I recently wrote about a conversation I had had with someone about to interview at the Pentagon.

He emailed me a follow-up after the interview and agreed to let me share:

I had to call the secretary when I arrived at the Pentagon so she could escort me to the office. (Go to the bathroom before you get there because, unless you have the requisite security clearance, your escort cannot let you leave their line of sight. Also, the Pentagon is BIG, so arrive 30 minutes before your appointment. Oh, and you have to bring two forms of picture ID. I was able to bring in my cell phone, no problem.)

Also, two other things I remember my friend [who helped me get the interview] and I talking about…

First, getting a federal job these days is difficult because of the high number of wounded vets coming back from Iraq. For many jobs, there is a point system (70-100) to determine your eligibility. If you are a vet, your get a 5 point bonus; disabled vet, 10 point bonus. Anecdotally: If a disabled vet meets only the minimum qualifications for the job, s/he will get the job before someone who scored a 100 and is not a vet. In a related anecdote (but not exactly the same as that described above), there was an ingtelligence job I applied for in Homeland Security. I scored an 89. The minimum score to be in the category of “best qualified candidates” was 100! And there was a 2nd tier for the vacancy in which the minimum score for the same was 105! Needless to say, I didn’t get a callback for that one.

Second, if an undergraduate wants to get a federal job, it is IMPERATIVE that they keep their GPA above a 3.5. It is VERY DIFFICULT to mask a poor UGPA, even seven years and many life lessons later.

He wrote about the interview in more detail on his own blog (note that the posting, including the posting header, includes some "mature language," in case that determines where you read it). His longer discussion about the GPA issue is very important for others to hear -- many college students have no idea how much a low GPA can come back to bite them many years later, whether they're applying to grad school or a job:

[The interviewer] then started talking about the importance of undergraduate GPA as a predicter of occupational performance in his departments. I started freaking out a little bit inside my head. I got my BA in 2001 with a fairly low GPA--really low...2.84 low. I'm a smart guy, but I never learned how to study in high school where everything was a breeze. Anyway, I had a 3.5 during my last three semesters of undergraduate work, so all my shitty grades came from 2000 and before...that's seven years ago. In fact, one of the reasons I came back to grad school full-time was to reestablsih myself as a serious scholar and professional. I'm about to graduate with my MA in three weeks and I have a 3.87. So, he keeps going on and on about the few times he's broken his own rule about hiring someone with a UGPA lower than 3.5 and how he's regretted it every single time. All I could muster was something to the effect of, "Well, sir, my UGPA is certainly not the best part of my resume." He ended the interview by asking me to send him my transcripts. After a great first two-thirds of the interview, the last third sucked ass. The interview lasted an hour and a half.

I left the Pentagon, dejected in the extreme. I grabbed a bite to eat and did a little shopping therapy at Best Buy. I called my friend who got me the interview and told him everything. I said that I wanted to send my interviewer an e-mail along with my transcripts explaining that I was a VERY different person now, more focused and disciplined. (There's a big difference between being 20 and being 28.) I wanted to have my current professors and employers send him recommendations that proved my UGPA is not reflective of who I am now. My friend said that was a great idea, and that my interviewer might have simply been giving me a test to see how I'd react. In fact, given the entirety of the interview, my friend was fairly confident that he still wants to hire me. So I sent my interviewer that e-mail yesterday, and my professors and employers will be sending him their recommnedation e-mails over the next few days.

Good luck -- keep us posted!

For anyone thinking about taking the U.S. Foreign Service Exam, here's an update from the U.S. State Department:

The U.S. Department of State is in the process of revising the Foreign Service Officer selection process in some important and exciting ways. We will not be giving the traditional paper-and-pencil exam in April 2007, and instead we tentatively plan to launch the new process sometime this summer. This new process will still include a test, but the test will now be computer-based, and somewhat shorter than the old. The process will also include some innovative new steps, which we describe in the following paragraphs. As the new process is finalized, we will update this website, so please check back from time to time. In addition, if you click on the "Keep Me Informed" tab, you will be able to sign up to receive regular updates by e-mail.

First, a question asked by many is "Why are you changing the selection process? What's wrong, what's broken?" The answer is that nothing's wrong, and nothing's broken. In fact, the quality of the candidates we are selecting is outstanding. But, like any strong organization, we want to do even better.

