The BLS Advocate

Notions to Dismiss: A New York Strip Mistake

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve put together a column. I had planned to write a really great piece just before exams, but, in the true spirit of procrastination, I decided to put it off until now and spit out something utterly mediocre instead.

I took a little walk down Fulton Street the other day. I used to find myself there all the time – that’ll happen with three doctors, my gym, my bank, and my favorite pizza place (may she rest in peace) all being there – but this was the first time I had been there in a few months. To be honest, I was pretty shocked by what I saw. I’ve always known that big changes were coming to these streets; I just had no idea how big the changes would be or how soon they would come. But first a little background about the area.

Fulton Street, or the Fulton Mall as it’s often called, is a pretty interesting place. A vibrant commercial strip with bustling sidewalks; dotted with historic multi-level storefronts; an economically viable retail mecca that manages to get by just fine without catering to the proclivities and tastes of white folks; the seven-block stretch in Downtown Brooklyn stands out in a lot of ways.

The first stores opened up over a century ago, and the burgeoning mall became a model for urban retail, housing some of the most famous department stores of the era. Through the passage of time and the grind of economic downturn, the character of Fulton Mall has changed quite a bit, but the strength of its commercial draw has always endured. To this day, it boasts the city’s third-busiest retail strip, beating out even Madison Ave. I’ve often marveled at how you can walk down Fulton Street one day and see a business that’s recently been boarded up, but walk by that same spot two weeks later and you can bet on seeing a Grand Opening sign in the same storefront.

These days, it exists as a veritable oasis of black commercial culture, surrounded on three sides by the encroaching spread of some of Brooklyn’s bougiest neighborhoods. However, its ability to hold out seems to be at a tipping point, and my recent stroll through the colorful streetscape made it quite clear that a whirlwind of change is on the horizon.

Check it out for yourself and what you’ll find is a neighborhood in the midst of a revolutionary transformation. On the same streets as my $10/month gym (which I may or may not have been to in the last six months) and the fried chicken place that used to happily remind me of my time in Baltimore, a flood of high-rise, luxury condos and boutique hotels have taken shape. I could swear those weren’t there a few months ago.

This time, the new kids on the block are neither a short term fad nor a passing nightmare; they’re the new norm and they’re here to stay. Soon, the entire stretch will consist of high-end, designer retail and upscale wine bars. People will just have to go elsewhere to satisfy their itch for independent cell phone stores, pawn shops, and sneaker stores. In a way, I suppose this has always been inevitable: The unique characteristics and vast potential of Fulton Street make it an undeniable target for urban gentrification.

Of course, the argument goes that this is all done in the name of progress. But I’ve also often heard the Fulton Mall described as ghetto, sketchy, dangerous, etc. The first argument I admit I have some degree of sympathy for; the latter I do not.

The Fulton Mall is a unique and interesting place, well worth exploring and getting a feel for before it’s too late. If you think it’s ghetto, that’s probably because you grew up in the bubble of sheltered suburbia and were trained from a young age to treat as a threat anything that’s brown and not your housekeeper. I know what that feels like; it used to be me, but it’s still no excuse.

The fact of the matter is, a pretty cool place – and one that happens to be right across the street from our collective door step – is about to lose all of its character and a lot of its color. And when it’s all said and done, it might not be whitewashed physically, but it certainly will be from a cultural standpoint. What’s left will likely be a sterile, generic, and massively profitable retail strip in which the whole of New Brooklyn will no doubt rejoice. But ought we to join in that revelry?

Is this the color of Brooklyn?

I’m not saying these changes should be stopped – what good would it do anyway? – or that anyone who supports them is immoral, but let’s at least acknowledge what the real intentions are here, if not for ourselves, then for the thousands of people who will soon be losing their favorite stores to the tidal force of progress. Is there anyone who will just be honest about what’s happening on Fulton Street?

Apparently not: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz claims that fears like mine are overblown and that there are no plans to strip the Fulton Mall of its unique character and dynamism. I think the enduring words of another famous Brooklynite should serve as an ample retort: “Up ya nose wit a rubber hose!”

– Since when did this column get all serious??? Love it / Hate it? Let me know how you feel: @bermorama

Legally in Love: Hitting a Lull

Illustration by Shaina Rubin

During the first several weeks back to school, my anti-social behavior has reached an all-time high: I no longer booze on student org. nights, exchange cute text messages with cute boys, or even bat my eyelashes. In all honesty, I would rather stay home, eat cheese and, dare I say it, actually do reading for my classes.

