@ -18,36 +18,45 @@ I don't have a central thesis for this entry, and there isn't really anything pr
> [!hint] Law school as a process *usually* looks like this:
> Take the [[Misc/lsat|entrance exam]] $\rightarrow$ apply $\rightarrow$ first semester $\rightarrow$ 1L job offer $\rightarrow$ Second semester $\rightarrow$ 1L summer job $\rightarrow$ 2L job offer $\rightarrow$ second year $\rightarrow$ 2L summer job $\rightarrow$ career offer $\rightarrow$ third year $\rightarrow$ career.
>
> Sometimes, the timing of job offers will be delayed, as it depends on the type of employment that you're pursuing. I talk about this more in the [[#Job Prospects]] section.
> Sometimes, the timing of job offers will be delayed, as it depends on the type of employment pursued. I talk about this more in the [[#Job Prospects]] section.
## Applying
I was one of the lucky ones that knew I wanted to be a lawyer right out of the gate.
With law school, a substantial minority of applicants are on their second career ("nontraditional students"). Quite a few also view law school as a backup plan after job prospects from their recent degree didn't pan out. Teachers and former aspiring history professors are plentiful in this degree. Others will go to law school because it feels like a logical step from their previous degree, rather than out of an actual desire to be an attorney. ==say more right now== The law school application process is also a bit hostile to nontraditional students, as it requires quite a lot of time out of a working adult's day to go navigate the steps for starting an application, not to mention the hour requirement for the LSAT entrance exam.
With law school, a substantial minority of applicants are on their second career ("nontraditional students"). Quite a few also view law school as a backup plan after job prospects from their recent degree didn't pan out. Teachers and former aspiring history professors are plentiful in this degree. Others will go to law school because it feels like a logical step from their previous degree, rather than out of an actual desire to be an attorney. Unfortunately, the lack of easily accessible or common knowledge about law school harms both of these groups. For those not fully committed to being a lawyer, there is nothing in place to inform prospective students that their attitude would be detrimental to their performance. And for nontraditional students, the system is outright hostile, as it requires considerable time to be carved out of a working adult's day to navigate the steps for starting an application, *on top of* the time spent studying for the [[Misc/lsat|LSAT]] entrance exam.
When looking at the LSAT, it first appears to be a type of aptitude test where you either "have it" or you don't. It's designed to be an indicator of success in law school classes, so this would make sense. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's absolutely an exam you can study for and obtain a substantially higher grade from. As such, many different "prep courses" exist which will walk you through previous question solutions or provide general strategies for question types. **Those who pay for a more expensive prep course will almost always do better than those who do not.** This makes the test hailed as an equalizer really just another secret indicator of financial ability that hampers the fairness of the process.
When looking at the LSAT, it first appears to be a type of aptitude test where you either "have it" or you don't. It's designed to be an indicator of success in law school classes, so this would make sense. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It's absolutely an exam that can be studied for, and one that you can obtain a substantially higher grade from than your first attempt. As such, many different "prep courses" exist which will walk participants through previous question solutions or provide general strategies for question types. **Those who pay for a more expensive prep course will almost always do better than those who do not.** This makes the test hailed as an equalizer really just another secret indicator of financial ability that hampers the fairness of the process.
In that process itself, it feels like every step is more daunting than the last. Applying in particular is again a race to see who runs out of money first, as most applicants will be applying to as many schools as possible at $80 a pop. This game has a few purposes for the applicant:
- Ensure acceptance to a school that the applicant would actually go to
- Hope for acceptance to a school that's good enough to lord over the schools you want to go to
- Hope for a huge scholarship at a school that's worse than the schools you want to go to (again, for a bargaining chip)
- Hope for acceptance to a school that's good enough to lord over the schools the applicant wants to go to (to use in offer negotiation)
- Hope for a huge scholarship at a school that's worse than the schools the applicant wants to go to (again, for a bargaining chip)
As you can see, it's a lot more about gaming the system and obtaining leverage than it is being considered for your merits. And law schools play into it: there's an institution called the US News World Report, which rates every US law school by *how selective they are*. Not how good they are, just how much better they make themselves out to be. Remember that $80 price tag? Many of the more prestigious institutions will hand out fee waivers to vaguely uncompetitive candidates to entice application, *padding their numbers* so they can reject them anyway and drive down that percentage-of-acceptance.