With that in mind, we have consulted widely, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of our selection process with best practices of the private sector. We have concluded that we can make our selection process better by adopting what we call a Total Candidate approach. The aim is to comprehensively assess the candidate's full range of personal attributes – knowledge, skills, abilities, experiences, and personal strengths.

Read more about the process here.

I was talking recently with someone who is interviewing for a job at the Pentagon, and I thought I'd share some general tips. The Pentagon, as you all know, is vast, but here’s generally how I would approach an interview there:

1.  Have some questions to ask about the job (logistical, substantive, etc.) but don’t force the questions. A position like this is designed for an intelligent, inquisitive person, but they don’t want someone who is forcing it during the interview. At the same time, they aren’t looking for workers who are hoping to land a job at the Pentagon so they can tell everyone they work at the Pentagon. Interested, but discreet, should be the approach.

2. Call ahead to get precise directions (if you don’t have them already). Federal buildings with high levels of security are like mazes, and the last thing you want to do is show up late. Find out about parking, contact phone numbers, whom to ask for, etc. (This one is really an all-purpose interviewing tip.)

3. Do not wear lots of watches, jewelry, cuff links, etc. It sounds cliché, but they do like people with a buttoned-down, respectful appearance (read: conservative).

4. Do not bring a cell phone. Most of the time these buildings restrict them, and bringing one in your pocket will just require you to return to your car to drop it off or leave it with the security people (either of which could make you late).

5. If the interview is with a military person, feel free to use “sir” and “ma'am” in conversation (where appropriate). Though you are a civilian, the token effort to show respect to the uniform goes a long way. Even the civilians in the building will appreciate it, so while you shouldn’t overdo it (it’s not boot camp), it’s something to keep in mind.

6. Use a firm handshake, look people in the eye, and try to avoid using words such as “like,” “you know,” etc. (Another all-purpose tip)

7. BE KIND TO THE STAFF. If you’re shown into an office to wait for the interviewer, be friendly and cordial to the admins, secretaries, etc. If the staff doesn’t like you, it can sink your chances at the job,even if you gave a great interview. (Another all-purpose tip)

8. Avoid political chit-chat. You don’t need to swear allegiance to GW Bush, nor should you speak critically of either political party. It’s unlikely that you’ll be discussing politics in the first place, but don’t force a political discussion just because you're at the Pentagon.

Edited to add: See update on the interview here.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that an official at the U.S. Department of Education held shares in a company that issues federally guaranteed student loans. Looks as if the financial aid community is keeping the New York attorney general awfully busy these days.

Interesting to compare Columbia's PR response to the Department of Ed's, whose press page doesn't even mention the scandal. (Columbia's news page gives the dean's response top billing.) As of today, that Department of Ed official (Matteo Fontana) is still listed on the staff page, while the financial aid officer at the center of the Columbia scandal has been suspended.

More postings on the financial aid racket here, here, and here.

For this year's crop of graduating seniors, engineers are -- as in previous years -- the best paid majors, according to a new survey by the National Association of Colleges & Employers. At the top of the list? Chemical engineers, with an average starting salary of $59,707. Biggest increase over last year? Marketing majors, with an average starting salary of $41,285.

Read more here.

Here's an email I received this evening -- it went out to Columbia College alumni (among others):

You are probably now aware of news reports relating to an undergraduate financial aid officer who may have violated Columbia policies by having a financial relationship with Student Loan Xpress, a student loan lender. The employee involved has been put on administrative leave pending an investigation into this conduct. We take this matter extremely seriously since the integrity of the process by which we recommend lenders to students is of utmost importance to us. While we have not confirmed all of the details, the case here appears to involve a single official who may have violated our policies, and we believe that this has had no adverse financial consequences for students and their families.

Our goal has been and remains to ensure that students and their families have the best choices of independent high quality preferred lenders to help finance their higher education. In 2005, Columbia's process of selecting and overseeing preferred lenders was reorganized and centralized to ensure that we identified lender sources who could provide the most favorable terms and services for our students. These changes were designed to ensure a competitive process, overseen by the University's Office of Student Services, that includes six financial aid directors broadly representative of our University population.

In view of the recent allegations we have taken a number of additional steps: the University immediately contacted the New York State Attorney General, who had been conducting an investigation into lending practices at other universities; the lender involved has been removed from our preferred group pending a complete review of the facts; Columbia has also insisted that a public endorsement by the Columbia employee that appeared on the lender's website be removed and we have been advised that it has been removed.

