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Law Firm Stops Hiring Ivy League Grads, Demands "Gritty Street Lawyers"
Having taken on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming an Ivy League law graduate, it appears, in at least one case, that your abilities are not required. As WSJ reports, Adam Leitman Bailey, a Manhattan attorney who runs a real estate firm, says he looks to hire law school graduates who have grit, ambition and a resolve to succeed in the legal profession. For that reason, he says, his firm has instituted a rule: If your resume lists your law school as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell or University of Pennsylvania, you need not apply because you won’t get the job.
As The Wall Street Journal reports,
Mr. Bailey, a graduate of Syracuse University Law School, says he admires the nation’s top law schools and doesn’t deny they attract some of the brightest minds. But says the best applicants hail from schools lower down the totem pole of prestige.
In an article titled “Why We Do Not Hire Law School Graduates from the Ivy League Schools.” Mr. Bailey told Law Blog his ban applies to other elite schools outside the Ivy League, like Stanford and New York University.
Explaining the policy, he writes that students who are accepted into top-ranked schools may have aced the LSAT, but, very broadly generalizing, they’ve climbed their way to a law degree without testing their mettle.
[M]any of these law schools either fail to rank their students or do not even grade them at all. (1) Ergo, the students have no incentive to work hard and learn when they have guaranteed summer associate positions and guaranteed job offers. Their students typically have no incentive to get the best grades in their classes. They also have no incentive to squeeze as much learning as possible out of the law school experience. Most importantly, the real world simulation of dealing with the pressures of a case or deal may be removed when the students do not need to compete for a job in a difficult market…
[T]hese students may become a United States Supreme Court Justice or a future President of the United States so political theory and international law and classes on capital punishment may be extremely important to them. However, we need our street lawyers ready for battle and taking trial practice, corporations, tax, civil procedure and any real estate and litigation course offered.
In his piece he concedes that a few of the senior lawyers at Adam Leitman Bailey PC are indeed Ivy Leaguers, including the head of the firm’s real estate litigation practice group, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School.
“By the time these Ivy League attorneys come to our firm, we have seen them in the courtroom and observed their talents,” Mr. Bailey told Law Blog by email.
* * *
Ironically, Mr. Bailey, whose firm hires one to three law school graduates a year, also writes that the top students from the highest ranked schools “have no interest in applying for a job at our firm.”
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Ambulance chasers....TO THE FRONT !!!!
Excuse the F out of me because BHO, FREE Kenyan/Indonesian scholarship Columbia and Harvard education is being blatantly discriminated against.
We will sue.
I think this is a solid business move.
Personally, I hate dealing with Ivy League assholes.
Each carries the pungent aroma of the sulfur of arrogance.
Give me a group of capable junkyard dogs from "lesser institutions" and we will beat them time and again at half the price.
What of I'm a Black, Muslim, Transgendered, Quadriplegic Ivy league Law school grad?
Then you work for the government.
Grade inflation has been well known, even in public schools. Hell, UC Santa Cruz doesn't even give grades out at all. Just PASS/FAIL. You only hire these kinds of morons (including Ivy League) if you want to implode your business.
Some years down the line, they will only give PASS grades, as to not hurt the stew-dents precious feelings.
p.s. anyone else immediately think of My Cousin Vinny upon reading "Gritty Street Lawyers"?
Da two yutes...
the two whaaaat??
A law degree from Yale, 48,000.000.
A gritty street lawer, Priceless
I'm afraid most Americans don't get the College Lie, the wealthy love playing head games with people, this is about devaluing the education people pay for, and it will mean college grads only hope is to be lucky enough to land a state job or be forced to do whatever it takes (Starbucks?). Unfortunately the job markets are flooded with qualified applicants, just the way they wanted it too & soon college will be free, and now with the digital world being bought hook line & sinker, the wealthy will be pitting the debt serfs against the likes of India.. Yay H-1B1 Visa!! But don't worry gringos, you got competition at McDonald's too!
http://galeinnes.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-awakening-of-technology.html
I literally fought the entire state of commiefornia to go through college. Got laid off, on welfare, state didn't want me at the home with my wife and kids, had to file an actual foot of paperwork every fucking month documenting every penny I insisted on earning by any shit level job I could take, having to pile it all in front of a fellow class mate who was getting government checks to pay her way through all, taking triple courseloads to minimize the time and expense of doing it, with politically correct classes that told me I was a supreme being just for being a a straight, white, christian capitalist. I don't have any happy memories of college other than arguing with law professors that were projecting state propaganda and teling them they were absolute idiots to parrot it (and having at least one admit later that I WAS fucking correct but that I should not be so vocal. I was not 19, I was 35 and not about to let that lying shit land on fertile ground.)
