Lewis: Prof. O is an expert in Property. Like X-ray crystallography, the people who understand it in the entire world, likely number in the hundreds. No amount of favoritism or privilege can penetrate the fog of Property to get to the point of understanding it.

Law Student Advice

Myth #1: The lawyer's is a profession. No. It is the oldest, most powerful criminal syndicate in the history of man, somehow, in total control of the three branches of government. It is so powerful and secure, it does not even care if people call it a criminal syndicate.

Myth #2: This is the best system of law. No. Every self-declared goal of every law subject is in failure.

Myth #3: Lawyers, Democrats, public servants help black folks. No. Every past and present oppression makes a lawyer a fee.

Myth #4: Learning and obeying the law makes a successful lawyer. No. Acts and answers that further the rent seeking aims of the lawyer criminal cult enterprise yield the correct answers on examinations and in advocacy every time. Some appellate decisions are so bizarre, illogical and insane, only the rent seeking theory by hyper-proceduralism can explain them.

Myth # 5: I need to learn, use, and obey the Constitution, appellate holdings, and statutes to prevail. No. I need to learn only the rent seeking theory to predict and explain all lawyer decisions and policies.

Myth #6: The lawyer is on the side of black people, wants to help them. No. Loyalty to the cult takes precedence over all loyalties to race, family, nation, true even of very bright, left wing, black lawyers. From the poorest black folk to the wealthiest corporations, all clients are lawyer commodities. The lawyers need each other far more than the client. Their clients come and go, are fungible. The lawyers always have each other, and will never want to deter each other by the slightest accountability. That is the unspoken code of conduct.

Supremacy,

Missed your loving perspective, nice to read youor thoughts again.

I don't understand Myth #4. Assuming that "do well in law school" is used as the common euphemism for "get high grades," is the point of Myth 4 that working hard is not actually enough? So where does that lead us?

Supremacy Claus...you must be a lawyer.

good post. and good advice for all law students, not just black law students. too many students don't have a clue until it's too late. of course, there are too many students to begin with -- one of the things students aren't told about.

I got a month of law school behind me. I'm already writing exams based on material that we've covered in class. Indeed, my first drafts of my outlines are designed around the trickiest hypotheticals my professors have asked in class and exam questions my professors have given in recent years. I try to design my outlines so that they’ll be good tools for helping me write exams efficiently. As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of my 1L is to begin to learn how to “write like a lawyer” not just “think like a lawyer.”

As for Myth #6: I got some advice for my fellow Black 1Ls. If neither of your parents nor a close family member or friend is a lawyer who had a strong 1L, then your strongest peers might have similar advantages over you that my strongest peers have over me. Many of my strongest peers have benefitted from their ready access to parents, family members, or friends who are lawyers (or law professors). And the lawyers in their social networks have taught them a few secrets about law school success and the nuances of great law school exam writing—things most first generation law students have to learn on the fly. So, until you have written a few exams and received some critical feedback on those exams from professors at your school, you probably should leave the time-intensive extracurricular stuff alone. You should focus the bulk of your spare time on writing practice exams and taking care of your health (physical and mental). Community building is best left to those who have the exam-writing game figured out and have time to spare.

Those first generation law students who aren’t 1) completing all their readings for every class, 2) outlining the relevant ideas in those readings every week, 3) writing all their own case briefs, 4) spending a few hours each week reflecting on how the cases, principles, and rules they learned interrelate or build upon one another, and 5) practicing writing at least one exam each week probably don't have time to make any significant contributions to extracurricular stuff.

sounds like you're off to a great start, hopkins. my only advice to you is to not get cocky. typically, when grades come out after the first semester, a great shift occurs. a lot of people that everyone assumed would get the best grades (because they did so well in class discussions and seemed to grasp the material so well) are seen walking around like zombies because they got a B-.

of all the things you're doing right now, #2 and #4 are the most important.

to anyone, why do you think black law students don't do as well as white law students? the law school i went to, there hasn't been a black person on law review in at least 7 years (as far back as i've been able to ask graduates i know), and who knows, it could go back decades. law review eligibility there is both grade on and write on, with the write-on candidates meeting a threshhold gpa for eligibility. it boggles my mind that not a single black person has made it over that barrier in so many years. and i'd estimate the student body at 15% black.

bigman:

I'm probably not the average Black male 1L. I've been sobered by more than a decade of real world military, government, non-profit, corporate, and entrepreneurial experiences. And even though I want to and will do well academically during law school, I'm confident my ability to do what I want to do after law school won't change very much if I don't graduate among the top 10% or even the top 25% of my class. Moreover, I’m not certain my legal skills will be my most economically valuable skills once I have them and will be licensed to use them. I am certain they will be a valuable addition to my other professional skills.

I'm not in law school to get straight As. I’m not here to compete against my classmates for a job. I’m not here to prove I’m smarter than or as smart as any of my classmates or professors. I'm here to make some good friends, to help strengthen my law school institution (especially our BLSA), to prepare for a bar exam, and to learn how to think, talk, and write like an entrepreneurial lawyer. Additionally, I want to get as much value out of my very expensive investment (my opportunity costs are higher than most of my classmates) as I can without making my life during law school miserable.

