Reconstructing Law School

Public Interest Summer Job Hunt Webinars

2012-02-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Still looking for a public interest summer position? Need some tips and tricks? Well, you're in luck! NALP and Equal Justice Works have made their webinars available to stream online. And, since they are free, it's definitely worth checking out.

The groups put on two webinars during January: The Summer Public Interest Job Search Part I — Best Practices in Drafting Cover Letters and Resumes and The Summer Public Interest Job Search Part II — Best Practices in Interviewing and In-person Networking. You can get links to both webinars as well as PDFs of the slides on NALP's website.

Reconstructing Law School Diversity Digest: Week Ending February 3, 2012

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Susan G. Komen abandons women and stops contributing to Planned Parenthood.

...and then (sort of) changes their minds.

Wet Books: Libro Traficante infiltrates Arizona.

Check out PSLawNet: for the NALP Public Interest Employment Market Snapshot Report.

Time to Celebrate

2012-02-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

Remember that asylum case I was working on? Ok, you probably don't. I wrote about it back in March 2011. Anyway, it took longer than expected to get an interview date, and then it took seven months to get a decision.

Well I finally have happy news to share. Last week, I found out that my sweet, amazing, wonderful fifteen year old client was granted asylum! I couldn't be more excited for her.

Reconstructing Law School Diversity Digest: Week Ending January 27, 2012

2012-01-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

Leadership Council on Legal Diversity launches "Success in Law School" mentoring program of 1Ls.

The New York Times covers the ongoing affirmative action war.

UK court may be more divers soon. Do you think they'll start making those wigs in multicultural hair colors?

Wall Street Journal proposes getting rid of law schools.

How to Survive the "What are you doing next?" Question

2012-01-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

‘Tis the season! And by season I mean the time when 3Lsstart the end of their law school career. The season when every relative andnon-law school friend you have relentlessly asks you, “So, what will you bedoing next!?” And well, let’s admit it, it’s not appropriate to answer “fuck ifI know” at the dining room table.

Hopefully you’re one of those blessed (not to mention hardworking) people who landed a job the via the traditional OCI-SummerAssociate-First Year track. Or maybe you worked a really great public interestinternship and your organization has already found the funding to hire you.Congratulations.

But, statistically speaking, most law grads are not in thatboat. Instead, you’re relentlesslysending out resumes while reading New York Times articles about what a sham lawschool is and looking into LLM programs. So what’s a law school student (orrecent grad) to do with a family member who is unintentionally attacking what’sleft of your self-esteem? You have to turn this potentially awkward moment intosomething positive. Because, let’s be honest, you don’t have lot of otheroptions. Here are a few tips for making it through the next few months:

1. Remember, your mom/uncle/ex-girlfriend meanswell.

Ok, maybe not your ex-girlfriend. Buteveryone else…they mean well. Most of us spend at least a few weeks or monthsjob hunting before we land the perfect gig. It’s not just you who is gettingrejection letters. The rejection, and not the normalcy of it, is what comes tomind first when you have to tell Uncle Bob that you’re still on the job market.The thing to remember is that Uncle Bob is not trying to rub the rejection inyour face. He’s just trying to find out more about you. So try not to get too frazzled.

2. Most people don’t know that it’s a tough jobmarket for new lawyers.

What does every TV mom want theirchild to grow up to be? A doctor or a lawyer of course! What Mrs. Brady didn’tbother to explain to the American public, however, are the crippling debtratios and limited positions for recent grads. It’s hard when your family andfriends don’t understand the employment landscape. I took to forwarding some ofthose super depressing ABA Journal articles to my parents every few weeks. Theygot the picture.

3. Embrace the networking opportunities.

Once you realize that people aren’ttrying to rub your nose in your own unemployment it’s easier to use theseconversations as an opportunity to network. Rehearse your elevator speech. Itmay seem weird to need it at your cousin’s wedding or Easter dinner….but youwill. You don’t need to talk about rejection. Instead, talk about the positiveexperiences you’ve had over the last few years and the way you’re hoping to usethem in the future. You never know when and where your next opportunity willcome from.

Reconstructing Law School Diversity Digest: Week Ending December 16, 2011

2011-12-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

The New York Times engages a diverse panel to "rethink how the law is taught."

25% of work comes from RFPs, and RFPs ask for diversity data. Woot!

The Careerist published a depressing post about how clients aren't actually pushing large law firms for more diversity.

Guttmacher Institute publishes first comprehensive study of is getting second-trimester abortions.

The New York Times is asking why we wont admit that class matters.

Drowning in Debt? Learn How Government and Nonprofit Workers Can Earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness

2011-12-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Equal Justice Works is offering a free webinar tomorrow, Decebmer 16th from 3-4p EST. I love EJW, they are so helpful and provide useful information for government and nonprofit attoreney.

This webinar is sure to be a valuable resource for anyone with high educational debt planning to work or currently working for the government or a nonprofit, this webinar explains how you can benefit from the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

From this interactive webinar, you will learn and be able to ask questions about:

Understanding your Federal loans
How the Income-Based Repayment plan works
How to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

To Register for free, click here. For more information about other Equal Justice Works offerings, click here.

5 Great Mobile Apps for Law Students

2011-12-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

I got my smart phone halfway through law school. I swore I didn't need the costly device...and then, six months later, I didn't know what I ever did without it. If you're a law student or new attorney here are some mobile apps that are worth checking out.

Nolo's Plain English Law Dictionary - You know, like Black's but cheaper. In fact, it's free through the iTunes app store, it's $16.99 for andriod. We all know that guessing at words during your first year of law school is probably a bad idea. If you aren't using West Law to access Black's Law dictionary for free, then I recommend adding a legal dictionary to your phone. It's more convenient (and cheaper) than getting out the big hard copy version.

Google Shopper - Sure, it may not sound law related, but hear me out. When you're in law school (or, um, job hunting) you have no money. Well, you have some money, but it's faked loaned money so really shouldn't count that. Stretching a dollar matters and Google Shopper is one way to a buck go farther. This free app allows you to scan bar codes, the magic of google then scourers the internet to determine if the product is cheaper somewhere else. So, before you buy those 30 packs of flashcards at Target, consult Google Shopper to see if they are cheaper on Amazon.

Kindle App - I had a Kindle in law school so I found this app very helpful. Now that the app is available for laptops as well as mobile devices this might be great even if you don't have a Kindle. You know those West Law and Lexis print outs? The 100s of page so of journal articles you printed for that tax paper you're working on? Well, you can save an electronic copy and then save it as Kindle content. Suddenly you carrying around your kindle, laptop, or smart phone rather than three binders worth of print outs. This app was, literally, a back saver for me.

Barbri & Kaplan - Both of the largest commercial bar prep companies finally have mobile apps. You have to be signed up with their service, but if you plan to take the bar you should sign up for bar prep as soon as possible anyway since both companies offer discounts for advanced registration. Both these apps offer bar prep as well as MPRE prep. Hey, you never know when you're going to be stuck on the bus have time to get a few practice questions.

Evernote - This free app is a to do list on steroids. It allows you to take notes, capture photos, make to-do lists, and record voice notes...and then makes them all searchable. Thanks to the handy dandy sync feature you can access the notes on multiple devices. So much better than the crappy memo app that probably came pre-loaded on your phone.

Reconstructing Law School Diversity Digest: Week Ending December 9, 2011

2011-12-09T14:56:00.001-07:00

Just what we need! Another fourth tier law school! Welcome Savannah Law School.

The ABA give ground on law schools' graduate jobs data reporting.

The U.S. (finally!) urges colleges and universities to gain diversity.

Good and bad law firms show up on HRC's 2012 Corporate Equality Index.

9th Circuit weighs Walker's handling of Prop 8 case.

Baker & Daniels awards 2012 Diversity Scholarships.

Colbert responds to Perry's crazy offensive campaign ad.

Reflections on Taking (and Not Taking) the Bar Exam

2011-12-08T10:30:00.001-07:00

I got this email a few months back (fan mail! woot!)...and I was too ashamed to write back to her. I suppose I should start from the begining, here are the important parts of the email:

I, like you, graduated from one of the law schools in May 2011. After a week of attending Barbri, last night I decided I had it with the law school and law profession. I decided not to take the bar exam. I typed something along those lines in Google and your weblog came up. I am not even sure why I decided to email you. I think if I tell anyone I know that I decided not to take the Bar, they will freak out. I do not think anyone who is not involved in law have an understanding of how it is and how it can destroy your spirit.

Years of isolation and feeling that I did not have a tiniest bit in common with the people in law school from the law students to professors and 100K plus in loans with one of the most dehumanizing experiences I have ever had in an educational setting, today, I think back and am not even sure why I did not stop the first semester, the first year. Why did I continue? What was I trying to prove?

I do not even know where to start to put my life back together. What should I do now? Where can I work, so I can start paying back for my four years of expensive education which means nothing if you do not take and pass the bar, MPRE, and do the 30 page moral character application. I am done. I do not want to do any of those anymore. But what now? What am I now? I am not a lawyer and will not be one. So having a mere JD puts me in what category?

I have not socialized with people in 4 years. I have been so isolated in my own world studying. I am not even sure if I know how to socialize anymore. I do not know where to start. I am so tired, broken (emotionally and psychologically), and confused. I feel so lonely.

[...]

Reading this now, and admitting that I didn't respond, is making me feel like and even worse person. So...Dear author of this email, I am a bad person and I am sorry.

I didn't write back because I was ashamed that I didn't have the courage that this person had. Admitting that something is not what you thought it would be takes courage. Especially when that something is a $150k law degree and all the societal expectations that accompany it. Realizing that you made a choice that you're not happy with is only a failure if you stick with that choice.

So, do I think it was a mistake for this person to not take the bar exam...no, I don't. As I mentioned in my last post, I did take (and pass) the bar exam. And, honestly, I'm still not sure if I'm glad I did it. I took it mostly because my family and the people at one of my jobs wanted me to. For the record, "because other people wanted me to" is almost never a good reason to do anything. I passed and I like the fact that I'm licensed and now have the option to practice law, but at what cost? I just finished paying off the $2,000 it cost me to take the exam, I gained 15 pounds while I was studying, I spent a couple hundred dollars on therapy, and I didn't got to bed at the same time as my significant other for the entire summer. I also feel like I validated the system by participating in it.

On the upside, it gives me the opportunity to do pro bono work that I'm actually pretty excited about.

I think there's an inclination to try to justify the importance of law school and the bar exam once you've cleared both hurdles. If you don't justify it, you are forced to admit that you just spent a boat load of time and money...on something that may actually be a little bit silly...and may not actually make you competent at practicing law. In short: It's hard to admit that lottery tickets may have been a better investment.

Ok, ok. I'm not being entirely serious. I'm not actually suggesting that student loans would have been better spent on lottery tickets. But I do think that the author of this email is buying into the law school sales pitch a little more than she probably should. Law school can be alienating and awful and if a legal career isn't for you, walking away can be honorable. There are no shortage of "recovered lawyers" (check out Leaving the Law, The Recovering Lawyer, and But I Do Have a Law Degree just to name a few).

I do think that this person will (and probably already has) find/found a great job. Most importantly: a job she is happy at with people she is happy with.

A few months back I read Munneke and Henslee's Nonlegal Careers for Lawyers. Honestly, I wasn't super impressed. There was a lot of "you can be a [insert job that requires a high school education]...but with a law degree!" Despite the book, I do think there are a lot of jobs/careers where a law degree is useful (if not necessary). In fact, according to The National Jurist less than 69% of 2010 law school grads are employeed in jobs where bar passage is necessary.

Moral of the story: Email author, you probably made a good choice. Kudos for being true to youself. I'm sure you will find a job and a career that are great fits for you...and who knows, once you get some distance from the emotional beating that was law school, you may even be glad you got the JD.

I'm back!

2011-12-07T00:01:00.001-07:00

Sorry I've been gone so long. It's been a busy few months...

I took a job.
I ~~got conned into~~ decided to take the bar exam.
I got a dog during bar prep (note: this is a horrible terrible no good idea).
I worked two part time jobs while studying for the bar exam (also, not really recommended).
I passed the bar exam.
I blogged a lot for other sites.
I neglected Reconstructing Law School.
I worked really hard at the job(s).
The job made me cry.
A lot.
I resigned.
...

And now I'm back with new ideas for Reconstructing Law School. Great things are coming. I hope you're still willing to read after my long time away.

I've missed you!

(Dis)Respect

2011-06-07T18:53:00.002-06:00

The Careerist posted a blog about how rude people are more respected than polite people. Vivia Chen cites recent social science research that says, “not smiling, shouting, and generally being unpleasant and disrespectful” gets people respect. She goes onto mention that “successful rude people also know when to turn on the charm. They might treat associates, secretaries, and weaker partners like dirt, but when it comes to clients or those more powerful, they are the sweetest, most solicitous people on earth.”

Pretty gross right? Why is this? Have we just hung onto the grade school idea that if-he-calls-you-names-it-means-he-likes-you for far too long? I’ve never understood why we tolerate rude people. But respect them!? That I will never understand.

I was at a conference last spring and one of my peers recounted a particularly awful summer associate position she once held. “My boss had me in tears,” she recounted. A (male) senior partner in our group responded that the woman needed to toughen up, that rude partners were just the name of the game. I asked what he, as a presumably not rude senior partner, had done in the past to help change the culture he was describing. He was dumb struck. I’m not sure if he was more confused by the idea of changing culture or the idea that he had some responsibility to do so.

What this recent research tells me is: we all have some responsibility to change the culture. As women in the legal profession we can’t just complain about the sexism, the male dominated norms, and the good ol’ boys club. We have to change who we respect. Someone who doesn’t smile and treats those around him or her poorly hardly deserves your respect. S/he should know (or at least be able to garner…assuming this person pays enough attention to others to garner anything) that the values of the other people in the firm are more equitable, inclusive and, well, nice than that.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the polite people of the world fight respect with disrespect. I'm proposing that they fight it with professionalism. Making it (politely) clear what kind of work place and profession they are will (or not willing) to contribute to.

I was at a talk once where Rebecca Walker was speaking about equitable romantic relationships between men and women. She said that if we really wanted equitable personal lives we had to stop choosing and admiring men who were domineering. We had to sensualize equality. Maybe that’s also true for the workplace. If we want equity, we have to prioritize it, seek it out, and foster it. Live our priorities and our values even if it means taking a lower salary, taking our talents elsewhere or asking tough questions.

If you need to...borrow some self confidence from a six year old.

2011-06-03T15:52:00.004-06:00

Bar prep, new job, prepping for law school. If you're in the legal community, whatever you're doing right now is probably a little bit overwhelming (not to mention isolating).

The two videos below just might be the little shot of courage you need. And as a bonus, they both feature people under 3 feet tall. If they can do it....you can do it!

Law School's Final Act of Inclusiveness

2011-05-25T22:28:00.006-06:00

I graduated this weekend. Law school is over. It feels good. But, in true law school form, my legal education got one final jab in.

This, my friends, is the instruction sheet for how to wear my academic hood during graduation. Oh wait, it's not how wear my hood...it's how a man should wear his hood. You know, because all people who graduate from law school are men.

The instruction sheet tells me to do the following:

"1. Put hood on over your head with velvet side up and with small tapered end in front."
Great! I'm on board.

"2. Before closing gown, loop cord on front of hood over shirt/blouse button to keep hood from riding against wearer's neck."
Wait, what now? What button? I'm confused, my graduation dress doesn't have a button.

Sure, some women wear oxford style shirts to graduation; but most do not. So while my hood was sagging around my neck and strangling me, my male counterparts were comfortable and looking well put together. Nothing tells you that you are in a world that was not built for you quite like the graduation regalia literally being made for another gender. Thanks legal profession, I feel so welcome!

Fellowship or Fraud?

2011-05-10T15:43:00.004-06:00

"Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses [...]"

- Wikipedia (take it for whatever it's worth).

The University of Denver recently sent the following email out to all its graduating law students.

Dear 3L and 4LE Students,

To assist May 2011 graduates who have not found employment, the University of Denver Sturm College of Law is pleased to announce the Class of 2011 Faculty Fellows Program. This program offers eligible members of the Class of 2011 the opportunity to work as Research Fellows for SCOL faculty members, providing them with substantive assistance in their scholarly and professional work. We are excited about this new program and believe it is a win-win for faculty and graduating students. Fellows will be paid at the normal RA rate of $9 per hour for part time work that could go until April of 2012 depending on the circumstances. I’ve attached a general student application to be returned to me via hand delivery or email (e-Signatures are acceptable). This general application determines your eligibility for the program and is required in addition to any specific application requirements from the participating faculty members.

The main eligibility requirements are listed below and a full set of eligibility requirements is available upon request.

· All offers for employment as a Faculty Fellow must be made prior to May 21, 2011.

