Justice Douchebag

Once again, I was a judge for New York Law School's moot court competition tonight. The panel was two of us and a partner of ____ & ____, a white shoe firm, who's also an adjunct at NYLS.

The first competitor, from a law school down south, was deaf and argued through two interpreters: one to translate what he was saying; one to translate for him what was being said. Needless to say, I was remarkably impressed that this kid had the balls to enter a moot court competition. His being selected to represent his school in this competition confirmed his ability. My first reaction was to give him a perfect score just for entering, but then I thought that I'd show more respect by judging him based on his performance, and he was very good. He knew his stuff and was very prepared to argue, and I know I'm a tough bench.

So we're giving our feedback after the argument, and wouldn't you know that the reaction of this asshole from ____ & ____ is that this student is "at a disadvantage" because of his "situation." He says that this student is unable to "stress" certain points with his voice, and needs to figure out a way to "level the playing field."

What a fucking dick! Here is this student, who has had to work harder than anyone else in the room, and doing a freakin' great job at it, and this guy has to throw it back in his face that he's deaf. Like he doesn't know. Friggin' idiot. As I write this now, Nilda is telling me that I'm typing too loud. I told this student that I thought the playing field was definitely level, that he had no problems stressing certain points, and that he was very effective, which he was. Schwartz's reaction was great: "Classic ____ & ____."

Moral of the story: don't let anyone tell you what you can't do.