Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 25, 2011 in
Randomness I meant to post this for y’all when it came out a couple weeks ago, but the good folks over at the Chronicle of Higher Education put together a pretty awesome and thorough series of articles on the education level attained by state legislators in all 50 states.
Now I’m not one of those folks who thinks having a college degree should be a prerequisite for public service; although I’m a big supporter of higher education, I also know some of the wisest people I know (like my grandparents) never got one.
Besides, I’d hate to imagine the thought of being permanently precluded from public service if I had never made it back into N.C. State 
Lawyers are outnumbered 5:1 in statehouses
But, that point notwithstanding, it was intriguing to see this fancy interactive map with the end results graphed out — especially after clicking the “Law School” tab, where it turns out only ~17% of legislators nationwide went to law school. 
Maybe my perception had just been skewed by what I read in the press or learned in my social studies classes in K-12, but I was always under the impression lawyers were the dominant profession in politics. Â It made intuitive sense considering how needlessly complicated some of the most basic statutes can be in a given state.
Yet according to the “real world” data, even in the most attorney-packed legislature in the country (Texas), there are still more than 2x as many non-lawyers as there are lawyers. 
Not sure what the practical implications of this info are, but thought I’d pass it on for y’all to peruse. Enjoy, and have a great night! 
Tags: Chronicle of Higher Education, Damned Lies and Statistics, Legal News
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 24, 2011 in
The 3L Life …at least with respect to my learning style
Way back during 1L Orientation in August 2009, all of us were given a survey to help figure out how we best absorbed information — basically imagine a Myers-Briggs test for learning instead of personality. Â My results were heavily tilted toward “kinesthetic” learning at 67%, meaning essentially that I learn best by doing something first and then refining it as needed. Â My secondary learning style was visual at 25% (learning by seeing), then down at the bottom I had a smidgen of preference for aural learning at 8%.
Well earlier today was counselor training for NCCU Law‘s Legal Eagle Law Camp that we have each summer for 7th-11th graders, and we were given the exact same test from Orientation.
And I’m now even more out-of-sync with how law school teaches people
My “learning by doing” preference has climbed to 83%, “learning by seeing” has dropped to 17%, and — you’ll notice those two numbers add up to 100% — my “learning by hearing” has dropped to 0%. So in a nutshell I get pretty much nothing at all out of attending the usual lecture-style classes and am better off teaching things to myself through some kind of interactive method.
I’m not sure if my law school experience has pushed me in this direction or if I was already headed that way and law school just accelerated the process, but it makes me that much more eager for the May 2012 end of my formal education to get here so I can knock out the bar exam and start really learning stuff…
That’s it from me tonight y’all, have to get up early tomorrow to start studying for this Intellectual Property exam — have a great night! 
Tags: 3L, IP, Legal Eagle Law Camp, NCCU Law, Orientation, Trial Practice, Trial Team, ZombieLaw
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 23, 2011 in
TDot's Tips Obligatory hat tip to the folks over at Google for providing the alternate title for tonight’s entry
Back in February, my first guest post over at Kaplan’s Beyond Hearsay blawg went live offering my $.02 on how to succeed at life. Â And for reasons that I still have yet to fully understand…
…they asked me to write for them again
My new entry went live earlier today 
 Here’s a sample:
At some point in our lives most of us have heard the cliché “it’s not what you know but who you know that matters.” While etymologists might not know its origins, they know this particular saying has been around for nearly a century — and, depending on your perspective, embodies either (a) an uncontroversial realization that our networks influence what we can obtain, or (b) a jaundiced worldview that individual merit is meritless.”
…
So for those of us still in law school, which approach [“what you know” or “who you know”] will matter more when it’s time to find a job? Which perspective should we be focusing on before we graduate?
Neither.
Hopefully your curiosity is at least piqued a smidge — if you want the explanation, you’ll have to check out the full entry at Beyond Hearsay 
And remember, there are no emoticons over there so you’ll have to imagine the ones I’d throw in as you read
Hope you enjoy it, and have a great night y’all!
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Past TDot’s Tips entries:
Tags: Blawg Love, Tips
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 22, 2011 in
Mail I know y’all, it’s been well over a week since my last entry where I said I’d have this entry ready to roll  “on Monday or Tuesday this coming week” — I’d give you an excuse, but you can probably already guess what it is.
So can we all just pretend that when I said “this coming week” I meant the week after the week that was actually coming at the time? Yes? Great. 