· May 2011 graduates who are currently working as research assistants for SCOL faculty are eligible to continue in their positions after graduation through June 24, 2011 (one month before the bar exam). May 2011 graduates who are not currently working as research assistants for SCOL faculty may apply for a Fellowship and will be eligible for consideration if they affirm in writing that they are not employed in any capacity (legal, non- legal, full time or part time) and have no offer of employment. All Fellows will be given time off to study for the bar exam from June 25, 2011 through completion of the exam. Fellows will be eligible to return to their positions on or about August 1, 2011 only if they affirm in writing that they are not employed in any capacity (legal, non-legal, full time or part time) and have no offer of future employment.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Assistant Dean for Career Opportunities

I sent the Assistant Dean an email inquiring about what effect this program might have on employment statistics and how, specifically, the law school plans on reporting the number of grads that are employed for $9 an hour to future applicants. So far he's only been able to say that he's "working"on a response for me.

Here's how I see it, this program has the possibility to substantially inflate the "employed at graduation" statistic reported in US News. That's a statistic I paid close attention to when I was applying to law school. I decided to invest $150,000 in a legal education based (in part) on the number of graduates who actually had a job when they graduated. I figured, if most of them have jobs, I stand a good chance of being employed as well. And, hence, I'll have a good chance at paying back the loans I'm taking on.

Next year's students could potentially be making a $150,000 investment decision based on inflated data. Sounds like a pretty close cousin to fraud to me. Given all the negative press law schools and their statistics have been getting these days, this program seems irresponsible at best.

"He didn't fall through the cracks, they swallowed him"

2011-05-08T21:54:00.004-06:00

Confession: I generally hate TED talk. I know, I know. People are so smitten with them. Whatever, the whiteness (invite only event with a $6000 price tag anyone?) and male-ness of it generally initiates my gag reflex. That being said, there are always some talks that are pretty impressive.

This is my favorite local poet at a local TEDx (independently organized) event. Totally worth four minutes of your time.

What's a Girl to do?

2011-04-29T10:06:00.001-06:00

I recently participating in a business case competition at my institution. Depending on what team you were assigned to, the challenge was to create a diversity plan for a local bank, alcohol distributor, or energy company. During the introduction meeting a business school professor gave a short talk on presentation best practices. I was buying in until it came to the close of her talk, at which point she said, "Now, five years ago I wouldn't have had to say this but I find that I do need to say it these days. Now, men, when I say 'Dress professionally' you know what the means right? Girls, er, women, I guess I need to tell you: you're not going on a date here."

I nearly dropped out of the competition right then and there. Seriously!? What does it say about the state of affairs when a professor involved in a diversity competition is (1) referring to female graduate students at girls and (2) inferring that we, as a class, are not professional? No one else seemed visibly bothered by the professor's statement but, I for one, felt less welcome. Less included. And more judged. Furthermore, this little announcement, however well intended, sent the men out of the room thinking they were competent and professional. It send the women out of the room thinking they should doubt their ability to dress themselves.

I should admit, I bring my own level of complications to this looking professional equation. At 5'6" and 110 pounds I'm not a very large woman. Hovering around a size 2, youthful smile in tow, I'm often confused for people who are much younger than I am. When I was a substitute teacher administrators often mistaked me for a student, new professors have sometimes assumed I'm a visiting undergraduate and one particularly awful boss insisted on calling me a "kiddo" in front of our board of directors. I'm not going to be 40 anytime soon (and even when I am, I'll probably look 30), so what is a "girl" to do? Here are the best solutions I've come up with:

1. Stop defining "professional" based on a male standard.

Women represent roughly 50 percent of law students. Sure, we may not be the equity partners or decision makers yet; but, we are the future of the labor force. If we continue to buy into the idea that to be professional is to look, sound, and act like a man; not only will the definition of "professional" continue to be markedly male, but we will also always be the sloppy seconds. If male is the standard we will never be able to fully meet, let alone exceed it.

2. I will no longer abandon myself.

I can't change the fact that I am a small, feminine, youthful looking woman. Nor do I want to. What I can change is that fact that I will no longer be apologetic about it. Being 110 pounds doesn't change the fact that I am smart, competent, and come to a future employer (or business case competition) with years of relevant work experience and leadership experience.

Dr. Anna Fels recently spoke on an panel for the ABA's Commission on Women in the Profession. There she pointed out that, "Successful women create an archipelago of supporters throughout their lives." It seems to me that this support system must begin with one's self.

3. It's all subjective.

I've written before about how offensive my career center seems to find peep toe shoes. The business professor apparently thought all the women in the room (mostly dressed in slacks and oxford shirts) were prone to provocative dress. And, when I was 16, my mom always thought I was dressing "like a prude" when I left for dates with my high school admirers. What's the take away here: it's subjective. There are no shortage of opinions when it comes to the topic of how women should look. And, well, most of them are wrong. Yes, there is a time and a place for thigh grazing hem lines; and, it's probably not a boardroom. That doesn't mean that feminine apparel is inherently unprofessional.

James Baldwin on Attacking the Power Structure

2011-04-04T11:39:00.004-06:00

Thanks to (Ne)Grow Knowledge I spent my lunch break watching this and being inspired. Can't stop thinking about attacking the power structure and my own willingness to look at my life and be responsible for it.

James Baldwin, I heart you.

Oh, also, can't really stop thinking about how much I f-ing hate Ann Rand. Where does this kind of responsibility fall in your Objectivist theory Ms. Rand?

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

2011-03-29T23:52:00.005-06:00

I spent approximately half of my undergraduate career in this shirt. Ok, lets be honest, it was shirts...plural. I had at least four shirts and one hoody that announced "This is What a Feminist Looks Like." I may or may not still have two of them. I spent the other half of undergrad in shirts with various plays on the word vagina. I've interned at the Feminist Majority Foundation, volunteered with HRC, been a fundraiser for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, and run a college women's center... and yet, last night I felt like I really earned my shirt(s).

As part of an asylum law clinic I am representing a fourteen year old girl who is a survivor of female genital mutilation. Once called female circumcision or female cutting, FGM is a horrible practice that usually involves cutting off the entire clitoris and sometimes sewing the woman nearly shut. The male equivalent of the cutting would be to remove at least 2/3 of the penis; and, keep in mind, this is usually done without any kind of pain medication.

As I sat in my client's home last night, going over her affidavit to make sure everything was accurate, I realize that this might be the first time anyone was truly listening to her. Obviously her mother, who helped her escape from her home country, knew the kind of danger she was in. And it is clear that her family cares about her. But they've all undergone this horrible procedure as well. I think legal representation might be the first time anyone has asked her about her feelings, complimented her bravery, and ask "Did I understand you correctly? When X happened is it true that you felt Y way?" As we finalized her application last night I could tell that the process made her feel important.

Sitting in her living room I couldn't help but think: this is feminism. Working together, standing up for women's rights, telling each other that we matter and are important. That is what a feminist looks like.

Can't you just hear the sigh of relief?

2011-03-22T11:13:00.002-06:00

Glad I haven't totally thrown away $100,00. Behold the letter every law student wants to have in her hot little hands:

Good Morning,

We have completed the final graduation evaluation for May 2011 graduation and we have found that you are on track to graduate, provided that you successfully complete the credits for which you are currently registered for the Spring 2011 semester.

Please let us know if you have any further questions. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day.

Office Coordinator
Registrar's Office

Women's History: Honoring Our Mentors

2011-03-21T08:00:00.002-06:00

In seventh grade the best guidance counselor I ever had was (confidentially, I now realize) lamenting the fact that an eighth grader had been pressured into attending an alternative school after becoming pregnant. You see, I went to school in the type of community where we didn't want to believe diversity was a good thing. A fairly religious community, we certainly didn't want to believe that we had "the kind of girls" who would get pregnant. Interestingly, they were apparently knocking themselves up because there was no talk about about the kinds of boys who walked amongst us. Accordingly, when a teenager got pregnant the school system was more interested in shipping her out that providing support.

At the end of her thoughts she looked at me and said, "You know, these girls have the right to stay if they want to. Not that I think you'll be in this situation, but I'd like to see them try and kick someone like you out." It was moments like that when I knew I had the strength to be my own person. I'm pretty sure my seventh grade guidance counselor was my first mentor.

Gloria Feldt recently invited people to weigh in on the role of mentors in women's lives. She got me thinking about the mentor I haven't talked to in nearly a decade. Feldt's blog post comes on the heals of a recent Catalyst study that suggested that women need more than mentors. Catalyst also highlights the fact the mentorship is often more beneficial for men than for women.

Gloria's blog asks if women out there have the kind of sponsor (people who do more than just mentor) that Catalyst is talking about. Which got me thinking about a questions I'm often asked: How did you turn out the way you did?

As one professor recently put it, "Girl, you're way past liberal." And yet, I'm the product of republican parents. Although I turned out to be a Fem and Race Crit, my parents were more comfortable just checking "white" on the boxes in grade school (apparently no one ever though this conflicted with my obviously Latino last name). So how did I turn out this way? Some of it was that I have my own take on the way my parents live their lives. But, it was also mentors like the guidance counselor. People who didn't overtly say "I believe in you and your ideas," but who put faith in me. They conveyed that they liked the person I was by trusting my 70 lb, 12 year old self with complex ideas and responsibilities. People who showed support by conveying, "I believe you are important. You're not the kind of person who will always stand up for yourself."

I think Ms. Feldt and Catalyst are saying that we need more people like this. Not the kind of "mentors" that law school and firms assign. Not the kind that take you out to lunch once and show you where the vending machine is. Rather, the kind of people who invest in you; both emotionally and professionally. Folks who are not only willing to promote you, but also sympathize when you might need to cry in their office on occasion. And, most importantly, convey to you that they think you are important.

Alexandra Wallace and the Importance of Anti-Racist Communities

2011-03-18T15:16:00.006-06:00

By now, you've probably all seen the Asians in the Library video but I thought I'd post it above just in case. My first thought: Boobs! What can I say, they're a bit distracting. Once I got past those and fixed my glare upwards a bit (the disclaimer pasted on the version above helps), I couldn't get over the fact this behavior doesn't seem particularly crazy. Sure, most people know better than to post racist rants on the interwebs, but I can't say I've never heard people say this kind of thing in the privacy of their own home, classroom, or frat house.

The startling thing is not that this happened, but that we all know this woman. She sat next to you in Intro to Earth Science right? I'm pretty sure she was in the 5th row next to that guy who always brought corn nuts to class. My point is, beliefs like these are not completely out of the ordinary.

UCLA's Asian Pacific Coalition published an eloquent response to the video. They include appropriate references to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the history of racism in the United States, so I'll skip those here.

In additional to APC's response, I really liked Psychology Today's piece on how this type of racism is constructed in our own heads. The thing that I'm left wondering about is how it is that no one has ever convinced Ms. Wallace that this kind of behavior is wrong. How did she make it all through high school and the beginning of college without realizing that stereotypes and the phrase "ching chong" are just plain degrading?

I've written before about the importance of being an ally; where were the allies at as Ms. Wallace was formulating her ideas? By the age of nine children know what the "cool" shoes are. The five year olds in the science class I used to teach could remind each other about the importance of playing fair. Imagined what the world would look if we normed, for our children and each other, the importance of being anti-racist. What if children understood that they should value diversity before they ever knew to value Disney Princesses?

It's sad that Ms. Wallace didn't have the sense not to say things like this; and, further, not to post them on the internet. But, I think it's more sad that most of us can say we know this person. The question is, have we told her that we don't share in her beliefs?

Scholarships and Resources

2011-03-06T14:20:00.002-07:00

I get numerous postings about opportunities for law students that identify with an underrepresented group. In case you're not on all the same lists I am, her are a few that newly admitted as well as continuing students may want to check out:

The MCCA Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship Program

This is an opportunity for for newly admitted law students (JD candidates for 2014). Scholarship recipients will receive a $10,000 award for the first year of law school. Recipients may qualify for additional financial support in years two and three. The deadline to apply is May 31, 2011. For more information about the MCCA scholarship click here.

The Hispanic Bar Association of Washington, DC Public Interest Fellowship

The HBA-DC Foundation is offering a $5,000 fellowship to two students who are working in public interest this summer. Applications are due April 7, 2011. For more information about the public interest fellowship click here.

NCLR and Patton Boggs Public Interest Fellowship

NCLR and Patton Boggs will award one $10,000 fellowship to a current 1L who is working in public interest this summer. The fellowship is intended to provide funding for a law student working in a public interest legal position that is not otherwise subject to compensation and is located in DC, Denver, New York City, Dallas, or Anchorage. Applications are due April 7, 2011. For more information about the NCLR and Patton Boggs Public Interest Fellowship click here.

HNBA-Prudentail 2011 1L Paid Summer Internship

HNBA and Prudential have partnered to offer a 1L a spot in Prudential's 2011 summer class. The position is located in Newark, NJ and the application deadline is March 10th so hurry and get your application in! Click here for more information from the HNBA.

For People of Color

Has a series of bar exam and law school admissions workshops taking place in California and Chicago in the next few months. For a complete list click here.

Council on Legal Education Opportunity

CLEO provides numerous workshops and seminars for law students. I am a CLEO associate and highly recommend getting involved with them. Additionally, they provide a list of scholarship and test prep resources here.

Equal Justice Works Summer Corps

Equal Justice Works is a fabulous resource for all law students who are interest in social justice. They provide debt relief advise and resources as well as summer resources and fellowships. Their summer corps application process opens up on March 16th, for more information about the corps click here.

National LGBT Bar Association Writing Competition

The LGBT Bar Association is once again hosting their annual Michael Greenberg Student Writing Competition. The Michael Greenberg scholarship recognizes and encourages outstanding law student scholarship on legal issues affecting the LGBT community. The scholarship is in member of a former LGBT Bar Association director who died of complications from AIDS in 1996. The submission deadline is May 23, 2011. First place is a $1,000 cash prize. For more information check out the LGBT Bar's webpage.

The Zelle Hofmann Voebel & Mason LLP Diversity in Law Scholarship

This scholarship is designed to encourage and facilitate "diverse" students, as well as students with a proven interest in diversity-related issues, in pursuing the law as a procession. It's a $30,000 scholarship open to an entering 1L. The application deadline is April 1, 2011. To download the application click here.

I was crazy once

2011-03-03T00:58:00.001-07:00

It's always good to know that you're not crazy...or at least that if you are crazy, that you're in good company. I've realized that I'm fine with either option really.

This semester, I'm taking a gender and the law class from a brilliant feminist professor. On the first day I immediately thought, "Where have you been for the last 2.5 years!?" During the first hour of class she stated that, "Privilege is never having to think about whether you deserve to be at the top." Ahh, suddenly I was breathing familiar air.

Even in my final semester of law school, so much of my legal education still feels foreign. I've accepted that I will never get used to this level of privilege. I will never get used to people in the grocery store assuming that I'm smarter than they are just because I will one day have a law degree. I will also never get used to many of my classmates who believe they are entitled to the benefits of other people's history and labor. I will never get used to the narrow lens through which the law is usually taught and I will never (ever) get used to the fact that ideas are taught as "objective" just because they are main stream.

During the same class as the privilege discussion , the professor identified Lochner v. New York as "class warfare." I remember thinking something along those lines as I sat silently in my constitutional law class during my 1L year. My 1L self, of course, didn't say this out loud because the way Lochner was taught to me was much more similar to the Wikipedia version. According to my con law professor, and Wikipedia, Lochner "was a landmark United States Supreme Court case [... where the Court] rejected the argument that [a New York employment law] was necessary to protect the health of bakers." I thought I was crazy for even wanting to talk about class and social inequity. And then, last month I heard my own voice reflected at the front of the classroom. Yes! Of course! This case was about class!

But talk about class in law school? I can imagine few things that are more taboo. You might as well be talking about elicit sexual liaisons between professors and students. It has taken me all six semester to find someone who has even acknowledged the subject. I've written before about losing myself in law school. About feeling out of place and, frankly, crazy. It's nice to know that even if I am crazy I'm in the company of a brilliant professor. Even if class warfare and homogeneity in law school is all in my head...it's nice to know that it is in someone else's head too. It doesn't hurt that the other someone has a Harvard Law degree.

This post is cross posted at ms-jd.org.

As Seen on TV

2011-03-02T13:04:00.003-07:00

I really hate television. Ok, that’s not true at all. I don’t really drink so mindless television is my vice. My boyfriend is continually perplexed that someone “so smart” can be so enamored with Say Yes to the Dress (for the record, I draw the line at The Bachelor). I’m still trying to convince him that my obsession is really anthropological in nature, I’m the Jane Goodall of dumb asses, or so I like to think.

The last few weeks; however, I have sincerely disliked television. Why the about face you ask? Well, because everyone around me believes themselves to be an expert of law school, lawyers and the legal profession. The only explanations I can come up with for this “expertise” are The Goodwife, Law & Order, and The Practice. Well, maybe those and JFK Jr. … he had to take the bar three times dontcha know. Frankly, I find it annoying. Sure, everyone likes help and support from their friends and family. But, there’s support and then there’s unsolicited advice from people who know more about Ally McBeal than they do my goals and, more importantly, my values.

I nearly walked away from law school after my first year. The homogeneity, belief in “objectivity,” competitive nature, and lack of critical dialogue couldn’t have been further from the environment I’d had in mind or the life’s work I was hoping to embark on. A number of factors convinced me to stay but it’s no stretch to say that I’ve made it through law school by brute force alone. With few exceptions, I’ve never felt that these were “my people” or that the social justice work I seek to do is best accomplished through these means.

