Lawyerin'

I get a seemingly endless stream of emails from the ABA, most of which languish in my in box or I delete without a second thought. Tonight, however, one came through and the subject caught my attention:

Law Grad Pays $114K Debt with Sack of Cash

So I clicked on the link to see what kind of absurdity lay within.

A 2009 University of Toronto law graduate apparently made enough money at a venture capitalist firm to pay off his remaining $114,000 law school debt with just one payment—and he did it with cash.
Alex Kenjeev tells the Business Insider he was trying to be funny rather than make a point. "It was stressful enough to carry such a big debt load,” he said. “I thought it would be worth getting a few laughs out of it.”
Kenjeev says the process was cumbersome, and the banks didn’t share his sense of humor. At first, the Royal Bank of Canada balked at Kenjeev’s request to withdraw the money, then required him to wait three days, he tells the Business Insider. When the money was released, he stuffed it in a canvas bag and walked two blocks to pay off his loan at Scotiabank.
It took two-and-a-half hours for tellers to count the money and complete the transaction. "I didn't really realize how much of a hassle I'd cause for everybody,” he said.

My brain immediately started doing that exploding thing. Oh you've motherfucking got to be kidding me! You paid your ENTIRE debt off and thought it'd be so funny if you did so in cash? This kid deserves to be punched in the face. Repeatedly.

A vast majority of us law grads who made the unwise decision to get overly educated are carrying a similar debt burden. One that we struggle to pay and that will affect us far into our futures and a lot of the decisions about what we would like to be doing with our life. This kid was lucky enough, and yes, likely worked hard enough (in goddamn venture capitalism) to not be under such a similar strain and he made a JOKE out of it?

All I got to say to that is: !@#$%^&*(!@#$%^&*

Actually, I've got more: I prescribe to the Hank Aaron school of, "Act like you've been there before." Hank didn't watch his home runs because it's show boaty and awful but he also thought you should act like you've been there before. And that you'll be there again. I'm not one for gloating, show off behavior. I find it abhorrent and for all my flaws, braggadocio is not one of them. (Which is why I have a hard time marketing myself and getting a job and blah blah but that's another story...) The watching of home runs is why I couldn't stand Barry Bonds and his ten second admiration of every goddamn one he ever hit (and he's a pretty awful human being but that's also a whole different rant).

What this kid did is the lawyer equivalent of watching his home run. You had the means, you did something pretty exceptional, you got a bit lucky and then you took it just a little too far. So yeah, a punch in the face seems deserved.

In other weird lawyer news: as mentioned, I get like 800 ABA emails a day. One of the areas of interest I have checked off is International Law. I like international law, I'm actually pretty good at it based solely on class work, and I find the problems that it presents interesting because it has far more of a global impact than just a US-centric take. Additionally, counter terrorism is an area of interest, I did quite the presentation on the topic in my International Law class and considering we're still fighting a billion dollar war that has to do with it, a pressing issue.

All that is preface for the fact that I got an email from the ABA about a counter terrorism roundtable. It was also "complimentary". Sounds interesting, I still like learning stuff, so, again, it was immediately opened instead of taking up space in my in box.

The body of the email was in the always laughable comic sans. I shit you not. An email touting a discussion on the issues of counter terrorism was in comic sans. Because death and destruction caused by non-government organizations and how to combat them is HI-LARIOUS!

And I'm the one out of work? Geezus h...