Shortly before I left for class this morning, I got a phone call from someone looking for an “easy lawyer.” I have no idea what that was about, but let’s get one thing straight: I am most certainly not a lawyer.
That is all.
I’m in the mid-semester slump. Y’know, where you watch TV instead of reading, or you try to do work but end up zoning out in front of the computer for the better part of an hour. You start reading but can’t concentrate from the beginning to the end of the sentence, so you end up going over each paragraph five times. You install Linux on your laptop one day, just for the hell of it. (Okay, that one’s just me.)
And it came just when the workload finally goes nuclear. Along with the usual reading, I have the final draft of a closed memo, the first draft of the dreaded open memo, outlining, studying, practice tests, and a summer job search hanging over my head.
Things aren’t all bad, though. I’m reading cases about twice as fast as I did at the beginning of the year. I’ve stuck to my plan of getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I’ve managed to manage my stress pretty well so far, though that will probably change once exams get a little closer. I really do like law school. I just wish they let up on the pressure every once in a while to let us catch up on things.
Still, I’m eating like crap, and I know I’ve become more boring since I’ve been in law school. I try not to subject friends and family to a lot of law-talk, but that’s pretty much all I think about nowadays, so I have even less to say than usual. I’m cranky and whiny and I bitch a lot. But that’s just life as a 1L, I guess.
Two months. I can do this.
Here’s my theory about law school: no one really knows what they’re doing. They’re all just really good at pretending. To some extent, this is probably just wishful thinking, but then again, maybe not . . .
I know an upperclassman who had my Criminal Law professor his 1L year. He got an A in the class and told me and a few of my sectionmates that he believed his high grade came from citing case names in his answer. Well, we had a review session with that professor last week, and it turns out that he doesn’t care one bit about whether we cite cases. We won’t get any points for it; the best they can do is act as a convenient shorthand, but a short description of the case will work just as well.
Now, I don’t doubt that this upperclassman had good intentions. He has good grades and is obviously doing something right. He just doesn’t know what.
So the 3L-to-1L summer job advice session next Thursday? I’ll be there, but I’ll also be taking the advice with a grain of salt.
I skipped classes on Friday and went home for a friend’s wedding. Perfect timing–the never-ending schoolwork was starting to get to me. So I spent my weekend getting dressed up, riding around in a limo, drinking, dancing, forgetting people’s names, and generally making an ass out of myself. Now I come back, and for some reason my work is still here. Crap. I’d better read blogs until it gives up and goes away.
I’m pretty sure the fates are trying to prevent me from drifting back into full-fledged computer nerdity. I even have proof. See?
Proof #1: SCO finally states what they’re suing IBM for, but the court document is sealed, so I can’t spend hours ridiculing it.
Proof #2: This talk just happened to be scheduled during my only evening class:
Is the GPL Impotent? A Talk by Greg Aharonian
Mr. Aharonian is gearing up for a legal battle against the US Justice
Department, where he is challenging the legality and constitutionality of
software copyright law. He welcomes anyone who wishes to debate his views.
Coincidences? Doubtful.
I sometimes amuse myself while reading by imagining what the judges would say if they didn’t have to worry about little things like the reputation of the judiciary and having respect for the parties. Here’s an example, from Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42:
Frank Chambers was convicted of two robberies, based partly on evidence the police found during a search of the car he was riding in. He challenged the admission of this evidence, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. After holding that the warrantless search of the car was constitutional because the police has probable cause, Justice White starts to feel bad for Chambers. Poor guy just had his appeal crushed. He probably feels real down-in-the-dumps right now. “Hey man,” White wants to say, “buck up. Things aren’t that bad. You just have to look on the bright side!” He then demonstrates. After stating that there’s no real difference between searching the car at the time of the arrest and driving it to the police station first, Justice White notes that the police were actually doing the owner a favor:
All occupants in the car were arrested in the dark parking lot in the middle of the night. A careful search at that point was impractical and perhaps not safe for the officers, and it would serve the owner’s convenience and the safety of his car to have the vehicle and the keys together at the station house.
“See, you don’t have to catch a ride back to your car now!” White doesn’t say. “Well, I guess that’s because you’re going to jail, but if you weren’t, you’d really be happy now. When I was young, we had to walk uphill through a blizzard to get back to our cars after we were convicted of robbery with evidence found during a warrantless search. You should thank the police for being so considerate.”
“Kids these days. They take everything for granted.”
“I concur,” says Justice Stewart. “It’s that ‘rock and roll’ music they’re all listening to nowadays. Turns their minds into mush. I miss The Big Bopper.”
Justice Harlan chimes in: “Stewart, you’re such a square. Not all rock music is the devil’s work. That Les Zeppelin fellow, for instance, is quite the guitar whiz. ‘Lots of people talk, but few of them know, the soul of a woman was created belooooww. . . Waaah-aaah, waaaahh-ahh [with the required air-guitar and Robert Plant hip-thrusting] . . .’”
“. . .” says Justice Blackmun, who took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Today is November 1. This may not mean anything to you, but to 560-some Harvard 1Ls, it means that the summer job search has officially begun. We can make appointments with Career Services and the Office for Public Interest Advising. We can attend any of the 4,877 talks, panels, workshops, and discussions that are scheduled over the next three weeks. We can spend hours reformatting our resumes, making the “Harvard Law School” as prominent as possible to hide our complete lack of relevant experience. We can skip classes to work on cover letters. We can think of new ways to casually work our job offers into conversation. And of course, we can stop pretending we’re considering public interest work and spend the next few months begging for jobs from every big-city law firm that has ever hired a 1L.
Happy November 1st, y’all.
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.