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When internet memes attack…

Posted by TDot on Aug 15, 2010 in Site Stats

What do “nom nom nom”, “::headdesk::”, and “#fml” all have in common?

Lots of people looking for nom-ing bunnies...

They’re all internet memes I’ve been using here on law:/dev/null for months now… and they’ve turned into a real headache when it comes to site maintenance :beatup:

I first noticed something was amiss when the blog got hit by a massive wave of spam comments back on July 11th. The pageview spike was so massive I had to leave out that entire day when updating these bar charts, otherwise the “Pageviews per Day” bar would be about 50% higher than it is now.

To highlight the spike, I created a new chart below graphing the number of spam comments against the number of unique IP addresses we had in a given month (higher bars == more spam comments per capita).

As I spent the next couple weeks re-acquainting myself with .htaccess directives for this spam prevention entry, I noticed something else odd in the log files: we had a trio of referrer URLs showing megabytes upon megabytes of data being transferred but with -0- corresponding pageviews. After poking around I realized the bunny picture from this old Contracts entry was being hotlinked all over the place for reasons I couldn’t figure out.

So I logged in to Google’s Webmaster Tools for the first time in months, and figured out what was going on — over 15,000+ searches on 30 different variations of “om nom nom” :crack:

July brought lots of spam...

Apparently when I switched how WordPress sets post URLs last month (from the old numeric “?p=1234″ to the current setup), the search index for that Contracts entry went up high enough that the bunny picture became the #1 result for anyone doing a Google search with “nom nom” in it.

Not the entire entry of course. Just the bunny pic. :beatup:

Things have calmed down a bit now that I’ve started banning spambots and limiting the hotlinks. My guess is traffic will go back to a more-linear growth pattern for August. We’ll see what happens :)

***

On the search query front, we had a bunch of duplicate searches but also some fresh ones. Here are 20 of the 100+ unique search terms that brought folks here in July:

  • chazz clevinger: worked with me as the Vice President of Legislative & Public Affairs for UNCASG two years ago. I haven’t kept in touch with him much since law school started, but he did good work for the students of North Carolina.
  • nc dmv 30 day tag for insurance lapse: cost me $63, and I didn’t even need one :mad:
  • nccu lsat score evening program: for 2009-10, was 151 for the evening program, with the 25th percentile folks at 148 and the 75th percentile folks at 155 according to the class profile.
  • blackberry messenger group nccu school of law ’11: exists, but I’m not a part of it since I’m in the Class of 2012 ;) Hit up one of the 3Ls for more info.
  • tdot surplus vehicles: HA! I wish I had surplus vehicles…
  • does duquesne law school give midterms?: I don’t know about Duquesne Law, but NCCU Law does :spin:
  • letter demanding payment from ex girlfriend: is probably not going to accomplish much of anything…
  • negative things about nccu law: vary depending on who you ask. I’m a huge NCCU Law fan, and my only real complaint is that the wi-fi can be spotty in certain areas of the building (like the Great Hall and the Fishbowl). Hopefully they improved that over the summer.
  • 2010 11 tuition north carolina: is unfortunately still going up by almost $1K at several universities, since state legislators decided to balance the budget on the backs of students :mad:
  • nccu law fall 2010 class calendar: can be found on the Law School Registrar’s TWEN page, or downloaded from the NCCU Law “Academics” page.
  • nccu school of law’s grading curve: follows a strict-C median, which I happen to enthusiastically support ;)
  • mary wright 1l advocacy competition: takes place every Spring semester for 1L students. You can watch the video of my 3rd place performance here.
  • daryl wade unc: is probably not the same guy as Daryl Wade, the former Student Body President at UNC School of the Arts who served as Vice Chairman of the UNCASG Council of Student Body Presidents last year. I’m sure the other Daryl Wade is still cool though… even if he goes to UNCCH :sick:
  • are 1l’s included in the 30 day delay for financial aid?: For the vast majority of 1Ls, no.1 This was actually one of the questions we had at my 1L Orientation last year, so you’re not alone in wondering :)
  • what percentage of nccu law school are white law students?: roughly 35-40% each class year. Another 45-50% are black, and the remaining 10-20% are spread across other races. We’re routinely ranked among the most diverse student bodies in the country.
  • nccu minority scholarships for white law students: “No, officer…”
  • nccu law fall 2010 book list: can be found above the academic calendar on the NCCU Law “Academics” page.
  • acpi:system state: could signal a dead motherboard :(  Take it to get looked at ASAP.
  • which computer apple or pc for law students: Apple. Hands down. Trust me. ;)

