Summer's out for the School Year

Some thoughts on school starting back up this week:

- It's fun seeing all of my classmates again after barely seeing any of them this summer. Can't say the same about being back in class. Still in denial.

- Berkeley is dirty and full of bums and sticky sidewalks (I can hear my shoes peeling off of them), but it sure has a lot of good places to eat. Top Dog, how I missed you!

- The commute from Fremont is looong, but thankfully I only have to make it four times a week. No classes on Friday! Three-day weekends!

- I'm taking three normal classes and one writing workshop. But because of all the construction going on at Boalt this semester, resulting in a shortage of quiet time/space for scheduling final exams, non-1L professors have been encouraged to give their classes take-home finals. So I am going to end up having one big paper and three take-homes. Not sure if that's good or bad - I'll let you know in December - but right now I don't like the feel of this. At least the take-homes are time-limited.

- I'm taking Con Law, the one class I'm genuinely excited about besides the workshop, and it took just two days of reading to come across a reference to a certain friend's Pulitzer-winning father. That was pretty cool.

I want to play golf.

Relief!

Job hunting might be my least favorite thing to do in life, and I've done more of it than I care to remember. Unfortunately, the start of 2L is all about the job hunt.

It starts in three days, when online bidding for on-campus interviews (OCIs) opens up. This is a strategic process based on your grades, work experience, and extracurriculars vis a vis law firm rankings and priorities. For instance, if you are straight out of college and have marginal grades, you probably don't want to bid on the top-echelon firms. A lot of research goes into figuring out the best fits for your profile.

Right now everyone is finalizing resumes, cover letters, writing samples, and bid choices, and next week the OCIs are assigned. In the two waves, you can land up to 30 OCIs!

Then the process really gets going.

On your interview days, you get dressed up, grey or black suit with conservative shirt and tie, and join the herd of other identically-dressed drones. The law firms set up shop in a nearby hotel and shuttle you in and out for 30-minute quickies, during which time they get a snapshot assessment of your personality and a peek at your transcript, which they haven't been allowed to see until then.

You have to be prepared to discuss your writing sample, your classes, the practice areas in which you are interested, etc. You should also have some insightful questions to ask to demonstrate your engagement in the process without revealing a failure to research the firm ahead of time. And try to act like someone who would be fun to work with.

Rinse, repeat 20 to 30 times, as necessary.

Assuming you bid strategically and interviewed well, the call-backs start to come in shortly thereafter. Each call-back usually involves six half-hour interviews at the firm, with various associates and partners, and maybe lunch. Some folks do nearly as many call-backs as they do OCIs, and if you want to work in NYC, DC, LA, etc., then pack a bag. It's a wonder they still hold classes during this process.

When you reach the end of the gauntlet, usually sometime in October, the offers (hopefully) start to come in, and you get to choose where to spend the following summer. And unless you end up hating the place (or they end up hating you), that's probably where you'll start your career the following year. If you end up at a good place, they'll give you a healthy stipend after graduation to carry you through the bar exam and pay for your prep courses.

So basically, the start of your legal career, over two years away, is dictated by a nightmarish process that begins... now.

Thank God I don't have to go through ANY of it!

I got a call today from DLA, and they officially invited me back for next summer! I accepted on the spot. I had hoped going in that I would like the firm enough to not go through OCI this fall; I ended up loving it. All that was left was waiting to see if they would invite me back, and while I was optimistic, today's call was still a gigantic relief. Time to celebrate!

A Brief Respite

After a crazy summer, I've finally been given two weeks to do NOTHING. Work ended last week, and other than playing a couple rounds of golf, I've been basking in my own laziness. Time to recharge the batteries for the upcoming school year. I'm already getting emails on first-day reading assignments, and the anticipation fills me with dread. After returning to the real world this summer (okay, semi-real world, but still), it's hard to muster the motivation for 2L.

At least I'm distracted by our new 52" HD! Arrived today, just in time for the Olympics. Once I get it set up, we'll have folks over for some serious Wii playing (straps now required). The thing is humongous!

