Commencement Speaker Announced
January 24th, 2008 by Jesse Stellato
Boston College Law School has announced that U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has accepted the School’s invitation to speak at the 2008 Law School Commencement, to be held on May 23.
Update: 10:25 a.m. Dean Garvey just wrote to the class of 2008, noting that he was “very pleased” that Mukasey has accepted BC Law’s invitation.
Hey nice catch. Good work Garvey!
Isn’t this the guy who couldn’t condemn torture as illegal?
come one red, lets be easy. im sure it was just an honest mistake. i mean, waterboarding sounds like something you do when your family is vacationing down the Cape, who would have thought it was torture?
Even though him and Giuliani are attached at the hip and he is a huge Republican tool, I am impressed that we got him from a pure level of celebrity point of view. Now hopefully we get someone equally as famous next year.
Although I am definitely a democrat, I am impressed with the speaker. A very good get by the law school. I am sure it’ll be an interesting speech, and I will definitely be there.
to 2L: i think we are going to get screwed on our speaker next year. What are the chances that we strike gold two years in a row?
Don’t worry BC ‘09. Give me a year’s time out of law school and I will be twice the legal celebrity Mukasey is.
For a small fee, I will gladly come back and bestow upon you and your classmates my great accumulation of wisdom, wit, and advice.
wow, even im impressed, and i think bc law sucks. go garvey!
Why do you think BC sucks?
Curious,
probably because his name implies he is jobless and about to graduate?
“about to graduate?”
You sure about that?
2L,
I actually think ‘07 implies he graduated already.
I picked up on the jobless part of his name. I do not know the specifics of the situation, but I suspect his current status has more to do with the economy, the legal market in general, and/or the individual himself than BC Law.
Congratulations to Dean Garvey, he has done a very good thing for the school. This should help bring some prestige back to BC Law after the faculty embarassed us with the whole Calabrese fiasco. Liberal or conservative, having important figures like this come to campus helps the entire community.
indeed i have graduated. technically im not completely jobless–im temping as an attorney.
Dear Curious,
first, let me apologize if what im about to write seems whiney. i realize it can come off that way, but Curious asked, and i also feel like my message is important for people like Curious to read.
there are a bunch of reasons i think bcls sucks, but it must be noted that im comparing it upward, not downward (i suspect it doesnt suck as compared to schools ranked in the mid 50s etc). and before i go on about why it sucks, i would like to mention some good parts about it: the students are great in almost every way, and the faculty (with a few exceptions), is very good. and the facilities aint bad (even if the library is freezing and utterly lacks natural light or charm).
I dont have time to go into all the ways that i think bcls sucks, but the one that matters to me most (not surprisingly) is my lack of job options.
28% of every BCLS class graduates jobless. And of the 72% that DID graduate with a job, there’s probably a significant percentage (20%?) who just ‘had to take’ something, as opposed to getting to choose from several good options.
So that’s failure #1—a significant percentage of the class does not have good job options coming out of BCLS.
What makes this especially frustrating is that the difference between those who have great job options (say anyone with a 3.33 GPA and above) and those who have very few or no job options (me, several of my friends..with 3.2s) is sooo slight (some might say arbitrary).
Firms have a cutoff at BCLS (I think its 3.3). I guess they think that below a 3.3 at BCLS means you just don’t have what it takes, which I think (And I think many of you would agree), is hogwash. And (though I have no evidence to present), this cutoff does not exist at the top 15 schools (and yes, I realize that we aren’t, say, Cornell Law, but when I first came to BCLS, I sure didn’t think we were far off).
BCLS has failed to convey to the legal job market just how smart and capable even the bottom half of its class is (save say, the bottom 5-10% who probably are not up to snuff). BCLS also misleads with its statistics (to both prospective applicants, and its very students!) on job placement.
I went to BCLS because it was the “best” school I got into…I wasn’t sure about it when all the results were in and I had been waitlisted at the top schools but admitted at BCLS, but people said “don’t worry, all the top firms still interview here and the average salary for private sector grads is $125k”
Had they said “oh and by the way, more than a quarter of your class graduates jobless and you will be legal temping 7 months after you graduate,” I would have said “no thanks”
joblessbcls07, are you the student who posed half nude in Bar Stool Sports? If so, I would like to hire you
if i were she, i would not be temping–id be working full time. at Centerfolds.
joblessbcls07 should ask Mukasey for a job when he comes to campus
will he talk about 9/11 and arabs–sorry, gun-toting terrorists–at commencement?
let’s hope he does! yessssssssss. who wants to waterboard before his speech?
call me
xoxo
joblessbcls07, are you at least cute?
jobless,
I don’t think your message is whiny; if anything, it seems rather reasonable given your time and financial investment in BC.
I think your post is wrong in two respects though.
First, the deficiencies you ascribe to BC really have more to do with the legal market. Large firms (generally) have school-specific cut offs. If you are above it, great, good luck otherwise (unless you have connections and/or interview really well). And if you do not get a large firm associate position, the rest of your options — financially speaking — pale in comparison. The fact is, you did not make the cut at BC. And full disclosure: neither did I. But that is life in the legal world.
Second, BC is a great school, but it is not T-14. If you wanted to go to a school where everyone could get a large firm job, you should have gone to Yale, Harvard or Stanford. As it stands, BC has great placement numbers compared to the rest of the schools out there. You, however, seem to want it to have T-14+ clout when it is a T-25 school.
Don’t blame the school if you’re stupid, fail classes, and can’t get a good job as a result.
