This Valentine’s Day, Avvo is doing its best to help non-lawyers find a nice lawyer to settle down with. This post offers ten tips for landing and keeping the lawyer of your dreams. For example:

#6 Make love notes long and confusing

Brevity and clarity make lawyers feel uncomfortable and agitated, much like normal people feel at the DMV. For example, don’t say, “Let’s head back home early for some fun.” Instead say, “Let’s return early to the domicile for some malfeasance.”

#8 Always cite sources

When in doubt, point to scientific studies, real or imagined. For example, instead of saying you “feel” that fried Twinkies should be illegal, say they’ve been associated with stroke and suicidal ideation. Your lawyer lover may chastise you for sloppy research later, but will respect your appeal to authority.

Incoming search terms:

• dating a lawyer
• dating lawyers
• dating an attorney
• dating a lawyer tips
• tips for dating a lawyer
• tips on dating a lawyer
• candy heart
• LAWYERS DATING
• dating attorney
• tips for dating an attorney

No related posts.

Not quite law-related, but hey — we all went to college, right?  And this is a pretty nifty infographic.

Wait, I can make this law-related.  Berkeley has an Arguing with Judge Judy course?  Awesome.  That reminds me of a local judge who told me that his mother was a huge fan of the People’s Court.  She apparently would call him nightly, repeat the facts of the case, and ask him to rule.  If he ruled differently from Judge Wapner, he was clearly in the wrong.

Without further adieu, here’s the College in America infographic via Online Colleges and Universities (click to enlarge — you may have to click twice).

Incoming search terms:

• infographic people
• college in america infographic
• university infographic
• infographics people
• people infographic
• people infographics
• infographic university
• university infographics
• college
• college infographics

No related posts.

Our trusts & estates professor usually begins class by detailing a semi-current event from T&E.  He recently brought this [defective] will to our attention:

Background:  A Brooklyn couple were killed in their home, and then a series of wills were found in their apartment.

Excerpts from Husband’s Will:

• “To my brother, who I know hopes to be in my will, well, here you are.  I leave my brother the sum of zero ($0.00) dollars.  I believe this sum is fitting, as you are probably the most greedy person I know.”
  • “Robert, brothers are supposed to want each other to be the most they can be and make the most money they can. You, on the other hand, just sat in judgment of me and were always jealous.”
  • “I, on the other hand, only wished you the best and to win the lottery.”
  • “So, Robert, you have a choice, you can come to my grave site to say hello out of love or piss on me for not giving you money.”
• He asked to be buried with scuba gear “and cast over the side of a vessel into the ocean where my body may rest undisturbed by any person[s] in the deep.”
  • “Although I recognize that this request may very well violate certain . . . laws of the State of New York and Federal as well as multiple other jurisdictions, I trust that my Executor and friends will ignore same.”
    • Although the will did provide that his estate could be used to pay for any legal problems resulting from the burial.
  • Should his friends be unable to bury him at sea, in scuba gear, he suggests that they come up with something befitting his character.
    • • He suggests “a beach party with stripers. [sic]“
• $50,000 to two of his friends, on the condition that they refrain from telling their respective spouses, so that “they may not get their hands on same.”
• “In the event my friends [brothers] fail to provide me with a burial befitting my character, then and in that event, I curse each one of them as follows”
  • “To Boom Boom, the electricity never be on when you need it”
  • “To TR, never will any of your radios work again”
  • “To Bobby, never will your gun shoot when you need it.”
    • Note: Ironically, Bobby Delvicario was a suspect in the death of the couple.

Excerpt’s from the Wife’s Will:

• “With regard to my estranged family who were never there for myself or my children, but always there for their distorted version of Catholicism, I give and bequeath the sum of $1 each to my” mother, father, two brothers and sister “and request that they donate same to their precious church to whom they had a greater allegiance, than to their first child and sister.”
• In an awkward turn of events, she named her ex-husband and left him nothing
  • She did, however, make a gift to a battered women’s shelter in his name.  Yikes.

