Law & Disorder

Mergers and Acquisitions

2007-04-28T09:29:00.001-05:00

I'm learning about those time-honored corporate transactions known as M&As in class now and thought it would provide the perfect opportunity to do a little merging of my own.

From this day forward Alice in Wonderland ("Parent-blog") will hereby merge with Law-and-Disorder ("Subsidiary-blog") because I realize that I'm just too darn lazy to keep up two blogs at once.

WITNESSETH

WHEREAS the Boards of Directors of both blogs (myself being the sole director, sole shareholder, president, CEO, CFO, COO, employee, and coffee-gopher-intern) have approved the merger;
WHEREAS the subsidiary-blog was failing in performance reviews and returned no profits, as measured by entries, since the end of Winter 2007;

The Parent-blog and Subsidiary-blog shall hereby merge at the Effective Date, Subject to the following terms and conditions:
(1) Parent-blog shall be entitled to all intellectual topics and property formerly designated as the sole domain of Subsidiary-blog;
(2) Parent-blog shall periodically, on a regular and timely basis, produce entries concerning law school and topics related to the legal field in general; and
(3) Subsidiary-blog will cease to exist as an ongoing venture and will only be accessible for archival purposes.

As soon as practicable after satisfaction or waiver of any conditions set forth in subsequent one-woman Board meetings, the parties hereto shall cause the Merger to be consummated by filing with Blogger, and shall to the best of their ability refrain from using this kind of nauseous legalese hereafter.

A Babe in the Financial Woods

2007-02-09T22:53:00.000-05:00

My Corporations class has popped my business-cherry.

Crass as it is, I can think of no better way of expressing the eye-opening experience that happens as I get my long overdue baptism into the financial world. I kid you not, ignoramus that I am, I didn't even know what a board of directors was! Now I'm up to my eyeballs in discounted values, rates of returns, capital structures, and all kinds of basic terms I should've learned in highschool!

My prof seems to understand well the predicament that newbies like myself are in. Thus he began the class with a wonderful common denominator: Dr. Seuss.

This excerpt from "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" is supposed to distill the essence of what this course is all about: the problem of making sure that the people working for you are working as well as they can. Or in corporation-terms, making sure that managers don't pull an Enron and screw over the shareholders.

If only Corps would remain this simple and pleasant...

Oh, the jobs people work at!

Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch,

There's a Hawtch-Hawtcher-Bee-Watcher.

His job is to watch...

is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee.

A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.

Well...he watched and he watched.

But, in spite of his watch,

that bee didn't work any harder. Not mawtch.

So then somebody said,

'Our old bee-watching man

just isn't bee-watching as hard as he can.

He ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher.

The thing that we need is a Bee-Watcher-Watcher!'

WELL...

The Bee-Watcher-Watcher watched the Bee-Watcher.

He didn't watch well so another Hawtch-Hawtcher

had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher.

And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch

are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch,

Watch-Watching the Watcher who's watching that bee.

You're not a Hawtch-hawtcher. You're lucky, you see!

Quote of the Day

2007-02-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

"So, you really like shopping on HSN huh?"

-Student sitting behind me in Admin Law with a great view of my laptop screen.

Flashbacks of Tax Law

2007-01-31T18:26:00.000-05:00

This quote makes me think Mark Twain took tax law before:

"The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it."

Negotiator-self-portraits (see previous post)

2007-01-24T22:38:00.000-05:00

School of Hard Knocks

2007-01-22T22:42:00.000-05:00

I loved the negotiation workshop because I felt like I was in 2nd Grade again.

You learn a lot in a no-pressure environment, all your classmates are your buddies, and above all, you get to draw a potrait of yourself at the beginning and end of the course to see how much you've learned/changed.

Sadly, some students' after-picture came out arguably worse.

One guy explained his portrait by saying, "The before-me is smiling because I like making win-win deals. But the after-me is no longer smiling because I realize that people can totally take advantage of your cooperative spirit and totally screw you over."

Another student who had an optimistic before-portrait amended it by drawing some frowny faces to indicate his freshly learned lesson: some people are just a pain in the arse to negotiate with because they have unreasonably high demands and won't budge from them.

I myself learned to be more skeptical and untrusting too. Didn't think I could get any more cynical, eh? Lawschool will do this to you. There should be a gate at the entrance of campus with the enscription: Abandon innocence all who enter here.

Don't hate the player...

2007-01-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

This week I learned that there are two Christinas.

One is the Real Christina. She is pretty upfront, pessimistic in her forecasts, hates playing mind games, likes to meet people more than halfway, and never insists on her opinions...they are all only half-formed anyway.

That Christina got her butt kicked around in Negotiation Workshops last week and made terrible deals for her pretend clients. In one particularly botched negotiation I said my client would work for essentially $5,000 when the going rate was actually $22,000. Oops.

So say hello to Christina Number Two. She's a tough, hard-bargaining, over-confidant, trash-talking blowhard. She challenges every assumption that is favorable to the other side and exaggerates her own positional strength (ad nauseum). She asks for twice what she would be happy with and four times what would be fair. She feels like an overly aggressive alpha male.

I hate Christina Number Two. But in a world of liers, theives, and scammers, it's play or be played, right?

Or maybe there's a way to change the game...

What I learned from being a student attorney

2006-08-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

Well, my summer job ends this week and it finds me having had the "pleasure" of taking 6 different cases for 5 different clients.

All in all I found my experience to be invaluable, but hopefully, a far cry from what I will be doing for the rest of my life.

I never want to deal with indigent suspects again. They steal, they murder, they rape. They’re opportunistic, dishonest, and belligerent. And although there is the occasional “really nice guy,” it doesn’t make up for the 99 jerks out there.

Now don’t get me wrong. Indigent people are usually not so hard to deal with. It’s indigent-people-who-get-in-trouble-with-the-law that are a pain in the ass. And now that I think about it, wealthy-people-who-get-in-trouble-with-the-law are probably equal pains in the ass as well.

But on the other hand, the excitement and the strategy of arguing a case is quite the rush. Sure I’ve always been nervous as hell before every case and then full of self-reproachment of my poor delivery and slow-wit after each trial, but nothing beats the “high” of arguing your case. Well, nothing, that is, except the “high” of winning your case. That is a powerful pharmacon indeed. Winning.

In fact, I could fancy myself being a criminal trial lawyer one day if it weren’t for the fact that (1) I hate my clients; and (2) the caring dilemma.

The “caring dilemma” is a horrible catch-22 which operates like this: If you don’t care about your client, you find your task meaningless and unfulfilling. But if you DO care about your client, your stress-level goes up commensurately.

I had one client that I truly cared about, like he was my own son. Before the trial I poured in hours of preparation, staying up way past my usual bedtime. And after the trial I must’ve berated myself for every little mistake I made and every little advantage I ommitted for atleast 8 hours. And then I couldn’t breathe for the next 2 days until I got the hearing results, which, thank goodness, was “not guilty.” Because who knows, I may have just thrown myself out of a 5th story window if it were otherwise.

Other things I’ve learned:

1. I swear I didn’t do it! You never actually “believe your client.” Instead, you believe strongly that the evidence is consistent with your client’s version of events.

2. Prove it! The burden of proof is a powerful weight which any good defense attorney knows how to leverage to its fullest potential.

3. How to win any argument: Arguing by analogy is one of the most persuasive polemics a person can wager. I flat out won 2 cases just by using an appropriate analogy. “But your honor, convicting my client on this scanty evidence would be like…” And yet how easy and tenuous the logic can be behind a good analogy.

Case 2: Makin' Moonshine

2006-07-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

Well, today's trial was much better than the last...kind of.

First of all, the judge was super duper nice. We made small talk entering the courtroom together. Later, after the trial, he said to me, "You know, you were really leading your witness back there during questioning, but I let it go since you're new at this."

Secondly, the ethics was easier. My client didn't suggest that I lie or that he would lie on the stand.

But there was just one small problem: my guy did it.

Bart Lovings*, a 17 year old kid in juvie was caught making moonshine and there was just no way out of it. In juvie, alcohol is contraband so the kids often make "homebrew" by saving their juices in a sealed container until it ferments. Disgusting, but enterprising.

That's just what young Barty was doing when some counselors found some milk cartons, sealed shut with medical tape, in Barty's room. The counselors opened the cartons and found fermenting juice. Case closed?

Maybe for regular folks, but not for lawyers.

You see, there's a saying that lawyers have (and it's absolutely true): When the facts are against you, argue the law.

So that's what I did.

Yes, there was fermenting juice inside a container. Yes it was found in Bart's room and belonged to him. Yes, Bart's explanation for it is ridiculous and improbable (he said he was making protein shakes because he read in a magazine that letting juice ferment creates protein...not too bright).

BUT, is Bart really guilty of the offense he's been charged with? (i.e., Making, manufacturing, or transferring alcohol or intoxicants, or possessing equipment, devices, and formulas for the production of alcohol or intoxicants.)

No. The particular offense is not referring to small fry like Bart. The regulation, as envisioned by the drafters, is really intended for large scale operations and more significant enterprises. The drafters wanted to punish those dangerous teens who would be a distributor of alcohol, continually manufacturing it for widespread consumption throughout the camp.

This offense is too harsh to apply to poor little opportunistic Bart, who was just making an individual-size serving (allegedly).

The most he should be charged with is misuse of products.
But you didn't charge him with that.
So he should go scott-free.
Because it's your fault for charging him with the wrong thing.

I don't know if this argument worked. Judge's decision comes down in a few days. Until then I'm sure young Bartholomew is carefully saving away his juices to make some more homebrew.

*The name of my client has been changed to protect his privacy.

Adventures in Kangaroo Court: My First Trial - The Case of the Flying Falafel*

2006-06-19T21:15:00.000-05:00

My client was indicted for throwing a falafel at an officer.

That's right, a falafel.

When I interviewed him about the incident he said to me: Look, I'll tell you right now, I did it. But in court I'm going to say I didn't do it.

Hmmm...I know lawyers are not known for their high ethical standards, but even for a shyster, that seemed clearly unethical to me.

So I said: How about I never put you on the stand and you never testify about anything?

And he said: Ok.

The day of the trial I reviewed with my client, in no uncertain terms, what he was supposed to do: STAY SILENT. NOT ONE PEEP!

I made preliminary motions,
I cross-examined the reporting officer,
I entered documents into evidence,
the whole nine-yards.

And do you know what happened during my closing argument? It caught me so off-guard because in all my thousands of Law & Order viewings I have never seen this happening...

The judge started arguing with me!

Me: So you see, the officer, by his own admission said that he was not facing my client when the falafel was thrown. His back was to my client.

Judge: Yeah, but he could still see clearly that it was your client because he was turning his head as he walked away.

Me: Yes, sir, but the distance between them was quite far and my client was three floors above the officer.

Judge: The officer said he clearly saw that it was your client.

Me: Uh...er...moving on...If my client had intended to hit the officer, the falafel would've landed on the officer's main body area, and not just merely grazed his shoe.

Judge: Well, your guy ain't no Manny Ramirez...like you said, he was far away...

I thought for sure I had lost the trial.

So when it was all over, I told my client: Good job keeping silent! And don't worry, we can appeal.

But we didn't need to.

We won!

*The identity of the food has been altered to protect the client's privacy.

My First Law Job

2006-06-02T18:14:00.000-05:00

This was my first week of work.

