Law Firm Lesson Not Learned in Law School
To Anthony Ciolli, not censoring the AutoAdmit Web site he worked on was a First Amendment issue, even though he reportedly admitted that sexist, racist and just plain rude comments posted there could sometimes be offensive. But it has also recently become an employment issue for the 23-year-old third-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania, too.
The job offer he had received and accepted from the Boston office of Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge has been rescinded because of his work for AutoAdmit, according to the Wall Street Journal law blog. “We expect any lawyer affiliated with our firm, when presented with the kind of language exhibited on the message board, to reject it and to disavow any affiliation with it. You, instead, facilitated the expression and publication of such language,” wrote Charles DeWitt, managing partner in the 500-lawyer firm’s Boston office.
Says Ciolli: “Three years of legal education has been wasted because of an unmoderated message board. … I don’t know what I’m going to do next.” He’s not the only one having a hard time finding work, though. Several female law students with stellar academic records have been harassed and perhaps rejected as legal job applicants because of negative comments made about them on AutoAdmit, reports the Washington Post.