As you can see, it's a lot more about gaming the system and obtaining leverage than it is being considered for one's merits. And law schools play into it: there's an institution called the US News& World Report, which rates every US law school by *how selective they are*. Not how good they are, just how much better they make themselves out to be. Remember that $80 price tag? Many of the more prestigious institutions will hand out fee waivers to vaguely uncompetitive candidates to entice application, *padding their numbers* so they can reject them anyway and drive down that percentage-of-acceptance.
- Disappointing sidebar: I mentioned being considered for your merits. [Good luck being considered for anything else.](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/students-for-fair-admissions-inc-v-president-fellows-of-harvard-college/) This absolutely makes the environment worse by limiting the candidate pool. Echo chambers aren't fun.
Because the entrance exam is so off-target, holistic review is even more essential to law school than undergraduate admissions. Not everyone is going to think the same way in the real world, and any forcibly lessened diversity in an already-stagnating profession is going to be harmful in the long-term. I'd also appreciate testing and application reform to reduce the barriers to low income applicants currently in place. Testing fee waivers are excellent, but prep courses are as essential as actually testing, and most come at a high price.
As a result of all of this, the application process is terribly unfair to marginalized groups. And because the entrance exam is so off-target, holistic review is even more essential to law school than undergraduate admissions. Not everyone is going to think the same way in the real world, and any forcibly lessened diversity in an already-stagnating profession is going to be harmful in the long-term. I'd also appreciate testing and application reform to reduce the barriers to low income applicants currently in place. Testing fee waivers are excellent, but prep courses are as essential as actually testing, and most come at a high price.
Note that there is currently some [testing reform](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/lsats-elimination-logic-games-prompts-jeers-cheers-2023-10-19/) taking place for accessibility reasons, which I fully support. Disabled lawyers exist and deserve recognition, and I'm confident that this change will improve the diversity of viewpoint that I wish to see in law school classes and the field in general. This reform does not affect the necessity of prep courses.
## Your First Year
The most important thing to realize during your first year of law school is that you and your classmates are all in the same boat. You were admitted the same way, and now nobody knows what's going on. Unfortunately, some have much better support systems than others (usually lawyers in the family). Either way, the **culture, mechanics, and responsibilities** of the 1L year are all very difficult to contend with.
Even at schools that attempt to create a culture that discourages open, toxic competition, there's always the background truth that you are competing with every other student you're on a curve with (or on a curve against, really). If everyone's final assignments are ranked, then you will be better than another student, and so on and so forth. This necessitates feelings of distance that make it harder to really connect with your classmates in a way that lessens the impact of the stress you're all under. And the environment does little to help either.
The LSAT purportedly serves as an indicator of success in law school. Yet nothing can prepare an incoming student for the method of study that they will soon encounter.
## The First Year
The most important thing that I had to realize during my first year was that my classmates and I are all in the same boat. We were admitted the same way, and now nobody knows what's going on. Unfortunately, some have much better support systems than others (usually lawyers in the family). And more often than not, the **culture, mechanics, and responsibilities** of the 1L year will only add to the stress and uncertainty.
- Note that this section completely avoids discussion of when students are openly hostile to or intolerant of other students. My class year had its fair share of incidents between students, but unfortunately none were unique to law school. Idiots will exist anywhere, and I wish everyone the very best at pushing through the human obstacles in their life (law school or not).
The most common way courses are taught in your first year is called the Socratic method. Dating back to Socrates, this technique supposedly teaches material through questioning. The professor will pretend to know nothing, and instead ask questions of the students to guide the class through a case. The goal is to have the students reason through the opinion themselves, and eliminate counter-arguments to arrive at the eventual conclusion. Unfortunately, this will usually require recitation of the facts before delving into analysis. And the tool used to elicit the facts is one of the most stressful parts of 1L: the "cold call." In a true cold call, the professor selects one student at random to lay the groundwork of the case. It's harrowing because you don't know what the professor is going to care about. Remember, 1Ls know nothing—including what facts are relevant to a discussion. I've seen people have panic attacks leading up to their cold calls, and even one student that cried in the middle of theirs. The goal of law school is to teach students how to think like lawyers, which the cold call does not serve.
