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PerspectivesinLaw 18 - 03 Feb 2008 - Main.BarbPitman
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| | I’ve been having a hard time in this class, and would like others’ input. While this class is by far my favorite, it is also the most frustrating. I’m not sure how to look at what I consider to be stereotyping, judgmental views, and bifurcated ways of thinking: Good law versus bad law, pink skin versus non-pink skin, complacency and greed versus (what I assume is meant) altruism and righteousness. I’m probably not the most articulate person to be making the points I’m about to make, but please understand I mean no offense – I’m only trying to understand and be understood, and, through this classroom experience, to learn some non-academic things along the way.
Do I like money? You’re damned right I do. Why? Because, in this society, it opens up options and is the main instrument that one is forced to use in order to produce resources that one needs and prefers (in other words, those things that make life a heck of a lot easier). I don’t care about status, social position, or wealth per se (despite what may be unintentionally implied by the sentence about being a secretary as opposed to a lawyer in the profile at http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2007/December07/2010profiles.) The reason I applied to Columbia instead of law schools in my state is because I assumed (and I think rightly so) that on balance, there is too good a chance I will be unemployed after law school if I’m not able to tell prospective employers that I went to what this society considers a “top” law school. If I had chosen to go to a law school in my state (in my case, Indiana University), I would be paying $15,784 in tuition this year; at Columbia, I am paying $42,024. Yes, I’m paying up-front almost three times per year in tuition what I could be paying. But I, employers, and the law schools know that my chance of recouping that financial outlay is by far greater if I have the Latin equivalent of “Columbia” at the top of my diploma instead of “Indiana.” Frustrating, but real. | | |
-- BarbPitman - 25 Jan 2008 | |
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I see that this thread is now summarized in the section that suggests we condense the index into header topics by the statements "(Eben's goals for this class) Please clarify the goals!" I'm not quite sure how to take this, given that this thread was started by me. If the summary suggests that the starting of this thread took us away from Eben's intended goals, then let me explain that I started this thread in RESPONSE to Eben's first-day comments about (if I may generalize) Biglaw being a place someone should not work. Then someone from class posted something using the words "greed" and "complacency" and referring to Eben's comments in class about work people don't really want to do (my read: Biglaw). So this thread was started in response to these two sets of comments -- one set coming from Eben in class, the other set coming from what Eben said in class. Then, yes, Eben spent a large part of a later class period discussing goals for the class. I'm alarmed if fingers are being pointed at me regarding confusion about classroom focus. My opinion: Eben -- if you wanted to limit classroom focus to the material in the book and/or didn't want commentary having to do with employment choices and the associated stigmas and assumptions, then you shouldn't have started the first day with a long diatribe that had nothing to do with the book and that in fact did address your opinion of Biglaw. Sorry, guys, but I believe Eben is the source of the very confusion Eben and others have addressed. And, Eben, if you want to respond to what I've just said, please do so in the same context in which I've placed it -- not by bringing it up in the classroom. You should know that we post here to classroom commentary for two reasons: (1) you provided this forum and encouraged us to use it to comment on in-class discussion, and (2) we can expand on classroom discussion without having to worry about running out of class time. However, some of us feel as if we are being "shaken down" when, in class, you spring on us pointed responses to what we've written on this site. Address me here so that we DON'T take up more class time with these issues -- to me, this is appropriate, and fair.
-- BarbPitman - 03 Feb 2008 | | | |
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| Revision 18 | r18 - 03 Feb 2008 - 15:05:37 - BarbPitman |
| Revision 17 | r17 - 31 Jan 2008 - 17:55:31 - AdamGold? |
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