Am I alone here? Or do most law students also feel a sense of combined boredom and anxiety? To be honest, I have felt this way for a while, ever since September, but it seemed I easily distracted myself with B.L.S.G. drama. In 2012 though, the plot line has yet to pick up the pace; I’m no longer entertained by the same old story.

In some respects, it would be easier to pick up B.L.S.G. to hang with: together, we could have played State of the Union drinking games, debated over newly issued SCOTUS opinions, and complained about our dreadful wireless connection. Instead, I have quarantined myself from 99% of romantic interactions – it’s that little voice inside my head, nagging me each time I’m about to chat up the Hot 1L who’s always in the library, “girl, what’s the point?”

When it comes to love, there never is an actual point: the heart wants and the head will have no choice but to follow. It’s impossible to quantify our emotions, yet we still can’t help ourselves. Lawyer-trained brains must assess the risks of every situation; this includes outlining the pros and cons of intimacy with another human being – especially one who thinks just like you do.

For the most part, I have played my cards well during my time at Brooklyn Law. Only once did I let my poker face slip and lose a round at the betting table. By no means was getting back into the game easy, but I got over my bruised ego and have now developed the strength to easily quash subsequent opponents.

Perhaps my current anti-social behavior is because I am over this game. A good gambler knows when it’s time to collect the chips and walk away from the table. And as I have proudly acquired the much sought after Queen of Hearts, I can’t determine a solid reason for giving her up…

…except for lil’ ol Valentine’s day coming round the corner.

(So, stay tuned.)

The BLS Advocate Endorses Nicholas Allard for the Brooklyn Law Deanship

Any of the four candidates for the Brooklyn Law School deanship would be an excellent choice for the position. Though we are endorsing one particular candidate who we feel has the potential to truly revolutionize BLS, we believe that all of the candidates would thrive here, and we would be lucky to have any of these highly qualified individuals leading our institution.

In arriving at our decision to endorse Nicholas Allard, we considered a few major qualities that we believe the next dean must possess in order to move BLS forward.

First, Brooklyn Law School needs to raise money for a variety of purposes—from improving the school’s IT services, to growing the Career Services office, to continuing to attract and keep the best teachers, to funding public service grants for all interested students—and at the same time it needs to reduce class sizes, a worthwhile goal professed by almost all of the candidates. If fundraising is to be a priority, then the next dean should be a proven fundraiser.

Second, if there is anything that brings down student morale here, apart from the general stresses of law school, it is frustration with the administration. We need someone fresh, with an outsider’s perspective.

Third, the next dean needs to be approachable. Though an affable personality may not be a priority to all members of the BLS community, as students, we want someone as dean who we feel comfortable approaching on a regular basis to discuss matters of concern. Moreover, the new dean should be someone who seems likely to make time for students.

From what we’ve gathered from our limited interaction with the four dean candidates, Nicholas Allard is the only one who appears to possess all of these qualities, and more.

Professor Lawrence Solan is a brilliant, capable, affable, passionate educator, and an asset to Brooklyn Law School. He knows the institution deeply and has a proven track record of improving the school, but in our evaluation, his best quality also worked against him. He is simply too embedded in the institution to be the likeliest candidate, in our estimation, to bring fresh ideas to BLS. In particular, of the four candidates, he was most resistant to the idea of inviting students into the administrative decision-making process, which we found somewhat disconcerting.

Dean Janet Levit seems highly approachable, and her genuine desire to interact with students makes her a tempting choice. Dean Levit is an outsider, to be sure, and she has proven herself by making Tulsa Law a better institution. We worry, though, that transplanting her ideas to Brooklyn simply will not work. BLS is four times as large as Tulsa once was, and we compete with virtually every major law school for jobs in the New York City market. We were also somewhat concerned by the lack of awareness shown by her response to questions regarding the public interest community.

Professor Russell Osgood holds much promise. As president of a small liberal arts college, he oversaw and grew an endowment of over one billion dollars. His deanship at Cornell Law School saw innovative use of the Internet at a time when there was much resistance to the emerging technology among law professionals. He has solid ideas for BLS, including expanding on our clinic programs and revamping the way we portray our school to the legal community. He would be a great fit for the school; we worry only that he seems to lack the last quality listed above: approachability.

Nicholas Allard is our choice. He set out to charm us, and he did just that. Some might say we simply failed to see through his façade, but the way we see it, someone at the helm with that kind of personality is just what this law school has lacked in the past, and needs going forward. In other words, in our opinion, a skilled lobbyist sounds like a great fit for BLS.

