WUSTL Recent Grad (and others) Taking Questions Forum

[PeanutsNJam]

Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but does anyone know if journal decisions come out on Saturdays/Sundays? Or just weekdays? Thanks

Word is emails on Saturday, but I've had incorrect word before so who knows.

[lososos]

Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but does anyone know if journal decisions come out on Saturdays/Sundays? Or just weekdays? Thanks

Word is emails on Saturday, but I've had incorrect word before so who knows.

FWIW last year they went out 6/19, which was a Friday. So a year ago today, basically.

[Ref]

I'm finally getting back on track with this job prep stuff (creating a bidlist for the off-campus programs, contacting alumni for lunch, etc.) and I just realized that I missed the deadline for the St. Louis diversity job fair...how big of a deal is that? Did I miss something spectacular here? TIA

If you're not from St. Louis, no, you didn't miss anything.

Is that because the firms participating are St. Louis firms/Midwest firms or because the firms participating are interested in students with ties to St. Louis?

No offense intended, but does it matter? You missed it; nothing to do now except move forward.

[Sprout]

Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but does anyone know if journal decisions come out on Saturdays/Sundays? Or just weekdays? Thanks

Not really answering your question but last year they were out on a Friday afternoon, central time.

I would be slightly surprised if they weren't out by later today/tomorrow..

[ek5dn]

I'm finally getting back on track with this job prep stuff (creating a bidlist for the off-campus programs, contacting alumni for lunch, etc.) and I just realized that I missed the deadline for the St. Louis diversity job fair...how big of a deal is that? Did I miss something spectacular here? TIA

If you're not from St. Louis, no, you didn't miss anything.

Is that because the firms participating are St. Louis firms/Midwest firms or because the firms participating are interested in students with ties to St. Louis?

No offense intended, but does it matter? You missed it; nothing to do now except move forward.

lol I emailed a bunch of people yesterday and got an email this morning saying I was registered, so now it does

[JCougar]

I'm now somewhat trying to start my own firm. I am friends with a solo through some extracurricular activities that is giving me office space and a very small salary in exchange for some work I do for him; meanwhile I get a huge cut of any fees I bring in myself. I've actually got some pretty decent referrals lately, and have some significant cases in my pipeline, but it takes a while for them to pay out. And you never know if they eventually will. A lot of potentially good clients turn out to be liars, etc. You'll get a case all researched and worked up, and then boom, they sent a discoverable e-mail completely contradicting their story. The good thing is that I've basically done impeccable work for the people I've worked with so far in private practice and in FedGov, and some of them are pretty well-connected people, and are willing to vouch for me.

My best friend from law school is currently unemployed and also has yet to make a single payment on his school loans. It's gotten to the point where the loan money is just an absolute joke. I'm actually thinking of just joining the Peace Corps and living on a remote island in the Pacific for two years. Peace Corps actually counts toward PSLF, and I'd be competing with a bunch of undergrad hippies for placement. All that could change, though, if one of my cases comes through.

Can't wait until JCoug comes back ITT 5 years from now and he's rolling in multiple 7-figure verdicts. I'm not joking--plaintiff's work is where the money is in this profession. The richest lawyers in my tertiary market are pretty crappy lawyers but great businessmen.

It's not out of the question. There's a number of reasons for me to be optimistic. #1, the quality of plaintiff's representation is super hit-or-miss. If you're actually a good, dilligent attorney--and if you get into WUSTL and have at least an ounce of common sense, you probably will be, even if you get the dreaded median grades--you'll already be better than 75% of the people out there, even despite your lack of experience. Lots of TTT attorneys succeed, because all you need for this is TTT-level talent, a bit of panache, and some basic business skills. Even at that, people would be surprised at how many completely incompetent attorneys are out there--people who are constantly missing deadlines, missing court dates, getting busted with hookers, not even thoroughly reading the cases they cite in their briefs and therefore citing cases that actually hurt them or that are obsolete and not good law anymore, constant and repeated misspellings and gramatical errors, etc. Even among Biglaw attorneys I've litigated against, the work product is surprisingly mixed, but the standards for plaintiff's law are really, really low.

#2, plaintiffs attorneys are mostly lazy, and gravitate toward personal injury and worker's comp. They take these cases because they're easy: basically, if you have medical bills, there's a case. Then you just negotiate with an insurance adjuster and usually the cases settle for something like 2.5 times the medical bills. You don't even have to know how to go to court, you take a 1/3rd contingency so you don't even have to bill your hours. A lot of plaintiffs attorneys I know work about 25 hours a week and make high 5-figures. They get their business because they grew up in the town in which they practice, and they have a large network of friends, so the get referrals--so don't think you can just waltz in anywhere and set up your own shop. They could take more if they got into more complicated areas of law, but they just don't have the motivation to. They'd rather spend their time at the bar or at the golf course. A lot of them are alcoholics, and cheat on their spouses and are in various stages of divorce. On the rare chance you do go to court, it's the same issues over and over again that you learned in your first Torts class: duty, breach, cause, proximate cause, and damages. You don't even have to do legal research--you just copy n' paste the same old motion over and over again, and change the names. Then you leave work early and start happy hour at 3:30pm.

