As the preliminary screener for several hires, I can say that cover letters can make or break applications at the initial screening stage. Of course, we’re working without writing samples or references at that point; the cover letter often serves as a sort of writing sample. I’ve given interviews to people whose resumes mightn’t have done it on their own, and definitely bumped people off the interview list for mechanically sound but uninspired cover letters. No cover letter, when one is explicitly requested in every job listing I post gets you round-filed immediately.

I’ve tagged your for another meme. This one is a challenge.

Mine will also, however, note my geographical connection to a place or, in a few cases, that a particular professor recommended I apply. (”I grew up in [State] and my family are all located within an hour’s drive of your chambers.” and “Prof. So-and-So highly recommended I apply to your chambers.”) It’s not quite the same as “I want to clerk only in this jurisdiction” but the idea is similar.

And I too am disturbed by that sentence about “illegitimate relations”. What the…? Aren’t you going to sell their children for money? Can we prosecute them for trafficking if they do? Can someone sue the owner on behalf of the dog parents? If their dogs are their children and are in a legitimate marriage (again…huh?), and they sell the offspring of those children…you see where I’m going with this, right? How far do we take the anthropomorphizing?

Anyway, I would suggest that people who don’t read fill their time by watching television. This hypothesis explains why so much of what is on television is crap.

Sorry Chambermaid wasted your time.

Being a professional and federally employed conservationist, I am particularly interested in certain rulings lately about the government’s responsibility to mitigate environmental disasters. Frogs are nature’s bellweather, the proverbial canary in the coal mine. If the government is called to task to protect species and habitats that are threatened by human-induced climate change, what are the implications of an entire phylum that faces a threat?

It seems that federal conservation efforts will face some serious legal soul-searching if we want to avoid implosion from the gargantuan task at hand. We are legally charged with protecting the environment. What do we do when our mandate forces us to take on the national economy? A statute on frogs may easily become a constitutional ammendment on the biosphere.

Thanks for commenting on my recent post. I was hoping that might delurk some of my friends.

I know my prof would have “had a cow” had any of us misstated that rule. Great link. Thanks for that.