Still Abusing Children

I’m currently preparing for our second playoff soccer game of the evening. If anyone cares, we won the first round 3-1 over Phi Delt and we play Kappa Sig tonight at 10.

Considering what the law students are currently doing, it’s sad to think I’m only four days from being done with the business school forever.

UPDATE:

We lost 3 – 0, I protected the goal like a spastic Down Syndrome child and Tommy managed to get kicked out of both of today’s games for keeping it too gangsta. It was a sad end to a good season.

I'm Not Passionate About Billing Hours

Of all the misconceptions about lawyers, the average salary is probably the biggest. For example, most business students think all law students make $3200 / week interning and all lawyers start at $160,000 / year plus bonus. I’ve had people ask me if I was prepared for the pay cut associated with entering the working world from the business side and I always try to tell them, the reality for Baylor students is something along the lines of this chart.

Compare that with this sadly female-unfavorable list and MBAs in most cases are better off.

And for those that like to dream big, billable hours kind of cap your potential. For example, to be a top 15 corporate lawyer in 2001, you needed to earn a mere $3.5M (and go to a top school).* I don’t know what the numbers are for 2007, but we'll assume they had a 10% annual growth rate and made $6.2M. Even then, the cutoff is a mere 1.3% of the $475M it took to make it onto the top 15 list of their hedge-funder clients.

I’m not saying I want to be in hedge funds and I’m not saying I need to make an annual salary of $400M. (it would be convenient). I’m just saying the odds of being wealthy and substance abuse-free are in the business world.

*In the same year, thanks to CivPro and the evils of tobacco, three Baylor lawyers by the names of John Eddie Williams, Walter Umphrey, and Harold Nix gave BLS students a glimpse of hope and a new school, earning a combined $38.7M.

Baylor Lawyer No Longer Bills Hours

I know you law students are busy studying for finals but if you get the chance, M. Jay Allison, Chairman, President & CEO of Comstock Resources is talking to our Career Management class on Wed. at 5:00PM in Cashion 203 and I think a few of you might be interested.

Part of his background info reads:

"Following his football days, Allison switched to the game of finding oil and gas. Using his law degree [from Baylor University], he gained exposure to the industry as a practicing oil and gas attorney for the firm of Lynch, Chappell & Alsup in Midland, Texas.

"Practicing oil and gas law gave me the confidence that I needed and experience to be successful in the oil and gas industry," he said. "When the opportunity presented itself, I was able to create a successful independent oil and gas company. Understanding the legal side of the industry is always an advantage especially in the beginning when you are involved with setting up a company."

Today, Comstock has $2.4B in assets, reporting $687M in sales and $69M in net income for 2007.

UPDATE:

Thanks to commenter / internet sleuth, CJ, I can now say the background info I cited from an e-mail was originally plagiarized from the Baylor Business Review. Good one, Buckley.

An Instruction Manual For the 1950s

Presumably to indicate how she feels a husband should be treated, my girlfriend forwarded me this picture from a 1955 edition of Housekeeping Monthly. My favorite words of advice include, “catering for his comfort will provide you immense personal satisfaction,” “you have no right to question him,” and of course, “show sincerity in your desire to please him.”

[UPDATE]

Despite reading the article, my girlfriend has yet to offer her services for shoe removal.

Baylor Student Gets Zapped for Living the Dream

I’d be remiss if I didn't at least post a link to this article/video/ comments section (please read the comments). Since it has yet to appear on YouTube and I don’t have the technology savvy to do it myself, here is the relevant, albeit incomplete, transcript:

Cop: This is kind of an unusual deal, I mean this is this is the Day of the Bear so there is a lot of celebrations going on all around town, especially on the Baylor campus. . . .
Frat Phenom: A guy threw some bear on a police officer . . . he took off running and the cops chased after him . . . and it was a valiant effort . . . but he got tased in the back and I got a picture of him . . . but he was toast man . . . just toast.*

*All the words and ellipses will be hilarious after you watch the video. I promise.

Dia Del Oso

The kids call it Dia, I call it the start of a four day weekend. Anyway you look at it, the law students are studying for finals while I’m busy deciding between golf, tennis and doing absolutely nothing.