Definitely a different mix of search results getting here this month… :)

***

And finally, here are the Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of July 2010, quite a bit different from past Top 5s due to the new indexing changes:

  1. On avoiding contract enforcement: Mmm Ks nom nom nom (02/16/10)
  2. On inexpensive résumé websites: Things TDot Likes: Persona Non Obscura (12/08/09)
  3. On post-1L class ranks: Learning what I already knew (07/12/10)
  4. On having a shadow: Spreading the (Law School) Gospel (02/17/10)
  5. On saving money: TDot’s Tips: Tips for the pre-L’s on $$$ (05/29/10)

*THANK YOU* as always to each of you for your continued support of us here at law:/dev/null! :D

—===—

Past Site Stats entries:

  1. My understanding is that some international students who have never attended a U.S. school previously get included, but I don’t know enough people (translation: none) who fall into that category to know if that’s accurate :beatup:   [↩]

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8

Shameless attention-whoring FTW

Posted by TDot on Jul 3, 2010 in Site Stats

You don’t have to be one of our long-time readers here at law:/dev/null to know that I like charts.

Facebook + attention-whoring = traffic spike!

And data.

And benchmarks. And tables. And trendlines.

And more charts just for good measure :beatup:

Grade distributions, tuition savings, site stats — I compulsively sprinkle data and tables throughout the blog. Besides, pictures spice up the text-only entries ;)

That also means I’ve started looking for more ways to spread the word in the hopes of attracting more eyeballs / readers / commenters :) There was political controversy in March, a new Twitter account in April… and a slight drop in May.

So to continue the outreach effort I borrowed a page from Huma over at TRPLS and created the Facebook page for law:/dev/null ;)

Apparently most of my Facebook friends never knew about this place, because after sending everyone invites the number of unique IP addresses we had visiting the site jumped by more than a third. Average pageviews per day climbed even more, at +37.7%.

Over a quarter-million pageviews!

And the really nifty thing for a guy who loves benchmarks? This past month we served up our quarter-millionth pageview! :D

I put together a chart (of course) that shows the cumulative number of pages viewed over time. For a blog visited mostly by spambots in its first few months, having real honest-to-goshness live bodies reading over 250,000+ pages is pretty doggone cool :spin:

Anyhow, enough on the statistics — I know the main reason y’all read these entries are for the search terms ;)

***

On the search query front, here are 20 of the 140+ unique search terms that brought folks here in June:

  • rick ingram sbp: I don’t know if this is the same person doing multiple searches or what, but this was our #2 most-frequent search result last month with a dozen queries (along with “rick ingram unc” and “rick ingram dth”). It’s a little peculiar since he’s only mentioned in one entry about his endorsement by the UNCCH Daily Tar Heel. Odd or obsessive? I’m not sure which… :crack:
  • when is 1l orientation for nccu school of law: Orientation for the night program starts on Monday, August 9th. The day program starts the next morning on August 10th. Double-check the start time the night before. Trust me.
  • cute bunny: nom nom nom :D
  • nccu law academic calendar 2010 2011: Can be found on TWEN at the Law School Registrar page. If you’re a pre-L, you’ll get your WestLaw registration info at Orientation. If you’re a 2L/3L/4LE, you should know to check there first before checking Google :P
  • when does nccu school of law give refunds from financial aid?: Around August 30th for the Fall, January 15th for the Spring, May 28th for Summer Session I, and July 9th for Summer Session II. Those dates change slightly based on the calendar and when financial aid actually hits your account with the University. Sometimes refunds happen early but don’t count on it.
  • ex con mother gets law degree: I’ve never been a fan of the adjective “ex con,” but yes I know one — she’s much cooler in person than you can tell from the news story ;)
  • nccu law grading: Sparked some controversy among the blawgs when I declared my support for NCCU Law’s strict-C model. It’s not all that great for getting a job, but I still think it contributes to making more competent attorneys compared to the alternatives :P
  • nc central law reputation: Depends on where you’re looking for a job. I’m not familiar with our national reputation (outside of HBCU’s), but within the state NCCU Law is known for producing highly-talented litigators. It’s one of the four key reasons why I made NCCU Law my first choice for law school — and I suspect it’s one of the reasons the NCCU Law 1L trial team excelled against dozens of teams from neighboring law schools ;)
  • what are acceptable 1l grades?: Whatever is high enough for you to get a job? ::shrug::
  • how long 25 page paper: 25 pages…
  • greg doucette myspace: MySpace? Eww :sick:
  • has anyone received an acceptance package from north carolina central state university school of law: NC Central State University School of Law? No. NC Central [notice there's no extra word here] University School of Law? Yes. ;)
  • opening statement competitions: Are much harder than closing argument competitions :beatup:
  • received a rejection letter from nccu law stating to try again later: Assuming that language wasn’t part of the standard NCCU Law form letter, you probably should try applying sooner since we use rolling admissions like most law schools.
  • wanted one piece: Sounds like a challenge for the Reasonably Prudent Law Student :D
  • the pornstars in winston salem: I know the political hacks over at the Pope Center wanted UNCSA and its film school to be privatized, but I don’t think that’s what they had in mind…
  • it’s been a month and i still don’t have my law grades: You get no sympathy from me — welcome to the club :*
  • nccu law now tier two: Someone lied to you. The amount of $$$ the school would have to spend to climb to T2 would totally defeat the point of getting a T1 legal education at a T4 price ;)
  • dennis jansen birthday: Happens every year. When? You should probably ask him instead :P
  • nccu law section 103: Is the best section in the school, hands down. And if anyone tells you otherwise you tell them they can kick rocks. Then tell them TDot said they can kick rocks. Then send them to me so I can tell them in person they can kick rocks. B-)