It took all the resolve I had not to shove a pen in my eye.

I thought it would be a good experience to sign up as a student attorney for indigent people with this program run by my school. Our would-be-clients are supposed to call our hotline (collect calls, of course) to request our help. But for some reason no one has been calling.

Maybe it's because the institutions haven't figured out that we're back in business yet (the program shut down for a month while students had final exams). But for whatever reason, the phone is basically dead. And so is the workplace.

Not a day has gone by since I began, that I didn't literally fall asleep on the job. It's just too darn boring. I've become so brazen that I actually sleep right in front of my boss now (instead of sneaking off to a side room).

And the irony of it all is that when I get home everyday, I'm exhausted. I'm completely tuckered out from a full day of...well, just sitting!

Now, I suppose if I were an ideal employee I would take this time to read up on their thousand-page manuals to prepare myself for when the calls come in like a flood (which everyone has assured me they will inevitably do). But I just can't bring myself to do it.

I guess I just don't care that much about helping poor people with their petty legal issues after all...or maybe it's because I care too much. Our poor clients have nowhere else to turn. We are their last and only hope! The overwhelming burden of all that compassion just makes me so...lethargic...*yawn*.

No, but seriously, I took this job because I care so much more about helping the oppressed than helping big fat corporations, which I must inevitably do when I graduate in order to pay off my ginormous loans and get decent real-life legal training.

But if this is how unenthusiastic I am about helping a cause I care about, I can only imagine the depths of doldrums that await.

O gosh, someone just shoot me now.

The Hell Review Competition

2006-05-29T21:07:00.000-05:00

Well, school is over. Finally. Kind of anti-climactic.

I'm so deflated and fatigued from this year of non-stop studying that I really can't write anything insightful about my first year of school. I think I just need some time to "process it all", as the life coaches say.

But I will share a little something about the Law Review Competition. This hellacious week-long event is held every year immediately after final exams and the top 40 or so students are chosen to join the school's prestigious law review.

Man against Paper: The greasy and dehydrated author battles the review.

The competition packet is no less than 1000 pages long and requires each student to write a 20 page paper complete with lengthy footnotes and to edit a doctored 30 page paper replete with errors of all imaginable kinds...and some I hadn't imagined could be in a paper.

I had heard horror stories about students not sleeping during the last two days and dismissed them as mere legal urban-legend. But I'm here to tell you, straight from the horse's mouth. It is ALL true.

I myself did not sleep for the last two days, did not shower, did not even eat (except for a few disgusting nutrition bars) and STILL was not finished when the deadline rolled around.

But I turned it in anyway.

A nerd can dream, can't she?

2006-05-08T23:22:00.000-05:00

You know what I would really like?

You know what would improve law school by a hundred-fold?

A law chat group.

I fantasize about sitting around with 2 or 3 other classmates and chewing the fat about all the juicy issues in the law. Like: Co-conspiracy liability, too harsh or necessary for effective law enforcement? Or, no-fault insurance systems, is it time to overhaul the tort system? Or, Cardozo, why do we love him so darn much?

Narco Nation

2006-04-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

Reading cases about the right to privacy and protection from searches and seizures, I can't shake the feeling that our 4th Amendment right is upheld by a lot of powerful judges and politicians who know that their sons and daughters do drugs.

And heaven forbid Officer Nosy should find out and slap their privileged asses with possession charges. How embarassing. Little Darryl will get expelled from Hoity-Toity Prep School.

Because as I get older, I'm finding out that basically everyone gets high.

This time last semester...

2006-04-21T07:49:00.000-05:00

...there were 3 weeks of vacation before we had to take our finals.

But no more Mr. Nice-School.

This semester we have classes for 2 more weeks before our 1 week dead period in which we cram for our upcoming finals.

Application: If I want to do decently on my finals, I must start cramming now, in addition to keeping up with regular school work.

Outcome: I'm very, very busy.

True Effect: No more prime time tv and more upper-back aches from sitting.

Oral Arguments

2006-04-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my partner and I argued a case in front of a panel of 3 judges. The entire semester of our First Year Lawyering Class had been building up to this final moment.

Oral arguments are nerve-wracking because you have to field all kinds of random questions from the judges. They can ask you about everything and anything in your brief AND in your opponent's brief.

That's a LOT of material: 40 pages of briefs and some 30-50 cases.

Being the ultimate slacker that I am, I barely glanced through my opponent's brief and committed to memory only 3 cases. Eek.

Needless to say, I am so relieved that it's over.

Observation: Maybe I shouldn't be a trial lawyer...

Fantasy v. Reality

2006-04-14T11:43:00.000-05:00

Prof S's advice to us students about to pick our next year clases:

Choose what interests you.

He elaborated on how we should be excited everyday to wake up and go to class. We should spend the next two years in a legal candyland full of joy and wonder.

It was like a siren call to me and I listened entranced.

And then I was rudely awakened by Prof. D's advice:

Every student should take these four classes: Tax, Corporation, Admin Law, and Constitutional Law.

I wish these two pieces of advice didn't seem so mutually exclusive to me.

All we do in law school is watch movies and write papers about our reaction to them...

2006-04-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Response Paper: Crash
How the Movie Got “Racism” Wrong
This movie breaks the conventional narrative mold by chopping up scenes abruptly and putting them in an order that doesn’t seem to make sense. We are taken from group to group with apparently no connecting threads to help us understand the juxtapositions. However, there seems to be a common theme that runs through each apparently nonsequitur episode. That unifying theme is one of shattering our preconceptions. Each scene sets up a situation in which is likely to elicit a certain judgment from the viewers about the characters and then utterly demolishes those judgments in subsequent scenes.

For example, the character played by Ludacris starts off decrying how unfair he is being treated because of his race, which is meant to elicit a certain feeling of sympathy from the viewer. But then, the movie utterly destroys that sense of sympathy as Ludacris robs an SUV with his accomplice.

Similarly, Matt Dillon’s character, the racist cop, is shown in a light that immediately makes the audience recoil in disgust at the way he pulled over the couple driving home from the awards ceremony. But slowly we see Dillon struggle to help his sick father and we hear about how his father suffered at the hands of racists himself. And lastly, as Dillon pulls the character played by Thandie Newton out of the burning car, risking his own life, the viewer’s first impression of Dillon is undone. He is not just a one dimensional racist cop. His racism and personal ethics are more complicated and nuanced than one ugly label can convey.

This kind of set-up and knock-down of viewer preconceptions happens with almost every character in the movie. The heavily tattoo-ed locksmith is actually a hardworking, honest family man. The crazy Asian woman driver is actually a wife rushing to see her husband in the hospital. The poor car-struck Korean man is actually not worthy of our sympathy because he is a slave smuggler. The “unracist” cop played by Ryan Phillipe is actually much more racist than he himself even realized. And the callous detective played by Don Cheadle seemed to disrespect his mother. But in the end his partner and the viewer gets to see how horribly untrue that judgment really is.

If indeed the “message” of the movie is that we should put away our knee-jerk reactions and consider the ways in which they could be wrong, then I say this movie is not very helpful. I think that knee-jerk reactions are natural and beneficial to us as social creatures who must assess our environment and act properly within them. An intelligent Bayesian is simply acting on the undiscriminating statistics of what is most likely in any situation. Mistrusting a locksmith that looks like he has a lot of prison/gang tattoos is not a morally blameworthy thing to do. It is rational and logical. And if the statistics show that you are more likely to get robbed by two young black men than two young white men, then it is not wrong to fear robbery more when two young black men walk by than when white men walk by.

Racism is another creature entirely. Racism is a kind of value system that puts one race higher or lower than another for no other reason than their race. It is to say that one ethnicity is superior to another; one kind of human being is more valuable than another; and one race has more inherent worth than another. It is that kind of thinking that should be condemned; not rational acting based on statistical data.

Use your WORDS

2006-03-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted here in a while, so I thought I should, if only to prove to some naysayers (or just one in particular) that I can maintain two blogs at a time.

Law school has been busy as usual but not all that interesting. The lay person would probably neither understand, nor care about the content of my daily classes.

However, I will leave you with this

General Public Service Announcement

If you are upset at someone and really want to physically hurt her, you might want to refrain lest you become liable for more than you bargained for.

Unwanted, offensive touching is considered a battery (a kind of tort). But if the person you hurt just happens to have a rare bone disorder that makes her bones so brittle that your slap/kick/punch/etc. actually breaks her bones (even if a light tap would've broken them anyway), you foot the bill for ALL her medical woes.

That is the torts principle of: You take the Plaintiff as you find her (thin-skulled, brittle-boned, and all.)

So remember America: When you are pissed off, be safe, be risk-averse, and just use your WORDS.

Oops. I may have spoke too soon.

2006-03-08T20:59:00.000-05:00

After Gerald Amirault (see previous post) came to our class and answered our questions, I was convinced that he was innocent.

But I may have spoke (spoken?) too soon.

The next day, to my shock and delight, Larry Hardoon, the prosecutor who prosecuted Gerald's case came to our class and told us his version of the events. He was very convincing and now I'm confused.

Is Gerald guilty? Is he innocent?

Certain things about Larry’s presentation raised doubts in my mind. The first hole that Larry poked was the main foundation upon which I had built Gerald’s innocence on, which was the interviewer’s horrendous techniques while questioning the children. That was a really dispositive fact in my mind. No way could Gerald’s trial have been fair if the evidence of his conviction rested mainly on these horrible interviews.

But Larry pointed out that the interviews were not for disclosure, but only for documentation. The children had all disclosed their alleged assaults prior to the taping of the interviews.

Another detail that made me question Gerald’s innocence was the fact that most parents were extremely reluctant to press charges against the Amiraults and were very hostile to the idea of their kids having been sexually assaulted. A particular story about the little girl who stuck toys into her vagina while bathing and saying that she was “playing school,” also made me question my initial assumptions.

But the most devastating blow to my once stalwart belief that Gerald was innocent, was the way Larry presented a plausible explanation for not only what the Amiraults were doing but also their possible motives behind their alleged sexual assaults. It is very hard for me to believe that a mother and daughter would turn the other way and let their son and brother have his jollies with little kids simply because the mother and daughter were indulgent people.

But it is much easier for me to believe that a mother, daughter, and son would conspire together to make a big profit on illicit pictures taken of the kids, because greed is a motive I can understand. It is a little suspicious that the Amiraults were financially better off than one might expect from people in their line of work. And it is a little suspicious that the kids spoke of pens and knives being stuck in them and a camera-like device in the magic room, which correlated to a certain genre of pornographic pictures in the outside world. It doesn’t help the prosecution’s case that they never found a shred of evidence to support that theory, but there was a suspicious fire that destroyed a lot of film.

Regardless of the evidence, or lack of evidence, the theory is compelling. It supplies a good motive. Added to "opportunity", which came when kids were left with the Amiraults during field trips, my doubts grew to disturbing proportions.

In the end, I decided that I could not say whether Gerald was guilty or innocent.

Without looking at all the evidence (How suspiciously wealthy were the Amiraults? What exactly did the doctors find when they examined the kids? How exactly were the initial disclosures handled? Why were the kids so reluctant to recount their assaults when videotaped? etc.) I simply can not make a determination.

And I think that is a valuable lesson to learn.

I feel silly that I so readily jumped on the unjust-conviction-bandwagon proclaiming Gerald’s innocence the day he came to class. But it bears learning anew that trite but trusty proverb: There’s two sides to every story. And that’s the truth.

