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: Begging the Question

I left Rome [Georgia], and landed in Brussels

By "Milbarge" and "Fitz-Hume"

There's a little bit of buzz over this story about a purported class action suit filed by a lawyer who was rejected from the DOJ Honors Program, allegedly because of political bias. See thoughts from David Lat at ATL here, and Orin Kerr at Volokh here.

The basics are that the plaintiff, a graduate of the University of Georgia law school, interned at the DOJ and applied for the Honors Program upon graduating. Alas, he wasn't selected. His lawyer says he "had every reason to believe" he would get the job, and was instead "disgracefully deprived of the opportunity to do what he had planned to do." Oh, well, we can't have that. Heaven forbid someone doesn't get the job he expects, especially if it's a prestigious and competitive position.

I have not taken the time to dive into the comments to those posts linked above, but I doubt I'm the first to note one particular absurdity of this suit. The plaintiff states that he was unable to find a job in the U.S. and had to settle in Belgium. He must have really put all his eggs in the DOJ basket! Did he not even apply for other jobs?

I've had a little bit of experience with employment litigation, and I have an idea where this is going. The DOJ (if it has to answer this pleading) is probably going to lay out every reason this guy wasn't hired, and I doubt he'll look better once all that is public record. If this person actually tried to get other jobs out of law school (and UGA is a fine law school, very well-respected especially in the southeast), and couldn't, chances are there is something wrong enough with him or his record that was plenty of reason for DOJ not to hire him. Maybe politics really did play a role. But it's not like every legal employer in America was making its decisions based on political party preference. There's something fishy if he couldn't get any job at all anywhere in the country.

(Title of this post adapted from Bob Dylan's classic "When I Paint My Masterpiece.")

Full post as published by Begging the Question on July 02, 2008 (boomark / email).