Hat tip to Professor Zachary A. Kramer.

Incoming search terms:

• weird wills
• weird party
• beach party background
• surfista auriema
• beach backgrounds with couple
• plaj partisi
• pissonme
• most weird wills
• bob cummings beach party professor
• wierd wills

No related posts.

While jogging around my college town the other day, I got to thinking about pedestrian traffic laws.  It occurred to me that I have neither followed them well myself nor seen them followed particularly well either.  There is apparently something about liberal arts students from New York, San Francisco, and every other large city known to man that makes them capable of both mosey-ing about in the street between the dining hall and the dorms and also ignoring imminent threats to mind and body caused by the cars that are, you know, just trying to be there too.  I began to wonder why we have laws dictating the flow of pedestrian traffic at all.  This got me thinking and I realized that there are a ton of laws that pretty much only bother people.  As the (self appointed) token student of philosophy on the writing staff of Legal Geekery, I’ve decided to take it upon myself to write a few posts of (almost actually good enough to be considered legal philosophy) legal philosophy that analyze laws that seem inconsequential and annoying.

I was annoyed by this pedestrian phenomena as a teen with a drivers license, speculative about the possibility that crossing carelessly could be convenient as a freshman here at Oberlin College, and guilty entirely of the violent crime of jay walking in front of cars while staring at the driver like a jerk during the remainder of my time at school.  I’ve decided to write about this topic first because it has a very certain character to it.  For a law to be both selectively enforced by police and almost uniformly dismissed as a general rule among the population, the question of why we have such a law needs to be answered.

To make things a bit more specific I’m going to focus on the facts ofthe matter as they pertain to Ohio.  Traffic laws vary from state to state, but Ohio follows the Uniform Vehicle Code which is a set of traffic standards followed by many states and administered by The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws  and Ordinances.  The law regulating crossing of roads states that roads should be crossed at marked or unmarked crosswalks only, and that the pedestrian must yield right of way to drivers elsewhere.  Traffic laws pertaining to cars, however, do not relieve the driver of any duty to prevent a traffic collision with a pedestrian, even if the pedestrian does not have right of way.

Flash forward to a scenario where a person gets hit by a car.  In this hypothetical scenario, the facts support the assertion that this law is meaningless.  -  Also, for the philosophy NÜB, nobody is damaged in any really sad way because this is a thought experiment.   Nobody actually gets hurt, so you can feel better about thinking about the scenario.  -  A suit is filed against the driver for damages of some kind.  It is established that damages occurred, and in order to decide whether or not to award damages, and also how much to award them for, it is most common that an attempt to establish fault for the damages will happen.  Fault is decided most often by determining who in the situation is responsible for what percentage of the cause of the damages.  For example, the driver could be responsible 80% or 90%, depending on the facts of the collision.   The driver would then be responsible for paying a portion of the damages proportional to the level of fault that the driver is responsible for.  The catch here is that carelessness on the behalf of the pedestrian can never relieve the driver of his duty not to hit the pedestrian.  No amount of illegal jay walking could take responsibility away from the driver of the vehicle.  Damages cost the driver quite a bit, and if ticketed for jay walking at all, the pedestrian will be responsible for paying a tiny fee.

In this situation we see something important.  The law regulating pedestrian crossing has not served to hold pedestrians accountable for their actions.  It has not deterred, and certainly would not deter, a pedestrian from crossing in a dangerous setting.  With the way that pedestrian laws do not protect drivers from pedestrian misconduct, I’m shocked more people aren’t jumping out into the streets with the aim of collecting insurance settlements.  What then is the reason for this law?

