Sante Kimes Biography: Psychology of a Psychopathic Murderous Mother
It all started with mysterious disappearances of small things such as watch owned by a neighbor in Las Vegas, a mink coat in Washington and a car in Honolulu. Later on, using her dark charm, people began to disappear like the small things she took.
In her California home, as well as in her homes in Hawaii and Nevada, Mexican women were found to be held captive and enslaved. A dinner date with a banker in the Bahamas left the man never to be seen again. In Los Angeles, a man who knew enough about her was shot and found dead.
Last week, an elderly socialite named Irene Silverman was the victim. Sante Kimes, 63, and her son Kenneth K. Kimes, 23, conned the elderly woman who disappeared in the process. Her identity, her fortune, as well as her Manhattan town house were robbed from her by the mother and child scammers.
Although no body was found, the 82-year-old has been presumed dead while police claim they already have the suspects in custody a week after the disappearance of Mrs. Silverman. Having been apprehended due to an unrelated crimes, investigations on the suspects led to the discovery of a vast criminal history in various degrees.
Considered as one of the most crafty and diabolical con artists identified through numerous crimes committed from state to state throughout the years, a disturbing history unraveled behind the disturbing story of a mother and her child.
According to people who knew them, Sante Kimes was a ruthless mother who terrorized her children, and Kenneth was an impressionable son. Having an erratic relationship, the mother and child did not seem to be the likely partners in crime.
The Kimeses lived a life of both faux poverty and faux richness. It was a life of constant imbalance between living in luxury homes yet staffing them illegally with slaves. Lucrative businesses went up and down as they fought endless court battles as the scamming nature of Mrs. Kimes became apparent to people. It was supposed to be a typical story of an unsatisfied wife and mother who, in the end, obsessively manipulated and controlled others, as well as developed the habit of stealing. The man of the house was older but not wiser, as he was described to be a drunkard, constantly confining despite the depth of his love for his son Kenneth.
For those who knew Kenneth Kimes Jr., he was a boy who was well provided for, but lived in a household that exposed him to constant emotional chaos. Cloistered by a woman he knew as his mother, controlling every bit of his life and willing his obedience. Former acquaintances received mixed impressions between his hatred and love for his mother, swaying between the feelings of shame, fear and distrust towards her.
Sante Kimes, a woman expected by society to be the best example for her son, was a self-proclaimed criminal who thrived in committing crime despite the seemingly lack of motive apart from satisfying an inexplicable need. As a professional con artist, she committed crimes such as theft, which eventually progressed to murder. From keeping multiple identities to mislead creditors to burning her own houses to collect insurance, Sante Kimes hopped from one crime to another until she was imprisoned.
In the three years that she was away, Kenneth lived a normal childhood with his father and had a break from the trauma of being constantly controlled by his mother. When she came back from prison, the household went back to the way it was when she left. Unable to accept the situation, Kenneth ended up attacking his mother.
In 1994, the father of the household died. It affected Kenneth drastically that his behavior began to change. He started to become violent, noting the incident with his girlfriend from college where he was accused of committing domestic violence towards her. Other violent behavior were manifested toward other students from his college, and in some instances, the reasons were petty.
Much to the disappointment of those who knew him as a child, Kenneth became his mother’s accomplice. The once friendly boy who was unlikely to cause trouble or do misdeeds shocked them all when he became a part of the gruesome twosome. Old neighbors now suppose that his mother’s return triggered his violent nature as her presence pushed him to breaking point.
With the crimes surrounding Sante Kimes and her son Kenneth, the disappearances and murders were associated with them, but they have not received charges. With the missing Mrs. Silverman in New York, the dead David J. Kazdin in Los Angeles and the disappearance of Syed Bilal Ahmed in the Bahamas, the twosome are just suspects being held without bail awaiting trial due to a fraud case against a car dealer from Utah.
Looking at the Kimes closely, with the riches that surrounded them, it is puzzling that Mrs. Kimes felt the need to resort to illegal acts, especially after the death of her millionaire husband who left her with enough wealth. As a criminal, Mrs. Kimes is proud about the fact that she thrives in lying to other people, that her crimes were addictive that she had to do them again and again and it will never be enough.
