Poster of the Weak: Jay Obee

This week's Poster of the Weak is Jay Obee. Jay Obee is a rather new poster to Top-Law-Schools.com, and we here at BLS can think of no better way to introduce him than by giving him a good roast. So let us begin!

Jay Obee is a 0L. In law school terminology, he's a young child, yet to begin the perils of law school and job hunting. However, unlike our previous Poster of the Weak, he's smart. Smart prospective law school students tend to have the worst qualities you can find in a human being: They talk a lot, think they know a lot, are argumentative, presumptuous, and usually get in way over their heads. I'd know, I'm one of them, and I'm sure every other admin here can relate.

The problem with Top-Law-Schools.com (or rather, the virtue), as that the site is also frequented by people in all stages of the law school process: 1Ls, 2Ls, 3Ls, and even BigLaw Associates come by to share their wisdom. In fact, an amazing facet of Top-Law-Schools.com is that you can literally trace the intellectual growth of posters, as most begin posting on TLS in their senior year of college. This maturational process is astounding, IF the TLS poster goes through it. There are some law students who are on the forum who still need to grow up.

Jay Obee, I sincerely hope you grow up. Because beneath my cold, acerbic exterior lies a warm, loving Emmy waiting to see a beautiful scholar blossom forth.

Thread: Berkeley vs. NYU vs. Stanford
http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49125
The topic is obvious. A poster is deciding between the three schools and needs some help. Jay Obee is quick to the rescue:
Do you seriously think the OP is dumb, Jay? Of course he/she knows the schools' RANKINGS. He was admitted at NYU and Boalt! We have a smart one on our hands. His question, obviously, is whether he should disregard the rankings and go for a school at which he feels comfortable.

How do you know Boalt's placement in the top 6 was a fluke? Have you reverse engineered the USNews rankings? I don't understand how you can say such a thing and give absolutely no support for it. Sure, it was ranked 13 a few years ago, but NYU wasn't even close to the top of the T14 and you aren't complaining about them!

Then you talk about their firm placement, of which you really have no idea. What does it mean that you've seen so many Berkeley grads at "shitty mills?" Are you kidding? Do you work at the Berkeley Law student failure office?

Now let's look at his next post:Your research!?! Pray tell, where is your research? Where is your mound of publications on job placement from Boalt? Oh, that's right, you don't really have anything to show for it.
No! Wait... here we go...I've belabored the problems with these statistics many times before. Quite simply, the problem is that any statistical analysis that provides information about where law students END UP is going to be flawed. The simple reasoning is that it fails to show the preferences of students and the preferences of law firms. For students, there are regional preferences, professional preferences, speciality preferences. Boalt tends to attract students who want to pursue IP, public interest, or judicial positions. On top of that, students who end up attending Boalt like sticking on the West Coast (I can't blame them; the weather is nice, and SFO is beautiful). Why can't this account for the disparity? Jay offers no reason.
But the thing is... how do you know this? Have you sat in on hiring decisions, where partners have actually rejected Boalt students because they attend Boalt? No, you haven't. You are simply looking numbers, and myriad sets of facts could explain them.

Finally, the thread is hailed upon by the voice of reason, a Boalt student:
But Jay doesn't back down:
Dear Jay, aren't you begging the question? How do you know the statistics are reliable? You say the statistics are reliable because they prove the conclusion that Boalt simply doesn't place well in Biglaw when it is compared to the T6, but the problem is that you haven't proved it yet. And, by a marvelous sleight of hand, you presume the truth of your argument in claiming that the statistics are more reliable. The argument is circular on its face.

I can't be bothered to dissect the rest of the thread. Needless to say, this pattern of behavior is to be found everywhere on TLS: Jay Obee is providing advice about a process using statistics that can't prove the conclusion he wants to prove. What's worse is that he's using them as gospel. And what's terrible is that he's ignoring the testimony of law students.

Why is it so foolhardy to accept such testimony, Jay Obee? Is it because we're self-interested, and we really want to sell our respective schools? Can you accept our anecdotes?

I suspect my explanation for this is will apply to Boalt students as it applies to students at my law school. When you start at a law school (or at some point before OCI actually begins), your OCS will provide you with statistics. These statistics show you the 25th percentile, 75th percentile, mean, and median GPAs of students who attained offers at the firms that interviewed at the school during OCI. Very much like the USNews rankings, these statistics provide the same "admissions information". We need them. Why? We need them because we have a limited number of "bids": We can't interview at every firm. There isn't enough time, and firms only have so many interviews with so much patience. So we have to "spend" our bids carefully. But how do we know where to spend our bids? How do we know where we stack up with respect to a given firm? That's what the GPA chart tells us. It tells us what are "reaches", "targets", and "safeties" should be.

Now the reason I suspect no one is going to come and tell you outright what class rank it takes to get into these firms is that these charts are classified. The following paragraph precedes our GPA grids:

"On behalf of your classmates, we ask that you please keep this information confidential. The data is specific to MLS students, and is made available exclusively for the use of MLS students. While it may be tempting to share it with others outside the MLS community, distributing it will only work to disadvantage you and your classmates. If an employer is giving the edge to MLS students -- digging deeper into the class than it does at other law schools -- that will end if word gets out. Moreover, employers may not submit the forms which enable us to compile this data if they know this information will be publicized. Please help yourself and your colleagues by maintaining confidentiality!"

So, really, Jay, our hands are tied. But I can assure you that students at non-T6 schools have a perfectly fine time getting jobs at top firms. Really, it's not hard. Everyone who wants one gets one. During 1L at these schools, people are usually fighting for the clerkships and other prestigious things, not necessarily for one of the many spots available to us in the Vault 10 (and even Vault 5!). You claim that our calling you a "0L" is an ad hominem attack; but it isn't. We are simply in a better position to know our employment prospects than you are, and that'll be the case until you actually begin your own job-hunt.

That, my dear friend, is why you shouldn't post so conclusively about firms and job prospects from law schools, and that is why you are Poster of the Weak.

Congratulations.