"Hm, Upgrades."

you say they taught you how to read and write

they taught you how to count

i say they taught you how to buy and sell

your own body by the pound

(Everclear, Everything to Everyone)

That's really apropos of nothing except the song has been chorusing through my head since my drive in this morning. (Richard Sheridan would be proud...) It does however provide a germane backdrop against which to mention some ongoing research funded by the Law School Admission Council, and pursued by Boalt Hall professor Marjorie Shultz and others, aimed at going "beyond the LSAT and GPA to find additional ways of predicting who will become effective lawyers." Thus far the project has identified 26 Factors in Effective Lawyering, and Boalt alums are asked to take a survey to help the researchers measure performance on these effectiveness factors. (They left out the old familiar "grinding all obstacles into a chalky gray powder suitable for mixing with water and patching walls," but given the refined professionalism to which we all now adhere, this is hardly much of a surprise.)