We are all fully supportive of what the Attorney General has done to make student lending more transparent and will continue to work with his office on this matter. It is important for you to know that Columbia does not have the kind of direct financial relationship with student loan lenders that was the subject of the Attorney General's recently- announced settlement with a number of other universities.

We have moved quickly in this case precisely because we take our responsibility to you and your families so seriously, and we wanted to share this information with you.

If you have any questions or concerns, please call Nanette DiLauro, Director of Financial Aid Operations at 212-854-3711.

Zvi Galil
Dean
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

Austin Quigley
Dean
Columbia College

I've posted previously about the financial aid racket and financial aid administrators who sign off on loans that students have no business taking out. Now comes the news, according to the New York Times, that "[t]he directors of financial aid at Columbia University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California held shares in a student loan company that each of the universities recommends to student borrowers, and in at least two cases profited handsomely." I bet that's the tip of the iceberg.

One of the things I’ve learned over years of working with twenty-somethings is how often fear motivates their decision making as they embark on life after college. Our culture treats graduation as a rite of passage, and yet college does such a poor job of preparing graduates for the working world. I see four common patterns in particular:

1.    You’ve been enriched by a wonderful liberal arts education, but as graduation looms, you’re convinced you don’t know how to do anything, that you haven’t been trained to do anything. You love the humanities, and you write well, but you have no idea how to translate those skills into a meaningful job. You don’t know the “business world” very well (at all, really), but you feel pretty certain that you won’t like it, or won’t be good at it. The job search process seems overwhelming, and your instinct is to stay in school a bit longer. Many of your friends are applying to law school, and it starts to sound better and better. You don’t need any prior work experience or specialized training to apply, you figure you know how to write well, and the paychecks look awfully good. Plus, you’ll get your parents off your back. They’re certain that if you don’t go to graduate school now, you’ll never go back.

2.    You’ve been preparing for a particular profession since you were a teenager -- say, medicine. You’ve been studying a specialized curriculum for many years and invested a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in that track. Over time, you’ve become less and less enchanted with your training, but becoming a doctor has become so central to your identity, and is so expected of you by this point, that you charge ahead. Each step of the way is already planned and fairly predictable, and deviating from that plan and the career you chose as a teenager becomes unthinkable.

3.    You wrote all those wonderful essays about your career goals and made it into a top business school. To get in, you had to sound very focused and knowledgeable about your career plans, but in truth, like most people, you had hoped to figure that out in grad school. As business school graduation approaches, you have many wonderful options, but you’re still not entirely sure what direction you should choose. You’re feeling the pressure to “pick a horse.”

4.    Your parents came to this country with nothing and have struggled to give you only the best opportunities. Because of a mix of their own life challenges and cultural norms, they insist that you follow a particular path during and after college. Maybe you want to explore another direction, or you have no sense of direction at all yet, but you feel obligated to follow the path they envision for you.

Do any of those scenarios sound familiar?

How wonderful, then, that there’s a new book called Getting Unstuck by Dr. Timothy Butler. I’ve been a fan of Tim’s for years. He co-authored one of the books I frequently recommend to my own coaching clients, Discovering Your Career in Business, and he more recently published The Twelve Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back. Getting Unstuck is his third book, which focuses on how people can break through mental impasses that hold them back personally and professionally.

Tim brings many years of research and coaching to the issue. He is a psychologist as well as a Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School. One of his long-term research and practice interests is the relationship between personality and work satisfaction. He uses the term “deeply embedded life interests” to describe those innate preferences, specific to our own individual personalities, that make us jump out of bed in the morning and want to go to work every day.

So what do we do when our work lives don’t engage those embedded interests? And -- more relevant to twenty-somethings -- how do we discover those embedded interests in the first place? This week I sat down with him to talk about his new book and explore what advice he would give to twenty-somethings in particular.

Fear of the Dark

In his book, Tim talks about people holding themselves back because they essentially fear “the dark”:

We want to move in the sunshine, walk along familiar streets, and have experiences that are sure to give us pleasure. We want to feel that most of life can be planned and that we have a reasonable chance of avoiding pain.

