tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56013401200623305002024-03-17T01:08:44.694-07:00Tales of a Fourth-Tier NothingThe Last Ship to Leave Middle Earth is Chartered for the Undying Lands of Riches and Eternal Life and a Job in the Legal Profession...So They Claimed in the Brochure.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-78052653643103483602019-09-06T05:33:00.001-07:002019-09-06T05:33:18.454-07:00It has been a while, but this is important. <br />
99% of those who apply for loan forgiveness are rejected. Who is in the 1% whose application was approved and can they hold a seminar?<br />
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<a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-05/most-student-loan-borrowers-rejected-by-loan-forgiveness-program#null" target="_blank">Student Loan Forgiveness Program Rejects Nearly Everyone</a>Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-31601735274968276902017-11-26T01:07:00.003-08:002017-11-26T01:07:51.686-08:00Law School Admissions Drop! Schools Close!We are now seeing the fruits of complaining made years ago. Google the Wall Street Journal article in question (for I am too lazy to find it), but the for-profit schools are struggling and overall law school admission has dropped compared to 2008.<br />
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Some of the smarter schools opted to shrink class size while others lowered their standards to fill vacant seats. The latter is experiencing a shortage of graduates who can pass the bar after flushing $100,000+ down the toilet. <br />
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There are apologists out there that put forth what sound like noble reasons for this model, but I can’t help but think that there was a trough of money underlying this course of action that was similar to how for profit schools were targeting those going to school under the GI Bill. Times change and the money dries up. Law schools seemed like a great cash cow. Low overhead. Desperate customers willing to shell out the money. Theoretical alumni base that was theoretically rolling in the dough and donating to the school while showing up to association dinners in their Benzs. Yet, the circle was broken.<br />
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I feel sorry for whoever is on the wrong side of this, but let’s not let the word die out! Things have not recovered as they are just as stinky as ever. I wouldn’t know that nearly a decade has passed since the big economic crisis. It may have picked up for some, but the legal profession is forever changed.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-36300426373262653812016-10-19T16:33:00.003-07:002016-10-19T16:33:51.534-07:00They Will Not Show You the RembrandtI recall a couple of years ago when I was new to a particular hobby that is a bit like organized train spotting, but it sounds better if it is told in terms of museum patronage. There aren't any formal meetings, but people eventually keep running into one another. People would contact one another if they saw a painting that was out of the ordinary and people would flock to it. I have added this story to my blog because it is sort of like practicing law. <div>
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People have these great stories at CLEs about how everyone in a section is friends with one another. They can all pick up the phone and call them! Why, they call each other all of the time and pick each others' brains about how to handle a case. They scratch each other's backs. </div>
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When I hear this, I wonder how my experience with law has been more like the Solomon parable of "The Odious Woman."<br /><div>
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I was unfamiliar with any of the basic concepts of art spotting beyond the fact that there are paintings in museums. Some don't make any sense until you read the card on the wall. Some are masterful. Some are lucky to be shown. Some are one blot of color. Some are dribbles with multiple colors slung about in a frenzy. Either way, people chased these things down and ticked them off their list.</div>
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One day, I met someone who volunteered to explain to me the cult of art spotting. She took my information and told me where a meeting of art spotters was held, but I did not immediately jump on this. I was afraid that I would be mocked for my lack of art knowledge, so I thought I would go out on my own a couple of times and investigate so that I could at least understand the basics.</div>
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I did this and ran into some people in the community, although I did not know it at the time.</div>
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This lady I speak of realized this later on after I told her where I went, but she did not tell me.</div>
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She quizzed me and asked me if this person told me about this really spectacular Rembrandt that had recently been spotted in the area that everyone wanted to see. It was on display at a local museum, but she could not remember the name of the museum and claimed that it was not really a special exhibit that would be advertised in the media because only Rembrandt enthusiasts keep an eye out for these pieces and text their friends. However, she would e-mail her friend to see where it was being hosted and arrange for us to see it because she was looking forward to seeing it herself.</div>
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Days passed, then weeks. I mentioned it later on and she said that she and her sister went to see the painting and the exhibit was now closed. I was a little upset that I was not invited, but I understood why she forgot her offer to see it with me since we were only acquaintances. I was a little perturbed that she never told me where the painting was being shown, but I doubted my annoyance because she invited me to an event at the community art museum showing new works by a local artist. She convinced me that the enthusiasts liked to spend their time viewing the works of up and coming artists, but I did notice that the halls tended to be empty except for a few retirees looking for a way to kill the afternoon on the cheap. </div>
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I did not know any better.</div>
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I found out later after continuing self-study that everyone in the entire community knew where the Rembrandt was being shown because the museum was a primo destination on par with the The Met. This woman was taking me to see local artists who had their works on display in coffee houses while the people in the know were at the Guggenheim and the Louvre. However, I knew so little about the scene and could not come up with a reason why she would lie that I had no reason to doubt that she did not know what museum was hosting the Rembrandt. Furthermore, she had been holding out on some other spectacular exhibits that had been coming through the area that I had stumbled across in my internet research.</div>
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I never found out the true reason why she lied to me about the Rembrandt, but suspected that she wanted the scene all to herself. What she wanted to do was distract me then hope to bore me to death with these ho-hum pieces so that I would beg off the next time I was invited and put the art experience in my rearview mirror while the enthusiasts were hobnobbing with glasses of wine at yet another traveling exhibit from Paris.</div>
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That, my friends, is what people don't understand about the practice of law and it is the myth perpetuated by the same people who talk of "underserved needs" and "shortage of attorneys" because they are hoping they look helpful and non-threatening so you will give them a call after the CLE to pick their brains then eventually trick you into throwing some juicy cases their way or use you as a repository to dump the clients they are tired of looking at.</div>
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This may be painting everyone with a broad brush because it is more likely than not that the majority realize that they won't last that long if they run their practice that way. The problem is that the weeding out process doesn't happen overnight and it is also like whack-a-mole because with every new class that is graduated, you run into yet another bumper crop of people who think they have figured out how to game the system. There are some that simply continue the practice by moving on to another crop of victims.</div>
Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-16017413510820512752016-08-17T20:45:00.001-07:002016-08-17T20:48:19.967-07:00I seriously can't believe that people are going to unaccredited schools at this pointI recently read an article about students that were going to unaccredited schools because they were taking a leap of faith their school would be accredited by the time they graduated/tried to find a job.<br />
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Not to be offensive, but what type of job were you hoping to find? Do you hate yourselves or are you so adverse to finding a job that you will spend whatever money it takes to delay the real world?<br />
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You can automatically cross off BIGLAW from your list. Some of you MIGHT find jobs in the DA's office. That would at least count as steady income. Unlike your world of working at Pizza Hut for $10 an hour, the practice of law is like auditioning for American Idol, and even if you make the Top 10, some nefarious group of pranksters is going to robo dial until you get the lowest number of votes at some point. <br />
