Cooley Grad, let it rip. Forum

Cooleytruthsayer · Post by **Cooleytruthsayer** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 5:19 pm

I would say sad more than pathetic maybe, what is really sad is the ones that you assume are 40 but really are only 25. Of course those ones tend to be the ones who are on the 4 year 3 terms per year plan maxing out living expenses on student loans but still have undergrad room mates (cooley has no real campus to have housing) so that they can spend all that money on a pack of smokes a day and 8 hours of drinking. -You see this group mostly in the afternoon section since they wake up at noon and want to start their benders at 3 in the afternoon. Apparently that one class per day four days per week is really stressing them out you know?

CaptainLeela · Post by **CaptainLeela** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 5:36 pm

Welcome to TLS

Cooleytruthsayer · Post by **Cooleytruthsayer** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 5:51 pm

CaptainLeela wrote:
Cooleytruthsayer wrote:I would say sad more than pathetic maybe, what is really sad is the ones that you assume are 40 but really are only 25. Of course those ones tend to be the ones who are on the 4 year 3 terms per year plan maxing out living expenses on student loans but still have undergrad room mates (cooley has no real campus to have housing) so that they can spend all that money on a pack of smokes a day and 8 hours of drinking. -You see this group mostly in the afternoon section since they wake up at noon and want to start their benders at 3 in the afternoon. Apparently that one class per day four days per week is really stressing them out you know?
So the one Cooley student I know I went to undergrad with and then she clerked at a firm I was working as a paralegal at. She is extremely organized, professional, diligent, just generally super on point...she never struck me as brilliant, but not an idiot either. I cannot for the life of me figure out why she went to Cooley.

Is there a contingent of people who fit that description or would she be an extreme outlier? Where do they fit into the academic/social/professional structure? Basically, I am asking for you to do the impossible and explain her to me.

You know her and I don't, so I am not really sure how I would be in any better shoes to try to understand her.
I would say, just ask her. Ask her what her GPA and LSAT were and if she even applied anywhere else. If you have known her for a few years and are close she should give you an honest answer.
You can be "extremely organized, professional, diligent, just generally super on point" and work at BurgerKing with a GED or less.
If it helps any, refer to my community college analogy.

If you went to undergrad together, and she was an intern while you were a paralegal..............what happened there? I feel that I missing a chunk of the story that would add a lot of insight into the whole situation. I know that a lot of people at cooley work as paralegals but they also go to school part time.

CaptainLeela · Post by **CaptainLeela** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:08 pm

Welcome to TLS

Cooleytruthsayer · Post by **Cooleytruthsayer** » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:12 pm

I get what you are saying now, thanks for the extra information. I am more surprised that someone went k-jd at cooley. You see that a bit, but it is far less than the norm to be sure.

Each has their own reasons, and I am sure she has hers. I bet she had a low gpa or lsat and yet knew how to act professional. You have to remember that most of what we do on our internships as lawstudents has very little to do with real IQ and more to do with acting a role. Yeah you have to know how to cite cases and basic laws applicable to whatever type of law that firm does, but you could get a well dressed community college student to do 90% of it with a weeks worth of training. It doesn't mean that they are Harvard material

Since you know that she is unemployed I take it that you stay in touch? How long has she been graduated? Did she pass the bar? Did she try the "hang your own shingle" deal? How is she surviving without work, she marry a real lawyer?

TaipeiMort · Post by **TaipeiMort** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 7:35 pm

I'm guessing a good percentage of Cooley grads enter the school ignorant about its prospects. I'm sure by the end there are a lot of these that are aware if their fate. Is there still a percentage which has no idea that they are not employable? If so, how do they get so far without a clue?

scifiguy · Post by **scifiguy** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:49 am

TaipeiMort wrote:I'm guessing a good percentage of Cooley grads enter the school ignorant about its prospects. I'm sure by the end there are a lot of these that are aware if their fate. Is there still a percentage which has no idea that they are not employable? If so, how do they get so far without a clue?

Curious about this too.

Post by **romothesavior** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:15 am

scifiguy wrote:
TaipeiMort wrote:I'm guessing a good percentage of Cooley grads enter the school ignorant about its prospects. I'm sure by the end there are a lot of these that are aware if their fate. Is there still a percentage which has no idea that they are not employable? If so, how do they get so far without a clue?
Curious about this too.

johndhi · Post by **johndhi** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:25 am

Went to the website and looked through the faculty profiles for a while. Some are fairly impressive and make sense. Lots interested in public service or juvenile crime stuff. Pretty good amount of U of M grads. Seem like you could probably learn a serviceable legal education there.

I guess what's unfortunate is the reputation itself really undercuts the value of the degree. Sounds like the environment is less than scholarly, too, from this thread.

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:02 pm

The faculty are impressive at just about any law school, no matter how TTTT, because the job market for legal academia is so tight. So that's not really something to consider much when you're evaluating a school. (Obviously at somewhere like HYS they're even MORE impressive, but...)

jrsbaseball5 · Post by **jrsbaseball5** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 2:33 pm

Cooleytruthsayer wrote: After first year yes, electives are pretty easy to ace. However they add extra required courses (more than any other in the nation according to them anyways) and many profs have told me that they get yelled it if they give any higher than one or two A grades for a class of 70 (most 1L classes have at least that many in the class) and if the average score is above a B- they get super chewed due to the desire "to prevent transfers".