Working with low income clients in the Asylum Law Practicum and Community Law Clinic have been some of the only parts of law school that have truly reflected my values. Not surprisingly, they are some of the few parts of this experience that I have truly enjoyed.

That being said, my week has been filled with stark contrasts. I’ve spent a lot of time working on my asylum law case. Yesterday, I drove out to my client’s home to have her sign a document. At her home in her somewhat unsafe feeling neighborhood, I was greeted by her ever cheerful family. They offered me dinner and thanked me profusely for my time. When I work with my client I like myself, I feel like I am actually using my privilege in a good and responsible way.

When I got home I went back to my real life which has been dominated by stressing about whether or not I can afford to take the bar, if it makes financial sense to take it now, and what I plan to do after graduation. And, while I find the asylum law work fulfilling, I’m not sure it’s the kind of work I want to do full time right now. Even if I did, I’m not sure I could find the funding to create a position at a nonprofit. This is where Ms. McBeal comes in. When I tell people about my bar related stress, they simply don’t understand. “Take a loan,” they say. “You have to take the bar,” “If you went to law school you should become a lawyer, why else would you have spent the money,” the choruses chime. The mental and emotional contrast between asylum law work and bar/job/future planning work is truly shocking to the system.

What I’m doing in asylum law is helping folks who would not otherwise have access to assistance. I’m helping them navigate a system that is normally pretty hostile to low-income non-English speaking immigrants. Helping them to pilot this endeavor is meaningful to me, and not in a resume building sense.

The interesting thing is, the legal job market is tough and I don’t feel like I need to be a practicing attorney in order to help low income and underrepresented people. If I take the bar and find an area of practice where I am happy then I will be thrilled. But, much to the dismay of so many around me, I’m not married to the idea. If only my values lined up with the rest of the legal profession the way they do with assisting indigent clients.

Spreading the... Love?

2011-02-15T23:27:00.004-07:00

1971 ad found at Southwest.com

I'm young. Twenty-six to be exact, and my age is the only reason I can come up with that explains why I just don't get it when it comes to flight attendants. Over the last thirty years of anti-discrimination jurisprudence it seems that we are wholly obsessed with flight attendants. They just can't get hot enough, sexy enough, or (in some cases) white enough to satiate our hunger for commodified women in the sky.

I didn't take my first flight until I was 18 (and by then they wouldn't even give me the little wings pin!) so I have only known multi-gendered, multiracial flight crews. While I recognize the dated photos of young perky cocktail waitresses in the sky, I really can't relate to it. And yet, the "hotness" and gender of flight attendants is still the stuff of headline news. If the subject lines in my inbox are any indication of public interest, the physical attributes of flight attendants are still wildly popular water cooler fodder.

Isn't this old news? It's been nearly thirty years since Southwest tried to argue that sex appeal was a "bona fide occupational qualification" under Title VII. In 1981, Southwest wanted to protect it's practice of employing hot pant clad stewardesses to project a "sexy image and fulfill its public promise to take passengers skyward with love." And yet...here we are, in 2011, still reading about who has the hottest flight attendants (Virgin Atlantic, according to a study by Business Travel and Meeting Show).

The headline I found most interesting, however, was MSNBC's report of PC Air's hiring of "Ladyboys." PC Air has hired a number of trans women as flight attendants. The airline seeks to be inclusive of the "third sex," which is commendable. Unfortunately, it's not all good news. The fascinating, and somewhat disheartening, fact is that the airline hired (literal) beauty queens and then required then to take classes on makeup application and appearance from image professionals.

It's great that at least some airlines are open to employing trangender people. On the other hand, is extending the practice of imposing supposed "beauty" protocols to a new group of people really the mark of progress? Is surveying passengers about "hotness" in the face of years of equality work and education a move in the right direction? And, at the end of the day, can't we work out our own tragically cliche fantacies some place other than 30,000 feet in the air?

The Value of a Stereotype

2011-02-01T15:03:00.001-07:00

“We must show these students the value of an education.” I can’t tell you the number of times I heard my former boss preach these words as I helped plan the logistics for Justice Sotomayor’s visit to Denver last year. The Justice spoke (mostly) to students of color and low income high school students at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. The idea was that she would help to empower these students to achieve their dreams, as she had done.

The crowd waiting for Sotomayor

Well, that’s what I thought the idea was anyhow. Now that I think about it, "empowerment" was my word. My boss, on the other hand, would have used the word teach. She thought Sotomayor's speech was suppose to teach students of color and low income folks the “value” of an education… apparently, this is knowledge they didn't already posses.

Oh, wait! But they do!

People often rely on a stereotype that we Latinos are simply don’t understand that our children should stay in school. The beauty inherent in this stereotype is that (1) there’s someone to blame and (2) there is an easy solution. Telling brown kids that they will make a million dollars more over a lifetime is a heck of a lot easier than say, talking about privilege, changing how we fund schools and correcting for historically racist college admissions standards. Convenient (for the majority) as the “they don’t know the value” theory maybe, it’s simply not true (and, frankly, a little insulting).

Numerous studies have found that parents of color often place more value on higher education for their children than do their white counterparts. A New American Media poll found, "that these parents have aspirations that reach well beyond the hope that their children will earn a high school diploma." So, needless to say, I'm pretty frustrated that this stereotype persists.

In fact, my frustration kept me from blogging until recently. Though I left the job and the former boss months ago, I haven't really spoke in detail about how frustrating it was that someone who saw herself as a "diversity expert" didn't get it. How is the rest of the population suppose to get it if someone in the field doesn't?

Fast forward to last week. I was preparing a proposal for the 20th Annual La Raza Youth Leadership Conference and I asked my partner for input. "Is it too elementary to talk about the value of education?" he innocently asked. And months (years) of frustrations pored out on his unsuspecting and well intended soul. What can I say, sometimes teachable moments (that's what I'm calling it anyway) some times disguise themselves in a little bit of Amanda losing her shit. Don't worry though, all worked out well and he actually helped me come up with an idea...but that's the subject of the next post.

According to Ohio, "JD" means Licensed Attorney

2011-01-23T14:09:00.007-07:00

http://www.nataliedee.com - image

I'm slowly but surely crossing states of the list of places I'm willing to live. Arizona came off a long time ago and I'm officially putting Ohio on notice.

The ABA Journal recently reported that an Ohio judge ruled that a disbarred law grad can't use 'JD' after his name. The person at issue, Bruce Andrew Brown, is definitely a shady character. He has an extensive criminal record that includes multiple felonies (grand theft and forgery just to name a few), for a more complete list see the Supreme Court of Ohio Report. Long story short: Shady fellow who lies and steals a lot is disbarred in 1992. He uses his 'JD' title to mislead people into believing that he's an attorney, kind of frequently. Ohio slams him with the (rightful) conviction of practicing law without a license. So far I'm on board.

Here's where I think the profession starts sounding douchey. The judge also ruled that Brown can't use "Esq.," "Esquire," "Juris Doctor" or "JD" after his name. Seriously? This is something we care about? It conjures up images of the Princess Diana situation post-divorce. Is there anyone out there who thinks those policies are useful or relevant?

Worse, it's just inaccurate. He may not be the best representation of the legal profession, but Mr. Brown has, in fact, earned his JD (from Columbia Law School none the less). If "JD" means you are a licensed attorney, then the preparation and application for the bar exam should be included in my tuition and law school training. My law school has supplied me with no shortage of fast talking lines about how "applicable" my degree will be even if I don't practice. Doesn't that mean that whether or not I'm licensed I'm still a "JD"?

Mr. Brown is a loser but that doesn't mean a judge in Ohio can deny him an accomplishment he earned long ago. And really, at the end of the day does it matter what the letters behind his name are when the address below them belongs to a county jail?

If you're in debt you must be shady. Wait. What?

2011-01-20T23:31:00.001-07:00

So, at this point you've read about the Ohio Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Ohio Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness's rejection of Jonathan Griffin's application to the bar, right?

Mr. Griffin is in $170,000 of education debt and $16,500 of credit card debt. He works 24-32 hours a week at the Public Defender's office for $12 an hour. The board as well as the court deemed Griffin unfit to practice law because he didn't have a plan for dealing with his debt. Um, I'm pretty sure his plan was to PASS THE BAR and get a job as the lawyer. In the words of Above the Law, "What the hell kind of legal education system are we running where we charge people more than they can afford to get a legal education, and then prevent them from being lawyers because they can't pay off their debts?" Amen.

I've written about law school debt before. I've also written about my issues with the character and fitness portion of the bar application. But seriously folks, is this the kind of club anyone wants to be part of? Being unable to pay $100,000 in tuition up front makes you unfit? If you're an irresponsible rich kid whose parents bankrolled them through law school all is well? It's the American dream I guess.

If you're as outraged as I am, here's the roster of the Ohio Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness. Write these folks a couple letters letting them know how classist you think their decision is.

In case you don't want to risk spending any more loan money on postage, here are the email addresses for the folks who work for private firms (and hence had easy to find email addresses):

Todd C. Hicks, Esq., Chair - thicks@tddlaw.com

G.Scott McBride - gsm@spgmlaw.com

Andrew J. Dorman - adorman@reminger.com

Suzanne K. Richards - skrichards@vorys.com

John C. Fairweather - jfairweather@brouse.com

Lies My Teacher Told Me

2011-01-19T13:04:00.005-07:00

I was recently informed that I'd missed my opportunity to post on Martin Luther King Day. So here's the delayed post. :)

I've always thought that the ways we choose to rewrite history are interesting (if you don't know what I've talking about go read

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or A People's History of the United States). For example, when I was in grade school I was taught that Rosa Parks was an old lady who was tired and decided she was going to sit down in a whites only section of a public bus. Do you have any idea how insulted I was when I found out that (1) she wasn't old and (2) she wasn't doing it on her own? I wasn't taught until college that Ms. Parks was an organizer with the NAACP. That she and her partner had long conversations about her participation. And, finally, that she wasn't alone. Her protest was the result of hours and hours of planning by numerous civil right activists.

The message I got from the Rosa Parks story when I was young was that one person can make a difference. The alternate message I could have gotten was that systems of oppression are deep rooted but that a team of dedicated people can work together to make a difference. I believe that we do ourselves and our children a disservice when we teach them watered down or just plain inaccurate history. But I think we, as a society, do this deliberately. I think we've decided that we don't want children (especially children of color and low income children) to organize. We want them to value individuality and to take individual actions that wont have far reaching effects. We don't want to train them to form communities, work together, and take risk for the greater good. So we tell them that Rosa did it on her own. I don't know about you, but I don't want to subscribe to that kind of fucked up fairytale.

Now, back to MLK day. Don't get me wrong, Dr. King is one of my heroes. I'm thrilled that we have a national holiday in his honor. But I think we should teach an expanded history. We should teach, as Dr. King did, about Black pride, about histories of oppression, and about peace. Dr. King's quotes about nonviolence are oft quoted but his work opposing the Vietnam War is almost nonexistant in the history books. Did any of your MLK day celebrations include and a conversation about our continued presence in Afghanistan? Did you honor Dr. King's legacy by protesting occupation? Did you talk about ideas of multicultural beauty? The continued prevalence of Whiteness as the dominant culture?

At the end of the day, we are still rewriting history in a way that is palatable to a dominant class (white) norm. We should talk about the way out text books are written and who's writing them. We should question what aspects of historical figure's lives we're remembering...and what we're choosing not to. In which ways are we closing our eyes to oppression and simply accepting the status quo?

Happy (belated) MLK day...may Dr. King's legacy remind us to remember history with the complexity to do it justice and to at least think about the things we are not yet brave enough to talk about.

I'm (sorta) Famous!

2011-01-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, not really famous at all. But! Have you opened your latest copy of Student Lawyer Magazine? Much to my surprise, Reconstructing Law School's Three Easy Mistakes Not to Make on your Resume post is featured in their In Brief section. It would have been nice if they'd provided a link; but none the less, it's always so freakin' flattering to know that other people read (and like!) this blog. Thanks Student Lawyer!

I'm calling her Sandy

2011-01-16T23:18:00.004-07:00

There are a group of about two hundred 3Ls who believe that I am a transgender woman with a same-sex partner who lives in Iowa. I kid you not. Oh, and I live in Colorado so my wife and I miss each other a lot.

I’m calling my imaginary wife Sandy.

How did they arrive at this conclusion, you might wonder? Well, what can I say, the two hundred people were a conference of crazy people. Ok, not true, I was at the CLEO Mid-Winter Bar Preparation Seminar in DC and my fellow conference attendees were smart, delightful 3Ls. So let me explain…

On the second day of the programming three very nice bar examiners, representing California, Virginia, and DC, sat on a panel talking about the moral character portion of admittance to the various bar associations. I did my best to suppress my gag reflex as the three (old white) men yammered on about how reasonable the application was and that they’re “just looking for honest people.” During the Q&A most students asked questions about DUIs and foreclosures. I was tempted to ask how well the fitness portion of the bar admittance was working… making 3Ls submit divorce papers and driving records was keeping all the unethical lawyers out right? Oh, wait… In the interest of respecting all the effort CLEO had gone through to put this panel together, I resisted.

What I couldn’t resist was bringing up what my politically conservative little brother has affectionately termed “the gay stuff.” After patiently waiting my turn for the microphone I simply had to ask if these examiners had ever viewed their questions through the eyes of a lesbian woman or trans man. “Hi, my question is about whether or not your states are inclusive of the LGBT community. For example, do you present a third gender option, other than male or female, for transgendered individuals who may not fit neatly into those categories? Also, if you ask for marital status, do you ask for a jurisdiction? Say I’m married to a same sex partner in Iowa but living in and applying to the bar in Colorado where marriage isn’t legal. The marital status question isn’t so clear cut, unless it asks for the jurisdiction where I am married.” Crickets.

Other than crickets, you could hear the sounds of confused bar examiners furiously flipping through their questionnaires. Well, with the exception of Virginia, who simply said, “Um, no, we’re not inclusive. But I can bring it up at our next meeting.” Thanks sir, but that doesn’t help 3Ls who are currently filling out their applications. California told me that he didn’t think there were more than two genders and that marriage in California was still illegal. I pointed out that, unless his application asked for the state, I could be legally married in another state. “What, then sir, is the correct answer to the marital status question?” The crickets and I were becoming close friends at this point.

I did appreciate Virginia’s candor. I also appreciated that all of the men were actually thinking about the issue, perhaps for the first time. It’s true that I asked the question essentially already knowing the answer. I know that most bar associations are not inclusive and that it’s downright impossible for many LGBT people to answer demographic questions completely and honestly; the questions aren’t open ended and the correct answers aren’t options. Knowing the answers, however, doesn’t make hearing them any less frustrating. What was nice, however, was getting a chance to look at them with honesty and challenge the organizations they represent for what they are: nutty and exclusive. Really, how often do you get to raise an eyebrow at the man, in front of 200 potential attorneys no less? That, I can tell you, felt pretty good.

You’ll have to excuse me now; I think Sandy has dinner on the table.

Doodle

2011-01-13T23:38:00.002-07:00

I just read about 5,982 emails from student leaders in a group I run. We're trying to coordinate a good time for a board meeting and there was a lot of "Well, I can meet from 12-12:32 but I think Jane has work at 12:15, so what about 8am?" going on. I finally created a Doodle to get us organized. What can I say, sometimes the internet sets wonderfully useful (and free!) tools in your lap.

If you weren't already using this to schedule meetings with lots of busy people you can thank me later.

Statistically speaking, 60% of statistics are made up (maybe including this one)

2011-01-09T13:41:00.007-07:00

Have you read David Segal's New York Times article, Is Law School a Losing Game? Not to direct people away from Reconstructing Law School, but if you haven't read it you should go do that now. It's an interesting read.

There are no shortage of Law-School-is-a-Scam blogs out there. And, to be honest, sometimes I agree with much of what they have to say. Whether or not law school itself is a scam is up for debate. What shouldn't be disputed at this point is that the stats reported by law schools are a total scam.

As Segal's article points out, "Enron-type accounting standards" have become the norm in the world of law school statistics. Segal does a great job of explaining the article so I wont regurgitate it here; but, anyone who has graduated in the last few years certainly knows that 90% of their peers are not employed...at least not permanently...and definitely not all in legal jobs. At a minimum, it's unethical for law schools to provide students with "massaged" statistics upon which the students are basing $200k investment decisions.

As Restoring Dignity to the Law points out, change to the current system of law school statistics reporting and US News and World Reports rankings needs to come from the outside. Currently the rankings are based entirely on "unaudited surveys conducted by each law school using questions devised by the American Bar Association and the National Association for Law Placement." If we can all agree that the law school administrators are about as effective at self policing as my pug is at keeping out of an unguarded cookie jar...then shouldn't the ABA, NALP, and USNWR be the safe guards?

