Helping Ernie Advise New Law Students
Nice guy Ernie the Attorney was worrying today about new law students, who would soon be lugging immense tomes around campus all day. Here’s his suggestion to save their backs: I have another idea for law students who tote laptops. Scan all of your materials into PDF and buy a copy of Adobe Acrobat (the educational price for the full version is around $60 –and the regular price is $250). Then learn how to put stickie notes and how to annotate using Acrobat. When you go to class take notes right on the case (or statute) that you are covering. Later you’ll be able to jump right to the pages with notes, and you’ll be able to print your notes out. Most importantly, the notes will be attached to the materials that they relate to. With a similar spirit of empathy, my (wiseguy) sidekick, Jack Cliente, left the following Comment at Ernie’s site (slightly edited for publication purposes): Hey, Ernie, I gotta know: (1) How long would it take to scan every page of every text book into pdf form? And how long will it take for a copyright infringement suit to arise? (2) Was it my Editor’s paper route or law school experience that created his chronic back problems (and grumpiness)? (3) Do you know a good p/i lawyer with both a theory of liability for all those bad backs from stuffed student backpacks and a list of likely deep-pocket defendants? (4) Why aren’t you telling prospective law students the truth? To wit: There are way to many lawyers already, and technology, plus the coming consumer-citizen self-help law revolution, will soon be forcing most lawyers to find honest, productive work (outside the profession). So, avoiding law school altogether, or lugging books in preparation for a career change, might be the kinder, better advice. Visitors with ethics-related advice for new law students are particularly urged to leave a Comment. Those interested in the Self-Help Revolution might want to check out our postings on June 15th and June 18th, and surf over to Nolo.com. ethicalEsq?ethicalEsq?ethicalEsq? Welcome to the Blawgosphere, Robert Unterberger, with your one-day old twin (but not identical) sites, the Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers Blog and the New Jersey Personal Injury Lawyers Blog. And thanks for linking to ethcialEsq? While the blogs may be newborns (dob 7/30/03), Robert’s resume and experience look pretty impressive. I hope he’ll occasionally let me know whether he agrees or disagrees with the opinions voiced here.