Comments on A Troubled Typist

• This takes the cake
• Posted by Larry on February 5, 2007 at 8:15am EST

• A summer associate (i.e. not a lawyer) gets fired from a law firm (Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell ) because he can’t perform. He also wants to make more money. (A commendable virtue.) So he sues his law school. He says his GPA was too low. His GPA was too low because the tests he took required him to type fast, and he can’t type too fast, and he chose to type his exams.

  (You can read the complaint law suit against his firm here: http://www.autoadmit.com/complaint.pdf . He filed this pro se. He typed it. I can’t find what his GPA was. However, since U. Mich. has quite a high curve, I should note that if he had been at any other law school, he would have been on probation or asked to leave. It is unclear whether he intends to sue UMich in a Michigan court. The complaint is sort of funny because for various technical reasons, and is sure to end up on law firm refrigerators.)

  Nevermind that University of Michigan bends over backgrounds to help people with disabilities.

  But, while we are on the subject, why don’t we talk about things that unfair about law school.
  1) Schools with better reputations have higher curves, and therefore, it is easier to pass and obtain acceptable grades. Schools with worse reputations have lower grade curves and often award many C and Ds, resulting in up to 1/3d of the 1L class leaving.
  2) Law school rewards law students with a background similar to other lawyers, because these people know what sort of behavior is acceptable to professors and employers.
  3) Law schools generally test based on written exams at the end of semesters. People not having a “good day” on these days don’t do as well.
  4) Law schools don’t teach for “the bar.” So, students that don’t separately study for the bar fail.
  5) Most firms don’t recruit at “lesser” law schools. If this guy had gone to another law school, MNAT wouldn’t have take him on as a summer associate.
  6) Law schools reward reading. If you can’t read so well, you probably won’t do so well.
  7) The practice of law involves rectifying perceived injustices inflicted on individuals. In dealing with such individuals one must perceive that one is being treated unfairly as compared to the individuals doing the inflicting.

  … and the list goes on and on. Somehow, most life is also unfair.

  Part of me feels for this guy, because, perhaps all the injustices of the world (and law school) are placed upon him. The other half thinks he is just frustrated.

• Posted by John Lobell , Professor at Pratt Institute on February 5, 2007 at 11:00am EST

• It would seem to me that the abilities to read and to write are fundamental to being a lawyer.

  Writing would include facility with words and also the ability to put them on “paper,” once with pen and ink, and for the past 20 years with a computer keyboard.

  Are we now to say that we must accommodate engineers who have problem with math, or EMS workers who faint at the sight of blood?

  We each have different abilities, and we might take our strengths and limitations into account when we chose professions.

  We have in this country evolved systems in which schools and professions regulate themselves and determine qualifications for entry and advancement. Those systems are, of course imperfect, and we can always work to improve them. But it will be disastrous to have the courts and regulators take over such roles, as we are now in the process of doing.

  John Lobell

• The list doesn't stop
• Posted by stm60 at UConn on February 5, 2007 at 11:25am EST

• Don't forget the worst burden of all. People who didn't go to law school at all don't have as much success in being recruited by law firms as those who did. Clearly all recruiting efforts should be 'major blind'.

• Posted by Lisa on February 5, 2007 at 12:30pm EST

• At least in California the applicant has the option of writing or typing the essays. If this applicant knew he had poor typing skills perhaps he should have written. Unless, his writing is worse then his typing.

• Anyone ever take a typing (keyboarding) class?
• Posted by Touch Typist on February 5, 2007 at 4:05pm EST

• Sigh!

  Any student taking academic coursework in a college or university ***ought***, in this 21st century, to know that good typing skills are an ***essential***, not a frill. There are papers to compose, library-provided databases to search, notes for presentation to be prepared. And, as Mr. Zack found out, exams to complete within certain timed limits.

  If students do not have typing or keyboarding classes available to them prior to college there are other ways of learning the requisite skills. There are typing tutorials available for computers (Mavis Bacon anyone?).