Of all the things mentioned in this thread this seems the scariest of all to me. It sounds like being in quicksand with no way out.

integralx2 · Post by **integralx2** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 2:48 am

Hey OP. I met a girl graduated from Cooley in AZ. She told me that most people are employed who graduated the same year as you. I called bs in my head. But what is your take on that? Also what's the minimum debt? I think she's in over 100k

Post by **romothesavior** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:29 am

integralx2 wrote:Hey OP. I met a girl graduated from Cooley in AZ. She told me that most people are employed who graduated the same year as you. I called bs in my head. But what is your take on that? Also what's the minimum debt? I think she's in over 100k

You don't even need OP to answer that one for you. The stats speak for themselves. Odds are somewhere around 40% of her class has a job, on the high end.

Cooleytruthsayer · Post by **Cooleytruthsayer** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 2:35 am

Sorry that I went offline for a bit (bar prep, the bar exam itself, and realizing I was a free person for the first time in a long time, etc,etc)

Yeah I agree with the stats part. We all took basic statistics in undergrad, so no need to explain how it works. Some do good, some don't. That is a MAJOR problem with Cooley people though, they remind me of the "college is a scam" people who point out the one guy they know who can't find work despite having a Harvard MBA and the other one guy they know who is doing super great with a GED. Yeah, so? On average they still don't. BUT cooley profs spoon feed the same idea into the soft heads of those who repeat it like canaries trying to get crackers. "There are Cooley grads doing good, if you don't do good, it's YOUR fault" blah,blah,blah "There are UOM grads with no job" (some I don't doubt, but not as many or as bad) At a certain point it just gets sad. Statistics and basic math be damned I guess.

Average debt load is HIGH. WELL OVER $100K. Many go ATLEAST 4 years with FULL living expenses loans.

Gorki · Post by **Gorki** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 5:00 pm

Now that you graduated LS, took the bar, and did some chilling, what is your plan bro?

EDIT: Just saw your thread re: LL.M.

Best of luck man, you seem like a legit dude.

Cooleytruthsayer · Post by **Cooleytruthsayer** » Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:08 pm

Gorki wrote:Now that you graduated LS, took the bar, and did some chilling, what is your plan bro?

EDIT: Just saw your thread re: LL.M.

Best of luck man, you seem like a legit dude.

Thanks for the well wishes. A lot of it is the dreaded "waiting game" for a few more months to see if I even passed the bar. I feel good about it, but then again cooley bragged how finally a "majority" of its passers passed (not even a joke, last year it was the flip flop)
-I do NOT want to retake that if I can avoid it..............but if I have to I will. I just hate waiting to see.

I am used to waiting 6 weeks for grades but this multi month stuff is insane even by law school standards.

You could tell how Cooley was flooding the market since the exam center literally had seats not just in the rooms but in the halls all around the building. It was nuts.

I feel the most bad for the Florida Cooley students since they keep talking about how great the FL bar pass rate and employment stats are......and they can't seem to wrap their mind around that their campus still won't have anyone sit the bar for another 2 years or so.
(not the brightest crew, but par for the course at cooley)

IpleadtheFiF · Post by **IpleadtheFiF** » Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:46 am

Cooleytruthsayer wrote: Some do good, some don't. [...] "There are Cooley grads doing good, if you don't do good, it's YOUR fault"

I'm sorry, but this bugs me to no end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... zaX7A#t=15

On a serious note, when you were applying for jobs, how did employers react to seeing Cooley on your resumé? If 0Ls and law students at top schools are laughing at its reputation, I figured prospective employers wouldn't even give a graduate the time of day, opting rather to pick up an unemployed Wayne State or Mercy student.

grungy89 · Post by **grungy89** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 12:40 am

There are certainly schools that are worse off (like the three that are all owned by one company) but I think Cooley's particularly bad rap comes from the massive size (what 3-4 campuses?) in a time of saturation in the job market as well as very high tuition.

ironman467 · Post by **ironman467** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 11:29 am

Cooleytruthsayer wrote:
Huey Freeman wrote:how awesome is the library?
It varies by campus but they tend to be pretty big and tend to keep open until midnight, which can be nice.

That being said if you leave anything unattended it tends to get stolen.....................(not even a joke).

Many of the people you see in there make you lose faith in all mankind and then you realize "oh fuck, and these are going to be lawyers.................."

Graduation was a real treat. When their families showed up it was like an episode of JerrySpringer.
I can't even recall how many "MMMMHHHHHMMMMM" I heard that day. I'd say that around half of the familes appeared to be either on welfare or on parole (saw more than a few GPS ankel devices that day).

Loudspeaker: Please no noise makers during the ceremony (repeats around a hundred times)
Family: (every noise makers known to man) followed by "And they said she wouldn't even finish high school cuz of the baby and the crack, we show them baby girl!"

Although I can't say I was too suprised by that seeing how outside the library when you see a group smoking they tend to be saying "oh he can't be late with that support money again, I'll pretend he hit me " (and actual conversation I heard said outside of our fucking library of law by a third year law student)

holy shit

BlueLotus · Post by **BlueLotus** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 1:35 pm

BUMP. How are you doing now, OP? Did you find a FTLT legal jerb?

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:23 pm

OP was banned long ago, I'm afraid.

patogordo · Post by **patogordo** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:31 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:OP was banned long ago, I'm afraid.

the conspiracy is real

ymmv · Post by **ymmv** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 4:04 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:OP was banned long ago, I'm afraid.

Not a real Cooley, or unrelated reasons?

A. Nony Mouse · Post by **A. Nony Mouse** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:05 pm

IIRC, I think he actually was a Cooley grad, but he was also an asshole and an alt of someone who got banned for being an asshole.