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I went into law because I could WRITE. I made law review and I thought that life was good. Then, the year of unemployment began. I had a short-term job, but I did not fit into their culture. Then, I finally "made it" and landed in something that ran for a good five years, but then I made the mistake of broadening my horizons. Suddenly, the phrase, "But what have you done for me lately?" comes into play. The LSAT does not measure the soft skills. Even if you make it out of law school with a decent set of credentials, that will not matter within months of receipt of your bar exam results.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-27454650557961651902016-03-18T22:25:00.000-07:002016-03-18T22:25:55.860-07:00Suing Your Law School for TransparencyI wonder what the legal team's basis for "meritless."<br />
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<a href="http://nyti.ms/1X59Egr" target="_blank">Thomas Jefferson Law School. Really?</a><br />
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I think it's meritless because one should "buyer beware" of any such type of school to begin with, even if you were valedictorian.<br />
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Someone sent me a link the other day in which some BIGLAW associate described his/her daily job of spending nights, weekends, and holidays tied to a computer and reading boring contracts until your eyes turn to dust. It's interesting reading that when you read about the credentials of the newest Supreme Court candidate Merrick Garland. When reading about this woman's fruitless lawsuit to get her money back in conjunction with all of these other facets, it's really hard to believe that all of this stems from the same root profession. When you think about it, a doctor is a doctor even if they are working at Walgreens, but the disparity of professional outcomes in the legal field is mind boggling in comparison. You have a spectrum of panhandler to McDonald's cook to food prepper in a high-end macrobiotic kitchen that serves glow in the dark food to chef in the White House.....and the humorous thing is that despite the ranking of the school, all of these people sat in the exact same 1L lectures explaining the Uniform Commercial Code. <br />
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Somehow, Merrick Garland beat the system. That's not a slight against his skills because he seems admirable, but when you think about the people out there who do not even get an opportunity to practice, who do not pass go and go straight to document review, who end up in a shady ambulance chaser firm and flame out two years later, or who spend their days in a dead-end job poring over business acquisition deals and never seeing their friends and family ever again, one can more fully appreciate that he not only got the opportunity but was able to hold to his guns and be well-respected when the expectation held by many is that you be a shady mother-effer. When I read Garland's credentials, I felt that hope from the initial days of law school orientation.<br />
<br />Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-74608611677001585792015-08-10T22:13:00.000-07:002015-08-10T22:13:06.631-07:00You Too Can Pay $100,000+ for a Degree You Will Use for Three Years!This is a serious question, but I wonder what goes through the mind of people that pay for a law degree, sit for the bar, and then decide after three years that they're going to open an Etsy store and sell shabby chic wall decorations.<div>
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I know that some people do that out of necessity because they made $3 as an attorney after deducting the expense of having a research data base, ProDoc, business cards, attending CLE, paying bar dues, and having an office space. Heck, many might make more money by putting boxes of AMWAY and Scentsy for sale in the lobby.</div>
Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-73959277379004684772015-07-27T22:28:00.000-07:002015-07-27T22:28:25.383-07:00I'm Moving!To where and to do what? Hmmm.....<div>
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But let me share with you, dear reader, a plea, while I am going through my things.</div>
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My place is a graveyard. I don't know if this has happened to anybody else out there, but I have uncovered things that don't belong to me that I never wanted in the first place:</div>
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Books.</div>
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I am annoyed when people give me books that I have shown no interest in and expect me to read them. </div>
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I am even more annoyed when I tell them that I will not have time to read the book and they insist that I read it anyway.</div>
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I am even more annoyed than this when I tell them that I will probably lose the book and they insist I take it home.</div>
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This is not because I'm a hoarder. It's because I try to keep the item separate from my things so that I do not accidentally shelve them or mistake them as my own, but then it inevitably starts running with the wrong crowd: clutter. One day, it becomes sandwiched in between enough clutter that it is stuck on top of my desk. </div>
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Then, like dust, other little pieces of clutter start falling on top of it. </div>
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A year later, it's time to sort and shred, and suddenly, I've uncovered a book that I have not read and I can't figure out how to give back to that person without them asking what I thought about it.</div>
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You see, I am not a thief. I have reached the threshold where I recognize the pattern after it happened once or twice that I can give a full and accurate fortune telling account of what will happen to your book. I think now that I have to actually move into something more drastic such as waiting until their back is turned, hiding it under their couch, and pretending like I put the book in my purse when I leave. That way, when they move, they'll move their couch and find this mysterious book lying underneath it.</div>
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But why don't I just refuse the book to begin with?</div>
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In one case, the woman became quite whiney when I wouldn't accept the book. It was about endangered tigers or something to that effect, and I'm not even sure she would have cared that much except that she was trying to ingratiate herself upon me because of my lawyerly resources. That book subsequently became jumbled around in backseat clutter of my car.</div>
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Another book was loaned to me by another crazy woman. This one was eaten by my desk and I had completely forgotten about it. I was a good friend of hers at the time and this was accepted out of friendship even though I had also told her that I probably wouldn't read it.</div>
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Not all things that are lost are books, however. I lost a DVD once about artsy fartsy things, so this was not something one can buy at Best Buy for $5. A woman loaned the DVD to me after someone else borrowed it, and it turned out that the previous borrower had failed to put the DVD back in the case. The previous borrower gave the DVD to me about a week later, but I didn't have the case in my possession. I told the woman that let me borrow it that I would probably lose it, and it turned out that I was partially correct. I went into a cleaning frenzy and did not recognize the disc and threw it away, thinking it was some old junk garage band CD I picked up once in my youth. No, it turned out that this is a $30.00 DVD that can only be purchased from the artist's website. The honest thing to do is to buy a replacement even though I could not imagine this woman ever watching this DVD ever again. However, it makes me appreciate the benevolence of the junk piles because they hold and protect these sorts of things from my own stupidity. I swear that I racked my brain trying to figure out why I had this disc, but I could not remember until long after the garbage collectors came.</div>
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However, I have resolved that before I move that I'm going to have a mailing party where I'm going to mail things to people so that they can't quiz me if I liked the book. Thank god for media mail rates. </div>
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Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-45100945928175497462015-03-22T19:55:00.002-07:002015-03-22T19:55:52.170-07:00Greed will come back to haunt youNot even I could have predicted this outcome. <div>
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Between the day that I was first enrolled in law school and today, the price of tuition has jumped about $400.00 per semester hour. It already started climbing quite a bit when I was there, and the attitude of certain individuals was that the market could bear that price. This person viewed it the same as if you wanted to buy an autographed football or an original Warhol. After all, a law degree works in exactly the same way. You shell out $100,000.00 and voila! You are an attorney.</div>
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However, I have recently discovered something interesting.</div>
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The bar passage rate went down in the ensuing years.</div>
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That was the first clue that something was going wrong, and so I looked at the admission stats and found out that the median LSAT scores for the current class are also lower than when I attended.</div>
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Some people might have theories about why this has occurred, but let me tell you speak the truth on this matter and say that if you aren't Harvard or Yale law, there is a point where a so-so candidate (which is what my school was already attracting) is going to look at the price tag versus the employment prospects and run like the wind and just not attend law school all together. The majority of people left are the ones that are too dumb to do the math, people whose post-undergrad job prospects are already crap, people who don't want to go into the real world, dreamers, and people that view law school as some sort of finishing school where they can kill another 3+ years (usually more than the standard three because they usually end up flunking quite a bit) before they go work at the family business.</div>