I would argue that for many people, merely graduating from college is moving into a “dark place,” and that rushing off to graduate school is a way to stay well within the familiar and the comfortable. I asked Tim for his thoughts.

His advice is to recognize that feeling anxiety at these important junctures is not a bad sign. He also emphasizes that your twenties are ideally a time of exploration. At this stage in your life, you don’t know enough yet about the world (including the working world) or how you fit into it, and you’re going to be testing yourself in different situations and environments. His advice to recent graduates is to give yourself permission to do that exploring and testing, to look around and take it all in.

Not having a plan

Tim also emphasizes that clarity about your career and the kind of life you want to live doesn’t come to everyone at the same time. If you’re looking around at graduation and panicking because everyone else seems to have such a clear plan, don’t. It’s OK not to have that clarity right away, and trying to fake clarity won’t serve you well at all.

Parents

He also concurs that some parents don’t realize what a negative impact they are having. They want what’s best for their children, and in their minds that usually equates with lining up the best grad school options, right now. That sense of urgency precludes any meaningful period of exploration. In your twenties, all you should be doing is getting a general sense of North, South, East, and West – a general sense of direction, not a specific “Point A, then Point B, then Point C.” Parents would do their children a big favor if they encouraged a phase of career exploration. (My mantra, especially when I’m talking to parents, is: “Grad school isn’t going anywhere.”)

Assessment

Tim is a big fan of career assessment, and your twenties are the perfect time to start engaging in assessment exercises to get that general sense of direction before narrowing in on a particular career. (He says that it’s in one’s thirties that the challenge becomes how to narrow in. Twenty-something don’t need to be doing that yet.) Getting Unstuck has two exercises that I encourage people to try. One is called the 100 Jobs exercise, and the other is called the Ten Basic Interests exercise. You’ll have to buy his book to do them -- a very cost-effective investment.

Pedigree

So many of the people I work with who are going through the admissions process fall into a very common trap of defining themselves by where they went to school or where they hope to go to school. So much of their sense of self-worth seems to hinge on a standardized test score or admission to a particular program.

Tim agrees that parts of our culture reinforce that equation very strongly, especially on the hiring front when we read that certain firms hire primarily from a small number of schools. He adds that the obsession with pedigree can be a source of suffering and pain for people, and that this is just one factor that can cloud their ability to recognize what kind of career is going to be meaningful to them. A great resume does not equal happiness, he points out. And ultimately that’s how he defines what makes a good career for someone: a role that allows you to feel that you’re making a contribution because you’re in a place where your talents and energies and embedded interests have the best chance of being realized.

Read more about Tim’s book here.

I'm excited to report that CBS News picked up on my blog entry about the AutoAdmit hoo-hah. Read the CBS article here (scroll down to "Justice For Lawyers?").

I’ve been thinking about an article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about tacit dress codes for women in finance (“Wall Street Women: Dress Code of Silence”). Relevant bits:

In an age where the rules of professional dressing are constantly shifting, and women have much more freedom than in decades past, there is still one area where there are more unspoken rules than ever: finance. While their male counterparts may sport "business casual" khakis, many women on Wall Street feel they must toe a careful and conservative line. They often feel obliged to dress up in order to command authority. These women still struggle not to be defined by traditionally feminine pastimes, like dressing well. The result: They don't talk about fashion openly, for fear of appearing frivolous.

. . .

Casual events often call for chinos and an Izod for men. But women who arrive in golf clothes are likely to strike the wrong note. This came home for Lisa Tames, a banker at Citigroup in New York who favors practical looks from Ellen Tracy and Ann Taylor, when she recently attended a conference. The dress code was casual, but a female colleague raised a few eyebrows by wearing slim green capri pants. "It wasn't projecting her ability in her field," recalls Ms. Tames, who says she rarely dresses down.

I don’ t know a professional woman who doesn’t struggle with this issue to some degree. I wondered, though, if this article made things sound too black and white, so I talked to a vice president of a highly regarded Manhattan hedge fund. Her response:

“Wall Street Women” is a very broad -- too broad -- term.  There are bankers and traders and money managers, all of whom have different dressing needs.  It largely depends on whom you’re dealing with as your clientele.

The traders / salespeople in general can dress more fashionably.  Hedge fund folks dress pretty casually as a rule, and don’t mind if their salespeople are trendier.  We have one saleswoman who is always dressed in Diane von Furstenberg dresses, for example, and it doesn’t bother anyone.