Perhaps it is illegal for a less reasonable purpose. If you investigate the ways that the law is enforced, you find some interesting realities.  In Los Angeles particularly, and anecdotally I’ve seen this in San Francisco and New York personally, the jay walking law has become heavily enforced against the homeless.  Due to the inability of your average homeless person to pay a ticket of any sort, police are able to arrest the homeless once an arrest warrant had been issued for the nonpayment of said ticket. A quick Google News search will also show that a considerable number of cases of jay walking have been used to justify further investigations and often searches that result in far more serious charges for a very particular subset of people.  An obscenely high proportion of the jay walking mentioned in police blotters over the last week involve teenagers being reported by adult residents in upscale neighborhoods.  Another shocking trend is that a large fraction of these police interactions result in drug charges.

In these situations, investigation of jay walking allows police to legally justify the investigation and enforcement of other laws and social policies.  Even more scary is that we are almost all open to this particular form of legally justified search.  I am certain that the majority of people in the USA will end up jay walking at some point this year.  A police officer’s right to question or search you has to come from probable cause, and an initial minor traffic violation is often used to support the further investigation of many different crimes, most notably OVI or DUI.  A law that almost all people break, opens us all up to the possibility that we will be questioned in a way that could lead to further investigation.  I find this to be a scary and unfortunate legal situation.   The best way to open the American population up to considerably more invasive police scrutiny would be to make us all criminals in the eyes of the justice system, and as best can be told, we’re already one step along the road to that nightmare.

Incoming search terms:

• jaywalking laws
• jaywalking facts
• jaywalking
• jaywalking law
• jaywalking ohio
• jaywalking laws in ohio
• facts about jaywalking
• ohio Jaywalking Laws
• los angeles jaywalking law
• Jaywalking laws ohio

No related posts.

Joshua already laid out the most badass attorneys of all time. But what about the just plain bad? Here’s a countdown of some of the most vile, evil, and corrupt lawyers ever to enter the popular imagination. From drug lawyers to mafia bosses, let’s just say that none of the attorneys on this list aced their Professional Responsibility exams.

6. Tom Hagen, The Godfather Parts I-II

“Now we have the unions, we have the gambling; and they’re the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future. And if we don’t get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have. “

He may not be a wartime consigliere, but Corleone family attorney Tom Hagen knows a thing or two about a thing or two, capice? Advisor to two generations of mafia dons, Hagen is loyal and capable. He arranges any number of hits and guides his mob bosses through several turf wars and acquisitions. He negotiates with crooked judges and corrupt senators and intimidates casino owners and studio heads. He even takes over as acting Don in The Godfather Part II. He’s an able attorney, but if you get on his bad side you just might wake up next to the severed head of your favorite horse.

5. Billy Flynn, Chicago

“Give ‘em the old double whammy
Daze and dizzy ‘em
Back since the days of old Methuselah
Everyone loves the big bambooz-a-ler”

As defense attorneys go, Billy Flynn is a success. He gravitates toward the limelight and seems to specialize in defending the most salacious and tabloid-friendly clients, getting even the most blatantly guilty an acquittal. Most of his litigation tactics seem to revolve around snapping his fingers dancing a softshoe, and jazz hands, which may or may not be sound legal practice but sure does wonders with his all-female clientelle. They must teach those techniques in advanced Trial Advocacy.

4. Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, The Dark Knight

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. “

Unfortunately for crusading D.A. Harvey Dent, his words turned out to be true. Despite being the only criminal prosecutor on this list, it isn’t long after he loses half of his face to a horrific disfigurement before he goes on homicidal crime spree. Whether on a specifically-targeted revenge spree as in the The Dark Knight or the more generalized villainy of the comic books, Harvey Dent is one bad dude with two  faces. The tragedy of the character is that he starts off as a crusading force for good, but ends up as a punching bag for a rich orphan in a bat costume.

3. Wolfram & Hart, Angel

“Our firm has always been here…in one form or another. The Inquisition. The Khmer Rouge. We were there when the very first cave man clubbed his neighbor. See, we’re in the hearts and minds of every single living being.  See, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil. It works because of it.“

An evil law firm with offices all over the world and in several dimensions, Wolfram & Hart were the long standing antagonists whose apocalyptic plans made life difficult for vampire with a soul Angel. The Senior Partners are unspecified demons from a hell dimension, the firm keeps a team of ninja assassins on retainer, has an in-house blood sacrifice division, and makes their associates sign employment contracts that keep their souls billing hoursfrom the afterlife. So just like any other BigLaw firm, really.

