Bad Glacier

Last week, Professor CrimLaw handed out an old exam question. We were supposed to spend an hour or so over the weekend to write out an answer, then we’d meet again on Monday and go over the problem. This was my first experience with an actual law school exam hypothetical, and damn, those suckers are tough.

In the end I did alright, but not terribly well. I caught some issues, I missed others, and I got one part completely wrong, which made a significant chunk of my answer irrelevant. But that doesn’t really bother me much. Sure, I forgot things. I forgot a lot of things. But I’m amazed at the amount of information I did recall. The big concepts are in my head, and even better, I’m thinking about them the right way. I’m saying the right kind of things and making the right kind of arguments. The details will come, eventually.

My main problem is lack of organization. My answer was a mess. I wrote too much about some things and not enough about others. I discussed some issues in the middle of unrelated paragraphs, and I completely forgot other issues that I didn’t immediately write down. I need to organize my thoughts before I start writing. I need to structure my answer to focus on the main points. And I need a system for writing all this down so I can figure out the organization to use without forgetting points I want to make.

Oh, and I also need to study the material from the first half of the semester while keeping up with my reading for the second half, dealing with extracurriculars, and looking for a summer job at the same time.

Ha!

I’m not much of a link-and-comment blogger, but I’ll pretend tonight.

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein is not happy. Specifically, he’s not a fan of civil juries, which we all know “serve as a completely lawless element that wreaks havoc with the rule of law.” They come up with “ridiculous civil jury verdict[s]” and it’s no wonder they “have been abolished just about . . . everywhere but the U.S.”

What brought this on, you ask? Well, one particular band of unprincipled brigands “blatantly disregarded the law (and common sense)” and “held that the Port Authority of New York was 68% responsible for the (first) bombing of the World Trade Center,” in order to “ensure that the PA would be found more than 51% responsible, and thus, under comparative negligence rules, would have to pay.”

Now, I’m confused. There are a lot of ridiculous things about that case (more than I know, I’m sure), and the verdict is probably one of them, but before I blame everything on the jury system, I would reconsider the rule that someone who is less than 51% responsible isn’t liable for damages. If juries think the law is so unfair they are willing to fudge numbers (which are somewhat arbitrary to begin with) to get around it, I would suppose the problem to be with contributory negligence, not with the juries.

Can someone explain to me either the reason why I should be calling for the foreman’s head on a stake or the logic behind the 51% rule? I mean, aren’t juries supposed to be one of the democratic elements in law, keeping verdicts in line with public opinion and all that? I assume the reason for the contributory negligence rule is something like, “only the party most responsible for damage should be liable for it,” but that doesn’t sound persuasive to me. The issue of who should pay and how much is a hard one, but this can’t be the best solution we’ve come up with.

When I looked out the window a few minutes ago, my first thought was, “That’s weird. The rain’s falling really slow today.” It took a second for my brain to figure out what was wrong about that statement. Finally I realized–it’s snowing! Yay! To celebrate, I’m going to continue thinking about installing Linux on my laptop rather than finish the reading on personal jurisdiction for Monday… or my subciting, or the practice exam question I’m supposed to do this weekend, or…

Yeah.

Tonight is the halfway point in the HLS semester. To celebrate the fact that we successfully made it through the non-graded half of the semester, my section had a happy (three) hour(s) tonight with free beer and appetizers. I broke with tradition and went out, despite the fact that it’s a weeknight and there was some kind of work somewhere that I could possibly be doing. Good thing, too, because one of our professors showed up. I’d hate to be one of the people who stayed home while the law school professor went out to the bar. Also, Trevor was there, posing as a Section 1er and drinking our beer. He’s not in section 1. He stole our free beer. He’s a jerk. Also, a liar. Don’t believe anything he says. It’s all horrible, horrible lies.

That is all.

Girlfriend and I went to Salem today. It was fun. There are a lot of interesting little shops and historical sites around, though it seemed like there were two Witch Museums for every one person who was actually tried for witchcraft.

Still, I think the highlight of the day was on the ride home, when I caught a fellow subway rider picking his nose. Although I guess “caught” is the wrong word, since he was two knuckles deep all the way from MIT to Harvard.

(Alternate post titles: “Pick Me a Winner” and “Ow… Now I Don’t Know Math”)

Okay, people. We’ve been doing this for seven weeks now. You know the drill. When you propose a hypothetical in class, the professor is going to turn it back on you. So think about your question beforehand, come up with a response (something, anything!), and then include that in your question so we don’t all have to sit through the uncomfortableness of the professor prying knowledge out of you.