Law schools are cash cows. I, for one, don't expect any one particular law school to start being honest on its own. It would surely fall dozens of spots and risk oodles of fundraising dollars in the process. It's an all or nothing deal; they are all going to be honest or they are all going to be shady. Right now, being shady is more lucrative. Shouldn't the ABA, NALP, and USNWR hold all schools accountable (thereby not punishing one in particular)?

I find myself particularly disappointed in NALP, an organization that claims to place a high value on diversity initiatives. It seems that the inaccurate information provided by law schools in USNWR would have a particularly devastating effect on people of color and first generation college students. Those are the students who are the most dependent on loans and have some of the weakest networks for securing legal work after graduation.

The ABA, NALP, and USNWR have an opportunity here to actually support diversity. Not just to support initiatives or make broad feel-good statements but to make systemic changes that will help all students by providing us with much needed accurate information. Accurate information would particularly benefit under represented students since they are the least likely to have first hand knowledge of the legal profession.

I'm looking forward to seeing if any change actually happens.

Oh, and by the way, I'm back to blogging after the busy holiday/finals season. :) Stay tuned for more frequent updates: a story about my run in with the nosy bitches themselves, how to survive the day when grades come out and why I need to make friends with some 5 year olds.

Congrats FeministLawProfessors.com

2010-12-12T13:19:00.004-07:00

Congrats to Feminist Law Professors on being selected as one of the ABA Journal's top 100 Blawgs of 2010. I've read this blog for a while and always been very impressed by its content. Started by feminist professor Bridget Crawford, it has everything from pop culture to legal analysis. Some of the most handy things on the site include a listing of feminist law professors across the country as well as announcements for CFPs and Conferences. The award is well deserved.

Not that you need any more reasons to check out the site, but when you click over check out my guest blog post about the lack of female perspective in the legal classroom.

Links

Click here for a complete list of the ABA Journals Top 100 Blawg

Follow Feminist Law Professors on Twitter @FeministLawPrfs

Follow Reconstructing Law School on Twitter @ReconstructLaw

Why I Don’t Want to Take the Bar Exam

2010-12-11T00:19:00.002-07:00

Part Two: Them Some Nosy Bitches

Yeah, I did it. I just called the bar examiners nosy bitches. Pretty sure that alone can make me “unfit” to join the ranks of upstanding citizens known as lawyers.

Here’s the thing, the bar application is 29 pages, yes 29. Plus they request several supplemental documents: law school transcripts (ok, that one makes sense), driving records, any records of military service, and divorce records. They want a list of everyone I’ve worked for in the last ten years and every place I’ve lived for longer than a month. They want to know if I’ve ever been more than 90 days late on my credit card payment. They want to know if I’ve been convicted of anything, even if it’s been expunged. They want to know if I’ve been arrested, not charged, just arrested.

Driving records? Divorce records? The address of the place I stayed for a month during winter break of my first year of college? Really? Other than maybe my spouse or someone that’s going to let me adopt their child, why does anyone need this level of information? For God's sake, I’m the kind of person who complained and deleted things when Facebook started cataloging my information.

More frustrating are the horror stories of people who get denied. Law students who went on depression meds for a short period of time following the death of a loved one, people who the (privileged) board deemed to have too much debt, or people who belonged to the communist party. Not to mention the totally subjective nature and lack of transparency regarding how applications are evaluated.

Furthermore, according to experts, the moral character (i.e. nosy) portion of the application was largely constructed to exclude unwanted applicants. The unnecessarily invasive application allowed bar examiners to exclude people of color and the poor from admission to state bars by letting the examiners site "legitimate," although pretextual, reasons for exclusion. Additionally, thanks to racism, people of color and the poor were (and are) more likely to have been arrested or convicted of crimes. Accordingly, they were disproportionately likely to be excluded based on these grounds.

So here I am. I'm feeling protective of confidential information, nervous about a history of oppression, and generally unhappy with the unnecessary invasion into my privacy. And yet, I've invested three years of my life and roughly $100k in this education. Technically, if I want to use that education in practice I have to surrender my privacy. Surrender to the gods (aka bar examiners) or never be allowed to practice, I'm not sure I like those options.

If you haven't read part one of this series you can read it here.

Race and Wealth Divide in America

2010-12-10T00:47:00.003-07:00

Here's a great interview (that's only 6 min. long) from NPR about the race and wealth divide in the United States.

In my conversations about race I often find that we lack a common history. Some people, usually people of color, have somehow been taught (really taught) about the history of oppression in this country. Other folks have not. I think we could have more meaningful conversations about how to move forward together, how to work together to create a more equitable America, if we all knew our own history. Rose Brewer's The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide sounds like it's probably a great place to start when building that base of knowledge across cultures. I, for one, am really looking forward to reading it over the winter break.

Finals Funk

2010-12-07T21:05:00.003-07:00

For the last 20 min. I've been looking at fashion blogs instead of studying.

Tomorrow I will shower.

I mean look cute.

Well, I mostly mean shower.

Happy finals!

Why I Don't Want to Take the Bar

2010-11-16T18:23:00.003-07:00

There are lots of reasons I don't want to take the bar, so this will probably be a series.

Part 1: It's F'ing Expensive

Real quick, here's the breakdown of the funds I have to raise before May 1:

Exam Fee: $475
Credit Report Fee: $7.25
Computer Fee: $100
Bar Prep Class (mandatory, and this isn't the most expensive one): $2,005
MPRE (ethics exam): $63

Total: $2650.25 (plus the lost wages from the fact that I can't work during the summer).

$2650 is five months of rent. Not to mention, if I were applying for almost anything else on my current income I could apply for some sort of fee waiver...nope not the bar. Want to apply to defend justice? You better be able to pay the admit fee. And we wonder why this is historically a rich, white man's club. Dear law school and board of bar examiners, you can't make the cost prohibitively high and then shirk responsibility for having the least diverse profession in the country.

By the way, I'm accepting donations. Certified funds or pay pal (can't really afford to take a bad check).

The Paper is Due Wednesday

2010-11-14T21:57:00.004-07:00

I have a paper due Wednesday (hence the lack of blogging), it's for a legal history class. I don't know the professor very well; from her research I do know that she's a feminist but thats about it. I'm writing the paper on the legal construction of whiteness and after re-reading Cheryl Harris' Whiteness as Property for the 10th time I realized I have to at least begin my paper as a narrative.

I've turned in narrative papers before, but never for a class that didn't have a base in Critical Race Theory. This prof may not get it. She may not have ever thought of storytelling as having a place in legal writing. She may think the concept of whiteness (or even the social construction of race) as a total crock. These are all things I maybe should have considered before choosing the paper topic. But now the paper is due in 3 days....here we go...lets hope I don't fail.

Feminist Law Professors

2010-11-04T19:13:00.002-06:00

Do you read the blog over at Feminist Law Professors.com? If not, you should. They publish wonderful posts. Some serious, some light hearted. Some strictly legal, some pop culture. I'm sure you'll like it as much as I do.

AND

I'm the guest blogger over there today. Click on over and read about whether acting like a man can really work against patriarchy. I had so much fun writing the post, I hope you enjoy!

Worried about doing it right

2010-11-03T13:48:00.002-06:00

I'm taking a practicum from a magistrate judge, and I must say, that his teaching style is refreshing. Yesterday's class was on depositions. Some of the mock depositions were done very well; others, not so much.

The judge stopped one student, who was presenting a particularly nerve wracked line of questioning, and told her to put away her notes and just chat. "You're so worried about doing it right, that you're really not doing it at all" he told her.

Welcome to law school.

So much of a current model is about doing it (whatever it is) right. Law school's history of creating a institution for and by the rich, the Socratic method, the styles proscribed in moot court and trial practice, and the way career centers prep students for interviews all convey that there is a right (and particularly homogeneous) style to practicing law.

Once the student abandoned the idea of doing it right and began doing it her way...the deposition went much more smoothly. Maybe we need to rethink what "right" is and who it was created to apply to. It may turn out that what was made for the gander may not be good for the goose.

Censor

2010-11-01T01:31:00.002-06:00

Today someone left this comment on one of my posts:

Anonymous said...
N***er lovers :(
October 31, 2010 6:05 PM

What am I suppose to do with that? I'm baffled that people still use such horrible words, I'm more baffled that they went to the trouble of reading my blog and posting a comment. Censorship is pretty high on my list of "stuff that's wrong with America" (you know, up there with "mechanically separated chicken" and capital punishment) but so is bigotry and racism. I could just delete the comment, or I could at least require people to sign in to post, but that feels a little dirty. On the other hand, so does a word built on 400 years of slavery and racism.

What do other bloggers do? Embrace limited censorship and delete horrible comments or value free speech on a progressive blog? If this were on my person life blog, I'd deleted it in a heart beat. But embracing censorship on a blog with content like mine (I'm basically campaigning for law schools and the legal profession to stop silencing people like me) seems a bit counter productive.

Maybe I shouldn't let it get to me but...it is (both the word itself and the conundrum).

Guide to Being an Ally

2010-10-25T13:02:00.006-06:00

When I talk about diversity I often hear about allies. Gay Straight Alliances and various ethnic and racial identity groups talk stress the importance of allies. This is interesting, because I don't think we, as a culture, know what it means to be an ally.

Too often we think to be an ally means simply to not openly endorse oppression. I don't own a pointy white hat...I must be an ally. Not true, friends.

Last week I had the (cough, cough) pleasure of listening to a group of 1Ls talk about the over representation of African-Americans in the prison system. The group consisted of two African-American men, a white lesbian, a white woman, and two white men. The white woman claimed that African-American men where inherently more dangerous than white men. As evidence, she cited a statistic that there are eight times as many African-American men in prison as there are white men (pretty sure she made that "statistic" up). Obviously, the overtly racist belief was startling; but, what I found more interesting was the silence of the other white people at the table.

The two black men both attempted to make jokes and change the topic but the white woman wouldn't back off. Eventually, the black men attempted to defend their race, the conversation got heated, and the woman stormed away. The other white people at the table looked around awkwardly and said nothing.

Why is that?

As an ally or anti-racist you have a duty to speak out against racism (or any -ism, really). Especially when it comes to talking to people with racist beliefs, the voice of someone from dominant group is going to be easier to hear, seen as less adversarial, and seen as having more legitimacy. Not to mention, it takes some pressure off the underrepresented people in the group who are already feeling attacked.

Thankfully, I can also say I've been on the other side of a true alliance this week. Over the weekend I found myself in a rather lively conversation about race, gender, and oppression with three men from fairly privileged backgrounds. I'd been defending my race and gender for a while when one of men made an analogy I took issue with. Though the analogy dealt with race and gender, I was more than happy to pass the oppression-fighting baton when a white male ally decided to point out the flaw in the analogy. It wasn't that this ally was speaking for me; it was that he saw the flaw in the argument as well and didn't think that a woman of color was the only person who could or should voice opposition. His comment reminded me that I wasn't alone in my opposition to oppression, and it felt good.

The tricky part about being an ally is that it's both easier and harder to speak out. On one had, allies are allowed to speak without representing their race, gender, or sexuality. Accordingly, they are often seen as less threating and/or confrontational (we hear about 'angry black women' not so much about 'angry white men'). On the other hand, allies tend to be less practiced. Talking about -isms can be scary and these well intentioned people often worry about being offensive to the very group they are trying to support.

Talking about identities and oppression isn't easy...but it gets easier to practice and team work.

So, just to recap, here is my handy guide to being an ally:

1. Throwing away the white hood wont do it. You have to do more than just not be overtly racist.
2. Speak up. If you feel uncomfortable with something be said around you, it's always OK to say so. Opposition to oppression that comes from the dominant group is particularly powerful.
3. Embrace community building. Don't take away someone else's voice.
Almost all people are capable of protecting themselves, but it's always good to communicate that they don't have to... they can count on you for help and support.

How do you choose which judges to vote for?

2010-10-24T17:05:00.003-06:00

Ok, not these kinds of judges.

I have a confession to make: until about 10 minutes ago, I had no idea how to decide if I should vote for a judge or not. When I was voting in California, I usually just voted for the women or people of color. Diversity is good, right?

It's scary, I know. My method wasn't really scientific. Basically it was a simple way of eliminating some folks. My very own perverse derivation of the worlds most wackadoodle affirmative action program. And I'm a third year law student...what must the rest of the world be doing?

Well, thanks to Jim over at No Funny Lawyers I just read about Know Your Judge.com. The fine folks over there publish "simple, impartial nonpartisan" facts in one easy to use website. They link to Colorado's Judicial Performance Reviews, provide an overview of the process of judge selection, and even have a cute PSA. Now none of us have an excuse to place uninformed votes. Know Your Judge only publishes information about Colorado judges but I did find this (almost as helpful) site put up by the Los Angeles County Bar Association for you LA voters.

If you have resources for other regions I hope you'll pass them along. I guess for now, if you're not in Los Angeles or Colorado you'll just have to stick with the hope-the-Asian-American-woman-does-a-good-job strategy.

Happy voting!

True Story

2010-10-19T12:57:00.001-06:00

I've been eating lunch in the law school lobby these days and today I listened (read: eavesdropped) to some of my classmates drone on about the less than perfect job market.

"Yeah, I applied for something at Microsoft" said one particularly doll-like student, "but it turns out they're on a hiring freeze until June 30th. It would almost have been better to hear a 'no' than to be in limbo for the next several months. Well, actually I didn't even hear back from Microsoft but my boyfriend's parents are friends with Bill Gates so they had Bill check on the application."

Holy. Fuck.

Seriously? Bill Gates checked on your application? Someone explain to me how it is that first generation students are suppose to compete with this.

What I'm Reading

2010-10-15T11:27:00.003-06:00

Fridays have become my lazy days. They shouldn't be, I have more than enough to do; and yet, I slept until 9 and, at 11:30, I'm still in my Monkey Pants . Any how, I used the morning to finish reading How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else and (as sappy as it is) I have to admit that it made me cry.

I'm coming off of an employment experience that was less than pleasurable. In the last few weeks I've watched people behave in ways that have made me ashamed to call them my colleagues. I watched a partner scream and a legal assistant as if she were an animal (not that you should scream at animals) for something that wasn't within her control and I myself have been screamed at. I realize that I am not the first or the last person to be treated poorly in the legal profession, but I can't help but wonder: Why are we (we...smart, educated people) ok with such a dehumanizing professional community?

In his book Gill chronicles his fall from privileged advertising executive to Starbucks Barista. Gill is shocked to find that the job at Starbucks makes him the happiest he's ever been. His boss and coworkers (er, Partners in Starbucks speak) created the most respectful work environment he's been in. The contrast he draws between Starbucks culture and the culture at his former advertising firm made me sad of my profession. If Starbucks can do it, we can do it. Why aren't we?

"Here at Starbucks," writes Gill, "both the Partners and the Guests seemed to agree tacitly that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity. I had never seen any work environment like it. The best Fortune 500 companies I had encountered, despite spending months and lots of money writing and publishing high-sounding mission statements, never practiced the corporate gobbledygook they preached." Gates goes on to talk about how generous his Starbucks supervisor is with praise. His former company actually had a policy against praise, for fear it would be used as evidence in unemployment or wrongful termination lawsuits.

My negative experience may just have been the organization I worked for, or the firm it was housed in. But really don't believe that's the case. I don't believe that my experience is unique to my (former) supervisor. I think it's a culture that we all endorse. People are products and appreciating a person for their humanity is not a core part of the business model. When was the last time you heard a firm, attorney, or law school representative emphasize the importance of dignity and respect? It's ok to bark at someone, to demand rather than ask, and to disregard the needs of the employee precisely because respect and dignity are not key parts of the legal culture.

High turnover, unhappy employees, burned out associated, and disenfranchised students aren't good for business or the integrity of the profession. It might be a pipe dream, but I don't think we will see the end of these blights until we embrace dignity and respect as core values within legal culture.

I considering applying at Starbucks... I should probably get out of the monkey pants.

Response to the Mormon Church

2010-10-13T14:04:00.004-06:00

LDS leader Boyd K. Packer recently gave a speech that included the condemnation of gays and lesbians. Needless to say,given the recent LGBT teen suicides, the timing seemed pretty disrespectful to me, . I was going to write a response...but given her personal experience, Serena over at Feminist For Choice just did it better than I ever could have.

In her open letter to Elder Packer, Serena writes about her experience as a Mormon lesbian:

... You’re missing out on a good one by excluding me from your church. I garnered many of the leadership skills that I have by participating in the Young Women’s organization at church. My sense of community building was also learned in church. And now I’m using those skills to serve lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, questioning, and queer folks. I am using those skills to protect a woman’s right to control her own body. And I am absolutely unashamed of who I am.
God loves me just the way I am. If there really is a heaven, I think that a lot of people are going to be surprised when God doesn’t exclude anyone from the kingdom simply for loving another person. God is love. There are no limitations on that. ...

The LDS church is missing out on some very good people, I hope they will eventually stop their insistence on disenfranchising the glbt community. To read Serena's letter in its entirety, click here.

Happy National Coming Out Day

2010-10-11T11:43:00.003-06:00

In light of the recent suicides by LGBT identified teens, I hope that we'll all be supportive, encouraging and loving on this National Coming Out Day. Coming out is an act of courage, and being supportive is an act of community.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

Bar Results

2010-10-07T10:53:00.004-06:00

The results of the July 2010 Bar Exam came out today; or should I say, were published today.