Worlds Apart
Looking back at their family history, Sante Kimes, born Sandra Louise Walker in Dust-Bowl Oklahoma, she grew up in Las Vegas. Having been arrested for petty theft in 1961, more crimes followed including pilfering, car napping, etc., which were committed in various states including Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Santa Ana California, as well as other states within the United States.
Ten years after giving birth to a son named Kent Walker, Sante married Kenneth Kimes Sr., a businessman 16 years her senior. He was an owner of a construction company specializing in building motels in California, as well as owning some of those hotels, having one of them across Disneyland and the other one located in Palm Springs.
The marriage changed Sante’s fortunes. Over time, she and her husband maintained homes in Honolulu, La Jolla and Santa Barbara, Calif., and Las Vegas. They had their first and only child in 1975, and they named him Kenneth Kimes Jr. She was 40 at that time.
His son from a previous relationship was by then estranged from the family. Kent Walker worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman and was based in Las Vegas. Despite numerous attempts to get information from him, he refuses to speak about her family.
During the 70s, they resided mostly in their Honolulu beachfront house. According to Charles F. Catterlin, her former lawyer, Mrs. Kimes used different variations of “Sandra” for her aliases. These included Santa, Sante, Santee Sandy, Sane, Taj, etc. Surnames she used included Walker, Singhrs, Singhers, Singer, Saligman, Powers, Kimes, Jacobson, and Chambers.
In 1980, Sante was arrested at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel after stealing a mink coat from a piano bar worth $6,500. She delayed trial for five years using medical excuses, where the case was concluded by convicting her in absentia.
Winning the Neighbors’ Distrust
Moving the family to a two-story house in 2121 Geronimo Way, Las Vegas in 1980, they were hardly welcomed by their neighborhood since the beginning. Right after moving in and interacting with their new neighbors, things began to start missing. Neighbors recount their interactions with Mrs. Kimes and they described her as having “…mounds of hair…a large woman who wore scads of jewelery and an enormous amount of perfume.” Others remember her imprinting a certain quality of strangeness and a condescending attitude.
Referring to her relationship with her child, she apparently opposed to letting her son play with the kids from the neighborhood because his son, she said, “…is a genius.” Some observed that Kenneth seem to dislike his mother’s oppressive attitude, and that his father was often times too drunk to neither interfere nor be involved in the boy’s behalf.
The ascetic nature of the Kimses made sure that they keep much to themselves as they seldom entertain anyone in their home. Even the houses they live in speak of their personality, where the design of the house is almost devoid of windows, having only sliding doors with “keep out” signs on them.
The house was left in shambles as they often leave the house empty months on end earned the disrespect of the community. During the Fourth of July celebration, Kenny launched a rocket setting a neighbor’s house on fire, causing the family to pay for settlement due to $170,000 worth of damages.
After the incidents, neighbors began seeing Kenny differently. The “genius” became an oddball for his lack of regard towards others. It may be due to the fact that he lacked interaction with other people as he was not sent to school for several years, and was trained by tutors accompanying the family while they travel.
One tutor named Cynthia Montano recounts that while in Mexico with the family, Mrs. Kimes told her to look for teenage girls who do not speak English and hire them as maids. Assuring their families that they will receive good pay and will be cared for, will be given regular days off, and will be allowed to all home.
The Mexican women were smuggled into the United States by the Kimses, taking one to two women at a time over the years. Neighbors saw the women around their homes in Las Vegas, La Jolla and Honolulu during the mid-80s.
One of the maids asked a neighbor help in their Las Vegas home, in 1985. The neighbors recall that “she looked panicky, frantic” and that the young woman asked for him to call the police.
That summer, Mr. And Mrs. Kimes were arrested due charges of slavery. In February 1986, seven maids testified that they were never paid, never allowed to take days off nor were they allowed to contact relatives. They also testified that they received physical and other types of abuse from Mrs. Kimes.
Despite knowing the offenses, Mr. Kimes did nothing about it and pleaded guilty to a reduced charged. He was given three years suspension as his sentence, and was asked to pay $70,000 as fine. Mrs. Kimes was imprisoned for five years.
A Shot at Normal
When Sante was imprisoned, Kenny was 11 years old. His father made a lot of changes in their lifestyle. He had a swimming pool installed, gave him a piano and allowed him to play with his friends. During this time, Kenny experienced going to school where some of his friends went and dropped his tutors.
