Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Cue the world's smallest violin

By Brendan Loy

The phrase "it sucks to be a lawyer" isn't going to get much sympathy from non-lawyers, but nevertheless, it seems there are more and more lawyers making less and less money, according to the Wall Street Journal:

A law degree isn't necessarily a license to print money these days.

For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that's suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don't score at the top of their class are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market. ...

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data. ...

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. ...

Many students "simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law School, in 2005, concluding that, "We may be reaching the end of a golden era for law schools."

Some of the things that are making life harder for lawyers -- such as tort reform and malpractice reform legislation -- are good things for society at large, even if they're bad for me and my classmates. Still, it would have been nice to graduate from law school a little bit earlier in the "golden era." :)

Mike Patrick's important question

By Brendan Loy

If you're a college-football announcer, what better time could there possibly be to start randomly talking about Britney Spears -- confusing the hell out of everyone else in the broadcasting booth -- than in overtime of the Georgia-Alabama game, right before the game-winning touchdown?

Thanks to Georgia QB Matthew Stafford and WR Mikey Henderson, I guess we'll never know to answer to the question, "What is Britney doing with her life?" (Hat tip: Stewart Mandel.)

Also thanks to Stafford and Henderson, Alabama is no longer among the ranks of the unbeaten... and somewhere, some crazed Crimson Tide fan is thinking about registering FireNickSaban.com. :)

Anyway, the Thrilling Thirty-One is down to a Terrific Twenty-Three. After the jump, a look at how all 31 teams that entered the week undefeated fared.

Heeeere's Jerry!

By Brendan Loy

Subtropical Storm Jerry has formed, way out over the Central Atlantic. He is no threat to land.

Once again, Alan Sullivan is unimpressed, declaring Jerry a "marginal designation" and the latest symptom of the National Hurricane Center's "zeal to pin a name on any storm in the Atlantic Basin." In an earlier post, he wrote of Jerry's formation, "Such storms can occur at any season in the North Atlantic. If NHC gets in the habit of designating them, it will be scaring the public with hurricanes in winter."

Of considerably more potential significance are Invest 94L in the Gulf of Mexico, Invest 97L east of the Lesser Antilles, and Invest 96L way out in the Cape Verde region. Dr. Jeff Masters and Eric Berger have more on 94L; Sullivan has more on 96L and 97L.

No huge numbers this time (just in case)

By JLR

I won't post a gigantic number this time, nor will I add to the curse Brendan believed I may have started.

I'll just say this: the Sox are in the playoffs!!!!  The first team to clinch a playoff berth in the Majors, Boston's magic number to clinch the AL East now sits at 6.

USC 47, Washington State 14

By Brendan Loy

...final. 302 passing yards, 207 rushing yards, 6 touchdowns, and 1 rainbow:

Booty was 28-of-35 for 279 yards and 4 touchdowns. (Stanley Havili and Chauncey Washington rushed for the other two Trojan TDs.)

Elsewhere in the Pac-10, Oregon has taken the lead after trailing Stanford (!) for a while... Washington and UCLA are tied at 10... and Oregon State is leading Arizona State, 26-20. All three games are in the third quarter.

UPDATE: In the end, the favored teams -- Oregon, UCLA and ASU -- all pulled away to win by wide margins. The Ducks and Devils remain unbeaten, as does Cal. (And USC has to play at all of them.)

Next week's game of the week -- not just for the Pac-10, but for the whole country -- is Cal @ Oregon. I have to believe ESPN GameDay will be in Eugene. (The ABC evening game, i.e. the Kirk Herbstreit game, is USC @ Washington. Often times, GameDay goes to the ABC evening game. But after UW's loss tonight, I can't imagine they'll be going to Seattle to see #1 USC play a team on a two-game losing streak.)