What about Allard’s relative lack of experience in academia? That also appeals to us. Allard’s clear ability to fundraise and easy-going style makes him adaptable enough to face down the Board of Trustees and host students for a brunch in the same afternoon. We felt his boast about his ability to obtain jobs for students was genuine—and, given how well-connected he is, we will certainly hold him to his claims.

Allard seemed receptive not only to student ideas, but also to the potential for implementing some of the innovative proposals that have been circulating in the news media for reforming the law school model. While other candidates scoffed at the ways in which the news media have been getting it wrong, Allard is not part of the law school system, and he is free to challenge the status quo without sounding inconsistent. He gave the impression that if the current model isn’t working, he would seek to fix it, and let BLS—as the “twenty-first-century law school” —pave the way for other schools to follow his lead.

Nicholas Allard has the right personality for the school and the right background to take us where we want to go. Allard would make an impact from day one, and we truly believe that our degrees will be all the more valuable with Allard at the helm.

Nicholas Allard: The Anywhere Man

This is the final piece in a series by David A. Shapiro, ’12, examining four new candidates for the Brooklyn Law School deanship. In this article, Dave breaks down Nicholas Allard’s question and answer session with students, held on Tuesday, January 17. For background on the dean search process, read Dave’s previous article here. Read Dave’s reports on the three other current candidates here.

"The Anywhere Man" - illustration by Shaina Rubin

“I resist being put in a box,” Dean candidate Nicholas Allard proclaimed defensively in response to the first student question on Wednesday, January 18. Allard is the one of four candidates who really hails from outside the world of academia. As a partner at the law firm of Patton Boggs, he has become widely recognized for his work as a prominent lobbyist in the field of telecommunications. At the question and answer session with students, he spoke for twenty minutes before fielding the first student question.

“I have done quite a bit of work to prepare,” he said, with a pleasantly deep, raspy voice, and a neatly folded handkerchief in his jacket pocket.

“I’m not a full time academic or dean at an institution. Guilty as charged,” he said, unapologetically. But at the same time, “if I was hired as your dean, everyone would say ‘wow.’”

Allard said that he had heard BLS students described as “outstanding scholars,” “committed, dedicated, hungry students,” “fine practitioners when they emerge from this institution,” and “well managed.” His goal was to take that talent, and the talent of the faculty, and convert Brooklyn Law School into what he calls “a 21st century institution.”

Speaking in mostly vague terms at first, he posited three questions: Who are we? What are our aspirations? And how do we get there? He never really answered those questions, but nonetheless managed to come across as genuine, concerned, highly competent, and compassionate.

Allard has some unconventional ideas for the law school. Appreciative that “eighty-five percent of all law students in this country are bearing $98,000 or more in debt,” he hopes to try to get students interested in jobs for which a JD may not be required.

He acknowledged that some of his ideas were not popular with the faculty. He believes, for example, “that the overall curriculum needs to be looked at. The third year curriculum needs to be really addressed. We need more practice/experiential training.”

“Here’s another idea worth considering,” he continued. “I would move international studies to first year, put civil procedure/criminal procedure in the second year block.”

After speaking for more than five minutes about his son who played Jeopardy on Teen Tournament, (and referring repeatedly to the host of Jeopardy as Art Fleming, who hosted the show in the 1970s), he finally got to some student questions. But he had already covered a lot of what mattered to students.

Allard appeared willing to help students obtain worthwhile positions. In response to Stuart Linder ‘12’s question about obtaining jobs right after graduation, he offered to field phone calls from students, regardless of whether he was Dean or not.

“I know people and I know where the jobs are—it’s not that hard,” he boasted. He added that if ten percent of the class had “difficulty finding positions,” he felt confident that he could help those individuals by shopping around on what he deemed a “retail basis.” He also believes that we can do a better job of getting jobs by breaking out of the OCI mold—a point that students in the audience did not push through their questions.

Allard believes that the “secret sauce to solving problems is fundraising. I happen to know how to do that.” Indeed, his skills in fundraising and networking as a law firm partner and lobbyist are valuable assets. “What I do for a living is advocacy,” Allard said. “You can expect me on behalf of the student body, when necessary, to be an effective advocate.”

Janet Levit: The Mover

This piece is the third in a series by David A. Shapiro, ’12, examining four new candidates for the Brooklyn Law School deanship. In this article, Dave breaks down Dean Janet Levit’s question and answer session with students, held on Tuesday, January 17. For background on the dean search process, read Dave’s previous article here. Read Dave’s articles on Larry Solan and Russell Osgood here and here.