Even at schools that attempt to create a culture that discourages open, toxic competition, there's always the background truth that you are competing with every other student you're on a curve with (or on a curve against, really). If everyone's final assignments are ranked, then you will be better than another student, and so on and so forth. This environment tends to create feelings of distance that make it harder to really connect with your classmates in a way that lessens the impact of the stress you're all under.
In my experience, the first year is about context. So much of the law in specific subjects (antitrust, IP, health, environmental, etc) requires a base understanding of **all** of the more broad areas (criminal, contract, procedure, regulatory, tort, constitutional, and more) that it's impossible to impart that knowledge on the former without having first learned doctrinal bases for the entirety of the latter. In my opinion, the first year of required courses is a necessity for that reason. Unfortunately, those broad areas also require context in the other broad areas. And if they were a directed graph, it would be full of cycles. As such, the very nature of the subjects contribute to the anxiety of learning the law. And the method of teaching does little to help.
The most common way courses are taught in the first year is called the Socratic method. Dating back to Socrates, this technique supposedly teaches material through questioning. The professor will pretend to know nothing, and instead ask questions of the students to guide the class through a case. The goal is to have the students reason through the opinion themselves, eliminating counter-arguments and arriving at the eventual conclusion of the court. This process means that students need to reverse-engineer the rule (the point of studying a case) from their analysis and the court's. Unfortunately, this will usually require recitation of the facts before delving into analysis. And the tool used to elicit the facts is one of the most stressful parts of 1L: the "cold call." In a true cold call, the professor selects one student at random to lay the groundwork of the case and sometimes even begin the dialogue about the reasoning of the opinion. It's harrowing because you don't know what the professor is going to care about. Remember, 1Ls know nothing—including what facts are relevant to a discussion. I've seen people have panic attacks leading up to their cold calls, and even one student that cried in the middle of theirs. The goal of law school is to teach students how to think like lawyers, which the cold call does not serve.
- Another thing that does not serve the goal is the grading structure. A single, *curved* final exam being worth 100% of your grade for a course do not have any particular benefit to teaching a way of thinking. Rather, incremental assignments with individualized feedback would much better serve the purpose. Likewise, absolute grading would make more sense, as nobody really thinks "better" than anyone else: we all think *differently*, which is what makes the practice of law so interesting.
One of the defenses to the Socratic method is that it teaches thinking on one's feet. I would disagree. Most professors see it as an exercise in rote memorization of facts before they take over to lead the reasoning dialogue, to which in-the-moment answers would not be correct. Furthermore, the classroom environment as a whole is nothing like the typical circumstances where a practicing attorney needs that skill. In fact, advocacy classes do a much better job of teaching responsive, dynamic argument and analysis. The point is that being argumentatively flexible is a skill that needs subject matter context to be applicable, which means it has no place at a time where that context is completely lacking.
Note that this relates to the pure, textbook cold call and Socratic method. Many variations exist that alleviate some of the broad-stroke pressure on a class. The professors that recognize this and adopt newer, more effective learning techniques are consistently rated the highest among students, because they allow students to focus on their other responsibilities when it matters most.
### Job Prospects
By far the largest source of pressure during the 1L year is finding a first-summer job. For these positions, the legal field is split into two general halves: "big law" and "public interest." Those interested in big law will usually seek out summer associate positions at law firms, and public interest students look to aid groups, advocacy, or political agencies for their summer positions. Either may seek government positions under judges or prosecutors. Despite their disconnect, the firms involved in the big law recruiting 'game' make the environment worse for everybody.
- Please note that there is a lot more to legal careers than big law and PI, and this divide is really just what the market and most schools force on students during recruiting.
- I also don't want to speak to or sway anyone's career decisions here. That choice is for you to make, and you can find mentors in your school and potential field(s) that can speak a lot better to the pressure they experience on a daily basis than I can.
@ -61,37 +70,38 @@ There is one technique that I've noticed helps with recruiting pressure, and it
There are a few subjects in particular that foster a very toxic classroom environment, and I think con law is the most notorious of the bunch. Nearly every law student I've talked to absolutely resents the class for way they felt in it because of how it was taught.
The aforementioned Socratic method and its derivatives are primarily at fault for this. Most professors will teach the course chronologically\*, which means you talk through all the obsolete cases Socratically until you get to current law, so that you can see how the doctrine developed. In con law, Socratic discourse means the professor splitting the class into sides\* of the issue over each case and putting sides in conversation with each other. This method of pitting student-on-student tends to make the class very heated, especially when you have a very smart bunch of students that realize the importance of these old cases to new doctrine.