Although I’ve gotten a smattering of questions from current and prospective students in the 10 months since I last put one of these entries together, the bulk of them were so über-fact-specific that they weren’t really suitable candidates for including on the blawg. But with end-of-1L grades getting released and folks experiencing the same shellshocked reactions I saw firsthand last year, there’s been renewed interest in how NCCU Law handles grading, curving, dismissal and so on.
So, without further ado, here are your questions — answered.
***
Q: William asks:
Just read your entry on making Dean’s List again. But grades don’t matter right? 
A: If you read that Dean’s List entry, then hopefully it meant you also read this footnote written in anticipation of an email just like the one you sent 
Needless to say, I stand by my earlier commentary. Most grades at most law schools get determined by a single final exam, or a combination of a final preceded by a midterm. Â These aren’t like grades in undergrad or high school or even how you’d be “graded” on a job, where you’re given multiple assignments over a given timeframe and tested on things like time management and ingenuity in addition to raw knowledge.
Now I realize there are few absolutes in life — in some cases good grades are genuinely a sign that someone’s a legal genius who will make a phenomenal attorney, and in some cases bad grades are genuinely a sign that someone just doesn’t “get it” and would end up as a Joseph Rakofsky-grade incompetent if they were given a law license.
But for the overwhelming majority of the however-many-thousands of people graduating law school every year, including here at NCCU Law, a string of subjectively-scored 1-time 3-hour exams is a meaningless measurement of someone’s skill and potential as a lawyer.
That rule applies to me too. My excitement over making Dean’s List this past Fall and again in the Spring had nothing at all to do with some misplaced belief that I’ll make an amazing litigator as a result. I just derive great joy from getting to disabuse people of their mistaken beliefs, including the higher-ranked classmates, friends at other schools, and occasional professors who all made the mistake of concluding I was an inept buffoon because I spent my 1L year saving students millions of dollars instead of worrying about my classes
***
The answers to the next two questions are rooted in the same background, so I’m pairing them together –
Q: Danielle asks:
Why is our curve so ridiculously low? And we don’t have A+’s?
Q: And Kevin asks:
What’s the rationale on the dismissal policy?
A: NCCU Law‘s strict-C curve and its 2.0-or-out dismissal policy are both byproducts of being what the administration labels “a school of opportunity.”
Remember that NCCU Law was created by the N.C. General Assembly way back in 1939, an era when de jure segregation was the reality across the country. The politicians created the law school specifically so that aspiring black attorneys could get a “separate but equal” legal education without trying to attend a white law school.
The only other public law school in the state, UNCCH Law, wouldn’t accept black students until forced to do so by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 1951 lawsuit challenging its admissions practices. Private Duke Law and WFU Law wouldn’t desegregate until the 1960s. Campbell Law, Elon Law, and Charlotte Law didn’t exist. And even if a black student managed to graduate and pass the bar exam, they were still categorically denied admission to influential industry groups like the N.C. Bar Association.
This second-class status for black attorneys and black law students was reflected in the Legislature’s second-hand funding for “the Negros’ law school,” as NCCU Law grappled with an inadequate building, a minimal law library, few faculty and related problems. As an example, for a good chunk of the law school’s history its law library was stocked with the out-of-date books discarded by the neighboring law schools at UNCCH and Duke.Â
The point of noting all that background is to highlight that NCCU Law was created to educate students that other schools wouldn’t take; it’s part of our law school’s DNA. That legacy is reflected in the admissions data: even today our GPA and LSAT scores of admitted students are among the very lowest in the country (we’re functionally tied at the bottom with 2 other HBCUs, FAMU Law and Southern Law). The law school views its job as providing an opportunity to people who are willing to take advantage of it, regardless of how they “measure up” on paper.
Which finally brings me around to the questions at hand  From a philosophical perspective, the strict-C curve exists because the faculty believe (and I agree) that it’s the best way to gauge student performance. And from a practical perspective, law schools bumping their curves use the Lake Wobegon defense as a smokescreen — something that can’t credibly be done with our mission and legacy.  The curve ensures students have earned the grades they get.