One of his former friends recounts that his mother’s time in prison had been “Kenny’s golden years”, and talked about ”His father was a very kind guy, a good friend. We’d go over to his house and he’d buy 10 McDonald’s. There would be four or five of us there lazing around.”
Everything that Mr. Kimes did during this period in time was for Kenny. Former friends say that the pool was constructed for Kenny’s birthday and for his party. He even took Kenny and his friends to Beverly Hills for a weekend trip.
At 67, Mr. Kimes sold his business to a fellow hotelier in 1986 and spent more time with his son. During this period, his net worth was estimated to be at $10 million. Having made almost no contact with his mother during this period, his friends recount Kenny not wanting to speak with her even on the phone, and that he was ashamed of her. One friend even spoke about his hatred towards his mother saying “He just said she was crazy.”.
After graduating from grade school, he attended Bishop Gorman High School where he got into sports, clothes, computers and a few short-term girlfriends.
The 360-degree turn
In 1989, Mrs. Kimes was released after serving three years of her five-year sentence. Friends now tell how traumatized Kenny was when she got out of prison. Kenny once again got dragged into traveling and dropped out of high school. They went to Tokyo, Hawaii, and the Bahamas. She did not want Kenny keeping association with any of his friends.
Once again, the family moved to Green Valley where Kenny has no friends, and transferred to a public high school. At 15, he became so angry and beat his mother. Nothing seems to have happened with his rebellion, and he was continuously transferred from one home to another, and where he had more tutors.
The last three years of his high school was spent in Hawaii, the Bahamas and Europe, where tutors always accompanied them. John Boettner, the person who recommended his tutors said that Kenny got himself admitted to the University of California at Santa Barbara.
In 1990, their Honolulu home caught fire, which was suspicious since it previously caught fire in 1978. The Chubb Corporation, their insurers, refused to pay the claim. This led to Mrs. Kimes filing a legal complaint against the insurers and began threatening Chubb executives through calls. She was sued back, and an injunction was obtained against her. Eventually, the complaint against her was dropped and no criminal charges were filed in the fire as it was declared to be a case of arson.
The Honolulu case did not progress but other dubious activities took place.
Neighbors saw glimpses of their Las Vegas house garage housing television sets and other appliances, which they assume to be stolen.
At one time, Mrs. Kimes reported to their insurers that some furnishings from their Las Vegas home have been stolen. This was contradicted by neighbors saying that they were taken away by a moving truck.
Their Las Vegas accountant, Ms.Meade testifies that Mrs. Kimes constantly have ongoing lawsuits, some under her name and some under her aliases. She helped Mrs. Kimes create false paper trails to confuse creditors, process servers and lawyers, up to the point of disclosing her own address and phone number to throw them off.
Mrs. Kimes also gave instructions to list their properties under other people where some of them were paid to go along with the tactics, other were just simply used without them knowing. Much to her surprise, she found out that she owned a house near Green Valley High, while Mr. Kazdin, a long-time friend and a businessman, was listed as the owner of their Geronimo Way house.
Despite the millions they have, Mrs. Kimes kept on stealing and conning people. Mrs. Kimes, Meade says, was so used to resorting to underhanded tactics just to get the most out of other people. She apparently reported a laptop missing and submitted an insurance claim in order to get it for free. As the Kimses accountant, Ms. Meade was asked by Mr. Kimes to keep all business-related information from his wife, especially those that had anything to do with his wealth. She was eventually dismissed due to the fact that she followed Mr. Kimes’ orders.
The Last Straw
While enrolled in Santa Barbara in 1994, Kenneth Kimes Sr. Died due to natural causes. How his wealth was divided was unclear. Before he died, a large plot of land in Santa Maria, Calif., was transferred under Mrs. Kimes’ name.
Mrs. Kimes hired engineers to survey the property in Santa Maria, where the land is expected to occupy 170 building lots for a housing development, which she refused to pay.
Kenny, on the other hand, was heavily devastated by the loss of his father. He now began to foster a closer relationship with his mother whom he used to hate, saying now that he did love his mother simply because she is his mother.
