Law Librarian Blog

Friday Fun: The Laboring Law Student

Hopefully the Class of 2012 student who created this day in the life of a 1L student is gainfully employed as a lawyer. [JH]

Friday Fun: A Law Library Infomercial for Law Students

Created by Maurer Law Library. [JH]

Friday Fun: Welcome to Law School, Class of 2015

Hat tip to Law is Cool. [JH]

Friday Fun: The "21st Century Approach" to Law School Success

Meaning the YouTube video ad was taken down by its creator after Elie Mystal featured it in his ATL story about a 2L who is attempting to charge for his "how to succeed" seminar. See Rising 2L Runs Seminar on ‘How To Succeed In Law School’ After 1L Year At Thomas Jefferson Law School. [JH]

Friday Fun: A Career Lesson in Practicing Law or Good Luck Newbie 1Ls

Welcome to the rest of your life incoming 1Ls assuming you decide to stick it out, pass the bar and end up being lucky enough to find some sort of gainful employment to pay off your loan debts for college and law school. Right about now, law school deans are trying to figure out how to welcome you to law school. All the "noble profession" stuff that is fodder for their "glad you are here" speech while slipping in a cautionary note  about the dismal labor market that will end with "our placement staff is here to help you." In the past, that meant "if you are in the top 10% of your graduating class." For the last several years, recent grads who made the grade and have law review on their resumes, aren't assured employment. 

If your dean says "the employment outlook will be better in three years when you graduate," for newbie lawyers he or she doesn't know shit. Any upturn in the labor market will most likely mean experienced lawyers who had been laid off will be contenders for reemployment.

If you happen to be attending Rutgers Camden, you might want to read Dean Solomon's recent message to the Reuters community at Law School Dean Takes On ‘The Blogs’ But He Doesn’t Have The Facts On His Side ahead of the traditional welcome ceremony for 1Ls. Reuters placement stats can be misleading and the school has been reporting the indebtedness of just one year of a Rutgers Law education, instead of the debt students graduate with after three years of law school. The law school’s commitment to accuracy is questionable. ATL's Elie Mystal writes:

Truth and transparency are not hard standards to meet. Instead of looking for ways to manipulate the meanings of “employed” and “indebtedness,” the school could just stand on its record. At the very least, producing stats that aren’t misleading to applicants and making statements that don’t strain credulity would keep the school out of “the blogs.”

Study law, if you want, because it is an interesting intellectual exercise in the Humanities and Social Sciences as it is still being taught by and large in the legal academy but be prepared for employment in the service industry, and I don't mean legal services. 

The below video comes from the 2007 NYU Law Revue when the legal labor market was, well, ... "better". [JH]

Friday Fun: "Forget the message, forget the lyrics, and just play" at the West Party

If ever there was a corporate culture that does not represent wearing tie-dyed t-shirts and handling out flashing Peace Symbols from the 60s, it has to be one of the hosts of their customer appreciation party. Not the staff who were wearing them and were handing out the Peace Symbol trinkets mind you but the ultimate corporate decider-ers. What a delightful demonstration of a psychedelic sense of irony.

All this in good fun, of course. I make that disclaimer because there exists a photo of me in a very "compromising" position that was taken while basking in the sunshine of our love-in at the "West Party."

Those of us old enough to recall, remember why Cream broke up. While being each other's favorite musician, by the end of the two years performing together, they couldn't stand each other.

John, buddy, good to see ya. At the party someone offered to give me the t-shirt off their back, literally, but I declined the offer. It just didn't seem right because I was heading off to another vendor event later that evening. Any chance you can have someone send me an XL tie-dyed t-shirt (even if used)? If possible, just ship it to my bill-to address. I promise to wear it and further promise to leave the Thomson Reuters branding on the t-shirt because it is so inconspicuously displayed on the sleeve. [JH]

"Friday Fun": The Pre-Sentencing Hearing for the Librarian Judged Obsolete: Something to think about while visiting exhibits at AALL Boston 2012.