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Naturally, this doesn't mean that if a person falls into one of the above categories that they must necessarily have worse GPAs and LSAT scores, but consider this:</div>
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If, the overall experience of going to law school was--oh, let's say--about $30,000.00 cheaper than what it is now, and the employment prospects afterwards were better, the school would have a larger pool of competitive candidates. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are competitive to the point that they would have been accepted at better schools. Instead, their profiles mean that they would be better candidates for keeping up with the coursework and passing the bar afterward. However, the slightly more competitive candidates have better employment prospects and better graduate school options. Plus, they are apparently smarter at crunching the numbers and keeping up with current events to where they realize that even if they do graduate with a law degree that the worst of it is still yet to come. </div>
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Unlike medical school that has residency programs, you are on your own unless you are connected or find a job afterward. If you cannot find a generous individual to mentor you, then you have flushed thousands down the tube. A few years ago, these people would have been absorbed into the public sector or legal aid, but those prospects are GONE.</div>
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Therefore, while there are still going to be a few dreamers and people who think they can do this if someone gave them a shot, one cannot help but think that if the school is attracting people who are not worried about their debt load and employment prospects at the end of the day that this is also playing out in the end result because they probably are not going to study that hard when it comes time to take the bar.</div>
Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-2768438801325210592015-02-26T21:59:00.000-08:002015-02-26T21:59:10.659-08:00Dear Law School....You have found my new land line number somehow and have started calling and asking for donations. I seriously don't know how you did it and frankly it is a bit creepy because I get creditor phone calls for people that used to have this number before I did and the creditors have no clue that their quarry has moved on. If you can, please call the collection agencies and tell them that David Cruz no longer has this number, thanks.<br />
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I've had a chance to compare my legal skills to laypeople and other lawyers recently, and I recall how things were when I was a 1L. It takes me back to those heady days where even I racked my brain and likely spit out wrong answers 4/5ths of the time. That was a blast! Oh, if only the public knew how the most basic and common sense beliefs are turned on their heads for the sake of making us study an ungodly amount of hours. Oh gee, what happens when a person buys blue widgets and receives pink widgets? I can stand in line at the return counter or keep them. In the course materials, these scenarios are sometimes depicted with drawings or with fact patterns. Again, I am sure that the public that pays lots of money for these services would feel better knowing that their attorney received training via cartoon drawings and flash cards. <br />
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I didn't learn anything in that environment except for the basics on how to pass the bar. Thanks to the real life work experience I've had, I can now "think like a lawyer." If only I could point to something and proudly say, "Professor Such'n'such told me how to solve it this way!" But no. I think of the practicing attorneys, judges, my job, and the non-attorney coworkers who taught me how to approach problems and solve them.<br />
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Thank you, again. I realize that it isn't your fault because law school was created to be a barrier to keep people from practicing law, not for getting people ready to do their jobs. I should commend you for fulfilling your niche in this assembly line through the lack of useful information to the point that I could not even file a lawsuit in JP court without receiving assistance from the clerks if I wanted to, as well as the sheer expense of attending. Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-79834859981615834582014-11-24T22:03:00.001-08:002014-11-24T22:03:50.721-08:00Bill CosbyWe interrupt the carnage in Ferguson for my two pence on Bill Cosby just because I feel compelled after reading that an actress involved with "Picture Pages" (which was a child's program interspersed in some of the programming that used to show on Nickelodeon back in the day) was also attacked.<br />
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Even when The Cosby Show was the top show in the nation, I rarely watched it, but Cosby was still everywhere in the 1980s. He was also held up as the archetype of African-American success and praised for having a television show that portrayed them as being doctors, lawyers, and college-bound students with futures. Now, these allegations have gone beyond sad to being "icky," and if true, it is sad that since he is now 77 years old and has lived off of a vast fortune for the past several decades that he <i>might</i> spend a year or two in prison by the time anybody gets around to indicting and trying him for the cases in which the statute of limitations has not expired before he goes into the great beyond. True, he might live to be 90 or 100, but he would probably get a compassionate release it he becomes decrepit well before then.<br />
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However, most of my knowledge of him as a comedian was from the special "Bill Cosby: Himself." <br />
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I had seen that special multiple times because it was on the premium channels and I was bored, and still remember some of the bits. Years later, I started looking at that special in a different light and I realized that taking stories about your family (particularly your children) and turning them into comedic bits in the way that he did was actually a bit mean. I can better understand someone like Jeff Foxworthy when he references his wife or children because the information is minimal and he ends up sharing in being the butt of the joke, but Cosby came off as being a bit angry and he even referred to them as being stupid or having "brain damage." I couldn't imagine if my dad decided to use stories that I did as fodder. It's sad, because we all laughed at it, but we are so desensitized to that sort of thing that we don't stop and think about what it means for the family members that aren't in a position to really say anything since they don't have the stage.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-85416965032318573182014-08-24T07:38:00.001-07:002014-08-24T07:38:40.054-07:00Why at the Age of 35 That You Might be too Old to go Back to School--Thanks to the Current Student Loan StructureUsing the allegory of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore:<br />
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It sounds cool at first. She's still hot and has got it going on to attract a young man. A few years pass and then she starts having concerns that he cannot relate to just yet such as menopause, gray hairs, and routine examinations like mammograms and colonoscopies. If this woman was able to freeze who she was at age 40, then things would be going swimmingly, but she cannot.<br />
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Taking this same example, imagine if someone that is in their early 20s takes out tens of thousands in student loan debt and they pay as they should. They may well be paying it into their 40s or 50s depending upon how much they took out and all of the other factors that one considers such as not being able to find a job that pays enough to pay it off quickly. Around this age, health concerns start creeping in, but the chances that this person is going to be struck down by something catastrophic are present but not as great, and they have to contend with the possibility that they might be laid off and have problems finding a new job because of ageism. Still, there is a better possibility than not that the majority of whatever amount on the loans they have left are not going to balloon into the tens of thousands from a default. By that point, they will (more than likely) be relatively paid off even though they have been haunting that person's dreams for a couple of decades. Your children will also start going to college around that time, and you are in a better position to help them since your loans are either paid off or nearly paid off.<br />
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Imagine now what happens if that same person takes out that amount of debt at age 35, 40, 45, etc. It sounds cool at the moment because they are young and can keep up with the 24 year olds when they go out and drink after class. However, that person will more than likely encounter ageism, so their job opportunities won't be as great. Even if you land a job and stay in it for a few years, there is an increased risk of being laid off and having an unusually hard time finding a new job. This new job would likely pay a lot less than the old job.<br />
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Even if you manage to overcome that and do reasonably well, your chances of developing a chronic medical condition that requires expensive management may occur. Now, instead of funneling the money to student loan debts, you're having to split it with your diabetes and high blood pressure medications as well as the doctor's visits that come with that. <br />
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Furthermore, if you had children, this also means that you are still paying on your loans while trying to pay your children's loans if they go to college.<br />