- \*: Oversimplification
- \*: Oversimplification. Without going too far into it, you have to bounce around a bit for context reasons. Some doctrines evolved at the same time, but it doesn't always make sense to teach them together so they will be separated. Con law is unique because its context dependencies aren't just external, but internal per-doctrine as well.
I'll refrain from discussing con law final exams because I think they're an area where you do kind of have to suck it up and write what you know, despite how it makes you feel to put the words on paper if you're asked to make arguments for both sides.
Con law is a depressing course to watch the evolution of different doctrines through, especially today. I can say for certain that I came out of it with a much more cynical view of judicial politics due to recent developments in state power, reproductive justice, and economic and regulatory judicial policy. Even looking back at historical cases, it's always disheartening to discuss a Justice's motivations for ruling a certain way when the class knows full well that they flipped their entire jurisprudence in order to rule along political lines.
Thankfully, there are ways to teach con law with respect to the first point that lessen the emotional toll on students. I'm a big fan of my professor's approach: *he*'s the one that plays devil's advocate, rather than the students. When he asks a student on one side of the room a question, he'll immediately rebut their answer with an argument resonating with another. Repeat for every side of the room. That way, you don't end up fostering resentment between students for their opposing views on cases. It takes a very skilled and humble professor to be able to completely conceal their own opinions AND know the cases well enough to swap arguments at the drop of a hat several dozen times throughout a class period.
### 1L - Final Thoughts
1L, as mentioned, is about context. It does the best job it can at providing that context so that students are prepared to take interest area and practical courses for the next two years. However, that preparation comes with mountains of unnecessary stress on students that will lower performance for some and cause others to even quit. And this speaks little to how one will perform in their legal practice.
## Practice
This section is admittedly short because I haven't had much genuine experience. Regardless, law firms are more than just recruiting entities, and pointing out their oddities is within the scope of this essay. Expect this section to expand in future.
### Detour: Women in Law
Disclaimer, I am not a woman (much less one in law), so my observations do not reflect lived experiences, and there are probably much more profound accounts elsewhere.
I’ve observed several women with established legal careers who don't act according to what I would expect someone who had a poor experience getting to their current position would. Often, they will not attempt to uplift other women, and will not provide support and wisdom about how practice looks for a woman. Instead, they are overly harsh and critical of young women attempting to enter the practice. For example, a female judge brushed off my mistakes when I owned up and stood my ground, but the female advocate for the opposing party had to remain completely composed while the same judge flew off the handle at her for taking too long to answer a question. I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count in academic (“speak up!”) and professional (“why aren’t you…”) contexts. If a woman is noticeably "playing the game" (pitching up, being less assertive, all the things that women in the workplace have to do around men to avoid criticism for acting outside 1950s era social roles, all of which should not need to be done in a proper work environment) around men, then they should not get a free pass to attack anyone. It’s unfair to students and advocates, it pressures them out of the career, and just plain hurts them personally.
I’ve observed several women with established legal careers who don't act according to what I would expect someone who had a poor experience getting to their current position would. Often, they will not attempt to uplift other women, and will not provide support and wisdom about how practice looks for a woman. Instead, they are overly harsh and critical of young women attempting to enter the practice. For example, a female **federal judge** brushed off my mistakes when I owned up and stood my ground, but the female advocate for the opposing party had to remain completely composed while the same judge flew off the handle at her for taking too long to answer a question. I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count in academic (“speak up!”) and professional (“why aren’t you…”) contexts. This practice is unfair to students and advocates, it pressures them out of the career, and just plain hurts them personally.
Literature on this subject suggests that these attorneys and judges could be motivated by a subconscious desire to “prepare” young women for the misogynistic practice they’re going into. If that is the case, then it’s ironic that their behavior is pushing people away from the career who could actually do something about how shitty it is.
Literature on this subject (and complaints by female law students experiencing this in class) suggests that these attorneys, professors, and judges could be motivated by a subconscious desire to “prepare” young women for the misogynistic practice they’re going into. If that is the case, then it’s ironic that their behavior is pushing away the very people who could actually do something about how shitty the career is to women.