I will never understand why a list of people who passed the bar needs to be published. When these people are admitted to the bar there will be a public record and they will be issued an ID number. The results of the bar exam simply don't need to be release to everyone who's remotely interested.

Could you imagine if SAT results were public?

When I took the SAT you got a letter in the mail a couple moths after the exam that told your your score. That experience was anxiety inducing enough without the fear that my friends, family, teachers, and employers were going to know if I succeeded for failed in the exact same moment I did. At least I was given the privacy of reacting to the results without fielding questions/congrats/condolences from everyone with an internet connection.

Why can't the person who took the bar be the first to find out if they passed?

Under the current system, test takers are just refreshing the web page like everyone else is. It's possible, or even probable, that a person's employer, spouse, grandma, or ex could know her bar results before she does (lesson: if you're waiting on bar results, invest in high speed internet).

When I pass (you know, next year), I want to see that people are excited.

I don't want them to respond to my good news with, "Oh, yeah, I know. I googled." I'm the one who spent precious summer months studying...shouldn't I get the glory?

Isn't this antithetical to the idea of community?

Let's be honest, posting the list of people who pass the bar isn't about distributing information, creating community, or even saving some intern at the court some time. It's about being able to compare yourself to others. I've long been disappointed that the way be educate (future) lawyers does not build community or support. I guess it makes sense that the culmination of the education process is also voyeuristic and competitive.

The Colorado Supreme Court does post some interesting information.

For those that are interested, check the stats pages here and here.

Have you noticed...

2010-10-05T20:29:00.002-06:00

...that everyone from your 1L class gained weight?

Ok, maybe not everyone...but most of us. Dude I hadn't seen since my first year walked into class the other day and all I could think was, "Wow! Man boobs!" I guess the long hours we all spend reading and only having time for take out lifestyle doesn't really lend itself to a trim physique.

In that spirit (and trying to ward off some I'm-treated-like-crap-at-work depression), I spent my Death Penalty Seminar today reading food blogs. :) In the process I discovered my new go-to gift for my fellow law students.

It's a ice cream koozie! Ice cream cold, hands warm (and less than $10 on Amazon). Isn't that one of the most ridiculous things you've ever seen? If you go to school with me and your birthday is coming up, you're totally getting one of these and a Ben & Jerry's gift card.

Three Easy Mistakes Not to Make on your Résumé

2010-10-01T09:29:00.004-06:00

I'm leaving my position work and I'm the contact for applicants who want my spot (which is pretty awkward given that it wasn't a positive experience). In checking out other people's applications I'm a little bit shocked that people make some mistakes that are really easy to fix. Thought I'd share my three favs so that you don't make the same ones.

Get Juno for only 12.99 a month!

Does your free email put ads on the bottom of everything you send out? A couple words of advice: ditch the hotmail account. It just doesn't come across as very professional and it's easy to sign up for gmail.

"Proficient at FaceBook"

Yep, that showed up on more than one application. I'm a bit of a marketing and pop culture junkie so I understand that mastering the ability to advertise and connect via social media can be a valuable skill. But (1) you don't have a marketing degree or any experience so I sort of doubt you're a guru (2) THIS ISN'T A MARKETING JOB! "Proficient at FaceBook" simply tells me you're going to screw around on the internet while you're at work. Know the position your applying for and the audience that will be reviewing the applications. If it's not marketing and the hiring committee is over 40...take the social media off your résumé.

Hiring H. Manager

So, that's actually not my name. I gave contact information everywhere I posted the job . In fact, to submit an application people had to email FirstInitial.LastName@Company.org. When people sent me cover letters addressed to "Hiring Manager" I felt a little...insignificant. Ok, not really, but it does tell me that the applicant didn't want to spend more than 3 seconds creating a cover letter that was company specific. If you're not willing to address a cover letter correctly, it's hard to picture you as a hard worker.

This is What Crazy Looks Like

2010-09-30T14:08:00.004-06:00

Some days the crazy just piles up. Some times those days go on all week.

Welcome to the my final week of September.

Tuesday my boss decided to exhibit total insanity...more on that later...stay tuned.

Today...this:

Republican Senate hopeful Linda McMahon from Connecticut proposed reducing minimum wage. Yep. in 2009 minimum wage rose from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. In a press conference McMahon said:

"The minimum wage now in our country, I think we've set that, so there are a lot of people have benefited from it in our country, but I think we ought to review how much it out to be, and whether or not we out to have increases in the minimum wage."

Seriously? First, who on earth is that inarticulate during a PRESS CONFERENCE? Second, is she really saying that grown people should work for less than $7.25 an hour and that we shouldn't have increases in minimum wage (presumably, despite inflation)?. According to AAA daily fuel gage report, the average price of a gallon of gas is $2.69 which means, even at the current minimum wage, a person has to put in nearly an entire days work just to fill up their civic. Hope the civic drivers of the country don't need to eat. At $7.25 an hour (before taxes), a person would need to work full time for over 6 months (again pre-tax, and no food or gas for you) to pay for 1 year of in-state tuition. Really Ms. McMahon, you really want to lower minimum wage? How are people suppose to support themselves...or even dream of getting the type of education that will allow them to start earning a decent wage?

Oh and don't worry friends, good ol' Linda rakes in $46 million a year thanks to World Wrestling Entertainment (don't you wish I were making this up).

As if that weren't enough. Pat Buchanan decided to take us for a ride on his own Crazy Coaster.

Pat published this gem of an article over at Human Events, an outlet that's been "Leading Conservative Media since 1944." The piece is in opposition The Paycheck Fairness Act. Here are a few of the highlights:

"The need for such a law, writes Valerie Jarrett, the ranking woman in Barack Obama's White House, is that 'working women are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man.'

But why is that a concern of the U. S. Government....

...

Larry Summers lost his job as president of Harvard for suggesting that women have less aptitude for higher math and that may explain why they are underrepresented on Ivy League faculties in the sciences, economics and math. Would not that male aptitude help explain why men are dominant in investment banking and corporate finance, where salaries are among the highest?"

So let's recap: women have less aptitude for important things like math and economics so they deserve to be paid less. Also, the government shouldn't care that there's a pay gap.

Fabulous. Way to go Pat.

I could just cry in my cubical. Wait, I spent Tuesday doing that. Instead I think I'm just going to watch this video of an Orangutan kissing a bull dog.

Peep-toe Rebellion

2010-09-13T19:09:00.003-06:00

I have a confession to make: I wear peep-toed heels to work.

I don't even own real pumps. Yep. I know, it's the cardinal sin for a female lawyer (hell, probably a male lawyer too). Ms. JD has a recent post that made me giggle during class.

Here's the thing, the shoes (well, and the stud in my nose) are sort of my little signs of rebellion. My low-heeled, toe-cleavage-bearing, rebel flags.

During my first year of law school I let them (you know whoever them is, The Man...or at least the woMan that works in the career center) convince me that I was an idiot. Despite having landed every job I'd ever interviewed for I was convinced I was 16 again, never having interviewed anywhere and having no idea what to wear.

YOU MUST WEAR CLOSED TOED SHOES!! They screamed.

So off I trotted to Nordstrom Rack to pick up an acceptable pair of shoes before heading off to interviews at giant law firms I didn't want to work for. I still identify taking a picture of some Cole Haan sling-backs and texting (If there's sexting is there also shoe-ting? Just wondering.) it to my friend, asking "do you think these are ok?" as the low point in the loosing-myself-in-law-school process.

I was grown, I'd survived worked multiple jobs, supervised staffs of 8-15, raised over $200k for a non-profit, and managed to never be unemployed... and yet... I forgot that I was capable of picking out my own damn shoes.

Not to mention, it didn't really occur to me until months later... if the firms had reject me because of my shoes... it was a sure sign I shouldn't want to work there.

So here's my new dilemma: my work shoes, the ones with the oh-so-slutty open toe, are wearing out. I have to buy new ones. But it snows here. And fall/winter is approaching. As much as I don't want to give into them, flying the rebel flag in the face of practicality just seems silly.

I'm keeping the nose stud though.

Congrats Monica Marquez

2010-09-13T14:15:00.003-06:00

Gov. Ritter recently appointed Monica Marquez, former president of the Colorado GLBT Bar, former chairwoman of the Denver Mayor’s GLBT Commission, and board member of the Colorado Latina Initiative, to be the next justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.

I've met Monica, excuse me Justice Marquez, at a few functions and I immediately liked her. She very much "gets it." I couldn't be happier for her!

Read the Denver Post article here or the Colorado Statesman here.

You Show Me Yours and I'll Show You Mine (or Why I want references from my future employer)

2010-09-08T10:39:00.003-06:00

When I applied for my current job, my employer contacted every reference I gave them.

I didn't get the same opportunity.

Why is that? Why do we take jobs without knowing the whole story? I can't imagine hiring someone without knowing how they behave in a work environment...why do we take jobs when we don't know how the organization or our immediate supervisor will behave. Especially in the legal field, where culture can be so hard to change, I want to know what I'm getting into.

Sure, I hear the argument that in a down economy people are happy to get any job and don't want to appear hard to work with during the interview process. But what does it help you to be in a job that's a bad fit? Ultimately, if you're going to be job hunting again in a couple months neither you nor your employer are in a better place.

So why aren't there references? If the last 5 people who worked in my job didn't last more than 3 months, I want to know that. If they all left for the same reason, I want to know that. If you made your former employees cry, I want to know that. If you've never promoted a person of color (by coincidence of course), I want to know that. If you don't think you know any GLBT people, I want to know that.

So where is yelp on this one?

So far the best recourses I've found in this department are my fellow law students.

When one LLSA member got an interview with a notoriously insensitive judge...only her fellow LLSA members could alert her to the hurdles she might face. Shockingly (catch the sarcasm?) the Career Center was unable (read: unwilling) to pass along this info.

When a nonprofit created a work environment that was so condescending that no one under the age of 30 had lasted longer than 10 months, other law students were the only people who could alert applicants to that information.

Searching for Reconstructing Law School

2010-09-07T13:28:00.002-06:00

3 of the top 5 keywords that land googlers onto Reconstructing Law School are:

- "Don't tell people where I went to law school"

- "freaking out law school"

- " hating law school"

Am I that transparent?

Free Test Prep

2010-09-06T11:58:00.003-06:00

When I took the SAT I never even considered taking one of those test prep classes. It simply wasn't an option. I made $8 an hour during high school (which seemed like a whole lot of money at the time) so even the cheapest SAT prep course would have cost me 100 hours worth of work...before taxes! And I really could have never imagined asking my parents for that kind of money just for a class. Not to mention, I don't think the classes were even offered within 20 miles of our small-ish town.

I briefly looked into taking an LSAT prep course when I decided to apply to law school. And yet again, it was out of the budget. At the time, the class would have run me about $1300...otherwise known as 2 months of my share of the rent. Again, out of the question.

It wasn't until I got to the exam that I realized EVERYONE else had taken a prep class. Awesome.

It's so disappointing that we put college and law school so our of economic reach of so many students. I ended up doing fine on both exams, but I was lucky. I was competing on an unequal playing field. We all know that standardized test aren't a measure of intelligence...they are a measure of how well you take a standardized test (usually one with a racial bias) and most other students (the ones I'd be competing against in application pools) had been coached by experts on how to to take at both the LSAT and the SAT.

So, if you're in the same position I was (or know someone who is) and you're considering law school (especially if you're in Colorado) you should check these out:

Colorado Campaign for Inclusive Excellence and Colorado Pledge to Diversity Legal Group Diversity LSAT Scholarship - Click here for more info.

Colorado Campaign for Inclusive Excellence and Colorado Pledge to Diversity Legal Group Diversity Bar Prep Scholarship - Click here for more info.

Knewton Facebook LSAT prep giveaway - Click here for more info.

University of Colorado and DU Sturm College of Law off test prep under $130 - Click here.

Between Iowa and Mexico

2010-09-06T11:52:00.003-06:00

I just moved...so life's been crazy (who decides to move during the first 3 weeks of classes? ?Um, apparently I do)...hence the lack of blogging.

I noticed today that my new house is on a block between Iowa Ave. and Mexico Ave.

My life exists somewhere between Iowa and Mexico...identity-wise, that seems pretty accurate.

More blogging soon.

Justice Sotomayor's Biggest Sacrifice

2010-08-28T13:51:00.005-06:00

Wow, I really should blog more often...you know or else people stop reading. And since I base all of my self worth on Google Analytics, I then feel quite crappy. Er,um, something like that.

Anyway, it's been a busy few weeks. Classes started, work continued, I decided to move, and the organization I work for helped bring Justice Sotomayor to the University of Denver Sturm College of Law last week. Busy but fabulous.

Justice Sotomayor was fantastic. She spoke to an audiance of about 450 people; mostly high school, college, and law students. She couldn't address questions about matters of law (but that's the boring stuff anyway right?), instead she spoke for 50 min. about her background, trials, and successes.

During one of the final questions a student asked the Justice what her biggest sacrifice has been. "Taking this job when I know I'm on the tail end of my mother's life," she responded. I just about cried. The entire talk was a Q&A from the audience and there were definitely other moments that resonated: when she talked about dealing with cultural differences, working during college and law school because even with scholarships the money isn't enough; but balancing family with profession really hit home.

All of my family is in one state, and missing out on events that I'd always been to before has been one of the hardest parts of law school. When I made the decision to take a scholarship and move 1200 miles from my friends and family I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it to every family bbq the I had in the past, but I don't think I realized how important those bbqs were to me. Just this summer I've missed an aunt's 50th, my dad's 51st and I was only able to come in for 48 hours when my mom's sister passed away. It's a price you pay for an education or career...but it's rough when you don't have the finances to travel home regularly. I don't have the statistics but I think the closeness I used to have and the expectation of familial participation is amplified in Latino families.

Justice Sotomayor's mother went into the hospital a few days before her talk at DU. I hope she's feeling better soon.

You can view the entire Q&A session in CSPAN's video library.

Rita and KIND

2010-08-27T14:31:00.002-06:00

I'm always so impressed by the amazing people in my life.

I was Rita's supervisor in college and now she's out saving the world...read more here.

Attention Progressives: "Crazy" Ideas Wanted

2010-08-11T13:34:00.001-06:00

Here's pretty much the only thing I like about republicans: they have the confidence to present their bat shit crazy ideas and actually have them gain traction.

For example, retooling the 14th amendment!?!? Are you insane!? Suggesting that someone who is born in the US isn't actually a citizen shouldn't be something we give any mental energy to. How are we even talking about this?And yet... we are talking about this. In fact, I'm blogging about it.

Even if HB 1868 goes no where...it's still effecting the dialogue. And probably moving that dialogue to the right. So here's my question: Why aren't we (progressives) throwing out our "crazy" ideas? Sure they might not take hold but they might challenge the status quo. Universal child care? Yes please. The end of drilling? Let's do it! Teachers that get paid what CEOs make? I'm in. Mandatory men's, women's, and gender neutral bathrooms? Make it happen. Free university and grad school all around? I'm on board. Let's do it people.

...or at least let's talk about it and take control of the public conversation.

Little Bit O'Panic

2010-08-09T09:02:00.003-06:00

When a friend recently talked about the panic he had when he finished undergrad, I couldn't relate. During undergrad I'd made a conscious decision to graduate with a balanced life and a healthy resume. My grades were average to good but my experience and self confidence were flawless. I graduated with a relationship I thought would last forever (oops!) and two job offers.

5 years later I find myself approaching my final year of law school with, well, a little bit of panic (note to above mentioned friend: I feel you).

I think the panic come less from economic woes and more from not having a path. When I finished undergrad I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how to get there. I couldn't see the whole path but the trail head was in clear view. Now, I feel a little...lost.

With two years of law school under my belt I wish I felt a little more steady, but here's what I do know:

I'm angry at the career center. Admittedly, this anger comes from a place of jealousy. I' m jealous (and angry...angrous?) that other students have a clear path, literally handed to them by the career center. When I went in looking for non-legal, grassroots, or policy minded jobs they...wait for it...told me to google. Awesome. They did however, send about 150 emails about On Campus Interviews with major firms. Thanks career center. In the interest of "giving everything a chance" I actually went on a couple big firm interviews my first year. During one of them the employment law recruiter said, "You know we squish the little guy right?" Clearly I needed to get out of there.

I don't "just" want to litigate. I usually tell people I "don't want to be a lawyer," but that's not entirely true. I could see myself practicing but only if it were only say 25% of my job...and the rest was the hands on social change work I'm jonesing for. I intern at a GLBT center where the legal director there does mostly policy and education work...sign me up.

I want to be an architect of social change...and I'm proud of that. I found today's Ms. JD post about alternative careers really inspiring. It's an interview with Jessica Silverstein, a woman who always knew she wouldn't practice law. She went to law school with the goal of doing social justice work and stuck to it (no easy feat sometimes). When asked how she dealt with the risk inherent in not following the "traditional" path she responded, "I was not afraid to take risk, in fact going into law school knowing I would eventually not practice law probably made the entire process less stressful for me."

