Posts Tagged ‘professors’

This is a general rant that has been building internally since I started law school. I’ve alluded to it often and maybe even given it a modicum of attention on the blog. I’m speaking, of course, of the hypocritical behavior possessed by nearly all law professors. With slight exception, I’ve found each of the following rules to be true:

1. You hold us to a strict attendance policy where you punish those of us who show up a moment or two late by Socrating our obviously flustered asses, but nobody screams at you and disparages your intelligence when you show up seven minutes late because you lost track of time sitting in your office fucking around on the internet.

2. You continue speaking long after the class period has ended and you know damn well what time it is. You say something like, “I’ll give you back the time next class” – but you that never happens. And because we are all now late to our next class, we will be Socraticly pillaged by our next professor. See Rule 1.

3. Heaven forbid our cell phone goes off in your class. You think it’s funny to harass the student who forgot to silence their phone, but nobody can discipline you when you rudely take a five minute phone call from your fat-ass wife. I’m sure she fucking loves Gargoyles but perhaps you two can discuss this later? At a time when I’m not paying $500 an hour?

4. You are routinely asked basic questions by us that you fail to answer or comprehend yet you lose your shit when we misinterpret your outrageously complex hypotheticals.

5. You didn’t cover the material in class but it’s still on the exam? Remember that first day in class when you told us that we needed you to decipher the oh so complicated cases? Truth is, the material is not difficult and you are extremely overpaid.

Law professors do not respect their students. They get their jollies off treating us like shit. Yet they demand us to show them a huge amount of admiration. I understand that they are the authority and the teacher, but I feel like I would learn much more if I could have a respectful dialog about the issues with my professors.

I’m not engaged in class, I’m assaulted in class. I don’t care about the law, I care about not looking stupid in class.

I’ve always hated professors. It has nothing to do with their authority over my academic success, though I do have issues with authority. As a class, professors are simply dull, stuffy, tame, vapid, and extremely disconnected. HLS profs, unsurprisingly, are the fucking apogee of this stereotype.

I recently crashed a semi-exclusive event filled with equal parts professors, administrators, students, and firm partners/donors. The event featured a bullshit cash bar, though everyone received a free drink with dinner. Fortunately, seeing my quickly empty glass, the waiter took pity and provided a free refill … seven times.

The format of the event was: mingle, eat dinner, watch a small presentation, eat dessert, mingle again. I was at a table in the back of the room with three profs (none my own), two other students, and two donors. Despite the alcohol, I was able to make it through the presentation without doing anything that could be framed as impolite. As the dessert carts came out, though, one of the donors asked me how I was enjoying law school, so I said, as nicely as possible, “I’m a little bored but everyone tells me that exams are pretty intense.”

The profs at the table immediately intervened, asking about my professors, my workload, and what I thought about both. I was honest. I said that while I’m sure the profs are quite intelligent and respected, I found their classes to be “only occasionally useful.” I didn’t have time to address the excessive workload, as both professors dove right into a discussion about how law students today are so focused on the next step, they don’t take the time to appreciate their wonderful scholastic opportunities, with which the table (including myself) agreed. Then they both made a catastrophic error, both in terms of fund-raising and mere validity. They asserted that the blame for students not properly appreciating their time at law school lied with the firms and the outrageous salaries.

Of course, the donors were like WTFWAT!? They posited that law school, with its archaic focus on extremely broad topics and one test per semester structure, was fucking retarded. They spoke about not learning a single thing in their third year and having no clue how to practice at graduation. Why should the students care about the work if it brings no utility?

One of the other students, who had been quiet the entire exchange, spoke up before the professors could respond (AND I QUOTE):

“Fellows, we are on a slick precipice that shall yield no fruit, might we change themes?”

I was the only person at the table who found the statement absolutely absurd, which means I was the only one at the table laughing, though I didn’t notice. Still oblivious, I put a piece of oddly flavored cheesecake on my nose and said:

“Fellows, the dessert is on a slick precipice, I feel as though it might meet its demise momentarily.” Then I moved my head forward and went, “OH NO! NOM NOM NOM.” The cheesecake did, in fact, meet its demise. I’m not positive about this, but I think I made one of the donors laugh.