College, to me, was the most disgusting time of my life. From having my application lost three times, to the point where I physically walked it through the entire fucking process, paid cash for the fees, and demanded a receipt. Then went to the next office to watch some asshole type my name into the 'official student' list and record my class listings for the quarter.
It's Commuter U in Southern California, (Cal State San Bernardino) so there's not much rain, and I could grab naps under a tree, shower in the gym, and the student cafeteria was reasonable on prices. I had a mini-handcart with a plastic milk basket to haul a dozen books or so from class to class. Each quarter my classes were usually Mon, Wed, Fri...do all other days were spent steam cleaning carpets, washing cars, doing tax returns, creating lotus/excel macros for businesses, wallpapering...anything I could find to turn a buck to help offset the state welfare and provide some sort of self-esteem. I actually busted my ass to make pennies just so I could show the state I wasn't freeloading.
While it was all going on, the 'great' state of commiefornia would occasionally send us an extra welfare check during a month...since we already had cashed one, we would put the extra in a drawer figuring they fucked up.
Two years after college and welfare, my wife and I were ordered to a meeting 80 miles away over our welfare fraud case. We didn't even know we had one. We get to the place and we're in an office with some welfare bitch supervisor and some welfare administrative judge. The judge explained the proceedings and my first words were "You are an administrative law judge, you have no oversight over us, only those under your organization. So, go right ahead, and explain why we're here." She said, "You were sent duplicate payments. And those payments were received under fraud. We want that money back." I asked, "Do you have any canceled checks, bitch? Every extra check sent was put in a drawer. If you'd like, you and that fat whore next me can follow us home and I'll hand them back to your fucked up ass. If you don't want to follow us home, do not contact us again, I will file personal harrassment suits against both of you. And you know I know that I will win."
The judge said, "The proceedings are dismissed. You may go."
I said, "I don't need you're fucking permission." (Wife was really upset at my tone, she thought I could be put in jail for contempt.)
Dat is elitism.
It's housing court in NYC...
It's like saying McDonald IT won't accept MIT graduates...
It's housing court in NYC...
It's like saying McDonald IT won't accept MIT graduates...
Far and away the best post in a long time. Crying laughing. Well played, Sir.
I hear tell that the Great State of Not Making Anybody Feel Bad has officially made it mandatory that all kids get a high school diploma. Regardless of anything.
I need a comfort room.
Don't worry we all have a "comfort rooms" waiting
Hell look at how far Perry Mason went. Granted things were black and white back in those days.
Evolution tends to keep such abominations in check.
When a people goes full retarded it gets genocided by the not-retarded recognizing an opportunity. Takes generations.
!st man, working crossword puzzle: What is a six letter word ending in "itty" that describes street lawyers not ivy league?
2nd man: that would be "gritty"
1st man. I see. Do you have a pencil with an eraser on it?
actually this speaks to a larger mostly western oddity
in the west, especially USA and Canada, top 2 things people look at for 25-30 year old hires is, what university they go to and how much experience they have
in the east, especially China, they just look at what sort of skills or majors you've studied to get an idea of your work ethic...
in China, being a student from a smaller university and having no work experience is a plus because they think it means you'll work hard and be driven. in Canada or USA, it means you're fucked because the HR hiring software only wants 'safe' hires with 2-3 years experience
it's why so many international students in USA and Canada are going to Asia now: they try find work in NY, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver for 6 months and get rejected over and over
but in China, you can easily get a good major-related interview in any large tier 3 city in basically 1-2 days. my friend actually just left Vancouver after 9 months getting rejected for being a no experience MBA student (IT and finance majors at BCIT and UBC), and within 2 days of being in Beijing, had 5 interviews
i wish more western firms acted like this... and i know lawyers are an easy target here on ZH. but underemployment in the USA and Canada is a serious effing issue for recent graduates, and while a part of its the economy, a part of it is this messed up balance of experience versus drive
My daughter just finished high school, three classmates got into the Ivy League. Two Asians. All three got in 100% because of their parents.
Since the age of about two these kids study to get a top SAT score. Play an instrument, eagle scout, take every AP class, and all day Saturday do some parent-organized learning event. It's a freak show really.
The ethnic Chinese parents are just purely focused on this. The years of study puts the kid at a huge advantage to get into a "great" college but I wouldn't hire them. Most become a dentist or something. Really not contributing that much in my opinion.
The great breakthroughs dont emerge from these automaton souls. I raised my kids more along the Waldorf style, guarantee they have a better professional work ethic an settle themselves into a fulfilling career of their choosing. From what I've learned of Ivy league kids, its depressing really.
So true, these kids may be book smart but lack any entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ability...like you said they are automatons.