I probably shouldn't freak out. In a way, not freaking out seems irresponsible. Part of me thinks that things don't just "work out" preparation and hard work makes them work out. On the other hand, my life is nothing like the five year plan I drafted when I finished undergrad...and in a way, things have...worked out. I'm currently employed and there's no reason to believe that I can't at least hold this job (and hence, have some income) after I graduate. If nothing else, that buys me time... I should probably put the freaking out on the back burner for a bit.

I'm going to take the freak out energy and start dreaming. Part of what made me successful at jobs that I should never have been able to handle at 21 was that I didn't know better. I didn't know that I shouldn't be able to do them. That I shouldn't have been able to handle the responsibility or that I should have needed more sleep. I just jumped...fearlessly, the way only 21 year olds can. Maybe I don't see the path right now because I haven't dreamed it up. I've let this exclusive profession and it's cockamamie career centers tell me that I have limited possibilities. If I could jump at 21, why not now?

Other-than-legal Immigrants

2010-08-06T08:33:00.004-06:00

The Senate just approved $600 in border security funds. This 10 percent increase got me thinking not only about what other valuable programs this money can be spent on; but also, what benefits the United States gets from undocumented workers.

Thanks to the The Root, I found this interesting 2005 NY Times article. According to it, undocumented workers contribute about $7 billion (yes, billion) to social security annually. Further, that money is actually factored into social security budgets. According to Social Security's chief actuary about 75% of "other-than-legal immigrant" (their term) pay payroll taxes. Those taxes amount to billions of dollars of benefits that the workers themselves will never claim.

As The Root points out, it's looking more and more like the government actually needs these so called "illegal" people.

U.S. News and World Report Rankings

2010-08-05T21:03:00.002-06:00

The ABA's Special Committee on the U.S. News and World Report Rankings Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar released a very interesting report last month and Best Practices for Legal Education did a perfect summary. According to Best Practices, the report points out three major concerns about the way the rankings are created:

First, “the current methodology tends to increase the cost of legal education for students.” The rankings award schools that spend more money per student. Therefore, a low cost school will be punished despite the quality of education.
Second, “the methodology tends to discourage the award of financial aid based upon need.” Financial aid is now used to attract students with high GPA’s in order to satisfy that component of the rankings. The result is that students with the greatest financial need are required to borrow heavily to attend law school.
Third, “the current methodology tends to reduce incentives to enhance the diversity of the legal profession.” Racial diversity is ranked among law schools in a separate report and not included in the official rankings. Therefore, diversity is forsaken in order to focus on GPA and LSAT scores. And because the cost of law school continues to increase, other forms of diversity, like family financial background, are further ignored.

Today, I staffed a booth at a regional ALA expo. The woman sitting next to me was working on her masters in legal administration after practicing law in South Carolina for years. She decided to leave her well paying gig in SC because the legal environment there was so exclusive.One of the major barriers for her was that firms told her that they didn't really hire associates from the HBCU she'd graduated from; even though she'd done well in law school and had previously worked for those same firms as a paralegal (interestingly, most did offer her her old job back).

The law school she'd attended was no doubt lower ranked (and much more affordable) than others in the area. But many of the professors at her HBCU taught at multiple schools, all with vastly different rankings. So, if the education is literally the same, why are the rankings so important? Why do firms refuse to hire from schools that aren't in the top tear? As the report says, we are clearly favoring some institutions over others simply because they are more expensive (and, hence, less accessible to lower income students).

And, needless to say, I've long thought that U.S. News needed to include diversity in the reports.

Why Law School Grades Shouldn't Matter

2010-07-27T08:13:00.006-06:00

Let's get one thing straight...yes, yes I know, this blog isn't exactly a bastion of all thing straight...moving on...

Let's get one thing straight: law school grades don't tell you how much a person knows about a subject or how well he or she is going to perform as an attorney. They might tell you if the student has had the professor before, if he or she got enough sleep the night of the final, if the person's culture or learning style was that of the dominant law school culture or maybe how much adderall the student had access to. But grades don't tell you anything meaningful about a student's (or job applicant's) capabilities.

In 2009 Berkeley Law Professor Marj Shultz conducted research for the Law School Admissions Council on the attributes that are correlated with success as an attorney. You can view the study here. She found the following contributed to effective lawyering performance:

- Analysis and reasoning

- Creativity/innovation

- Problem solving

- Practical Judgement

- Researching the law

- Fact fining

- Questioning and interviewing

- Influence and advocating

- Writing, Speaking, and Listening Skills

- Strategic planning

- Ability to Organize and manage one's own work

- Organizing and managing others

- Negotiation skills

- Ability to see the world through other's eyes

- Networking and business development

- Providing advice and counsel and building relationships

- Developing relationships with the legal profession

- Able to evaluate, develop, and mentor others

- Passion and engagement

- Diligence

- Integrity/honesty

- Stress management

- Community involvement and service

- Self-development

Notice what's missing? Grades and LSAT scores are no were to be found. Why? Because they aren't good predictors of success in the legal profession. So why do we cling to these standards with such ferocity?

Most interesting (to me at least) is that LSAT scores and law school grades show considerable race gaps. Many of these other factors don't. So, if a person's LSAT and GPA aren't good predictors of success and they disadvantage people of color...why are we so slow to abandon our faith in them?

I recently asked this question of recruiters at top national firms. Let me say, the conversation was depressing...and deserves its own blog post...stay tuned.

Coping with the Horrible Legal Employment Statistics

2010-07-23T10:01:00.003-06:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that there are no shortage of terrible statistics about the lack of legal employment prospects for new grads (For a sampling check out NALP, VAULT, The Huffington Post and the ABA Journal). There is also a growing movement to "expose the law school scam" (see Lawyers Against the Law School Scam, The Jobless Juris Doctor, Temporary Attorney, or But I did Everything Right! to name a few) .

Admittedly some of the Exposing blogs come off pretty biased and bitter...but where there's smoke there's often fire and I think every law school applicant or entering 1L should look at all the data (good and bad) before signing up for over $100k of debt.

But my current question is: how do you deal with all the negativity if you're already...say... 2/3 of the way done? Me, I've adopted the head in the sand approach. I wont read the blogs, I wont think about it, I'll call those people bitter and something will work out.

I'm not going to have the $150k of dept, but I'm going to have more than I'm comfortable with....and I'm definitely not going to land the Big Law job (not that I want it). So sometimes I freak out. I wonder what advise I'll give in 5 years. Even if law school is a good cultural fit for you, I wonder if I'd advise public interest-minded people to take on the debt. From this vantage point I do wonder if I could have had a similar social impact without the JD (and the debt) or if the letters behind my name will truly help me. Will the magical loan repayment programs work out for me? Or will I have to eat ramen noodles until I'm 45?

The Gender Binary, Bar Application, and Forced Dishonesty

2010-07-17T17:55:00.006-06:00

I am currently working on a proposal to the board of bar examiners to make the bar application more inclusive for trans folk. Here's what I've learned so far.

No one is talking about this. It's shocking really. It almost never makes sense to reinvent the wheel so I started by contacting my local and national GLBT bar associations. The national GLBT bar association told me that I was the first one to inquire about the issue. Really!?

This leads me to believe that trans-identified people just have bigger battles to fight. Trans folks are over represented among homeless people, people living in poverty and people in prison. I can understand why.

This is where allies come in. If you're not a law student/lawyer or haven't taken a legal responsibility class you may not know the fear of god put into law students who are applying to the bar. Lying, even if you don't know you're lying can be grounds to stop you from being admitted (you know, after you've paid over $150k for your education). For example, the application asks for every place you've lived since you were 18 or every place you've live in the last 10 years...forgot that summer sublet in college? Welcome to liar's ville. Now imagine that this application asks for your gender and demands that you tell the truth, but doesn't make the truthful option one that you can select. What are your options? Well, if you're too busy just fighting for the right to use a restroom comfortably, you probably don't have time to do with this. Enter allies...hopefully.

"Gender: _________" would be better than "Gender: Male Female." The medical profession and colleges/universities seem to be slowly moving away from the gender binary. Curiously, the legal profession seems to show no signs of movement (although HRC and The Sylvia Rivera Project do have some helpful recourses). I feel like the only way to be truly inclusive is to let people self identify the gender identification they feel comfortable with.

Bar examiners love them some excuses. So far we've heard that they don't want to have an open field for gender because it's hard to code for data tracking (even though the form is not a scantron and currently has to be hand entered). They don't want to have an "other" category because it's insensitive (even though they have an "other" category for race). They don't want to have seven options for gender because it might confuse/offend people (What!? Who? Not to mention there are a whole class of people who are being offended by the imposed gender binary that currently exists...why is it that the [ignorant] dominant culture is the one who has the right to not be "confused" or "offended"?).

Is your law school, bar application, or firm more inclusive than the ones I'm experiencing? If so feel free to send recourses my way!

Working During Law School (or How Riding a Bike is like Meditating)

2010-07-12T08:30:00.004-06:00

Happy Monday everyone!

Hope you had a good weekend, I did. I went home from the office pretty frazzled on Friday so it was nice to spend the weekend relaxing...people watching on a walking mall, bike ride to Ben & Jerry's, (small) African American Arts festival. It was nice.

And it gave me some cool down time from work. Why was I frazzled you ask, well, I'll tell you.

I attended a rather expensive private liberal arts college for undergrad and I'm currently at a rather expensive (is there any other kind?) private law school. In both situations I've had a really had time being ok with the fact that other people (students, faculty, staff...) assume that you have enough money to finance this education and not work. I realize that this is my own -ish but it continues to be frustrating.

It's not that I inherently mind that I have less money than most of my peers...it's that they refuse to understand. In undergrad I was regularly penalized for not attending out of class meetings ("optional" review sessions with the professor, unscheduled labs, etc) that were scheduled with less than 24 hours notice. Most people at my undergrad didn't work. In fact, I was the only person I knew who worked off campus. The thing was...if I wanted to eat, I had to get a job for more than 10 hours at the library. So I held 2 on campus jobs and a 30 hour a week retail gig. As long as I had a week's notice I could move my schedule to accommodate almost anything...but 24 hours was not going to cut it. And I don't think that's unreasonable. I often found myself angry, not that I had to work, but that people wouldn't make reasonable scheduling accommodations. It was as if my (perfectly reasonable) economic situation was inconveniencing them.

Fast forward 5 years...and here I am in the same situation.

I want to work at a non-profit which means my income is going to be modest for the next few years and I'm not really willing to mortgage my income for the next 50 years to finish this degree. If I don't want to take out some astronomical debt I need to work.

Most my friends in law school get support from family. Parents pay rent, buy condos, pay tuition, cover health insurance, or send a monthly check. As much as my parents might like to do those things...they can't. That's not a bad thing, it's just reality and I get really uncomfortable when my peers fault me for working.

I was told not to work during my first year...I did it anyway...and my grades were crappy. But I don't think the grades were a result of working. They were a result of hating law school and feeling really unwelcome in the culture. I worked more my second year...and my grades got better.

So when my boss told me she thought I'd be "crazy" to work 30 hours a week during the fall (and hence she wouldn't give me the hours; therefore, I should probably start the job hunt) it was hard to hear. I'm not crazy...I'm just not rich. Yes, it would be stressful and there would probably be some ugly moments...but how else does she think I've paid for life thus far?

I have a pretty strong emotional response to all of this and I think some part of that comes from feeling like an "other." I'm reminded that I'm not part of this culture every time I have to explain that I can/have/will work to a colleague, prof., or supervisor. I'm reminded that I'm way outside of my SES...people in this world expect you to be able to come up with $53k a year without working.

It's not that I'm ashamed of working. I take a lot of pride in what I was able to accomplish in undergrad and I know I'll feel the same way about law school. In the meantime, the teachable moments continue and I will just feel blessed for the strength this process allows me to acquire.

And, you know, job hunt.

Ah, clarity. Maybe I should ride my bike to Ben & Jerry's more often.

Because this blog wasn't gay enough

2010-07-09T08:18:00.003-06:00

Yay for the DOMA decision!

Yesterday, Judge Joseph L. Tauro of United States District Court in Boston found for the plaintiffs in two separate cases brought by the Massachusetts state attorney general and GLAD. When I originally read the headlines I had hoped that the decision would relate to the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that says that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states...sadly it doesn't. What it does do (which is still pretty awesome) is make same-sex couples in states where marriage is legal eligible for federal benefits that are currently only available to opposite-sex married couples.

According to Judge Tauro, "This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status." He goes onto say, "the federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state." Woot! Way to go Judge T.

The Department of Justice has 60 days to appeal the decision which GLAD "fully expects" them to do. In the meantime, it's a victory!

Links

ACS Blog - Marriage Equality Victory: Federal Judge Rules DOMA Violates Constitution
GLAD Pres Release - Federal Court Strikes Down DOMA Section 3
NY Times - Judge Topples U.S. Rejection of Gay Unions
Con Law Prof Blog - DOMA Unconstitutional: Massachusetts Federal District Judge Finds Section 3 of Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - What we're reading: DOMA Edition
Judge Tauro's Ruling

Ask "Anything" Panel

2010-07-08T15:15:00.006-06:00

I'm very involved at my law school. I'm on the board of multiple student organizations, I facilitate diversity workshops, and I see myself as a resource for other students. So when the email from administration came out asking for volunteers for this year's orientation "Ask Anything" panel I responded that I'd be happy to participate if they still needed volunteers. Today I received this email:

Good Afternoon-

Thank you for volunteering to be part of an Ask Anything Panel during orientation. The five of you will be the panel for Section Two which will take place [date & time in Room 100]. Please come to Student Affairs that day prior to the panel to pick up your t-shirt and name tag. Please be in the room promptly at 2:30.

All of you probably remember this panel from when you went through orientation. You will start by introducing yourself, letting them know what year you are and what you are involved with and then open it up for questions. I urge you to be positive, orientation is not the time to get down on law school and scare them away. If anything inappropriate is said you will be pulled from the panel by a staff member. [Bold added by Reconstructing Law School for emphasis]

So please get back to me and let me know if you are still available and willing to sit on the panel, and also your t-shirt size. T-shirts are first come first serve so get back to me fast. Thanks all!

[Student Affairs Person]

Apparently the "anything" in "Ask Anything" is a relative term. I'm not suggesting that an orientation panel is the appropriate place to air one's dirty laundry but that was a pretty forceful email. The scary part about this thinly veiled censorship is that one person's truth might be another institution's "inappropriate" comment. If I say something "inappropriate" (whatever that means) do you think they'll employ force?

I wonder is they let the incoming 1Ls know that they are attending a panel whose members have been muted? Advise to 1Ls: get the email addresses of your orientation leaders, you might get more honest answers.

Is The Daily Show Sexist?

2010-07-07T09:24:00.008-06:00

Jezebel reporter Irin Carmon recently published a piece on the lack of gender diversity on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. The article opens with the announcement, "The Daily Show is many things: progressive darling, alleged news source for America's youth, righteous media critique, And it's also a boys' club where women's contributions are often ignored and dismissed." The article goes on to report that in the past seven years only one woman has been considered as an on-air correspondent. This year there have been 63 male guests but only 13 female guests.

The Washington City Paper did a great follow up to the Jezebel piece theorizing what exactly is going on over at The Daily Show. I recommend checking out the article because my recap isn't going to do it justice. The Washington City Paper concludes that:

Stewart is not (a) a tyrannical sexist, but he does fail to take into
account (b) societal forces and (c) ingrained prejudices when making hires and
booking guests. He and his show operate in a culture that values men over women,
both as comedians (his staff) and people (his guests). And he—according
to every woman on his staff—believes that by hiring and booking the people
(men) who reliably rise to the top in this sexist system, he’s making decisions
based on merit—and nothing else. Attempting to counteract the ingrained sexism
of comedy by deliberately seeking out women performers and writers would “risk
compromising his show’s quality.”
...
Here’s an easy rule for any manager to live by: If you haven’t considered
the societal forces and ingrained prejudices that may contribute to gender
disparities in your hiring practices, your hiring practices are probably sexist.
And if you respond to suggestions that your hiring practices may be sexist with
a letter signed by all the women on your staff dismissing these claims out of
hand, then your hiring practices are almost certainly sexist. That, or men are
just better than women.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

This all reminds me of Beverly Tatum's analogy between racism and airport-style moving sidewalks. We're all on the sidewalk. People who are overtly sexist are consciously walking along (faster than) the sidewalk. The rest of us who are standing still are being moved toward the same destination as the overt sexist even though we are not necessarily conscious of our unintended destination. To be actively anti-sexist (or anti-any system of oppression) requires on to not only turn around on the sidewalk but also to start walking in the opposite direction, bumping into people and up-setting the usual way of things.

I hope Jon Steward, media outlets and American institutions in general (ahem, law school) begin to think more about what walking in the other direction might look like.

Oh, and The Daily Show's response can be found here.

Advice for 1Ls

2010-07-06T08:02:00.004-06:00

I remember the summer before I started law school, it felt like suddenly everyone I knew had an opinion or word of advice about law school. And yet...I still felt like there were things the universe forgot to tell me. Here they are.

