"Ex-Honors Program Applicant Sues DOJ Over Politicized Hiring":
The Legal Times has the story of a rejected DOJ Honors program applicant who apparently believes that he would have received an offer from the DOJ Honors program if not for the politicalization of the hiring process. I don't know much about employment law -- nor about whether several claims in the complaint actually provide for private rights of action -- but I thought the last paragraph of the story was pretty funny.
Now don't get me wrong. I graduated in the top 15-20% of my law school class and didn't have a job upon graduation, either. But it still seems strange.
I'm sure he'll be able to recover from his shock and dismay for the right amount of money - from the public teat, of course.
Or he could continue to, you know, actually produce in the private sector like the rest of us have to.
What a whiney-assed self-entitled little loser. Belgium, huh? That fits.
When I saw the post title, I was afraid it was UNICEF-guy.
(1) Doesn't the 14th Amendment only apply to action by the states?
(2) What would be the burden here? Is it merely showing by a preponderance of the evidence that he would have gotten the job? We all know there are some people for whom it's a given they will get a certain job--not because of connections, but because they have exactly what the employer wants.
It's generally a mistake to associate Vanderbilt Law with the university's more widely-renowned name. The GPAs of its incoming students are necessarily inflated because it mostly attracts kids from the SEC schools, the academic quality of which is inherently suspect. Ole Miss, for example, is anything but an intellectual powerhouse.
The real point of this thread, however, is that kids at Harvard are becoming increasingly devoid of mental substance -- despite the fact that they attend a school that is popularly mythologized as the ideal in American education. Set foot on their campus, and you will be able to see how mediocre many of the students truly are.
I'm sure you have never had any students in your classes who paid out their... nose, whom you dutifully passed on through the system like a good law professor must (no failing! curve those grades!), who subsequently was unable to find employment.
No, surely not from him who feeds Scalia clerk-puppets.
So yes, let's all laugh at the misfortune of others. Oh, it is so joyful, isn't it? Those silly state-school peons. Serves them right.
Also, I don't see the "Anderson" comment to which you seem to refer.
One time I made a puppet of a Scalia clerk out of a sock. Then I tried to feed it some legislative history, but the Scalia clerk-puppet crumpled it into a ball and spit it out.
Dammit. My graduating class, too.
By the way, how does Scalia cook clerks?
I think the amusement value comes not from a law school graduate not having a job (a position I was in myself upon graduation), but from this particular person thinking so highly of his qualifications to the point he literally makes a federal case of it, alleging he absolutely would've gotten this DOJ job but for the anti-liberal bias . . . and he can't land any other jobs? I think that contradicts his claim outright, and is a little funny in light of the arrogance of his claim.
I strongly suspect that the final paragraph should have read thusly: "Finding no elite clerkship or associate position with a large law firm paying exorbitant salaries to first year associates ..."
If you want to work, you will work. At the very least he can start doing real-estate closings and taking appointed work from juvenile courts. It may not be the glamorous high profile job he feels like he is entitled to, but it pays the bills and feeds the kids.
Orin Kerr was a trial attorney at DOJ and an AUSA in the E.D. Va. I think he can present a story to a jury.
Yes, that was the funny part, I thought:I apologize if I insulted any Belgians out there. (If it makes you feel better, I love your beer.)
What decade are you living in, my friend? The die-yuppie-scum trope went out around 1992. Do you think all investment bankers were suspenders, too?
I saw Kerr on C-span last night and can say two things about him. First, he wouldn't last 5 seconds in any street confrontation
Relevant.
, and second, it's a good thing he's a law professor because he'd never be able to present a story to a jury.
Did I miss the part where the members of the panel was informed they would have to persuade a decisionmaker, an entirely different skill than analyzing appellate opinions? "It's a good thing Lebron James is a basketball player, because he'd never be able to perform surgery."
Quite NSFW (the skit is called "Prejudice," after all) but hilarious nonetheless.
I did not find it funny that the guy couldn't get a job. It is not funny at all. It is sad and distressing. But I think it *is* funny that his lawyer said he just wanted to serve his country, and then he moved to Belgium.
Oh, and on the street fight/jury question: First, true on the street fight question. I'm a lawyer, not a fighter. But on the jury question, I not only could, but have.
