Monday, August 23, 2010

Ethan Haines Reveals HER Identity!

USA Today just came out with a story on scamblogs and Zenovia Evans (a/k/a Ethan Haines) of Denver.  Zenovia, welcome!  I'm kinda tickled pink that she's a chick and I understand her reluctance to post pics initially.  Well, the cat's out of the bag and the national media is on it!

One recent grad even went on a hunger strike on Aug. 5. "We have a new crop starting and no one's telling them anything about this," says Zenovia Evans, 28, of Denver, who uses the name "Ethan Haines" on her blog, UnemployedJD.com.
The first in her family to finish college, she says that "no one wants to say, 'Hey, career office, you failed me,' " but "I couldn't take this lying down." She says she owes more than $150,000 in loans.
Zenovia, you are not alone!  Many BIDER readers owe $150K+.  I admire your zeal and I hope that it's recognized.

Of course, because USA Today (bloody rag that it is) isn't interested in the real story, they use the statistics provided by the ABA and the NALP to write this story:

The American Bar  Association, which accredits law schools, acknowledges such concerns. A report in November, noting the average student borrowed $59,324 for a public law school and $91,506 for a private one in 2007-08, cautioned prospective students to "have a clear picture of the debt they will incur and the expected earning power."
Among 2009 graduates, 88% are employed, down from 92% in 2007; they were more likely than in previous years to hold part-time or temp jobs or those not requiring a law degree, says the non-profit National Association for Law Placement. Summer job openings for second-year students, often the first step to getting hired full time, "shrank dramatically" this year, it says.
I can't wait until these organizations are forced to lay out the statistics accurately.  Instead of saying that students owe $91K for private law schools, they should say:  10% owe $20K or less (because they attended law school on scholarship) and 90% owe $125K+.  Oh yah, and 25% of those who reported being employed are part-time or temporary workers.  I have no basis for coming up with these figures except my conversations with young graduates today.  However, I would venture to guess that the figures I came up with off the top of my head are more accurate than those that the NALP pulls out of its ass.

Of course, USA today has to mention "personal" responsibility:
Kelsey May, a 2010 University of Tulsa law school grad and co-author of What the L? 25 Things We Wish We'd Known Before Going to Law School, agrees law school can be tricky to navigate but says the anger is "misplaced. ... There should be some level of (personal) responsibility."
It makes me think of the rape shield laws.  When I was 11, I went to court with my mother on a traffic ticket.  After she was found guilty, we went to the juicy court rooms and watched a few major criminal trials for the rest of the day.  This is how my interest in the law began. I remember sitting in on a rape trial and the questions were as follows:

1.  What were you wearing to the party?
2.  Were you wearing panties?  What kind?
3.  Have you flirted with the defendant before?
That was before the legal system acknowledged the error in trying the victim.
Today, we put young people on trial for buying into the fraud perpetrated by law schools in their glossy brochures.  Somehow, law students are responsible for buying the employment statistics at face value.  Law students are victims as well.  When will the Legal Industrial Complex be found liable for misleading lemmings to slaughter?  It's robbery.

On a side note, my mom is a little nutty for taking me--I realize.

In short, thanks for coming out Ethan Haines a/k/a Zenovia Evans. I hope that a real reporter digs a bit deeper into your, and our, story.  I also hope that your health is not compromised as a result of taking a stand against the for-profit industry--which profits off the backs of our helpless and misinformed youth!
UPDATE
Zenovia Evans has totally duped me and all the other scam bloggers. This is the real story: she is a pro-industry shill, who probably orchestrated this whole stunt to push her book.  I'm not even going to post a link to her book, nor the name, because I don't want to contribute to any of her book sales.    Let me just post this bit about her book and services so that you understand why I'm so ticked right now:
Evans desire is to “guide students through common law school scenarios and pitfalls while providing strategies for successfully exploiting the experience.” She is committed to her mission of “modernizing and diversifying the legal industry through the dissemination of information.” To further this mission, she offers custom ... packages to schools and professional entities via a sponsorship program that includes author appearances, webinars, and the creation of a custom companion guide.
I feel like such a fool.  She used BIDER and the other scam blogs to sell her books.  I'm taking her off my blog roll, unless and until she sends me an explanation.  I suspect she hasn't lost one pound in protest against the law school scam.  Please, Zenovia, tell me it ain't so: angelthelawyer@gmail.com

29 comments:

  1. "I suspect she hasn't lost one pound in protest against the law school scam."