Working in tandem with the curve but serving a slightly different purpose, the law school’s policy of dismissing students if they fall below a 2.0 at the end of any year is designed to “separate the chaff from the wheat” as the Biblical saying goes. Â Since it’s statistically possible for every student to make a 2.0 or above, and the school is taking what it considers a “calculated risk” by admitting students whose quantitative credentials wouldn’t get them in elsewhere, the assumption is that someone who doesn’t hit a 2.0 (and hasn’t already withdrawn before Spring final exams) must not be taking their educational opportunity seriously enough to continue. So those folks get a letter telling them they’ve been dismissed and then have to wait at least a year before they can petition to return.
***
Q: Nina asks:
How exactly does the dismissal policy work, as far as coming back goes?
A: The dismissal policy and petition process can both be found in the Student Handbook distributed to 1Ls each year (in the 2010-11 edition it’s in §1.09).  Basically only 1Ls who have between 1.8-1.999 are eligible to petition for readmission; if a student’s GPA is below 1.8, their only option is to reapply as a completely brand new student at least 2 or more years after their dismissal.
For eligible students, they get 1 chance to submit a petition to the Standards Committee for readmission the year after they are dismissed. To quote from the policy, the petition must “demonstrate that extraordinary circumstances resulted in his/her substandard academic performance. Extraordinary circumstances are those that do not ordinarily occur. Financial concerns, employment obligations, family illness or commuting distances normally involve no element of extraordinary circumstances. The petitioner must demonstrate that the extraordinary circumstances have been resolved and that, if re-admitted, he or she will be able to successfully handle the rigors of legal education.”
Following review of the petition and an optional presentation by the petitioner in person, the members of the Committee vote on whether or not the student should be reinstated the following Fall semester. Decisions on reinstatement are usually released in mid-June.
***
Q: Susan asks:
What are the GPA cutoffs for honors? Dean’s List? Do we get notified?
A: You can find the listings for academic honors on this page of the NCCU Law website. Â Cum laude requires a GPA of 3.000 to 3.299, magna cum laude is from 3.300 to 3.499, and summa cum laude is 3.500 and above. All of those are of course based on your GPA at the time of graduation.
The Dean’s List is compiled on a per-semester basis, and includes all students who earn a 3.0 and above. Students on Dean’s List can get a certificate from the Registrar’s Office upon request, a lapel pin from the NCCU main campus in the week before Convocation, and will have their name included on the massive posters created by main campus listing everyone at the entire University who made Dean’s List each semester.
And it’s up to each student to know whether or not they made Dean’s List on their own; there is no individualized “Hey btw you made Dean’s List!” emails or anything like that
***
That’s it for this entry y’all Thanks again to all of you for your continued support of law:/dev/null, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send an email to tdot [at] lawdevnull.com!
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From the Mailbag archives:
- TDot’s Mailbag v6.0: 1L Questions Edition –
- Do we really need to study 60 hours a week?
- My study partners study all day; am I missing something?
- How time-consuming is being an SBA Representative?
- Should I use “canned” briefs or create my own?
- Is law school really just a big head game?
- What’s the biggest difference between 1L year and 2L year?
- What made you pursue law after having done computer science?
- TDot’s Mailbag v5.0: What Law School’s Really Like –
- Admissions?
- Bar Exam?
- The Work?
- Professors?
- Electives?
- Extracurriculars?
- What would you do differently?
- TDot’s Mailbag v4.0 –
- What really made you dislike BigLaw?
- Why were 2 of the top 4 teams in the K-S competition from T4s?
- What happened to Tweet-sized Tuesdays and the Friday Drive-by?
- How did your CivPro I final exam turn out?
- TDot’s Mailbag v3.0 –
- What’s your email address?
- Do you really send/receive thousands of text messages in a month?
- How are you adjusting to a historically black university?
- Are you really a Republican?
- TDot’s Mailbag v2.0 –
- Did you have a bunch of study materials for the LSAT?
- How well did you do on the LSAT?
- How did you do in your election for 1L SBA Rep?
- Who is in the Gang of Eight?
- TDot’s Mailbag v1.0 –
- What does law:/dev/null mean?
- Did your entry about That Guy really happen?
- Did you really count the lights from your apartment to school?
Tags: 1L, 2L, Campbell Law, Charlotte Law, Duke Law, Elon Law, FAMU Law, Fan Mail, Law Grades, NCCU Law, SULC, The Curve, UNCCH Law, WFU Law
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 11, 2011 in
Site Stats Good evening folks!
I haven’t compiled one of these Site Stats entries since January, owing largely to the fact law:/dev/null has been slowly atrophying during my chronic absences and I didn’t feel the urge to memorialize it in a blog post
The number of visitors atrophied a bit over the Spring
But despite the chronic disappearances we still had two interesting developments in the statistics department, so I figured I’d go ahead and cobble an entry together.
