Working: thoughts of attorneys' value

I think the value of the attorneys is in their creativity that can create something out of nothing, when people of other professions would possibly just give up.

As a continuation of my previous post

So I was talking about relation between grades in a law school and a future career. A couple of days after my post, where I talked about a lesser impact of the law school grades after five years into the legal career, I received another monthly issue of job postings from my law school. Skimming over postings I noticed one from a large law firm--Holland & Hart. They were seeking a corporate attorney with a legal experience of not less than 8 years... [now, bitting of drums, most interesting part] ... and among required documents for an applicant to submit was an unofficial transcript from a law school.

So, yes, I must say, if you want to be in a large law firm, get good grades.

Ok, yes, I laugh from this...

Boring readings of complicated cases can be sometimes diluted with judge's humor. Apparently, from my postings on other web sites, lay people don't find that humor fun. Maybe that is why lawyers have own jokes that seem to others not at all amusing. My humor might happen to degrade to the level when I laugh at judge's opinions, but, oh well, I am a future lawyer, aren't I?

Here is an excerpt from one of the cases -- Penthouse Intern., Ltd. v. Dominion Federal Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 855 F.2d 963, 973 (2d Cir. 1988):

Also important to Dominion's case was the testimony of Melrod partner, Philip Gorelick. Because of his extensive involvement in the transaction, he was in the
best position to present Dominion's perspective concerning the deal. The district court was not, however, receptive to Gorelick's testimony. After Gorelick had concluded his testimony on direct examination and began responding to questions on cross-examination, Judge Duffy called a morning recess. As the Judge was leaving the courtroom, he requested that the Melrod firm's attorney, Robert L. Tofel, join him in the robing room. When Tofel met Judge Duffy in the robing room, the judge handed him a copy of Volume 377 of the Federal Supplement and requested that Tofel read the first line in U.S. v. Tramunti, 377 F.Supp. 1 (S.D.N.Y.1974) (Duffy, J.). That line reads: “John Spurdis is a liar.” After reading the sentence to himself, Tofel looked at the judge. Saying nothing, Judge Duffy simply shrugged expressively. Tofel then said in essence that Judge Duffy had misread Gorelick. Tofel explained that Gorelick may have been obnoxious or aggressive but that he was not a liar. Again, Judge Duffy did not respond and simply shrugged.

(. . .)

[t]he decision as to the credibility of witnesses is properly left to the trial judge or to the jury because as finders of fact they are in a position to view the demeanor of the witnesses.

Gorelick took the stand and attempted brazenly to lie to the court. During cross-examination, the crucible of truth, Gorelick continuously shifted uneasily in the chair, sweated like a trapped liar, and the glaze that came over his shifty eyes gave proof to his continuing perjury. His total lack of veracity was shown not only by his demeanor but by the shady practices he seemingly reveled in.

Now I know why I like Dobermans so much...

... I like taxes and doberman is the IRS dog :-)))

The IRS Dog: Doberman Pinscher
Fun tax fact of the day: The first Doberman Pinscher was bred in 1890 by Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann -- "a tax collector who frequently traveled through many bandit-infested areas, and needed a protection dog to guard him in any situation that might arise. He set out to breed a new type of dog that, in his opinion, would be the perfect combination of strength, loyalty, intelligence, and ferocity." Ben Cunningham.

Source: TaxProf Blog
More about Doberman Pinschers here

Dear attorneys, did you forget your times of job searching?

Note I wrote next day:
I was tired and made, sleepy and upset, therefore this post has many mistakes. however, I am not going to edit them. What for? Why not to see my insanity? :-)
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So I just have come back from Skills Program meeting in one of the law firms in the city. I like such type of meetings. This one was particularly directed on diverse participants. I like such events but sometimes they bring me upset thoughts. Today it was that case when I left the office being frustraited. I will not mention the point that I came to go through a mock job interview and hoped it will prepare me for interviews I will hopefully have for my clerkship program. However, they gave me the guy who worked in the company for a week and who by himself just recent graduate. Then there was a board of practicing attorneys who talked about the career and how great legal career is. First, I am kind of tired of those long-minutes speeches about how-we-became-great-lawyers. Surely all lawyers like to talk about themselves, and it was interesting for me to know how they got their success. Though I do not long speeches, and today some of them were long. Then there was a question to them about the grades, something like, "obviously 90% of the class are not at the top of the class, so how to find a job for those not 10%." At this point I have heard a lot of fairy tales. One of female attorneys told that she participated in hiring and stressed out that she rarely looked into the grades. What??? I asked myself and virtually her. Then tell me why do I saw that upset face of my career adviser after I told him my GPA? Something like "well, girl, and you want to find some job? go better and study!" Or those articles telling about hard time to find job with low GPA and how picky those large law firms about hiring. Just yesterday on career web site I saw the ad of Excel Energy who were looking for intern from 10% top class.