    Gee, ya think? And you're still so gullible that you want her to write and reassure you? Of what? There was never any proof of the hunger-strike scam in the first place.

    Once again, I'm amazed that you're a lawyer.

    (And it's "piqued," not "peaked.")

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  2. Thanks for that, ass. I take the plight of my law school brothers and sisters at face value because I think it necessary to consolidate our plight, rather than draw divisions between us. I am a lawyer. You're probably not. Even when it's apparent that she used our blogs as way to jumpstart her book sales, I'm not such a cruel person that I won't give her an opportunity to explain herself.

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  3. I am sorry you feel duped by this. Even though I personally paid no attention to this hunger strike, I really think it doesn't matter that you were gullible or whatever. Some people are more trusting than others, that's just the way people are hard-wired. Really though, there's no damage here. I'm sure you'll forget about it in no time.

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  4. I was wondering how this person had stayed out of the hospital for malnutrition or dehydration!

    I'm beginning to wonder if they ever sent any demand letters to those law schools.

    Ah, the image of this woman tooling around town with a Big Mac while people thought she was the Ghandi of the anti-law school league. I pulled up her bio and read about her books. She is obviously self-published (unless it was a bizarre coincidence that her publisher is Life Line Media Company LLC). Even with an army of lemmings who need books that will tell them how to fart using the socratic method, it looks like no actual publisher wanted to pay for the ink for these things. Basically, she sounds like an attention seeker who just happened to latch onto the legal industry.

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  5. Thank you for posting this. I don't have any issues with my background, it wasn't in the article due to the editor's rewrite having nothing to do with me. I am very much serious about this issue and my health as this hunger strike is very real and has been documented accordingly. Furthermore, I am experiencing the painful effects associated with this fast. We either deal with this law school transparency issue and do something about it or leave it alone. I am not the type to simply walk away. If you believe in the issue as you initially proposed, then stand for the cause. Yes, I am an author but I have never confused the two issues so I don't know why anyone else would. As we have engaged before, shoot me some questions on the topic and we can discuss it.

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  6. Ethan/Zenovia: I just deleted my initial post on your hunger strike. Not only are you a fraud, you are a crazy wannabe author and attention seeker who will do just about anything for fame. You have not only used the scambloggers, you have used the thousands of students who believed in you and sent you their stories, or did you make up those stories yourself?

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  7. I wouldn't piss on her heart if it were on fire.

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  8. Hmmm trying to cash in on others who are desperate? Sounds like a lawyer to me.

    Angel I know you won't want to hear this, but many people who have been scammed were hoping to graduate law school and do some scamming of their own.

    That's not to say that the scamblogs aren't important, they are, and this one is among my favorites. Still hard to feel sorry for some of the victims. When I hear someone whining about not getting a corporate law job, I don't feel as bad, as when I hear someone upset that they can't find work in public interest.

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  9. Practicing lawyer here with roughly ten years in the profession and doing very well but who really cares about the plight of the main audience for this blog. I have never posted here before, but I must take this opportunity to tell you, Angel, that you are a moron. You are eroding your entire message with garbage like this recent embarrassment and the constant fashion/makeup/girl garbage giveaways.

    You have a good message and provide another voice to the main issue. Stick to that message and stop trying to think or write about anything else, because you are not competent to do it.

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  10. Agree with Anon 10:24. Quit trying to drum up ad revenue with tacky ploys for pageviews. Stick with your main message. Your blog must be hemorrhaging readers.

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  11. Oh zenovia evans what scam won't you pull?

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  12. I'm sorry. I don't see her defrauding anyone-- assuming that she's actually on a hunger strike. I think it's great that she's written a book and she deserves to sell many copies if the material will help the next generation. No one is being forced to buy the book. She's not pushing bogus stats about how her readers make a certain salary after reading it. Cut her a break. She's in a tough situation and she's trying to take her life knowledge and resell it in a reasonably priced container. She's not charging $70k+ per year to learn. Her lectures aren't $500. I say "You go girl!"