In 1995, a year after his father’s death, Kenny Kimes manifested violent nature when he got uncontrollably angry and abusive from a dispute over money. His cat soiled Carrie Louise Grammer’s friends’ bed. Carrie ended up filing for a restraining order against him, saying he became verbally abusive after the incident.. Mr. Kimes, she said, had promised to pay for the $75 worth of bed linens and then handed over only $35.
In her complaint, Ms. Grammer recounted several instances of abuse, including violence against his ex-girlfriend, as well as beating up another student – both of whom he claimed to be innocent from. Ms. Grammer says that Kenny “came at me in a threatening manner.” She also recounted how he cursed her. The state judge told both parties to stay away from each other.
Kenny dropped out of college in 1996 and began conspiring with his mother by filing malpractice lawsuits against Dr. Joseph Graves, a plastic surgeon from San Diego. The complaint was due to what he said to be a “botched nose job”. Her mother on the other hand claimed that she fell from the operating table during one her face-lifts and suffered from a head injury. The lawsuits were dismissed when plaintiffs did not appear in court.
In September of the same year, Sante and Kenny were in Nassau and were meeting with Syed Bilal Ahmed, a 55-year-old Bahraini who worked for the First Cayman Bank in the Cayman Islands. He was investigating irregularities at the Gulf Union Bank in Nassau, a subsidiary of the First Cayman Bank. People confirmed that Mr. Ahmed was in constant contact with the Kimeses during this time. He was presented with an on-line business venture by the mother and son pair and accompanied by them on his last trip to Nassau. He was scheduled to have dinner with Mrs. Kimes the night he disappeared. All his belongings were also missing from the Radisson Cable Beach Resort in Nassau where he was checked in. The mother and son pair left Nassau and he police were unable to question them regarding the incident.
Investigators failed to question the Kimeses due to lack of evidence that would link them with the banker’s disappearance.
Insurance Scamming and Bouncing Checks
After the incident in the Bahamas, Sante Kimes attempted to cash in their home in Geronimo Way, which was named under Mr. Kazdin’s name. It had been under his since 1992 and, as Mr. Kazdin’s lawyer later stated that the house was signed under his client’s name as a favor to the late Mr. Kimes.
Mrs. Kimes’ next victim was an indigent man from Las Vegas whom she found from a homeless shelter. Frank McCarren became the new owner of the Geronimo Way house, while Mrs. Kimes mortgaged it for $200,000 from a Florida bank.
After getting fire insurance for the house under McCarren’s name, Mrs. Kimes attempted once again to claim for damages from the fire on Jan. 31. Arson was determined as the cause of the fire after finding the presence of flammable liquid on the upstairs and the downstairs of the house.
After investigations, Mr. McCarren told investigators that Mrs. Kimes forced him to take part in the scam, and had held him prisoner, abused and bullied him to lie and answer probing questions from investigators. Mrs. Kimes once again failed to collect insurance claims.
As the situation worsened, the Florida bank that gave mortgage on the house contacted Mr. Kazdin to confirm the mortgage. During the investigation, Mr. Kazdin informed the bank that he did not apply for any mortgage. He was later found dead on March 14, and the Kimeses became the primary suspects who, by them, were nowhere to be found.
In April that year, the Kimeses bought a ‘97 Lincoln Town Car, which was delivered to Los Angeles by a Cedar City, Utah car dealer. It was paid for in check at $14,900, which bounced.
After filing for a complaint, the dealer found the Kimeses to have left along with the car. By this time, they were already headed for Florida.
Leaving a trail of bad checks, the Kimeses bought a motor home for $80,000. It was later found abandoned in Florida.
Using a fake name later in June, Kenneth rented a $6,000 a month apartment in New York, located at the East 65th Street. The townhouse was owned by Mrs. Silverman. A few weeks after, the pair was found to have forged paperwork in order to assume Mrs. Silverman’s identity and take over her properties. Mrs. Silverman disappeared on July 5 of that year.
That same evening, Sante and Kenneth Kimes were arrested at the New York Hilton due to arson and all other scams that they allegedly pulled, but not for murder. Numerous evidences were found in their car, which implicated them in the various crimes they committed across states.
Sante and Kenneth Kimes were convicted without parole for the murder of a family friend and business associate. Mrs. Kimes was convicted for the murder of Irene Silverman in 2002. She was also found guilty of ordering her son Kenneth into shooting David Kazdin after threatening to expose the scam she attempted to pull involving a $280,000 loan under his name. Mrs. Kimes is considered to be “one of the most evil individuals” as stated by Judge Kathleen Kennedy Powell.