However, it is not sad and distressing. Why not? Because you're leaving the folks out of the equation who pay all the bills: we taxpayers -- who would be ill served by this self-important, entitlement-minded clown. Better he stays with his Euroweenie pals. They can complain about George Bush in harmony.
Smokey, I think Prof. Kerr said that it was "sad and distressing" that the plaintiff wasn't able to find any job at all in the US, not that DOJ didn't pick him up.
Brilliant, my friend. Brilliant.
I wish I were defending that lawsuit. i would have a field day in depositions.
who feeds Scalia clerk-puppets
One time I made a puppet of a Scalia clerk out of a sock. Then I tried to feed it some legislative history, but the Scalia clerk-puppet crumpled it into a ball and spit it out.
With the state department and CIA full of democrats trying to subvert the will of the president I don't despise that his administration would like to hire as few leftists as possible.
We don't know the details, but your narrative has a significant problem, I think: The chances of getting an Honors Program position after interning at DOJ are probably on the order of about 5%. Unlike working for a law firm, there is no path from being an intern to being an Honors Program hire, and the latter is much more competitive than the former. Given that, it would be surprising if this candidate relied heavily on the expectation that he would get a job in the Honors program.
I hold no brief for this guy and his weak suit, but I don't think this fully addresses John's point. This guy may not have been able to get a firm job that he wanted because he summered at the DOJ not with a firm. Unless you intern with a firm, it is significantly harder to get a job (especially from a UGA). It may not have been a reliance issue as much as simply not being in the firm hiring cycle (which I acknowledge is solely and completely his own fault).
He could be a welder, or a truck driver, like lots of us hoi polloi. Or a special ed teacher. Or [if he was being honest about wanting to 'serve his country'], he could enlist in the Army as a legal officer. Or he could run a 7-11, or be a manager at K-Mart. Or, as was suggested above, he could specialize in real estate closings. He could do wills and estates.
But some of us non-lawyer jamokes see his situation as risible because of his glaring sense of entitlement. He was entitled to that job, see? And presumably there has to be something drastically wrong with the system, because he didn't get what, in his own mind, he was clearly entitled to.
heh.
Welcome to the real world.
Actually, if he had good grades from UGA, he would have been right in the mix for an associate job in Atlanta. The Atlanta law firms rarely fill their allotment from their summer clerkship class, and there always are openings for people who interned elsewhere, or just didn't like the firm where they clerked. He might have trouble getting into a northeastern firm from UGA, but no firm in the Southeast would turn its nose up at a UGA grad with decent grades.
I'm speaking, by the way, as a UGA grad with career ADD who has worked in several large Atlanta firms and served on hiring committees when I couldn't get out of it.
The Honors Program is VERY selective. Frankly, I've never heard of a credible Honors Program candidate who wasn't also HIGHLY sought after by private firms. Which leads me to suspect this guy either (a) had no prayer of getting hired by DOJ in the first place, regardless of political views, or (b) was so overconfident about his chances at DOJ that he simply didn't bother to cover his bets by interviewing with firms in the fall of his third year. Which was really dumb, because it is very much harder to get hired into the Honors Program, even after a summer internship, than it is to get hired by a firm after being a summer associate. Or even not being a summer associate and interviewing with firms during third year hiring season -- it's not uncommon for 3Ls who spend their second summer of law school in the public sector or doing pro bono work to show up the next fall in private firm interviews, and it's usually not viewed as a black mark by firms.
So methinks we're perhaps just looking at an attempt by a somewhat delusional and/or greedy plaintiff to get some settlement money by piggybacking on the (deservedly) bad publicity the Honors Program has taken for political meddling in what used to be a pretty strict merit-based hiring process. The plaintiff is going to be disappointed -- my prediction is this one won't last past the summary judgment motion stage, if that long. DOJ's Civil Division isn't going to settle this one early, just on principle.
Yeah, the poor schmuck! Living in the capital of the EU with wonderful food, cool cars, fantastic pastry and coffee, beautiful parks and only a few hours from Paris and Amsterdam. Office on the Avenue Louise, probably lives in a cute little cottage in Rhode St. Genese. Eats mussels and drinks beer in the Grand' Place during his two-hour lunch and takes a month-long summer holiday What a loser!