“We started by investing in the quality of our student body,” Dean Janet Levit said, with a slight southern twang. She was discussing her efforts to boost the University of Tulsa College of Law from a Tier 4 school into something stronger. After her five-year deanship, the school now holds the #110 spot in the infamous U.S. News and World Report law school rankings. “About a decade ago…our median was a 149 on the LSAT…[and from that, we] moved dramatically each year,” Levit continued. The median LSAT at Tulsa is now 155.

"Levit the Mover" - Illustration by Shaina Rubin

Levit clearly knows what it takes to get law schools a rankings boost. At Tulsa, she sought to improve each of the three major areas factored into the rankings: quality of student body, the national and local reputation of faculty and graduates, and the “output” side of things—job attainment and performance on the bar exam.

Levit engaged in a deliberate strategy of turning Tulsa Law into a smaller school. “When I came in, we were at 500 students. This year, we are at 320 students.”

“We chose student quality over tuition dollars,” she continued.

Dean Levit began what she called the “T-Law First Initiative.” She meets with local law firms and talks about the challenges, and opportunities, of the firm. She asks them “to hire our students before others.” She also “had a briefing on every student who [was] not employed in the class of 2011.” She was “making phone calls and doing what it takes—we are mining our networks [for those students].”

However, Levit was quick to note that Tulsa is the only law school in its market. And U.S. News reveals that only 59% of 2009 graduates were reported to be employed at graduation. By comparison, Brooklyn’s number is a similar 63.3%–but in a market that competes with countless other schools.

And that seems to be Levit’s biggest weakness. Brooklyn is more than three times the size of Tulsa and is in a considerably larger market. Dean Levit would be making a jump from leading a school in an insulated environment to a school in the nation’s largest metropolis, with higher credentialed students. And Levit is well aware of that. She says she wants to lead BLS because of the challenge that would be involved. “I’m not interested in being a caretaker—I’m interested in upward trajectory,” she stated.

She probably would have preferred a judgeship as part of her own upward trajectory. Last year, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) blocked her nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Still, Dean Levit is the only candidate so far to answer Stuart Linder’s question regarding whether she, as the potential next Dean, could help obtain jobs for 3Ls. Her desire to get to know each unemployed student ought to be embraced. She spoke about freezing tuition and reducing class size (though she did not speak, as past candidates have, about the LLM program). Similar to Dean candidate Russell Osgood last week, Levit suggested that BLS ought to look into “forging an identity that is saleable as a magnet to students with particular interests or that have particular philosophies.” She confirmed that the lack of a mission statement was a problem. She called the academic profile of our student body “really, really strong.”

“To me, it’s not just about marketing,” she said. “You have 12 law schools in the immediate area who all sort of generically look a whole lot alike. There is nothing BLS has done to distinguish itself.”

“At Tulsa,” she continued, “we pushed full-throttle” on a couple areas of law where our students are going to practice—Native American law and energy companies. “We’ve raised a lot of scholarships focused on those substantive areas.”

Joel Gaffney, ’12, once again asked about the role of students in the actual decision making process of the administration. Levit responded positively. She called students “integral,” noting their placement on almost all of the governance committees at Tulsa.

Unlike Osgood, who affirmed, unblinking, that he would teach regardless of his position, Dean Levit was more hesitant. Expressing her desire to teach, she noted the “steep learning curve” she would face as dean of the law school as the reason why she might not jump into teaching right away.

As to her personality, she remarked that “one of my strengths is being a real strategic thinker. I am also very able to have my hands on the details. I can see the forest and the trees and work between them and balance them. I believe that my style has been collaborative.”

Levit sounded weaker on public service. When asked by Rachel Seelig, ’12, what she had done for public interest students at Tulsa, Levit commendably responded that she had donated her own money to fund summer scholarships for students. But she emphasized having a day of public service volunteering and pro bono work as ways to “give back.” Despite Brooklyn’s strong public interest program and its focus on long-term public interest careers, Levit seemed to treat public interest as more than a curiosity but less than a serious career prospect.

Poll: Who Should Be the Next Dean of Brooklyn Law School?

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Russell Osgood: The Paradigm Shifter

This piece is the second in a series by David A. Shapiro, ’12, examining four new candidates for the Brooklyn Law School deanship. In this article, Dave breaks down Professor Russell Osgood’s question and answer session with students, held on Thursday, January 12. For background on the dean search process, read Dave’s previous article here. See Dave’s article on Larry Solan here.