2. Maurice Levy, The Wire

Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy: You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off…
Omar: Just like you, man.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy: …the culture of drugs. Excuse me? What?
Omar: I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?”

Counsel for Marlo Stanfield, The Wire‘s most infamous drug kingpin, Maury Levy epitomizes the amoral sleaze that crusts up at the bottom of the legal barrel. The Wire is rightly praised as the deepest, most uncompromising peice of modern literature and it doesn’t pull any punches in its portrayal of even the good guys, so a shyster like Levy is doomed to ignominy. He approaches the role of advocate with abandon, and he doesn’t leave any dirty tricks out of his arsenal. From advising his clients to kill potential witnesses to teaching a gangbanger tutorial on how to launder drug money Levy is everything a lawyer shouldn’t be. But he’s still less evil than…

1. John Milton, The Devil’s Advocate

“And as we’re straddling from one deal to the next, who’s got his eye on the planet, as the air thickens, the water sours, and even the bees’ honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity? And it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There’s no chance to think, to prepare; it’s buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future. ”

It’s hard to get much more vile than the source of all evil, Satan himself. He went to war with God. He tempted Eve. He has been bedevilling mankind since the beginning, but apparently he’s also a handy trial lawyer. As an attorney, he guides his firm in accepting ritual slaughter cases and isn’t afraid to do the dirty work himself. He personally dispatches the demonic muggers that make annoying managing partners go away. He may not be particularly clever at choosing inconspicuous aliases (seems like naming your earthly incarnation after a guy who is famous for writing a poem about you lacks a little subtlety even for the Prince of Darkness), but the fact that he is actively trying to instigate the End of Days makes him a very poor role model for would-be lawyers indeed.

Who are some evil lawyers you love to hate?

Incoming search terms:

• lawyers are evil
• evil lawyers
• evil lawyer
• why lawyers are evil
• are lawyers evil
• famous corrupt lawyers
• most evil lawyers
• billy flynn chicago
• lawyer evil
• famous bad lawyers

No related posts.

6. Atticus Finch

“No real-life lawyer has done more for the self-image or public perception of the legal profession than the hero of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.”  97 Mich. L. Rev. 1339.  This guy isn’t even real and there are 19 law review articles entirely about him.

Atticus raised two children alone while teaching them to be open minded and judicious to all.  Along the same vein, many scholars suggest that Atticus was simply the true advocate, and took Tom Robinson’s case not because of any tremendous moral fortitude, but because he was appointed Mr. Robinson’s representative.  Even if that’s true, the guy stood up to a mob to protect a black man in the 1930′s!  It doesn’t really get much more badass than that.

5. Kevin Lomax

* Spoiler Alert *

If you see this guy at opposing counsel’s table, run the hell away. Oh wait, you can’t, because he’s the son of the devil!  Not only can you not hide from this guy in hell, but you can’t beat him in court, either.  Seriously, you can’t — he’s never lost a case by virtue of being the devils son.  Apparently the game is rigged.

This guy is so ridiculously intense that he neglects his bangin’ wife, played by Charlize Theron, because he’s spending his time representing child molesters.  When his senior partner suggests that his wife has gone bat-shit crazy and he should take care of her, Mr. Lomax responds with:

You know what scares me? I quit the case, she gets better… and I hate her for it. I don’t want to resent her, John, I’ve got a winner here. I’ve got to nail this fucker down, do it fast, and put it behind me. Just get it done. Then – then. – put all my energy into her.

Oh yeah, she dies from side effects of being literally seduced by the devil.  Hard. Freaking. Core.