This man came to my class today and told us his incredible story of tragedy and injustice

2006-03-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

4-5 year old kids at the Fells Acre Day School told police investigators about a bad clown that took them to a "magic room" and stuck magic wands and knives up their anuses and vaginas.

Amirault was wrongly convicted of sexual abuse.
They said that "Tookie", the name they called the assistant director, Gerald Amirault, was the bad clown that did this to them.

Thus Gerald Amirault was arrested and convicted of sexually assaulting those kids in 1986 and was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment.

But he was innocent.

Never was there a shred of corroborating evidence that Amirault had done the heinous acts that he was convicted of. There were no marks or bruises on the kids. There were no alleged pornographic pictures of the kids. And no teachers or parents of the daycare center ever saw suspicious activities or a so called "magic room".

So how did this horrible nightmare happen?

It was a trainwreck of bad police investigation, appalling techniques used in child interviewing, overzealous prosecutors, and self-serving judges. It was the criminal justice system at its worst.

You could say it began with a soggy underwear. One of the kids at the daycare center wet his pants and a teacher asked Gerald to help the kid change since the teacher was busy at the time. Many months later, the kid's family discovers sexual abuse issues related to the kid's cousins and uncles and asked the kid about his experiences at the daycare. The kid mentioned that Gerald took his pants off one day and that unleashed the "hounds" of criminal investigation.

Police came to the daycare center, and immediately started asking the kids and parents about suspicious behavior and sexual assault that might be related to Gerald. Kids were subjected to hours of interrogation full of leading questions and some might even say badgering.

An example of the horrible interviews conducted is as follows:

Interviewer: So, what did this bad clown do to you?

Kid: There's no clown.

Interviewer: Yes there is. What did he do to you?

Kid: There's no clown.

Interviewer: Didn't he touch your butt?

Kid: No.

Interviewer: Yes he did. He touched your butt. You're friend Suzy said he touched her butt too.

Kid: No. She's lying.

You get the idea. This particular interview went on for four hours every day for a nearly a week until the poor kid finally broke down and said, "Yes. There was a clown and he touched my butt. And he stuck a wand up it." To this day, this witness feels like it really did happen to her!

And so Gerald was put in prison. He and his lawyers tried very hard to get his case overturned on appeal somehow, but it never happened despite to mountain of evidence that pointed in Gerald's favor. Finally Gerald was paroled in 2003 after serving 18 years of his sentence. He has yet to be acquitted.

I was amazed to see him in our class today. We had free reign to ask him all about his experiences and how he dealt with the horrible pain and injustice of it all.

He said that he focused on his wife and 3 kids and worked out a lot. The man is ripped. He also kept himself busy getting a BA from Boston University through correspondence and of course worked tirelessly on his own case.

He was a really nice and surprisingly well adjusted man who said he wanted to move on and not dwell on the terrible injustice that happened. Being consumed with bitterness would just steal more of the precious life that was taken from him.

A horror show in the making...

2006-02-28T19:21:00.000-05:00

I just wrote a ten page brief in 24 hours. It is complete crap and I hope no one ever reads it.

But unfortunately, not only will my instructor read it, I will eventually be defending it in front of a panel of judges as well as an audience of my peers.

This brief is for the annual Moot Court competition and each student is supposed to defend their brief during 30 minutes of oral arguments in which a panel of judges ask you tough questions about it.

I should revise my brief so as not to embarass myself too badly...but then I'm also unwilling to put in the time. It's like a battle of the vices: vanity v. slothfulness...which one will win out?

The Comparison Effect

2006-02-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

Used car salesmen understand the Comparison Effect very well.

When you step foot in their lot, they will usually begin by directing you to a junky car with a steep price. They expect you to be disgusted and think, "No way I'd ever buy that." But car #1 is not meant to entice you to purchase, it's just a decoy to set up car #2. The dealer will then show you a pretty nice car with the same or lower price than the first and you think, "Wow, that's a really good deal! I'll take it!"

That, my friends, is the Comparison Effect.

Though this phenomenon is mostly intuitive, it hasn't stopped sociologists from doing some pretty fun experiments on it. One in particular involved having college guys rate how attractive their blind dates were, depending on whether they watched Charlie's Angels immediately before their date or not. And the results?

You guessed it. Those who watched Charlie's Angels right before their dates rated their dates far lower than those guys who did not watch the show.

I say all this by way of introduction. For a long time now, I've been feeling the adverse effects of the Comparison Effect. Ever since starting law school, I've been feeling worse about myself than I have ever felt before.

Never have I been so completely surrounded by such brilliant, articulate, and accomplished people. I feel like turd next to them.

It's ironic because most people warned me about getting a "big head" because I got into a fancy schmance law school. They worried that I, their laid-back, under-achieving couch potato, would morph into a shrill and pompous academic. But quite the opposite happened. More than any other time in my life I feel like a second-class citizen...an inferior being.

It's been humbling to feel like a dwarf among giants. But I have to admit the "giants" have all been very friendly and I have benefited from standing on their shoulders to see more than I ever could have otherwise.

Legal Smut (Don't read this one Mommy)

2006-02-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

In response to my brother's comment:

"Alright I don't get it. If the girl is alive and conscious, and neither speaks nor motions for the guy to stop whatever he is doing, how can anything that he does be rape? Quite possibly what the guy is doing is against the girl's will, but if there is no proof of that, how is the law to decide? Is the jury going to look at the guy and say, Nooo way, no one would ever voluntarily have sex with that guy. How about you post a specific fact pattern for me to gape at?"

Here is a real, live, case in point. I lifted this straight out of LexisNexis so there are tons of funny little numbers and symbols in randomn spots (just ignore them).

I never thought I would be posting this kind of smut on my blog...much less for my brother's benefit in particular...but life is just that unpredictable.

Enjoy(?) brother (that's probably not an appropriate thing to say here...)

(For those of you with shorter attention spans than my brother, just reading the overview should give you the gist.)

State in the Interest of M.T.S.
(New Jersey Supreme Court 1992)
OVERVIEW: The trial court determined that defendant juvenile was delinquent for committing a sexual assault. The trial court's decision was based on evidence that defendant and a fifteen-year-old girl engaged in consensual kissing, heavy petting, and thereafter in actual sexual penetration of the girl to which she had not consented, though she did not scream or cry out. The appellate court reversed, concluding that the nonconsensual penetration did not constitute sexual assault because it was not accompanied by some level of force more than that necessary to accomplish the penetration. The court reversed and reinstated the disposition of juvenile delinquency. The court held that any act of sexual penetration engaged in by defendant without the affirmative and freely given permission of the victim to the specific act of penetration constituted the offense of sexual assault. The court held that permission could be inferred either from acts or statements reasonably viewed in light of the surrounding circumstances. The court found that the record reasonably supported the trial court's conclusion that the victim had not expressed consent to the act of intercourse, either through her words or actions.

Opinion of the court delivered by Judge Handler:

Under New Jersey law a person who commits an act of sexual penetration using physical force or coercion is guilty of second-degree sexual assault. The sexual assault statute does not define the words "physical force." The question posed by [*425] [***2] this appeal is whether the element of "physical force" is met simply by an act of non-consensual penetration involving no more force than necessary to accomplish that result.

That issue is presented in the context of what is often referred to as "acquaintance rape." The record in the case discloses that the juvenile, a seventeen-year-old boy, engaged in consensual kissing and heavy petting with a fifteen-year-old girl and thereafter engaged in actual sexual penetration of the girl to which she had not consented. There was no evidence or suggestion that the juvenile used any unusual or extra force or threats to accomplish the act of penetration.

The trial court determined that the juvenile was delinquent for committing a sexual assault. The Appellate Division reversed the disposition of delinquency, concluding that non-consensual penetration does not constitute sexual assault unless it is accompanied by some level of force more than that necessary to accomplish the penetration. 247 N.J.Super. 254, 588 A.2d 1282 (1991). We granted the State's petition for certification. 126 N.J. 341, 598 A.2d 897 (1991). [***3]

I

The issues in this case are perplexing and controversial. We must explain the role of force in the contemporary crime of sexual assault and then define its essential features. We then must consider what evidence is probative to establish the commission of a sexual assault. The factual circumstances of this case expose the complexity and sensitivity of those issues and underscore the analytic difficulty of those seemingly-straight-forward legal questions.

On Monday, May 21, 1990, fifteen-year-old C.G. was living with her mother, her three siblings, and several other people, including M.T.S. and his girlfriend. A total of ten people resided in the three-bedroom town-home at the time of the incident. M.T.S., then age seventeen, was temporarily residing at the home with the permission of the C.G.'s mother; he slept [*426] downstairs on a couch. C.G. had her own room on the second floor. At approximately 11:30 p.m. on May 21, C.G. went upstairs to sleep after having watched television with her mother, M.T.S., and his girlfriend. When C.G. went to bed, she was wearing underpants, a bra, shorts, and a shirt. At trial, C.G. and M.T.S. offered very different accounts concerning [***4] the nature of their relationship and the events that occurred after C.G. had gone upstairs. The trial [**1268] court did not credit fully either teenager's testimony.

C.G. stated that earlier in the day, M.T.S. had told her three or four times that he "was going to make a surprise visit up in [her] bedroom." She said that she had not taken M.T.S. seriously and considered his comments a joke because he frequently teased her. She testified that M.T.S. had attempted to kiss her on numerous other occasions and at least once had attempted to put his hands inside of her pants, but that she had rejected all of his previous advances.

C.G. testified that on May 22, at approximately 1:30 a.m., she awoke to use the bathroom. As she was getting out of bed, she said, she saw M.T.S., fully clothed, standing in her doorway. According to C.G., M.T.S. then said that "he was going to tease [her] a little bit." C.G. testified that she "didn't think anything of it"; she walked past him, used the bathroom, and then returned to bed, falling into a "heavy" sleep within fifteen minutes. The next event C.G. claimed to recall of that morning was waking up with M.T.S. on top of her, her underpants and shorts removed. [***5] She said "his penis was into [her] vagina." As soon as C.G. realized what had happened, she said, she immediately slapped M.T.S. once in the face, then "told him to get off [her], and get out." She did not scream or cry out. She testified that M.T.S. complied in less than one minute after being struck; according to C.G., "he jumped right off of [her]." She said she did not know how long M.T.S. had been inside of her before she awoke.

[*427] C.G. said that after M.T.S. left the room, she "fell asleep crying" because "[she] couldn't believe that he did what he did to [her]." She explained that she did not immediately tell her mother or anyone else in the house of the events of that morning because she was "scared and in shock." According to C.G., M.T.S. engaged in intercourse with her "without [her] wanting it or telling him to come up [to her bedroom]." By her own account, C.G. was not otherwise harmed by M.T.S.

At about 7:00 a.m., C.G. went downstairs and told her mother about her encounter with M.T.S. earlier in the morning and said that they would have to "get [him] out of the house." While M.T.S. was out on an errand, C.G.'s mother gathered his clothes and put them outside [***6] in his car; when he returned, he was told that "[he] better not even get near the house." C.G. and her mother then filed a complaint with the police.