"Osgood the Paradigm Shifter" - Illustration by Shaina Rubin

“I am an unprickly person. I have zero tolerance for prickliness,” Professor Russell Osgood, former Dean of Cornell Law and former President of Grinnell College, said at the student Question and Answer session held on Thursday, January 11.

The first thing the student audience learned about Russell Osgood was that he had been in the Navy, and it showed in his demeanor. This no-nonsense dean candidate, sporting a pink shirt, is brilliant, refined, and a bit stern. He chooses his words precisely as he speaks, hands on hips at points, conservative in demeanor, and, judging by his academic writings, perhaps in politics. He wants to re-shape the perception of the school from without and within.

Osgood’s love for academia is unquestionable. He promises that he will always teach, regardless of his position at the school. He taught every year he was a Dean and every year he was a college President, and he is unaware of anyone else with that kind of teaching record.

Sitting in the audience, one could feel his whole demeanor shift as he brought up his passion for good teachers. He brightened up when talking about his time as President of Grinnell College.

But he noted that his plan “was always to go back to [the] law school world which is my basic professional identity.” Not only did he profess his love for teaching, but he described himself as “also someone who likes being an administrator.” He likes “heavy student and faculty contact, and “the outreach into the larger legal world.”

Perhaps his biggest flaw was that he left some students wondering whether he genuinely wanted to come here. “Your faculty think I’m cagey about saying what I think about Brooklyn Law School,” Osgood stated dryly. “If I came in and said this is what you need to do at Brooklyn Law School to accomplish “x,” you should not hire me,” he then stated.

Yet Osgood seemed to know exactly what Brooklyn Law needed. The mission of the school, he argued, needs to be changed. It needs to mean something, he said.

He was particularly excited by Brooklyn’s location, noting that we have “the finest site of any law school in America. Something more needs to be done [to use this factor to promote the school.]”

In response to a question from Stuart Linder, ’12, about job concerns, Osgood told a story about getting jobs for three of his research assistants for Washington University. He described that he helped them through the process. They each got the job they wanted, he reported. “We’re all going to have to work very hard right now [to ensure that students get jobs.]”

Osgood’s primary emphasis revolved around improving presentation of the Brooklyn Law School brand. He described poring over the school’s website and viewbooks, and finding vague, meaningless statements that were useless at differentiating BLS from any other law school. Yet a quotation from respected Judge Jack Weinstein about BLS’s uniqueness appeared far back in the viewbook, he said, when it should have been highly prominent.

In response to a question from Joel Gaffney, ’12, on student participation in administrative matters, Osgood provided an anecdote from his days heading Grinnell. The College began appointing student members to Trustee committees, but after a year, all the trustees wanted all students fired from all the committees. One of the reasons was that students weren’t showing up. But by changing the policy to require that students apply to be on committees, the Grinnell administration was able to ensure that students who participated were truly interested in doing so.

Osgood’s brilliance came through when describing his decision as Dean to launch the creation of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, a free website compiling cases and statutes that almost every law student has likely accessed at some point. He reminisced that the Cornell faculty unanimously opposed the creation of the site. Even he thought it would flop, he admitted. But after talking with the person who introduced the idea again and again, he decided to go with it. Osgood told the story to demonstrate how impossible it is to predict institutional needs. One cannot help but think he is trying to convey something more—that he can do something big for BLS.

And as to jackhammering on the plaza during finals? “I wouldn’t have let it happen,” Osgood, the Navy Man, confirmed.

Larry Solan: The Builder

This piece is the first in a series by David A. Shapiro, ’12, examining four new candidates for the Brooklyn Law School deanship. In this article, Dave breaks down Professor Lawrence Solan’s question and answer session with students, held on Tuesday, January 10. For background on the dean search process, read Dave’s previous article here.

"Solan the Builder" - Illustration by Shaina Rubin

“I kinda got a bug in me,” Professor Lawrence Solan says, referring to his desire to be Dean of Brooklyn Law School. He loves teaching, he continued, but feels that running an institution would be more enjoyable than continuing his academic career.

Although Solan did not apply for the dean position last year, he did apply for the corresponding position at Albany Law, where he made it into the final handful of finalists.

We can only speculate as to why he chose to apply for the dean position for the first time now, but rumors abound that it has to do with the revamped power structure in the Brooklyn Law School Administration.