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Unlike Demi and Ashton, you can't run off to the court house and have the arrangement voided. These are yours forever...and ever...and ever...and ever.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-23823922749802692032014-08-02T07:06:00.004-07:002014-08-02T07:06:47.411-07:00In Support of No Child Left BehindBuilding upon my last post, I began to discover that the concept of Individualized Education Programs had been around for years, but it is only within the last few years that the schools have really done anything for students besides the children who are usually thrown in the self contained class and the gifted and talented group. Normally, you find a theme where the school becomes concerned if the child didn't pass the tests that the school is complaining that they have to teach towards in order for the school to receive its funding.<br />
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On the surface, it looks like they are dumbing down the curriculum by forcing everyone to learn "what is 2+2", but then you notice that there is an increase in number of children who get extra time on tests and "mainstreaming" where the child is considered smart enough to stay in the regular classroom, but is taken out so that they are given additional one-on-one assistance. This is not altruistically done and certainly there are still many parents out there that are having to fight with the school to give them help, such as if they are autistic but can learn in a regular classroom as long as they have an assistant with them instead of shuffling them off to the self-contained class like they would have done in the past. Now, the schools have a prod up the backside that forces them to help other children since their performance on those tests is directly tied with their funding.<br />
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So, while the system isn't perfect, I think a lot of the complaints from schools are posturing because they ultimately hate having to hire the extra people needed to pull this off.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-11497833413504032722014-07-27T00:40:00.001-07:002014-07-27T00:40:09.292-07:00Just Because you are "Average", it Does Not Mean That You are Not Disabled.I would like to raise awareness for the concept that yes, you can have a disability and still perform OK in school.<div>
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Now, let me be clear on this. I'm not saying that you can outthink your problems and be cured. What I am putting out there (for the less enlightened) is that there are bright individuals that could have been in the gifted and talented program, gone to a better university, obtained a better job than what they received but for the fact that they were lumped in with the "average" kids.</div>
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Normally, when schools decide to test children to see if they have a learning disability, it is usually because of poor grade or failing the state benchmark test. That is it. If that same student eeked out somewhat good IQ test scores or appeared to be on grade level, nobody gives a rat's turd because, in their mind, this means that a problem doesn't exist. </div>
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Many things affect IQ test scores, and ADHD interferes with that child's ability to sustain the mental effort to take the test. Therefore, the scores on that test tend to be lower than what they could have been. </div>
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So, let's say, for example, the child's real IQ is 135. However, because of untreated ADHD, the scores turned out to be a 110 because the kid could not sustain mental effort long enough to do well on the test?</div>
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Hey, that is still pretty good, right? 110 is a nice, somewhat above average IQ that you can write home about. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and goes on about their day.</div>
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Maybe if you attend a school that has a diagnostician that can read the tests, they might notice that there are discrepancies that might warrant further investigation, such as when reviewing their grades, but how often does that happen?</div>
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I think about this stuff because I have a friend that teaches special education, and while they didn't discuss much of this with me, it became apparent that nearly everyone that receives help is below their grade level. Ok, they should be helped, but where is the help for the bright individuals that could have been going to a good university to eventually become an engineer or a doctor were it not for a learning disability or ADD? </div>
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Despite what we purportedly know about disabilities, one can't help but notice that the people working in the front line on the matter including the teachers and counselors don't tend to apply reality to practice. Maybe it is from the pressure of having a limited budget and fearing that a child will be stigmatized, but let me point out that ADHD is a treatable condition and has been so for many years. ADHD has the rap of simply being a means of medicating children so that they become zombies in the classroom. However, people should ask themselves if they felt that same way if they looked into the future and realized that taking a pill every day means the difference between a scholarship and being another also-ran in a regional school. </div>
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I started reflecting upon this when I thought back to my high school. I had never heard of "Indvidual Education Program" or diagnostician testing until I met my friend who teaches special education. Here I was, for the longest time, thinking that this was a newfangled thing until I started doing some digging around and discovered that no, the concept had been around since the 1970s. Yet, here my school was, well over 20 years after the idea was birthed, and they basically had classes in three speeds: slow, medium, and fast. I don't ever remember anyone being pulled out of class or anything of the sort. I recall there being a couple of obviously "slow" individuals in my class, but where were the people that had dyslexia? ADD? learning disabilities? Didn't exist. Not a single student that I can recall was given additional time on tests or any of these other measures that they use for ADHD.</div>
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Instead, even now, learning disabilities tend to be readily diagnosed in people attending schools that are on the shitlist because the school is underperforming. In the end, the truth is that learning disabilities are seen as something those "poor" people have, and because the upper crust tends to be filled with knee-jerk individuals that think that people that need twice as long on tests are cheaters that don't need help, as well as the cost of having to hire someone other than a babysitter for the self-contained class, one can see where they would studiously avoid such things.</div>
Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-38457192457373033142014-05-12T23:05:00.001-07:002014-05-12T23:05:49.523-07:00For when you are feeling brokeYahoo News, you are funny sometimes.<br />
<br />
Here in this story, you can learn to make a leek soup for when you are <b>feeling</b> broke (not if you are actually broke).<br />
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<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/food/everyday-food-your-new-favorite-spring-soup-for-85039220055.html" target="_blank">Leek soup for only $10? Lands sakes! </a><br />
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So, is this what 25 year old hipsters who are slumming it eat after making a Whole Foods run? <br />
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"Man, today, I ate like a poor person! I totally get it now. I sprinkled it with some Plumpy Nut and felt its sustainability coursing through me as I bicycled 25 miles to REI."<br />
<br />Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-53863685412480506802014-03-23T23:22:00.000-07:002014-03-23T23:22:12.108-07:00As I lay writing this from my figurative hospital bed....I am VERY GLAD to hear about enrollment dropping off at law schools. I have no idea if the media is writing about it as much as they were a few years ago, but I still perform individual grassroots activities in deterring people from the profession of law. <div>
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It is nearly 1 a.m. where I am sitting and I just finished off a glass of wine. I have become more of a hermit than I can imagine. I miss that guy that wrote that other blog that shut it down after he revealed his identity. </div>
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Asking for an elimination of law school attendance is like spaying and neutering the entire pet population. That's great until it turns out like "Children of Men." </div>
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We need SOME lawyers. Somebody needs to prosecute people and handle divorces. But being an attorney is like being on American Idol. Every week is an audition and everyone is vulnerable to being cut.</div>
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People can have everything one minute then lose it the next. There are only a few meteoric people who maintain some sort of trajectory. There are a few Tom Cruises but many more Chris O'Donnells and Sam Worthingtons that made some big movies then pooped out.</div>
Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-60792946385456906112012-02-05T22:30:00.000-08:002012-02-05T22:30:29.397-08:00Law School vs. Clown CollegeI had begun to refer to law school as "clown college," but I realized that it would be an insult to clowns.<br />
<br />
Can you imagine? Say that you don't want to work for Ringling Bros. anymore. You can put a tip jar out on a street corner and start juggling bowling pins. People will watch for a few minutes and then <i>leave you money.</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>It may not be much, but that spare change adds up over a few hours. I don't know how many attorneys were ever voluntarily paid anything, and even if accounts are settled full and proper, there is a bit of misery about it for the client, isn't there? Oops, there went $5,000 that could have gone to buying a new car, and it's been sunk on something they'd rather have never had to pay for in a million years.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm intrigued by these lawsuits that are going after schools for employment statistics. <br />