You are great just the way you are.

There's this huge push for assimilation in law school. One of the biggest blows to my sense of self came during my first semester of law school when a career development person told me to take all my identity-marking experience off my resume (women's center, Feminist Majority Foundation, GLBT equality work). I was so lost at the time I almost did it. I'm so glad I didn't, if an employer doesn't want someone who's progressive, biracial, and a little gay then I shouldn't want to work there.

It's OK to talk (or not talk) in class.

I have no problem talking about equal rights or sexuality or a host of other topics to large groups of strangers when I'm in my role of activist or diversity trainer. But get me in a 1L seminar...and I'm silent. I spent much of my 1L year thinking that professors were asking about facts. Objective truths about the law. The thing is, objective truth doesn't exist in the law. As a 1L you know as much as the gunner next to you. Don't be intimidated, if you have something to say, say it. If you're introverted and don't want to speak that's ok too. Just realize that the law school system isn't set up to appreciate introverts and you might have to remind yourself that it's them not you (see above).

There are really cool people (some of them professors).

You just have to be on the look out. And don't be afraid to stop by office hours, even if the prof doesn't turn out to be your bff it can't hurt for them to know that you're interested in them/their class. This is especially true if you're the kind of person who doesn't adore speaking in a class of 70.

Don't freak out when you can't find the brown people.

Um, because I totally freaked out. The legal field is one of the least diverse profession in the United States. We're doing work to improve on this but for now the reality is that if you're a person of color you might have some trouble finding folks who look like you. The good news is, once you find (the 6 of) us we'll be a great support system.

Buy the E&E!!

Why it took me so long to figure this one out I have no idea. Case books are just that...case books. What they are not are text books. If you're having trouble seeing the big picture or nailing down the concepts you're going to need a text book and I recommend the Examples & Explanations series. Read it along with your case book or cover-to-cover before you outline.

Do something that is you.

You'll be told that you should make law school your whole life: don't work, don't join clubs, don't have an outside life. I actually disagree. I felt small and out of place in law school. I didn't think it was very inclusive and it made me doubt myself. I need things that remind me that I am still a whole (and valuable) person. If you need a part time gig, or softball team, or mommy-and-me-group you should definitely do it.

You are great just the way you are.

I mean it.

For more great advice check out The Undeniable Ruth.

Grades

2010-07-04T23:11:00.005-06:00

I finally received the last of my grades this week (you know, 5 weeks after finals, no big deal). GPA-wise I'm not sure if it was my best semester...it was definitely close. It was my most consistent semester. There were grades that I'd hoped would be a little better (isn't that always the case?) but, for the first time, I wasn't actually disappointed with any of them.

And it felt good.

I hate to say that. I know that grades are crap. They don't measure how well you know the material, how hard you worked, or how good of a lawyer you're going to be. They measure how well you did on one test...that you couldn't have totally prepared for because there's no way of knowing how the professor is going to test or grade (ex. I took Civ Pro and Evidence with the same - awful - professor. I didn't learn anything from him in either class and yet I did a full grade better in Evidence. I don't think I put in anymore work in Evidence but I did know what to expect from the professor's grading/testing style and I could study accordingly. Seems to me that if professors truly wanted students to do well they would give midterms).

I try to remind myself that law school grades are not accurate reflections of, well, anything, when I'm disappointed with them... and I usually fail at making myself feel better. I guess it's nice to know that this truth doesn't resonate any better when I've done well than when I've done poorly.

I know grades aren't an accurate measure of my progress let alone my worth, and I hate to admit it, but I feel a little more worthy now.

This is Simple. This is Just Love.

2010-07-01T09:20:00.008-06:00

I get a little weepy just watching the trailer. If you've every read any part of this blog you know what a screaming progressive I am. You might be surprised to know that I have a large percentage of LDS friends. In fact, my closest friend in law school is Mormon...and this is the one subject we can't talk about. When Prop. 8 passed I was so sad, and so angry. Crying about this in front of my first year writing professors was not one of my finer moments.

I'm sure it'll be insanely biased but I'm really looking forward to Prop.8: The Mormon Proposition. If it's not coming to your town (heck, even if it is) consider getting a free copy by donating to NCLR or HRC.

Don't have $75? You can link through NCLR's site to by a copy for $20 and have half the cost go to working for GLBT rights.

Calling all Female Role Models

2010-06-30T12:41:00.004-06:00

So I realized that there was something very important that recently happened, that you may not have noticed. You know maybe you were doing research, or practicing law, or finally becoming that social change agent you always knew you could be. But….while you were doing all that...

Wonder Woman got Pants!

I know. Exciting, right? Well, sort of. The feminist blogosphere is pretty up in arms about his because Women Woman (while finally getting some relief from those cold winter nights) has managed to look…well, less strong. Shelby Knox wrote a very nice post critiquing the new image of wonder woman that talks about “a generation of role-model starved women.” Which got me thinking…are we?

Maybe.

When I thought about it I realized that my role model of the moment is…wait for it…Bethenny Frankel. Insane right? No one with half a brain should watch real housewives. If they do they shouldn’t admit it. Certainly not on a gender theory-heavy law blog. And yet, here I am.

For those of you that are still pretending not to know about this Real Housewife of New York she’s the New Yorky-ist (read: most creatively outspoken) of the bunch. She also seems to have mastered the use-reality-tv-as-a-springboard marketing campaign (you can by fitness dvds, cookbooks, margaritas, and healthy lifestyle guides on her website).

I often find myself needing someone like Frankel in my mental slush. In the 70s I probably would have cited Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Kimberle Crenshaw or Betty Friedan as my voice of reason. The voice that tells me to keep screaming when the world around me (read: law school) tells me to shut up. And yet, here I am in 2010 citing a reality tv star as a source of grounding and strength. I don’t mean to be judgmental but something about that seems fundamentally wrong.

Face Lift

2010-06-22T09:27:00.002-06:00

What do you think? Do you like the new look of Reconstructing Law School?

I'll probably continue to make small changes over the new couple of days so please excuse the dust.

SAT's Ethnic and Social Class Bias

2010-06-21T12:55:00.001-06:00

African Americans are roughly 7% of law students, 13% of college students, and 13% of the population (those numbers seem off to me...probably because they're taken from different sources with different procedural methods...but anyway, you the idea). African Americans graduate from high school, attend college, graduate from college, and attend law school at lower rates than do their white counterparts, and there are no shortage of theories as to why that is.

A new study published in the Harvard Education Review has a particularly interesting theory: the SAT (remember how important that was when you were 16) is biased against African American and low income students. Ok, so that's not really knew news. Here's the new part: black students tend to struggle on easier questions, while having greater success than white students on harder questions. According to Jay Mathew's over at the Washington Post Blog the new Harvard Education Review study shows:

Hard questions, those that produce more wrong answers, tend to have longer less common words. Easy questions tend to have shorter, more common words. Freedle [the original researcher] that this was key to the relative success African American students had with the harder ones. Simpler words tend to have more meanings, and in some cases different meanings in white middle class neighborhoods than they had in underprivileged minority neighborhoods, he concluded. This, he said, could help explain why African American students did worse on questions with common words than on questions that depended on harder, but less ambiguous words they studied at school.

Criticisms of the study include that it hasn't yet been peer reviewed (although two studies have replicated the data). Accordingly, the Harvard Education Review plans to publish a criticism and a support of the article in an upcoming edition. The College Board (owner of the SAT) is all kinds of opposed to these findings...which is interesting. It's clear that statistically African America's performs worse than their White peers. Shouldn't the College Board wonder about that? I realize that they are trying to sell a product (conflict of interest anyone?) but shouldn't they be concerned about these results anyway? Shouldn't they be interested in taking the bias (whatever it is) out of their product?

The SAT has a tremendous effect on the educational opportunities available to the students in this country and there are numerous hurdles to overcome before a young person can enter college. A race and/or class based bias in the entrance exam shouldn't be one of those hurdles.

Links

Law School Admissions Lag Among Minorities - NY Times

Fast Facts - NCES

Quick Facts - US Census

Correcting the SAT's Ethnic and Social-Class Bias: A Method for Reestimating SAT Scores - Harvard Education Review

New Evidence the SAT Hurts Blacks - Jay Mathews

Senior Official: Obama Administration Will Challenge Arizona Immigration Law

2010-06-18T12:44:00.001-06:00

Way to go federal government (and Secretary Clinton)!

Full article over at CBS News.

Biden's reaction to Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) apology to BP

2010-06-18T12:25:00.004-06:00

Oh, how I heart Joe Biden. Swoon.

and if you haven't seen the insanity that was Rep. Barton's apology you can watch it here.

and just for fun. Top 10 Ridiculous Oil Spill Quotes from Congress.

The Mommy Track

2010-06-17T13:01:00.005-06:00

I just can't stop reading blogs about women in the legal field. I came across these two recent entries that sort of made my head spin.

Harvard Law Women Opt Out - The Careerist
Vivia Chen discusses a recent study that showed that 1/3 of female law students from the graduating class of 1993 are no longer practicing law. As Chen puts it:

"I can't help but feel a bit deflated that so many of her female classmates have
decided not to pursue any type of career at all. Yes, I realize that these are
personal choices, and that many women are perfectly fulfilled minding the home
and kids. And as the cliche goes, kids grow up so quickly. So who can blame
anyone for not wanting to miss those magical years?

Yet, I'm baffled.
Are these women just burned out by the legal profession? Is it that impossible
to balance--however badly--home and career of any sort? Or are these women
taking the path of least resistance?"

The Mommy Track Turns 21 - Slate
Angie Kim, Harvard Law grad and author of the study reported on in Chen's piece, argues that the so-called "mommy track" has changed over the last two decades and that it should no longer be seen as shameful to opt-out of a legal career in order to stay home and raise children.

As I read both posts I couldn't help but wonder: Where are the men? In 2010 are women still the only ones who a allowed/required to raise children? Are we the only ones who want to? One of the comments to Chen's piece argues that men would "opt out" as well if it were socially acceptable...but I just don't' think that's true. I don't think I can believe that if men really wanted to spend time with their children they wouldn't make it happen.

Kim argues that there's no shame in the mommy track. And on an individual basis I agree with her. Both genders should be allowed to set the priorities and values that are authentic to them and then live by those values. If staying home with your children is truly your desire and priority, I applaud you for being authentic. But given the numbers, I just don't buy it. I think it's patriarchal values rearing their ugly head. I don't think the choice to opt out of a legal career would fall so strongly along gender lines were patriarchy not at play.

It's about [insert dominant identity] too!

2010-06-16T21:03:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow I am attending a CLE entitled, " Glass Ceilings and Dead Ends: The Future of Women Lawyers at Large Law Firms." The presentation will be based on Prof. Eli Wald's paper by the same title. It's exciting that Prof. Wald, who it would seem would have little personal investment in the ill effects of systemic gender discrimination, has written such an exciting paper. We need more allies.

As I was googling around to learn more about Wald's writings I found Jotwell's latest blog post which included this:

In his new article, Eli Wald sheds light on why women in BigLaw have not yet come “a long way.” He explains that large law firms have adopted a professional ideology of hypercompetitiveness, which has transformed the firms into sites where the opportunity to pursue a balanced life is, by definition, completely absent. This is “bad news for women lawyers and for the prospect of greater gender equality in the legal profession.”2 (P. 2287). In fact, it’s bad news for everyone: according to Joyce Sterling and Nancy Reichman, in the same symposium, “the long hours are taking their toll on male associates as well,” which is confirmed also by Dau-Schmidt et al in the Michigan alumni study.

The fact that the article, which is getting much deserved praise, was written by a man and that the Jotwell post felt the need to highlight the "toll on male associates" left me feeling like women (at least in the legal profession) are still reliant on men to legitimize their plight. When we thought systemic gender discrimination only had a negative impact on the lives of women, well frankly, we didn't care. We had to convince men that it was bad for them too. And the age old truth came to light: the problem/concept/idea becomes legitimate when it belongs to a man. Similarly, I wonder if Wald's piece would have been as new or interesting if it had been penned by a woman.

I run across a similar paradigm when I do diversity and inclusiveness work around race. I find myself telling skeptics that diversity is "good for business" and that it "helps everyone perform to their best (and most lucrative) potential." In reality I just want to scream, "Excluding people is wrong! That's it. End of story. This profession has a long history of some groups benefiting at other group's expense but we're smarter than that now. It's not about business, it's not about what's best for you, it's about not discriminating...which, intentional or not, is what your current system is doing." But that would get me no where. The reality is that sensitive issues must be presented in a way that people are open and capable of hearing. I just wonder if (philosophically) catering to a listener in the dominant group ultimately serves to further defeat the speaker.

If the outsider groups (women. people of color, LGBT identified people) are always having to convince the dominant group that including us is in their best interest will it ever truly be in our best interest.

Reconstructing Tuition?

2010-06-04T12:17:00.002-06:00

If your first year had been free would you have dropped out?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/05/21/illinois-law-professor-make-the-1l-year-free/

I dislike Laura Bush

2010-05-31T22:46:00.001-06:00

Yeah, yeah, I know, not shocking. Here's what you might find interesting though: I dislike her more now than I did two years ago.

The feminist blogs were all giddy when Mrs. Bush gave this interview on Larry King. She talks about her pro-choice and pro-marriage stance. And, you know, also plugs her new book.

Here's the thing Mrs. Bush (you twit!), under your husband's anti-choice policies (namely abstinence only education and the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule) millions of children and young adults were given medically inaccurate information, millions of the worlds poorest women were denied access to safe and effective family planning, and I spent a gazillion hours protesting. You, on the other hand, had the ear of the president. You could have changed things; via persuasion, via logic, via withholding sex a la Lysistrata. I don't care...but if you truly are/were pro-choice, you had a duty to stand up for women. And not just when it was convenient for you. Not just when you wanted to sell books.

Don't even get me started on unequal marriage policies.

Coming out now as pro-choice and pro-marriage isn't heroic. What Laura Bush has done is managed to capitalize on some of this country (and the world's) most vulnerable women for her own book sales. She refused to support women or use her privilege to advocate for them when it would have been useful...and yet she's profiting off her cowardice. Class act.

I feel like a bit of a spy

2010-05-27T11:40:00.004-06:00

I recently started a new job with an AMAZING non-profit that does diversity work in the legal field. It's only been a few days but I think this could be a really great fit.

That being said...I feel like a bit of a spy. I've worked in non-profits before, but never fancy non-profits. Even when I worked for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer the office was...um...frugal. From the quality of their organization and events you'd never know that a team of 7 produces a 3,000+ person event from a glorified industrial shop. I applaud the Avon Walk for keeping overhead low and working to have the hard-earned fundraising money go directly to the cause; but, I'm not kidding when I say I once pulled my "new" office chair out of the neighboring business's dumpster.

Today I find myself in a fancy legal/non-profit hybrid organization housed by an even fancier giant law firm. It's been years since I worked in a for-profit setting and, I have to admit, having access to all the office supplies I could ever need (organized by color!) makes me swoon (What can I say? I've always had a sick obsession with new "school" supplies. Post its and sticky tags and highlighters...oh my!).

Don't get me wrong, I can rock business attire with the best of them. But I can't help feeling a little like someone who's only visiting Planet Fancy.

Accordingly, I'm taking camera phone pics of this new found land. The bathrooms here have a bottle of Listerine the size of my torso. I'm pretty confused as to where you purchase such a thing...and why I'm bothering brushing my teeth at home.

Do I Look Illegal

2010-05-20T18:35:00.007-06:00

Of course I've been following the buzz around the racism that's happening in Arizona. Of course Arizona's SB 1070 is awful, racist and scary. When basketball teams, academics, and Vanessa Bryant all I agree; I think this country has officially reached a consensus. SB 1070 scares me because so many folks bought into it... but I don't think it'll be upheld in courts. So I'm not freaking out.

What I'm actually frightened of is the state's HB2281. This act prohibits, "a school district or charter schools from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people." The bill does a wonderful job of not really defining what it is to "promote resentment."

For me, the legislation is infuriating on two levels. First, it's indisputable that the history taught in most grade school classes is the history of white people. As a product of California's public schools, and later a substitute teacher in them, I know first hand that children are taught that missions are good things that "civilized the Indians;" and that although Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans made enumerable contributions to the development of this country, I don't think I could have named a single one prior to attending college. The pictures I saw of civil war soldiers, prized leaders, and scientific innovators were always that of white men. Though the Arizona law prohibits the teaching of curriculum that is "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," it's clear that the education that most children get is designed for and biased towards white people. The law, therefore, isn't banning "ethnic" studies it's banning "non-white studies."

The second reason I'm infuriated is that the law prohibits classes that, "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Don't get me started on this country's obsession with perceived "individualism." There is no soap box tall enough. But this prohibition exemplifies the dominant culture's inability to step back and think about the realities of under represented groups. Being someone who is constantly the "only [insert identity] person in the room/school/office" is draining. When you don't show up in the history books, science books, or school newspaper you can feel down right invisible.

