What's the best resume/credentials you've seen from a lawyer? Forum

[Anonymous User]

none of these goody-two-shoes can hold a candle to this guy: https://www.kwklaw.net/albert-watkins

The website design make that unreadable so I'm just going take their word for it that he's beyond description. Although why they follow that with a wall of text is an interesting choice...

[Anonymous User]

Check out the mustache on this guy
https://www.kwklaw.net/paul-a-burnett

[12YrsAnAssociate]

none of these goody-two-shoes can hold a candle to this guy: https://www.kwklaw.net/albert-watkins

The website design make that unreadable so I'm just going take their word for it that he's beyond description. Although why they follow that with a wall of text is an interesting choice...

I read that wall of text, and I'm not sure if it's what I read, or because I had to squint for 10 minutes while scrolling up and down to be able to read it, but I now have a terrible urge to punch this fucking Al guy.

[musiccityboer]

none of these goody-two-shoes can hold a candle to this guy: https://www.kwklaw.net/albert-watkins

The website design make that unreadable so I'm just going take their word for it that he's beyond description. Although why they follow that with a wall of text is an interesting choice...

I read that wall of text, and I'm not sure if it's what I read, or because I had to squint for 10 minutes while scrolling up and down to be able to read it, but I now have a terrible urge to punch this fucking Al guy.

his own bio literally describes him as "self-centered [and] egotistical"

[Anonymous User]

Probably Byron White

But of younger practitioners the new Principal Deputy SG Brian Fletcher has basically won everything he’s ever attempted since high school (in which he “only” came second in the TOC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_F ... (attorney)

If you Google around Stephen Hammer, who indeed has an insane resume, also featured in the fundamentalist Christian lifestyle blogosphere when he was younger which is interesting

Of course he went to Valley lol. Very winning resume, though.

Yeah people unfamiliar probably misread that bit as “charming Midwestern public school underdog” rather than as “product of national powerhouse assembly line”

[malibustacy]

none of these goody-two-shoes can hold a candle to this guy: https://www.kwklaw.net/albert-watkins

The website design make that unreadable so I'm just going take their word for it that he's beyond description. Although why they follow that with a wall of text is an interesting choice...

I read that wall of text, and I'm not sure if it's what I read, or because I had to squint for 10 minutes while scrolling up and down to be able to read it, but I now have a terrible urge to punch this fucking Al guy.

his own bio literally describes him as "self-centered [and] egotistical"

Honestly, though - if I was a non-attorney deep in shit, and had to hire someone just based on looking at website bios, I'd probably hire this guy.

[Anonymous User]

The guitarist for blind melon

The correct answer

[Anonymous User]

Not saying he is one of them (and I don’t know), but within the past decade MANY conservative-leaning students at HLS have not participated in the law review competition at all. Judges know this, and HLR is a much different signal than it used to be. Not trying to start a fight about whether it’s justified, but it absolutely is happening.

I had not heard this before. Why don't conservative-leaning students not participate in the law review competition anymore? I think that people generally still view HLR as a signaling factor. I guess erroneously so. When did this start happening?

The "issue" is that HLR and many other journals at top schools no longer use an objective, fully blind write-on/grade-on system for all applicants. Some reserve a number of positions for grades and/or write-on and then reserve a substantial bloc (sometimes ~40-50%) for a holistic, black-box evaluation system that expressly incorporates demographic information (HLR's website states this, for example). Thus, signaling value goes down, rightly or wrongly. And if the value goes down, and most top journals are admittedly not super receptive to conservative law students and conservative scholarship more generally, there is little reason to do a lot of work for much less (perceived) payoff.

Most of the more conservative judges/clerks I know (or have heard secondhand from) have prioritized grades and writing sample over law review membership for that reason--a belief that the process no longer really signals anything. And given that it is questionable to what extent doing journal work itself signals anything, membership in the journal means less overall.

In the interest of not derailing, perhaps further questions/comments on this should be part of a new thread.

UVA changed its Law Review admissions process a couple years ago to something extremely similar to Harvard. Leading up to the vote, there was a super contentious debate among Law Review members that leaked to the school newspaper (the first and only real news story they ever broke lol), sparking a contentious campus-wide debate. The new system narrowly won.

Of course, one difference from your description of Harvard is that for many years, UVA had already set aside a significant number of spots explicitly for diversity, and these would be eliminated in favor of holistic.

The primary critique against the new system was the same loss of signaling value you described. From what I can tell, that seems to have come to pass. The other big critique was that eliminating diversity spots in favor of holistic review would actually decrease diversity, but it doesn’t seem like that happened.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think it’s actually true that LR is a weak signal anymore—all schools still select the bulk of editors from grades and/or a writing comp as always—but many conservatives now dislike LRs because they associate them with AA, and use the “weak signal” thing as the excuse. (And anyway even with AA top LRs are still like 10% URM.)

[The Lsat Airbender]

I don’t think it’s actually true that LR is a weak signal anymore—all schools still select the bulk of editors from grades and/or a writing comp as always—but many conservatives now dislike LRs because they associate them with AA, and use the “weak signal” thing as the excuse. (And anyway even with AA top LRs are still like 10% URM.)

Bolded is still <100%, so yeah it's a weak signal, especially relative to transcripts and writing samples which a judge also has access to.

Honestly, top schools should just make LR a lottery at this point. Would then be a pure, strong signal of "willing to do all this grunt work to keep the gears of academia turning", which is where we're headed anyway. And would guarantee equitable representation for any demographic you can think of (setting aside the problem that many groups are underrepresented at law school in the first place).

[Anonymous User]

Having been on Law Review, clerked, and now an attorney that interviews, I can tell you for a fact that LR plays a much smaller role, and has a much weaker signaling power as an indication of capacity for legal excellence than it used to, even compared to like 10 years ago.

It's just a fact that if you move from LR admission/membership based on grades/intellectual firepower to membership based instead on identity or politics, most employers will give less weight to that credential in their hiring decisions (true for judges as well as law firms). LRs across the Ivies are pretty much shooting themselves in the foot and will soon become a meaningless resume line, which is funny given how much thankless work editors have to do on LR through the year.

[Anonymous User]

Collecting a bunch of degrees, even doctorates, is not impressive.

Anonymous, CPA, Esq., M.B.A., JD, LL.M.

Very true. I’ve worked with a ton of CPAs, MBAs, PHDs, and JDs at this point (between BigLaw and my prior career). Many of them were extremely smart and impressive, but a surprising number were dumb as fucking rocks. I no longer automatically assume someone is smart based on those credentials.

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think it’s actually true that LR is a weak signal anymore—all schools still select the bulk of editors from grades and/or a writing comp as always—but many conservatives now dislike LRs because they associate them with AA, and use the “weak signal” thing as the excuse. (And anyway even with AA top LRs are still like 10% URM.)

The bolded statements are completely factually wrong. Looking through the T6 LR websites, for example, CLR's no longer states that any candidates are selected solely on the basis of write-on (at least a couple of years ago, some were write-on only, while the majority IIRC of positions were holistic).

And your statement about the demographics is like way, way off (which is a good thing IMO since diversity is important, but still).

[Anonymous User]

Collecting a bunch of degrees, even doctorates, is not impressive.

Anonymous, CPA, Esq., M.B.A., JD, LL.M.

Very true. I’ve worked with a ton of CPAs, MBAs, PHDs, and JDs at this point (between BigLaw and my prior career). Many of them were extremely smart and impressive, but a surprising number were dumb as fucking rocks. I no longer automatically assume someone is smart based on those credentials.

how dumb is a rock, elmo wants to know

[Anonymous User]

I don’t think it’s actually true that LR is a weak signal anymore—all schools still select the bulk of editors from grades and/or a writing comp as always—but many conservatives now dislike LRs because they associate them with AA, and use the “weak signal” thing as the excuse. (And anyway even with AA top LRs are still like 10% URM.)

The bolded statements are completely factually wrong. Looking through the T6 LR websites, for example, CLR's no longer states that any candidates are selected solely on the basis of write-on (at least a couple of years ago, some were write-on only, while the majority IIRC of positions were holistic).

And your statement about the demographics is like way, way off (which is a good thing IMO since diversity is important, but still).

“Holistic” still = basically 100% write on and/or grades for non-URMs, but with AA for URMs. (Source: recent T6 exec boarder.)

And anyway, that isn’t true.

YLJ: 100% write-on plus AA
HLR: 70% write-on/grade-on with no AA, 30% holistic
SLR: 100% write-on with no AA
Chicago: 40% grade-on with no AA, 60% write-on (the formula for which is 85% writing competition, 15% personal statements)
Columbia: 100% holistic
NYU: 80% write/grade-on (with a personal statement component), 20% diversity

So yes, the bulk of editors are still chosen based on write-on and grades. No school I’m aware of selects primarily based on anything except write-on and grades. Personally I think write-on competitions themselves are a weak signal, but that’s the way it’s always been done, not something new with holistic selection.

LR exec board selection is much more political, but not membership.

