Subscribe to Jansen Subscribe to Jansen

Dennis Jansen

July 29th, 2010

Picking a law school

Since my last advice post I received a lot of messages from 0Ls trying to choose between schools. Here are three common themes:

1) Prestige.
Unless you are considering a top 5 or top 10 school, focus on what city or region you want to practice law in.

For example, if you want to live in Seattle, then going to Less Prestigious School of Law in downtown Seattle is probably a better idea than going to a “top 40” school in Georgia.

The top 10-40 schools will tout the few alumni who made it in swank, distant cities to oversell their national reputation. Go to the “okay” school in the city you want to practice in, volunteer, build a network of local attorneys and land a job.

2) Employment rates.
Ignore them. The job market sucks unless you go to an elite (top 5) school.

If a school is waiving around a really high employment rate, call up the career office and ask them these questions:

  • Does your employment percentage represent the entire class or just the students who responded to the survey?
  • How many students responded to the survey? Did you verify their employment or is it self-reported?
  • What exactly counts as “employment” in this survey? How many of these students have paid, full-time positions that require a JD?

You’ll find that many schools count any employment towards their numbers. The student with a research position with a professor that ends a month after graduation counts. The student volunteering at a non-profit counts. The barista counts. If you ask how many of a school’s students actually go on to become paid full-time lawyers, you’ll find a lot of trapeze artists.

3) Specific programs.

Law school is a big investment, so you have the right to ask questions before you get into a crushing amount of debt. If you have a passion for a particular area of law, ask the admissions office to put you into contact with a professor that teaches the subject.

If admissions is unhelpful, then you can always look up the professor on the school’s website, and email them yourself. A simple email will do –

“Hello, My name is Jill Smith. I am an accepted student interested in insurance law. Can you tell me more about Whatever Law School’s insurance law program? I am specifically interested in car insurance…”

I know this sounds scary, but you might just find a mentor, and the worst they can do is ignore you, …which is also telling.


For the 0Ls with more questions, you can facebook message me, check out the advice archive, or this site.

July 29th, 2010

Fag Hags and Hood rats

I usually share viral foolishness over on facebook and twitter, but I’m going to comment on two things.

1. A Christian’s view of Fag Hags.

This article is laughably bad, for example:

“The more time a girl spends with her homosexual friends, the more she will fall under the influence of their habits and mannerisms. She might pick up homosexual fashions and dress mannishly.”

And,

“The homosexual often uses his high degree of promiscuity to gain access to overbooked restaurants (slept with a waiter), private parties (slept with the host’s boyfriend) and expensive clubs (slept with the drummer playing that night). It is an astonishingly incestuous world.

The reason for such incest? The homosexual is like a locust– limber, voracious and without conscience. They consume everything in their path, stripping the purest things bare, leaving them barren and alone in the cold night air. They will rampage through cities and cultures, whether it’s San Francisco or the Brazilians, the hallowed chambers of the Vatican or internet chat boards.

Our straight women in love with gay men don’t seem to comprehend that once they’ve been dropped off for the night at their doorfronts, the homosexual’s adventure is really just beginning.

More bars and clubs, the after-hours establishments, cocaine, crystal meth, sex bathhouses, motel room sex parties, tricking in truckstops, prancing in parks, the true nature of these men is now revealed. The lengths to which the homosexual will go to destroy any scent of propriety and humanity in themselves would shock their early-evening female companions and it begs larger questions about our culture.”

And,

“As these once-hopeful women age, they become far too accustomed to the homosexual male and far too unfamiliar with the heterosexual ones. They have false expectations for every straight man they meet. They demand these men take pleasure in shopping and watching shows like Glee. Instead of football games and grandpa’s cookouts, she’ll opt for spotting celebrities at high-end cocktail bars. No hosting bridal showers and Boca Raton weekends for them, no they’ll demand something more excessive– film noir movie marathons and New Year’s Eve parties at Mexican resorts.”

And the best part EVER:

All this time spent around gay men comes at a cost. When the firm, bass tones of masculinity command such a young woman, she will long for the shrill call of the homosexual.

When asked by a heterosexual male to be the quiet but pleasant companion at business functions or family dinners out, the girl will rebel. This is a litmus test of just how far off course she has gone.

If she is a fully formed “fag hag,” she will abandon her straight mate at these social events and lurch for the bar, ordering up a frizzy cocktail while seeking any hint of homosexuality in the bartender’s eyes.

If she has come this far, she is now fully allergic to the requirements of being a wife and the bartender’s scandalous bits of gossip whispered over margaritas will only worsen the rash of autonomy that she has developed.

Now, the author, obviously has some issues. BUT, a valid point (probably the only one) raised in the article is that some girls use their gay friends as ersatz boyfriends: the stereotype of the attractive gay guy with the overweight ever-single female friend. Everything else in the article is a hot mess.

2. Hot, ghetto-messitude.
Second thing is this video:

Don’t get me wrong – I laughed, and I laughed hard. But then I thought, “Wait, this is actually very disturbing.”

Unlike the leprechauns in the tree video, which was a stupid story to begin with, this is about an alleged rapist. Putting the ghetto brother on air completely undermines the supposed seriousness of the story and turns it into a “look at the silly hood rats” piece.

And although I hate to be “that guy”, I wonder if this station would put the white-country-yokel equivalent on air. And yes, both of those videos are from Alabama.

The ever-relevant Miss Jia also has the story.