If you or someone you know wants to be me, or simply wants to live in my one bedroom, fully furnished, Bandera Ranch condo for the summer, I’ll be happy to lease it to you! Act now and I’ll throw in the blog reader monthly discount of $200 plus 10,000 cool points** redeemable with Mrs.-degree seeking undergrads everywhere!!!!!!

**Only available to readers morally okay with using the pick-up line, “Can I buy you at least three drinks?”

More Pictures, Same Shirt

I received this picture today from the good folks at the NAOIP Real Estate competition in Dallas.

Our team had many strengths but diversity wasn’t one of them.

My Mom Will Like This Post

Though neither timely nor relevant, I received this picture of our case competition team from GWU so I figured I’d post it here.

It’s like a moot court team just better looking and more skilled in PowerPoint.

Focus Firm: Grand Finale

We met in the hotel lobby at 8AM, just five hours after getting in. Dressed in dark suits, white shirts and red ties we grabbed some caffeine and headed over to DISH’s Englewood, Colorado headquarters for our final presentation.

After being reintroduced to some of the HR people we’d originally met at Baylor, our group was given a quick tour of the 2000 person facility then taken to an on-site film studio where we spent the next two hours capturing the essence of focus firm on camera.*

When that was done, DISH bought us lunch, we practiced for an hour, gathered our courage, and made our presentation to a room of marketing people and executives including Candy and Charlie Ergen.

In the end, after giving us two hours of his time, Mr. Ergen gave us the biggest compliment a CEO can give by offering each of us full-time positions in the division of our choice. We must have done something right.

*More on the video in a later post after I receive the final edit.

AA Hates Making Money

American Airlines' failure to keep it real has resulted in the cancellation of my 11:30 flight to Colorado and despite our faculty's best efforts, the earliest replacement takes off at 9:50PM. In Osler's terms "American got a second memo, and probably deserved it." In Swanburg terms, they shit the bed and I have no choice but to sleep in it.

UPDATE:

Not surprisingly, the flight that was supposed to take off at 9:50 didn't take off until 12. First it was pushed back until 10:15, then 10:30, then 10:45, then canceled, then un-canceled and moved to a different terminal at which point we were told, "You need to hurry because if the doors of the plane aren't closed by 11:30, the flight will again be canceled."

Despite AA's d-baggery, we eventually made it to Denver.

Call the Cops: MBA Soccer Abuses Small Children

Last night, in our first game since the UT tournament, the MBA soccer team beat the Penland Misfits 5 goals to 1.* For those keeping track at home, that makes us a perfect 1 -0 in intramurals and 1 -2-1 overall.

*The otherwise heroic victory was nullified when I realized the freshman dorm-dwellers were too busy attending to a harem of sorority girls and loins filled with hope to be worried about things like goals . . . but a win is sort of a win nonetheless.

Baylor MBA: Fun But Not Easy

Today was our in class Focus Firm presentation and Thursday, 10 other classmates and I will be flying out to Colorado to meet with the good folks at Echostar. Word on the street is that Charlie Ergen, -whose annual earnings put his hourly rate somewhere around $45,000- will be hanging out with us, listening to our presentations and partaking in some Q&A. Until then it's a QBA test tomorrow and a finance final on Wednesday.

My Class in Real Estate Finance Fails to Come in Handy

Last time I blogged, I was getting ready to go to the Dallas Country Club for the Texas Real Estate Shootout. Long story short, we didn't win. Long story long, MBA teams from Baylor, UT, SMU, A&M, Rice, UTA and Tech battled it out for prize money. The winner, UT, took home $10K, 2^nd place took home $5K and Baylor netted $150 per person for showing up (a nice consolation considering Rice, the second place team, was absolutely embarrassed in the finals by their opponent's 40+ combined years of experience in real estate portfolio management.)

Anyway, my case competition career is over for the year. Its been fun.

Dragging My Ass

Not unlike a PC student, I have spent the last couple weeks getting to school by 7:30 and leaving 17.5 hours later at 1. Between preparing for case competitions, taking finals, writing papers, preparing for focus firm, sitting through interviews, traveling and reading for normal classes, I can honestly say I've never been so busy but never so entertained. In seven hours I'll drive to Dallas Country Club for the last case competition of the year, talk to some real estate executives, eat, drink, and hopefully get paid.

And despite the looks of this picture –taken at one of the receptions in DC- we lost to the likes of GWU.