4. Ray Beckerman

So you thought this list was going to be all fictional characters, huh?  Nope!  Attorney Beckerman runs a website called Recording Industry vs The People.  There are rumors that the RIAA has pictures of him attached to dart boards in their game room, which essentially makes him The Hero of the Internet.

When he’s not litigating cases against the RIAA, he’s on Twitter.  He’s following 2500 people and somehow mysteriously manages to catch all of their tweets.  I’m pretty sure he’s a robot assembled in upstate New York with a direct feed into the internet.

RIAA beware.

3. Judge Dredd

I could probably just leave this section with the picture and mark it as obvious, but I have all this white space to fill up.

The tagline of this movie according to IMDB is: “One man is Judge, Jury, AND Executioner.”  Being that there aren’t really jobs resembling attorneys in this mythos, Judge Dredd is the closest thing.  It’s a good thing that we don’t get this kind of hardware or there would be even more attorneys running around.

There are rumors that Govenator Schwarzenegger was offered the role but turned it down because in the original script, the majority of the scenes called for Judge Joe Dredd to wear his helmet.  Apparently in the comic book version, Judge Dredd removes his helmet only very rarely.  That didn’t stop Stalone’s Judge Dredd, however, who is so badass that he can take his helmet off whenever he damn well pleases.

2. Benjamin L. Matlock

Like most attorneys, Matlock doesn’t know a lick of evidence.  Well, okay, it’s admittedly unclear whether he knows the rules of evidence or he just doesn’t care about them.  You can’t really get mad at him though because he looks and acts like your senile grandpa.

Unlike most attorneys, however, his crazy outbursts, lack of preparation, and disregard for the court has won him an almost flawless trial record.  No one ever calls Matlock by his first name either — not even judges — and that’s pretty cool.

Ah screw it.  I’m going to say it: Matlock is basically the worst attorney ever.

1. Vincent LaGuardia Gambini

My Cousin Vinny has had an unexpected presence in my life as a law student.  We’ve watched clips in two of my classes now, and there was a showing of the movie in the auditorium last semester.  My girlfriend also cites the movie as “the reason I went to law school.”

Vincent Gambini barely graduated from law school, and is essentially the guy that flags you to start checking Facebook when he’s cold-called.  It took him a while to pass the bar exam, but the sixth time was the charm.  True to life, his cases rarely went to court, so his first trial was the murder trial of his nephew, the Karate Kid.

Like Matlock, Vinny doesn’t understand the rules of evidence, courtroom etiquette, or the law, but he manages to put on a pretty great show while ultimately procuring an acquittal.  He also wears a funny suit and also has a bangin’ girlfriend played by Marisa Tomei, which makes him pretty badass in my book.

Incoming search terms:

• badass lawyer
• badass lawyers
• matlock
• matlock suit
• kevin lomax
• my cousin vinny suit
• atticus finch badass
• bad ass lawyers
• badass attorney
• everything that guy just said is bullshit

No related posts.

For those of you who haven’t been exposed to the NYU Law Revue yet, this is a good ice-breaker.  I could deal without the exceptionally long credit intro, but the rest of it is exceptionally amusing because unfortunately it’s true.

We Didn’t Hear The Question sung to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire:”

Click here to view the embedded video.

I couldn’t find the lyrics online, so I transcribed them:

Daily Candy, Davit Latt
Talk to me on GChat
Pics on Flickr
Post on Eater
NYMag.com
Perez Hilton
Order Netflix
Check my email
Tagged in 8 pics
North of Houston
South of Houston
QWOP is the bomb!