For example, instead of:

Student: “I understand Case X, but what happens if there’s a flying monkey?”
Professor: “Good question. What do you think happens?”
Student: “Uh… um, I don’t know. Uh… [long silence] … I think… well, that’s why I asked the question.”
Professor: “Well, what is the general rule here?”
Student: “Birds are awesome.”
Professor: “So?”
Student: “Well, a monkey isn’t a bird.”
Professor: “Okay, so what’s the problem? Your question seems pretty simple to me.” Etc.

You should do this:

Student: “Okay, so the rule is that birds are awesome, but what if there’s a flying monkey? Flying monkeys seem pretty awesome to me. Maybe the rule applies to all flying animals?”
Professor: “But what about penguins? They don’t fly at all, and they’re awesome. And bats?”

And just like that, you’re talking law! See how easy that is?

Today was looking to be incredibly productive, but my lazy afternoon killed it as usual. No matter what I do in the morning, no matter how much sleep I get, my afternoons are always completely worthless. I can get work done in the morning, I can get work done at night, but from about 2:00 to 6:00 each day, I do nothing. It’s terrible.

As it was, I made decent progress today. I won’t exactly be bored tomorrow, but since my subciting session was rescheduled, at least I’ll be able to attend a talk I wanted to see and maybe grab a beer with the ACS folks.

It wasn’t a good day, but it wasn’t a bad day either. Just a day. Let’s hope I’ll be able to say the same about tomorrow.

I know I can’t leave this in my final draft, but I was bored and tired of writing about adverse possession:

Vermont law does not recognize the “you live in my house, you follow my rules” doctrine. See, e.g., Josh v. 10:00 Curfew, 14 H.2d 1234, 1234 (1998). Cf. Josh v. Cleaning His Room, 11 H.2d 994 (1994) (imposing sanctions to “give [the plaintiff] something to whine about”); Josh v. Eating His Vegetables, 9 H.2d 893 (1991) (upholding the highly criticized “because I said so” defense).

Me: “Danger Doom.”

You: “Danger Doom?”

Me: “Danger Doom.”

You: “Danger Doom… Danger Doom!”

Both of us: “Danger Doom!”

(Danger Doom is: MF Doom, of underground hip-hop renown, DJ Dangermouse, of the Gray Album Jay-Z/Beatles remix, and the characters from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. It is also very good.)

I spent dinner yesterday comparing holidays with an LLM from Belgium. I knew that Santa Claus derived from Saint Nicholas, but I hadn’t heard the rest of the story.

Saint Nicholas lived in Turkey, but now is said to come from Spain. He arrives on a boat every year to bring toys, chocolate, and clementine oranges to all the children of Europe on December 6 . He does this by jumping his horse from roof to roof, tossing presents down chimneys as he goes. His helpers, called Black Peters because they are covered in soot from climbing down chimneys (I’m told it’s not a racial thing, but it still sounds shady to me), don’t get horses, so they have to carry their presents around in big sacks. Saint Nicholas is apparently dressed like a bishop or cardinal, with the miter, red cape, and staff. He has a book with each child’s name in it, and the children leave out a snack for his horse before they go to bed on December 5.

You can see the similarities to the American Santa Claus story. Santa’s suit is a less formal (and warmer–the North Pole is no Spain) version of Saint Nicholas’s clothing, and the reindeer, elves, and the tradition of leaving milk and cookies for Santa are obviously Americanized elements of the Saint Nicholas story. But here’s where things get wacky. The Santa Claus story crossed back over into Europe, so they have both Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas at the same time! Not all families celebrate both holidays, and Santa Claus is seen as more commercial than Saint Nicholas, so The Man had to make some rules to keep him down. In many places, Santa Claus is not allowed to show his face until December 7, after Saint Nicholas has done his rounds. Santa’s story isn’t very well-known, either. Apparently if you don’t bring oranges, no one really cares how many reindeer you taught to fly.

So Belgians prefer their holidays to be more realistic, do they? Actually, no. Instead of an Easter Bunny hiding eggs around the yard, they say the church bells from Rome fly overhead, dropping eggs with each chime. You aren’t allowed out of your room until you hear the bells tolling.

Truthfully, I’d rather get my treats from a rabbit with unknown motives than a flying church bell. But that’s just me.

I’m sure we’ve all thought to ourselves, at one time or another, “I should be paid more for this work.” The lawyers for the plaintiffs in City of Riverside v. Rivera certainly have. After winning their case against the city, the plaintiffs asked for attorneys’ fees and “a multiplier . . . to reflect the contingent nature of their success and the high quality of their attorneys’ efforts.”

This is awesome. I’m just imagining the lawyers celebrating in a bar after the verdict:

“We won! We actually won!”

“Hell yeah! We beat the pants off them. That brief was spectacular.”

“And your closing argument–just brilliant! Hey bartender, another round!”

“Damn, we’re good.”