<br />
I think back to my own experience. Technically, at the nine month mark, I was employed in a job that had the potential salary of $50,000+ per year. I was hired that exact month after being unemployed since graduation. Then, I left the job in favor of a temp job in a non-legal field, if that tells you anything.<br />
<br />
Now, I don't recall ever answering a survey. I don't recall if one was ever sent to me. Maybe they did send one. I recall some sort of email about alerting career services if you still hadn't found anything, so maybe it was a passive "we will only count the people who come forward and ask for help as unemployed and assume everyone else is employed."<br />
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Of course, if you have been trying to find a job for quite some time and saw a distinct pattern where career services wasn't working much magic, you are not very enthusiastic about telling them anything. It's a bit like waiting by the phone for the on-again-off-again boyfriend and you've gotten to that point where you're just sort of laying low and hoping he just drifts away and becomes somebody else's problem as opposed to giving you hope that things are going to be different.<br />
<br />
Yes, career services! You told me a few months ago that things were different because you see that there are problems with how things were going. Then, I didn't hear from you for several months, and <i>now </i>you send me an email asking me if you would like to get together because you were busy but you were still thinking about me?<br />
<br />
Then, you look around and see that your afternoons are filled with making your innards raw from coffee and reading a grade-C novel that you picked up on a whim at the used book store, and you are so desperate for cheap entertainment that you painfully turn through each page as you stare out the window every second paragraph. <br />
<br />
Hmm. <br />
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Then you think, "Maybe I should take career services back. I swore I would never go back to them because they've been telling me this same story for two years now about how great things were going to be if I just reached out to them. Ha! My employed friends are tired of me showing up to their gatherings without a job and ask me about career services and what they've been up to recently. They look at me with a mixture of pity and doubt in their eyes when I tell them that career services is trying really hard, but they are short-staffed and are obviously very busy with OCI and they'll get back to me as soon as they can. In fact, career services told me to provide them with my class schedule in case a potential employer tried to get in contact with me but had to send them to track me down if my phone was not working and it was absolutely <i>urgent</i> that they speak to me right that moment because I am such an amazing candidate that they won't consider anyone else.<br />
<br />
"But then, here I am, at the goddamn Starbucks on a Tuesday afternoon. If I were <i>that </i>amazing, maybe someone else would have expressed interest. Hmm. Maybe career services wasn't that bad. They did give me coffee and occasional donuts. And cake. Don't forget about cake. They were always very nice. And they had jovial font on the fliers in the hallways. Also, have you seen what else is out there? Craigslist? Law Crossing? Maybe they are simply dysfunctional and <i>I </i>should be the one to change. Maybe career services needs me to be more proactive. Maybe I am not expressing my needs adequately. People have told me that I am poor at communicating my needs. Maybe they were simply waiting for me to make a move all of this time, but they were shy about doing so because they didn't want to look like an obsessive freak. Really, I am a very cold individual. Maybe <i>they </i>are giving <i>me </i>another chance because I screwed something up and they have such strong feelings for me that they could not stay away. You know, I should really be more attentive to the needs of others. Here I am, blaming them for my own shortcomings when all they were doing was pining away with the desire to help me become more than what I am. Once again, my own cynicism about people got in the way, and I couldn't recognize that I simply just let it fall apart instead of expressing my needs. You know what? I'm going to show them that I still care about them and let them know that I understand that they are trying in their own way."<br />
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Thus, despite having my self esteem chipped away each time I went through this, the cycle would inevitably restart.<br />
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However, on this occasion, I don't think I bothered replying to them because I was in secret celebration that I had just found a job. Yes, I can just passively act like I never got their email and act surprised if I accidentally run into them at a school CLE event. After all, this was now the year 2010. Technology was so finicky that everything goes directly into the Spam box. Plus, only old people checked their email. It was nothing but text and Facebook, bay-bee!<br />
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Ah, but when I say that I changed jobs unexpectedly, I don't think my case was that unusual. I think there are more than a few of my classmates that had already made job changes within two years. This highlights the ever migratory world of legal employment. Just like circus carnies, many will dabble in a variety of trades and employers. Many fall off the hamster wheel they get tired enough, so it leaves this interesting picture of what true Darwinism looks like when seeing which people make it to the golden status of old geezer attorney. Most of the people who are hired at big firms are gone within a few short years and new room is made for another round of people who think they've struck it big.<br />
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So, what they <i>really </i>need when measuring law school statistics is basically the equivalent to the life cycle of a star sort of diagram.<br />
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Step 1: The non-attorney enters a ring of dark matter and is compressed for 3 years until nuclear reaction takes place.<br />
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Step 2: The new lawyer is launched from the nursery where they are humiliated by people with high school diplomas and 20 years experience in the field they are trying to work in.<br />
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Step 3: The new lawyer is tired of working for the jackass who is paying them nothing and keeping the rest of it for hookers and private planes. The new lawyer decides they too can have hookers and private planes.<br />
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Step 4: The new lawyer creates a new law firm. They may even "go in" with someone. Unbeknownst to new lawyer, the new partner is setting about in stealing their clients behind their back. The new venture falls apart and moving trucks are brought in during the middle of the night to haul away case files without a Dear John letter. <br />
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Step 5: Bitterness and alcohol ensues. Complaints to the state bar are made about your failure to keep the client apprised of their case. Somewhere along the way, you may need to make a stop at the special attorney AA meetings as recommended by the State bar and have your work overseen by another attorney as you are on "probation."<br />
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Step 6: Tort reform bills are passed. The business base dries up, and the lawyer seeks out a last minute certification to teach high school English. The student loans from years past are still hovering around like a goddamn horse fly that is determined as all hell to take away a yummy chunk of your arm if you would only hold still just long enough. Oddly, even though you've paid on them for nearly 10 years at this point, they are still nearly about the same size as the day you graduated from law school thanks to deferments and low income and such.<br />
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Yes, so only if we could get attorneys to write out their full bio, then people who are thinking about law school may understand because numerical statistics just don't cut it.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-47969238782225398062012-02-01T16:53:00.000-08:002012-02-01T16:53:43.076-08:00The Horrors of Public BathroomsHave you ever noticed that a lot of lawyer movies have a scene where the attorney is in a public bathroom at the courthouse?<br />
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I never really thought about it, but yeah, especially if you do spend a lot of time at the courthouse, you are subjected to the best and brightest of ancient public facilities. For example, one had fairly ample space between the slats that are supposed to shield you from the world. Instead of fixing the issue, some enterprising individual hung strategically placed toilet paper strips over those areas.<br />
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Yes, if only they looked as opulent as they do in the movies. I kept waiting to come down with some sort of dread disease.<br />
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I was provoked to write today because I can no longer handle my pet peeve. This is where we play:<br />
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What would you do if this happened to you?<br />
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You are at a sink in a public bathroom washing your hands. You have a choice between two trash cans that are equidistant from your position. In other words, you don't have to change position or strain to reach either one of them.<br />
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One trash can is a mostly empty waist basket with a large hole.<br />