## Conclusion
It's often said that law school is not meant to teach you the law; it's meant to teach you how to think like a lawyer. And if you can think like a lawyer, you can be a lawyer. But law school does not serve its purpose. Any attorney will tell you as much.
In fact, I think law school is more about adaptability and stress management. If you manage to survive your first year (or in some cases even your first semester), then you've experienced 95% of the stress of law school. It's unhealthy, but only for a fleeting moment on the grander scale of an entire career. And getting through that stress is a matter of mindfulness, reflection, and simple regimented academics. But a more relaxed law school experience would
In fact, I think law school as a whole is more about adaptability and stress management. If you manage to survive your first year (or in some cases even your first semester), then you've experienced 95% of the stress of law school. It's unhealthy, but only for a fleeting moment on the grander scale of an entire career. And getting through that stress is a matter of mindfulness, reflection, and simple regimented academics. Yet a more tolerant and toler**able** law school experience would lead to more productive, successful attorneys.
I recognize that there's an argument for a stressful, competitive law school experience. Using the coping mechanisms and time management skills developed in law school, we become
I recognize that there's an argument for a stressful, competitive law school experience. Using the coping mechanisms and time management skills developed in law school, we obtain a foundation for using those techniques in practice. But remember, law school produces the attorneys which shape the practice as an institution. If law school changes for the better, I'm certainthe industry will change as well.
- Additionally, I recognize the rates of alcohol abuse among attorneys, so I'm not sure those coping mechanisms developed in law school are even effective. But the drinking culture is an essay by itself and outside the scope of this blog, really.
I'm not sure whether this essay functions more as an introduction to law school or a consideration for those already interested in it. But I do know one thing: **Law school is broken.**
I'm not sure whether this essay functions more as an introduction to the pitfalls of law school or an important consideration for those already interested in it. But I do know one thing: **Law school is broken.**
## Homework/Further Reading
For those considering law school, I'd like to suggest two resources to you.
During my undergraduate studies, I stumbled across an excellent account by Rhett Campbell, a retired energy bankruptcy attorney. I don't know where I found these, probably on Reddit (I've ignored r/LawSchool and r/lawschooladmissions in this entry because all of Reddit is toxic and those two subs are no exception). At the time I found these (and presumably when they were updated), he was the CEO of a nonprofit called the Terry Foundation. A lot of his opinions hold up, and I've uploaded them here as PDFs at <ahref="https://be-far.com/Attachments/why-not-to-go-to-law-school.pdf"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer">Why Not to Go to Law School</a> and <ahref="https://be-far.com/Attachments/law-study.Pdf"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer">Guide to Making Good Grades in Law School</a>. All credit goes to Campbell for these resources. If you only take two things from these documents, let them be "**law school is hell**" and "**outline early, outline often**."
- Sidebar: I do agree with Campbell's view that there's a certain "fire in the belly" that you need to be a lawyer. I think I satisfied this because reading these documents made me excited, not stressed.
- Sidebar x2: The resources he recommended weren't that helpful to me. The real value of his writings is his firsthand experience.
During the application cycle, I also enjoyed Kathryne Young's book [How to be Sort of Happy in Law School](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35793679-how-to-be-sort-of-happy-in-law-school), and I think it provides a realistic expectation of what it means to be a law student while also being a person. Some of what I talk about in the [[#Detour Constitutional Law|detour on con law]] comes straight from her book.
- During my undergraduate studies, I stumbled across an excellent account by Rhett Campbell, a retired energy bankruptcy attorney. I don't know where I found these, probably on Reddit (I've ignored r/LawSchool and r/lawschooladmissions in this essay because all of Reddit is toxic and those two subs are no exception). At the time I found these (and presumably when they were updated), he was the CEO of a nonprofit called the Terry Foundation. A lot of his opinions hold up, and I've uploaded them here as PDFs at <ahref="https://be-far.com/Attachments/why-not-to-go-to-law-school.pdf"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer">Why Not to Go to Law School</a> and <ahref="https://be-far.com/Attachments/law-study.Pdf"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer">Guide to Making Good Grades in Law School</a>. All credit goes to Campbell for these resources. If you only take two things from these documents, let them be "**law school is hell**" and "**outline early, outline often**."