  And there are books! What a concept. At their local libraries should be books listed under subjects such as: TYPEWRITING, or under: KEYBOARDING. It only takes a few weeks to become an acceptable typist, and a few months more of diligent practice (work on those term papers!) should make one a proficient, even a fast, one.

  The book _Typing Made Simple_ (nowadays called _Touch Typing Made Simple_), an old watch with a sweep second hand (today you'd want one with HH:MM:SS display), and my mother's ancient Remington, plus an hour a day during less than two months of summer vacation one year in high school, and I became a typist long before personal computers were invented. With the computer, and less need to pound the keys of a manual typewriter, I am a faster, and better, typist than ever I was as an undergraduate.

  Typing/Keyboarding ought to be a skill acquired in elementary school, along with reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.

• Posted by Larry on February 5, 2007 at 4:45pm EST

• Touch and Lisa, I think you guys are overstating the problem. First of all, this wasn’t the bar. Second, this guy wasn’t required to type. He could have handwrote his essays. He doesn’t even claim that people that handwrote their essays scored lower. This lawsuit is the tale of one of the few summer associates to ever be fired weeks before their term would end, that then seeks to blame everyone but himself (who managed to get into a top law school and eventually pass the bar) for his problems.

• Posted by Craig P on February 5, 2007 at 4:45pm EST

• I'm down with the slow typist on this one--we slow typers need to band together, raise our two overworked index fingers in the air, and take the fight to Congress for some protective anti-discrimination legislation. I'd write more on this but it would take me too long to do so.

• Michigan is a Great School Inspite of this Idiot
• Posted by Quizzical on February 5, 2007 at 5:35pm EST

• Thank you Larry for posting the Complaint.

  It is so defective, the former student should be assessed legal fees and costs in spite of the American Rule against that occurance.

  He was an employee at will - subject to dismissal with or without cause.

  His grades have nothing to do with his employment. His knowledge and work habits are all that count. And, by the number of lawyers who had a hand in his dismissal, the presumption is that he did not fit. That is what summer internships are all about. Style, uptake and fit.

  The fact that this fellow was allowed to graduate, if it discloses a flaw, is the assumption the high average LSAT freshman have that they can do the work that gets them through law school.

  John Marshall Law in Chicago would have had this guy on the street long before graduation. No assumptions there or in most other law schools.

  Having said that, the Michigan grad results on the Illinois Bar (one of the toughest in the country) demonstrates they are bright.

  My personal experience against them in Court for over 30 years has proved they have good work habits too. But once in a while an idiot sneaks through because of the presumption attached to admittance.

  My hope is that the unfortunate judge assigned this case smacks him in public so other idiots get the message, no frivilous litigation.

  Quizzical

• Typing has nothing to do with this suit
• Posted by Tom on February 5, 2007 at 5:55pm EST

• If you read the complaint, he also alleges a conspiracy to injure him between law school officials and the place that hired him. Yes, these folks (based on some "unknown" but "apparent animus") spent a great deal of time and energy to harm him. It seems to me that if he had been a fast typist, he would have instead realized that his professors had simply agreed to give him bad grades, based on the same "motive." In my opinion, this poor guy needs help that a remedial typing class will not provide.

• Posted by Rule 11 Calling on February 5, 2007 at 6:45pm EST

• Impose sanctions.

  That will be all.

• Posted by Larry on February 6, 2007 at 6:25am EST

• Quizzical and R.11, Unfortunately, because he is pro se (even though he is admitted in another state as far as I can tell), there is a fair chance that he won’t be sanctioned. It is very difficult – if not impossible – to send a clear message to these types (e.g. angry pro ses and lawyers representing themselves) that they need to get over it.

  Obviously, something happened that we don’t know about, because hardly anyone is ever fired from a summer associate position weeks before it was to end. Although the suit will be dismissed, it would be funny to see people give depositions in which they talk about that ever-so-vague term of “fit.”