I really get a kick out of the different search terms people use to get here each month… :spin:

***

And finally, here are the Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of June 2010, with a heavy leaning toward grades and cash:

  1. On Spring ’10 final grades: Spring ’10 Final Grades (or, “A 2L. For srs.”) (06/08/10)
  2. On saving money: TDot’s Tips: More $$$-saving ideas (06/13/10)
  3. Also on saving money: TDot’s Tips: Tips for the pre-L’s on $$$ (05/29/10)
  4. On the legal effects of political cowardice: Unsolicited commentary on the legal clusterf*ck facing homosexuals (06/11/10)
  5. On my impatience: Where are my @#$%ing grades?? >:o (06/07/10)

Many thanks to all of you for supporting the blog, including the new folks who got here as a result of my shameless attention-whoring on Facebook :) I truly appreciate all of you! :*

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Past Site Stats entries:

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4

Apparently we’re nomnom-licious?

Posted by TDot on Jun 2, 2010 in Site Stats

That’s the only reason I can think of to explain the search results from last month :beatup:

I wasn’t surprised when “law:/dev/null” turned out to be the most frequent query leading people to law:/dev/null, used by 20 separate visitors from across the web last month. But what was the #2 most frequent search term, used by over a half-dozen?

law:/dev/null Pageviews and Unique IPs over time

“nomnom”

Yeah. I don’t understand it either :crack:

But before we get into the amusement that is our monthly search queries, I wanted to give an über-huge *THANK YOU!!!* to y’all for helping May outpace April as our busiest month yet! :D

An updated graph is on the right for those of you who are visual people.1

The data this month is interesting, because we had a -2.2% drop in unique IP addresses served — not a surprise given the summer break from school — but somehow still had a +13.6% bounce in average pageviews per day and a +17.3% jump in total pages overall.

I could be wrong here, but to me that means we’ve got more regular visitors who actually enjoy reading this stuff :eek:

Assuming I’m right on that, to all of the new folks I just wanted to say: 1) welcome!, 2) read the disclaimer!, and 3) thanks for visiting! :*

# of unique search terms

Also on the “this was unexpected but still pretty cool” front, we had a real explosion in search queries used to find this site — jumping +76.2% from 84 to 148.

I made a graph for that one too… :beatup:

I’m not entirely sure what prompted the search spike, since most of the terms go to entries that have been indexed by search engines for awhile now. If any of you happen to work for Google (our #1 referrer again) feel free to share some insights!

