Laughing at the Problems in Legal Education with Jeremy Blachman ’00

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The book: The Curve, Jeremy Blachman ’00 and Cameron Stracher’s newest novel, is a hilarious and ironic story that satirizes the current state of legal education in the United States, with a colorful cast of law school misfits and a plot that — with some stretching — could be taken from the headlines.

Welcome to the decrepit Manhattan Law School on the edge of the toxic Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, and meet our hero, Adam Wright, a new professor with high hopes for inspiring his pupils. However, nothing has prepared him for his students’ digital distraction, a school-wide scam, and corrupt administrators who use the school as their personal ATM. Adam regrets leaving his corporate law job until he meets brilliant and beautiful fellow professor Laura Stapleton. Together, the two of them must save legal education or join their students in the unemployment line.

The author: Blachman studied at the Woodrow Wilson School while he was an undergraduate and then went on to receive his law degree at Harvard. He is the author of Anonymous Lawyer, which has been adapted for television and is in development for film.

Opening lines: “As the crow flies, it’s less than three miles from Wall Street to the banks of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The last crow who tried it, however, got sucked into the jet engine of a 727 landing at LaGuardia Airport, and then spat in pieces into the murky depths of the water. Ever since, the crows have steered clear of Gowanus. Navigating flight paths is difficult enough; it’s the indignity of being discarded into a Superfund site that really gets them. But not everyone is as smart as a crow.”

Reviews: Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania law professor says, “Is The Curve a searing indictment of the industry of legal education? Or an idealistic vision of the possibilities that remain for those whose hearts are pure? It's both, of course, and a book that only such talented insiders as Blachman and Stracher could have written.”