First, we somehow inexplicably had a +35% spike in folks subscribing to the RSS feed in the past month. That’s the largest month-over-month increase — both in terms of % and # of raw subscribers — since we started publishing via RSS back in November ’09
I have no clue where y’all came from or what prompted you to start reading law:/dev/null via RSS, but welcome!
The other surprise was that my disappearances didn’t seem to impact the number of people reaching us via search engine. There were over 1,800+ unique queries made by folks visiting this site since that December entry (9,100+ searches total, with ~400K impressions), setting a record for us in January and setting the #2 and #3 marks in May and April.
We’re currently averaging 350 unique searches a month (compared to 80 this same time a year ago), a perk of producing original content even if it is a bit on the infrequent side
***
Here’s a random selection of 20 out of the 360+ unique search terms that brought folks here in May 2011:
- which t4 law school is the best to attend: NCCU Law. Duh.
- nccu law is hard: That’s generally the idea. If law school was easy, everyone would be doing it
- suicidal thoughts after law school exam: ok it’s hard, but it’s not that hard. Seriously, your grades don’t matter and there’s -0- point in stressing about what you can’t change.
- law school, got a c in a class where the median is a b+: Can you change it? No. So stop worrying about it and just do better next time.
- 1l student failed out+someone help me: Talk to your professors and to your mentors. Between the two of them, you’ll know what options you have open to you.
- do 3ls ever fail: Yep.
- when will nccu law school grades for 2010-2011 be posted?: They should all be finally online for everyone as of this past week. Though apparently some of my almost-3L colleagues are still waiting to learn whether or not they’ve passed ConLaw
- nccu law unfair grading: 1Ls (and some 2Ls/3Ls) complain about this every year when grades don’t turn out how they want. It’s a myth. Go get your exams from your professors and you’ll see sometimes you really do get things wrong
- if my final grade is b+ and my midterm was b+ what was my final: It depends on the curve. For example, in CivPro II during my 1L Spring semester there was a +19-point curve on the final exam to get the grade distribution we had.
- law school c- curve: Doesn’t exist, at least if this well-cited Wikipedia entry on law school curves is to be believed. NCCU Law is among the lowest at 2.0.
- why is nccu’s law school curve so low?: I’m actually covering this question (and a related one on why we kick people out) in a Mailbag entry I’m hoping to have posted on Monday or Tuesday this coming week — keep an eye out for it
- definition for “madame prosecutor”: This is a loaded query so I’ll plead the Fifth on this one
- i missed my deposit deadline with campbell law: Give them a call and see if you can still pay it. And if not, go somewhere else
- unranked law schools worth it: I think so, both here and here.
- preston mitchum, nccu law: El Presidente, he is my predecessor as SBA President, kicked Harvard Law’s butt in the Luke Charles Moore Invitational, served as President of his 1L and 2L classes, and is an all-around cool guy.
- has anyone gotten into duke law with a 2.7 gpa and a high score on the lsat: Depends on how high your “high score” is
- attrition at nccu law: Was #2 highest in the country for a public law school the last time NLJ put a chart together (scroll down), and around #7 highest among public and private law schools combined.
- unc asg constitution: It’s been shuffled from location to location since I left the organization in April ’10, but you should (hopefully) still be able to find a copy at this URL on iwantmydollarback.org. I have no clue if it’s been amended since then though.
- t. douchette, nccu law grades: There’s no “h” in my last name  But you can find my grades in the transcript at the bottom of this entry.
- does the the law a pickle is not a pickle unless it bounces to be considered a pickle stand today: Wait… what??
Not as exotic as some of the entries from months past, but still fun to dig through
***
We also have a whole new set for the Top 5 most-viewed posts of the month, including one that vaulted to #2 in just a couple days:
- On me nearly missing my CrimPro final: Dear Future 2Ls… (05/04/11)
- On my $.02 about 1L grades: Your 1L Grades Don’t Matter (05/29/11)
- On closing arguments at TYLA’s Southeast Regionals: Wrong man. Wrong place. Wrong time. (05/05/11)
- On slogging through the end of 2L Spring: 2L Year: 1 more exam to go… (05/03/11)
- On my 1L Spring grades and NCCU Law’s attrition stats: Spring ’10 Final Grades (or, “A 2L. For srs.”) (06/08/10)
*THANK YOU* to all of you for continuing to check out law:/dev/null despite my chronic disappearances — I truly appreciate you! 