Scott Rothstein: Ponzi Schemes, Morocco, & Golden Toilets
It seems like only yesterday that many thousands of people were being scammed by Ponzi schemers with elaborate stories and fake investment schemes. I guess that’s because it was yesterday, and every other day, except now it is mostly done with federal bailout money. Every now and then, though, somebody will get too greedy and must take the fall.
At the moment, that is Scott Rothstein. Rothstein is, or was, a lawyer who has been called, among other things, ”the Bernie Madoff of South Florida.” (Other Madoff-related nicknames apparently include “Mini-Madoff,” and “Madoff on Crack,” although those seem inconsistent to me.) His version of a Ponzi scheme was to bring investors into his law firm and tell them that he had clients who would assign the rights to settlement agreements that paid over time, in exchange for getting a lump-sum now. The investors would profit from the difference, later, assuming that they put up their money now. And they did. Put up their money, that is, to the tune of maybe $1.2 billion. They did not profit, because there were no settlement agreements, no clients, and no cases. But prior investors were paid with new investors’ money, the classic Ponzi arrangement.
Huge amounts of money were turned over, because there were absolutely no warning signs of any kind that Rothstein might be a crook. Who doesn’t know a lawyer who owns three Bentleys and up to 20 other luxury cars that he keeps in an air-conditioned warehouse? (At the moment I only have two Bentleys, but I have not been a partner that long.) Also, many’s the time that our staff has thanked me and our other partners for “shower[ing] gifts on all of them, including exotic cars, jewelry and boats.” It’s just the way lawyers operate. And I object especially to the suggestion that you should suspect a man of fraud just because he has gold-plated toilets.
The Gold-Plated Scott Rothstein Toilet
Okay, seriously — if your lawyer or investment manager has a gold-plated toilet, first, DO NOT GIVE THAT PERSON ANY MORE MONEY. THEY HAVE ENOUGH. And you should also officially be on notice at that point that further inquiry is suggested as to how that person came by gold-plated-toilet money to begin with. In my experience, people who made their money honestly do not plate their toilets with it.
Okay, in all fairness, it was just the toilet lids. But on the other hand, he had two of them:
When news of the Ponzi scheme broke, someone sent [Bob] Norman [a reporter covering the story] a photo of Rothstein’s his-and-hers toilets. The lids were gold-plated, each estimated to cost $25,000.
Norman said one of Rothstein’s investors told him: “I was lulled into believing this myth that he created. I really believed he had a golden touch. What better way to perpetuate that myth than by having a golden toilet?”
So, let me see if I understand. You thought the man’s golden toilet was evidence that he had the Midas touch? But you didn’t ask him to sit on anything else to prove it? And is it too late for me to ask you for money?
Rothstein pleaded guilty last month, probably in part because it is difficult to come up with an innocent explanation for why you “wired $16 million to an offshore account and fled to Morocco in a private jet” if you haven’t been up to something. He faces up to 100 years in jail, where the toilets are stainless steel. Although maybe putting his ass in jail will change that.
Why Morocco, and the followup question, why in the world did the guy come back? Good questions.
Not coincidentally, Morocco is one of the countries that has no extradition treaty with the United States, something that Rothstein knew because — and this is possibly my favorite detail of the whole story, short of the golden toilets – he made somebody in his firm research that issue for him. The project was supposedly on behalf of a “client,” but he was in fact having someone research the question of where he should flee to avoid prosecution.
I was sort of hoping he called in an associate and just made that person do it, but it turns out he sent an email, apparently to everyone in the firm (Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler law firm in downtown Fort Lauderdale), saying he had a rush project for an important client. “We have a client that was a United States citizen until about 6 months ago,” Rothstein wrote in the email, probably able to resist making air quotes around “client” only because he was busy typing the word. “He became a citizen of Israel and renounced his United States citizenship. He is likely to be charged with a multitude of crimes in the United States including fraud, money laundering and embezzlement.” (I’m trying to imagine what people at the firm were thinking upon reading this.) Rothstein wanted them to research whether the client could be extradited from Israel, or could be prosecuted for the crimes in Israel. “This client is related to a very powerful client of ours,” Rothstein continued, “and so time is of the essence. Lets [sic] rock and roll….there is a very large fee attached to this case. Thanks Love ya Scott,” he concluded.