***

And now for those queries. Here are 20 of the 140+ search terms that brought folks here in May:

  • nomnom: Maybe the folks who tried this one were hungry for Contracts?
  • what is taking nccu so long: There were literally about a dozen different variations on this search, including “how long did it take to receive a decision from nccu law?” and “north carolina central university school of law admissions taking a long time” and “still no decision from nccu law”. All I can say to you folks is this: try not to think about it. In my case I got my acceptance letter from NCCU Law on 05/04/09, one week after I received an email that my application was “complete” and that I’d receive a decision “six to eight weeks” thereafter.2 The admissions staff are dealing with the recurring issue of having thousands more applicants than there are seats, and this year they have an added wrinkle with politics: the N.C. General Assembly has a provision in the House version of its budget currently being considered that would severely restrict enrollment growth at all institutions in the University of North Carolina… which means available fewer seats than anticipated. I know that’s approximately -0- solace to those of you who are waiting, but the admissions folks have a tough and thankless job so it takes awhile :beatup:
  • when does the nccu law packet come in the mail?: I got my packet around June 22nd or so.
  • conservative corporate taglines: Not sure what you’re looking for, but the only mention of taglines here is this entry on Men’s Wearhouse. Sorry.
  • segregated lunch counters: Are thankfully a thing of the past. I wrote some thoughts in this entry on the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins.
  • nccu law school section 102 grades: I’ve been told y’all have 3 of your 6 grades in already :mad: Be thankful you’re not §103 — we’re still waiting…
  • mock trial: people v andrew madison: There were several searches related to this one too, looking for opening statements. Can’t help you with the opening, but feel free to check out my closing in the #4 entry of our monthly Top 5 list below.
  • nccu law summer reading list: If you haven’t gotten it already, you should get it around June 30th. I read To Kill A Mockingbird but didn’t read a single other book on the list. In my opinion you’re better off spending your time enjoying your summer ;)
  • blogs about north carolina central university school of law: There are 3 I’m aware of: us here at law:/dev/null, one by Madame Prosecutor, and one by the Prophet. If you find any others let me know!
  • does nccu school of law have midterms?: Yes we do, and with few exceptions they make up 20% of your final grade. That’s not always a good thing :beatup:
  • 3.0 gpa as a 1l: I need to know what school you’re at to give you any meaningful commentary. If you’re attending a law school with a 3.333 curve (like UNCCH Law or Duke Law), that means you’re not doing so hot. If you’re attending a law school with a 2.000 curve (like NCCU Law), it means you get a 100% tuition scholarship.
  • nccu law school trial team: Kicks ass — and that’s just the 1Ls :D
  • ashley yopp: Has been dubbed the Pickle Princess here on the blog. She worked with me last year running the UNC Association of Student Governments after she basically created the Student Senate at East Carolina University.
  • what states still elect clerks of superior court: Don’t know the answer to that question, but I know 100% for certain that North Carolina is one of them :)
  • unc asg stipends: Have been slashed to the lowest point they’ve ever been, and are now at a level where I’m worried it’s going to negatively affect the effectiveness of the organization if they’re not increased. See entry #5 in the monthly Top 5 list below for details.
  • why does nccu school of law have first year orientation: Because when it comes to law you’re not going to know your ass from your elbow when you start school, but you’ll be reading dozens of cases in every class every night for the first several weeks starting on Day 1. Orientation lets you get familiar with the school first, so you can get your locker, grab your ID card, buy your books and such — that way there are no excuses for you when the work gets piled on ;)
  • is nccu law accredited: Yes, as it has been since it was founded in 1939. The better question is: are there any law schools the ABA won’t accredit? :beatup:
  • law school student mental breakdown: Those apparently happen on occasion. NCCU Law has its own full-time psychiatrist for that very reason. Remember to breathe and everything will be fine…
  • how to answer contracts ii final exam: Not like this :cry:
  • people that start drama and then expect apologies: are insane. Just my $0.02.

It’s been an interesting month. Now I kinda want July to hurry up and get here so I can see how the June queries turn out… :spin:

***

And finally, here are the Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of May 2010, including two repeaters at #4 and #5:

  1. On my product-purchasing pathologies: Some signs you might be a law student… (05/04/10)
  2. On last month’s site stats: “You like me, you really like me!” (05/02/10)
  3. On LRP reducing me to tears: Illiteracy FTL (04/22/10)
  4. On my first ever closing argument: Alice in Wonderland (03/24/10)
  5. On political hacks-in-training writing commentary: On UNCASG, $1, and the UNCCH Daily Tar Heel (03/30/10)

*THANK YOU* again for your continued support of this blog, I truly do appreciate it :) I’m heading to bed so I can wake up on time to knock out some class work — have a great night y’all!! :D

—===—

Past Site Stats entries:

  1. Or folks like me who just get a kick out of making graphs and charts and stuff ;) [↩]
  2. But I also had a high LSAT score to balance out applying so late in the admission cycle. Long-time readers of law:/dev/null may recall I’d gotten several emails from NCCU Law about a missing reference letter, so my application wasn’t ready for them to review until early April. [↩]

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2

Overestimating case outcomes

Posted by TDot on May 14, 2010 in Randomness

Via the ABA Journal Online:

I rarely check out the news stories that come through to my BlackBerry from the ABA Journal Online, but the headline for this one caught my eye: “Lawyers — Especially Men — May Be Too Optimistic About Case Outcomes, Survey Says”

A law professor at the University of California Irvine has co-authored a research paper into attorney predictions of success in their cases. From the research results, 44% of case outcomes were less successful than the “minimum goals” set by the attorney. More confident attorneys missed their goals more often than less confident ones. And male attorneys tend to overestimate results more than females.

The whole 25-page paper is a lot more detailed and definitely worth a read. It includes some interesting and counterintuitive findings (e.g. estimating results doesn’t seem to improve with years of experience).

But my question is this: although a majority of attorneys meet-or-exceed their minimum goals, how is that 44% able to stay in business? They apparently not only add and retain paying clients, but according to the paper also likely include a hefty chunk of senior partners and other high-ranking litigators. I’d think overestimating results would lead to some kind of economic and professional repercussions, not rising to senior partner status.

The paper concludes more research is needed to control for other factors, so maybe we’ll find out eventually. Until then it’s something interesting to chew on.

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4

“You like me, you really like me!”

Posted by TDot on May 2, 2010 in Site Stats

Or, if you don’t like me, y’all were at least kind enough to stop by regularly and make April the busiest month yet for law:/dev/null! :spin:

law:/dev/null Pageviews and Unique IPs over time

Here’s an updated graph of our pageviews-per-day and unique IP addresses. We had a 5.4% increase in unique visitors for the month1 along with 1 additional daily pageview.

“But TDot,” you may be wondering, “+1 pageview-per-day is a mere 0.098% increase in traffic. Can you really consider that an increase in traffic beyond any but the most literalist of interpretations?”

I certainly can, dear reader — though whether you agree with my rationale is another matter entirely :beatup:

You see March’s numbers were a big 51% jump over February, skewed upwards over just three days of traffic when local folks heard about a mere college student taking on one of the largest think tanks in North Carolina.2

Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with a comparable controversy this month… but the traffic rate held constant. That either means (i) the old political folks who stumbled across this little piece of internet real estate over those 3 days decided to keep reading all month (plausible but not likely), or (ii) new people somehow found law:/dev/null and became regular readers (plausible and less not likely).

Regardless, I’m not one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth: I truly appreciate y’all being here, regardless of your reason, and I hope you’ll continue to stop by in the future (and spread the word!) :D

In referrer-related news, Google also continues to be our top referring site, sending about 1.5% of the folks who stop by here on a given day. Here are a selection of the 80+ searches that brought folks here in April:

  • decade: We had 4 separate people use this query. I’m guessing you got directed to my thoughts on the 2000s, but my question is this: people actually do searches on single, generic words?? :surprised:
  • nccu law study room reservations: Are done on the NCCU Law intranet. Can’t help you on this one. Sorry.
  • how to get into nccu law: Through the doors ;)
  • nccu law blogs: There are at least 3 of us I know of: myself, Madame Prosecutor, and a brother I’ve started calling the Prophet. If you find any more, let me know and I’ll add ‘em to the blogroll.
  • hard work never killed anyone but: why take the chance?
  • student election poster: Take a look at my SBA poster or my SSP poster. You can take a guess at which one worked :beatup:
  • campbell law can 1ls work?: According to Campbell 1Ls at NCSU’s pre-law forum, nope.
  • how long does it take to get a decision from nccu school of law?: As long as it takes ;)
  • t greg tomes: T Greg’s Tomes are my political missives posted on Facebook. Haven’t put many of them on law:/dev/null, but I’ve posted this one and this one.
  • rick ingram unc: You’re probably looking for his SBP endorsement by the UNCCH Daily Tar Heel in that 1st Tome I just listed.
  • nccu law admission by email or mail?: Mail! Email admission notices are tacky :P
  • 5 u.s 137 shepardize: Yes, it’s true — I Shepardize old cases for fun :beatup: (5 U.S. 137 is Marbury v. Madison)
  • c grade law student screwed?: God I hope not, otherwise Contracts has ruined my life…
  • best parking spots at nccu school of law?: The ones that are available. Word of advice for the incoming Class of 2013: show up early ;)
  • what classes do you need to become a lawyer at nccu: The same classes you need at every other ABA-accredited school. But you can check out NCCU Law‘s specific course catalog here.
  • law student disclaimer: You can read mine right here.
  • capsule wardrobe for a law student: How did someone looking for fashion tips end up here?? :crack: Check out TRPLS instead :)
  • computer scientist or lawyer: Lawyer
  • 1l memo useless: #truestory
  • attending nccu law: Congratulations! :D