Screen capture taken on June 30, 2012.

After publication of The Advance of the “No Touch” Sales Model: On obsolescence in the vendor-buyer "partnership" on June 26, 2012, which included a video excerpt from the Twilight Zone's 1961 Obsolete Man episode, several LLB readers asked me to post the earlier portion of the episode that contained the court scene for the librarian who was judged obsolete and ultimately sentenced to death. One email requestor, who asked for anonymity for reasons that should be obvious to all, thought it would be approprate to do so because of AALL's website promotion for visiting the exhibit hall. "Talking to booth bunny experts, really?" 

Considering the topic addressed in the "No Touch" sales model post, I concur with the requests for posting the below video. It's categorized as a "Friday Fun" post to recognize that at least one uber vendor's strategic objective is clearly striving to make law librarians, also known as well-informed buyer reps, obsolete by following the Amazon model for eCommerce "no touch" retail sales to the individual consumer under its OnePassYourAss billing scheme. [JH]

Friday Fun: Investigating What Our Founding Fathers Did in Their Spare Time

A Colbert Report exclusive! [JH]

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
5 x Five - Colbert Report on America - Founding Fathers
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Fashion Statements about Law Librarians

The Naughty Librarian in the Pearle Vision Commercial.

Plus A very naughty librarian.

And an assessment of the stereotypes about how librarians dress at Librarian in Fashion. [JH]

Friday Fun: A Mentoring Moment for a Newbie Lawyer

A "junior lawyer for three months" experiences a very politically incorrect "mentoring" moment. From my personal experience, the language used by the senior attorney, while once common, ceased in the mid-1980s.[JH]

Friday Fun: The Lord of the Libraries

From the YouTube description: Before winning an Emmy for his work on "Heroes," then-student Chris Martin wrote and directed 2004's "The Lord of the Libraries" - a tale of action, adventure, and overdue books, parodying "The Lord of the Rings." [JH]

Friday Fun: Working Non-Stop to Help Law Grads to Find a Job in This Tough Market

Yes, it is up to law school grads to find gainful employment but... See ATL's Elie Mystal post NALP 2012: Does Your School Even Know How to Get You a Small Firm Job? [JH]

Friday Fun: When man's order clashes with nature's

The Librarian was created for the Steinerei 2011. The topic was Chaos and the video was awarded first place by the jury. [JH]

Friday Fun: The Future of Libraries

"A non-serious look at the future of libraries. Essentially the premise is, if you described what a library does without using the word 'library', people would be blown away by how good it was." [JH]

Friday Fun: Don't Be a Private Snafu

Future ready? Then start up. Don't be a Private Snafu. [JH]

Friday Fun: Garage Bands, JD Style: Voting for the top three contenders in the ABA Battle of the Lawyer Bands Contest closes on June 1

A lawyer panel has selected five finalists playing a variety of music, including big band tunes, country rock, blues and soul for the ABA Battle of the Lawyers Band Contest. Voting is now open to the general public and will end on Friday, June 1, 2012 at 5:00 CST.

Based upon the voting, the three top vote getters will be invited to play at the President's Reception at the Art Institute of Chicago on Saturday, August 4th from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Prizes will be awarded to each band as follows: First Place - $5,000, Second Place - $2,500, Third Place - $1,000. Hey, that's more than some BigLaw associate bonuses this year!

You can view the music videos and vote for the competitors on the ABA website at Battle of the Lawyer Bands Contest. [JH]

Friday Fun: Congratulations and Good Luck Class of 2012

This one is for you. [JH]

Friday Fun: Time for the legal academy to party like it's 1999 now that this academic year is over

Don't forget to turn in final exam grades on time law profs, at least for the 3Ls! It's actually the one real deadline law school administrators expect you to meet. [JH]

Friday Fun: Do's and Don'ts of Law School from the Class of 2012

From back when they were 1Ls. (This won the 2009 UCLA Law Revue Show's 1st place for best class video). [JH]

Friday Fun: Libraria: Exams to close for comfort