Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Lewis & Clark Law School Welcomes its First Visiting International Scholar of Animal Law.


Bottom of the kennel Lewis & Clark Law School's Center for Animal Law Studies has earned a congratulatory meow, and some hearty woof-woof-woofs, as it proudly welcomes its very first Visiting International Scholar of Animal Law. This is good news for the two well-groomed critters depicted above, particularly the legal prodigy from Zurich (the one on the left, unfortunately). Maybe it is good news for our four-legged, finned, and feathered friends generally. But is it good news for law students, those biped donkeys who must foot (or shall I say hoof?) the bill?  

Lewis & Clark Law School touts itself as the premier animal law law school, the top dog in the field. And with a bar-required nonfunded job placement rate of 47%, there is no reason to doubt the school’s beastliness.

Lewis & Bark (sorry) offers 33 courses in animal law--- including "animal legal philosophy & development," "animal rights law & jurisprudence," and "comparative international animal law." A law student who takes a sufficient number of these courses can obtain an Animal Law Certificate, thereby distinguishing him or herself from the pack. ("Earning an Animal Law Certificate shows future employers a deep knowledge and strong commitment to the field of Animal Law"). The school also hosts the "Animal Law Review." [1] In addition, it sponsors an annual inter-law school animal law competition-- actually three separate competitions, including a mock lobbying tournament. It even offers what it describes as "hands-on" and "clinical" experiences —such as a two-week long "Legal Project" trip to Kenya to meet with various wildlife and conservation officials, and working with a nonprofit to save the chimpanzees of Cameroon.

On its website, Lewis & Clark Law promises "growth" and "opportunities"-- pleasant-sounding lures that an animal behaviorist might classify as aggressive mimicry:
"Animal law is growing every year, and with this growth comes increased opportunities to specialize in the field. Exposure via animal law courses, animal law internships or clinicals provide an excellent means of targeting potential areas in which to develop an expertise. The various animal law opportunities available at Lewis & Clark allow students discover how they are best suited to work in the animal law field."
The website also helpfully notes that "Some may incorporate animal law into their practice on a pro bono basis or as a sole focus." Got that, struggling solos? You can practice animal law either pro bono or exclusively. You can even do both, I suppose. If that isn’t a sound way to build a nest egg, I don't know what is. And don’t say that it is too late simply because you have already graduated. Lewis & Clark offers an Animal Law LLM.  

Look, opposing animal abuse is a worthy cause. But do not imagine that a Certificate of Animal Law or an Animal Law LLM will allow you to blend heartfelt ideals with well-compensated professional career. What you will be doing is subsidizing, with borrowed money, the well-compensated professional careers of others, namely entitled and well-connected scholarly jet-setters. Whose own lofty objective to defend the vulnerable decidedly excludes you, their debt-ridden student. Yes, law school, not just Lewis & Clark, is guaranteed to offer an unforgettable lesson about animal behavior—about predators and prey, about jackals and lemmings.

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note:

Animal law is a hot topic among law school pedagogues. According to a synopsis of a symposium article published in Animal Law two years ago entitled Critical Animal Studies and Animal Law:
"It is truly impressive that animal issues in the law have become so prominent throughout the legal education system. With this increased exposure to posthumanist critiques of the legal system and its status for and treatment of animals, an increasing number of those involved in legal education are rethinking the law’s species-based hierarchy that places humans at the apex. . .  .Integrating such insight into the analysis of animal issues in the law will rectify the speciesist and otherwise exclusionary formulations of the socially constructed differences between various species, which have so far been unquestioned assumptions."
I agree, but note an astonishing example of institutional exclusionary humanormativity perpetrated by those very individuals involved in legal education-- namely, the failure of most law schools to select nonhuman animals to serve as deans. Well, a few have-- such as Case Western Reserve, which was led for two years by an old goat named Lawrence Mitchell, Brooklyn Law School, which is currently helmed by a braying jackass, and the InfiLaw Consortium of Zoos, which will only hire corporate parrots. Regretably, however, law schools have yet to avail themselves of the keen minds and obvious leadership qualities of the following:

http://listverse.com/2011/01/15/10-deadly-tricksters-of-the-animal-world/

33 comments:

  1. This reads like satire; THIRTY-THREE courses? I almost don't believe it. This school should be napalmed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there,
      Here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink-oink,
      Lewis & Clark had a scam,
      B-U-N-C-O.

