final's talk aready

Well, you can feel the ambient stress in the law school beginning to reach a heightened level. During my work study shift at the law library I see which study aids are checked out with the most popularity; this weekends favorites were civil procedure and property. This is easy to explain; we had our first civil procedure review on Friday where we covered the material up through Rule 12 of the Federal Rules. I think I finally found a mental picture for understanding civil procedure. It reminds me of the Chinese game of Go. In Go there are only black stones and white stones and a gridded board. Each player takes turns putting down one stone at a time, and in the process builds walls that trap, attack, or mislead the opponent. In the adversarial system we have the plaintiff, the white stones, and the defendant, the black stones and at its most basic level, there is nothing but these two parties. But neither Go or Law is a simple system. The various permutations that arise from the basic back and forth between white and black are infinite. The rules in Go are much less complicated, but the strategy is so complicated, the Japanese say it takes a whole lifetime to master the Game. Again, the legal system is a life long evolution of learning, but I have to take this metaphor to an end, because the legal system is more than a game. We learn the rules not just to be able to to move through the system efficiently and properly but in order to most help our clients. However, in the process of learning, it is helping me to think of it like a game, and then delving into the Rules is like loosing oneself in a long Game of Go. I don't really care if this is a good metaphor, but it does seem to help me get motivated to get through the next 6 weeks and through finals without loosing sight of reality.
Now the most popular study guides this weekend were definitely was property. The "rule against perpetuities is really making people nuts. This one rule developed in order to prevent vesting property to far into the future, a rule that is not really used any more today because people pass on their property in trusts or because the amount of years in the future that is allowed by law is now extended beyond the common law 21 years, is really driving people mad. Everyone thought property was going to be an easy class back when we were learning adverse possession, but now we have to pay close attention to "O to A for life, then to B but if B has no children at A's death, then to the children of C" Yes I must admit, learning this stuff requires a level of attentiveness to detail than is not normally required of even law students.

Well, that's the wrap up. In a new feature of the blog entries, I will finish each entry with a quote from a figure from the history of the legal profession. This past week it seams like I have been coming across a lot of cases by Judge Learned Hand in several different classes and if the name alone doesn't make you think that this man was born to be a judge, then some of his quotes will

"The mid-day sun is too much for most eyes; one is dazzled even with its reflection. Be careful that too broad and high an aim does not paralyze your effort and clog your springs of action"P.9, Class-Day Oration (1893).