I think bankers tend to be more conservative in dress, because of whom they’re dealing with -- if you’re dealing with a Midwestern CFO or a Japanese company or whatever, you want to look more formal.

In general, my own view has always been that one need not look stuffy and formal, but it’s better to stay in the muted color palette.

Interesting that she notes the color palette. In the story above about the capri pants at the conference, I suspect the issue was more the color than the style. My rule of thumb for women in a professional setting: you want people to notice what you think and say, not what you wear. Green capri pants are going to be eye-catching even in a casual work setting, whereas tan capris might not have raised eyebrows.

My other rule of thumb for women: When in doubt, overdress. That’s true across the pond as well. A London-based woman with experience in investment banking, venture capital, and asset management tells me: “I do think men take women more seriously when they are 'dressed up' as opposed to casual. Jeans for example -- a lot of men wear them but women don't get the same respect when wearing jeans.”

Also keep in mind that there are tacit rules you just have to deduce by looking around and figuring things out through trial and error, and those rules vary from office to office. I remember showing up at my law firm as a first-year associate -- this was in Los Angeles, where dress codes were already pretty casual compared to the East Coast or Midwest. Our dress code was business casual Monday through Thursday, and casual on Fridays. So on my first Friday I showed up in well-cut jeans, a blouse, a tailored jacket, nice shoes, and an Hermes scarf. I was quickly pulled aside by a more senior associate and sent back home to change -- “No jeans!” I thought that was pretty silly, when I looked a lot more put together than the guys with their polos and chinos, but at the same time I was grateful that someone had told me what the office norms were.

A different but related story: I was at the Boston Symphony Orchestra last night -- world-class musicians, conducted by James Levine. Doesn’t get any better than that. Dress codes were on my mind because of that article, and I noticed that while the male musicians were all in white tie tuxedos, a lot of the female musicians were dressed in what could have been Chico's separates from the mall, as if they'd been on their way to brunch or a faculty meeting.  Women have fought hard to make it into world-class symphonies -- I wish they’d dress appropriately. If James Levine can bother to wear a tux with his sweating and sciatica, you'd think the women could bother with formal wear too. I'm not talking about an Anne-Sophie Mutter strapless look (talk about clothes threatening to overshadow talent), which is easier to pull off as a soloist than an orchestra musician, but even a suit would be a step up (see Hilary Hahn).

See article in UVA Law School's newspaper here.

BusinessWeek releases its latest rankings of top undergraduate business schools, with Wharton, UVA, and Haas taking the top three spots.

Even more exciting: UVA's program is a steal, with annual tuition around $8,000 for in-state students.

Half of US college students binge drink or abuse drugs, according to a new study from Columbia's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. As reported on CNN.com:

"I think we have, by almost any standard, a serious public health problem on the college campuses. And it's deteriorating," Joseph Califano, who heads the center and served as U.S. health secretary from 1977 to 1979, said in a telephone interview.

. . .

"Basically the proportion of college students who drink and binge drink has stayed constant. But what's troubling is the tremendous increase in the intensity of their drinking and drug use and the excessiveness of it," Califano said.

. . .

"College presidents, deans and trustees have facilitated a college culture of alcohol and drug abuse that is linked to poor student academic performance, depression, anxiety, suicide, property damage, vandalism, fights and a host of medical problems," the report said.

While the cable news shows seem to be focusing on the upswing in abuse of prescription drugs like Vicodin, OxyContin, and Ritalin, a greater proportion of substance abusers in college favor cocaine and heroin (8.2% of students). That's a sad state of affairs.

Here's an excerpt of a piece I wrote recently -- it was directed at the parents of college freshmen returning home for winter break:

More drinking goes on at college campuses than you could possibly imagine, and that new-found freedom can escalate very quickly into serious substance abuse problems. Thursday afternoon through Monday afternoon is one non-stop alcohol binge on many campuses, and if your kid seems to fall off the radar for half of every week, take action before their transcripts and their health suffer serious damage. If you think colleges are acting “in loco parentis,” think again.

That may have sounded like an exaggeration to some parents, but this new study suggests otherwise. I've worked with a number of people trying to recover from the train wreck that their college years turned into as a result of their "partying" (sounds so innocuous). It's very hard to undo that damage, whether you're applying for jobs after college or hoping to go to grad school. I honestly don't know that students realize when that spiraling starts to happen, so it's especially important for professors, administrators, and parents to pay attention to warning signs. This is one area of college life where helicopter parenting can do a lot of good.