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Another trash can is the small tin trash holder that is part of the paper napkin dispenser. There is about a 6 inch space between the area where the towels come out and the area where the napkins are thrown away.<br />
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After you dry your hands, where do you dispose your trash?<br />
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1. The waist basket where you can watch in satisfaction as the paper disappears down the wide, spacious hole to the bottom of the can?<br />
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2. The tiny tin located directly under the paper napkin towel dispenser, where you have to cram it in and which forces the next person to maneuver around your soggy wet trash to get a clean napkin to wipe their hands?<br />
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I seriously can't figure out why someone would have an aversion to throwing away trash in a giant trash can.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-86485112591604616722011-11-21T04:54:00.000-08:002011-11-21T04:54:15.671-08:00Go Back to Work?I don't understand these people who want the Occupy crowds to stop protesting and go back to work.<br />
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Do they seriously believe that many of those people are camped out day after day because they have jobs or even a home to go to? Or is the media inventing the 9% or higher unemployment statistics?<br />
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It's funny that the naysayers want to blame Obama for the continued high unemployment, but they also want to believe that the protesters are just a bunch of spoiled hippies who just happened to wander by the park on the way to buy some ganja from their supplier and decided to hold an impromptu party. <br />
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In fact, I find it particularly interesting that many of the initial hoards of unemployed after the financial meltdown no longer have unemployment benefits.<br />
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Finally, let me close by saying that we in America are trying to sell the concept of American-style democracy to the rest of the world--especially the Middle East. What example do we set when our cops randomly pepper spray people who are peaceably protesting?<br />
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They look at that and see that our way doesn't give them the freedoms that they desire.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-77703507644730517902011-11-12T08:34:00.000-08:002011-11-12T11:32:33.518-08:00Where Do Your Lottery Riches Go?The other day, I overheard some people hating on a young attorney for being "cheap" because he doesn't go crazy with spending. After all, this young attorney made <i>so much money</i> that he should be living like a king! <br />
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I'll pause here to let the chuckling die down.<br />
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After all, those of us "in the know" know that we don't get to keep all of those glorious riches. Haters usually don't take into account that attorneys not only have bills, but they have unique expenses.<br />
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I thought about it for a while, and decided that this is as good a time (as any) to discuss what happens to your money as a young attorney. For sake of argument, let's say that young attorney makes $50,000 a year. <br />
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<b>The federal government takes a bigger cut.</b><br />
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Now, I know that people made fun of that law professor not long ago for not having enough left over to pay for undocumented workers to be paid in peanuts to cut his lawn if the Bush tax cuts went away. However, nobody really pays attention to what happens on a smaller scale for people who aren't making anywhere near that amount. If the attorney has taxable income of $50,000 per year, they pay a 25% tax rate on every dollar they make over $34,500. In contrast, people who have a taxable income between $8,500 and $34,500 pay a 15% tax rate on every dollar they make over $8,500. Not that I'm necessarily complaining about paying taxes since I like having services, but it is a fact that an additional 10% above $34,500 goes away. <br />
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<b>Self Employment Taxes</b><br />
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For those not lucky enough to find work in a firm (or those unlucky to work in scummy firms who won't withhold your income tax), you get the privilege of paying self employment tax. This amount is double what an employed person earns. Of course, the upside is that it is that it is much easier to deduct expenses such as bar dues that would not otherwise count if you don't have enough to itemize.<b> </b> <br />
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<b>Student Loan Debt</b><br />
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I don't know what it is, but people think that schools hand out law degrees for free. <b> </b>They think that if you pay $12,000 a year in student loan payments that you still get to keep that $12,000.<br />
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Ah, but don't they offer income based repayment?<br />
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Why sure! In that scenario, you can exchange living off of ramen noodles for 10 years to get rid of them for paying a "manageable" amount for the next 25+ years that you could have bought a house with the additional interest that you paid.<br />
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<b>Donations to Campaigns</b><br />
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If you live in an area where the judges are not appointed, you are expected to donate money to election campaigns. Through donations and a combination of schmoozing at social events, the attorney helps, er, put their clients interests in a good light. Yeah, that's it....<br />
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<b>Social Events </b><br />
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At the end of your workday, you don't simply go home a lot of the time. No. Marketing yourself is a 24 hour a day task. Whether you belong to the Junior League or the Masons, your lunches and evenings are spent at meetings.<br />
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And people don't simply expect you to show up to a meeting, nod your head in agreement, and go home. No, that is for losers. If you were very smart, you would put yourself in charge of a committee that spends months organizing a big event. That way, it makes you look like a responsible individual to people who don't know you that well.<br />
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If that wasn't enough, you are also supposed to attend silent auctions and charity events. Again, your attendance is not good enough. If they are selling a basket of bath soaps, you are supposed to bid on them and preferably win.<br />
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<b>The Trick or Treat Syndrome</b><br />
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Do you remember how people round up their kids and drive them over to the "rich" neighborhoods to go trick or treating because they give out all of the "good" candy? One lady I know said that one year, she had over 500 trick or treaters come to their door because she lived in the "good" neighborhood.<br />
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When Christmas rolls around, you can't afford to cheap out with either your bosses or underlings and giving presents. A good present to your boss shows that you are thankful to have a job. A good present to your support staff is expected as a thank you for putting up with your bullshit all year. Also, donuts and fruit baskets to the court's support staff also helps because you're going to screw up and you're going to need them to remember you as the individual who brought them donuts last week in helping you fix the error so that you won't be sued by your client for malpractice. <br />
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<b> </b><br />
This also extends outside of the office. People two floors down from your office somehow magically make their way in the door and expect you to buy candy bars for their kid's PTA, pledge for their walk to combat breast cancer, and buy candles, wrapping paper, and tickets for cook offs. Sure, you can use the excuse that you don't have any money or you are on a diet, but you don't know if you're burning the bridge with a potential client, do you?<br />
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This leads me too...<br />
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<b>Keeping up Appearances</b><br />
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At one time, I used to laugh at the idea that a nice car and clothes were legitimate business expenses, but what do people think of attorneys that show up to court in a beater? They certainly don't think that the attorney is simply being reasonable and trying to keep the student loan people from harassing them.<br />
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Trust me, I've tried that conversation with people. They don't want to hear it. If you <i>don't </i>have the goodies, that is a red flag that there is something wrong with you.<br />
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I don't know if any of you have ever read the book <i>The Blind Assassin </i>by Margaret Atwood, but there is a scene at a country club where the older lady is teaching the younger lady how she should act now that she had substantial money. <br />
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The older lady told her, "Don't talk loudly at the waiters. Make the waiters lean in to listen to you. They expect it."<br />
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Yes, its incredibly bitchy to treat the staff like that, but that exchange has a specific point that is echoed when some of the non-attorneys make merriment of your economic misfortune.<br />