This leaves 0 people left who have the talent and the drive to succeed in more complex niche fields--at least on the plaintiff's side. The only people that get trained in these areas are biglaw associates and FedGov/state litigation, which, with some exceptions, aren't the typical businessman/salesman that succeeds in plaintiff's law--they're more likely introverted, super smart, but also a bit aspie, etc. Plaintiffs firms themselves don't have the resources to train new associates. In fact, most successful plaintiffs attorneys are former Biglaw associates that were up n' outed, or former government counsel who decided it's their turn to make millions.

The result is that there really is a severe shortage of attorneys out there outside of personal injury/worker's comp/family law/low-level criminal defense-type stuff. There's almost no one that practices in my niche anymore where I practice, and most other attorneys get tons of calls about it, and they have no idea where to send the clients. They're all too lazy to get into this area themselves. Most potential cases simply get ignored. As a result, I have about a half-dozen local firms sending potential clients to me now. Probably around 95% of these are bullshit, and aren't worth more than a 5 minute phone call to figure out that they're going nowhere. The ones that aren't take many months, if not years, to develop and pay out.

I don't have any doubt that if someone can cover my overhead for the next year or so while I build up a caseload, that I will succeed. It's hard to say this with a ton of credibility, since everyone likes to promote how good they are, but I happen to be very good at this, especially for someone with as little experience and training as I have. I've already beaten the snot out of some Biglaw partners on a few motions, etc. The problem is that I'm already emotionally beat down from 3 years of living in poverty and the stress of am I going to be evicted the next month because I can't pay rent. And I'm not sure I can pull in enough money in the meantime to justify even my meager salary where I am, so I'm constantly waiting for the day where my boss says "I have to cut you loose, I don't have enough work for you." There's absolutely no way I could afford my own office, phone, legal research service, office internet, copy/fax machine, stationary, etc. (hell, I can't even afford home internet as it is).

My family doesn't have money to send me every month. There's no way I could get a small business loan given my ridiculous school debt. I'm learning everything on the fly by myself because my law school completely failed to teach me how to be a lawyer. I don't have enough money to buy the treatises that I need, so I have to research everything with google. I have to compete against teams of Biglaw attorneys with huge brief-banks, unlimited Westlaw, their own law libraries, etc.

If law schools were really interested in the financial success of their graduates, they'd take half of the ridiculous amount of money it "costs" to "educate" you that gets thrown away on pointless administrators and conferences and 5-story law libraries that are now obsolete, and give new graduates an office and a stipend, and occasional guidance on how to do stuff.

But they're not. You're just a statistic and a path towards government loan money, and if you're not employed by the US News reporting deadline for the rankings, then you're supposed to just fuck off and die.

[Sprout]

But they're not. You're just a statistic and a path towards government loan money, and if you're not employed by the US News reporting deadline for the rankings, then you're supposed to just fuck off and die.

[JCougar]

And in case anyone looks down on plaintiff's attorneys, unless you're in M&A, we're the ones that create business and jobs for Biglaw.

The amount of leadership in this profession is pathetic. If you want to solve the jobs crisis for attorneys, stop graduating people buried in debt with little to no idea of what they're doing and where to start, and no access to resources or real training. And no, free CLE is not training. CLE is just another scam--an excuse to pay already-established attorneys even more money to sit on a panel for 2 hours while conveying 5 minutes of useful information. And you're forced to pay for it otherwise you get disbarred.

This profession would be in much better shape if it weren't run by out-of-touch, self-interested con men who have the foresight of a toad. Instead of practices that would actually create long-term jobs in the profession, we get a bunch of educators trying to enrich themselves via an unsustainable and unrepayable debt bubble while in the long-term, the profession is being irreparably damaged.

[JCougar]

With that said, WUSTL is probably better than it's peers with regard to the debt factor--at least right now. The class I graduated from, however, was one year before they started really being generous with the scholarships. And no law school out there gives you the requisite training to be a successful attorney. So my rants aren't necessarily WUSTL-specific. They're mostly aimed generally at this broken profession.

[Jmart082]

Prophetic rant is prophetic.

[JCougar]

One more thing to add. The reason all of this developed the way it did is because established attorneys don't want a bunch of cheap, enabled talent flooding the market and creating competition. Instead, they want THE PERFECT ASSOCIATE. No clue what to do, but a lot of prestige to justify a high billing rate, and tons of debt so they can't go off on their own and feel dependent on the partner for economic viability.

The problem with this is that this profession thrives on competition. Very few attorneys can actually see that. It's one of those industries where competition creates more jobs, not less. When you churn out people that are desperate, depressed, debt-ridden, and disposable, they're perfect to use for a few years and then fire when they get to expensive. But they'll never be in a good position to go out and sue your clients in the future. A lot of them will leave the field, because their experiences will be so horrible. Or even after being an associate, they'll never have the capital to start their own practice.

That's how you end up with what we have today--a glut of super-talented law grads, plenty of demand for higher-quality legal services, but a dearth of attorney jobs.

Hopefully, the prestigious intellectuals that run this profession will figure that out sometime in the next 20 years.