- Sidebar: I do agree with Campbell's view that there's a certain "fire in the belly" that you need to be a lawyer. I think I satisfied this because reading these documents made me excited, not stressed.
- Sidebar x2: The resources he recommended weren't that helpful to me. The real value of his writings is his firsthand experience.
- During the application cycle, I also enjoyed Kathryne Young's book [How to be Sort of Happy in Law School](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35793679-how-to-be-sort-of-happy-in-law-school), and I think it provides a realistic expectation of what it means to be a law student while also being a person. Some of what I talk about in the [[#Detour Constitutional Law|detour on con law]] comes straight from her book.
And finally, my only advice to prospective law students is do some soul searching on what you *really* want to be doing in 3 years. If that's either practicing law or working in policy/advocacy, only then should you choose law school. You don't need to know an exact field, but I love my job and I think I'm the exception for that. There is something to be said for a meaningless 9-5 surrounded by hobbies you truly enjoy, but the law takes too many of your hours in a day for it to not interest you. Any further questions or ways I can help, contact me!
Expect this page to expand. I plan on fleshing it out it in tandem with a full argument on why AI training and output are both copyright infringement when the model was trained on copyrighted data, because copyright and plagiarism are inextricably linked.
## My Position
I think all works published that hold themselves out as informative or authoritative should properly inform the reader what they used to draw their conclusions.
To comport with my own beliefs, on this website, I:
- Provide links to webpages for programs/projects I discuss, including documentation as needed.
- See all of the [[Programs I Like/home|Programs I Like]]
- Write blurbs about the sources I found the most helpful or persuasive (with links), and often hyperlink less argumentative statements of fact with a supporting reference.
- See [[Essays/law-school|Law School is Broken]]
And when using my work, I request:
- That you link to the page you mention/quote/paraphrase.
- That you **never** use my work to train an LLM because its output is then plagiarizing my work (and post-hoc attribution will not remedy that use in this specific case)
However, note that much of the entries here are my personal perspective on the subject matter, so much of this website falls under "my source is I made it up" and needs no attribution.
## Where My Views Originate
There are two institutions in my life that have most certainly contributed to my broader position on attribution.
Coming from academia, my culture is very much "show your work." It was always beneficial to me personally to be able to point to someone much more decorated than myself and go "see? They share my conclusion." I'm not commenting on whether the academy's meritocracy is a good system (as I'm very much not qualified to do so), but following the rules of the institution and citing my sources allowed me to reach a broader audience without much effort on my part beyond what was necessary to create work product.
The legal field is even more source-mandatory due to the system of precedent, that judges *must* follow the rules set by prior decisions binding on their court. The onus is almost entirely on the advocates to inform the judge what they must do (while arguing what they *should* do). The profession places very little value on original statements as a result. The expression inherent in how you arrange the statements of others, combined with your ability to find favorable statements, is what determines your skill level as an attorney.
There's definitely a gap in my knowlege/views that broadens the more creative or traditionally-considered-artistic the subject matter gets. Copyright absolutely extends to the arts, but what place does attribution have when the purpose is to entertain? One can hardly document one's creative experience when working on a novel, a script, a painting, in the same way a legal brief can be. I do believe in the necessity of personal attribution for those who directly contributed to an artistic work (think the credits section of a movie) for professional reasons, but beyond that, I'm uncertain.
## Digital Gardening and Plagiarism
For digital gardening in particular, attribution is integral to the concept. [[Misc/what-is-a-garden|A digital garden]] is a network, and the culture of the digital garden is to provide paths out of the current webpage to others on the same site or even to other websites. These associations between webpages make up a comprehensive experience that differs from modern web use (Google search, click, close the tab) and looks more like Wikipedia spelunking.
Thus, the true value of attribution in a digital garden is mostly in the link itself rather than the substance of the current page or the linked page.
## To-be-written
I want to address piece-by-piece [an argument by Brian Frye](https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/09/plagiarism-is-fine/) supporting plagiarism in general. He's a prolific IP scholar, so I'll probably look through his academic works as well (*Against Creativity*, 11 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 426 (2017), looks pretty interesting). To be clear, I don't want to get into the absolute witch hunt that inspired the linked article, but in the article he reiterates his greater conclusions about attribution to say that ALL plagiarism accusations are silly, which are what I want to respond to.
- Planned topics: granularity, necessity, nature of the work/merit, nature of the work/type of content.