Right. It's like hey, your parents robbed you of a happy childhood so that you could eventually make decent money as a dentist. Happy now? OK clean my teeth bitch. Ha ha.
Yeah man, I can sort of identify with that. I was hired as an IT person and moved half way across the country. One of the local employees asked why they didn't hire someone from MIT. *Sniffs* 'Snooty bastards.'
Later in life, ran into a company that had used MIT grads for development. They had set a deadman switch in the software. If they didn't get paid they didn't reset the timer on the switch and the software would stop working. *Sniffs* 'Hmmm, sulfur...'
As for me personally, when I've done interviews I've looked for obviously bad schools as a way to put additional question marks on candidates. In the end though, someone who graduated from a local, and very expensive, univerity who worked for two years at Fidelity isn't gonna get it done. Especially when their last role was essentially helping users change their passwords. That is so far. I have never interviewed to fill a password resetter position. I guess I don't work for good companies like Fidelity. Imagine that. Fidelity is such a megasuccess that they actually have to employ at least one person full time just to handle password resets because either their real IT people haven't been able to automate the process and/or their users are just so stupid they can't remember a password for 24 hours.
The EconMatters article still up in the banner area has some excellent insights from the author and ZHers.
One of the biggest problems in the whole employment/hiring process is the black hole known as the online application portal. You might as well print out your resume and put it through a shredder. The automated resume-scanning programs that discard all new grads and look for buzzwords narrow down the pool to a few people who will be tugged around in interview-offer-waiting hell until the company favors the H1-B who lied on the resume.
Whenever I needed a job, I looked on Craigslist and only sought out companies who post their jobs/info@company email. If you can't send an email to a human being who will read your cover letter and resume, you are not getting anywhere.
Coming out of college, my resume was four pages long - two pages covering my previous employment experience, and two pages covering all the project work I had done. I remember applying to a job, not getting a reply, and seeing a Craigslist post a few days later with instructions in all caps saying to limit resumes to one page. LOL!
The next time I have to look for a job, those two pages of project work will be replaced with six pages of solid, solid, solid experience that only hard work can earn. Don't want to read it? Welp, I don't want to work for you.
Hi, let me ask you a question to figure in your head.
What's 333 times 33?
Can't answer? Fuck off.
Cuts all sorts of time off on screening and shit.
It's such a fucking habit that a head-hunter called today to see if I'd be interested in some VP Controller outfit.
What's 333 times 33?
Can't answer? Fuck off.
I don't think I'm going to progress into a top tier job.
Can you give me 10 seconds? And none of that fuck off stuff. Just yes or no.
i immediatly thought of deck shiufflet from the rainmaker
Adam Leitman Bailey is a pretentious real estate attorney who doesn't have to worry - landlord and tenant court legal work is not the goal of starting attorneys with over $200,000 in law school tuition debt.
I doubt the Ivy League lawyers care much about this. They tend to secure employment in firms that are connected to their parents, the banks and/or the government (the last two are somewhat duplicative), where the real money is.
correct mr rand
I have to agree with you for once. This seems like a poor strategy for a law firm (but I am not connected so what do I know?). Sure, it makes sense to have some analyst level guys from no-name schools with something to prove to mule some of the serious hours but I feel the ivy league guys are essential. You want to be connected to the people with politician/lawyer/banker parents who will follow in their footsteps. No matter how ill-deserved that status may be, it is too important in American business to just ignore, particularly in our current climate.
In the long term thats their undoing. The easy life over multiple generations imprints them with a false idea of how the world works. Spoiled elites try to compensate their naivety with sadism, but that does not work in the long term.
I bet they get sued.
Now that's a smart lawyer.
There is no such thing. The lawyers I've met have no idea of analysis or critical thinking. They may know the so-called 'law' and can recite it...but they have no idea how to circumvent it. They're a bunch of cookie-cut, fucked, up human beings, Not one worth the chain to use as a boat anchor.
I'll take my Rutgers trained pit bull lawyer over any limp wristed Ivy League petifogger anytime. She chews them up and spits them out daily.
Everyone hates pit bull lawyers. Except everyone who has ever hired a lawyer (excepting those whose lawyer was eaten alive by the pit bull on the other side).
Rutgers is in Newark, NJ which is like going to school in Fallujah, Detroit or Gaza. Toughens people up.
Now if only politicans with degrees from the same collection of schools could be eliminated maybe DC would be a better place.
Amen. Speaking of which, I watched Trump's hour long speech in AZ. He played up his Wharton business school experience. He was dead on for some things, but that made me remember who we're dealing with.
you mean a lying, scumbag, shill politician?
No 'maybeeeeeeeeeees' 'bout it!
Yes! I was looking for this comment so I did not have to make it.
You would eliminate the Bush's and the know-nothing Obama immediately with this policy. Hillary would be toast, too.
When someone touts Ivy League, I'd ask who actually invented and propogated most of the dumb-ass policies we have now? What genius have they displayed in real markets or other areas?
Ahhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, this makes living in 2015 possible! Finally the Ivy-League get's what it deserves! Take that you stuffed shirts! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Now your talking!
America sucks.
Small miracles do happen!
Anyone denying there is a God above has to at least consider the possibility.
About time!
Forget those snooty over-rated brats.
Real estate firm? The primary beneficiaries of the debt Ponzi.
One of the greatest lawyers of the 19th/20th century went to University of Michigan, not an Ivy League School.
Clerance Darrow.
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain (It's time to toss the dice)
Got Karatbars?
If the power went out and credit cards didn't work would you move into an Ivy leaguers house ?
Too many businesses have been coasting on free money for a long time. Just look at customer service and how they treat the people that pay their salary (those who buy the products). The lack of connection between pay and performance is really starting to show all the way to the top of the corporate hierarchy. They would have collapsed years ago if not for their spigot tapped into the Fed printing press. This is also why small business is being destroyed- you can't compete with an opponent that unfairly has infinite money and credit.
Things are coming to a head and the collapse of the fascist edifice is near. The people of the country are not doomed; we still have a unique and cohesive culture despite all the oligarch propaganda.
"The Country" is not doomed, just the slavemasters and their system.
"Better call Saul".
Fuck law, its a hell hole, a plaything of the elites, conducted on a whim.
Tell me my sisters & brothers of ZH, where do you go to apply for the return of the THEFT! (yes theft) of your lost time, honor & money of these past laws? ages
//////
Maybe I wasn't clear.
When you got "caught" with an oz of reefer and now its legal, where do you go to recoup your damages? The same people who imposed the damages on you? The law? Are you out of your fucking minds?
For my leftist-homo fuckwads...where do you go to recoup the damages done by "the law" to whatever the fuck your problem was?
The same?
Can't anyone see that its an endless "make work project" that only lawyers and politicians participate in?
Nice post nmewn.
My soon to be ex is a lawyer. She doesn't know it yet ( the ex part ) as i intend to skip two continents before texting her.
"We need ambulance chasers damn it!"
In the year 2023
Obama, a homeless bum.
A law degree from Yale, $48 million.
A gritty street lawer, Priceless
The incompetent spawn of 3rd world despots who attend the elite schools and military academies in the west are trained and sent back in order to keep the boot on the neck of the ' under class ' for the next 50 years and so on as the same pattern continues in order for Vichy DC/UK etc to maintain control.
The Elite in toss-pot countries like Nigeria are as arrogant as their european/western counterparts and fill positions such as directors on board of institution like The Council of Foreign Relations ( affiliates of Chatham House and other Sleazy Operations ). This keeps the structures in place for the same CONTROL mentioned above.
It's pitiful to engage OxBridge Public schoolboys like Cameron and his ilk who make up Parliamentary Committees and who determine Policy going forward.
I have stated many times that if you were not born and bred in a constituency you should NOT be a Tory/Labour shoe-in for a parliamentary Seat. It's just not cricket!
You can't fix Stupid.
Now if we would only stop electing them...
What do you call 10,000 Ivy League lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A start.
Sharks won't eat them because they're too full of shit.
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
-Dean Wormer
Good actor but very bad skin, so bad that Barry could sink his golf balls into some of those potholes juicy.
Everybody got a plan till they get punched in the face.
Better call Saul?
Do they have clients?
I am laughing at those parents forcing their kids to the academic path regardlessly for their own egos.
Havaad you suck!
--Yale
Don't comment often on ZH, just creep in and read the comments mostly on good article, but just have to comment on this one.
15 years ago, my son declined college, his mother is a Asst Dean of Business school, tuition was 1/2 to him, a perk of university employment.
Instead,, he took a job in manufacturing heavy equiment, bother was a hydro engineer at the place. The old timer machineist took him under their wing, taught him gear macking, ect in the side. He now is fsrming, cattle ranching, has his own machine shop and turns down super good paying work, He has aquired in 10 years more total net worth that the wife and I. Sure we helped when needed, his grandpa gave him some start out older equipment.
All my friends that sent their kids to university tell me they wish ther kids learned a trade, as their job security is under threat constantly.
He is now being pushed into running for a county commisioner by both the Bems and Repugs.
I still think he should take some econ and law classes, but forego a degree, just hand select the classes.
It is noce to know that my three grandson's will be raised on a farm, taught the basics of growing and tending livestock. It make an old man like me satisfied that they will know the basica and have a skill that will be needed in their production years and well as the life style they will possibly pass to their children.
It's not because of the bang up job they did on Wall Street for the last decade?