According to M.T.S., he and C.G. had been good friends for a long time, and their relationship "kept leading on to more and more." He had been living at C.G.'s home for about five days before the incident occurred; he testified that during the three days preceding the incident they had been "kissing and necking" and had discussed having sexual intercourse. The first time M.T.S. kissed C.G., he said, she "didn't want him to, but she did after that." He said C.G. repeatedly had encouraged him to "make a surprise visit up in her room."

M.T.S. testified that at exactly 1:15 a.m. on May 22, he entered C.G.'s bedroom as she was walking to the bathroom. He said C.G. soon returned from the bathroom, and the two began "kissing and all," eventually moving to the bed. Once they were in bed, he said, they undressed each other and continued to kiss and touch for about five minutes. M.T.S. and C.G. proceeded to engage in sexual intercourse. According to M.T.S., who was on top of C.G., he "stuck it in" and "did it [thrust] three times, and then [***7] the fourth time [he] stuck it in, that's when [she] pulled [him] off of her." M.T.S. said that as [*428] C.G. pushed him off, she said "stop, get off," and he "hopped off right away."

According to M.T.S., after about one minute, he asked C.G. what was wrong; she replied with a back-hand to his face. He recalled asking C.G. what was wrong a second time, and her replying, "how can you take advantage of me or something like that." M.T.S. said that he proceeded to get dressed and told C.G. to calm down, but that she then told him to get away from her and began to cry. Before leaving the room, he told C.G., "I'm leaving . . . I'm going with my real girlfriend, don't talk to me . . . I don't want nothing to do with you or anything, stay out of my life . . . don't [**1269] tell anybody about this . . . it would just screw everything up." He then walked downstairs and went to sleep.

On May 23, 1990, M.T.S. was charged with conduct that if engaged in by an adult would constitute second-degree sexual assault of the victim, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2c(1). In addition, he faced unrelated charges for third-degree theft of movable property, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:20-3a, third-degree escape, [***8] contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:29-5, and fourth-degree criminal trespass, contrary to N.J.S.A. 2C:18-3.

Following a two-day trial on the sexual assault charge, M.T.S. was adjudicated delinquent. After reviewing the testimony, the court concluded that the victim had consented to a session of kissing and heavy petting with M.T.S. The trial court did not find that C.G. had been sleeping at the time of penetration, but nevertheless found that she had not consented to the actual sexual act. Accordingly, the court concluded that the State had proven second-degree sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt. On appeal, following the imposition of suspended sentences on the sexual assault and the other remaining charges, the Appellate Division determined that the absence of force beyond that involved in the act of sexual penetration precluded a finding of second-degree sexual assault. It therefore reversed [*429] the juvenile's adjudication of delinquency for that offense. 247 N.J.Super. at 260-61, 588 A.2d 1282.

II

HN1The New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2c(1), defines "sexual assault" as the commission "of sexual [***9] penetration" "with another person" with the use of "physical force or coercion." n1 An unconstrained reading of the statutory language indicates that HN2both the act of "sexual penetration" and the use of "physical force or coercion" are separate and distinct elements of the offense. See Medical Soc. v. Department of Law & Pub. Safety, 120 N.J. 18, 26, 575 A.2d 1348 (1990) (declaring that no part of a statute should be considered meaningless or superfluous). Neither the definitions section of N.J.S.A. 2C:14-1 to -8, nor the remainder of the Code of Criminal Justice provides assistance in interpreting the words "physical force." The initial inquiry is, therefore, whether the statutory words are unambiguous on their face and can be [*430] understood and applied in accordance with their plain meaning. The answer to that inquiry is revealed by the conflicting decisions of the lower courts and the arguments of the opposing parties. The trial court held that "physical force" had been established by the sexual penetration of the victim without her consent. The Appellate Division believed that the statute requires some amount [***10] of force more than that necessary to accomplish penetration.

Was That Rape? (or just regrettable sex)

2006-02-14T20:58:00.000-05:00

In Crim class we've started talking about rape.

I'm a squeamish prude so class makes me very uncomfortable. My whole policy on the topic of s-e-x, is "Don't ask, don't tell, and PLEASE don't talk to me about it!"

But a law student doesn't have that luxury. I've had to read numerous cases so far with quite detailed and graphic descriptions and I've learned some new words describing some pretty crass acts (which I will spare you all from here).

Legally speaking however, rape is a very interesting and unique crime. It is the only crime where the alleged victim's words and conduct are scrutinized more than the defendant's. The focus is on what the victim said, did, etc. Did she lead him on? Did she say no? When she said no, did she really mean no?

In general, we read a lot of cases on the borderline between consent and non-consent. Those cases are full of passive girls who didn't verbally or physically object and willingly engaged in almost everything but sex. In my generation, it was called going to all the bases except for "home."

Girls like that shouldn't have the law on their side. I mean, come on, what did you THINK would happen? If you play with fire, are you surprised you got burned? Of course I have sympathy for misguided souls who exercise poor judgment (we all do from time to time). But my sympathy and "criminally charging an innocent hormone-driven guy" are two different things.

A guy shouldn't be punished for being...well, just a normal guy.

Injustice

2006-02-09T20:10:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of ironies in the tragic case of Ronald Cotton.

(Ronald Cotton forgave rape victim Jennifer Thompson for mistakenly identifying him as her attacker, sending him to prison for 11 years. Now, they are friends.)

In 1985, Ronald Cotton was convicted of raping Jennifer Thomson, a 22-year old college student in North Carolina. But he didn't do it.

The prosecution built most of its case around Jennifer's strong and confidant eyewitness identification of her assailant. She picked him out of a photo array of six black men and then she picked him out of a live line-up. She was sure he was the one.

11 years later, DNA evidence would show that Jennifer was wrong.

The irony is that Jennifer was not your average rape victim. As soon as she realized that her rapist would harm her, she made every effort to get a good look at his face and memorize his features. Though the attack was in the dead of night, she made excuses to turn on lights throughout the duration of the rape, although her assailant would quickly tell her to turn them off. Her every effort was trained on being able to identify him in the future because she wanted to make pay for his crime.

Aside from Jennifer's powerful testimony and identification, the jury had no other evidence to lead them to Ronald, except for some small misfortunes. Under Ronald's bed, police found a red flashlight (which was a popular model that thousands of people owned) that looked like the flashlight that the rapist had used. They also found some tennis shoes that lacked some foam on the tread, like the foam the rapist had left behind on Jennifer's apartment floor (which also could've been the kind of foam on thousands of people's tennis shoes). And unfortunately for Ronald, he was too confused when he was first questioned by the police about his alibi and told them faulty information. The fact that Ronald had prior convictions of attempted rape and breaking and entering only made his plight more hopeless.

However, the last and greatest irony in this sad case concerns a man named Bobby Poole. While Ronald was in jail for the first couple of years, his cellmate and prison workmate, Bobby Poole, admitted to some prisoners that he was the one who actually raped Jennifer Thomson that night. Bobby knew that Ronald was in jail for his crime. Yet being the scumbag that he is, he never told the authorities and continued to let Ronald suffer unjustly.

The saddest irony is that, after nearly two years of Ronald's wrongful incarceration and much effort on Ronald and his lawyer's part, Bobby Poole was actually put on trial for the rape of Jennifer Thompson. But during that trial, Jennifer looked straight at him and said, "I've never seen this man in my life. He's not the one who raped me. I'm sure."

Crime and Punishment

2006-02-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

In Crim Law, one common area of debate is what the proper punishment for convicted offenders should be.

I've always felt that castration would be a fair punishment for multiple sex offenders.

It's like mother nature's rule: If you don't use it, you loose it. Except it's more like, If you abuse it, you loose it.

Of course I won't share that in class discussions. People will think I'm harsh and simplistic (which I am). But if someone says "Penal code," I will giggle.

Professors say the darnest things

2006-02-01T20:32:00.000-05:00

Sometimes everything in your life comes together at one point and it makes you say, "Yes, I'm glad to be alive today."

Well, nothing that inspiring happened today, but something did transpire that made me say, "Yes, I'm so glad I went to class today." And believe you me, it takes a pretty darn priceless moment for me to be happy I went to class.

We were talking about duties here and there, as usual, when suddenly the professor unwittingly spouted out the most hilarious sentence I have heard thus far in the semester. Addressing a hypothetical situation with a student, he said:

"Ms. Harnett is a willing tool."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's funny because it's true! Unbeknownst to the confused prof, but in the opinion of the whole class, which by now was exploding with laughter, Ms. Harnet is a willing tool. An earnest, annoying, willing tool. I hope I don't get in trouble with Ms. Harnett for posting this...

A Mother's Worst Nightmare, Literally

2006-01-31T12:13:00.000-05:00

I just read this horrific case about a mother who murdered her daughter at night.

The mother was prone to sleepwalking and apparently had a dream that an army was in her daughter's bedroom, attacking her daughter. She took an axe and ran into the girl's bedroom (all the while asleep) and started hacking away at what she thought were the evil soldiers (but was actually her daughter)!

She woke up over her dead daughter with blood splatters everywhere. She walked slowly to the neighbor and said, "I think I may have hurt Penny (her daughter)."

This case was especially chilling to me because I'm a big sleepwalker. I've often wondered if I might possibly harm Michael (or myself), unconsciously. I never worried too much about it becuase I had never heard of such a horrible thing happening during someone's sleep. Now I'm a little worried.

But at least I know I won't get any jail time for committing such a murder. You can't be punished criminally for an involuntary act.

More evidence that I'm just a 3rd grader

2006-01-25T18:17:00.000-05:00

I know, I'm retarded.

My torts teacher said the word duty atleast fifty times in class today. I was so distracted by the immature thought that he said "doodies" that I could NOT focus, try as I might, on what he said.

In my defense, I didn't ever relate "doodies" with "duties" until I watched one very fateful episode of Friends in which Chandler giggles while his boss says,

"You'll have a lot of duties on this job.
Learn to delegate. You'll have plenty of
assistants you can dump on."
Torts is all about civil duties. All we'll be talking about is duty this, duty that, duty, duty, duty. I am so screwed.

(On a better note, thank you all who participated in my "judge" experiment in the previous post. Your opinions were invaluable to me because law is not just about what's in the books, it's also about common moral intuitions. And I can't trust mine because I'm a social freak -- and apparently very immature.)

YOU be the Judge

2006-01-24T10:45:00.000-05:00

The following is one of the hardest cases I have ever read. Indeed it's one of the hardest cases in the history of Torts jurisprudence. It's not complicated, but it's a toughie. I need your collective brain powers to help me out.

Let's say you are Judge Blogreader and this case appears before you:

Harry was walking across a bridge and accidentally slipped and fell into the water. Poor Harry couldn't swim and thrashed about wildly in the river, and seemed like he would drown if he didn't get help.

Leonardo was on the bridge at the time Harry fell and could see that Harry's life was in danger. There was a rope tied to the bridge that could be thrown down to someone in the river so that they could grab a hold of it and save themselves.

Leonardo, for whatever reason, decided not to throw that rope down to Harry. He just stood there and watched Harry drown.

Harry's wife sues Leonardo for not helping Harry by at least throwing down the rope.

Do you think Harry's wife should win? Why or why not?

Snow Day

2006-01-23T13:46:00.000-05:00

Yay! No day! Snow day!

School's cancelled because my professor's plane can't fly him back to Boston in this inclement weather. It's snowing like crazy today...so beautiful.

I'm a little ashamed for feeling so gleeful about class being cancelled. I should be mature about school. I'm an adult, for crying out loud. Not some ratty 3rd grader who hates school and moans about homework. I love learning and being intellectually stretched. I love discovery.