I continue to be amazed at the searches that bring people here… :)

And finally, our Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of April 2010, including two repeaters at #1 and #5:

  1. On my first ever closing argument: Alice in Wonderland (03/24/10)
  2. On sound principles making sound politics: More vindication! : ) (04/20/10)
  3. On political hacks-in-training writing commentary: On UNCASG, $1, and the UNCCH Daily Tar Heel (03/30/10)
  4. On the never-ending end of the semester: Like a mirage in the desert (04/10/10)
  5. On political hacks writing commentary: Crazy, or just lazy? You be the judge (or, “Erroneous trash masquerading as punditry”) (03/15/10)

*THANK YOU* to everyone for your continued support of the blog — it means a lot :)

I’m heading to bed, gotta be rested for my last final exam as a 1L! Have a great night everybody! :D

  1. Approximately; the logs only measure unique IP addresses, so if multiple people have logged in from the same IP (e.g. using corporate wifi with only 1 publicly-exposed IP) those folks get missed. I think the folks missed are balanced out by the spambots though :beatup: [↩]
  2. Residual traffic to that entry has kept it at #5 in our Top 5 list for April :crack: [↩]

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6

Site stats and queries and graphs, oh my!

Posted by TDot on Apr 1, 2010 in Site Stats

First, happy April Fool’s Day to everybody! :D

I personally only got fooled twice, which is two times too many but still better than years past :)

law:/dev/null Pageviews and Unique IPs over time

On a non-prank-related note, I’ll shamelessly confess that Huma was/is the inspiration for today’s post.  She’s been occasionally posting her top posts and blog results at TRPLS for quite some time — I wanted to post something similar months ago, but for the longest time I couldn’t figure out how to get my stat software to show more than 20 search results1 :beatup:

But before getting into the search queries I want to give a huge *THANK YOU* for all of you for stopping by law:/dev/null! March 2010 was our busiest month yet :D

Sure a good chunk of that was because of political drama, but 7 shorts months ago it was pretty much just the web bots and me. So I’m pretty excited for the visitors, no matter the reason ;)

Google/Topeka also continues to be our top referring site based on some queries that make sense… and others that make me wonder why people actually stopped here of all places.

Here’s a few search results from the past month:

  • ncsu student government elections: Will be April 6th this year. Go to the NCSU SG Board of Elections website for more info :)
  • is it legal to dismiss a student for midterm grades?: Can’t help you on this one, I think that’s a 3L class :(
  • i got a c on contracts midterm: Don’t feel bad, I got a C- :beatup:
  • unc association of student governments and jay shalin: You must be one of the folks looking for info on this piece here. Enjoy.
  • torts was my favorite class in law school: ::smh::
  • what tier is nccu law school: Tier 4… though producing lawyers who can out-litigate T1s :)
  • how does nccu school of law send decision letters: In the mail.
  • how long does it take for nccu school of law to send a decision: As long as it takes :P
  • has anyone been accepted into nccu school of law 2010: Yep.
  • should i go to nccu law school?: If you like a solid legal education at a cheap price, yes.
  • should i go to nccu or campbell law: NCCU. They’re both good schools, but why pay 4x as much? ;)
  • what is 16.67%: One-sixth. Half of one-third. Two one-twelfths added together.
  • homemade spaghetti sauce: Try Nan’s recipe here :)
  • slow cooker beef tips: In your case, I’d recommend QuietStorm’s beef tips recipe instead :)
  • how can computer scientist count beyond their fingers: The lawyer in me is going to interpret this as how a computer scientist can use their fingers to count past 10 — in which case they’d use binary, with each finger representing a bit. So you can count up to 1,023 using your fingers (starting at 0) ;)
  • bar chart of premarital sex: I have no clue what this is or how you ended up here as a result, but good luck finding it :P