      Old Guy

      Delete
  2. A wonderfully-written piece!

    The web page for the Animal Law Review doesn't even a have a picture of an animal - but it does have a picture of a random flower. They know the difference, surely? Or are they literally the only people in the entire world who struggle to find the image of an animal online. I thought the internet was pretty much entirely pictures of cats these days...

    https://law.lclark.edu/law_reviews/animal_law_review/

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    Replies
    1. I read somewhere the crop agriculture is responsible for the death of far more creatures (rodents, snakes, insects, and the like killed by pesticide or eviscerated in farm machinery) than animal agriculture - maybe this is what they have in mind with the flower picture?

      Delete
    2. Imagining The Open ToadNovember 26, 2014 at 10:31 AM

      Hey Charles, you should climb down off your high Horse.

      After all, flowers are people, too.

      Delete
  3. I have had many cases that were dogs, but never a dog for a client.

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    Replies
    1. Only the lawyer who barks while defending himself has a dog for a client.

      Delete
  4. I plan on opening a successful practice in the niche field of suing grizzly bears and bald eagles for cruelty to salmon. This animal law LLM will be the perfect way to position myself for success, especially given this school's location in the pacific northwest. The networking opportunities with the salmon lobby are just too good to pass up.

    - Indiana Tech 2L

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    Replies
    1. Your practice will usher in the new practice area of wild predator defense. Think of all the jobs that'll be created!

      Delete
  5. This is just another example of professors teaching what they want to instead of what the students need. Most law professors are selfish asses.

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  6. I support the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

    But what about the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Students (SPCS)?

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  7. Imagining The Open ToadNovember 26, 2014 at 10:34 AM

    I told my wife I'd like to go back and pick up this LLM and the Certificate In Animal Law with a focus or specialization on Bivalve Legal Issues.

    She asked if I thought it would pay out in the end and I said sure, I hear those bivalve lawyers get a ton of clams.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What about marsupials? Deep-pocketed clients, for sure.

      Delete
    2. Imagining The Open ToadNovember 29, 2014 at 11:21 PM

      Dang, wish I'd thought of that and a way to work it into the original.

      Do some marsupials eat bivalves? Bet any self-respecting opossum-family rat would. So my clients would be suing the guys with the deep pockets.

      Even better.

      Delete
  8. They misread alli-gators and liti-gators!

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  9. For a moment, I thought this post was a joke. Now I realize that tomorrow is Thanksgiving and not April Fools Day.

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  10. Rutgers-Newark had an Animal Rights Law Clinic for a while. See http://law.newark.rutgers.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/gary-l-francione.

    Some day, hopefully, Lewis & Cluck will combine Animal Law with Space Law. Those rats need someone to look out for their interest.

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    Replies
    1. Throw in international law and they can sue the Russians for sending those dogs to outer space in the 60s.

      Delete
  11. Lewis & Clark. Where all the students are spayed or neutered.

    Old Guy

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  12. I live in Oregon. This doesn't surprise me at all.

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  13. Note that law skules offer "specialties" only in flashy but fictitious fields such as "animal law", "international law", "aerospace law", "entertainment law", and "environmental law". These exist only to flatter and lure moronic dupes. Why does not a single law school offer a "specialty" in insurance or document review or divorce or traffic tickets? Because no lemming sees herself doing that stuff. It's for some little person somewhere. But I, with my 137 and my C+ in underwater basketweaving from Bumblefuck U, am destined for grander things.

    Old Guy

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  14. What about DUI defense or traffic tickets or domestic violence defense? Do law skools actually care about what most of their graduates end up doing?

    This is beyond ridiculous. How many graduates of this skool get paid jobs practicing animal law?? This place should be shut down ASSP.

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  15. Lewis & Clark actually has this-the main article-on its website.

    (I have sat here for 10 minutes trying to decide what to say.)

    “An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to remain silent.” Edmond Burke

    I have posted a number of times on several blogs. 37 years of practice, mostly solo. I decided only to post only "real life experience perspective" comments to try to relate a lifetime's experience in terms 0L's could comprehend, hoping they could derive some useful guidance, and thereby avoid the-well let's say: "life-changing" error-I made by becoming a lawyer.