Oh, who am I kidding. I hate school. I am just an immature 3rd grader.

Out of the pan and into the fire

2006-01-22T19:54:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow school begins again.

Round 2. Return of the Nerd. The Institution Strikes Back. Christina's Travails, Part II.

I'm a little cheered by the fact that I'll be taking, what appears to me to be, more interesting classes: Criminal Law, Torts (for those of you like me who think this is a dessert, it's not. It's about unwanted human contact-battery, assualt, etc.), and International Human Rights.

I'm anticipating lots of gory details, sordid facts, and deep feelings of righteous indignation. Murderers, rapists, and molestors, oh my!

Of course I'll be sure to keep you posted on all the depravity to come.

The opposite of fun

2006-01-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

I had my first law school exam today.

It was brutal.

After dragging my sorry-ass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m., after downing four cups of coffee and two pills of legal crack (aka Excedrine Migraine), I slummed through eight hours of bad writing and questionable analysis.

And I think I did poorly. Is it possible that I failed the class? What ignominy. What a short-lived stint of parental approval. What a waste of one year's tuition.

And this is the class I studied the most for! Imagine the carnage to come on the next two...

Until we meet again...

2006-01-01T20:07:00.000-05:00

First final is this Friday, 1/6. Second final is the following Monday, 1/9. And last final is Wednesday, 1/11.

HO-HO-Homework

2005-12-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

Final exams are collectively, the grinch that steals Christmas for first year law students everywhere.

Instead of flying home with visions of sugar-plums dancing in my head, I am nailed to my desk with reams of outlines to study up on. Final exams are taken in January, so for nerds like me, it's impossible to celebrate until well after the New Year.

But it's really hard to study all day and I've not been entirely successful.

A day of "studying" really turns out to be just a day of watching bad day-time TV. I had no idea their were so many Court-TV shows out there. The People's Court, Judge Hatchett, Judge Judy, Moral Court, Texas Justice, Judge Matthison, etc.

I've had to turn off my internet too because once I get tired of watching bad tv, I end up surfing at my desk for a couple hours...and then checking the tv to see if anything better is on.

Desparate times call for desparate measures, so I've decided to do the most extreme and ruthless thing yet: to keep a log of how many hours I've actually studied. The results, ladies and gentlemen, were horrible.

In one entire day of "studying" I logged a whopping total of 3.5 hours! That's barely longer than a Peter Jackson movie! Pathetic. That was just two days ago.

Yesterday, I attempted to study better and logged an impressive 5.5 hours. Better, but still painfully short of a full day's work. Let's see how far I get today. I'm aiming for 6.

I'm a "survivor"!

2005-12-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

There is an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Colby Donaldson (Contestant on the reality game-show, Survivor: Outback), gets in an argument with an old jewish man who was a survivor from the Holocaust, about who is more worthy of calling themselves a survivor.

The whole point was to make fun of the way people so easily refer to themselves as "survivors" even though they didn't survive anything seriously traumatic (like the Holocaust). Beyonce is a case in point.

Anyway, in that spirit, I would like to revel in some self-congratulatory thoughts by calling myself a survivor. Today was the last day of the semester and I'm happy to find that I've survived!

Hey, I earned that title. Law school was tough. I scarcely slept, I worked like a dog, I barely had contact with people, my classmates were all competing with each other, and all I had to eat for 3 months were Balance bars and coffee. Now that's suriviving! Let's see CBS make a reality show out of that!

Of course, finals are still looming ahead like a dark death-cloud... But after finals, I'll be a real survivor...of sorts.

On a scale of 1 to 10...

2005-12-14T20:03:00.000-05:00

Today was the last day of class for Contracts and Civil Procedure.

I suppose I could write about the out-of-control hilarity that reigned free in the classrooms today and all the childish pranks we students played on our professors.

One crazy "frat" guy brought an amp and mic and proceeded to emcee during the entire class time, commenting and "shouting-out" like some kind of football spectator. Most of the silly things we did were inside jokes and it would just take too long to recount them and then explain why the heck they were so funny.

To some, like me, the end of Contracts marks the end of a long reign of terror and humiliation. Nothing has served to humble me more than being randomly called in class, answering like an idiot, and then having another classmate "help you out," as the professors euphemistically called it. The insult to injury comes, however, when the entire class shoots their hands up to "help you out."

At the end of each class today the profs gave us a little pep talk about our ensuing final exams. They said things like: Don't worry; grades don't matter; now is the time to stop defining yourself by a number. Prof H went so far as to suggest we never even look at the grades we get.

"Don't pick up your exam grades. Why should you? You did your best, and that's good enough. Who cares what you actually got? I never looked at my grades when I was in law school."

Just sitting here I am in disbelief that my first semester of law school is now nearing to a close. Before entering, I had heard a million and one urban legends about how "brutal" and "psycho" law school is. I had girded myself for the worse.

And was it that bad? Well...I have yet to take the finals. But so far, it wasn't that bad. Sure I never studied so long and hard in my life. Sure I got tired and burnt out near the end (or rather, middle). Sure I had no social life and gave up all hobbies. But it wasn't that bad.

I didn't have to give up TV or blogging. And as humbled as I was in class, I did understand most of the materials we were assigned. And I really liked my classmates and profs.

So all in all, it was a good experience. Challenging, stretching, painful, but good.

But I swear, if the semester had dragged on for another month...I would NOT be a happy camper. I couldn't have taken much more of this.

A funny thing happened on the way to integration...

2005-12-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

I'm secretly proud that my study group is racially diverse. What can I say, I love a rainbow.

There's two white girls, three black girls, and an Asian girl, me.

Yesterday, Brittany, one of my black study-group girls, commented that she once met a white girl in grad school who said, "Brittany, you are the first black girl I've ever met!"

Brittany thought it was incredulous that someone in the US could go through her entire life, up until grad school, and never meet a black girl in the flesh.

And while my study group was having a good chuckle over that, I thought to myself, "Hey, wait a minute...I've never met a black girl in the flesh until this study group formed!"

I announced my revelation to the group and Brittany gave me a what-the-hell-look. "Where are you from?!" Brittany asked.

"San Jose, California," I replied, "where the population is atleast 50% Asian."

And then as I thought about it some more, I realized that I had only met one black man before, a friend from college. And as for black women, I met a lot of African women from Uganda, but not African-Americans. Very different.

During our discussion of my lack of racial experiences, Brittany happened to be checking her school email account and exclaimed, "What the hell! I just got an email for a 'White Christmas Party'! This school is so progressive it's going backwards!"

And after a moment's pause we all realized, it was 'white' because of the snow.

One of the things I love best about my school is meeting all kinds of people I would otherwise never have met. And I don't just mean race, I mean everything. People from all over the states, of all political persuasions (I met my first anarchist this year), and sexual orientations.

Sigh

2005-11-30T19:43:00.000-05:00

And somedays, law school is hell.

I woke up to darkness and rain at 7:30 in the morning.

And that was the highlight of my day.
Enough said.

The Joys of Lex

2005-11-29T18:39:00.000-05:00

Somedays I think law school is like Christina-heaven.

I love walking through the manicured lawns to school, gazing at classical architecture along the way, smelling the musty air of decaying leaves.

I love listening to the lectures, feeling mental cogs churning and synapses crackling, analyzing ideas to death.

I love being with my classmates, all of whom, surprisingly, I really, really, genuinely like, joking about legal doctrines like nerdy guild members and admiring their acumen.

And I love the myriad events and clubs and activities open to one and all, which include student improv comedy, Athenian murder trials replete with togas, and the ever ubiquitous bar gatherings.

But, please don't misunderstand. These halcyon days of euphoric bliss are few and far between. Indeed, I think they're so rare because they are directly correlated to how prepared for class I feel!

The Corridor of Fear

2005-11-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

This is the corridor of fear.

It is a path that runs in front of the law school library (the building with the columns in the picture) and it leads me to the rest of the law school campus. I walk down this path everyday and my stomach does a little flip everytime (ok, maybe flip is too tame, it's more like a congo-line dance).

I know it is only my nearsightedness that makes me anxious when I walk down this path that leads me to class, but it's real adrenaline, all the same. Everyday I feel stresed out and unprepared. I can't ever quite finish my reading assignments and don't really understand or remember the principles taught the day before.

And so I drag myself to class with an act of sheer will, knowing that I will be called on by professors and humiliated in front of peers. Nary a day goes by that I am not humbled. My classmates all seem to be quicker and saavier than yours truly to the point where I am starting to feel like "Watson" to 79 "Sherlock Holmses".

But I call it the corridor of fear for yet another reason entirely.

If you look carefully at the picture, you will see that it is lined with oak trees. There are at least 8 giant, beautiful oak trees that are a source of great terror to me whenever I have to walk under them.

Coming from a land of evergreens, I didn't know that oak trees were a thing to be feared until one day I saw a girl walking in front of me suddenly grab her head and say, "What the f*ck?! That hurt!" Her friend laughed and said, "You got hit by an acorn!"

I've never seen a real-life acorn until I moved out East, but they are really quite big! About the size of a big gumball. Imagine the pain one of these things could cause falling on your head from fifteen feet high! Walking along the corridor lined with oaks feels like playing Russian roulette with your skull.

But now that Fall is almost over and most of the acorns and leaves have already dropped, I think I'm safe until next year.

Wish I could say the same about classes.

A peek behind the veil

2005-11-25T16:09:00.000-05:00

Sometimes learning the law can be quite frustrating because legal words don't mean what you think they ought to.

My casebook gives a witty example of this when it says:

"...the title 'parol evidence rule' is about as descriptive as 'Holy Roman Empire,' which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

Law really is its own little world.

Caveat Reader

2005-11-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

Let the reader beware:
What you are about to read may just be the worst legalese ever written in the history of Western jurisprudence. Not because it's complicated, but because it hurts.

The following case is written by a judge that needs to be held in contempt of court for his horrible, horrible sense of humor (I am paraphrasing, but the quoted portions are from the bad jduge). :

Stambovsky v. Ackley

The plaintiff, Mr. Stambovsky bought a huge victorian house from the defendant, Ms. Ackley. But soon after the deal, Mr. Stambovsky heard a nasty rumor that Ms. Ackley's house was haunted! In fact, the whole neighborhood believed the house was haunted and Reader's Digest even wrote an article on it once. Needless to say he wants to back out of the deal now.

So Mr. Stambovsky is suing Ms. Ackley in order to get his money back. Mr. Stambovsky should get his money back, but not because of any fraudulent misrepresentation on the part of Ms. Ackley.

(And here is where the nauseous prose begins) "While in pursuit of a legal remedy for fraudulent misrepresentation against the seller, the plaintiff hasn't a ghost of a chance, I am nevertheless moved by the spirit of equity to allow the buyer to seek rescission of the contract of sale."

And the opinion goes on and on with the horrible ghost puns. Can't you just imagine some old white-haired judge chuckling at himself in his chambers as he writes his opinion, thinking, "I'm a funny chap, I could've been a comedian. Who says law is dry and boring? Just wait till law students read this. They'll be laughing out of their chairs."

And sadly enough, I actually did think this opinion was funny.

Christina Gets Protein, Still Lacks Nerves

2005-11-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

This was a good week for a starving student, all in all.