Since starting law school I've been very active in the Latino Law Student Association (LLSA) at my institution. Next year I'll serve as President of the organization. There have definitely been moments where LLSA was the only place in the law building where I felt validate, appreciated, and "normal." The ability to feel "normal," or at least passable, is a privilege that many white students (and legislatures) take for granted. Yes, Arizona, I am and will always be an individual but I also need my education to appreciate the value of community and affinity groups for underrepresented students.

And lets be honest, this bill is nothing more than hate and fear mongering. The Arizona House of Representatives wasn't worried about students not being treated as individuals...they are worried about people of color realizing their own strength. I'm not saying all us brown people would like to get together and over throw the government. I'm saying that right now students of color perform worse (particularly in law school) than our white their counterparts for absolutely no good reason. Maybe if we got together and realized the strength, compassion, and potential we possess when we work together we would organize and realize our full potential. Maybe we'd demand better social services, education, and funding in low income areas. Maybe we'd steal back the proverbial bootstraps folks are always talk about. Maybe we'd take over some of the legislative seats.

Also, check out this great article from The Nation.

If you can be in Arizona on the 29th, you should participate in this for me.

Monday Morning Round Up

2010-05-17T10:21:00.003-06:00

Happy 56th Anniversay Brown v. Board - Politic 365

Shame on you federal courts...only 1% of federal judges are Asian-America - Associated Press

National Latino Law Student Association Support the DREAM Act - NLLSA Blog

Aaron Heideman begins discussion about the American Dream - American Dream or Bust

Happy 6th Anniversary to Equal Marriage in MA - GLAD

Happy International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (commemorating the 20th anniversary of WHO's removal of homosexuality from it's list of mental disorders)- Feministing

I worry

2010-05-16T13:30:00.003-06:00

Believe it or not I, the woman who incessantly writes about "privileged white people," worry about offending folks. I do. On one hand this is a space to vent my frustrations, voice my thoughts, think as I write, and hopefully find community. On the other hand, this is a blog for public consumption and talking about race, class, etc. isn't always palatable...depending on the readers own identities. I worry that I'm easily offended or that I will offend others. Maybe I shouldn't be...maybe I should. Jury's still out.

Speaking of juries...evidence final on Tuesday. Scary, scary.

Traces of the Trade

2010-05-13T13:55:00.004-06:00

Earlier this week I helped facilitate small group dialogue after a screening of Traces of the Trade.

While I think it's a well done documentary and I'm happy about the conversations it sparks...I had a little trouble with the film. On one hand, one of it's greatest strengths is how accessible it is for people who wouldn't normally think about race theory. On the other hand, whoopie!

During our large group discussion, facilitated by Harold Fields, I said that it was a little bit hard for me to see privileged white folks take a trip to learn more about slavery and applaud it at "courageous." These descendants of slave traders weren't discovering or saying anything that was new to people of color, it was only knew to small children and other privileged white folks. Whoo hoo! Kudos white people, you just repeated information that people of color have been saying for years (since we're talking about slavery, hundreds of years in fact).

Fields, himself a person of color, seemed to think that this was one of the positive attributes of the film. He seemed to embrace the reality that the information that comes out of the mouths of people of color is not always seen as valuable, especially to white people. That because the makers/subjects of the film were of the dominant (privileged) group they were in fact saying information in a new way. A way that other privileged folk we able to hear.

Peggy McIntosh's work on Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack has received the same criticism I'm now giving Traces of the Trade, yet the value of her work can't really be denied. I attended very expensive privileged academic institutions for both undergrad and law school...I'm not sure that such institutions would have been able to stomach such challenging and interesting work on privilege if it has come out of the mouth (or pen) of an African American author (who no doubt, would have been written off as angry or crazy). And who am I kidding? Even out of the mouth of an old white lady, my law school wouldn't touch this stuff with a ten foot pole. There's no denying the value of McIntosh's work, or the fact that it probably wouldn't have been as well received had it been presented by someone who didn't look like McIntosh.

I believe that we all have something to contribute in the dialogue about race in this country. All of our realities are valid and we all have something to learn from each other. I would never want to shut someone out of the conversation; but, man, given all the history it sure is a complicated interaction.

So I guess I'm saying that I see Field's point. But does accepting reality make it any less insulting? Is there a way to applaud the work done by the family in Traces of the Trade while still honoring the truths that have been told by African Americans (and other people of color) for decades (if not centuries)? Is there a way to appreciate and encourage work done by white folks while accepting that it's ok that I'm angry that the playing field is still not level?

For more info about the documentary check out the website.

Motivation...where are you?

2010-05-13T13:40:00.003-06:00

I still have more work than I want to admit...

- Finishing up cases in the clinic

- Work on a paper from last semester

- Research Assistant work

- Internship

- Evidence final on the 18th!

- Starting new job on the 19th.

I'm moderately overwhelmed but can't really manage to make myself move. Reading other law student blogs about people finishing up isn't really helping.

Wallow, wallow.

Covering

2010-05-12T15:48:00.004-06:00

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is a flippin' genious. In fact, he's so gosh darn smart that he has a solution to end all sexuality-base employment discrimination. Whee! Ready for it...ready for it...Gay people should just stop acting so, well, gay. Yesterday, during ENDA discussions, Rep.King espoused the following:

And [State Sen. Jerry Behn] said, "let me ask you a question. Am I heterosexual or am I homosexual?" And they looked him up and down, actually they should have known, but they said, "We don't know." And he said, "Exactly, my point. If you don't project it, if you don't advertise it, how would anyone know to discriminate against you?" And that's at the basis of this. So if people wear their sexuality on their sleeve and then they want to bring litigation against someone that they would point their finger at and say, "You discriminate."

The critical race theorist in me couldn't help but think of Kenji Yoshino's work on the concept of covering. Kenji Yoshino's book, appropriately titled Covering, is one of my favorites. In it he discusses a common way that people who are not part of the dominant group negotiate identity performance: to cover one’s outsider status. Yoshino sees the act of covering as the modern day equivalent of “passing” as the dominant group. Which is exactly what King is demanding. According to Yoshino, “individuals no longer need to be white, male, straight, Protestant, and able –bodied; they needed only to act white, male, straight, Protestant, and able-bodied. But [this is] not equality.”

One example of an institution’s court protected right to make a person cover is the case of Rogers v. American Airlines in which Rogers, an African American employee, was prohibited from wearing her hair in braids because the hair style was "unprofessional." The court held that the hairstyle policy was not discriminatory, thereby affirming the idea that it was ok for Rogers to be black because the immutable characteristics of her race were protected from discrimination; however, it was not ok for Rogers to act black.

Equality shouldn't mean that everyone is able to cover their true selves and act like the dominant group. Equality should be that we can be who we authentically are. I wonder how Rep. King would feel if someone told him not to act so straight.

Rep. King is misguided, the problem isn't that people are acting gay, it's that other people are discriminating against them.

Check out the Huffington Post article here.

Tolerance, Acceptance, and Objectivity

2010-05-11T11:30:00.003-06:00

So I'm on twitter now...weird. But that's not what this post is about. One of the diversity orgs that I follow posted this quote: "Judging others against our own standards is being egoistical. Respect everyone's right to be different!" ~Wai-Fatt Yee. In conjunction with this article about "acceptance" and "tolerance" (which the article used interchangeably), the quote has me thinking a lot about norms and objectivity.

For me, one of the hardest things about my first year of law school was that "black letter law" was taught as objective, even though it didn't reflect my reality. Which meant either (1) law school was lying to me about objectivity or (2) I was a crazy person with no sense of logic. I weighed the two possibilities more heavily than I'd like to admit.

This brings me back to the article and the Yee quote. I think the Yee quote does a decent job of implying that there isn't or shouldn't be a norm and that objectivity definitely shouldn't be defined by what the majority believes. That you, even if you're in the majority, are not necessarily the standard. That the world would probably function much better and more creatively if we were all judged on the ability to be our best selves. I think the sports article is an interesting contrast in praising a dominant group's ability to embrace (tolerate/accept) an "other." Don't get me wrong, I applaud the team's ability to create a space that is safe enough for their teammate to come out...but I think the contrast in paradigms is interesting.

Examples & Explanations

2010-05-06T00:53:00.002-06:00

14 hours from my Admin final and this book is sort of saving my (academic) life (I hope). William F. Funk and Richard H. Seamon, you rock my socks.

Wish me luck!

HB 1351

2010-05-05T13:27:00.002-06:00

Colorado passed payday lending reform! Woot!

Predictably, it was a bit watered down from the original bill but it's still a really great step in the right direction.

Under the bill, payday lenders in Colorado could not charge more than a 45 percent interest rate, the bill also limits them to charging no more than a $50 origination fee. Currently, payday lending outfits charge more than 300% interest and often charge a $75 origination fee every 2 weeks. This means that on a $300 loan borrowers will by 67% less in fees. This reform will curb some of the predatory lending that traps so many of Colorado's hardest working family.

Disgustingly, some of the legislators who opposed the bill claimed that the legislation would essentially shutter the payday-loan industry in Colorado.Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction said, "This bill will kill 1,600 jobs in Colorado."

Dear, Rep. King, I'm sure outlawing slavery put lots of slave owners and traders out of work, that doesn't make it's abolition wrong.

Clearly, Rep. King and others like him have never had to experience the pains of payday lending. Makes me think about what the legislative and legal systems might look like if they were more racially and economically diverse...ah, dreaming big.

I don't think the bill is going to have the job loss effect that some republicans are predicting...but I can see it shutting down some pay day loan places. Which makes sense now that these places will be less profitable. But a 45% interest rate still seems like it should allow these places to turn a profit...and keeping the bad guy in business at the cost of hard working, low income people is a pretty shameful argument.

This bill had been on my radar because we'd been talking about it the gay and lesbian center where I volunteer. GLBT folk and people of color are disproportionately effected by predatory payday loans...systems of oppression have a nasty way of working together.

Today I'm proud of (most of) the Colorado legislature and particularly Representative Ferrandino and Senator Romer who championed this legislation to protect hardworking Coloradans from the predatory clutches of payday loans!

Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14917281
Coloradans for Pay Day Loan Reform: http://www.copaydayreform.com/

Diversity Summit Recap

2010-05-01T18:57:00.005-06:00

The diversity summit went so well! Thank you to everyone who attended my workshop, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

My Day

During the first rotation I attended a workshop on being aware of your own whiteness as a facilitator. Kathleen Rice, Ph.D., has done some wonderful work around what lenses we bring with us as facilitators and how exclusive our basic assumptions can be. It's great when you can use what you learned in the first session later that very same day.

The second rotation I attended was on inclusiveness in the health and counseling center. Kind of a disaster.

Lunch included a presentation by YouthBiz. If you're like me, and haven't heard of them, I encourage you to check out their website. The high school students who gave the presentation did I lovely job, I was quite impressed.

My Workshop

My workshop was well attended and seemed to be well received. I was so pleased. We were having such a wonderful conversation about identities that I didn't get to go as in depth as I would have liked about my paper, It's Not Me, It's You: An argument for breaking with tradition: how law school's endorsement of the dominant culture disenfranchises students of color. I'm ok with the decision to let the discussion flow though. And I hope that the attendees understood that I was trying to illustrate an alternative to the teaching method used in law school classrooms. I was trying to embrace the priorities of the group and expand upon the learning moments rather than insisting on my own agenda.

A lot of the feedback I got was that the presentation should have been longer. I hope that people will make it "longer" by emailing me for more information and continuing the dialogue about inclusiveness in the academic environment.

What I didn't get to

If you came to my workshop, here are the quotes from my presentation that I had to skip over.

"The Negro is sort of seventh son, born with a veil and gifted with second sight in this American world, a world that yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a particular sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. ... One ever feels this twoness in the American Negro. Two souls, two thoughts, tow unreconsiled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whos dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."
- W.E.B. Dubois.

"Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support."
- Audre Lorde

If you haven't read Lorde's piece The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House you really must read it. It changes my world every time I engage with it. Also, if you want more information about my workshop or if you attended and want to continue the conversation please email me.

Thomas Hagan

2010-04-29T11:23:00.003-06:00

Thomas Hagan, the only man who confessed to killing Malcolm X, was released from prison yesterday at age 69. Mr. Hagan had been on work release since 1998 and, as of 2008, he'd been working at a fast food restaurant and spending time with his wife and kids.

Generally, I'm not pro-incarceration but I have mixed feelings about this.

How would America have felt if James Earl Ray had been released from prison?

The Spirit of Indenture

2010-04-26T13:37:00.003-06:00

Prof. Jeffery Williams recently published an article in Dissent Magazine comparing educational debt to indentured servitude. In it he states:

Although [student debt] has more varied application, less direct effects, and
less severe conditions than colonial indenture did (some have less and some
greater debt, some attain better incomes) and it does not bind one to a
particular job, student debt permeates everyday experience with concern over the
monthly chit and encumbers job and life choices. It also takes a page from
indenture in the extensive brokerage system it has bred, from which more than
four thousand banks take profit. At core, student debt is a labor issue, as
colonial indenture was, subsisting off the desire of those less privileged to
gain better opportunities and enforcing a control on their future labor.

I encourage you to read the rest of the article or the accompanying blog post over at Equal Justice Works, they are both interesting and worth the read.

I don't know if I entirely agree with Prof. Williams. Indentured servitude required a person with few other options to do very specific and undesirable labor. I don't think I'm willing to equate my law school debt to those kind of confines. The analogy might be a little more applicable when you talk about people in the lowest SES bracket and the rising cost of even community college. But in that case we're not talking about the $150,000 of debt some of my law school colleagues have taken on.

Obviously Prof. Williams acknowledges all of this.

Where I agree with Prof. Williams is that the students loan system does serve to reinforce class divisions and that reinforcing unfair class segregation and systems of oppression is bad for society.

When I was considering law school I knew that I was going to work in public interest law. I knew I probably wouldn't ever make "real" money and that I definitely wouldn't make it right out of law school. In fact there was a good chance I would have made money if I'd stayed in my JD-free career as a grant writer and fundraiser. But I wanted a law degree. So I did a balancing test and chose to go to a respectable school that gave me (almost) the most money. I didn't think that going to a second or third tier school would inhibit my job opportunities as much as debilitating debt. When I put my deposit down I was gambling on the fact that I'd be employable with a local community org when I graduated...and that it would be more risky to take on 2-3x the debt to go to a "better" school b/c I would then have to take a job I didn't want b/c it was the only one that could cover my repayment expenses. That would have felt like indenture.

My wealthier classmates, those who have parents that can either help with their tuition or living expenses, didn't have to make those decisions.

I'd also be interested in reading more about the effects of debt on low-income, working class, and lower-middle class students during school. Students who are looking at six figure dept often work or think about working when their higher income peers don't. I wonder if there's a correlation between income level, or level of external financial help, and academic performance (or even level of satisfaction with the law school experience).

All that being said, I do feel like this was a choice I made. I'm not sure I fully appreciated the reality of law school culture or the effects the education debt might have on me when I decided to accept my admissions offer, but I have more of a clue than did colonial era indentured servants. The debt is a burden, and if I wanted to attend graduate school of any kind I had to take it on, but I like to think I had some agency in the process.

Class Registration Season

2010-04-23T10:27:00.004-06:00

I just registered for the first semester of my final year of law school. Four semesters under my belt and I still hate registering. Three years is just short enough to feel make me feel like I'm "cramming" stuff in. I worry that I wont take the class I really want, that I wont get to know the professors that I'll really want in my life, that I'll have no idea what the hell is happening on the bar exam, that I'll make the semester really difficult or really easy.

It doesn't help that I can't find descriptions for half the seminars that are being offered.

Last year I dropped all of my classes and registered for new ones 2 days before the semester started. I dropped all the bar-prep stuff I "should" take and signed up for stuff that looked interesting. As a result I was a lot happier my second year than I was my first. And I don't really think I'm planning on practicing anyway.

Currently I'm registered for an employment law survey (I like employment law), a seminar about Asian Americans and the law (sort of in line with the diversity work and seminars tend to go well for me), a class on the Federal Courts (people say amazing things about the prof who teaches it), and Con Law II (this could be scary). Hoping to also add on some directed research. As far as bar prep...that's what BAR BRI is for right?

Odds are I'll change the whole thing 6 more times before August anyway.

Diversity Summit

2010-04-22T16:56:00.005-06:00

I'm excited to be presenting at the 9th annual Diversity Summit on Inclusive Excellence at the University of Denver. This year's summit is on "Creating Inclusive Excellence" and my workshop is titled, ""It’s Not Me, It’s You" An Argument for Breaking with Tradition: How Law School’s Endorsement of the Dominant Culture Disenfranchises Students of Color"

I'm excited to present on a topic I'm so excited about. Hopefully folks show up to participate.

For more information on the summit click here.
For registration information click here.

Feministe

2010-04-14T11:10:00.003-06:00

"In sum, if you are a male lawyer, invest in a well-fitting suit (and be grateful). If you are a female lawyer, invest in a well-fitting male suit and a male who will wear said suit and speak for you, Cyrano style."

Amazing Artilce from Feministe about what women are told to wear to legal interviews can be found here.

I'll probably update with my thoughts later.