As Professor Ursula Bentele commented, this time around, the new Dean will report to the Board of Trustees directly, rather than to President Joan Wexler. And insiders intimate with the process report that this may indeed have been a factor for candidates in choosing to apply to be the next Dean. Moreover, President Wexler, according to insiders, is expected to retire in three years’ time.

Solan’s focus is clear: “Our reputation will be improved by having better centers,” he noted.

Solan sees Brooklyn Law as possessing the potential to be a leading school for entrepreneurial endeavors. He seeks more partnerships with other institutions—particularly abroad.

From 2006-2010, Solan served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, during which time he oversaw the creation of several new study abroad programs, where previously programs had existed only in two countries. He also listened to students and faculty to create new course offerings and revamp the 1L course schedule.

Solan noted that while he seeks to grow the faculty, “We are going to, over time, shrink the student body a little bit. We are going to increase the competition to get in to reduce the competition going out.”

Yet perhaps the issue that was most glaringly unaddressed was that, despite his eagerness to hear and share new ideas, Solan had a hard time articulating just how he would pay for the new connections and institutions that would make Brooklyn Law a powerhouse for years to come. One of his ideas, met with timid support from students when they were informally questioned about it after the presentation, was to do a more effective job of reaching out to alumni who have graduated in the last dozen years.

Solan’s years at Brooklyn made him easy to engage with, though he has a subtle sense of humor—many of his jokes seemed to hit the audience unaware. He was most compelling when telling anecdotes of past interactions with students.

Solan recounted that, while he was associate dean for academic affairs, a group of students presented him with a petition for an animal law course and recommended an instructor to teach it. He said that the very next day, he hired Professor Mariann Sullivan to teach the course.

Solan declined our request to answer follow-up questions related to the anecdote, so we reached one of the students (now an alumna).

Kathleen Christatos, ‘10, recalls being “one of the students who met with Dean Solan about offering an animal law course at BLS.” She describes her experience with him as “entirely positive. I was incredibly impressed with his responsiveness. I don’t know the time frame for when he hired Professor Sullivan, but he moved the process along incredibly fast and I took the course the very next semester.”

Solan said that he sees the possibility of “practitioners-in-residence” as “conduits” between students and greater community. He remarked that a “focus on having people here with good ties to the practicing community… “will help you gain attention and salience.”

Building those ties is what a Solan Deanship would provide. “It is our business to make it so that…the value of this degree to alumns goes up.” He referred to the commitment as a moral one.

“You’re going to see a lot of me if I’m the dean. I would like to periodically but routinely be available.”

Legally in Love: 9 Dating Tips for the New Semester

Illustration by Shaina Rubin

Happy New Year BLSers and welcome back:

I hope you managed to catch up on some zzzs in between handing in the last minute draft of your journal note, discussing the finer points of negotiations during your winter session class, or just simply boozing the last two weeks away. I’ve spent some of post-hangover mornings tallying up my score-card from the past year – a fair amount of surreptitious glances across the courtyard, several “no one can know about this” conversations, and a whole lotta sexting. Needless to say, these activities only served to boost my G.P.A.

2012 is sure to be a year full of craziness, challenges and changes: we have a new dean in store, a sad parting of an adored professorship couple, and…of course, the “updated” BLS Connect Website. The spring semester alone is already jam-packed: amidst moot court competitions, job searches and “reading” for class, how does one make time for fine tuning those flirting skills?

Perhaps the key is just to keep it simple, go with the flow, and look relatively decent for school each morning. In order to safely proceed through the BLS dating jungle during the Spring 2012 semester, I’ve put together a list of guidelines:

1. Savor those “un-planned” run-ins in the courtyard, cafeteria and library. You won’t be a student – or single – for that much longer.
2. Rumors spread like fire – you can look, but always be conscious of who and how you touch.
3. Remember, it’s not a legal “commitment” until there’s a ring on your finger.
4. Always double check whose name is in the “to” box before you send out the message about the impromptu “late night study session.”
5. Why so serious?
6. Tuxedos and ball gowns for law school prom. Enough said.
7. Instead of dating lawyers and law students, try a starving hipster musician. [extra credit if musician is prom date].
8. Keep in-class flirting to a minimum – it’s already bad enough to continuously show up late to your 9 a.m. seminar, but it’s even worse when you creepily smile at your computer screen until 10:50.
9. Follow the rule of law set down by Queen of Pop, Britney Spears: keep on “dancing ‘til the world ends.”

Good speed, good luck and watch out for those goggles – you’ve been warned.

Letters to the Editor: ABA Responds