As promised about two months ago, the ABA has finally provided us with a toolbox- I mean, toolkit (box is too vaguely sexual)- to shatter the glass ceiling. It includes a glass cutter, hammer, and a tile saw, just to give every tool equal opportunity. It does not include protective eye or headgear because if you’re dumb enough to think the contents of the toolkit will generate equal pay, then you probably deserve a shard of glass to the eye (on the plus side, your skull is thick enough to protect you from most serious head trauma).

It may seem like I harp on this issue a lot. And I promise I’ll stop just as soon as the ABA stops being so stupid about it. And so begins today’s installment of Constitutional Daily’s Explanation of How the ABA Has Gotten Yet Another Women’s Issue Wrong. Brought to you by Constitutional Daily’s Token Woman.

Let’s start with what this mysterious toolkit actually includes. The ABA’s Gender Equity Task Force’s Toolkit for Gender Equity in Partner Compensation comes complete with the following:

Program agenda: just over 3 pages; apparently the Task Force is very into double spacing and bullets.

PowerPoint program: 14 slides, including 1 each for introduction, questions, and conclusion. Also includes several handy “insert bar logo here” boxes, so you can add a personal touch to your moronic presentation.

List of program materials: A half page document that includes links to 6 pdfs recommended as “background information for speakers” or handouts at the program.

Marketing information: a 2 page Word document that describes the program and lists “suggestions for attracting decision-makers,” as well as suggested dates, since you’re probably not capable of independently accessing a calendar if you’re actually going to use this thing.

And finally, a four page bibliography: described as an “extensive list of articles that can be referenced for more in-depth understanding of the issues.” It’s suggested that this be distributed to speakers (prior to the program) and to the audience at the program.

You may have noticed how often the word “program” appears in that list. Apparently, the whole “plan” of the Tool Kit is to have a presentation with a guest speaker and a panel discussion, and of course, handouts and PowerPoints.  It reminds us of the old Power Point slogan: PowerPoint -- Required for motivational speakers and inspiring accompanying handouts since 1990.

You may have also noticed how many “suggestions” the Task Force included in its Tool Kit materials. Kind of suggests even they think people dumb enough to use the Tool Kit will be too dumb to know how.

To its credit, the Tool Kit is slightly better than the ABA’s other suggestion of women networking with other women to fix the gender pay gap. But that’s largely because the Tool Kit doesn’t include a suggestion to present the program only to other women. In a bold step forward though, the ABA does suggest getting decision-makers to attend your program. This really is ground breaking, because prior ABA advice was to only try to influence the least influential people.

If you read over the material (although I have no earthly idea why you would, unless you’re trying to induce vomiting via eye-rolling-induced vertigo), you’ll probably notice that the ABA proffers no real solution to the gender wage gap problem. The program and all of its materials are essentially just a re-hashing of everything the ABA has already said about the issue.

One the one hand, I don’t know if I blame them too much for that. If you want to fix an issue, you have to identify it, explain why it’s a problem, and present that information to someone capable of addressing it.  You also have to convince that person that it is a real problem and that it’s a problem they want to spend energy, time, and money fixing. Uncharacteristically, I’m willing to give the ABA the benefit of the doubt here and say maybe that’s what they were trying to do.

On the other hand, the Tool Kit is still almost entirely useless, as most large firms have lockstep pay, at least for associates. Maybe you get a bigger bonus for having people in the right places throwing more work your way, but the gap for the actual salary is minimal, if existent.  Sure, there are bigger gaps at the partner pay level, but being made partner is also another game of who you know, and again, a big part of that pay comes from your bonus (more for bagging clients now than billing hours).

As for government attorneys, it’s pretty similar to associate pay, so far as salary. Again, knowing the right people may get you hired or promoted faster, but for employees on the same level and schedule, they’re typically getting paid the same amount, or within a very narrow range.

It seems like a lot of this involves who you know, and it does. But benefiting from knowing the right people isn’t just a government law job thing or a law job thing; it’s an every job thing.

Assuming there are no real differences between men and women and their lives and professional goals, there’s really only one way to end the gender wage gap: eliminate sexism. And good luck with that. I’m not suggesting in any capacity that sexism is good or right or should stick around, but it’s been a part of this country since its inception; heck, it’s been part of species since we had sexes. And while things have been improving, there’s a long way to go. We might as well suggest that patience will end the wage gap (actually, there’s very good reason to think that time will eventually cure this problem as much as it is curable, though that’s no consolation to a woman who was just relegated to the rank of permanent super-associate).