[sublime]

And in case anyone looks down on plaintiff's attorneys, unless you're in M&A, we're the ones that create business and jobs for Biglaw.

The amount of leadership in this profession is pathetic. If you want to solve the jobs crisis for attorneys, stop graduating people buried in debt with little to no idea of what they're doing and where to start, and no access to resources or real training. And no, free CLE is not training. CLE is just another scam--an excuse to pay already-established attorneys even more money to sit on a panel for 2 hours while conveying 5 minutes of useful information. And you're forced to pay for it otherwise you get disbarred.

This profession would be in much better shape if it weren't run by out-of-touch, self-interested con men who have the foresight of a toad. Instead of practices that would actually create long-term jobs in the profession, we get a bunch of educators trying to enrich themselves via an unsustainable and unrepayable debt bubble while in the long-term, the profession is being irreparably damaged.

Nah dude, the plaintiff attorney route has more risk and requires some skills a lot of lawyers lack, but if you do it, the possible rewards are amongst the highest. It sounds like you are in a pretty solid place and know what you are doing. Best of luck man.

[G41u5]

Lurked this thread a while but never posted, gonna be at WUSTL in the fall and I'm looking into apartments for August. Anyone have any thoughts on the Hi-Pointe area in Dogtown? In regards to neighborhoods I saw Peanuts mention Demun as a good option in another thread. Any other recommendations besides CWE?

I want to be as close as to campus as possible but don't want to break the bank.

[sublime]

Lurked this thread a while but never posted, gonna be at WUSTL in the fall and I'm looking into apartments for August. Anyone have any thoughts on the Hi-Pointe area in Dogtown? In regards to neighborhoods I saw Peanuts mention Demun as a good option in another thread. Any other recommendations besides CWE?

I want to be as close as to campus as possible but don't want to break the bank.

Loop area is probably your best bet for close yet cheap.

[G41u5]

Lurked this thread a while but never posted, gonna be at WUSTL in the fall and I'm looking into apartments for August. Anyone have any thoughts on the Hi-Pointe area in Dogtown? In regards to neighborhoods I saw Peanuts mention Demun as a good option in another thread. Any other recommendations besides CWE?

I want to be as close as to campus as possible but don't want to break the bank.

Loop area is probably your best bet for close yet cheap.

I'm not seeing a lot of apartments available there via the internet, am I doing something wrong?

Edit: I guess what I am asking is if I am looking to early or if I need to get off zillow, padmapper, and the like, and instead be looking at specific property companies.

[Jmart082]

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

[hoos89]

You should be able to find stuff on padmapper/craigslist/etc., and I don't think it's too early. A lot of the stuff between Forest Park and Delmar is owned by Quadrangle though so look there. You might also consider the area between Skinker and Debaliviere and Forsyth west of Big Bend. I'd recommend finding a 2-4 BR and getting some roommates off the roommate list Wash U provides. You can get a nicer place for cheaper that way. Obviously some risk with maybe getting a bad roommate, but some of my best friends now are the guys that I found on that list.

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

Or you could just get your own.

[Joscellin]

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

1Ls got business cards this year, at least. Frankly, I find them awkward and not useful.

[Jmart082]

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

1Ls got business cards this year, at least. Frankly, I find them awkward and not useful.

Ok, well, at least they're making the effort, which is good news.

[sublime]

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

1Ls got business cards this year, at least. Frankly, I find them awkward and not useful.

Yea, I tend to agree.

I also think that Dean's Scholars or whatever got them starting your year, Jmart.

[G41u5]

You should be able to find stuff on padmapper/craigslist/etc., and I don't think it's too early. A lot of the stuff between Forest Park and Delmar is owned by Quadrangle though so look there. You might also consider the area between Skinker and Debaliviere and Forsyth west of Big Bend. I'd recommend finding a 2-4 BR and getting some roommates off the roommate list Wash U provides. You can get a nicer place for cheaper that way. Obviously some risk with maybe getting a bad roommate, but some of my best friends now are the guys that I found on that list.

Thanks for the advice, I'd been avoiding looking on Craigslist to this point.

[JCougar]

Totally random, but somebody should convince CSO to give us business cards like a certain other law school across town. They really come in handy for networking and it'd be nice to have something on hand that's specific to the law school. In fact, a lot of law schools do this and I'm not sure why CSO hasn't gotten the memo. It's also a possibility that they already do and I'm the one that hasn't gotten the memo.

I had my own set of business cards printed out at Hi-Tech Copy next to the school. I gave away hundreds of them at conferences. They have the template already in their system because a lot of adjuncts and other people that don't automatically get business cards have them done there. Can't remember exactly how much it cost, but it was reasonable.

Out of the hundreds of cards I gave out and hands I shook, the most I got in exchange were sad looks. Good luck, maybe you'll do better!

[RareExports]

jcougar to $190.00

[PeanutsNJam]

I'm starting to think I've been disqualified from LR for one reason or another... Guess that makes transferring easy lol.

[valen]

I'm starting to think I've been disqualified from LR for one reason or another... Guess that makes transferring easy lol.

What's your reasoning? Why DQ'd?