I have another round of golf scheduled for tomorrow, with my brother and his in-laws. We tried for Stanford, but it was all booked up, so we're headed to Shoreline instead. Steve and I played a round in Castro Valley on Wednesday, and we shot matching 97s, with a couple of mulligans mixed in for those WTF tee shots. Steve was way longer than me off the tee, but my short game saved me. I managed to get up and down in two or three whenever I was in pitching range, which helped me card some nice pars. I took a one-stroke lead into the par-5 18th, and I thought I had him when I hit a testy 6-footer for bogey, but he managed a tap-in par to pull even. Not bad for a guy who hadn't swung the sticks in 15 months.

Okay, I'm off to play with the new toy. I want to see every particle of that China smog tonight.

Best Movie Ever?

A confluence of events got me started on a new task.

A while back, Andrew started ranking his favorite movies on a spreadsheet, ultimately settling on Shawshank at #1.

Then a few weeks ago, EW came out with its 1000th issue, featuring the top 100 movies of the past 25 years. Pulp Fiction came in at #1.

And most recently, The Dark Knight immediately jumped to #1 on IMDb's top 250 upon its release, topping The Godfather.

So of course that led me to wonder how my own movie rankings would turn out. What would be my #1? I already have my movie ratings, but those only require me to throw a movie into one of ten buckets. A ranking would actually require me to differentiate within those buckets, not a simple task. To make this thing manageable, I decided to limit my list to just 50, i.e. all the tens and the best of the nines.

My main criteria were how I felt about the movie immediately after watching it the first time and how that feeling has held up over multiple viewings. Unlike EW, I considered each movie in a series individually. The way they lumped the LOTR trilogy together, I don't see how they gave it anything but #1.

I didn't consider The Dark Knight for my list. I thought it was excellent, but I need to see it a couple more times. I do think it's a bit preposterous for it to be #1 on IMDb. Almost as preposterous as EW leaving out Shawshank and The Usual Suspects from its top 100. And they picked the wrong freakin' Tom Cruise/Cuba Gooding Jr. flick! What were they thinking?!

Well now you can ask that question of me. Without further ado, my top 50:

1. A Few Good Men - This was actually an easy pick for me. Sorkin rules.
   
2. The Usual Suspects - The best ending AND villain performance ever.
   
   At this point you're probably thinking I'm the world's biggest Kevin Pollack fan. Okay, you probably aren't thinking that.
   
   
3. The Empire Strikes Back - The best movie in the best trilogy.
   
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The best movie in the second best trilogy.
   
   
   
   
5. The Shawshank Redemption
   
6. Pulp Fiction - #6 on my list, yet only my second-favorite movie that year.
   
7. The Godfather
   
8. Terminator 2
   
9. Amadeus
   
10. JFK
    
11. Raiders of the Lost Ark
    
12. The Princess Bride - Not top ten? Inconceivable!
    
13. Braveheart
    
14. Star Wars
    
15. Return of the Jedi
    
16. The Hunt for Red October
    
17. Die Hard - The second best villain performance ever.
    
18. The Matrix
    
19. The Fugitive - Janitor makes this top 20.
    
20. The Godfather II
    
21. Groundhog Day
    
22. Dead Poets Society
    
23. Shakespeare in Love
    
24. L.A. Confidential
    
25. Schindler's List
    
26. Glory
    
27. Unforgiven
    
28. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
    
29. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    
30. Quiz Show
    
31. The Silence of the Lambs
    
32. Clerks
    
    
    
    
33. Toy Story
    
34. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
    
35. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - The sixth Harrison Ford flick on this list!
    
36. Jurassic Park
    
37. Ocean's Eleven - My favorite heist flick, but just barely.
    
38. The Thomas Crown Affair
    
39. Office Space
    
40. The Terminator
    
41. The Insider
    
42. Minority Report
    
43. Gattaca
    
44. The Player
    
45. Glengarry Glen Ross
    
46. Thirteen Days
    
47. Henry V
    
48. The Sixth Sense
    
49. Babe
    
50. Army of Darkness

Trivia: Harrison Ford has been in six of the movies on my list. Can you name the actor who has been in five?

poll by twiigs.com