Of course, another option is to make all compensation even more formulaic than the six minute breakdown in a billable hour. Expanding the lockstep model with bonuses every so-many billable hours to all compensation levels. Surely that will make everyone more efficient and hardworking anyway, right? Of course not. Disregarding how much of my time I’d have to mark down as “bathroom” (I more or less live on coffee and Diet Coke), there’s a lot of work to be done in a law job that doesn’t fit into a formula, but nevertheless benefits the client or the firm. The few minutes of small talk I make with the prosecutor every time I call his office can’t be marked down on a timesheet, but they have helped me build a rapport with the guy so if I ask nicely and the situation is right, he’ll cut my client a break. At bigger firms and among higher ranks, you might not be the partner who bagged the whale client, but you’re the one who fields the GC’s late-night phone calls after the lead partner has gone home. You just can’t create a by-the-numbers compensation scheme that tanks into account all of the soft variables.

In the end, this Tool Kit is just another ABA contribution to the problem-with-women-in-the-law-problem. It’s chockfull of information that people who are interested in the issue already know, provides zero practical input on how to fix the issue, and of course is written in a tone that the speaker is somehow simultaneously writing and shaking her fist, so it’s totally going to change hearts and minds.

And for those of you snarky enough to suggest that fist-shaking sounds a lot like something I do, I’ll have you know that my hands are always open when they shake, and the shaking is induced by a combination of over-caffeination and stressing out about my actual job duties (you know, the shit you’re suppose to be taking care of to get ahead).

You guys remember how in Live Free or Die Hard, John McClane ramps a cop car off a bridge support to take down a helicopter? Well, that’s something the Montreal police could’ve tried last night, except they aren’t Bruce Willis so instead they galloped off on their black horses to make an arrest. Wait, that’s not right either.

Yesterday afternoon, two adventurous Canadian inmates made a successful jail break via helicopter. Then they failed to evade recapture. Details as to how they almost pulled off this escape and how they were arrested are unclear. What is clear is what a terrible idea escape via helicopter is.

CNN reports that two men posed as tourists to go on a helicopter ride, and then once in the air, held a gun to the pilot’s head and directed him to the prison.  The helicopter hovered over the prison and two inmates climbed aboard. Less than 6 hours later, everyone involved was arrested.

What did they think was going to happen? It’s a bit troubling that we have to make this announcement, but PSA: unless you have enough fuel to make it to your volcanic island secret lair, escape via helicopter just isn’t going to work. They’re loud, they’re easy to spot, everyone around will be staring, and between air traffic control and being a freaking helicopter, they’re not particularly challenging to follow.

Even the guys who broke out of the Cook County jail in Chicago using bed sheets managed to repel down 15 stories and catch a cab drawing less attention. And, it took more than 2 weeks to catch one of them. Moral of their story: prison escape attempts work best when people don’t know you’re doing it. These two should’ve gone a little more Shawshank or Escape from Alcatraz and a little less Pascal Payet.

It’s not like hijacking a helicopter is comparable to hijacking a car. You hijack someone’s car, you can still kick them out and use their vehicle to get where you’re going; you don’t necessarily need the driver. A helicopter is a different story. Unless you’ve got a helicopter pilot license, you probably don’t know what you’re doing. You need the pilot, present in the cockpit, and alive. The odds that these guys were actually going to shoot him? Pretty minimal, given that they’d then enter a pretty rapid free-fall. There’s holding someone at gunpoint, which can be pretty effective, and then entering into a situation with mutually assured destruction. The pilot in this case didn’t figure the MAD angle out, or he did but didn’t want to be heroic. Either way though, your prison break plan is deeply flawed when your hostage can fly you to the police station and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Your helicopter plan is also pretty problematic when you get to the issue of what happens when you get out of the helicopter. The pilot knows where he let you off. If you haven’t been followed already, he’ll phone in your location. Heck, he can just take back off and aid in the pursuit.

You can kill the pilot, but that’s only if you’ve got the stomach for murder which not all criminals do. We couldn’t imagine Andy Dufresne shanking a guard on his way out. But even if you do kill the pilot, there’s still a matter of a helicopter on the ground pointing the cops in the direction of your escape.

I’ll give the preps a B+ for creativity, and A- for actually pulling off the helicopter-related part of the operation. But they set the bottom of the curve for common sense, thinking shit through, and the most important score of all: getting away with it. Getting away with it is basically the final exam in a class where the only grade is the final exam. The helicopter stunt is a check-plus for being prepared the one day you were on call. It’s still an overall F.

Following Pitt's unceremonious drop in the US News rankings from 69 to 91, the dean did as most deans do, and put out a letter explaining why the school is still totes awesome. The dean's message is, as most deans' messages are, that the rankings really don't matter, and despite them not mattering the school is committed to improving their rank next time:

I will keep you all informed as to what our analysis of this year's ranking reveals. But rest assured that what it does not reveal is any diminishment in the quality or impact of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. We will address the rankings issue head-on, but we will not lose sight of what ultimately matters most: the quality of the education we provide and the well-being and success of our students, alumni, and community.

