty little secret: law school just isn’t as hard as some would have you believe. I’m not being glib here. It’s new, and different, and challenging for sure. And it definitely is difficult. It may even be the most difficult challenge you’ve encountered to this point in your life. But y’all. It’s not like climbing Mount Everest. You don’t have to train for months and months just to make your first attempt at it, only to reach the third base camp and get frostbite and get sent back down the mountain to try again in another year or two. Thousands of people graduate from law school every year. Most of those people do so without having spent a fortune preparing for law school before they started. Some of the people who graduate from law school will do so still not knowing that it’s “would have been” and not “would of been.” This makes my toenails curl up, but it’s the truth.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less whether you take my advice or leave it. That’s why it’s free. I have no personal stake in your success or lack thereof in law school. Odds are, you don’t go to my school, you don’t live in my city or even my state, and we’ll never even meet, so whether you do well or not has no effect on me personally. Unlike Captain Generalization, I do not profit based on whether I can scare you into taking my advice.

But for god’s sake, you’re going to law school. Use your brain. It’s time to employ your critical thinking skills. Think about what motivates people, especially people who are trying to convince you that you can’t fully succeed without buying their snake oil. If you really and truly believe in your heart of hearts that you need to spend over a thousand dollars on a law prep class and/or hundreds of dollars on law prep books, do that. But if it gives you pause to think of spending a thousand dollars preparing for the education that’s going to cost you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, don’t worry that you’ll be behind in some way or at a disadvantage. You won’t.

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
ME: Whichever kind somebody will pay me to do, I suppose.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little unfair to label this as a pet peeve. It’s not every person in the world’s fault that I’ve grown weary of answering (or not answering, to be more accurate) these questions. The thing is, there’s really no way to properly answer them. Either you lie…

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
LIAR ME: It’s fantastic! I love it so much I get up every morning at 5:30 just bursting with pride and joy. I even sleep with my casebooks!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
LIAR ME: See above. Also, if I could just win the lottery, I’d choose to be a law student fo-evah.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
LIAR ME: Oh, finals were so much fun! Like seriously, I studied all throughout the semester and I took copious, relevant notes during classtime, plus I developed the most kickass outlines of all time. So, yes, I think I did really well. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna ace this thing. It was so awesome to get to put all my good knowledge to work!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
LIAR ME: Well, actually, my professors have already graded all my exams and emailed the results to me privately. But shhh! I’m not supposed to tell anybody because everyone else is waiting impatiently for their grades. I got all A++++++’s!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
LIAR ME: Oh, definitely. I mean, I’m not really in it for the money. I just want to help people. That’s what it’s all about. So probably I’ll just concentrate on pro bono work for the homeless midget population.

… or you sound like a whiny emo whiner.

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
WHINY EMO ME: Oh. My. Gawd. It’s so so horrible. I hate its guts. Every morning I wake up and I wish I had the swine flu so I didn’t have to go to class. I can’t even find my casebooks.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
WHINY EMO ME: Are you kidding me? Let me try to think of something remotely similar in terms of brutal torture and sheer horror… Well, I got nothin. It takes too much energy and law school has consumed all my energy.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
WHINY EMO ME: Well? By “well” do you mean something better than the lowest grade in the class? Because I think *maybe* there’s one person who could’ve scored lower than I did, and that’s because he just didn’t show up for exams at all. Exams were horrible. Four hours in a cold room with a computer screen and an empty brain. I bombed. I’m flunking out of law school.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
WHINY EMO ME: Never, I hope. I’ve heard they send grades out in descending order, so every day that goes by without grades is just another nail in my job-finding coffin. *deep sigh*
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
WHINY EMO ME: I’m not even so sure I want to practice law. Assuming that I flunk out of law school this semester, I’m just gonna find some menial job in some boring cubicle somewhere and shuffle papers. Or perhaps a career in retail sales at the mall.

You see, neither of those approaches is really a winner. So I just stick with the standard, “Um, I don’t know.” Eventually they stop asking questions. Anyway, it’s kinda pointless to try to talk about law school with people who have never been to/aren’t currently in law school. It’s just impossible to understand.

So, people-of-the-world-who-aren’t-in-law-school-currently-and-have-never-been, a word of friendly advice: If you start asking your local law student friend/relative/acquaintance questions about law school and you start getting a lot of this look…

… save your local law student the trouble of having to try to figure out the appropriate answers to those questions. I have all the answers right here. And my fellow law students, feel free to refer your friendly inquiring relatives/friends/acquaintances here for the answers they seek. They mean well, so don’t be rude.

