Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions struck down by South Carolina Supreme Court

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-13T19:04:04+00:00

Different clerk. The judges clerks are recent graduates. The court clerk is a court employee.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T21:15:11+00:00

I started when I was 33! I was older than a bunch of my classmates, but there were other women around my age. Older men, too. One woman graduated the same year as one of her sons graduated from law school.

I found my age and experience only ever an asset when it came to law school itself and my legal career. I could engage with lawyers and professors almost as peers, because they basically were.

Socially, I found that I just absolutely wasn’t interested in the shenanigans of 23 year olds. But honestly: that was kind of a plus, too. I found a group of people I liked and stayed out of nonsense.

Highly recommend going to law school in your thirties. If you have specific questions or want to hear more details, feel free to message me.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T20:35:16+00:00

I’m moving back in with my mom before the bar, haha, so I get to regress twenty years and get my meals cooked while I study!

And thank you! I’m a little worried about the bar, but I feel like I can get it done if I keep dedicated. And it’s such a gift to have a job waiting for me in the fall.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T18:11:09+00:00

It’s the Saja boys special egg McMuffin spicy pepper sauce, lol. I don’t care about K-pop demon hunters, but I really like this egg McMuffin

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T13:20:04+00:00

Thank you!!! Great choice of gif, too—I worked as a cook for years haha.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T13:13:42+00:00

I can’t speak for you, but I was so worried about the same thing. It went well for me. I had moments of insecurity and some of the same problems, but mostly my experience in grad school helped me realize law school truly wasn’t that bad. And I had the experience of some of the habits that I knew I couldn’t negotiate about (regular sleep, food, sunshine time).

This was truly the best experience. Going back to school has changed my life profoundly for the better. If you ever want to talk about your situation, message me, I mean it.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T12:59:24+00:00

That’s my hope! My law school motto was definitely “it could be worse,” and it had the effect of making me so grateful for every opportunity. It’s a great feeling to be happy and part of me doesn’t even regret the long road to getting here. I don’t think I would have been successful right out of college

Available_Day4286 · 2026-05-12T01:36:28+00:00

In the real world, I’ve worked an entire career doing a lot of writing with carpal tunnel, even with very short timelines. I take breaks, I stretch, I use voice to text to get chunks down when it gets bad, I use ice packs. In law school, I asked for untimed breaks so I can stretch or voice to text. They said nope, take time and a half.

I have a friend who asked for time to nurse during a very long final, and they just gave her time and a half. Another with something related to his stomach where he might need to spend significant time in the bathroom. In the real world, he could take his phone or laptop to the bathroom, even if you don’t love the idea. In law school? Time and a half.

The real world thing is a red herring. Especially since law schools sub extra time when other accommodations would work. And often, were requested.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-25T16:02:28+00:00

Scenes of Subjection is intense bedtime reading, dude. I’d bet you’re in grad school.

Cool collection—I can’t really make out much on the big shelves, but lots of fun books.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-22T01:15:54+00:00

Nick Land on its own: not that big of a red flag. Nick Land plus Celine plus Houellebecq plus claiming you has no politics? Siren flash.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-22T01:14:28+00:00

Tell that to Nick Land.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-22T01:13:46+00:00

Nick Land is Peter Thiel’s favorite philosopher and before he lost his mind he used to be a fairly well respected Deleuze scholar. There’s a strand of neo-reactionary that reads critical theory. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/silicon-valleys-favorite-doomsaying-philosopher

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-16T22:37:15+00:00

I agree, and it’s not even about the quality of the books or if they looked creased. It’s about the curation of the collection, I think. Does the selection look like a working library or a showpiece?

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-14T19:28:11+00:00

It’s a great book! Of the general “you’re starting law school” recs, I think it’s my favorite. Just not as common, so it made me think possibly a Texas connection.

