The goal of practically every law student is to eventually land a job. To that end, many of us begin interviewing for clerkship and internships after our very first semester. There is a detailed etiquette when it comes to how to handle oneself in interviews and afterwards, an etiquette that apparently escaped Dianna Abdala, a recent law school graduate who participated in the following e-mail exchange while turning down a job offer she found to be beneath her:
Abdala:
Dear Attorney Korman,
At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer.
After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sow.
Thank you for the interviews.
Korman:
Dianna –
Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 PM voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering stationary [sic] and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
Abdala:
A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so.
Again, thank you.
Korman:
Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?
Abdala:
bla bla bla
So the moral of the story is to think twice before you press the “send” button. A little humility could save you a lot of humiliation.
That being said, in some cases flying off the handle may not be so bad after all. In the infamous “monkey scribe” voicemail, then-associate Ankur Gupta left an expletive-laced message for opposing counsel, a voicemail which quickly circulated and can be heard here (WARNING: Contains offensive matieral!). Mr. Gupta has since made partner at the firm, suggesting that there may in fact be a place in the legal community for certain contributors to this blog.
The war on drugs is over. Drugs win.
If heroin and cocaine were legalized, would this counrty realize a new wave of addicts? If the United States government sponsored the sale of methamphetamine would rehabilitation centers and county jails experience an impossible demand? Would crack pipe sales bitch-slap the tobacco industry? No.
Endemic to the debate is the concern that an entire generation of addicts is patiently awaiting legalization. How many potential heroin addicts refuse the syringe simply because it is illegal? This concern is without merit considering that an addict, heroin or otherwise, will go to any lengths to acquire his drug of choice, including robbery and prostitution. This concern is further flawed because it assumes there is nothing unique about an addicted person. addiction is realized organically, not by legality. There is no such thing as a recreational crack user, tempted by the occasional family reunion. That is ludicrous.
Legalization will decimate the illegal drug trade (yes, I realize decimate means one in ten, I’m writing figuratively dammit). This in turn will establish an indefinite cash flow for rehabilitation, education and community outreach. This country has been reacting to the drug problem in a cowboy fashion for too long. Solutions exist not from top to bottom, but rather within local communities nationwide.
I realize this is a sweeping condemnation of our country’s failed efforts to maintain even a sliver of sanity during a tireless crusade. Much debate is needed.
What is it about a pornographic image that so irks the sensibilities of the Christian right? Is it that porn leads to the inequality of women? Is it concerned with violence and/or discrimination? Perpetuating equality and admonishing violence and discrimination are seemingly unanimous aims, however I wonder if the right hasn’t found a convenient rationale to shadow its otherwise stifling agenda.
The right has fought hard to eradicate the empowerment of women for years, namely by denouncing both sex education and birth control. With regard to porn, however, the right seems justified in assuming the posture of equal rights crusader. Adding fuel to an already strange brew, feminist groups do not seem irked by this position. The two storm the San Fernando Valley hand-in-hand, screaming censorship in concert. Is this the type of armageddon Robertson and Falwell envisioned? Cats and dogs living in harmony, consciously tabling the chase?
Or is this perhaps a more enlightened sect of rightists? Can one be consumed with the disparities of inequality yet all the while pray for the death of modernism? Surely not. While the feminists rail against discriminatory images, the right has discovered a window to better articulate its seedier campaign: namely the abolition of education.
Under the guise of equality the right has every intention of censoring not only the Larry Flynts of the world, but further, any and all information concerning AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, sexual identification, abortion and contraception. Beneath any whisper of progressive thought looms an already established disdain for self-empowerment. Give them an inch and they will take your soul.
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