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I will give this example:<br />
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My grandmother and grandpa lived in a house that was in such bad condition that you could hear rats in the attic at night. Eventually, she went to work in real estate to earn some extra income.<br />
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My grandma bought a Lincoln, wore diamonds, and bought clothes from the nice boutiques. Not only that, she did not screw over clients. She had a 30+ year career in real estate that survived the busts.<br />
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In contrast, the realtor that my parents used a few years ago drove a beater (that could stand to be cleaned) and always acted like he would rather be somewhere else. In fact, he once said that he had a nicer car, but used the junker for work because it was cheaper for liability purposes. For a couple of years after my parents bought their property, the realtor used to mail circulars to them to keep him in mind. After the real estate bust, the circulars mysteriously went away. I assume the guy is flipping burgers somewhere.<br />
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Not that my grandmother and grandfather ever moved out of the neighborhood, mind you. It ended up being an assurance that she still had a job. <br />
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Moral of the story: In a people business you can't afford to cheap out in the eyes of your clients. On one hand, people are annoyed that you are driving around in a Hummer while you ran off with their last dime. On the other hand, they want to hire the attorney who drives the Hummer because it means that this attorney is legitimate and can get their clients results.<br />
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<b> </b><br />
<b> </b>So, yeah, the truth is that the nature of the business doesn't allow you to simply get 10 years of use out of your beat up old Civic even if you were perfectly happy with your old car.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-38574703658328016392011-10-31T21:52:00.000-07:002011-10-31T21:52:52.537-07:00Unemployment: It's Hard on the BodyI exercise pretty regularly.<br />
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Even when I was unemployed, I normally went walking about two hours a day. I kinda watched what I ate, and I considered myself fairly fit.<br />
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However, my girth expanded a tad. True, I wasn't close to wearing Women's sizes, but there was a bit of a difference.<br />
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Ok. You realize that even if you go out walking about 2 hours a day that there is still the time that you sat around or slept in. Plus, you can eat things like vast quantities of spaghetti at lunch instead of making due with the portions in your TV dinner. But it wasn't merely weight gain.<br />
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My knees creaked and I walked around as stiff as all get out.<br />
<br />
I'm not very old compared to the usual person who has this problem, but I had some problems with agility. And it didn't really happen gradually. It felt like it became noticeable during my unemployment.<br />
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I wasn't sure if I would get it back, or if this signaled the downhill slide that came with age. I used to use equipment at the school gym, and considering that I still made it a point to get exercise on a daily basis I didn't see much hope for returning to how things were when I was in my 20s.<br />
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It took a year of working out with Yoga and cardio exercises, but my knees felt "normal" again.<br />
<br />
And I had never really done any of those exercises in any quantity before all of this happened. <br />
<br />
It took a few months for the creaky feeling to go away. It took even longer for the stiffness to leave.<br />
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It's like I had to spend an entire year rebuilding myself from what I considered to be a very non-physically demanding lifestyle. Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-550247268600772582011-10-30T11:43:00.000-07:002011-10-30T11:43:52.068-07:00Back in My Day, We Had Fun Parties!If only I had a picture to contrast two representative Halloween parties.<br />
<br />
Which one sounds more fun? <br />
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At one party, people are laughing, wearing fun costumes, eating interesting foods, and engaging in creative activities such as pumpkin carving.<br />
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At another party, people are sitting around and staring at their phones.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-29524562030842311792011-10-08T14:51:00.000-07:002011-10-08T14:51:33.733-07:00Who is in Charge Here?As pointed out by John Stewart, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have very similar agendas, but they are aimed and different people.<br />
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The Tea Party wants the government to back off because it blamed the government for this mess.<br />
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The Occupy Wall Street wants corporations to back off because they blamed the corporations for irresponsible and illegal activities upon the economic situation.<br />
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The Tea Party eventually became a relatively successful political movement with sympathizers being elected to office-holding positions in the Republican Party.<br />
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Do you think that the Democrats are going to respond in kind to Occupy Wall Street sympathizers, even though it is picking up steam across the nation? <br />
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I hear crickets chirping. The politicians are not going anywhere near that stuff.<br />
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That, my friends, tells you who is really running the show at the end of the day.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-88812454708077642662011-10-07T05:23:00.000-07:002011-10-07T05:23:59.288-07:00"Hi, I make $50,000 per year."I had an idea for a documentary or news story.<br />
<br />
Someone should contrast the lives of at least two people who live in an area with the same cost of living and spending patterns who make about the same amount of money per year, have the same attitude towards spending, and who bought a house at the same stage of life (if possible).<br />
<br />
HOWEVER, they should take someone who graduated from school about 15 years ago and compare them with someone who graduated about 5 years ago and compare how much money they have to spend on food, entertainment, and incidentals after they make their monthly student loan and mortgage/rent payment.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-69673903174403818282011-09-25T22:37:00.000-07:002011-09-26T16:22:07.586-07:00Sliding Back to EmploymentI watch the show <i>Hoarders</i> on a regular basis. One episode dealt with a former homeless lady. One of her friends made a seemingly innocuous statement about the lady's fortune, but it was the most understanding I've run across in a while.<br />
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(Paraphrasing) "She went from homeless to owning her own house in five years. That's pretty amazing!"<br />
<br />
Indeed, it is amazing.<br />
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I have made the slide back into employment land. That shouldn't be interpreted by anyone to mean that things have improved as far as general job prospects. I hear reports from the front lines on occasion.<br />
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However, people think that when you start making your salary that you immediately go from 0 to 60.<br />
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They like to think of sports stars who run out and buy a brand new Porsche the minute they get signed to a big contract, and they think that it applies to you--the lawyer.<br />
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First of all, let me point out that athletes have a tendency to file for bankruptcy, even when people throw millions at them. Sadly, it's like a reenactment of the movie <i>The Jerk</i> where everyone with a "great investment idea" comes along to pray on people who--let's face it--had help graduating from high school.<br />
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Even so, I was a tad surprised at my own situation.<br />
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Over the years, I had grown accustomed to living off of air.<br />
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It wasn't merely cooking cheaply or learning to use every last scrap of something that I previously would have never considered using. It was about usage of time.<br />
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When a person has copious free time, they become skilled at filling the long, long day with cheap or no cost activities.<br />
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There's nothing like going to a coffee shop, ordering the cheapest coffee on the menu, and taking a book that I had sitting on my shelf for 2 years and finally forcing myself to read it--even after I had lost a bit of interest.<br />
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Why? Because the alternative required spending money on a new book. That seemed a tad bit scary because it all added up over months. Today, I may buy a new book, but what would I do tomorrow? See a movie? Buy a purse? All it needed is that one chink in the dam before I went crazy.<br />
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Such a person learns to live off of ramen noodles and imagines that it will be no sweat to simply keep doing the same after assuming employment.<br />