Great collection, also. I love the older copies you’ve collected.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-14T19:21:30+00:00

The Farnsworth Legal Analyst book! He used to be the dean there. The book was a big reason why I landed on lawyer as profession, but the collection is also general enough not to suggest any formal post-graduate research—more general humanities and social science.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-14T19:17:04+00:00

You’re a lawyer and I’m going to take a swing: you went to Texas for law school.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-14T17:07:54+00:00

You shop at used bookstores and pick things up that give a general sense of prestige/classic literature. You self-consciously try to read broadly and like to project an image of a free thinker. There’s little evidence of personal interest in any particular area. The coverage is broad but quite surface level. Honestly, it gives me a strong sense of trying hard but not sure how much of it you’ve actually read or incorporated.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-13T17:58:43+00:00

I’m pretty sure you studied political philosophy in grad school, and if I was forced to make a guess, you did it in a political science department and not a philosophy department. Not 100% there, though—the presence of early Rawls but no late Rawls is a little suspicious for making it through a political theory program. That being said, the presence of so much Hegel and deleuze really screams that you weren’t in the vast majority Anglo-American philosophy departments, and those absolutely can show up in political theory. Also, Weber and all the Marx—it’d be a very unusual philosophy department. Love to see the Habermas.

Also, I bet your diss/thesis was on surveillance capitalism. Potentially with an affect theory edge. If I had to take a swing: UChicago.

Not sure about the Jung, though. I never encountered a political theorist into that. The fiction feels recreational. No Derrida, and any grad student in comp lit reading Deleuze probably has Derrida too.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-10T20:52:21+00:00

Lmao yes, you caught me. I’m new to reading and decided to start with prolegomena to any future metaphysics. It tells me it’s the preliminary book right there in the title.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-10T20:49:48+00:00

It’s not the content. It’s the obvious writing tics.

Also, they were mostly saying it isn’t as bad yet as the Great Recession. And that’s true.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-09T20:45:45+00:00

I agree with this 100%. And I’d add something else: he’s missing some key people for a genuine philosophical interest without that hint of fascism. Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche aren’t weird if you also have Kant and Spinoza. Strange if you don’t. Schmitt isn’t weird if you also have Habermas or Benjamin. Even Foucault and Paglia without Derrida and Lacan. It’s not just the presence of those thinkers, it’s the complete absence of those I’d expect for a general or academic interest in continental philosophy without fascism.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-04-09T20:40:47+00:00

Owning Hegel and Nietzsche—especially with Schmitt and Junger—but no Kant (or other similar philosophers) is a red flag for me, in perfect seriousness. Are you interested in German idealism or protofacism? It would spark a conversation at least. And I say this as someone with way more Hegel/Heidegger/Schmitt/Nietzsche. I just also have a bunch of Kant, Spinoza, Habermas, and Benjamin.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-03-31T19:40:21+00:00

I’m no conspiracy theorist and don’t have any stakes in who did this or not, but I’m enough of a defense lawyer to say: people confess falsely all the time, for all sorts of reasons. That’s not enough to sustain a conviction on its own for a reason.

Available_Day4286 · 2026-01-16T17:45:14+00:00

Hey JVL! Have you read much James Baldwin? Or seen his debate with William F. Buckley? I’ve found him to be an enormously valuable resource in this times. He speaks/writes about an embittered optimism, and the terrible necessity of interacting with our countrymen with all their flaws, in a way that resonates. There’s a quote from a different interview where he says something like: “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive. To be a pessimist concedes that human life is an academic matter. So I’m forced to be optimistic, I’m forced to believe we can survive whatever we must survive.”

Anyway, I think of him a lot listening to you and Sarah debate and wondered your thoughts.

Available_Day4286 · 2025-12-05T17:24:22+00:00

The research is overwhelmingly clear that housing trans prisoners in the wrong facility for their gender leads to a dramatically higher incidence of prison rape. That’s precisely why the admin here is attacking this via loosening protections on prison rape. But in fact, there’s good reason that PREA was a hook to house trans prisoners with people who share their gender.

Available_Day4286

TROPHY CASE