Do employers/judges care if you take cupcake classes? Forum

[daleearnhardt123]

Sparty is a moron. It's a miracle he graduated law school, much less got a real job.

"Hey kids, I smoked a pack a day for 20 years, and do you see any cancer on me? Not one FUCKIN BIT! Smoke your hearts out!"

Didn't mean for this to be anonymous.

[sparty99]

Sparty is a moron. It's a miracle he graduated law school, much less got a real job.

"Hey kids, I smoked a pack a day for 20 years, and do you see any cancer on me? Not one FUCKIN BIT! Smoke your hearts out!"

Didn't mean for this to be anonymous.

You are the moron. Perhaps people should take my advice. Clearly I must be doing something right.

[hoos89]

Sparty is a moron. It's a miracle he graduated law school, much less got a real job.

"Hey kids, I smoked a pack a day for 20 years, and do you see any cancer on me? Not one FUCKIN BIT! Smoke your hearts out!"

Didn't mean for this to be anonymous.

You are the moron. Perhaps people should take my advice. Clearly I must be doing something right.

Sparty liquidates all of his assets and puts it all on 36 red. Tells everyone about how he got rich, and that they should follow his advice because clearly he did something right.

[objctnyrhnr]

this thread became pretty hilarious since I last checked on it.

assuming the veracity of sparty's narrative for the sake of my analogy, I want to point out the fact that I read in an article the other day Brad Pitt was an extra, living in LA on nothing with all the other extras for like four years, before somebody "discovered" him. doesn't change the fact that going to LA without a plan (other than to be an extra for a while and hope something works out) is a good idea.

Sparty's story does bring me to an important point though regarding clerkship hiring. first, GPA matters a shitload more than what classes you take at the initial stages which, taken from a % selected standpoint, are by far the hardest. in my chambers and a couple others I know of, the first cuts are made purely on resumes and to a lesser extent CL's (and if you have somebody call in for you). That means that GPA trumps classes taken for this exceedingly important stage.

when transcripts are looked at (if they are looked at at all), it is only after the person is already selected for an interview. therefore, I would argue that one could get the judge/clerks to completely overlook any and all "cake" classes with a stellar interview.

for that reason, I recommend not letting LS turn you into one of those LS zombie/lemmings. Does it mean you should go on a crazy study abroad thing that my school wouldn't allow (I know because I asked)? unlikely, but maybe. most importantly, though, your sanity is worth far more in the clerkship hunt than the difference between like conflict of laws and i dunno prosecutorial ethics. can't get the job without presenting yourself as somebody the judge and the clerks wanna work with constantly for a year.

the reality, as all clerks know, is that once you get to the "real thing," you just end up re-learning the law from scratch or almost from scratch in the vast majority of situations anyway. you're not going to even attempt to rely on something you studied for a final a year ago when push comes to shove and you need to give your judge the right recommendation. you are going to re research all of it.

and, since that random preemption doctrine you may have learned and successfully applied on some made up fact pattern in LS is not going to count for anything, it follows (at least in my opinion) that the fact that you learned it at all should not matter that much [relative to other things on your ap] either.

[mephistopheles]

simple answer: take every transactional class. i can guarantee that 2/3 of them are the least consuming classes possible to take at the law school, but they have amazingly impressive names

[Anonymous User]

My (non-2/9/DC COA) judge used his clerks extensively in the vetting/hiring process, so I am quite familiar with his ideas at least. GPA was king, but a resume full of joke classes also got thrown in the trash. I think a good mix is smart. Focus your energy on one or two "real" classes a semester during 2L and 3L while grabbing a bunch of easy high GPA credits to fill up the schedule.

[QContinuum]

My (non-2/9/DC COA) judge used his clerks extensively in the vetting/hiring process, so I am quite familiar with his ideas at least. GPA was king, but a resume full of joke classes also got thrown in the trash. I think a good mix is smart. Focus your energy on one or two "real" classes a semester during 2L and 3L while grabbing a bunch of easy high GPA credits to fill up the schedule.

I think this is TCR. A class schedule consisting of nothing other than "law and X"-type fluff will raise a red flag, but so long as there are at least some BL classes mixed in every semester, it'll be fine. Taking 100% BL classes every semester is a recipe for nuking your GPA. Further, for the fluff, there are always some classes/seminars that "sound" better than others, but may not be all that difficult in reality. Read course descriptions and syllabi carefully. To take a (perhaps made-up) example from earlier ITT, something like prosecutorial ethics is probably not going to be too much work, but would look much better than, say, "law and theatre," even though the "law and theatre" class might require multiple papers and prove to be a real time sink.