I got to eat sirloin tips with onion rings and mashed potatoes twice this week. And the best part was, it was free! Oh and smoked salmon and quiche and wine. How can this be? The school gives money to professors so they can take students out to lunch atleast once a semester.

I went out to lunch with Prof. S and Prof. H this week. There was a group of us students, and we got to chit chat etc. It was nice. But how much can you really get to know another person in just an hour or two? Not much. But I ate good.

Since our semester is effectively over in just about 3 weeks, I wanted to shake the profs' hands and thank them for their teaching and tell them I really enjoyed their classes. But I didn't. I lost my nerve. I didn't want to look like a cheesy pansy in front of my classmates (but I am a cheesy pansy!) so I let the opportunity slip me by.

But having been a teacher before, myself, I know how much it means to a teacher to hear encouragement. And you hardly ever hear it. You always hear about it if someone doesn't like what you're doing...but you never get to hear praise. Teachers are people too. Even law professors need to be told they did a good job.

Maybe I'll do it privately on the last day of class.

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

2005-11-16T13:20:00.000-05:00

Here is further evidence of the hilarity that is Prof. H. Our class wants to put him on the front of our section T-shirt and some very memorable quotes of his on the back. Now keep in mind, these are verbatim quotes said in class!

Everything I Need to Know About Law I Learned From Prof. H:

On Discovery: Please tell us your entire sexual history. Beginning, from, when it began.

On Jurisprudence: "Would you dismiss the case? You would? You guys are too harsh. Screw you guys."

On Appellate Review: De novo means We disagree. Abuse of discretion means we REALLY, REALLY disagree a LOT.

On Courage: I'm not scared of you Schary (We have a classmate named Ms. Schary).

On Ethics: It's like the square root of negative one, can't get my head around it. Ask an esthetician, or an ethecizer.

On Bargaining: You wanna know what my final answer is? Zero. Zero, plus an expletive that the court will not permit me to make!

On Modesty: That's a stupid answer Mr. Steinberg. All of you should learn to call yourself an idiot.

On Jurisdiction: Attaching the property after the suit? Do you have any idea like how not in rem that is?

On Telling the Truth: Ok Mr. Lacey, you got me. You caught me. So sue me, I lied!

The Wierd Ones

2005-11-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for kooky teachers.

In highschool, it was Mr. Wilson, who referred to himself as: The Wilson. The corpulent balding man of sixty still lived with his mother, wore a green labcoat to class everyday and made us all sew stuffed moles for Avogadro's Birthday. (ha ha ha, get it? A "mole" of any element has Avogadro's number amount of atoms in it...get it? Oh, nevermind.) It was like "bring your teddy bear to school" day and "Holloween" all rolled into one since we dressed up our moles with wacky costumes and had a contest and candy.

In college I came to love Prof Leslie Threatte, another over sixty round fellow who still lived with his mother and rhapsodized about Classical Greek poems. He also referred to himself in the third person as "L. Threatte." For example: "L. Threatte would rather that accent be on the penultimate syllable since it would lend more comedy to the line. But who is L. Threatte to question Aristophanes?"

And now, in law school I have Prof. H. The class loves him. He's quite a departure from my previous favorite teachers, being younger, in good trim shape, and not living with his mother. But he looks funny and says wierd things nevertheless.

Yesterday in class, he was belaboring how an angry plaintiff wanted to get money out of a certain defendant who fled to another state to escape the lawsuit. "What's the plaintiff to do?!" bellowed Prof. H. (he loves to yell). "Should he drive all the way to Missouri to seize his assets?!" And as he said "seize his assets" he put out both his hands and did a kind of grabbing action as if squeezing a pair of imaginary ummm... "oranges"...if you get my drift.

The entire class could NOT stop laughing. With a look of great annoyance on his face, Prof. H. waited for the laughter to die down and said:

"Oh, gosh. I'm so glad I decided not to teach third graders. They're so immature. I get to teach serious law students." As he spoke he rolled his eyes in disgust, all the while garnering more laughter from the class.

Let's him and you fight!

2005-11-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

Law school is starting to feel, among other things, like a kick-down, drag-in, all-out fight. Our professors are always telling us to argue (the legal counterpart to fighting) with each other.

It's like some kind of academic throw-back to the most primitive instincts of man which have led to such unsavory recreational activities such as cock-fighting and bear-baiting.

But our professors love it. Their legal blood-lust seems to be insatiable.

In class after class, we hear this typical professorial goading:

"Suppose you were the plaintiff's lawyer. Mr. Chen, what would your best argument be?"
(prof rubs his hands together)
(Student says something)
"Ok, good, then Ms. Craw, how would you counter that?"
(prof salivates)
(Ms. Craw says something).
"And then what would you say to that Mr. Chen?"
(prof's eyes gleam)
Etc...

Back and forth the verbal tennis match goes. Brains churning, arguments forming. An endless litany of he argued, she argued.

And that is what good lawyers are supposed to do. That is how they think. That is the backbone of American Jurisprudence: The Adversarial System. (You know, that's not the way they do it in Europe). But it's a time-honored tradition which, as Prof. H reminds us, goes all the way back to the "ye olde adversarial system" of jousting in King Arthur's court.

But alas for me, I am a lover, not a fighter. I'm a peacemaker. I'm a merger, a synthesizer, a "why can't we all just get along" kind of gal. When I hear an argument my first thought is not: How can I shoot that down and utterly discredit it? It's usually more along the line of: Hmmm...that's interesting...I think that person has a valid point.

Needless to say, this non-confrontational attitude is not serving me well in law school. It's like putting a dove in the ring with an angry cock. Watch out. Carnage and bloody massacre. Trust me, my in-class performances are not pretty. They're a massacre. Pure, bloody, rated-X for violence, massacre.

The End Game

2005-11-02T19:20:00.000-05:00

Now that it's November, law school has shifted to another gear.

It's time for my end game.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, law school is like war. In war, you always need an endgame. You've fought your battles, you've disciplined the troops, you've looked the enemy in the eye, and now, it is time to strategize your final victory.

But what, you may ask, is the "victory" of law school?

Those of you pure in heart and soul may think that the goal is general wisdom and learning. Well, it's not. The sweet victory of law school is pure and simple. It is as basic as your first grammer school lesson, when you sat on rickety wooden chairs, colored innocently out of the lines, and sniffed paste...it's an "A."

Call me a cynic, but that is the goal. That is a touchdown. That is the prize.

Now, this coveted prize is exceptionally hard to attain because that is the way the "system" has set it up to be. All exams are curved and only maybe 10% of students will get an A in any given class.

The way is narrow. The path is steep. The competition is fierce. But I have a plan. Yes, you always need a plan.

Of course I won't bore you with the details of my little strategy...but suffice it to say, it's going to be very expensive in terms of time. In a war there is always sacrifice. And in order to really put this baby into action I need to sacrifice my discretionary time. That means less TV, less internet surfing, and no more shopping. If I were wise, I'd cut out TV altogether...hmmm.

That would be tough...
I do love my shows...

But I should suck it up! This is war!

How's law school?

2005-10-27T18:24:00.000-05:00

Soon it will be November and half the semester will have been over.

Many people ask me how law school is going.

I usually take a deep breath, roll my eyes, and say something to this effect: It's REALLY hard. Or: I study ALL the time. Followed by: There is an infinite amount of work to do but you only have a finite amount of time. So it's all about triage.

But already I'm learning some valuable lessons (legal and otherwise):

Lesson 1. When you sell or buy commercial property, you should really consider getting a lawyer. Why? Because of terms like "fee simple subject to executory limitation." Enough said.

Lesson 2. It's hard to accept that most people are smarter than you. But that cold fact has been slapping me in the face every day since the semester started. My ego hurts.

Lesson 3. In law school, TV is not your friend. Neither is Netflix.

Make room for the wind down...

2005-10-19T23:17:00.000-05:00

"The wind down," is a tricky little paradox.

Everyday I am exhausted from studying 6-10 hours.
But,
no matter how tired I am,
no matter how late at night
and how much I desparately need to sleep,
and no matter how many chores I should otherwise be doing,

I always make room for "the wind down (twd)."

TWD is just your randomn assortment of light diversion and noncommitted amusement, such as web-surfing, blogging (yes, you've caught me winding-down right now!), watching bad TV, and flipping through clothing catalogues.

TWD is like a necessity, a normal bodily function, like peeing. In fact, it's almost exactly like peeing. See, when your mind concentrates intensely for x amount of hours, it builds up a commensurate need to dispense with mental toxins in the same way that peeing lets your body release its chemical toxins. Good water, nutrients, and studying goes IN, and bad liquid, toxins, and unproductivity goes OUT.

I used to try to fight TWD by promptly turning off my laptop and turning out the lights. But that is as futile as fighting the urge to pee. You just wind up not being able to sleep.

So now, starting from tonight, I've decided not to fight it any longer. No more feeling guilty. Everyone needs a little downtime. See? Now I can sleep soundly.
Goodnight.

I thought I had seen it all...

2005-10-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

You won't believe what happened in Contracts class today. I'm still in disbelief now even as I write...

Prof. W, a distinguished faculty member for many years and easily older than all of our mothers, called on a student who responded in a most untypical way.

Prof. W: Mr. Matthews, what did the court say was the correct damages?

Mr. Matthews: Professor, before I answer, can I just say that you look really good today?

(The class gasps in disbelief and all eyes are on the bold Mr. Matthews)

Prof. W: Excuse me, Mr. Matthews? Is this your clever way of evading the question?

Mr. Matthews: No, really. Your jacket (a bright turqoise color) really brings out your blue eyes.

(By this time the entire class is laughing riotously at the cheeky Mr. Matthews).

Prof. W: Well, Mr. Matthews, I think you're embarassing your classmates more than yourself. Mr. Cahill (Mr. Matthew's neighbor) is redder than a beat.

(The whole class turns to look at Mr. Cahill's beat-red cheeks).

***End Scene***

I did NOT make this up! I COULD not make this up.

The Case of the Surfing Student

2005-10-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

Today in Property class, I saw something so disturbing I had to blog about it.

Right in the middle of lecture, as the class was knee-deep in the various nuances between affirmative and restrictive covenants as compared to affirmative and negative easements, which the Restatements 3rd on Sevitudes would just as soon abolish, blah, blah, blah...I looked over at my neighbor and gasped (in my head...not out loud).

To my horror, she was surfing the Economist website and checking her email on her shiny white Apple Notebook.

What does this mean?

Here I was, straining with every last brain cell to understand these esoteric doctrines, and there she was, seemingly disregarding the whole lecture.

My mind drifted from concentrating on the prof while I contemplated the possible ways to interpret this phenomenon:

1. She's a genius, the equivalent of a legal Doogie Howser, and thus does not need to pay attention.

2. She's incredibly lucky. In her former life, before coming to law school, she just happened to have learned these concepts already.

3. She's got a man on the inside; an upper classman, a tutor, a law school gang, etc. who feeds her secret information about how to ace this class.

4. Or she's just a slacker. She figures this stuff is all in the casebook and she'll have to read it again in preparation for the exams anyway, so why pay attention now? But if that's so, why even go to class at all? In case the prof says something that isn't just in the casebook.

But what does it matter to me?

Ideally, in a perfect world, it shouldn't. I should just mind my own business, try to learn the most that I can, and just do my best, yaddy, yaddy, yaddy...