There were about 50 more, but most of them were variations of those ones :beatup:

And finally, our Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of March:

  1. On forgetting St. Patricks Day:2 This is what law school does to you… (03/17/10)
  2. On political hacks writing commentary: Crazy, or just lazy? You be the judge (or, “Erroneous trash masquerading as punditry”) (03/15/10)
  3. On my first ever closing argument: Alice in Wonderland (03/24/10)
  4. On Spring ’10 midterm grade expectations: A Temporary Reprieve (03/06/10)
  5. And on Fall ’09 final grades: Fall ‘09 Grades: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugh-ly (01/26/10)

That’s all the stats I’ve got for this post — gotta head to bed so I can be up bright and early for my make-or-break Physical Fitness Test for the USMC at 9am tomorrow :beatup:

Have a great night everybody! :D

  1. The Computer Science degree finally came in handy — I figured it out last week :D [↩]
  2. Weird that this was #1, there’s nothing really in the post :crack: [↩]

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5

How much of a lawyer are you after 1 semester?

Posted by TDot on Feb 4, 2010 in The 1L Life

My 2L and 3L friends are collectively rolling their eyes at the post title, but I promise it’s a serious (or at least seriously-intended) question :angel:

Just how much of a lawyer is a law student after their 1st semester?

Some background behind the question is in order, so you don’t think I’m totally batshit crazy for even asking. Everyone talks about the big life adjustment that is law school — teaching you to “think like a lawyer” and all that jazz.

But my (admittedly unproven) hypothesis is that 90%+ of any such adjusting is going to take place in your first semester, since presumably if it hadn’t you would have already failed out of law school.  Unless of course you go somewhere with a B+ median.1 ;)

So assuming, arguendo, that my hypothesis is right, the next 2.5 years will be spent not on training you to be a lawyer so much as forcing you to have at least a passing knowledge of the current state of the law in various subject areas.

Not sure if that’s worded well enough to convey my point, so let me try a computer comparison:  basically in the first semester you’re taught all the logical constructs of programming (conditionals / loops / etc) and then for the next 2.5 years you get taught logically-identical variants of programming languages (Java / C++ / etc).

Or maybe a movie comparison works?  It’s like the first Matrix movie, where the first semester is for explaining wheretf you are and rebuilding your atrophied muscles from scratch, then the next 2.5 semesters get spent uploading various martial arts like kung-fu straight into your brain.2

Hopefully at least one of those three made sense :beatup:

So going back to the question, let’s say you finished all of your required credit hours in Contracts, Legal Research, and Civil Procedure. At this point would you be competent enough to litigate a Contracts dispute pro se? Or will some other course over the next 2.5 years add still more training that you’d need to be effective?

Not sure why that particular question crossed my mind tonight, but I figured I’d throw it out there if any of my 2L/3L/post-L readers have insights they wouldn’t mind sharing :)

Back to reading for Contracts, just in case I need to represent myself any time soon ;) Have a great night everybody!! :D

  1. JUST KIDDING AGAIN! I promise I still :heart: y’all Tarheel ppl (you know who you are)  and it won’t become a habit :* [↩]
  2. And if you haven’t actually seen any of the Matrix movies, you need to get out more. Seriously. :P [↩]

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1

A Quantitative Look at 1L Fall

Posted by TDot on Dec 22, 2009 in The 1L Life

I shamelessly borrowed the concept for today’s post from this entry by Miss Julie Anne Ines (aka the Blawgirl), so if you haven’t checked out her segment of the intarwebs yet, please do so now because it’s Good Stuff™ :)

As my fellow Legal Eagles and I enjoy the agonizing wait for our grades — one section got their Contracts grades back; that section was not mine :mad: — it’s easy to forget just how far we’ve gone down the road to lawyerhood (attorneydom? JDness?).