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Yet, things change. All of the clothes that you own are old and inappropriate for work. Some have a few permanent stains from who knows what and missing clasps. Dress shoes have such natty insoles that they stick to your feet. Bras have such poor elastic that you look like your grandma. You've deferred maintenance on your car and now its demanding your attention. People at work want you to donate to the party fund and bring goodies and gifts. You start buying "real" birthday and Christmas gifts for people after essentially giving construction paper colored with crayon for the past few years. You pay for bar-related expenses. Instead of eating spaghetti and sauce that you boiled at home for lunch, you are spending money on TV dinners and take out.<br />
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Suddenly, you realize how you lived so cheaply.<br />
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It's like someone soaked one of those little green horse things in water and watched as it expanded to 200 times its size.<br />
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Thankfully, other people who owe tributes to the student loan queen understand this. It's a bigger group than those who understand that people with law degrees can be unemployed for quite some time. The group feeling the effects of student loan debt come from all shapes, colors, and backgrounds. You can go to the University of Phoenix. You can go to Harvard. It doesn't matter. Someone wants money.<br />
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On a lighter note....<br />
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As I mentioned previously, being employed means that you suddenly realize that your wardrobe is very impoverished. However, having some income means that you are confronted with a bewildering choice. Before, I stuck with J.C. Penney's because it was better than big box stores, but was still affordable. I knew what I was getting. But when I made new friends, I was introduced to the concept of outlet malls.<br />
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Yeah, yeah, I knew the old criticisms against them. They were intentionally put in out of the way locales to encourage the shopper to not leave empty-handed. The items sold were not actually marked down, so they weren't a "deal."<br />
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Do I think that a shirt at JC Penney's that was marked as originally costing $40, but now costs $28 means that I got a $40 shirt for $28? Of course not! However, I knew I was getting a $28 shirt. It's not like paying $100 for a shirt and have it fall apart like a $4 shirt after three washes. <br />
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Even so, I felt like I was having a harder time finding clothes that I liked. Call it extreme pickiness, perfectionism, snobbery, or old ladyism: I felt like I was sifting through the racks and finding little that I wanted to wear.<br />
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Therefore, I became more intrigued at the prospect of shopping at outlets. It was new. It was different. It was part of my reinvention. Even if they weren't "deals" as in that they cost what you might pay for them elsewhere, they should still be quality wares, right?<br />
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This brings up another aspect of essentially being unemployed for four years: It's a bit like the <i>Shawshank Redemption</i> out there.<br />
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What I understood about the quality of outlet store wares is based upon knowledge procured in 1998. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that outlets <i>used </i>to carry the same merchandise as they did in the main store. Now, they have created a cottage industry where they find lesser quality items and price them in a way to make you think that its about the same thing you'd find in the retail store.<br />
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At first, I felt that my change in shopping habits were rewarded. I bought what I felt was an awesome pullover sweater that was made well and evoked the look of an English professor at Oxford. It's not authentic in look, but made me happy nonetheless.<br />
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However, I was a bit troubled at the price tag.<br />
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"Similar design, $___. ___. Your cost, $___.___."<br />
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So, what was the price tag telling me? That this is a knockoff of their own item?<br />
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When I realized this, I wasn't too bothered. I bought what I thought was a relatively nice item for a price I was willing to pay.<br />
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Yet, upon multiple returns to the stores and seeing what other people were buying, I became less impress over time.<br />
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I bought a couple of shirts from a particular place that had fairly thin material. I also noticed that the labels always suggested hand washing or line drying. Since I am not very educated on these matters, I wondered if this is how "nice" clothes are supposed to be treated. I couldn't help but think that if I had bought even "nicer" clothes that I would only be able to wash them in faerie dust soap powder and dried by the gentle wind generated by the wing beats of unicorns. <br />
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Despite hand washing or flat drying as recommended, they started getting fuzz balls.<br />
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Some people I knew showed up in dresses from one particular place and bragged that they got it on close out for $15, and I secretly thought to myself that they looked like $15 dresses.<br />
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In fact, when I went to that store and looked at the non-marked down dresses that were being sold for $70, I thought they looked like $15 dresses.<br />
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I realized that I could buy something nicer at J.C. Penney's.<br />
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And what can you say, really?<br />
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Sometimes, you go to these stores that sell purses and see women congregated around the close out section. They can't afford the "real" thing, and they can't afford the knock off at "full price" (assuming they know that it's a knockoff of the "real" thing, but they probably don't care since they're only there to purchase the name brand). None of this stops them from becoming way too excited about plastic-y looking things or items covered in visible scuffs that still cost over $100.<br />
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On that note, I wonder what the insides of some of these peoples' houses look like. Would I see rafters filled with scuffed items with the price tags still on them? Would I see a stack of credit card bills?<br />
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And that's where we come full circle.<br />
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It's hard to judge people's actions without knowing their motives.<br />
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The fact that a person <i>would </i>buy such an item has a back story that would probably rival that of the story of a person who <i>wouldn't </i>buy such an item.<br />
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Even if money management drove some of the decision, buying things after not having a job for so long is a bit scary. Not simply because I have to worry about whether I will need that $50 to eat should something happen to my job. Student loans play their own part in the equation. I simply can't walk away from debt loan like I could a mortgage. Most importantly, it is bewildering after a long period of austerity to know what to do. Some people buy houses, cars, or go off to Europe the second they get some cash. I'm still in the mindset of making due with very limited resources while acknowledging that things became neglected. It's weird. I have to tell myself it's ok to buy an outfit.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601340120062330500.post-11953983094845950962011-09-18T21:50:00.000-07:002011-09-18T21:50:48.140-07:00My Favorite Memories from Law SchoolOne of the things I used to love about law school is that they would make you feel like a rock star.<br />
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I don't know about your school, but mine would host receptions with chocolate fountains, free alcohol, food on toothpicks, and with judges that made their appearance as part of their never-ending reelection campaigns.<br />
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Two years later, I sit here and wonder where in the fuck all that went to. Because I miss it!<br />
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I don't know about you, my friends, but I thought that if I was getting that stuff as a mere student that there would be keys to the executive washroom after I passed the bar. Damnit, you know that when the event has a chocolate fountain that you're on the cusp of the big times. That was about as close as I'll ever get to the society pages of the newspaper, even if it was so uneventful that the school newspaper never showed up from what I could tell. <br />
<br />
I'm sure it looked good in a brochure sent out the alumni.<br />
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I'm sure my law school meant well. They probably wished to host their own version of <i>A Beautiful Mind</i> and have a special tea room where the greatest minds come together and lay down their pens in front of the legal geniuses that were the right honorable judge of the county probate court and the alumni who retired 10 years ago at the pinnacle of his career as a political leader in the community and who was now replaced by the young, rising star from a better school who is only at the beginning of his career.<br />
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Now, I don't do anything quite so fun. All I'm left with is the memory of drinking wine out of plastic cups and eating cubes of cheese while applauding while they present some award or other.Chief Constable for the Areahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08824938329626712343noreply@blogger.com2