Even so, through my efforts to get the most out of my investment, I intend to acquire the writing and legal analysis skills that would enable me to set a very high bar for those who would out-write and out-analyze me on exam day.

"to anyone, why do you think black law students don't do as well as white law students?"

I've read a few papers authored by Eurocentric scholars who argued Black law students don't have the intellectual fitness levels their White peers have. But "intellectual fitness" criteria, especially in the predominantly Eurocentric legal academy, probably favor those who excel at demonstrating the intellectual skills and promulgating the cultural symbols and rituals that are most valued by our society’s dominant Eurocentric culture and its most prestigious Eurocentric scholars and intellectuals. Pierre Bourdieu wrote extensively, and in my opinion persuasively, about how educational systems, particularly the means by which they reward their scholars and intellectuals with prestige, are designed to ensure the dominant culture and its symbols and rituals retain their eminence.

When I showed up for the first day of law school, and learned I was one of only four Black males at the law school, I knew I was going to get hit with a strong dose of Eurocentric culture. However, being an older quasi-Eurocentric and quasi-Afrocentric Black male 1L, I've had enough time to learn how my Afrocentric side and Eurocentric side conflict. I’ve learned how to deal with these cultural conflicts. And I probably know more than a younger quasi-Afrocentric Black male 1L would about how and when to switch my cultural lenses in order to respond successfully to the academic or cultural challenges we quasi-Afrocentric Black law students face while reading and interpreting our law texts and while participating in our class discussions.

Smart quasi-Afrocentric Black law students, who are forced into the social and psychological statuses of hyper-minorities once they get to their tier-one law schools, not only have to deal with being hyper-minorities with respect to their external appearances, but also with respect to the degrees of conflict between their cultures and the dominant culture in which the average tier-one law school institution is steeped. Same point put another way: a higher proportion of their equally smart non-Black peers were probably born and raised in Eurocentric cultural and social psychological environments similar to those of the tier-one law schools. So, I suspect most quasi-Afrocentric Blacks must endure more “cultural discomfort,” as Sigmund Freud might have said, while in a tier-one law school than their equally smart non-White peers.

I also believe most quasi-Afrocentric Black law students (I don't know how a 100% Afrocentric Black could endure his/her Constitutional Law course; even I've been made to feel nauseous on occasion after rereading the U.S. Constitution and several especially unjust and anti-Black opinions) have to overcome the same 1L challenges as their equally smart non-Black peers; however, quasi-Afrocentric Blacks have to also overcome cultural and social psychological challenges that all hyper-minorities, who have not yet been thoroughly assimilated by the dominant Eurocentric culture, must overcome.

If you buy my argument that 1) our cultural differences put most quasi-Afrocentric Blacks at a disadvantage, with respect to their higher levels of cultural discomfort, in Eurocentric intellectual environments and that 2) the average tier-one law school environment is about as Eurocentric as it gets, then you should agree that the quasi-Afrocentric Black student, who is as smart as his or her average Eurocentric peer, all other things remaining equal, should not perform as well academically as his/her Eurocentric peer.

However, the smart Eurocentric Blacks should perform as well as their equally smart non-Black Eurocentric peers, all other things remaining equal. Over time, as the proportion of quasi-Afrocentric Blacks in tier-one law schools decreases and the proportion of Eurocentric Blacks in tier-one law schools increases (I assume it will increase as there are certainly strong social incentives for embracing Eurocentrism fully), the disparity between Black law student grades and non-Black law student grades should decrease.

Apologies. In the last sentence of my third paragraph for the above comment I meant to write "non-Black peers" instead of "non-White peers."

"I'm not in law school to get straight As. I’m not here to compete against my classmates for a job. I’m not here to prove I’m smarter than or as smart as any of my classmates or professors. I'm here to make some good friends, to help strengthen my law school institution (especially our BLSA), to prepare for a bar exam, and to learn how to think, talk, and write like an entrepreneurial lawyer. Additionally, I want to get as much value out of my very expensive investment (my opportunity costs are higher than most of my classmates) as I can without making my life during law school miserable."

nobody wants to jinx themselves, but i think you really do need to have a goal of getting straight A's, making law review, and out-competing your classmates for jobs. why would you aim for anything lower? take this site, for example. i suspect every black prof on this site made law review. and the market for law professor jobs is much more competitive than the market for law firm jobs or for federal clerkships. if you want to get the most out of your investment, get the best credentials you can get. saying "i'm not here to make law review" sounds a lot like explaining away failure before it even happens.

" sounds a lot like explaining away failure before it even happens."

:)

I'm pretty sure I'll not fail to reach my goal. But I'm not sure I won't fail to reach what other people believe should be the average Black 1L's goals. You and I would probably define the word "failure," in the context of my law school academic performance, differently. Yet I wonder whether we would define a "successful life" similarly? Let's hold off on discussing our definitions of "successful life" for now; that one might be better hashed out at a philosophy blog or over a private conversation.