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From the Site Stats archives:
Tags: 1L, 2L, 3L, Blawg Love, Damned Lies and Statistics, Duke Law, El Presidente, Exams, Law Grades, Madame Prosecutor, NCCU Law, Tech Talk, The Curve, UNCASG
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 9, 2011 in
Technology Earlier today I started making some slightly exotic tweaks and additions to the server configuration for law:/dev/null. The changes should both (hopefully) lead to a speed-up in loading time for you and also refine how we block the thousands of spambots out there trying to advertise the latest in fake meds, midget porn, and knockoff handbags.
I’ve been testing the new config file and it looks like everything is working normally, but if my latest foray into regex filtering has somehow gone awry and you can’t see the blog anymore, please shoot me an email or send a Tweet to @greg_doucette so I can figure out what’s going on
Tags: Blawg Love, Tech Talk
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 8, 2011 in
NotFail Most of the 1Ls and 2Ls at NCCU Law finally got their last grades a couple hours ago, and I am totally stunned to report that somehow by the grace of God Almighty I managed to squeak my way onto the Dean’s List for the 2nd semester in a row!
At a 3.077 semester GPA, I’m not sure I could have cut it any closer than I did. But after a ridiculous 2L Spring semester featuring family drama, too many professional commitments, 2 trial teams, losing all of my Gmail for days, a campaign for SBA President, and academic obligations stretching longer and longer than I expected, I figured last semester was going to be a one-and-done aberration anyway.
Full semester breakdown coming at some point in the future — including one for 2L Fall since I just now realized I never actually did one of those.Â
Until then, good night folks!
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From the grade-related archives:
Tags: Law Grades, NCCU Law, The Curve
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 6, 2011 in
The 3L Life As a 1L, there was the miraculously timed fire alarm when I was late for CivPro.
As a 2L, there was the random phone call from an expatriate in Mexico asking me for legal advice.
Now as a 3L, there was…Â a kitteh trapped in an engine
A few weeks ago I started jogging with a classmate to recover from exam-induced sedentariness. And with my Intellectual Property class stretching into the wee hours of the night Mondays / Tuesdays / Thursdays, that meant running on the illuminated gym track next to NCCU Law instead of the nature trail by my apartment.
We’re walking back to our cars afterwards and I notice I’m parked next to Co-Counsel. I also hear a very loud and very distressed-sounding “meow” coming from the front of her car — sufficiently loud and sufficiently distressed-sounding that, rather than a cat, I suspect one of my classmates is crouching behind the passenger side trying to play a prank of some kind
I look around the vehicle and don’t see anyone behind it. Â I look inside and don’t see anything moving. I look under and don’t see any thing at all.
Then I hear another meow.
Even though I’m a dog person and generally despise cats, I’m a big ol’ softie when it comes to animals in general so I was determined to figure out where this thing was at and make sure it wasn’t hurt.
Pretty sure kittehs don't come standard
Our security staff rolls up (as I’m on the ground looking like I’m about to boost someone else’s car) and I calmly explain there’s a cat somewhere. The officer gets out of his vehicle, looks at me like I’m crazy and need to be hauled in to jail… then hears a meow too.
Given the shape of this part of the lot, neither of us can get a good enough vantage point to figure out where the sound is coming from. Â So the officer leaves to go get a stronger flashlight while I tell Co-Counsel there’s a cat in her car somewhere.
Then I kneel down by the passenger wheel, start looking around the wheel well with my keychain flashlight, and notice I can see inside the engine compartment itself… where I discover an orange-and-white striped cat looking absolutely pitiful
Co-Counsel and Luca come down and Co-Counsel pops the hood, at which point we realize it’s a baby kitten that has somehow climbed so far into the engine compartment that it couldn’t get back out. There were too many cables and hoses to lift the kitten out from the top, but after some gentle nudging backwards it was able to move again and climbed down out of the car.
It ran across the parking lot so fast after it was free we didn’t even realize it was out of the car until we heard the same meow from 100 paces away. And the trio of us became kitteh-savers for the day
So that’s how my Monday went down I actually had a bona fide law entry ready to go for tonight, but it’ll have to be saved until later this week — have a great night y’all!
Tags: 3L, Co-Counsel, Competence FTW, IP, Luca, Serendipity
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