I Fought the Law

Jackass Law Student All-Stars

Recently the legal blogging community has been abuzz with the tragic tales of two jackass law students (numbers 3 and 4 below). The legal profession is known for its soaring asshole factor, but every now and then an aspiring lawyer exhibits a degree of unfettered jackassery that's worthy of comment even in a sea of jackasses, often (but not always) torpedoing their nascent professional careers in the process. In the interests of calling attention to this phenomenon, I present to you my personal Top Five Jackass Law Student All-Stars, in no particular order. I'm not saying these folks deserved their respective fates, but I am of the opinion that if you manage to claw your way into a decent law school you might want to exercise a single ounce of good judgment while you're there.

1. Tucker Max
Law School: Duke
Current Engagement: Internet Whore, also apparently developing a sitcom based on his assholery.
Jackass Claim to Fame: A consistent pattern of jerky behavior, including several incidents at summer associate events. In Tucker's own words:

"My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.

I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead.

But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way. I share my adventures with the world. They are known as:

The Tucker Max Stories"

Jackassery Fallout: Apparently gave up on the practice of law on after obtaining his J.D., and has dedicated his life to being a professional jerk.

2. Kiwi "K.A.D." Camara
Law School: Harvard
Current Engagement: Aspiring legal scholar, constantly dogged in his academic job search by the lingering fallout of his jackassery. Although he obtained a fellowship at at least one law school, he is rumoured to have been blackballed by the nation's leading law firms.
Jackass Claim to Fame: Posted an outline full of N-bombs on a website used by Harvard Law Students.
Jackassery Fallout: Everything you would expect from politically correct elite law students, along with the professional blackballing mentioned above. Also created a kerfuffle at Yale Law School when the Yale Law Journal accidentally accepted an article written by him.
Bonus Fun Fact: At age sixteen, was the youngest person ever to enroll at HLS.

3. Unidentified Boalt 1L
Law School: Boalt
Current Engagement: Trying to avoid being expelled.
Jackass Claim to Fame: Shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting, posted a vague threat to UC Hastings on an Internet message board.
Jackassery Fallout: Hastings was evacuated, the Boalt community went all CSI trying to figure out who he was, and once his identity was determined Dean Edley called for the student to be expelled.
Bonus Fun Fact: After a spirited discussion on a Boalt Alumni e-mail group, a handful of young lawyers appear eager to represent him in his First Amendment challenge should the need arise.

4. Anthony Ciolli
Law School: Penn
Current Engagement: Unemployed law student
Jackass Claim to Fame: Co-owned the AutoAdmit message board, a service apparently envisioned as a legitimate message board for law students which quickly degenerated into a forum for unrestrained racism, explicit sexual comments about female law students, and other verbal unpleasantnesses; refused to moderate messages or otherwise meaningfully respond to the fact that his website had been taken over by bigots and rapists.
Jackassery Fallout: After the firestorm set off when people realized what was going on and how it was apparently affecting the career prospects of various female law students, Ciolli ultimately left the operation and promptly had his offer rescinded by the law firm where he had planned to work after law school.

5. Elizabeth Wurtzel
Law School: Yale
Current Engagement: Obnoxious law student/hack writer
Jackass Claim to Fame: After establishing an undeserved literary career with insightful offerings such as Prozac Nation and Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and making public comments about how beautiful the twin towers looked as they crumbled on 9/11, Wurtzel enrolled at Yale Law School where she promptly became even more of a pain in the ass. By all accounts her principal reason for enrolling at the nation's top law school was to flunk out and write a book about it.
Jackassery Fallout: Like Tucker Max, Wurtzel has managed to parlay her jackassery into professional success, somehow maintaining a dedicated base of fans eager to read her trite, navel-gazing drivel regardless of how tedious it gets.
Bonus Fun Fact: Wrote an meandering, uninsightful, amazingly self-involved Op-Ed about the AutoAdmit controversy which was published in The Wall Street Journal.

Feel free to discuss in the comments. But just to let you know, I ain't no Anthony Ciolli.

Posted by hb at May 8, 2007 02:00 PM