To joblessbcls07:
While I certainly understand your plight and how arbitrary law firms are with their cut offs, I think it is much more appropriate to direct your anger at the legal market and not BCLS. If firms don’t hire people with below a certain GPA from schools like BCLS, it has to do with their stupid impressions of mid tier 1 schools and their imposed GPA cutoff as a result and the fact that you got grades that resulted in you being below that cut off.
In fairness to you, you did say you are not comparing it to the schools below us in ranking, but to the schools above us. I don’t know if you are fairly comparing us to the schools above us though. I think we are in the same boat as all the schools that are legitimately in our tier (BU, Fordham, GW, Notre Dame, etc)…people below the median at those schools are going to have a tougher time getting jobs too. It is not fair to compare us to the t-14 because we are clearly not them, and I don’t think anyone thought that when they came here. The grade cut offs are higher there, but everyone knows that. If anyone turned down Michigan or Harvard for BC, they certainly realized that there is going to be a difference in the job placement. You even said that BC was the “best” school you got into…do you think the grade cut offs at firms would have been any higher at the other schools you were looking at?
Also, I think it is a bit naive to be upset that BC wasn’t “completely honest” with you as a prospective student. Law schools are in the business of selling themselves and will only point to the positives. I don’t think many students would come if they made an emphasis of telling every student “be careful though, if you do poorly here, you may have trouble finding a job and still have tons of debt!” If you wanted honesty, you should have talked to a bunch of students at the school, those who did well and those who didn’t, and heard what they had to say.
Anyway, sorry for taking up the Mukasey space, but felt like I should respond. Good job again to BC for getting him to speak!
frank, she said she had a 3.2 GPA. that is not failing classes…
Note: Curious did a really good job of responding and saying everything I just said. I responded before I saw he/she posted..so sorry for sounding repetitive
Dear downtown eagle,
ya im pretty hot-and its all natural baby.
to Curious,
bcls does NOT have great placement #s compared to our peers. if you look at USNEWS rankings last year and rank everyone according to
Percentage employed at graduation” we are like, 50th, or something–BU for instance, was 87%, not 72% like us.
And to BC ‘09…oh how times have changed. For many years BC was considered a cut above all those “peer schools” you just mentioned (Why do you think Garvey left his deanship at notre dame to come here).
However, nowadays we are very much peers with GWU, Foredam, Brooklyn, and considered below BU by many (in terms of students who have gotten in to all those schools). Older alums know that in the past, no one would have even considered going to BU over BC–BC was a higher calibar. Now suddenly, that’s not that case.
jobless,
You cannot claim BC fudges its numbers and then cite BU, etc. numbers as gospel. Assuming BC & BU are peers, which do you think is more likely: BU employs 15% more of its graduates at graduation, or it employs grads as research assistants, interprets grads who don’t fill out employment surveys as employed, etc. to bolster its numbers?
And even if BC and BU are peers, I think you are really reaching by claiming we’re at par with Brooklyn…
jobless,
you sound like the type of person that would spend 2 hours researching reviews on what $50 set of headphones to buy, but you invest $150k in law school w/o really checking out the legal market, job placement, etc. “Hmmm what to do…guess I’ll go to law school (takes LSAT and applies)..where should i go (looks at USNews rankings)…ok BC!” Is that pretty much how your decision to come to law school went?
I got into a t14 and came to BC for the $$$ and the hugs. Ended up at my top law firm choice in the city that I wanted, all while saving $100k. Maybe if you just got better grades then you would love BC like I do?
Also, stop trying to become the Loyola2L (of abovethelaw.com fame) for 2008.
Bobby,
Judgmental much? I find it hard to believe that you came for the hugs…
Not to be too hokey about this, but I also chose BC over better ranked schools for its people. So can’t we all try to support each other more and tear each other down less - being a lawyer is demoralizing enough without having to watch your back among fellow students.
joblessbcls07 sounds pretty whiny, but I think that he is basically correct in pointing out that for a lot of kids without stellar grades, they have no idea how much trouble that they’re in if they don’t have a job lined up yet. It is TOUGH to get a job if you don’t get one through on-campus recruiting. Its definitely not fair and its largely arbitrary, but is true that NO ONE, including career services, tells you or prepares you for how screwed you really are if you graduate without a job and without top grades. People tell you abstractly that you need to network, but that is no magic solution by any means. BigLaw picks associates through recruiting only, and then all other firms want associates only with a few years of experience. Just take a look at Lawyers Weekly - NO ONE is looking for associates with less than 2-3 years experience - NO ONE. Its no joke, its not a good place to be. Plus, you will be competing with hundreds of other kids from BU, Northeastern, and Suffolk who don’t have jobs.
I am not saying this all to be mean or to scare people, I just think that joblessbcls07 was right when he said that BC (and probably most law schools) paint a really rosy picture of what your future will hold with a law degree, when they know that this will not be the case for many students. I think you people still in school should at least be aware of what is actually going to happen so that you can prepare yourself mentally for some hard work trying to get interviews.
Good luck, sorry to be so glum, but just trying to help with some honest talk.
The only thing I would add to this discussion is that many law students have the belief that if they don’t come out of law school and directly into a 6-figure job, they’ve failed. Granted, with crushing debt I can understand why they would be freaked out. I will just note that law students who end up with employment that isn’t their first choice aren’t necessarily doomed to a life of poverty and misery. If you didn’t pay your dues in law school-or were just unlucky w/those annoying exams-the first part of your career will be paying your dues. But honestly, if you work your butt off and use the intellect that got you into law school in the first place, you will be ok. I’m not saying it will be fun, but trust me, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and no, it’s not from an on-coming train. If you are 100% desperate I can suggest employers that will start you at around 50k and love BCLS.