“Damn straight, we are. In fact, we’re so good, they should pay us double!”

“Triple!”

“Wait, I have an idea. Gimme a pencil. [mumbling] Multiplier… high quality efforts… contingent nature of success…”

In the end, the court rejected their claim. Twice, actually. But hey, it was worth a shot.

Make-up classes on Monday and Tuesday, memo draft due Tuesday, subciting Wednesday… ugh. There’s not nearly enough time in this weekend to finish all the work I have to do for next week.

Expect more posting than usual.

Random quote from Prof. Property, taken completely out of context:

I’m sorry, I didn’t follow your question. I kept thinking, “There is no Santa Claus.”

I don’t think that’s exact, but it’s close.

Look, I know change is inevitable, but I sometimes find it hard to accept. For instance, when did the cherries stop being the best part of the fruit cocktail? My brother and I used to fight to make sure we each had the same number of cherries, with Mom taking the odd one if necessary. I would argue with myself over the best way to eat them–whether the one-cherry-per-spoonful method or the save-the-cherries-till-the-end strategy was the best way to maximize enjoyment of the Cherry Goodness. But I opened a can of fruit cocktail today, and I realized that the cherries just aren’t that good. They don’t taste much like cherries, and they have a waxy texture that isn’t very pleasing. I ended up eating them one at a time, not to savor the deliciousness, but so I could hide them between the pineapple chunks and squishy grapes.

What the hell happened to me? Is this growing up? ‘Cause I don’t like it.

My first thought when I picked up my graded memo was, “Wow, look at all the comments!” I was so relieved to finally get some feedback that it didn’t occur to me that lots of marking up equals lots of things I messed up. As soon my brain made that connection, though, I flipped to the back page, where I saw that I got…

…a pass. Of course. That’s what I had expected, but, looking back over it, I maybe should have been a little more worried about my grade. My writing wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered it being. Note to self: give yourself an extra day to go over your next memo, and stop using one-sentence paragraphs.

By the way…

How exactly are you supposed to eat oatmeal? Do you chew it? Do you just swallow? Do you swish it around a little first, or something equally weird? I’ve been eating oatmeal for years, and I’m suddenly worried I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time.

Maybe I just need more sleep.

I wrote something about LLMs, but I didn’t like it, so it’s gone now. Suffice it to say that they annoy me with their free time and their cooking skills, even though they are extremely nice people with interesting backgrounds and good stories. It balances out in the end, I think.

On a somewhat related note, why doesn’t English have gendered nouns? This seems like information I should know, but I don’t. Someone has to be able to help me. CM? Bueller? Anyone?

Holy crap, I actually understand this! (Link to a SCOTUSblog summary of Schaffer v. Weast, a case having to do with the burden of proof in an administrative due process hearing. Warning: my Civil Procedure class just finished up a section on due process. You might not find this nearly as interesting as I did.)

This law school thing must be working!

Like most of the other 1Ls here, I signed up to work for a law journal. Well, actually, two. Shut up. On Sunday, one of my journals had their first subcite of the year. The group of us assigned to this particular article spent a few hours in the library, checking all the footnotes in an article for proper form and examining the cited sources to make sure they actually support the author’s assertions. Our weapons in this battle against the non-standard citation style of lazy/forgetful law professors? Boxes of red pens, lots of candy, a fair amount of swearing, and The Bluebook, a 400-page pamphlet that explains the citation rules in a clear, simple, internally consistent manner. No, not really.

My initial enthusiasm (”Wow, I get to work with legal scholarship!”) was quickly replaced by confusion about the rules regarding when commas should be italicized and whether a “See BOOK X” needed a pincite or would be better as a “See generally.” Luckily, assorted editor-types were around to answer our questions and guide us along. We finished the first round of cite-checking quickly and with a minimal amount of pain.

The next day, I put on my line editor’s hat (I’m imagining it to look something like this) and went back to work. Line editing involves going over a section of previously subcited pages, attempting to make sense of some other subciter’s chicken-scratch, rechecking citation formats, making grammatical changes as necessary, and entering all these changes into the actual article. I found it more interesting than subciting, simply because I could work with a larger chunk of the article without being interrupted by constant source-checking. Also, the relative quiet of the journal office did wonders for my concentration.

All told, I did almost six hours’ worth of work over the two days, and I enjoyed a lot of it. I can see how the work might get tedious eventually, but so far it’s a nice change of pace from case briefing. It helps that I’ve been assigned to a single article, so I have some idea of the context of the page I’m working on, and I feel somewhat invested in the article. That’s my article. I worked on it. Yeah.

And, I now know that ellipses go space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space, not dot-dot-dot. Oh, how naive I’ve been.

Serenitywas enjoyable, even though I’ve never seen Firefly. Good stuff.