So to illustrate the point, here’s a quantitative look at the semester :D

—===—

Number of pages read in Civil Procedure with MDG:
~238

—===—

Number of pages read in Torts with Professor Torts:
~360

—===—

Number of pages read in Contracts with Professor Ks:
~439

—===—

Number of pages read in Property with the Traveling Professor:
~187

—===—

Number of useless writing assignments in Legal Reasoning & Analysis:
11

—===—

Number of supplements consulted:
4 (an Emanuel’s for each class)

—===—

Number of visits to the law library since orientation:
-0- (see next item)

—===—

Number of searches on Lexis-Nexis:
212+

—===—

Number of Lexis-Nexis Points earned:
2,630

—===—

Number of times overheard swearing in class at WestLaw/TWEN’s poor website coding:
7+

—===—

Number of days waiting for grades:
12, and counting…

—===—

Imagine where we’ll be 5 more semesters from now :)

Have a great night folks!! :D

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3

Misreading IP addresses (or, “Hi Eagles!”)

Posted by TDot on Nov 4, 2009 in Technology

In one of the Mailbag entries from last month, I mentioned regularly checking the server logs to see what IP addresses you loyal readers are using. I’m not trying to stalk anyone, I just prefer cross-referencing the IP history with the most popular posts in case something appears unduly salacious and in need of editing.

My misplaced paranoia has thus far been… well… misplaced, largely because my law school life is actually pretty boring :beatup: (contrast with the excitement idwsj gets to enjoy up the road/coast at NYU)

So yesterday I’m sitting in the Fishbowl and decide to poke around with the wifi, so I can network my MacBook Pro with one of the printers at the law school in case I ever need a case for class or something. I print out the HP LaserJet 9050 diagnostic page with its IP address, click a few buttons on the laptop, and voila everything is good to go in about 10 seconds.

But instead of throwing away the diagnostic page, I tucked it in my bookbag so I could recycle it later (yes, though I’m a Republican I do care at least somewhat about the environment :P ). I happened to have that page out with other recyclables when I checked the server logs earlier today. And randomly noticed that I’ve been misreading my traffic stats.

Remember back in August when law:/dev/null first got started that the bots and I were the largest source of traffic — no surprise since no one knew this place existed beyond myself and Google. So in the server logs the biggest slice of the traffic pie chart was always red (me @ home), the next biggest slice was blue (me @ school), and there were a bunch of teeny slices in various colors (the bots and everyone else).

Well apparently that switched in October and I just never noticed. As I stopped logging in so often to set up/maintain the basic blog-related stuff, the red slice that I thought was me at home actually became folks other than me at the NCCU School of Law. October has been our busiest month so far with ~327 daily visits by non-TDot people (double where we were a couple months ago)… and nearly half are Legal Eagles.

So to those Eagles who are new here, hi!  (And to those of you who have been lurking for a while… hi! :D )

Now I just have to figure out a way to deal with the performance anxiety of knowing my peers are actually wasting spending their time reading this stuff…

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3

Legal Eagles study. A lot. Maybe.

Posted by TDot on Oct 22, 2009 in Randomness

Yesterday the good folks over at Above the Law (a must-read site for killing time in class) posted this entry on Princeton Review’s law school rankings, which was actually linked to an entry at the TaxProf Blog (which I had previously never heard of but will be adding to the must-read list) containing the underlying data.

Those of you who’ve been here before — or new folks who happened to see my new centerpiece ;) — know that I’m a proud Legal Eagle of the N.C. Central University School of Law, which shows up as the #11 most-studious campus on the list. So my curiosity was piqued and I poked around a little bit more.

The TaxProf’s archived Princeton Review data indicates students at lower-ranked schools study harder, which on its face (if accurate) validates my opinions on the frivolity of law school rankings and the public service provided by T4 law schools.

But then I noticed the NCCU School of Law was ranked dead last for study hours on that 2007 list. And it was ranked second-to-last in the 2008 list too.

That low ranking in turn reminded me of this summer’s lower-than-normal bar passage rate for first-time testers at my school.  Historically we outperform the state average by a pretty sizable margin (a large reason why the NCCU School of Law was ranked #1 Best Value in the country for 2 years in a row). But the folks taking the bar this past summer actually fell short of the state average by about half a percentage point.

Which leads me to a few questions: (1) are the aggregate survey responses used by the Princeton Review an accurate reflection of study hours for Legal Eagles? (2) were NCCU’s hours pre-2007 just as low, or were those 2 years an anomaly? and (3) if an anomaly, were responses for those years dominated by the same class of students who ultimately went on to underperform their predecessors on the bar exam this summer?

Not sure if any of those questions can be answered accurately.  But I do know this — when the July 2012 bar exam rolls around, I refuse to be a factor if we fall short ;)

Off to study for a quiz in LRA tomorrow morning. Have a good night everybody :D

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