“Love ya”? When I was an associate, partners never said “love ya” when asking me to research countries to which they could flee without fear of extradition. Times sure have changed.
Suspicion by Attorneys at Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler Law Firm
The report in which I found this information went on to say that “[a]ttorneys in the firm now believe ‘the client’ was actually Rothstein.” It did not say how long it took them to figure this out, but it does confirm that someone at the firm advised Rothstein that there might be a better choice:
Stuart Rosenfeldt [another named partner at the firm], who was in a 50 percent partnership with Rothstein at the time, said that he and many of the other attorneys in the firm now believe that Rothstein was talking about his own situation and that another attorney in the firm suggested that Morocco was one destination that did not have extradition agreements with either the U.S. or Israel.
Next stop, Morocco.
The report also quoted Rothstein’s lawyer as saying that as far as he knew, the e-mail really was about an actual client, and the trip to Morocco was just sort of a last-minute vacation. “I still don’t know [if there was a client],” he said. “I had nothing further to do with it . . . . He was always intending on coming back [from Morocco]. He came back early. He never intended to flee. He literally went there to clear his head.” Also, the fact that he had just been told Morocco did not have an extradition treaty was literally a coincidence.
I guess ultimately the answer [as to why he fled to Morocco specifically] depends on whether you believe it was a coincidence that not long before the fleeing started, he assigned somebody a research project involving countries that did not have extradition treaties with the United States. If you don’t believe that was a coincidence, the more difficult question is probably: Once safely in Morocco, why the hell did he come back? I don’t think there is a clear answer to this, either, but here are some possibilities.
First, it may not have been all that safe in sunny Morocco. This is hearsay, but one report suggested that “investors in Morocco” had given Rothstein $85 million, and assuming they now realize they are not getting that money back, he might have needed to extradite himself from Morocco on the double. But this report describes Rothstein as being “as happy as ever” during his time in Morocco. Hard to believe he was that way all the time, as his life collapsed, but he didn’t act hunted.
Second, as the Wall Street Journal noted, Rothstein’s partner Stuart Rosenfeldt has claimed that in an email from Morocco, Rothstein listed his options as suicide, life on the run or life in prison, and that Rosenfeldt urged him to “choose life.” Maybe so, but maybe he didn’t mean life in prison, the prospect of which might convince Rothstein to cut a deal.
Which is what he did, and that is not good for a lot of people. For example, recent bankruptcy filings allege that all three named partners engaged in “curious and circuitous movement of law firm funds over the past few years.” These included borrowing millions from the firm and then paying that money back to the firm, themselves, their wives, and various third parties. The filings also allege Rosenfeldt himself spent an awful lot of money — no golden toilets, apparently, but he did put $1 million on his firm-issued American Express card for charges including 72 pieces of jewelry for his wife, home furnishings, clothes, vacations, restaurant meals, and an undisclosed number of “exotic reptiles.” (Maybe this is why the expense reports I submit for my exotic reptiles keep getting rejected.)
Rosenfeldt’s attorney said these allegations would “prove to be overstatements.”
So, third, Rothstein may have a lot to chat about, and maybe having seen Morocco, he decided he might be able to cut a deal good enough to at least make prison reasonable in comparison to that hellhole. Under the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence reduction and more lenient prison conditions in exchange for cooperation. As a result, he is expected to get about 30 years rather than the 100 he faces. (Bernie Madoff did not cooperate, and got 150 years.) Still, 30 years is 30 years.
Fourth, Rothstein has maintained that he chose to come back, plead, and help authorities collect stolen assets, because he decided to “do the right thing.” I guess that is not impossible.
Finally, since I don’t really like any of the above explanations, I am going to go with this one: with him in jail, the feds wouldn’t feel obligated to go after his wife. As noted above, all the partners gave lavish gifts — and lots and lots of cash — to their wives, and it is hard to imagine that they did not at least suspect something. But the same was true of Ruth Madoff, who has also not been charged. I am guessing that so long as the primary fraudster is behind bars, prosecutors are probably satisfied.
I haven’t been able to find a better answer than that, so my guess is that Rothstein came back to the U.S. in order to make sure his wife stayed out of jail. And that’s nice, at least.