Picture Book
Gawker
I’m a facebook stalker
Thrillist
Check Craigslist
“Take good notes I have to miss”
Fashionista
Twitter
Your ex-girlfriend’s bitter
What’s on BuzzFeed
Gothamist
3L Senioritis

We didn’t hear the question
Been too busy browsing
And online carousing
Please repeat the question
Won’t disable wifi
This class is just too dry

Ann Coulter
Maureen Dowd
Drudge Report
Talk of the Town
Wall Street Journal
The Observer
Freel Cell is tough

Email
SBA
Party’s on: it’s Thursday
IMDB
Wikipedia

Fantasy team
Lexis points to redeem
Sneak to Golding for a snack
High school wants its drama back
Facebook
I’m so bored
Menupages
YouPorn
HypeMachine: That’s obscene
Overheard in New York

We didn’t hear the question
Learning ’bout preemption
But the web’s too tempting
Please repeat the question
Won’t listen to the prof
Thank God for our laptops

Buy tickets on eBay
ESPN
Coach K
Page 2
March Madness
Check on the UConn Score
Puppycam
Defamer
I Can Haz Cheezburger
AIM — what a bore
No one IMs anymore

Funny Or Die
HuffPo
Volokh Conspiracy
Coast to Coast
Space Ghost
Becker
Posner
Blog posts
YouTube
I saw layoffs on Above the Law
Will Shortz crossword engrossed
I use seamless web most

We didn’t hear the question
Class is just too boring so we’re web exploring
Please repeat the question
Don’t know why we attend
Can get notes from a friend

Google Maps
HopStop
Where to make my train swap?
ShopBop, can’t pay
Where’s the Word of The Day?

JDate for the Hebrew Tribe
Match.com, see what’s inside
One drink, okay
EHarm must let in gays

Image search:  Colin Firth
View my house on Google Earth
WebMD: Diagnose
Class is over, adios!

We didn’t hear the question
Class is just so taxing, we prefer relaxing
We didn’t hear the question
Class just makes us yawn
But we don’t get called on.

We didn’t hear the question
We didn’t hear the question

I wish that we had a group like this at my school.  Keep it coming guys.

Incoming search terms:

• law revue
• we didnt hear the question
• nyu law revue
• we didnt start the fire
• we didnt hear the question nyu law revue
• nyu law revue lyrics
• nyu law revuew
• nyu school of law review funny
• parody music law review
• nyu law revue 3l facebook gchat

No related posts.

We at Legal Geekery are so intent on giving our readers exactly what they’re looking for that we’ve decided to launch a new segment devoted to your questions.  How does one get selected to be featured in this new segment, you wonder?  It’s simple.  All you have to do is find Legal Geekery via a search engine by asking a question which is not already answered on the blog.

Thankfully, we already have plenty of these entries.  Here are the first few to get you started:

1.  transcript of record

Sorry, you’re going to have to be a bit more specific.  Are you looking for your own transcript?  If so, we recommend checking with your school first.  If you still can’t find it, talk to your law school Dean.  I hear Deans like nothing more than being asked these types of questions.

2.  am i smart enough to go to law school

Not to burn any bridges here, but let’s step back for a moment.  You actually typed that question into Google.  Does it mean that you’re stupid?  Not necessarily.  Does it mean that you’re about to embark on a career where you’ll be constantly judged by your intelligence, and you don’t even know if you’re smart enough to put your foot in the door?  Unfortunately, yes.

3.  does it really matter what law school you attend

Yes.  Really, really.  My super-pragmatic-to-the-point-that-I-didn’t-even-follow-it advice would be if you can get into a T14 school, do it and forget about the money.  If you can’t, go to whichever tier 2 school gives you the most money.  And don’t be fooled by misleading statements about how they’ll consider increasing your scholarships next year.  They won’t.

4.  easiest law school to get in

Harvard, hands down.  I couldn’t reject them fast enough.

5.  funny reasons not to go to work

I just traced your IP, found your identity, and sent this search to your boss.  You no longer have a job.

6.  acapella text to speech software

There are so many things wrong with this search that I have no idea where to start.  So I won’t.

7.  am i likely to get an attorney job 3 years out of law school?