I'm pretty sure I'll deliver a very strong academic performance. I might even qualify for some sort of academic honors when it's all said and done (and written). Nevertheless, straight As won't be my goal (this, of course, doesn’t entail that straight As won’t be my result). Developing the skills I'll need to do what I want to do will be my goal. And, through my diligent efforts to develop the skills I want to develop during law school, I believe I’ll get very good grades. That's not cockiness talking, that's maturity and experience talking.

I'll get what I need and more from my legal education. I might even compete for the opportunity to make law review, if at some point I'll determine that law review would help me achieve my goal. But most importantly, I'll go on to do what I want to do after law school; and I'll make all the money I'll want, which will be far more than I'll need. I don't doubt this. So, I'm not trying to explain away failure before it happens. I’m not looking for an excuse to be a lazy law student, and I'm not a foolish, quixotic whippersnapper. If anything, I'm trying to explain that I'll measure my success as a law student my way, based on the things I value and the opportunities I have (or will create).

After I hastily wrote the long comment I shared in this thread, I copied it over at my blog as a blog post, "Cultural Discomfort." A commentator and fellow blogger inspired me to explain myself a little further after he read the slightly edited version of the long comment I posted in this thread. In my response to his comment, "Cultural Discomfort II," I explain how the goals of an entrepreneur like me and the goals of the average smart Black tier-one law student who wants land a high-paying or prestigious job after law school might be very different. However, the fact that I have different goals from many or most of my law school peers doesn’t entail that they’ll out-perform me on exam day. I don’t plan to make it easy for my peers to out-write or out-analyze me on exam day. I believe I owe it to them, for their goals, and to myself, for my goal, to make it as hard to beat me on exam day as I can.

"I might even compete for the opportunity to make law review, if at some point I'll determine that law review would help me achieve my goal."

well, i don't know what to say. obviously you should try to achieve your goals, whatever they are. it's just that, when i think of how few blacks are on law reviews, it's really depressing that someone who's obviously as capable as you are would even be considering not competing for law review. it's just writing a short paper, why would you not compete?

maybe you're independently wealthy. maybe you're not going into debt for law school. that would make you atypical. if you're like most law students, you're going heavy into debt. a pretty low percentage of law students understand what the job market for lawyers is really like. it's not good. it's dominated by those who go to the very best schools and/or those toward the very top of their classes. for the great majority, law is not a good way to make money. it's not even a good way to earn a living.

anyway, best of luck, crush your exams, and if you happen to qualify for law review, DO IT, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

bigmac:

I agree with you that law review would be a very valuable achievement for almost every Black law student. Indeed, I'd advise almost every Black law student to compete for law review, especially students who'd aspire to become law professors or scholarly authors. Law review is a great way for talented thinkers and writers to differentiate themselves from other talented law students. Those on law review are assumed to have stronger writing, and perhaps, stronger analytical skills than most of their peers. And law review certainly helps employers stratify each crop of talented law school graduates.

If I were younger and had more to prove or were still uncertain about my ability to earn a good living, law review would be one of my top goals. However, law review would not do as much to help me with my goals now as it might have if I had gone to law school in my early twenties or mid-twenties. These days, the bulk of my limited extracurricular time will be spent helping other Blacks and Browns strengthen their resumes, helping many more Blacks and Browns get into my and other law schools, helping the Blacks and Browns who will choose to join my school do well academically, and continuing to help many more Blacks launch or sustain businesses in my state.

If I'll determine that joining my school's law review would enable me to inspire more talented Black students to seriously consider joining with my law school and going on to practice law in my state or if I'll determine it would enable me to significantly influence the content of my school's top journal, moving the content toward a more Afrocentric direction, then I'll probably compete for it. Otherwise, the benefits of adding law review to my set of experiences would probably not outweigh the opportunity costs. I’ll need to spread myself very thin as it is in order to significantly help strengthen my law school, with respect to the quality of our cultural diversity and the proportions of our Black and Brown students. There aren’t many students who could do as much per volunteer hour to help my law school in these important areas.

A friend of mine on law review at a top NY school confided in me this summer that she was quite struck how, after anonymously grading the law review essays, she had looked up who were the different candidates that had been voted for. Without knowing who they were, she had nominated many more minority students than other white members of the law review. And, since of course she was a minority on the board, not as many of her choices ended up getting selected, perpetuating that dynamic.

It's her story - I may not be retelling it exactly right. To me it suggests yet another reason that the legal pofession puts undue emphasis on the value of law review in evaluating new lawyers. Once you have published something, okay, evaluate that. It still likely suffers from the same problem as my friend's law review selection process, but at least there's actual writing and opinions to look at in the writer's work, not just an overly simplistic binary evaluation of was this student on law review or not.

Personally I think Law Review and many law school honors are an unfortunate catch-22 that students are forced to buy into, in order to catch the attention of employers. Even if it is in truth a very imperfect measure of ability or intelligence, and perhaps is mostly a measure of mainstream assimilation, it is so highly regarded in the legal profession that it is very hard to ignore, even if you are seeking an untraditional legal career.