On the other hand, maybe he just really hates Moroccan food.
[thanks to alkan chaglar and kevin underhill via cc]
Law School Interview Tips: Advice and How to Answer Questions
How can I prepare for my interview?
You should do research on the school itself. Learn a little about the city it is in, the programs offered, grading policies, and instruction style. Look at the school’s information packet and their web site. If you’re interested in going into a particular field after law school, find out which faculty at the school are teaching in that area. The more you read about the school, the more questions you will have to ask your interviewer.
What should I wear to the interview?
Dress professionally in your style. This simply means to dress like you would if you were a lawyer, but do not lose all of your personality (i.e. if you are a guy with long hair, don’t cut it; if you normally have a mustache, leave it…you are not trying to produce a standard image, you want to be yourself).
Should I bring anything to the interview?
Bring a list of any questions you wish to ask (you will probably forget most of them if you try to memorize them). Always have a pen and paper on you. Find out what the weather will be like and bring a coat if necessary. Bring your application to look over between interviews.
What will I be asked?
This is largely dependent on the school and on the interviewer (in other words, on chance). Be prepared to answer questions about “defining” moments in your life–elaborating on what you do for fun, what your favorite activity is, what sports you play, and just about anything that interests you. Some schools still drill you though, so beware (these interviews can truly be draining). Stress interviews (empty rooms with phones ringing, being asked to open windows that are nailed shut) are very rare. If it’s on your application, be prepared to discuss it.
Some commonly asked law school interview questions:
- The favorite: Tell me about yourself.
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years? (often asked)
- What does your family think about this?
- What is the biggest problem facing the legal field today?
- What are the disadvantages/downsides of a career in law, beside no time?
- What are you looking for in a law school?
- What do you think about “insert current hot topic here”?
- What field of law are you interested in?
- What do you like to do that isn’t law related?
- What will you do if you do not get accepted somewhere this year?
- What are your strengths/weaknesses?
And, perhaps the most popular…
Why do you want to be a lawyer?
If you want to say “to help people,” please just make that an introduction to a much deeper soliloquy! You can tie this answer to personal experiences (i.e. things you may have seen while working/volunteering in the legal field, or possibly a personal experience that you or a family member went through). The key is to come across as someone who has genuinely thought through the decision.
What questions should I ask?
Ask anything you want about the school. Many times faculty or students may not know the answer, but will be willing to find out and get back to you.
Should I do anything after the interview?
Sending a thank you note is purely optional, and some consider it an outdated practice. Others feel that acknowledging time spent on your behalf is just common courtesy. One suggestion is to follow up with the admissions office, expressing your interest in the school.
What does “waitlisted” mean? What does “hold” mean?
The terms “wait list,” “acceptance range,” “hold,” and any others synonymous with these all mean that the class was full, but you have been placed on a ranked list. If spots open up, people on the wait list will be moved up and offered seats in the class. In general a school will accept twice as many people as its class size when all is said and done. Also, even though waitlists ARE ranked, they do not have to pull from them in order, so if something about you really stands out (such as a follow up letter stating how impressed you were with the school and how much you would like to become part of their institution), you can increase your chances of getting in off the wait list.
What if I don’t get accepted?
Try again. Trying 2 times seems to be the norm these days but after 3 times you might want to consider doing something else (there have been some people who have finally been accepted after applying 4+ times, but they are the exception rather than the norm). The most important thing to do is to consult each school as to why you were rejected or not taken off of the waitlist and ask what you can do to improve your chances. Follow their advice.
How should I choose what school to go to?
This depends on several factors. Important ones include location and what the school “typically” produces. In other words, if you want to specialize, it may not be in your best interest to go to a state school where most of the class goes into general practice. Financial issues are also a factor, as state-funded schools are often much less expensive than private schools. Going to a school with an established reputation may be of benefit, especially when applying for fellowships and positions in academic law. If you feel that you may end up in an academic position, or are considering a very competitive specialty, you may consider going to a “name” school. If you narrow it down to two schools which are virtually identical, go to the one that feels right–that might be your best choice. How do the students at the school feel? Are they treated well?
What should I do during the summer before law school?
Nothing at all. Take a deep breath.
[thanks to kafta4prez and sdnwiki via cc]