• Law school is law school. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it sucks. It’s just varying degrees of suckage. I don’t know that it’s ever particularly pleasant, except on those days when certain people get what’s coming to them. Those days are satisfying.
• Obviously I like law school to some degree; I haven’t dropped out yet. If I hated its guts for real, I wouldn’t waste my time. “Like” is probably not the best choice of words, but I’ll say this: It’s definitely challenging, and I like challenges. Sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes it’s not, but overall the experience has been more positive than negative.
• Exams are hard. Some are harder than others, but they’re all hard. I have no idea how I did. And really, how well I think I may have done on the exams is completely irrelevant. It’s all up to the professor and the other students in my section. So, no, I have no clue, and in fact I’d kinda like to maintain my blockade of those thoughts.
• Grades will come out sometime within the next several weeks. I don’t know when that will be. I refuse to sit at my laptop hitting the F12 button every few minutes in anticipation, although the urge to do that is sometimes very strong. Please, please don’t remind me that I haven’t checked for grades in a few hours.
• Honestly, I don’t have any idea what kind of law I want to practice. After one whole semester in law school, I can say with full confidence that I don’t want to draft contracts for a living. Although I will do just that, if it’s the best job I can find.

Now can we go ahead and eat dinner?

Disclaimer: The posting of this video does not necessarily imply an endorsement of the views contained therein. (Is that good lawyer language?)

Now, with those two things out of the way, please feast your eyes (and ears) on the angriest white male in the universe (hat tip: @huffingtonpost).

image credit: Paul Sancya / Associated Press

Tonight I watched this poor schmuck Levi Johnston on Larry King. Hey, there was nothing else on, okay? For your reading pleasure, I have compiled my offensive, cynical, and jaded thoughts below.

• Levi totally needs to be on either some Prozac or Wellbutrin or something, maybe both. This guy has the flattest affect of anybody I’ve ever seen on TV. Also, I have to roll my eyes when people who have scheduled media interviews then use said media attention to then complain about the constant media attention they receive. Puh-lease.
• When asked where he was when John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, Levi says that he was out sheep hunting with his dad. Er, sheep hunting? Sheep? Does that require some special skill? Like 20/100 vision?
• According to Sarah Palin, Bristol, the unmarried teenage mom, is busy now with work, school, and, oh yeah, promoting sexual abstinence. Huh? Oh, you mean like how I’m busy with work, school, and promoting alcohol abstinence? I see. Youbetchya.
• Levi’s mom wouldn’t even say whether she was innocent of the drug charges she acquired late last year. Is that weird? However, she did say that if any of us have any questions, we can ask her lawyer, Rhett Rex Butler.
• Apparently Bristol told Levi that he wasn’t allowed to even talk to his own sister for a while because Bristol didn’t like some of the sister’s friends. According to the sister, Mercede (no, that’s not a misspelling — it doesn’t have an S on the end), some of her friends used to date Levi, and Bristol didn’t much like the thought of her man ever having eyes for anyone else. So, she put the kiebash on communication between Levi and his sister. Here’s the worst part: apparently little Levi did as he was told. Who does that? Pathetic.
• Fair warning to you in the lower 48: Levi’s sister wants to be a surgeon in a state other than Alaska.

That’s pretty much it. As you might have guessed, I don’t like the Palins or the Johnstons particularly. This whole debacle is just ridiculous, and it wouldn’t be getting any media attention at all had John McCain chosen someone different (read: worthy) to be his running mate. Having gotten this out of my system, though, now I feel bettah.

So AIG had long ago written contracts with some of its higher paid executives in which they were asked to work for an annual salary of $1 per year, with the promise of bonuses to be paid in March 2009. The stated purpose of this was to retain the services of those who would be most able to lead AIG out of its huge pit of quicksand. It’s actually a decent argument. After all, if you were a competent person at the top of AIG and you knew first-hand what a house of cards it really was, wouldn’t you want to leave when the cards started to tumble? And besides, who really wants to work for $1 per year for a company whose name has become synonymous with “pile of crap?”

Now, even though it’s currently the trendy thing to deny any knowledge of said contracts and to simultaneously express disgust and outrage at the payment of these contractually obligatory bonuses, somebody somewhere stuck that provision into the “stimulus” package. Exactly who did it and at whose behest is up for grabs at the moment, and it really doesn’t even matter that much. The point is this: The stimulus package that nobody had time to read, that emergency spending measure that was supposed to stimulate the economy and get it moving again to avoid the meltdown — remember it? Anybody who voted for it, and certainly the messiah who signed it into law, now has proverbial blood on his hands, whether they read the thing or not. Their votes and signatures are endorsements of whatever was in that bloated bill. But, again, I digress.

