The Red Velvet Lawyer

JD Advantage Jobs:  The Data In November, I tried to support Prof. Organ's prediction that new law-related jobs would exceed the number of graduates in 2015 or 2016. That posting has gotten a lot of attention since then.  Top law blawger, Brian Leiter , first drew attention to it. Then Ohio Professor Debra J. Merritt made further calculations on her blog . Then the Wall Street Journal picked up the story. Then the National Jurist cited my posting in its December issue.  One feature of that conversation is how to count a category of jobs that NALP began tracking in 2001 -- the "JD Advantage" (or "JD Preferred") jobs versus the "Bar Passage Required" jobs. Some people suggest, including many scambloggers, that the JD Advantage jobs should not be considered when reporting the employment rate of law graduates.  Apparently, these folks believe that all prospective law students choose law school because they al

"What Hot's and What's Not in the Legal Profession" Red Hot practice areas?  Energy, regulatory, health care. Hot practice areas?  Financial services, IPOs, litigation, labor and employment, intellectual property, real estate, and corporate. Getting Hot?  Interns rights, privately held and family business, education, elder law, and ADR. So says Bob Denny in his 25th trends report released on December 3, 2013. Bob Denny, founder of Bob Denny Associates, Inc., identifies trends in the legal profession at least once a year.  His last report came out in June 2013. His consulting firm, founded in 1974, provides management, marketing and strategic planning services to over 800 companies, professional firms, and non-profit organizations throughout the United States, as well as in Canada and the Caribbean. His report also identifies practice areas seeing less action (cooling off), the hot geographic areas for law, marketing and business development

Distinguished Alumni  of the Appalachian School of Law:  Bethany Long Local Resident Makes Good Bethany Long, a 2012 graduate of the Appalachian School of Law, currently serves as the Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney (ACA) in Tazewell County. In this job, she handles the Juvenile and Domestic Relations (JDR) docket, assists with prosecutions in General District Court, and carries a caseload of felony cases in the Circuit Court.  She recently sat third chair in her first jury trial, which resulted in a conviction for malicious wounding. She also represents the Commonwealth Attorney in the weekly meeting of the Tazewell County Drug Court team.   In Fall 2013, Bethany was one of 15 invited ACAs from across the state to attend a week long CLE offered by the Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Services Council entitled: Trauma to Trial: Investigating and Prosecuting Adult Non-Stranger Sexual Assaults .   Consistent with the Appalachian School of Law

The Red Velvet Lawyer  Gets Some Notice In an article  predicting when law-related jobs will exceed the number of law school graduates, the National Jurist discussed my blog posting on the same topic, found here . I want to clarify that my posting attempted to support the prediction made by Prof. Organ at the MAPLA conference in October 2013.  And, as noted in updates to my posting, I am happy that other folks are further examining the data and making a more precise prediction. I fully support the informed decision-making of any person applying to law school right now.  I also strongly recommend that prospective students work closely with pre-law advisors.  As I have posted elsewhere , they are a highly professional and committed group of people who strive to serve the best interests of the students they advise. I also noted that 70 percent of prospective law students fail to take advantage of this important resource.

Writing Imperfectly While We Strive for Perfection Pam Jenoff -- in her  article :  The Self-Assessed Writer: Harnessing Fiction-Writing Process to Understand Ourselves as Legal Writers and Maximize Legal Writing Productivity,  10  JALWD  (Fall 2013) -- admits that students have a hard time committing fully to the timed writing exercise I described in my last post. She explains: When I use Goldberg’s exercise with writing groups, I read a passage that explains the importance of such exercises in silencing our inner editors: "Our “monkey mind” says we can’t write, we’re no good, we’re failures, fools for even picking up a pen; we listen to it. We drift. We listen and get tossed away. Meanwhile, wild mind surrounds us—sink into the big sky and write from there, let everything run through us and grab as much as we can of it with a pen and paper. This is all about a loss of control." Janoff then asks her students to do the timed writing exercise.  She may in

Vomiting on the Page The timed writing exercise can help a writer jump start the creative writing process.  Pam Jenoff, in her article :  The Self-Assessed Writer: Harnessing Fiction-Writing Process to Understand Ourselves as Legal Writers and Maximize Legal Writing Productivity,  10  JALWD  (Fall 2013) describes the technique: Keep your hand moving. Frequently, a writer pens a sentence, then stops to consider it and edit, losing the flow of the idea. This exercise requires the writer to commit to writing without stopping for a specific period of time.  Lose control. Write without fear that the work is not good enough — a common problem that can stop writers mid-project. This underscores the idea, which many of us already teach in both legal and fiction writing, to “get it out there” and then fix it up later.   Be specific. Even on the first draft, look for language that gets to the heart of what you are trying to say and that captures the essence of the idea.

Recognizing the Source of Writer's Block A plodder is the type of writer who creates an outline or a well-established story structure before he or she ever begins writing.  A pantser -- as the name indicates -- flies by the seat of his or her pants. A pantser writes first, then organizes later. So says, Pam Jenoff, in her article : The Self-Assessed Writer: Harnessing Fiction-Writing Process to Understand Ourselves as Legal Writers and Maximize Legal Writing Productivity,  10 JALWD (Fall 2013).  Jenoff also suggests that each writer is both plodder and pantser depending on a number of factors, including: The nature of the project Size Subject matter Etc. Whether one is co-authoring. Whether one is required to submit an outline in advance of publication. Each type of writer faces different challenges when it comes to the next stage of writing.   The free-writing pantser often can't get the material she's written properly organized.The plodder, in