A reader tipped us off to this excellent, and rather obvious analysis of the dean's letter from a Pitt alumn:

The basic argument of your letter is that Pitt Law hasn't gotten worse in the past year, its ranking has, thus the ranking is flawed.  The basic argument of my letter is that Pitt Law hasn't changed in the past year, its ranking has gotten worse, and the ranking system is now (and was not then) accurate.  Thus, Pitt's ranking reflects how good Pitt Law actually has been, at least since my association with the school.

It's a bit like a first date with a girl you met through OKCupid, and you realize that her looks were greatly enhanced by some favorable lighting and angles. In truth, she hasn't gotten any worse looking. All that's changed is that you now know what she always looked like.

We'd like to add though that the Dean is actually wrong on the facts. Pitt's admissions criteria have slumped in the past year, with the 25/75 LSAT percentiles slipping from 157/161 to 155/160, and the GPA 25/75s going from 3.14/3.66 to 3.09/3.60. It's GPA drop is less than the national average, but the LSAT drop is more than double the national average.

Though maybe the Dean is correct, and really nothing has changed. After all, it could be that in past years they just lied about what their admissions data were.

Yesterday, in the midst of a billion stories about the US News law school rankings (and we helped!), the ABA Journal ran a story about how more and more people are getting married on the internet. Trust us, there’s a connection.

It’s apparently becoming increasingly popular for foreign marriages. Marriage via the internet is sort of like a marriage by proxy. According to the ABAJ, some critics are concerned that this type of marriage will be used by human traffickers, who will use them to bring women into the country and then force the women into prostitution. And we all know the fierce stance the ABA is taking on human trafficking these days. (If you don’t know, it’s anti-trafficking.)

And it just wouldn’t be a legal issue without an inane opinion from a law professor. Here comes Michigan State University law professor Adam Candeub with some reservations:

Part of the reason for having the two people come and appear before a priest or a judge is to make sure it is a freely chosen. There are some problems with willy-nilly allowing anyone around the world to marry.

First, we’ve seen the Princess Bride, and there was absolutely no checking by the priest that Buttercup was marrying Humperdink because she “freely chose” it. Sure wuv, twoo wuv is nice, but when push comes to shove, we’re all too willing to jump to man-and-wife, plans to murder your partner in that dweam within a dweam notwithstanding.

Second, why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Adam? People shouldn’t be allowed to marry “willy-nilly”? If you haven’t noticed, the mood of the day, especially common among the educate elite, is towards marriage freedom. (And way to go Colorado!) Marriage is an agreement between two consenting adults, and that’s pretty much it. Not between two consenting adults who have courted for a suitable length of time and have the consent of both parties’ parents. Candeub would have done more to undermine the marriage between Jane and Bingley than Darcy ever did.

Here’s a question for you, Professor. If you’re so concerned about people making major decisions with life-long consequences willy-nilly, and worst of all online, why don’t you ask Michigan State’s admissions office to require students to come on campus to accept their admissions offer and pay their first semester’s tuition? You wouldn’t want people enrolling in law school willy-nilly, especially considering that they will be paying back their loans for much longer than the average marriage lasts, and have more debt than the typical divorce settlement value.

And law school is hardly the biggest thing you can commit to online or by proxy. People are getting their auto insurance online now, and their health insurance, and auto insurance. You can form a corporation by mail, a process so common that there’s a whole industry of registered agents to stand in for absentee owners. We have the whole ESIGN Act governing electronic agreements, and for good reason. It’s not just $7 Netflix payments and $9 Kindle book orders being made in abstentia. Corporations are largely governed by proxy votes, and billion dollar deals can be closed by fax. Whatever the agreement is, long ago we realized that what matters is the intent of the parties to be bound; the form of that agreement is irrelevant:

It makes no difference whether that operator writes the offer or the acceptance . . . with a steel pen an inch long attached to an ordinary penholder, or whether his pen be a copper wire a thousand miles long. In either case the thought is communicated to the paper by the use of the finger resting upon the pen; nor does it make any difference that in one case common record ink is used, while in the other case a more subtle fluid, known as electricity, performs the same office.

That’s from Howley v. Whipple, a case that went before the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1869. It’s still good law. The cat is out of the bag, professor. What makes sense is not trying to get in the way of online marriages, but figure out how to make the system better. If you’re worried about coercion, require a judge to sign off on the marriage on both ends. If you’re worried about people getting married without really thinking through what that means, then learn to cope, because it’s 2013 and we’re allowed to make bad decisions with our lives. The number of people relying on US News to make law school enrollment decisions is proof of that.