First, let me say how amused I am that you treat Google like a functional Ask Jeeves.  Anyway, I suppose the answer to your question depends on a lot on what you’ve been doing with yourself for three years.  For instance, if you have some acceptable excuse for not practicing, I can’t imagine that it would be a huge problem.  If you’ve been serving 3 to 5 for assault, my answer may change.

8.  law school isn’t what i thought it would be

We’re sorry to hear that.  Out of curiosity, what did you think it would be?

—-

Well, that’s it for the first installment of We Aim to Please.  Keep the awesome questions coming.

Incoming search terms:

• we aim to please
• we aim to please s

No related posts.

Apparently the hip new way to get free representation for your patent dispute is by spamming law students on internet dating websites.

Background:  Around 2006 I created an OkCupid account to “meet ladies.”  I’m no longer looking for a “lady friend” but I update my profile periodically for no good reason.  The most current version briefly talks about my interest in patents and intellectual property.

I was a bit surprised to log into my email account a few minutes ago to see a notification of a new message on OkCupid.  Curious, I logged in to see the following message waiting for me:

They all want money!  Can you believe such ridiculous assertions?  I was going to come up with something witty to lead into his profile, but really, res ipsa loquitur.

Right.  I guess that could be why they never write back.  Occam’s Razor says that it’s probably because you’re kind of crazy.

As I flipped through the rest of the profile, I kept marking things to illustrate here.  However, there was so much amazing material that I thought I would just recreate the listing anonymously.

Without further adieu, click here for the full listing.  Good news ladies: if you’ll litigate his patents, he’s definitely available.  I refuse to make any joke about 40 Year Old Virgin being one of his favorite movies.

No related posts.

New York Magazine has this great bio on Demetri Martin, whose show, Important Things With Demetri Martin, premieres this week on Comedy Central (W @ 10.30); his site.
Martin became a hero to law students’ hopes everywhere when he dropped out of NYU Law before his 3L year to pursue comedy.

I got a chance to see him with Will Ferrell last February while promoting their site funnyordie.com — it was great.  His jokes are sharp and his delivery and deadpan are perfect.  The bio explains how he can turn sketches + jokes into a series.

On the New Show

So far, his act had consisted solely of one-liners, presented like Zen koans. (He has one joke that could serve as a personal credo: “Some jokes are short and elegant, like a mathematical proof, or a midget in a ball gown.”) Now he wanted to learn to connect with the audience. “Yes, the audience can sit there and say, That was a good joke about robots. Very interesting about fire hydrants. That’s true about snowmen. But how long can you do that for? We’re not robots,” he says. So he decided to write an hour-long show about himself: his obsession with wordplay, his nagging need for validation, his embarrassing arsenal of useless talents (a unicycle would make an appearance), and his habit, for a few years at least, of keeping a notebook in which he’d give himself points each week for doing things like eating vegetables, helping strangers, or demonstrating moral courage. And he decided this production would be a true one-man show, in that he’d do everything himself, right down to composing the music and sewing the costumes. The only problem with this plan was that he didn’t know how to play a musical instrument. Or sew.

On His Career

Despite appearances, as a kid, Martin was not a comedy nerd. He grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, and he liked to skateboard and solve puzzles. At a young age, for no particular reason, he decided to become a corporate lawyer and followed that through two years of law school before dropping out before his final year. The very first time he did stand-up, he told twelve one-liners. Six worked and six bombed. (One of them survives to this day: “I once tripped on an escalator. I fell down the stairs for an hour and a half.”) But the next day he strolled the city listening to his act on a tape recorder. “I kept rewinding it to the jokes that worked, walking around with headphones on, thinking, This is amazing.”

His family, however, was not pleased with his decision. “They were like, You’re going to be a comedian? This is crazy. Just finish your last year.

I for one am glad he dropped out.

Incoming search terms:

• demetri martin
• demetri martin law school
• demetri martin nyu
• demetri martin LSAT
• nyu law
• demetri martin nyu law
• demetri martin sat scores
• demetri martin costume
• demetri Martin as a kid
• nyu law students

No related posts.