    I am more than capable of sarcasm, humor, wit, (so I say)-hey, I brought you the "law school of 8 in a hot tub"-a post somewhere, but the law school scam is actually RUINING LIVES.

    In the spirit of the Air Force's "eject, eject, eject:" (It apparently is a human mental limitation that less than three iterations of a warning are not recognized by the brain):

    Ruining, Ruining, Ruining lives. There! (Please take note!)

    In my day, the pejorative phrase to disparage law professor's articles (and legal pomposity) was "law and the banana."

    I might send my cat to study from the professor on the right, in the photo, but I would never send my sons to study from the professor on the left. (Those of you who follow, Son #1=radiologist; Son #2=civil engineer; Son #3=prospective mechanical engineer, all Eagle Scouts.)

    From my personal practice, having drawn hundreds of Wills, I have had THREE clients ask for provisions relating to their pets to be included in their Wills. Two wanted to set aside a small amount of money for a named "taker" from a list of persons, to pay for the care of their pets, and one wanted their pets destroyed on their death, without exception (and I could not sway my client from that position).

    If you think you can make a living doing anything in the nature of "animal law" as an exclusive area of practice, it means, at least to me, that you will be paid 3 time in 37 years, a total of about $1,200. Mummies can live on that level of revenue (gotta deduct office overhead, taxes, etc., though.)

    Be a zombie, not a mummy, as mummies get a lot more vacation on the Cote d'…

    I do so sincerely apologize, I sound like Lewis & Clark…


    For God's sake, 0L's, do NOT go to law school:

    1. As a 37 year practicing lawyer, age 62, mostly solo lawyer, top 21 school, top 25% rank in class, 2.5 years to find a first job.

    2. In my 37 years of practice, I have worked 56.5 years of 2,000 hour years. And, I have more 5 calendar years to go before I stop.

    3. I have NO retirement. I have savings. Those who work for big corporations have not only stock options, or employee savings plans AND a pension plan. I have neither.

    4. My radiologist son will START at 3 OR 3.5 times my current salary. So he will be 31, and earning 3 or 3.5 times my income at 62. He will have benefits-8 weeks off, minimum, health ins., life ins., disability ins., "Y" days, and who knows. I have had 28 weeks off, unpaid, in 37 years. (Well I have described these things here, and on other blogs.)

    Cincinnatus



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    1. Sounds like you've got some fine sons, Cincy. Keep up the good fight.

      Delete
    2. They are good kids.

      My larger point, is that I have kept them from the practice of law, even though they would have some advantage due to my groundbreaking.

      0L's should note that a lawyer parent is unwilling to have his children get in line and take over the practice.

      -C

      Delete
    3. Know what else, Cinc? My wife is an administrator with a large radiology practice. They are paying MRI techs $85K plus benefits. These are graduates of our state's dirt-cheap community colleges. Meanwhile, down the street at the courthouse, drowning-in-debt lawyers are trying to get $35-50 an hour appointment work in conservatorship and child custody cases.

      Delete
  16. You talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel! When will this garbage heap start admitting retards and housecats that scored 135 on the LSAT?

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    Replies
    1. Cats have already been issued MBAs and other advanced degrees by institutions of higher learning. Lewis and Clark will give a Cat a law degree, I guarantee it. Unfortunately that cat will be "overqualified" for any pet position except catching mice in windowless doc review basements for the minimum amount of catfood.

      Delete
  17. Great article. It should be mentioned that with fees and insurance, the LL.M. program is $40K for the two semesters it takes to complete the required 26 hours.

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  18. This whole program sounds like shit for the birds.

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  19. You can start with an animal law LLM from Lewis & Clark, and then follow with a global food law LLM from Michigan State. How else can attorneys properly understand the food cycle?

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  20. This ass Bolliger cannot even dress himself: the top three buttons of his shirt are unfastened, and his undershirt is exposed.

    The dog on the right is better groomed than the one on the left.

    Old Guy

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  21. Oh Christ Allmighty, this is real! (Piccard-style Double-palm)

    I thought it had to be something Dybbuk dreamt up.

    Is there anything more outlandish than this? I'm already aware of Space Law. I wonder if one could take a LLM in fictional world law, like Fantasy Law or Star Trek Law.

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