Another guy from the board talked about the importance of reputation but not a career.

Now it is time for my speech. Dear, attorneys, did you forget the times when you were looking for jobs and you were asked for your GPA? The lady from the board while talking about her grraduation and looking for job proudly announced that she was not in the top of the class but very close. So if the grades are not so important, why do you mention them so proudly? Why do you ask me to send you a transcript together with my resume?

I do not want to seem paranoid, but I do not like to be misled! But this is what happened to me at that meeting. I agree, the grades will not matter in the court room or five years past gradution, but the question is how to get into the law firm after graduation. Despite the clear question from somebody's email and expectations of participants to hear the reality, we did not receive the right, real answer. I am disappointed.

Lawyers and Joes

happy New Year to everybody. I hope this year will be not worse than a past year. I have read my horoscop and ... yesss ... it said a lot of good things about my future. I am really happy.

Right now we are in Florida. Of course, word Florida rises in imaginations palms and unvelievably warm weather. To our greatest disappointement only first part is true about our trip, but weahter turned its back on us, and we disparately suffer cold wind, temperature of mid 40s and lack of sun. We came to Florida with shorts and t-shirts and will leave with hats and gloves we bought in the local Walmart to save ourselves from awful cold weather.

But my story is not about bad weather. It is the storytelling about what happened to use today. This is the story:

Once upon a time... No, it is not mine. Let me try again. So today we went to Orlando downtown to look around, find more cultural entertainment beyond boring and crowded DisneyWorld. After we hit the narrow streets of Orlando we found one parking spot near a meter. Dane turned into it began to back up. Going back in the timeline of my story I have to tell you that we rented Toyota Prius. I am not much in love with this car, I think it needs some work on it, but we found very funny feature - camera on the back of a car that turns on when the car is in reverse mode. As a result of camera use fun Dane used the camera quite often, same in Orlando when he backed up into the parking spot. While he was doing this he commented that the car behind us is surely lawyer's car. I looked carefully into the screen and noticed BMW emblem on the car's front. When Dane backed up too close to BMW behind we suddenly heard screams, "What are you doing? Don't you see where you go?" Those shouts were of the owner of fancy BMW. We stopped, but he continued screaming. Dane got out of the car and began pointing into the camera, and laughing explained that there is a camera and we know how close we back up. The guy (average looking in white shirt and black pants with a bunch of papers underarm) seemed to get queiter with his screams mumbling something like, "Anyway I would not trust this cameras." His next phrase made me laugh. What do you think he told? I will not guess. He said, "you could damage my car. By the way I am a lawyer!" He told this in such a way as if he said, "I a killer" or "I am a President of the United States" No, no... as if he said, "I am God!" First it seemed to me funny because Dane was 100% right that the guy is a lawyer. But then after we left shaking his hand and asking about interesting places in Orlando, I thought through this story. That Orlando attorney afterwards seemed to me arrogant bustard who thinks that if he has a law degree and drives BMW he may threat me with his knowledge and ability to sue me for any reason or fault he may find. Now I understand why so many people hate lawyers, those arrogant asses who thinks they are gods. Indeed, after first semester in the law school I had a power of the knowledge, the ability to protect myself and others by legal ways. However, after today I feel kind of ashamed for having such feeling, because I should not have use my knowledge to be in superiority over other Joes who does not know the law as good as even a law student. Yes, I do not want to work for public law (although I hope I will keep my promise to myself to take some pro bono cases) and I am thinking more about making money. However, it does not allow me to turn into the monster who does not care about others and who knows only own business and not others.

Despite my love to the law, and happiness of knowledge of many things more than others, I hope most of law students will not turn into this guy on Orlando streets who thinks it is normal to threaten ordinary people with "I am a lawyer" thing. Beware arrogant asses, soon I will be equal to you and I am not going to back up in my defense by silence, I will tell you, "I am not care who you are and what school you graduated from, you are the same live person as I am, so behave as a human."

I took a picture of BMW and our rented Prius just to keep the story in mind.