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  13. Re: The Functional Idiots @ 10:24 and 10:49 -

    I think Angel is trying to pay her student loans.

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  14. @11:46 - Hey there, Ethan/Zenovia!

    The mercy for you in all of this fiasco is that you are a sociopath and do not care that the thousands who will remember this story know you are garbage. You will just carry on! Until, hopefully, one of your victims puts a bullet in your head.

    Unfortunately for the rest of us, vermin like you seldom actually end up in prison for any real length of time.

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  15. Since you're giving so much space to Zenovia N. Evans, J.D., maybe you can ask her why she pretended to be "Ethan Haines" in the first place. Is there some reason she couldn't start "experiencing the painful effects associated with this fast" under her own name from the start? Would she care to comment on the irony of demanding law school transparency while hiding behind a pseudonym that she "revealed" on her anonymous blog?

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  17. @ 1:59:

    Wah-Waaaah. That fell flat.

    I'm a top 20% magna graduate who care about everything and did well in everything.

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  19. EvrenSeven, you're adorable. You're so keen to make an effort to post long blog comments.

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  20. Those of you who criticize reviews and giveaways: We NEVER ask any of our readers to donate money or buy us things from an Amazon wishlist like many other bloggers out there. That is because we don't expect anything from our readers we know are struggling to get by themselves. We don't make any money from doing reviews and giveaways. All we get is a free product to keep for ourselves and another product to give to our readers. I think that is fair and reasonable compensation for two underemployed people writing a blog for pennies each day. We usually immediately follow-up a review with another law related post so if you aren't interested in the product, then don't read it. It's as simple as that.

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  22. Hey, EvrenSeven:

    I've kicked your ass every step of the way. And, well, yes, the recession hasn't been a good time, and you were more fortunate than I, but, calm down, baby, because I'll be back kicking your ass sooner than you know. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

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  23. I just read on another blog she is a graduate of Cooley, seriously! Maybe I missed it but I could not find that anywhere in the article. I'm sorry but that school is just the lowest of the lows. And yes I do have friends that went there, I don't fault them, but I would have rather gone to Appalachian in Grudy, VA than to Cooley.

    I would have love to read what EvrenSeven said.

    Angel and Hardknocks, I love reading your posts. Usually I skip the little giveway things (just not my thing) but you all do a good job of giving us 0Ls some prespective. Many of my friends just graduated law school, some that are in 3,2, and even 1st year and seeing their FB status updates make me a tiny bit sad I'm not there with them, but at the same time I know I made the right decision not to go 200,000 in debt. I'm still in the legal field and learning a whole range of stuff. The head paralegal actually said the other day - it's like the first year of law school, lol.

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  24. http://sbmblog.typepad.com/sbm-blog/2010/08/is-hungerstriking-jd-a-graduate-of-a-michigan-law-school.html

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  25. Casually Me, are they dense? She went to Cooley, obviously. And, with all of her auto comments, I'm convinced that she's a bot. Ha.
    Anyways, sometimes the comments get me down. Especially the first few that I read this morning from court. But, at the end of the day, the beauty of anonymity is that you don't know me and you don't know what school I went to and how I pay my bills and whether I pay my bills. I am confident in myself. So, hate away. Besides, I read the nice and supportive comments and feel tons better. I love our readers. That's why HK and I do the giveaways. We only make pennies a day on this blog, but our giveaways are the only way we can help our readers. If giveaways aren't your thing, then skip them. No big deal. The winner appreciates them. I am a bit gullible when it comes to this issue. I have a weakness for debt burdened students. So, kill me for having a heart. I will get back to posting about the legal industry and put this humiliating situation behind me. Thanks for caring.

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  26. I don't think it's humiliating to have trust in another. We all get burned. It's not turning cynical to the point of dysfunction is the key, I think. Keep your head up, this is an extremely well written blog with a lot of great information.

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  27. yes, this is a well written blog, with tons of useful information. keep writing, and spreading the word. it is important for people to have realistic expectations regarding debt and law school. i'm a practicing lawyer, and i've been doing well, but i think i just lucked out.

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  28. She killed her own case by lying. What a sorry idiot.

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