This past weekend the Boston Globe discussed the "rising chorus of critics who worry that b-schools have grown overly academic and removed from the actual workings of business" ("B-Schools Get Back to Basics"). Those critics include business professors (McGill's Henry Mintzberg, Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer, and USC's Warren Bennis and James O'Toole) as well as the business world (more on that here):

Feeding the urgency of such moves are fears that some companies might have second thoughts about hiring freshly minted MBAs at six-figure salaries. "When you hear the McKinsey and Goldman Sachs tell their bright young people not to go back and get MBAs, that's a bad sign," [outgoing dean of MIT's Sloan school] Schmalensee said.

As I've written about previously, several top business schools (including Stanford and Yale) have been revamping their curricula to make them more customizable and more hands-on, and the article profiles MIT's efforts in particular. What I love about this innovation is how different the entire mindset is than at stodgy old law schools where even the slightest tinkering with the 1L curriculum causes a stir (most notably changes at Chicago in 2000 and Harvard in 2006).

Wanted to share with you an interview I recently gave for LawCrossing.com. The article is geared towards law school students, but the advice is much more broadly applicable.

Lots of people have been sending me an article on the front page of yesterday's Washington Post called "Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web: Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks." The relevant bits:

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, has published in top legal journals and completed internships at leading institutions in her field.

I guess you know the bar exam has arrived as a sexy topic when someone makes a movie about it (Bar Exam, The Movie!). I can't imagine anything more boring than watching a bunch of people agonize over the bar exam. Maybe that's because I've taken two myself: California, reputedly the hardest in the country; and Louisiana, definitely the weirdest in the country. Both were trivial exercises compared to my six-hour Property Law exam given by David Currie. Every other exam I've taken was pretty much a cakewalk in comparison, maybe with the exception of Roman Weil's Financial Accounting exam, which... well, let's just say I did a lot better than I thought I had walking out of that exam.

The bar exam is indeed big-stakes stuff. The practice of law is a government-sanctioned cartel, which means you can't go hang out a shingle or print up your business cards if you haven't jumped through a bunch of cartel-required hoops. One of those is the bar exam, meaning you can't legally practice law without passing it and meeting a bunch of moronic and irrelevant continuing education requirements.

Don't believe me? Here are some topics covered by one of California's approved continuing education providers:

• "How Far So Far? Advances Women Have Made and Continuing Obstacles"
• "Substance Abuse Prevention, Detection and Treatment Issues"
• "Prevent Malpractice -- Learn Google"
• "Dealing With Difficult People"
• "Overcoming Procrastination: How to Kick the Habit"

What the general public doesn't know is just how low the baseline is for passing and maintaining one's licensing as a lawyer.

Newsflash: the bar exam is not rocket science. I attended a prep course for my first bar exam, and for my second I skipped the lectures entirely and just read the books for the two weeks before the test. I am not a born test-taker (hate those people!), so I assure you I don't have a magical gift when it comes to these tests aside from some baseline level of intelligence, which you can't teach anyway. What you can't do is take it cold, no matter how smart or great a lawyer you are.

Still, the bar exam prep industry is a big one and is dominated by BAR/BRI. The Business Section of today's NYT has a big article about a federal law suit brought against BAR/BRI in federal court in Los Angeles. The article discusses "just how petty and cutthroat the entire bar review market can be."

There's no reason there should be any meaningful barriers to entry in the bar prep market, particularly in the age of the internet. (And sure enough, those online courses exist.) So I don't understand all the caterwauling about big, bad BAR/BRI. If you don't like them, don't give them your money. You have options. Maybe those young lawyers suing BAR/BRI do in fact need that continuing ed course on how to use Google -- it would have taken them all of two seconds to find a competing course.

New York magazine has a well-written and astute article about Gen Y and how this generation gap is the first really big one since the fifties:

"It's been a long time since there was a true generation gap, perhaps 50 years-you have to go back to the early years of rock and roll, when old people still talked about "jungle rhythms." Everything associated with that music and its greasy, shaggy culture felt baffling and divisive, from the crude slang to the dirty thoughts it was rumored to trigger in little girls.