Sideshow ‘Geek’ Seeks Law Degree

Law Students

Posted Sep 4, 2007, 01:54 pm CST
By Martha Neil

Corrected: As classes begin today at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich., it appears likely that one incoming student will stand out just a bit from the other first-years.

Eduardo Arrocha, 45, otherwise known as "Eak the Geek," a self-described sideshow freak, has decided it's time for a career change, reports Newsday. Tattooed from head to toe, the honors scholar also boasts a shaved head. However, he's not completely off the beaten track—the Mexico City native comes from an academic family, and his father and a brother are both lawyers.

Once he earns his law degree, Arrocha hopes to go into a practice area that isn't standard-issue. "I know it sounds weird, but I want to be a freak lawyer," he says. "I hope to have a little office in New York and work with the alternative people ... all the so-called riffraff, to give them legal representation that is not judgmental."

Updated 09-06-07 at 3:37 p.m. CST to remove the indication that Arrocha's sideshow talent was nail-eating.

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Posted by Linda A. Dominguez - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes ago

Everyone deserves good representation, even “freaks.“ I realize that the alternative culture will enjoy having “one of their own” as an attorney but I have to wonder whether he will be taken seriously by judges, who’s job is to judge the case on its merits but are often swayed by the attorney’s appearance.
Posted by anon - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 23 hours, 2 minutes ago

That is an admirable goal, I hope he can pay his bills.
Posted by beckie moriello - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 16 hours, 57 minutes ago

Thank you, Mr. Arrocha, for giving people the opportunity to re-examine their prejudices.

We teach kids that it’s what’s on the inside that matters - that we shouldn’t judge people based on their skin color - yet the fact that this human has unusual skin and dares to become a lawyer is somehow cause for news.

Shame on us.

(And don’t even start with that he did it intentionally. We’re still judging him based on his skin color.)
Posted by Steve - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 13 hours, 35 minutes ago

Responding to Beckie Moriello, who says that judging someone by their tattoos is judging someone by their skin color, apparently the same as judging someone by their race: Wow. If they post messages on their bodies that cause someone to arrive at conclusions about them, they are not being judged on the basis of race, an immutable biological characteristic. No, they are being judged for their choices to turn the exposed portions of their bodies into permanent billboards, for their decisions to proclaim those messages without end no matter what the circumstances, and perhaps also for the content of what they communicate on their skin. Unike biological skin color, those decisions do reveal something, perhaps imperfectly at times, about “what’s inside.“ Maybe Mr. Arrocha is someone I wouldn’t want in my home or around my family or maybe he’s the sweetest guy in the world. But if he decides to say something to me via his tattoos, I sure will listen before I make my decision. Ms Moriello, you are free to judge me by the content of what I’ve stated on this posting, as I’m guessing you will. If I tattooed it on my forehead, I’m guessing you would read it and judge me that way too.
Posted by Todd Rainer - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 21 hours, 7 minutes ago

In response to Steve’s response to Beckie. The attitudes about judging us tattooed freaks stem from exactly the same place as racial, religious, political and all those other nasty little prejudices that the human creature creates to separate itself from the “others” of the world.

People get tats for as wide a variety of reasons as they do anything else and while I don’t pretend to understand the reasons behind someone who pushes the envelope of body modification, i do think that judging someone who has done so based SOLELY on their appearance is the worst sort of prejudice that a person can exhibit.

Tattoos DO NOT reveal what is on the inside. Tell me, what does the dragon on my back reveal about me? How about the Kanji on my arms? NOTHING. They reveal exactly NOTHING. Except, I like ink.

As to Linda’s comment… if a Judge can’t put aside someone’s appearance and be a judge than that person has no right to be on the bench.

It’s time we all mature a bit and get over this penchant for judging based on superficial details. The sooner we do, the better off we’ll all be.
Posted by Todd Rainer - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 21 hours, 5 minutes ago

As an addendum:
It is also time we stop TOLERATING those who do judge based on superficial appearances.
Posted by Edward Arrocha/eak the geek - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 19 hours ago

I decided to go to law school in spite of my tattoos, it was a very difficult desition that I had contemplated for ten years or more. I whent back to school three years ago with the idea of perhaps getting enough skills to do a city job or something along the lines where I could not be discriminated.
I was, and always have been a “bookworm” and would always marvel at people when they would hear me speaking in a different language, or when the would find out that I read the New York times cover to cover every day-including Sundays- or that I had read a great amount of books, and no not easy novels… all before I went back to school three years ago.
I almost decided not to go to law school because I knew I was going to be horribly judged by a great deal of people.
So far my proffessors and fellow students are putting the prejuidices asside and are realizing the yes, I do study a great deal, I am respectfull and I sit in the front row so I can focus.
Would’nt it be nice if we could sit and discuss Rousseau, Locke, Marx, Milton Friedman among a slew of interesting things that I have read, instead of the tattoos on my body…
THAT IS WHY I DECIDED TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL, TO OPEN YOUR MIND AND MY MIND AND FIND A POINT OF COMMON UNDERSTANDING, not to impress anyone with trivial things. Thank you for allowing me to answer. Eduardo Arrocha
Posted by cecil - 1 year, 2 months, 2 weeks, 1 hour, 14 minutes ago

Good Luck Eduardo, I am not inked, but I spent a decade living and working in the motorcylce field. I had nothing in common with my law school colleagues, who were mainaly narrow-minded brats who never met a stereotype they didn’t embrace. So, I stuck it out and am now facing the same prejudices out in the job searching miliieu.
Oh well, I didn’t go to law school to impress a bunch of type-A a**holes. Go for it, but be prepared for a lot of struggles.

Oh, and forget reading the NYT from cover-to-cover during school!!!
Posted by beckie moriello - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 20 hours, 3 minutes ago

Hi Steve. You’re right that I will judge you based on the words tatooed on you. My judgment will be the same as if you aligned yourself with those words on paper, just as you appear to hypothesize.

I will also judge you based on the design tatooed on you identically to how I will judge you when you align yourself with that design in other ways, such as by wearing it on your tie.

Fortunately, the aesthetics of the designs on a person have a negligible impact on my impression of the person. Maybe one day society will advance to where seeing past exterior designs becomes our common goal.

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