Monday, December 08, 2014

Seriously? And You Want To Practice Law?


Instapundit points to this real head-scratcher coming out of the Columbia Law School:

Powerline:  Not a parody
Columbia Law School is permitting students claiming to be impaired due to the emotional impact of recent non-indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner matters to postpone taking their final exams.
Columbia, allegedly a first-tier law school, apparently has some real special snowflakes that need to postpone taking their exams to deal with the trauma of the grand jury decisions regarding Michael Brown and Eric Garner.  Not that they're relatives or anything like that, just because they are "particularly, but not only, students of color".

Columbia has even arranged for a trauma specialist to be available for those who can't handle the results of the two grand jury decisions, one of which, in the case of the Brown decision, was by all evidence quite correct.

Look, if you can't handle the outcome of an unfavorable judicial decision of which you were not even a part of and then you become so traumatized that you can't write an exam, you have no business practicing law or even planning to do so.

What are you going to do when you're representing a real client?  Ask for a timeout when you get an adverse decision? State you're too traumatized to go to trial?  Ask for a trauma specialist when the court rules against your motion for summary disposition? Your client will be rather unimpressed, as will the court.

Quick note kids:  In real life, a judge will not give you a hall pass due to unrelated judicial results in another state or even another court that doesn't affect your case.

Sorry, but Columbia should move down a few tiers for this idiocy if this decision is indicative of the caliber of student that they have.

Update: via Legal Insurrection, this insanity has spread to the delicate flowers at Harvard Law School as well.

3 comments:

Murphy's Law said...

And I thought that Columbia could not embarrass itself any further than they have with their decades of love and support for every America-hating dictator and terrorist that they could find to invite to speak. What a freaking clown college.

Old 1811 said...

Maybe they couldn't study because they were too busy demonstrating?

Expatriate Owl said...


I once had a case with a Columbia Law grad who graduated with various accolades and honors. He was with a white shoe firm. He was well-regarded in the legal community.

But I won the case!!

So I don't bow down or snap to attention when someone waves an Ivy League sheepskin in my face.


And Old 1811: Demonstrating has long been part of Columbia Law's curriculum, and many demonstrative Columbia Law students have used their Columbia credentials to advance far in the legal field. The late Gustin Reichbach comes immediately to mind [www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/nyregion/gustin-reichbach-judge-with-a-radical-history-dies-at-65.html?_r=0 ].