But law school breeds a sense of competition, primarily because all your classes are graded on a curve. Another person's advantage is your harm. Their pluses are your minuses. And this neighbor of mine had some kind of secret power that made her immune to lecture materials. What was it?

For the rest of class, I contemplated asking her point blank why she could just blow off lectures like that. And then I realized, in my obsession, I had just blown off lecture. Oops.

It's Fantastic, Life in Plastic

2005-10-08T17:07:00.000-05:00

Well, happy one month anniversary (of entering law school) to me.

I'm so eyeball deep in prescriptive easements and equitable servitudes I could cry.

Here is my one month anniversary picture of me (as a lego figurine) in law school.

Legaldegook Soup

2005-10-03T19:34:00.000-05:00

A is for amicus curiae
B is simply breach
C is for construction
(As in, "the court's construction of his speech...")

D is for dominant estates,
which rights run with the land,
And E is for equitable servitudes,
which make Property so grand.

F is for foreseeability,
G is for good faith,
H is for good ol' habeas,
as in the "corpus" you may take.

I is for intent, illegal,
and immunity,
J is for jurisdiction, judge,
and judiciary.

K is for the study of Contracts,
K is the abbreviation,
which reminds me, I should stop this poem,
and read more about "formation."

Alas, the alphabet stretches on,
But I must hit the books,
But let me end on the letter "L"
Which stands for legaldegook.

At what cost mercy?

2005-09-30T11:41:00.000-05:00

"Economic Analysis of Law" is a school of thought that weighs costs and benefits to decide what a legal rule should be.

It's controversial because it advocates that the foundation of law should not be morals and justice per se but costs and benefits. It's utilitarian.

One of the many problems with this way of thinking, my professor pointed out, is the question of distribution. Who should bear the cost of society being benefitted as a whole?

If building a highway that runs through your house will make commuting easier for the entire city, should you be made to sacrifice the cost of losing your house for the greater good of a city full of happier commuters?

My professor actually gave a starker example. He said, "What if torturing a child would increase the whole world's happiness?" Should we do it?

That knocked the breath out of me.

For the rest of class I could not concentrate on his lecture because I kept thinking about Christ. A child was tortured to increase the whole world's happiness.

Of course the professor's hypothetical was rhetorical. Of course we were supposed to all be aghast and see the folly in unequal distribution. Of course we all thought it was just plain wrong to torture a child, ever.

But I was enthralled by this: That a man lay down his most inalienable rights to benefit his enemies. That is unknown to the laws of men.

Groupie Disappointment

2005-09-28T13:12:00.000-05:00

This whole week, much excitement had been building up to today.

Today was supposed to be the day that I drew breath in the same room as Justices Scalia and Breyer, who were scheduled to be on a discussion panel at the law school today.

Of lesser significance to me, the Right Honorouble Lord Rodger of Earlsferry and the Right Honorouble Lord Scott of Foscote were supposed to be on the panel too. Yeah, the English and their "titles." They are actually called Lords of Law. The big question on all the students' minds were, "Would they wear their wigs?"

But alas, though we rescheduled our Contracts class just to attend the panel, my dream of breathing in Justified(?) air was not to be realized.

The Ames courtroom was so crowded in Austin Hall that the "rest" of us had to watch the event live broadcasted in Langdell Hall. How anticlimactic. I might as well be watching the Justices on CNN.

The broadcast was of very poor quality. English accents are hard to understand in the first place, but add to that poor sound quality and picture delays and you get almost zero comprehension. And to make matters worse, the Right Honourable Lord Rodger of Earlsferry would NOT shut up!

Half way through I gave up and decided to go home. I'll maybe watch the rest on web cast.

And for the record, the Lords of Law did not wear wigs.
(They didn't even wear robes).

Girls Gone Mild

2005-09-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

Two great things happened in law school this week.

First, the new law school gym finally opened. Before, I was trying to make do by going to the undergrad gym, Malkin, but it was sadly deficient.

Malkin is poorly ventilated (think nasty sour sweat smell), had very few machines, and no free weights! How could a private school with a bazillion times MORE funding than Berkeley have a gym that was a bazillion times WORSE than Berkeley's? Where is all that money going to? Bribing US News & World Report to give them higher rankings?

But the new gym is beautiful. Still small, but very sleek and modern. And, the best part of it is that EVERY single cardio machine has its OWN TV screen attached to it. That's right! You just plug in your earphones and enjoy whatever show you like.

The second great thing that happened was that I joined my equivalent of a law school sorority.

Ever since law school started, I have been trying to befriend my female classmates to no avail. For some reason, they have no desire to talk to me and when I talk to them, they answer in curt phrases, making it abundantly clear that they don't care to continue the interaction. So what's a girl to do?

But this week, in Contracts, our professor forced us to form study groups. I didn't want to join a group of guys, but then again, I may have to since I didn't know any girls.

Just as I was pondering my testosterone-laden options, my classmate Jenna asked me if I wanted to form a study group with her. Wow. I would've never thought Jenna even knew I was a live. She is one of the more trendy looking girls who was, unlike me, very popular with the other girls in our class.

So Jenna and I talked about who else we wanted in our exclusive group of 4. We ranked girls and made lists. We considered their comments in class and their conduct outside of it. At one point Jenna said, "I feel like I'm rushing." When I looked puzzled, she explained, "You know, how in sororities you rush girls to pick who gets in."

Oh, yeah. I've never been part of the Girls Gone Wild party/sorority scene, but this was as close as I would ever get, I suppose. Being in a group with an ex-sorority chick.

But in case I got the wrong idea that I was somehow now in Jenna's nucleus of friends, who all look like ex-sorority girls themselves, Jenna makes it a point not to talk to me too much in public. We mostly communicate through email.

"Sure Christina, why don't you shoot me an email about it."
"Great Christina,...ummm, let's talk about it more over email."

Apparently high school teen dramas are a pretty accurate portrayal of the female social dynamics in law school. And as is the fate of all conventional nerds, the popular girl only talks to me for study help.

And I don't mind because she's cool.

But they told me there would be parties...

2005-09-19T19:14:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I thought law school would be mostly fun and games.

Maybe it's because the LSAT had a games section which really was fun. Maybe it's all the riveting TV shows and movies about law. Or maybe because in a subject so riddled with "parties," you just envision good times.

But it's not.

Law school, for me anyhow, is a lot of pain and toil. Imagine wading through page after page of "fine print" and legalese and you'll have some idea of what my reading assignments are like.

To wit, here is a passage from my Contracts casebook, which I had to read and re-read for half an hour to get a sense of what it means:

"The rule which is applicable to one who is under a contract to render personal services, and who, being discharged without cause before the end of his term, sues for damages, requires him, in estimating damages, to allow for his services during the unexpired term whatever he is able to obtain for them, or, if damages are assessed before the end of the term, whatever he reasonably can be expected to obtain for them during the time covered by the contract."

Can you believe that is only one sentence long?!

And it also doesn't help that it was written in 1900. I thought reading Dickens novels were hard because of the dated language! Now I have to deal with archane semantics and legal words that masquerade as normal words.

A gold star to anyone who can explain to me what the excerpt above means. (Except for my brother, that's too easy for him.)

Makes Johnny a Dull Boy

2005-09-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

You can spend all 24 hours a day studying and still feel like you're not done.

Given that fact, what's a law student to do? Study strategically. And, learn the art of not getting called on in class.

I've tried various methods with great success. In Contracts, I commit to looking down at my notes and furrowing my brows to give the appearance that I'm in great confusion and turmoil. If you call on me, I am apt to make a horrible scene and cry.

In Civ Pro, I am fortuitously situated behind a big guy who covers up my name tag.

In Property, I volunteer a lot. That way, the prof feels like I would manipulate the class too much if he also called on me for the "tough" involuntary questions.

But there still remains a mountain of reading and briefing to do when you get home. My life has morphed into this horrible, monotonous schedule:

Wake up.
Study.
Go to class.
Go home and study.
Go to another class.
Go home and study.
Go to sleep.

Repeat.

It's Just Chung

2005-09-14T12:32:00.000-05:00

In Contracts class our professor made name tages for us with only our last name on it. That way it's easy for her to call on us.

"Ms. Nicholas, why did the court...?"
"Mr. Wallman, what are some arguments for...?"

But I noticed a queer thing today when she called on me.

Prof: Chung, what is the main issue here?
Me: Well...I don't know if this answers your question but..
Prof: That's one way to frame it. Let's call that the Chung analysis. How would you continue the reasoning under that theory, Ms. Cartwright?
Cartwright: Um, could you repeat the question?
Prof: Chung said that the...

Chung?! Where's the courtesy title? Since when were we on a last name only basis? Hmmm...

The Three R's

2005-09-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

I thought I had learned the 3 R's in elementary school.

Apparently, not well enough. The 3 R's for law school are much the same as the traditional Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmatic. But of course there's not really any math involved, so I would change the last one to Reasonin'.

I never really felt deficient in these 3 categories until now. Especially the Readin' one. Everyday I find myself getting a little bit more behind on the readings than the day before. That's because I'm a slow reader. And it's also because I'm a bad reader.

Honestly, I've never had to really read before. In highschool, you just listen to your teacher lecture. In college, I was a language major, primarily because it didn't require me to read, just translate. But now, there's no escaping it. It's read or die. And I'm dying.

I also didn't realize that I was such a bad writer. One of my profs put up this sentence on the board and asked us what's wrong with it:

The defendant says he told you the truth. But, did he tell you the whole truth?

It looked like a fine sentence to me. But, apparently, you shouldn't have the comma after "but". And there were many other badly written sentences that puzzled me too. Stuff about refering to antecedents and prepositional phrases. Look, my whole philosophy on proper writing is that it's fluid. It's cultural. It changes with popular usage. But,...that philosophy isn't serving me well now.

The only one of the 3 R's that I can half decently perform is the Reasonin'. But I'm still way off from the standard that the profs want. They befuddle me with their incessant questions of "why?" Kind of reminds me of the relentless toddler who suddenly wants to understand the world.

"Why is the sky blue?"
"Because God made it that way."
"Why did He make it that way?"
"Because that's his favorite color."
"Why does he like blue best?"
"Because blue rhymes with shoe."
Or if you don't want to resort to flat out lies,
you say, "Because I said so!"

Now here's the law version:

"Why did the judge decide that the damages were incorrectly ascertained?"
"Because the proper measure was the difference in market value."
"Why is the proper measure the difference in market value?"
"Because the other alternative creates economic waste."
"Why is economic waste undesirable?"
"Because...um...it's just bad?"
"No, tell me why! What's behind it? Come on, dig a little deeper!"

And you just want to say, "Because the case book says so!"

Now, after only a week of law school, I realize how truly flabby my grey matter is. But like anyone who's on a good exercise and diet program, I look forward to the day when I can sport the mental equivalent of six-packs and chiselled pecs. For now, I'm just in constant pain.

What do you think?

2005-09-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

Today, I have no time to write an introspective piece.

But in order to write something relevant to law school, let's try a little thought experiment. The following is an issue that came up in my property textbook. What do you think about it?

Buzzers. Should we have them or not?

Buzzers are cage like devices in retail stores that prevent the customer from entering the store until an employee buzzes them in. NY is where you mostly find them. They are supposed to add a measure of safety to the owner of, say, a jewelry store or of other high-end products.

Unfortunately, blacks are usually the ones who do not get buzzed in, primarily black teenagers wearing sneakers and hooded sweatshirts.