So the media picks up on these bonus payments by AIG to some of its top executives, which, as previously noted, totaled $165 million, or less than 0.1% of the amount of the taxpayer dollars that AIG has received. Obviously this doesn’t look good, and the public is outraged that their dollars are being used to pay giant sums of money to people who apparently aren’t very good at their jobs. Congresspeeps, sensing a ripe opportunity for their favorite activity, grandstanding, decide to levy an astounding 90% tax on that bonus money, which effectively amounts to a bill of attainder, which is, of course, clearly unconstitutional and illegal. And stupid, too.

Here is the relevant part of the Constitution. Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 says that “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.”

Now, I’m not a lawyer (yet), but it seems to me to be pretty clear. There are a ton of lawyers in Congress, and how they can reconcile their 90% bonus tax with the Constitution is beyond me. AIG had negotiated these contracts — whether anybody else likes them or not — and they had to be honored. We can’t have the federal government coming in and tearing up contracts made between two consenting entities just because they become unpopular. If the government wanted to negate the bonus contracts, they should have let AIG go bankrupt. The fact that AIG needed a bailout at all proves that maybe, just maybe, there are some money management problems there, so no one should be surprised when AIG does some stupid things with taxpayer dollars. Nevertheless, under pressure from Congress, the White House, the media, and buses full of angry mobs, some of these AIG executives have agreed to give back at least a portion of their bonus money.

But not Jake DeSantis. Channeling Ayn Rand, Mr. DeSantis submitted his resignation letter not only to Edward Liddy, CEO of AIG (who is also working for $1 per year), but also to the New York Times for publication on today’s editorial page and for the enjoyment of all. The full two-page letter can be found here, and it’s really worth the read if you have time, but here are a few of my favorite excerpts (emphasis added):

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter…

…I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

…I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

…I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

…At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

…You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings.

…As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threa
tened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

…I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

…I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

**********

Brilliant.

Love this guy.

Here is his YouTube page. Also, you can follow him on Twitter — I do!

This prompted all kinds of outrage in Washington and beyond. The Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is planning to subpoena AIG to find out exactly who received this money and exactly how much. Harry Reid called the bonus money “beyond outrageous.” Nancy Pelosi, everyone’s favorite grandma, pulled out some of the best adjectives of all: “unconscionable” and “extravagant,” to name a few. The messiah himself, once again finding himself strangely impotent in the face of real life, declared this an “outrage” and an affront to our “fundamental values.” Barney Frank, rightly noting the taxpayers’ 80% ownership of AIG, mused that “maybe it’s time to fire some people.” In its defense, AIG claims that it was contractually obligated to make these disbursements.

SIDEBAR: Are you paying attention to this, all you banks who took the government’s money? Did you really think there wouldn’t be a nightmarish tangle of strings attached? As Pops always used to say, you can do whatever you want with your own money; if you’re using my money, I get to have a say. So to all you banks and financial institutions who mismanaged your companies and then accepted the government’s money as an easy way out, I hope you enjoyed your autonomy.

Let’s put this in some perspective here, okay? I mean, $165 million is a lot of money. A lot. But you know what’s an even more humongous amount? Ginormous, even? $170 billion. That’s billion with a B. All these elected officials are having a major cow over an amount of money paid out in bonuses that represents one-tenth of one percent of the amount of the bailout AIG received. Again, for clarity: $165 million in AIG bonus money is equal to roughly 0.1% of the $170 billion that the taxpayers were compelled, without their consent, to donate to the corporate sinkhole known as AIG. So please, senators, congresspeople, and messiah, spare me your manufactured indignation. Now here’s one final number for you to put in your pipe before you start smoking:

Yep, you read that right. Despite the infusion of $170 billion in taxpayer dollars to AIG, they still managed to post a $61.7 billion dollar loss for the 4th quarter of 2008. I must have missed all the outrage caused by that, right?

Oh, by the way, my favorite quote of the day by an outraged senator comes from Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa:

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “pop?” A loud noise? A sudden movement or burst of activity? Maybe popcorn or a soft drink? All normal associations. How about an oven? A refrigerator? Maybe a piece of meat? Didn’t think so. Apparently it’s very fashionable to use the verb “to pop” instead of “to place” or “to set” or “to put.” For example, “I’m going to pop this into the oven,” or, “Just pop this in the fridge and let it marinate for three hours,” or, “This most recent bastardization of the English language might make my eyeballs pop.” Oh, wait a second. That last one was me.

This popping phenomenon is really getting to me. There are already a number of words to describe the act of a dish entering an oven or other large appliance. Why the need to add yet another meaning to a word which already has several meanings? There’s no answer to this, of course. To be fair, only a select few of the Food Network show hosts are committing this offense, but it was bad enough a couple of days ago that it inspired this manifesto. As for me, I’m going to pop on over to another channel, or maybe I’ll pop onto the Internet for some browsing as a way to pass the time between Law & Order reruns.