Anyone who identifies as a "proud plagiarist," this is your notice that I may respond to your opinions, and I will properly attribute you when doing so.
- Readers: **Don't harass anyone I cite, please**. We disagree on the topic, and since all it really bears on is respect and authoritative nature until it goes into copyright infringement territory, there aren't any high stakes.
I'm dying to dig into enterprise software engineering and attribution/licensing as well. "The StackOverflow problem" is something that the industry has been struggling with for years, and there are some pretty strong counter arguments to my position that come out of critique of softeng and originality. Given the existence of Copilot, this ties into AI as well.
The Law School Admissions Test ("LSAT") is a timed multiple-choice and written test administered by the Law School Admissions Counsel ("LSAC"). It's designed to provide some indicator of performance in law school, and it's bad at its job. An applicant's score on the LSAT (between 120 and 180) is the primary metric that law schools examine when determining whether to extend them an offer of admissions.
@ -29,4 +30,6 @@ The number of each of these sections has fluctuated somewhat.
- Over the global pandemic, the fully remote LSAT Flex involved only three sections: 1 LG, 1 LR, 1 W. Same ordering and disclosure notes.
- LSAC then moved to a fully remote four-section system, tacking on an experimental section to the LSAT Flex with the same ordering and disclosure notes. LSAC has since begun administering this four-section test in person as well.
There's also a required Writing section which law schools don't look at as closely. It's just an essay, and many schools will require separate essays which they'll actually examine rather than the Writing section. It's also only required once, and if you have a valid LSAT Writing score but retake the main exam, you won't be required to write another essay.
There's also a required Writing section which law schools don't look at as closely. It's just an essay, and many schools will require separate essays which they'll actually examine rather than the Writing section. It's also only required once, and if you have a valid LSAT Writing score but retake the main exam, you won't be required to write another essay.
More information on the LSAT can be found on the [Law School Admission Council website](https://lsac.org).
Functional programming is my favorite paradigm. 'Nuff said.
## Functional Programming in Comparative Perspective
Let's look at an object-oriented pseudo-program for doing something with a piece of data:
```java
class Point {
int x;
int y;
Point(int x, int y) {
this.x = x;
this.y = y;
}
void printPoint() {
println("({this.x}, {this.y})");
}
}
void main() {
Point xy = Point(1, 1);
xy.printPoint();
}
```
In OOP, data and code live together in one object (association), which comes with finer-grained control over what can access that data (encapsulation). But in functional programming, code and data are purely separate. Data is defined in terms of what's inside a type, and code is defined in terms of inputs and outputs:
```haskell
data Point = Point { x :: Int, y :: Int }
-- Function declaration (think C header)
printPoint :: Point -> IO () -- Takes in a point, outputs nothing, but has a side effect of doing an IO action
-- Function definition (think C implementation)
-- new concept: "pattern match": if the arguments match the LHS, it will execute RHS. Otherwise, keep going down the list. Often used for a "base case" of a recursive function.
printPoint Point (0, 0) = println "(origin)" -- Parentheses usu. not required around fn arguments, but can specify precedence in evaluation
-- Can also use "guard clauses" as finer-grained if statements inside a general pattern match.
printPoint Point (px, py)
| px <0&&py<0 =println"(negative)"
| otherwise = println ("(" ++ show px ++ ", " ++ show py ++ ")")
main :: IO ()
main = do
let xy = Point 1 1 -- if more complex, use parentheses like Point (1 + 2) (2 + 4)
printPoint xy
```
Pattern matching, guard clauses, and precedence manipulation are the main features of functional language statement syntax over OOP syntax. But functional languages are even more powerful when you start looking at their type systems in-depth.
- Published [[Essays/law-school|Law School is Broken]]!
- Getting a little sick of seeing arguments across the internet advocating for plagiarism and not citing your sources. Here's [[Essays/plagiarism|my response to plagiarists]].
- Added my [[bookmarks|public bookmarks]] in the spirit of digital gardening.
One of the core philosophies of digital gardening is that one should document their learning process when trying new things. As such, here's my very disorganized to-dos and to-reads in the form of a public bookmark list. This page will change very often.
Blocking a user prevents them from interacting with repositories, such as opening or commenting on pull requests or issues. Learn more about blocking a user.
bfahrenfort