[Anonymous User]

Kevin Schwartz is a super nice (and funny) guy fwiw.

back to topic. for pure law snobbery, Chief Justice Roberts is up there. only missing EIC and Fay (bet it annoys him)

Harvard Undergrad (summa, in 3 years)
Harvard Law School (magna, Managing Editor HLR)
Clerked for Judge Friendly
Clerked for CJ Rehnquist
DOJ
White House Counsel's Office
Hogan
SG's Office
Head of appellate at Hogan, becoming arguably best appellate advocate of his generation
DC Cir
CJ on SCOTUS

[Anonymous User]

JGR is also a pretty funny guy, FWIW

[Anonymous User]

For some straightforwardly excellent West Coast bona fides:

https://www.mto.com/lawyers/John-W-Spiegel

- Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford (plus tennis ace)

- YLS - EIC of YLJ

- Clerked for Byron White (objectively coolest SCOTUS justice in the non-Thurgood Marshall category)

- GC for Christopher Commission

- Standard resume of BigLaw accolades, etc.

[Anonymous User]

For some straightforwardly excellent West Coast bona fides:

https://www.mto.com/lawyers/John-W-Spiegel

- Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford (plus tennis ace)

- YLS - EIC of YLJ

- Clerked for Byron White (objectively coolest SCOTUS justice in the non-Thurgood Marshall category)

- GC for Christopher Commission

- Standard resume of BigLaw accolades, etc.

FWIW, his son counts as an accolade too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Spiegel

[ExpOriental]

For some straightforwardly excellent West Coast bona fides:

https://www.mto.com/lawyers/John-W-Spiegel

- Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford (plus tennis ace)

- YLS - EIC of YLJ

- Clerked for Byron White (objectively coolest SCOTUS justice in the non-Thurgood Marshall category)

- GC for Christopher Commission

- Standard resume of BigLaw accolades, etc.

FWIW, his son counts as an accolade too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Spiegel

A classic tale of picking one's self up by the bootstraps and chasing the American dream. Brings a tear to my eye.

[Anonymous User]

For some straightforwardly excellent West Coast bona fides:

https://www.mto.com/lawyers/John-W-Spiegel

- Phi Beta Kappa at Stanford (plus tennis ace)

- YLS - EIC of YLJ

- Clerked for Byron White (objectively coolest SCOTUS justice in the non-Thurgood Marshall category)

- GC for Christopher Commission

- Standard resume of BigLaw accolades, etc.

FWIW, his son counts as an accolade too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Spiegel

Who is married to Miranda Kerr, who previously dated a Malaysian criminal, who laundered money allegedly with the assistance of Shearman.

[Anonymous User]

HLS professor who is barely 40 with this background:

*Harvard College, 1st in class
*Rhodes Scholar
*Yale Law
*DC Circuit clerk
*SCOTUS clerk for Chief Justice
*(Brief biglaw stop to cash the SCOTUS bonus check)
*T-14 professor at barely 30 years old (Duke)
*Now at HLS.

https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11417/Sachs

Basically designed in a lab to have the ideal legal academic resume. Brilliant but it’s too bad that he’s FedSoc-y, IMO.

[ninthcircuitattorney]

Designed in a lab and still ignored by the rest of the world (including conservatives). I wonder which legal "scholar" Trump consulted for immigration policy. Answer: no one at Harvard, try Stephen Miller.

[Anonymous User]

HLS professor who is barely 40 with this background:

*Harvard College, 1st in class
*Rhodes Scholar
*Yale Law
*DC Circuit clerk
*SCOTUS clerk for Chief Justice
*(Brief biglaw stop to cash the SCOTUS bonus check)
*T-14 professor at barely 30 years old (Duke)
*Now at HLS.

https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11417/Sachs

Basically designed in a lab to have the ideal legal academic resume. Brilliant but it’s too bad that he’s FedSoc-y, IMO.

His publications are actually very good, so there is no surprise with his pedigree.

[Anonymous User]

HLS professor who is barely 40 with this background:

*Harvard College, 1st in class
*Rhodes Scholar
*Yale Law
*DC Circuit clerk
*SCOTUS clerk for Chief Justice
*(Brief biglaw stop to cash the SCOTUS bonus check)
*T-14 professor at barely 30 years old (Duke)
*Now at HLS.

https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11417/Sachs

Basically designed in a lab to have the ideal legal academic resume. Brilliant but it’s too bad that he’s FedSoc-y, IMO.

His publications are actually very good, so there is no surprise with his pedigree.

Yeah but his pubs with Baude are significantly better than his solo ones, which tend to be a bit tedious, whereas Baude only writes bangers. Sachs is obviously successful and prolific but it's a bit of a unique situation where he's maybe best-known as a better scholar's sidekick.

Also lol at Josh Blackman winning the Story/Bator before Sam Bray, which is a joke