But often times, the buzzer is abused. A black woman wrote about her horrible experience of exclusion at an upscale retail store. She stood in the cage waiting to be buzzed in. The pimply faced white teenage boy behind the counter told her, "We're closed now." It was 1pm and other white customers were in the store.

If the black woman sued the "saleschild" for unfair exclusion, perhaps she would win in court. But what if she were a black male? A young black male dressed in sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt?

Should we even allow store owners to exclude people from their stores before the people have a chance to prove whether they are good customers or not? Certainly a rowdy, drunk, raving lunatic customer may be escorted out after he acts up. But prejudgment?

Incidentally, I saw an episode of Law and Order once where 3 black teenagers went to a jewelry store at night with the intent to rob it. The owner would not buzz the kids in and so they started to shoot at the owner. The owner shot back, but it was later discovered by the detectives that the owner had locked the store's outside door and so was essentially shooting the teens like shooting fish in a barrel.

The neighboring store owners, upon hearing that the 3 teens were killed, felt relieved and hailed the murderer as a hero.

I Knew Fear

2005-09-07T17:15:00.000-05:00

Some professors ask questions like a Gatling gun. Quick, unceasing, and hitting a lot of students. That's really not so bad. You get called on, you don't know the answer, after a brief 3 seconds, the prof moves on and asks your classmate to help you out.

But some professors ask questions like a medieval torture device. It's long, laborious, and it's only you on the hot seat. That's what happened to me today. To compound the general devastation one would feel due to just public anxiety itself, the questioning happened to be about a case I had not fully prepped for. Oh sure, I had skimmed it before class time, but legal briefs can NOT just be skimmed. It's not like girly magazines (unfortuneately for me, all I've known).

So there I was, cold sweat dampening my palms. My voice dropped to a low throaty alto and I knew fear. It must be like blood in the water, profs can just smell an unprepared student that they can readily devour.

As Prof S. continued with his questions it was as if time had stopped. Like a movie in slow motion, I could see myself in an out-of-body-experience kind of way. I saw my future flash before me. I imagined what my classmates must be thinking to themselves. "I knew that legally blonde chick was dumb." "How did she ever get in?"

I would never get into a study group. Who would want to study with me if they felt like they would just be pulling my weight? And when I graduated on the bottom of my class, my professional reputation would be ruined because all my classmates would shun me forever.

"Ms. Chung, why did the court not argue the defendant's constitutional rights?"

"Um. The...court...felt that the state law would better protect the workers' human, uh humane rights?" Humane rights? What the heck was I saying?! Humane rights are for dogs and cats!

"Ms. Chung, why did the court feel that way?"

"Uh, the...court...uh...didn't really elaborate on that point." (sheepish smile).

"Ms. Chung, it's on page 110, paragraph 2, read it to the class."

Read it to the class?! Not only am I so deficient that I can't be trusted to do analysis, but now I can't even read what it plainly states in the book! I tried to read the passage with as much dignity as I could salvage, slowly, deliberately, with emphatic pauses. But I fear it was too late.

After this final humiliation, the questions ceased and the prof moved on to his next target. I slumped in my chair and felt faint.

When class was over I went to the restroom to find a long line of my female classmates waiting to use the stalls. None of them would talk to me. None of them even acknowledged my presence, though they happily gabbed with each other. I turned to look in the bathroom mirror. The image that peered back had dishevelled hair, blotchy skin, and puffy, sleep-deprived eyes.

But thank God for my friend Antonio*. When I left the bathroom feeling like I had just been flushed down the toilet, Antonio came up to me and said, "Good job in class."

*All names have been changed to protect student's identities.

I already hate the Socratic method...

2005-09-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

Today was my first time in class. My gut reaction is: please, PLEASE, do not make me go back.

The Socratic method is a counter-intuitive and dare I say very ineffective way of instructing. For some horrible reason, that is the only method that law schools use.

The method consists of the professor asking students questions that are supposed to give them greater insight into the law. But what I witnessed today was in NO way instructive or even constructive.

My first class, Contracts, was taught by an energetic proff whom I admire much. But her questions were so open ended. Hopelessly open ended. There were a hundred different ways to answer and several levels of answers a student could give. Why is objective intent the standard for contract law? Why economically? Morally? Pragmatically? Which one was the one she was looking for? It was impossible to know.

In my second class, Civil Procedure, the Socratic method seemed to be the perfect excuse for not preparing for class at all. This absent minded professor spent the entire hour and a half asking questions about things that had NOTHING to do with our reading. Of course, if he had to lecture, like most normal professors, he would have nothing to say. But because he can hide behind the Socratic method, he could fuddle through the class time asking really REALLY randomn things.

But aside from the awful instruction, or lack thereof, I'm also sore from studying. My brain feels like a 250lb couch potato made to jump into Army basic training. Run 10 miles! Then drop and give me 20! Now 100 sit-ups! Go! Go! Go! Stop crying like a little girl! Or as my army friend would say, "Suck it up little piggy!"

I have never felt as mentally exhausted in all 25 years of living as I have in just one measly day. ONE day's thinking, reading, and lecturing is more mental heavy-lifting than ALL my years of education put together, I dare say. And it hurts. And when I think that tomorrow I'll have to do it all over again, and again, and again...I feel like crying. It's soooo hard.

But that's what I wanted. To be mentally stimulated. Be careful what you wish for.

Celebrity Sightings

2005-09-02T21:25:00.000-05:00

Today was the second day of orientation. It was filled with activities that seemed to be all optional.

The first activity we did was to listen to Professor Charles Fried and Professor Charles Ogletree debate about the upcoming senate confirmation meetings regarding Supreme Court Justice nominee John Roberts.

At one point, Prof. Ogletree referred to his colleague as the "Yes-Chuck," because he likes when people call him Chuck, and to himself as the "No-Chuck," because he prefers to be called Charles.

The Yes-Chuck, we students were told, was the Solicitor General under President Reagan. And because our professors graciously expect us to be ignorant still, explained that the Solicitor General is the lawyer who represents the US in cases heard before the Supreme Court. Big stuff.

The No-Chuck wrote a prominent book about Brown v. Board called, With All Deliberate Speed, but is probably best known for representing Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas sexual harrassment trial years ago.

The debate was light, friendly, and filled with eloquence. The two Chucks waltzed around with great ease, dropping names of Senators and Justices like fairy dust from a wand. Fairy dust that rubbed off on them because they had once known them, had lunches with them, had clerked for them, etc...

Sitting in that gorgeous auditorium, beautifully pannelled with dark mahogany wood and glistening with chandeliers, listening to two of the top lawyers in the nation bantering about, I couldn't help but feel in awe. Yet that feeling of wonder was quickly and utterly trumped by the star-struck woosiness I felt as I was leaving the auditorium and noticed the two Chucks walking out right by my side. I could just reach out and touch them... I could just say hello and shake their hands.

Feeling overwhelmed with groupie-like excitement, I gushed to Silpa about my wonderment and awe. Silpa, a wordly-wise 3L who was guiding my section, was sympathetic and told me that I would get used to it soon. She once had to coordinate several events at the law school and in one week met 3 Supreme Court Justices. She sat next to Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a dinner. She had dinner with Ruth Bader Ginsburg!

Later on that afternoon, in that same glorious auditorium, Dean Elena Kagan addressed the entire class of new 1Ls. Her slick words seemed to echo the naive feelings of wonderment that I felt. She told us that we are lucky to have the opportunity to meet, be taught by, and interact with the greatest legal figures of our time (professors, alumni, and current students). Imagine what one could do.

She encouraged us to find our passions and to pursue them fully. Now, I've been known to be a pretty hard-core cynic, but maybe it was the architecture, or the near brush with celebrity, or just the giddiness of starting law school...but I took her words to heart.

Later on at the reception, I made it a point to bump into her, say hello, and shake her hand.

The First Day

2005-09-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of law school. Sort of.

Today was actually my first day of orientation. But much anticipation had been building towards it anyway. Today was the first day I would meet my classmates and get acquainted with the law school.

Suddenly, I was transported to Sept 1, 1994, the year I began my freshman year of highschool. Would I meet friends? Would people like me? And above all, what was I going to wear?! (We were going to be taking class pictures that day).

I settled on something classy yet casual, a black boat neck tank top and a dark, pencil-shaped denim skirt. To add a dash of whimsy, I looped my double pearl stranded belt through my skirt loops and slipped on a large-ish marcasite ring shaped in a floral motif. And of course, my fabulously expensive red patent leather purse and black sandal wedges completed the ensemble. I was ready.

Orientation began at 9:30 a.m. in a large lecture hall. Though there are about 500 1L's (first year law students) in the school, they are split into 6 sections to make you feel less lost. My section, Section 3, met in Austin Hall East and was welcomed by our section leader, Professor Hay, who will also be teaching us Civil Procedures.

Professor Hay strikes me as your typical absent minded professor, who's aging well. As he introduced himself to the class, I couldn't help but wonder, Did he feel nervous? Did he have first day jitters like the rest of us? He seemed a little flustered.

Prof. Hay's first instructions were for us to turn to our neighbors, find out about them, and then introduce them to the class. They in turn would introduce us. I thought that was a clever way to dispel ego anxiety.

One after another, each of us spoke in turn about the new classmate sitting next to us. Many students tried very hard to be funny during their schpiels.

One successful student started by addressing the class, "How many of you have seen Eyes Wide Shut?" 75% of the section raised their hands. He continued, "Well, then, you've seen Dan." The room fills with gasps of excitement. "Dan was that guy at the piano...except instead of a blindfold and people making out, its more like yamakuhs and barmitzvahs." (wild laughter)

Another successfully comic student said, "Harry spent last year in Bolivia. He said it was, in his own words, 'good.'" (wild laughter)

Unfortunately this spawned spin offs that were painfully unfunny. I'm cringing now just thinking about it. For instance, the person after the succesfully comic student above said, "Beth spent the last year teaching English in China. She said, and I quote, 'It was really fun.'" (silence...crickets chirping)

I introduced Rebecca, likely the oldest student in our section. She graduated college in 1990 and has devoted her life to environmental science, specifically water and hazardous waste.

I decided early on to deliver everything straight so as not to risk falling on a bad joke. But as soon as I opened with a very enthusiastic, "Hi, This is Rebecca!" there was already rippling laughter throughout the room. Later, my classmate Aaron unwittingly revealed to me the source of the classes' amusement when he said, "Hey, you're the really blonde one." Well, there you go. I didn't survive ONE day without being known as the legally blonde one.

Incidentally, that's the class movie we're watching together later on in the week.

All in all, people seemed to be trying very hard. Trying to be funny, trying to be likeable, trying to hide their extreme nervousness, and trying not to seem pretensious.

As each person was being introduced, I think, in all our minds, the question arose, "What is their secret power?" aka "How did they get into this school?"

But if people had secret powers, none were really revealed. Sure, there were a lot of world travelers, but that's not really beyond the reach of "normal" folks. And there were the occasional Masters or PhD graduates, but graduate programs in certain liberal arts aren't all that competitive...it's mostly just a lot of elbow grease.

Maybe some people were wondering what my "secret power" was. If so, my intro sure didn't reveal anything. I labelled myself as the pastor's wife/piano teacher.

But frankly (and sadly), it wasn't a sly attempt at modesty. It's really just all there is.