The event broke for mingling shortly after and everyone at the table bolted towards opposite sides of the room. I went and found one of the professors and asked if he would be willing to discuss law school over a drink. He declined.

Then, I found the other professor and interrupted his conversation with someone who didn’t look very important and asked if he would accompany me to the bar down the street, where we could discuss the relative merits of law school. He looked at me as though I was some fucking cretin and said that he had to be leaving soon.

So I found one of the donors, who was talking to a relatively major administrator, he called the professors a myriad of harsh names and asked if I had any use for his four drink coupons. (apparently the donors were given extra drink coupons)

“Yeah, if you don’t need them.” Jackpot.

I ordered four whiskeys with the coupons and carefully carried all four glasses in stacks of two to the donor and the administrator

“I got these for you guys.”

The administrator turned me down but the donor seemed quite touched. He ended up drinking two of the drinks and we discussed the ridiculously contrived bullshit that is law school.

In conclusion, I still hate professors.

Legal Methods is over! Our last class was great. Sure, it wasn’t a party like another section’s last class. Or canceled like another section’s last class. We had cases to discuss and scholars’ statutory interpretation philosophies to debate. But when we had finished our substantive discussion, Professor LM wrapped up with a speech reflecting on all the work we’d done in the past three weeks, what he hoped we’d learned in the class, what he hoped we’d learn in law school, and what he hoped we’d do in our law careers. It was really inspiring and when he was finished the whole room erupted in applause. I’ve always wanted to be in a class where everyone applauded the professor at the end.

My legal writing section celebrated the end of Legal Methods with a Columbia-sponsored happy hour. I wonder how long this drinking-on-Columbia’s-tab thing will last. I hope for at least a little while longer since I haven’t really been able to take advantage much yet. I doubt all the myriad extracurricular organizations are finished trying to woo us. At least, if the ENDLESS BARRAGE OF LISTSERV EMAILS IS ANY INDICATOR!

Speaking of, I haven’t really come across anything I feel like joining. I’m sure employers don’t care, but I was hoping to find something interesting to join, at least for the social aspect. Apparently we have a softball club. Once upon a time (i.e. before puberty) I was really good at sports. I even played on a pee-wee hockey team. But if the past 15 years are any indication, I now suck at all things athletic. Unless yoga and pilates count. Which, let’s face it, they do not. But I think I might like to play softball. They said all skill levels are welcome…but maybe there’s something in the law school’s anti-discrimination policy that makes them say that. Anyway, I’ll think about it some more.

So, I think I’ve been sufficiently acclimated to this thing called law school. True, unlike a lot of other 1Ls, I haven’t gotten very far on any of my substantive classes, but my LM class consisted of more course hours than my full schedule so I’m looking forward to more free time.

I’ve heard mostly good things about my professors, but Professor Torts is on loan from the University of Chicago so he was a bit of a scary wildcard. (I heard they actually give out C’s at Chicago.) But he isn’t nearly as intimidating as I’d pictured. He kind of dances around the room and Socraticizes us in a friendly, non-threatening manner. He treats it as more of a conversation rather than a test. Torts cases are always interesting; today’s theme was obnoxious children, including one case where an adult woman sued a five year old. Awesome.

Civil Procedure…well to be honest, I’m kind of loving it. I found the reading to be really interesting. I’m definitely a rule-oriented person so I think I’ll be one of those rare people for whom Civ Pro really appeals. The professor seems nice enough. He ended class a bit early today so he could fly down to DC to do something for a former high school classmate of his…Sonia something or other.

Contracts is my small section. There are fewer than 40 people in this class. I don’t really have any thoughts on Contracts yet. It’s too soon to write it off, obviously, but I was less in love with the material than with Civ Pro, if that says anything. True, there is little that is more gorily exciting than botched plastic surgery, but the issues of law themselves just appeal to me less. So far anyway. It’s obviously way too soon to make any kind of definitive judgment.

But in any event, so far so good.