Beware MBAs bearing gifts.

Nate Pierce, a JD/MBA student at NYU, contacted a few top schools back in January to tell them about his cool new idea: a service that would compile the resumes of other JD/MBAs and put them in touch with each other and potential employers. Apparently many schools don't keep up-to-date lists of JD/MBAs -- the god-kings of grad school society -- and therefore there's no central database of these uber-qualified job candidates. It's simple, really: You give him your resume, he makes sure an employer sees it. For free.

At this point, anyone with even the slightest shade of street wisdom would be wondering, what's in it for him? Nate's waaay ahead of ya. He reassured students in his initial pitch:

"Please note that I am not doing this for my own agenda -- I have already secured employment following graduation.  I am doing this project because I think it will benefit many JD/MBAs, and because I myself would like to be a part of a national network of JD/MBAs."

Shame on you for thinking he would try and make money off his fellow students!

Here's the problem: he sorta is. Just last week, a dean at NYU's career services office sent out a mass e-mail to administrators at Yale, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, and other places where Pierce had been hawking his wares:

From: Irene Dorzback
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 4:05 PM
To: [Redacted]
Subject: Re: TIME SENSITIVE JD/MBA Resume Book

Colleagues:

I just learned from a law firm that our student, Nate Pierce, has sent a promotional letter to the law firms offering the "top schools" JD/MBA resume book to them for a $500 fee. There are 52 resumes in the book (which I have not seen). No where in his communication to you did he indicate that he would be charging a fee and I don't believe your students believed he would be profitting "off their backs."

[snip]

Best,

Irene

We hear some of the students who signed up for the database were none too pleased. (Although Pierce told us that no one has opted out so far.) So Pierce sent out a notice to students explaining why he was now collecting from employers: 

I have incurred significant costs, in both time and out-of-pocket expenses, putting everything together (approximately $9,000 in time and effort and $3,000 in actual expenses for jointdegree.com, jdmba.com, and a software tool to enable employers to search the resume book based on key criteria).

He adds that he was planning to offer a complimentary copy to businesses that don't want to pay.

We got in touch with Pierce to hear his side. Somewhere in his 1,816-word reply, he acknowledges his mistake in not disclosing the fee and explains what he meant to say in his original e-mail:

I was trying to assure JD/MBAs, administrators, and employers that I was not piloting the project for my own exposure, which is entirely true.  I have already accepted an offer upon graduation, and my resume is not included in the employer edition. So no exposure for me (until now).

Machiavellian manipulation or honest mistake? The call is yours: we've included all the e-mails after the jump (minus the seven-screen monstrosity he sent us). Either way, he's now bound to get more exposure than if he'd done it right. So it goes.

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AboveTheLaw.com's "Law School Dean Hotties" contest concluded yesterday, and congratulations (and lame jokes about well-packaged briefs and banging more than the gavel) are in order for Ms. Asha Rangappa, assistant dean of admissions at Yale Law, and Mr. Evan H. Caminker, dean of Michigan Law (and a Yale J.D.).

When we first heard of the contest, we briefly considered organizing a ballot-stuffing campaign on behalf of the Ivy candidates -- until we realized that that would have been pretty much the same thing as saying "Vote."

Which of the male nominees had Ivy pedigrees? Thanks for asking. All of them, with the exception of this Brett Favre look-alike. There was less domination on the female ballot, but Rangappa took an early lead and never tossed her raven hair to look back. Well done, victors. Whether you top this scorching pair is for the jury to decide.

Is Charles Nesson the William Shatner of academia? No one's really sure why he's still around, but we dare not question it. Nesson's greatest hits are too many to detail here: Just know that the man they called "Billion Dollar Charlie" in A Civil Action, who boasted to students that he always smoked reefer before teaching, who once built a class around the O.J. Simpson case so successful Judge Ito asked his students for legal briefs ... this man may have finally topped himself.

Nesson's latest idea is so batshit insane, it just might work. He's teaching a class through Second Life, the online 3-D social universe in which desperate people interact with other desperate people. (Which means, by definition, most law students already have accounts.) It's like The Sims, but with moot court and office hours.

Here's the genius promo video for the class. Note (as if they're possible to miss) Nesson's CHiPs-style motorcycle entrance, the absolutely stunning Christopher Walken speech patterns, and the fact that he's lopped a minimum 40 years of aging off his digital persona. Daughter Rebecca Nesson makes an appearance as a butterfly -- Jesus, just watch: