Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. Well, Christmas is mostly over. I am heading back to work after a wonderful couple of days of relaxation. I had to move, again, but after that was over I had plenty of time to hang out with the dogs, read books I wanted to read, and cook. I even made bread today, which is one of those hobbies that has unfortunately gone to the wayside since starting law school.

At least I am only just heading back to work and have another three weeks before my last semester begins. If I passed Business Entities, I will only have four classes this next semester. I have 3 credits in the bank from that dreadful summer Administrative Law class. That should leave me some time to actually learn the law. As I have said many times before, I learn a lot more by doing the law than by reading about others doing, messing up, appealing, having their case decided, published and deemed important enough to be put in a text book.

For example, between my finals I did a trial. All the senior prosecutors said it was a dog of a case. We tried it anyway. The outcome, however, isn't important. The jury was hung like a . . . jury that could not agree, but at least we got a majority of the jurors to agree with us and maybe he will take our plea or we will take another crack at it. Again, the outcome is not as important as what I learned in that case: Doing direct and cross is difficult!

I had a moment during closing arguments where I really hit my stride. I had at least a majority of the jurors right with me; I was off the script speaking directly with the jury, convincing them that I was right; it was smooth and clear and fun. The same cannot be said of the testimony part of the trial. Closing is theater; testimony, on the other-hand is difficult and technical. It is so hard to get from your witness all the information you want without the stuff you do not want and cross can easily get out of your control and meander into an area you do not want to visit. It is so hard to tell a story using other people's words without being able to tell them what to say or how to say it and have it all make sense to a jury. It must take a lifetime to really get good at taking testimony. I think opening and closing are really very simple compared to testimony. Learning that is going to take many, many trials and a lot of mistakes.

And that is why I need free time from law school to learn the law.

final wait

I have to blog from my phone because my computer is in test lockdown mode. I am finished with my community property exam, but I have to wait for the whole time to elapse before I can leave (for lunch-I have another exam tonight) I donot know if it is in a good sign I finished early. either I totally knew what I was doing or I did not know enough to keep writing. Or I couldjust blame it on the force conciseness of page limits.

Funny Moment

People slip up and mis-speak all of the time. It happens in court pretty regularly. An attorney-that we all find very slimy and stupid-was arguing a Crawford motion last week when ask the court to indulge him for a few minutes while he explained what Scalia really meant. We all already know he is an idiot and instead of actually lawyering he usually just puts on a show for his client, but he appeared especially idiotic when he pronounced Scalia like scale-i-a. And his argument went down hill from there. While his mis-speak can be chalked up to just being a despicable, lazy, idiot of an attorney, sometimes it is simply an accident, or maybe a Freudian slip. Check out the MSNBC reporter Contessa Brewer:


Either she just had a slip up, or that is how her and the fellow reporters talk about the polls in the break room and habit just took over. Either way, it is pretty funny.

Finals

Its finals week again. I have a whole day ahead of me studying corporate formation and insider trading. It is not exactly my favorite subject but because I have not been as diligent through the semester as I probably should have been, it is going to be a full day. The thing that is keeping me going at this point is the fact that I only have one more semester left. The bar exam is no longer this abstract event somewhere off in the future but something I need to think about and plan for, and graduate law school for--hence my motivation for actually learning business entities.

In the past, I have blogged a lot during finals, but when you have 15 weeks of derivative suit litigation to memorize, it leaves fewer time to blog away, but I will sneak in a few posts. Apropos blogging--guess who else blogs? Let me give you a hint: he's short, always wears a tan jacket, doesn't own a tie, and denies the holocaust. Yes, you're right! Its the Ahmadinejad blog. There are blogs of political dissent and advertising blogs and far too many law school blogs, but this one falls into propoganda blogs. Its kind of interesting that he appears so excited to have a free forum to express his ideas when there is lots of documented suppression of political bloggers in Iran and censorship of the internet. (read more here and here). One of the rationalizations you hear for why censorship of the internet is good is that it keeps out western values that could corrupt the Iranian culture. I wonder if one of those western values is free speech.

Laws the Movie

Disgusting

Warning: If you are easily disgusted by gross descriptions, do not continue reading. What follows may disturb you!

I have been a vocal critic, among my close friends, of the bathrooms at the law school. For as much as this place attempts to present a facade of professionalism and prestige, that image goes down the toilet when you go to the restroom. I cannot speak for the ladies' room, but the men's restroom is in an almost constant state of disarray. By 10:00 in the morning, there is usually a small puddle of urine in front of each of the urinals. I can't really blame my other male colleagues. The urinals suck. Until I learned a trick, I would get an amazing amount of splashback on myself while using them (and I am not alone in having this problem.) Not only do I have to use the urinal in a certain way, but I have to stand with a wide stance not to get urine on my shoes, and we all know what kind of trouble one can get into in a public restroom with a wide stance.

The next problem is the sinks. There is usually pools of water on the countertop, so if you lean in a little too close while washing your hands, you could easily get water on your pants at counter level. You will still look like you wet yourself even if you were succesfull in keeping yourself dry at the urinal.

For these reason, I have found myself on occasion walking to an undergraduate building to use the comparatively cleaner restrooms, but normally I don't have time, so I have learned to be careful, but now I have seen something so disgusting, I am considering just holding it.

Over the past two weeks, in two separate bathrooms in the law school, I have seen dried boogers wiped on the wall next to the urinals, and not just one, but several. Some person, who has been sufficiently successful in his life to graduate college, get accepted in law school, and achieve at least the age of 21, can't find a better solution for a stuffed nose than to wipe it on the wall while he takes a piss. And it is not like he isn't in a place with ample supply of tissue!!! I might understand if he was somewhere else, but there is toilet paper and a garbage can right there. Hey, we all have to clean our noses sometimes, but should if you think wiping your mucus on the wall is the solution, you should not be able to get a law license.

A word to One-Ls

I know this seems like a frighteningly stressful time and you are probably thinking: "Why the hell is everyone talking about outlining for finals? How exactly am I supposed to outline? How am I going to learn all this stuff? What the heck is the rule against perpetuities?" There is a lot you don't know right now that you will somehow learn in the next six weeks, but there is also something else you will not learn until your third year: how good you have it! Yes, I know it looks like us third-year students don't really have to work that hard at school, and the truth is, we don't. We have all pretty much learned how to wing it in class when we have been called on and have not read and how to begin studying for the final a few days before the exam date. Even though it looks like we spend a large amount of our time between classes just hanging out and socializing, the fact is that you don't really get to enjoy law school your third year. Must of us are working about as many hours as we are allowed, and it is not just filing papers at the library like my one-l work study job. We have real cases that cause us to loose sleep and require us to learn what the heck were actually supposed to be doing because law school leaves you woefully unprepared for the real practice of law.

Gone are the days when I could really focus on the subject matter of all my classes, and part of me misses the hermetically sealed life of a One-l. I remember this time two years ago when I struggled through the rule against perpetuities or 12(b)6 motions. I remember the hours spent to working out hypos and practice exams and delving deep into the concepts that were so foreign. I forget now how little I knew and how much energy it took to get all of that new knowledge into my brain. I had time for all of that back then. School was not just something getting in the way of a bar license, but it was, at least for a short time, an intellectually engaging activity.

So if you are heading into your first semester of law school finals, you should keep in mind that when you think back to law school and the law school experience, it is this next six weeks that you will remember. This is the time that movies and books about law school portray and is probably the only time that the stereotype of law school held by your friends and family that aren't there with you will match up pretty close with the reality. It is stressful and intense, but after this semester, it will never be quite the same. And when you are a three-l trying to squeeze in some reading between running to court, you may even miss it.

We have it easy

Compared to lawyers in Pakistan right now, we have it easy. Appointing conservative justices on the Supreme Court is a far cry from firing those who are likely to rule you can no longer be the president. This raises an interesting question that we have been talking about in my Law and the Holocaust class. What is a lawyer to do when you are confronted with an illegal action that you are either charged to carry out or you see taking place in violation of the constitution you have taken an oath to uphold? Musharraf has all the guns (Army) so it may mean risking your own life.

That is one of the things I like about the law. Yes, this appears to be a dangerous but fulfilling profession. If you know me or have read this blog, you know that I once thought I wanted to be a professor and spent two years on grad school researching Nietzschean philosophy. But in the end, it held very little meaning. The law presents real moral, ethical, and philosophical issues almost every day. It is applied philosophy, because underneath all of the obtuse decisions by the supreme court is a client, whether that client is man on death row or the most powerful government in the world. Even my work as an intern at a municipal prosecutor's office comes with considerable power. The possibility of getting an article published on environmental visions of Nietzsche's philosophy pales to getting $50,000 bail set on a guy who was carrying a Glock 9 and violating a protection order.

Basically, I spent a long time looking for a job that I really enjoyed, and I finally found it. Although it is kind of hard to feel right now as I move into the 100th minute of Business Entities Class. I better not speak too negatively about this area of law or I am apt to end up practicing at a transactional law firm. (Many of you know that the law school gods have this power). That aside, there was a line in the movie Braveheart that I have always found inspiring: "you are not really living until you found something worth dying for." I am sure glad I don't have to risk my life to practice law in this country, but that is probably what a bunch of Pakistani lawyers are feeling right now.

Good Reading

I have been following baseball this year. At about the same time that the Mariners went downhill, the Colorado Rockies took off. Not only am I rooting for them because I am from Colorado, but they are really a joy to watch. Without a doubt, the Red Sox are going to be a tough team to beat, but there is a sense of destiny attached to the Rockies season, and who doesn't like an underdog. This is an interesting article on the Rockies and how the coaches have sought out players who were not only good but had exhibited strong moral character. Maybe that is why when I watch the Red Sox, it feels like I am watching a collection of really good players, but when I watch the Rockies, it feels like I am watching a really good team.

This article is just funny, although tragically so: 6 Drunk Elephants electrocute Themselves.

Crime Strikes Again

When I am asked what my record is at trial, I have to admit that I have one 3 trials but lost 3. 50% does not really look that good, but what that figure does not reflect is the thousands of cases where the defendant plead guilty. Now, some of those people might have had a good defense and just plead guilty because they would rather not spend the weekend in jail or they want to spend the weekend in jail so they can get a warm meal. On the other-hand, the majority of people who are charged of crime are guilty of committing those crimes, such that most of what a prosecutor does is process paperwork for for people to plead guilty. That does not mean that there is not a whole lot of give in take in that game. Lots of people have gotten more time than they had hoped, because I just was not going to buy their excuse for why they were shoplifting with their kids (for example.) On the other-hand, a prosecutor's primary duty is to do justice, so I have gone easy on people who were stealing a ham sandwich because they were hungry.

But that was all really just a preamble to tell you that in my life, crime seems to be winning. Less than a week after my car window was smashed in and my law school study guides were stolen, I went to my car and found my car stereo missing. I can only imagine that the next time I will go out to my car and the whole care will be missing. I don't think it was the same people in the stereo theft as the smash and grab. It was a much more sophisticated job. There was no mess. They were able to get in my locked car, easily remove the stereo without any signs of distress or destruction and closed the car back up the way it was. They even re-locked the doors on the way out. No wires were cut and except for the missing stereo, there was no sign that anyone was in my car (one of the keyholes looks a bit pushed in, which may have been the result of shaved keys jammed in the lock.) The irony is that I had parked my car near the rental office because there is more light there, but the officer who came to investigate told me that I had just given them more light to do their work.

From my conversation with him, these kind of crimes are rampant and growing. Trying to see this all in a positive light, higher crime means more cops, which means more prosecutors, which means maybe there will be a job for me when I get out of school. Then I can get a regular paycheck and a new stereo.

Educated Thief

When I took the dogs for a walk on Tuesday morning, I was stopped by a neighbor who had just had his car window smashed in and his sub woofer stolen. I thought, "that sucks" and told him to call the police. As I walked on, I thought: "maybe I should check my car."

There it was with the back rear passenger window smashed out. I couldn't imagine what they would want with my car, but then I remembered the book back I kept in the back seat with law school study guides and notes/outlines passed on to me from other students . It was a smash and grab operation and they probably thought they might get lucky and find a computer or some bank statements, but I imagine there was some disappointment when they looked inside and just found a bunch of business entities notes. I am not too upset about loosing the books. The book on trial techniques that was in the bag may come in handy for the thief in the future. He will probably not get caught for this, but if he is doing drugs and stealing to pay for it, there is a very good chance he will eventually get caught for something (I am not being sexist here, but in my 5 months at the prosecutor's office, I have yet to see a woman in court for a vehicle prowl.)

So $162 dollars later and after a bunch of hassle, my car window is replaced and I have removed all extraneous stuff from my car. If only they knew how much more valuable those books are at law school than at a pawn shop.

Juries will do strange things

I lost a jury trial case last week. When I explain the facts to you you will wonder how it is possible to loose. A man, in a drug induced state, walks into a 91 year old womans house in the middle of the afternoon while she is taking a nap. He claimed at trial that he doesn't remember doing any of this, but after going into her house, he finds her bathroom, takes out his dentures (meth causes people to loose their teeth) and takes a crap on her toilet. When the 91 year old woman wakes up, she finds him passed out on her toilet with his pants around his knees.

How could he not be found guilty of Criminal Trespass? All I can say is that juries do strange things. When talking with them afterwards, they mentioned that we hadn't proved the case "beyond a shadow of a doubt." I guess we didn't discuss reasonable doubt well enough, but I am positive there was not a single mention of "shadow of a doubt" at trial or in the jury instructions. I guess I need to do a better job of explaining reasonable doubt.

I think the jury system is an amazing system of justice and criminal law gives defendants the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes it feels like it just does not work. That is why civil lawyers are so hesitant to take their cases to trial, and it is a good lesson to learn early on in my career.

Polite Society

This post is a continuation of my previous post regarding Ahmakillajoos' visit to Columbia. There is an AP article today discussing Iranian anger at Bollinger's (Columbia University president) introductory comments at the speech. He writes:

While Ahmadinejad probably expected at worst a hostile grilling by the audience, Bollinger's sardonic comments reflected a blatant disregard for the tradition of hospitality revered in the Middle East.

Personally, I though Bollinger's comments were great, accurate, appropriate, and reflective of the American spirit of saying things like they are. Why should we display the showy, fake flattery that is being called hospitality but is really a way of masking brutal atrocities and the suppression of political dissent in Iran. It was obvious to anyone who watched that when Ahmakillajoos was asked if he desired the destruction of Israel that his answer was not honest and contradicted previous comments. He didn't actually answer the question even when confronted. One thing I like about American culture is our brazen willingness to confront people and challenge them on their positions. This is something that lands people in jail in Iran. I prefer the tradition of free confrontation to the tradition of hospitality that is nothing but show.

Adolfmadinejad

I just watched the speech by achmyrimjoberdo at Columbia University. The segment where he states there are no homosexuals in Iran is hilarious and I am glad he was laughed at vociferously. I originally thought it was a bad idea to have him come speak, and I still think it is kind of stupid to let him make a propoganda film out of a visit to America, but after seeing that he was publicly humiliated and made to look like an ignorant fool, I think there might be a positive effect to his visit.

But before I say what I think was good about his speech, I should say that this speech was not about the First Amendment. Because this is a legal blog, I should make some attempt to make a legal point. The First Amendment does not say that we have to give a platform for all views. It simply protects someone who expresses views that may be contrary. Almost all of what we consider the fundamental rights are less positive rights than negative restrictions on what the government can do to you as an individual. So his speaking at Columbia has nothing to do with a First Amendment right, except that he was not arrested for what he said.

But what he said was both extreme and dangerous. The best thing that might have come from the speech is that more people will realize what a crazy tyrant Adolfmadinejad really is. He denies the holocaust on the basis of needing academic freedom, he denied well documented torture and killing of homosexuals and women by claiming that homosexuals don't exist in Iran and that woman are beautiful creatures, and that the moderator was insulting him because he asked the simple question of whether he believed Israel should be wiped off the map (which he ha said many times in the past but avoided today by talking about the plight of Palestine.)

Basically, after watching that speech, I have the following question. . .would you rather have America trying to establish order in Iraq or this guy?

Tool for Seattle U. Law Students

I don't know who this person is, but I found a blogger who has created a bunch of tools to import the School's master calendar into your digital life. You can get the calendar as a RSS feed or import it into a Google Calendar. He, or she, welcomes anyone to take advantage of this work, and you can find the post here.

New Word: "Slumper"

I learned a new word last week: a "slumper." From what I can tell, this word is familiar to police officers and first responders and is used as a noun. It refers to a vehicle that is otherwise functioning but is stopped at an intersection with a green light and not moving because the driver has passed out. It can be used in a sentence like this: "I was called to a report of a slumper at the intersection of Main and First," or "I came upon a slumper blocking traffic at a green light."

When I read that, I laughed out loud. And in that particular case, you could say it was a "double slumper," because the passenger was also taking a nap when the officer peered into the window.

Crim Law is Fun

Criminal law is a lot of fun. Before this is taken the wrong way, I am not talking about the horrible things that happen to people by criminals. I am talking about the craft of law practiced in criminal courts as opposed to civil. First, criminal law moves quickly. Civil cases drag on for years and then settle right before the case goes to trial. The state has to bring a defendant to trial withing speedy trial, which means cases don't tend to hang around for years waiting for one side to budge. Secondly, there are a lot of cases. This means that, for better or worse, you are not going to be able to always prepare for everything in every case. You have to fly by the seat of your pants in court. Motions are often done orally without ever filing any paperwork. You have to think quickly and have a good enough grasp on the law that you can make an argument on the fly. That's fun. Civil law is the practice of using the more paper than your opponent in hopes he will run out of money. Finally, the things criminals do is often funny, especially when we are talking about the type of street level crime that I see in misdemeanor court.

Think about the Larry Craig case. That would be fun to bring to trial. The prosecutor should not object to his recent motion to revoke his plea agreement. The prosecutor could set up a model of a public toilet in the classroom and asked Mr. Craig to show his "wide stance" to the jury. The other thing I find ridiculous is that Craig claims in his motion that he was not fully aware of the rights he was waiving. Yes, he did waive his trial rights by mail when he signed the plea agreement and a judge never got to question him about the rights he was waiving. On the other-hand, he is a United States Senator and has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. If there was ever a person in a position to waive constitutional rights, I think it would be him. From what I can tell, this is a win-win for the prosecutor, and for the Senator, it seems to only continue to make him the subject of nation-wide bathroom humor.

And about him being gay. . .watch this video and tell me what you think:

Two-L 25

You have certainly heard of the "freshman 15," but you have probably not heard of the "two-l 25." With only my third year of law school ahead of me, I have taken a little time out to weigh the past two years. I see all of these one-ls coming in all fit and fresh and, in general, pretty darn healthy looking. They are coming off the summer after college, or a year off working at Starbucks, or volunteering for non-profits so that, well, at least their resume might look a little fatter. Even last year's one-ls look pretty the same as when they came in and seem to have worked off the stress eating from the first year, but those of us who have survived legal writing-two and two full summers of real legal work certainly have a little more to show for our efforts--and much of it around the waist.

Before I get to calling anyone fat, I am basing these observations on my own weight gain and statements made freely to me by others in my class. Second year is probably the busiest and most stressful part of law school. In addition, you have been living off student loans for a year, which means your budget for healthy food has been diminished for two years now. I weigh more now than I ever have before, approximately 25 more pounds than I weighed at the beginning of law school (when, if you remember, I worked all day on my feet in a hot kitchen.) The law is very much a sedentary profession. Even in court, while I might be on my feet, I don't move around too much. And it is a busy profession, which means it feels like you don't have time to sit and eat slowly and healthfully (which may not actually be the case, but that is what it feels like.)

The good news is that your first year in practice looks to be even busier so that there won't even be time to eat, so those 25 pounds come off pretty quickly after getting your bar number. I also seem to have hit a plateau, so if I can get some regular exercise this semester, as I plan, I may actually start moving in the other direction.

Oh my where the time goes. . .

I just realized that school starts this week and I have not blogged in almost a month. I guess I have been too busy to blog, so I will try and summaries a few of the highlights from the past weeks.

At work, probably the biggest highlight was that I did my first jury trial. I always thought I would spend lots of time preparing for my first trial, but this did not happen like that. I learned about a half-hour before it began that my case would be going and another prosecutor asked if I had voir dire prepared. I had time to jot down a few notes, but mostly I had to wing it. It was a lot of fun, especially once I realized I was just having a conversation with the jury. There was a constant underlying fear that I would do something appealable (like call the defendant a liar,) but since there was a not-guilty verdict, any mistakes I made have long since been forgotten. It all went pretty well, except my testifying officer, when I asked him to name the defendant, used the first name of the defendant and the last name of the victim: it was an assault case: a bar fight to be more exact. It was not an easy case to get a guilty verdict. Essentially it came down to deciding who threw the first punch and I believe the jury just kind of threw up their arms and came back not-guilty (the judge said it was clear that the defendant was lying through his teeth on the stand, but why do you think his lawyer wanted a jury and not a bench trial.)

In my own defense for not blogging, I was gone for a whole week in Alaska. Here is a picture of a grizzly bear we saw:



I really liked Alaska. Granted we only saw a very little of it (only a week cruise up the inland passage) but it still maintains such wilderness as I have never experienced, unlike Colorado, Washington, or anywhere else I have been. If we ever run away from it all, it is to Alaska we will go.

And now school starts this week. I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this week, so tomorrow is going to be just a plain old work day for me--except that I have to do homework. I have successful forgotten about homework until, well, right about now when I am going to start reading. As you can tell, I have chosen to blog instead. That must mean school has started. I am already looking for distractions. This is supposed to be the year they bore you to death.

There is really a lot more that happened in the last month, but sometimes life is just meant to be lived and not recorded.

Invisible Rope Trick

Funny

Non-Legal Observation

Ice-cream trucks are not what they used to be. I remember the ice-cream trucks of my childhood to be true vending vehicles, with a window that opened up in the back and no doors. They were more like small UPS trucks, painted white and covered with pictures of their sweet selections.

The ice-cream truck that passes through our apartment complex is a sad comparison. It is nothing more than an old 80's model Astro Van with the pictures of ice-cream plastered over the outside in a haphazard manner. You can see the empty boxes that used to hold the ice-cream piled up in the back seats and the music, which was always annoying, plays especially slow like the machine that generates those ice-cream truck melodies is not getting enough power.

The kids still flock, but they don't know what they are missing.

Only a Fool

The saying that he who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer is certainly true. It seems like the people least capable of representing themselves are the ones who try and get rid of their public defenders. I that if you are paranoid schizophrenic you might be upset that your lawyer is speaking with other lawyers, but that is exactly why you need an attorney. I don't envy the public defenders. It is really nice not to have clients. As a prosecutor, our clients are the citizens of the city, but they do not call or miss their appointments.

What I read at work nad what I do to forget it

This is one of the funniest, albeit saddest, lines I have read in a police report for work. I have redacted any names but have preserved the text almost entirely:

"she said she was a 24-7 drunk but the crack has helped her get off alcohol. She said crack cocaine is better for her than alcohol because she at least knows who she is waking up with now"

It is a good thing I got away to the mountains for a week of camping. Hundred year old trees, campfires, and naps in the afternoon help restore one's sense of humanity.

Summer Time

I have not had that much to blog about lately. Last time I was just about to head out on my ride along, but it was far less exciting than you might imagine. Mostly I stood around while the officer took witness statements from cases that had happened earlier that day. The only person we arrested was a guy who was waiting at the station when we returned claiming to have outstanding felony warrants. It was true that he had warrants, and he was arrested, but he had his ID out and turned around, putting his arms behind his back before we even walked up. He was a bit entertaining because he had just put down a 12-pack of beer. I did get to see the booking process, and the fact that I was not accidentally shot is a good thing.

Otherwise I have been just going to work and taking care of the home life. I was in court solo for the first time yesterday. It was just contested infraction court. I guess I can count it as a win. The court did uphold the ticket, although he reduced the penalty. Lawyers usually do not go to those hearings, but the kid who was contesting his ticket had subpoenaed the officer so they sent m down to handle it. For the rest of the time I mostly handle the arraignments. I feel pretty comfortable talking in court. I find it easier than teaching. At least you know the judge is listening as opposed to the undergraduates who I used to teach.

That is about it. We have beautiful weather here, so I am trying to spend my free time outside and not at the computer.

ride-along

It has been very crazy since getting back. I have not caught up from being on vacation. The good news is that I am now authorized to speak in court (albeit still supervised for a while.) I have been handling the arraignment calender along with the new prosecutor. For those of you who do not know,that is when you tell a criminal the charge against them and give them a chance to plead guilty or not guilty (which happens most of the time.) It is pretty simple. The part that requires some thinking is if they want to plead guilty and you can present them with an offer, or when you are asking the court to set bail. When I am would get flustered on bail I would just defer to the court.

Well, I am off to watch cops arrest some criminals. I guess I will be arraigning them come monday morning.

wildlife and doctors

I saw this bighorn sheep on my drive out of the mountains. I did not want to leave it was such a beautiful day in the mountains. Now I am in the dermatologists lobby. I used to get annual checkups,but during my wayward twenties I have not been here in seven years. I guess its part of my growing up that I am getting the once over by my dermatologists. I wonder if doctors are more careful with lawyers? my doctor friends definatly have had the fear of malpractice instilled in them. how much could go wrong taking off a mole anyway?

vacation

my body finally gave out on me after a crazy past six week which included finals, a move to a new city, and a new job. I spent the bulk of the last two days asleep on my parents couch with a cold. It doesnt help that I am experienceing a bit of altitude sickness for the first time in my life. It is a bit frustrating to have grown up in Colorado and feel the altitude so much. It doesnt help that my parents live at over 9000 feet. The mountain views and the sound of the creek make up for it. I hope I am feeling better for the bachelor party tomorrow. Otherwise I am going to exercise a lotof self controll.

our puppy

It works. I sent this picturefrom my phone.technology is cool. And to think, I used to be a ludite.

what a week. . .

Where do I begin. So much happened this week. I cannot even begin to describe to you all of the new experiences, starting with Monday morning arraignments in a courtroom packed with defendants, attorneys, families, cops, crazy guys in cuffs. I mostly just watch and try to absorb as much as I can. I have not gotten to do much yet. I am restricted from speaking in court until my Rule-9 card is approved by the Bar association (a limited license to practice law.) I have been in court every day. I watched a whole jury trial, sat through lots of motion calenders, have already seen a criminal plead out on Monday and get arraigned again on new charges on Thursday, have been to jail twice, found out the punk-kid who got the not-guilty verdict in our jury trial lives in my apartment complex, and am researching about drug paraphernalia.

And that was just at work. I also had a chance this week to meet, and briefly chat with the governor at a fund raiser I was invited to. Also present were lots of lawyers from the county, city counsel members, the county prosecutor, and other politically involved citizens. After two years of relatively limited assimilation in Seattle, I feel like I am part of a community after only living here for only about a month.

Oh, did I say, I really like criminal law. Now, I know it is only the first week, but I think I am going to really enjoy this work. One of the things I like is that half the time you are still sitting at a desk, but the rest of the time you are standing up in court. I am still a bit intimidated. Things move fast. The judge gets through about sixty cases in just over an hour during a trial call or arraignment. I am definitely not ready to keep all the paperwork together on my own, but they seem to be phasing me in slowly. In fact, I am going to be on vacation next week. So before I can gather more stories from the world of crime, I will be back in Colorado for a week.

As for blogging, I am trying to set up mobile blogging from my cell phone, so look for that in the interim.

New Direction

I start my new internship tomorrow. I am a little nervous. Even though I was not completely happy with the work at my old job, I knew what I was doing, and I felt pretty successful in my work, but starting tomorrow, I am going to be in completely new waters. It is not correct to say that I know nothing of criminal law. I took the required criminal law class; my legal writing II appellate brief dealt with a criminal issue; and, I have been in law school now for two years. Even though I am starting at the beginning again in some ways, I more prepared for legal work now than I did at the beginning of last summer. On the other-hand, this is all speculation now. I will probably be writing here later this week about how I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

Besides being a little nervous, there are a lot of things I am looking forward to:

1. short commute. I only commuted from Everett to Bellevue for three weeks and that was enough for me. I am trying not to think about the fact that next fall I will still have to go to school. Is there some way I can skip my third year?

2. lots of court time. From what I can tell, I am going to be in court almost every day. We probably won't get any Paris Hiltons in municipal court here, but I am sure there will be plenty of drama. The other prosecutors I have met have lots of stories about defendants (mostly the stupid things they do.) I don't know if it is possible to do this work and not get jaded about crime. One long time prosecutor told me a story about how he saw an old man talking to child on the street one day and he was thinking "child-molester," but when he walked by he heard the child say "ok, grandpa."

3. connections. They tell you at the beginning of law school that you get your jobs from the people you know. That was not the case on the first job I got, but I had a little help on this one (I'll keep my sources secret.) Since I will be interning in Snohomish County/Everett, I am going to get to know other lawyers here, and I hope after I graduate I can get a job near here too. Apropos connections, tomorrow night I get join my girlfriends firm to dinner with the Governor. Our first question for her is going to be why it takes two and one-half hours to get a driver's license in this state. (now you know what I did Saturday)

4. a break from convincing insurance adjusters that $500 in property damage, and a two month delay before an injured individual seeks chiropractic care can still mean a person was severely injured. Anything can happen, but I am just ready to advocate for some different clients.

A shave and a hair cut

For those of you who do not see me on a regular basis were probably surprised to see my clean face and short hair. I have had that look for a while. It is part of my "look like I could fit in in a courtroom look," and it seems to have paid off. I was just offered a new job this afternoon. No, not at the firm that would not call me back. He did not offer me the job. I finally called after three weeks and he told me he offered it to someone else (thanks for letting me know.) Its the other job I applied for: law enforcement (darn, I should have kept the mustache, but then I might get mistaken for a cop.) I will be starting an internship at the City of Everett Prosecutor's Office next week. I should fit in as a prosecutor with the clean shave. It sounds like they will get me into court as soon as possible, which is exactly what I wanted. I will be mostly working on DUIs, domestic violence, and other municipal criminal violations, but it sounds like the perfect place to get my feet wet, and I no longer have to commute to bellevue. I am a little nervous, but I'll get over that.

New Look

Well, law-new-view has a new look. I will be making a few more changes, but for the most part, I think I am ready to go through the end of law school and into the bar. Other new features include the capacity to leave comments which never seemed to work with my last template, and searching all of my past post all the way back to the beginning of One-L.

I have been thinking a bit about the last year. It was a long and frustrating year. Was I worked to death as the saying goes? It did not really feel like it. I certainly did not spend as much time on law school as I did in the first year. On the other-hand, I can't remember a Sunday evening throughout the whole last semester where I was not working on either my legal writing or another paper. It was more relentless than anything else, and the fact that I had learned how get a lot more done with less work took some of the mystic out of law school. It was more like a problem that I simply had to work through. It was not especially engaging, but not yet entirely boring. I was law school's middle child.

Now a look ahead. I am looking for a new job, but I have not found anything that is both something I want to do and in the right location. I am commuting to Bellevue and working at the same firm I have been working at for the last year. I go back and forth with my feelings about work. Some days I really enjoy the work. I am getting much better at the work and it is still a lot of fun to settle a case. I have been there long enough now that I have worked on some cases from the very beginning when our clients were injured, through writing their demand and finally working out a settlement. I have a bit more independence now, and since I have been working full time, I have gotten to do some different tasks like draft complaints and edit interrogatories. I am looking for a job that will get me into court at least occasionally, but I am having the same problem I had last spring: lawyers do not call back. I interviewed twice at a firm, and then they told me they would have a decision in a few days. That was two weeks ago. I have called once and left a message with his secretary and also a voice mail. I still have not heard anything. At this point, I don't care if he offers me the job or not. I did want to work there, but that is simply rude and inappropriate. I already have a job, which removes some of the stress, but I simply want to know whether to tell my old job if I am leaving. Even if he isn't offering me the job, the lest he could do is return my phone calls and let me know.

Oh well, maybe I just don't understand how hard it is to be a lawyer and how your work is more important than common decency (add sarcasm yourself). I would like to think that even when I have my own firm, I will return phone calls. A week is understandable, two weeks and two follow up calls. . .???

Thanks blog for letting me vent my frustrations.

Quick Update

I am still in the middle of a blogging hiatus. Since the end of the spring semester, I have moved to Everett, gotten a puppy, and started working full time. I have a lot of ideas I want to blog about, but it will be a few more weeks until I have the time or stability to start writing again. Check back some time in June. Happy summer!

Note to Readers

Over the course of the next couple of days, I am going to attempt to merge all of my law school blogs into one blog so that all of the drama, the tears, the joys, the boredom can be found in the same place. You would think there would be an easy way to do this, but it looks like my new summer free time will be used copying posts from one blog to the next. We'll see how long that lasts.

Finished!

About 15 minutes ago, I printed out my Medical Liability take-home final. That means I am finished with the semester. I do not have the same sense of relief as at the end of my 0ne-L year. On the other hand, I am not completely exhausted. I have done a better job of striking a balance between my personal life and my school life (some times I think too good of a balance) and in a lot of ways, not that much will change. I have been working through finals, and now I will just be working full time. It is true that I am not taking classes this summer, and for that I am very happy. I need a break from school before I can face the last year, which by all reports is just an excuse for the law school to rob you of another $25,000.

Blogger's Life

For you faithful readers, you can tell I have been in a bit of a slump with this blog lately.  I am rethinking exactly what I want to accomplish here when I pick up with my 3-L blog.  I will blog a bit more to wrap up this year, then take a bit of a hiatus from thinking about law school, and will hopefully be back in the blogging business with a new look and new enthusiasm at the beginning of June. 



I would really appreciate from any of you who read my blog regularly any thoughts you might have on what works and what does not work. Are there topics you would like to see more of or topics I cover too much.  As law school life because lest, well, important, I am considering using this as more of a political/legal blog. On the other-hand, some of my best writing has been about the mundanities of law school. I would like to get more regular about my posting, which means I need to be more enthusiastic about the topics.  Any thoughts? 



In the meantime, I have been gathering some interesting reading on blogging that I will share with you:



A story on blogger etiquette

A story about a blogger journalist who is taken seriously.



An, somewhat related, the first supreme court opinion which included a hyperlink to a video. You can find it at this site, and the case is Scott v. Harris.



I have to get back to studying for my evidence final. 

Con law continues

I may be done with Constitutional Law of Terrorism, but that class just seems to live on.  John McKay is in the news again, and terrorism will be in the news long after this prosecutor scandal is over.  In some ways, I wish that class would just keep going on.  It was not unusual that there would be major news directly related to the topic of conversation for the day, such as a supreme court opinion or a major news development.  I have also never seen so much online discussion on a class website before.  It is rare if one or two people ever post in the TWEN discussion section, but for this class we had people posting several times a week and often in response to each other.  I think this indicates a need to continue having discussions on terrorism and the many constitutional issues it creates.  I'll have to see if there is some way to keep the discussion going. 

An all-nighter puts me three down, two to go

I pulled my first all-nighter of law school last night. It was probably avoidable, but I had too good of a weekend to regret anything now. In fact, I find that as I worked through the night on my treason and terrorism paper, I was enjoying law school about as much as I have all semester. This has been a very disjointed semester, and I have not been able to get excited about my work until these last minute spurts of engagement. I believe I have been writing about this two-L slump for a while now and today, on two hours of sleep, and two finals still ahead of me, I do feel I am being worked to death.

I had my appellate argument on Friday afternoon, which was probably the best part of legal writing all semester. After 15 weeks of working on the same case, all I had to do was get up in front of a bunch of wanna-be judges (local attorneys) and discuss the most important issues. It was actually quite enjoyable, which is just further proof to myself that I want to be in a courtroom. My forensics class wrapped up last Wednesday, and a few hours ago I turned in my paper for Constitutional law of Terrorism. All I want to do now is sleep. The worst thing is that my computer has been acting a bit weird for the past couple of days and now I am just hoping it will get me through the week. I don't really need any notes off of the computer because for the two classes I have left, I have pretty much stopped taking notes in class. I also don't brief cases anymore or make outlines and with Legal Writing II this semester, there were many a days when it was lucky if I had done the reading for evidence. I guess that means I have five days to learn everything for the exam.

I have had a hard time knowing what to write here lately. I think it reflects my general malaise with law school. I am in the process of looking for a new job right now, so I don't even really have much enthusiasm for my work. I am not unhappy there, but I am going to be moving north and I want to make the commute easier and maybe work for an attorney who gets into the courtroom more often. The key to the personal injury mill that I work at now seems to be to stay out of court. It works for her and I have leaned a lot, but it is time to move on. I am going to miss that job, but I have been bored there for a couple of months cranking out the same negotiation letters to adjusters. I still enjoy that game, but I would like to mix it up with some real court time, especially since I can qualify for a rule 9 (limited license to practice law under the supervision of an attorney) after this semester.

Again, I do not know what to write about. Maybe the lack of sleep is affecting me. I felt great all through the night and was really enjoying the mental puzzle of whether or not treason could be used as an effective tool in the war on terror. I will be posting my paper online here shortly if anyone is interested in reading it. I was actually quite pleased with the final product.

I am boring myself here, so I won't make you read anymore.

Some Legal Advise

I wanted to pass on some of the advise for law students and young lawyers that I have heard lately. As the semester wraps up, professors are attempting to teach us what we actually need to know for practice--something that might have been missed amidst the mass of information we had to learn during the semester.

At lease a half-dozen times in the past month, different people have given me the same advise, so it must be important: make nice with the clerks. I have repeatedly heard that your best friend in court is the clerk and the nicer you are to the clerks, the better you will get along. Several people have also said that buying them a Starbucks gift card at Christmas will go a long way.

Secondly, I have been told to do the hardest work first. This is not so much legal advise, but good advise for pretty much any difficult task you have in life. The difficult projects are always going to be there, so it is just better to get them done first.

Finally, the oft repeated phrase of my evidence professor: "the other side is smarter and better prepared than you."

Blame Game

In the wake of Monday's tragic shooting, lots of people have been quick to look for someone to blame. Could the police have done more? Could his professors have done more? Could the university have done more? It is not as if people did not try and help Cho Suen-Hui. Professors tried to speak with him and get him into counseling, his roommates tried repeatedly to get him involved in their life, and he was even committed to a mental hospital for some time (read a good summary of the details here.) I think when it comes down to finding someone to blame, I cannot find anyone but Cho himself. This kid was very very disturbed. People knew it, but he had learned a way to keep them away. His roommates and teachers eventually accepted that it was not possible to even get close enough to help, but no one imagined that he would be so violent.

Of course, in hindsight, you can always see things that could have or might have been done, but what strikes me, is that our culture has such deep respect for individual freedom that we pretty much let people be who they are unless they are causing other's harm. I am sure Cho is not the first English major who turned in disturbing writings. Some turned into famous writers. We live in a country that gives individuals the freedom to write what they want no matter how disturbing. We value this freedom so much that we allow students to keep writing such stories, albeit with concern. Of course, individual freedom does not extend to the freedom to harm others, but the fact that Cho was living in the dorms amongst other students shows how accepting we are of people who are clearly painfully anti-social, disturbed, weird. I wish someone had been able to get inside his head and alter the path of his life. It is clear that people tried, but if anything is to blame it is not that students are mean, bullying, teasing, and cruel as was cited for the Columbine shooting, but rather that students were too accepting. I saw an interview with Cho's roommate last night and he said he just kind of accepted that Cho was who he was and let him go about his business.

America has received a lot of bad press in the last six years, but when it comes down to it, we are the most accepting people in the world. You can be who ever you want to be in this country and that freedom is incredibly important to us. Cho did not understand this and it is his fault he felt so much anger. He is the only person to blame for these tragic killings.

2-L Dilemna

I feel a bit of a quandary right now. I don't feel the same enthusiasm about the law that carried me through my first year and part of the second. Maybe this is simply the 2-L doldrum before seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My 3-L friends are all talking about graduation. Yes, the terror of the bar exam looms silently over their graduation party plans, but there is an overwhelming sense of relief when they talk about law school. We, the 2-Ls, law school's middle child have only another year of school ahead of us.

Work has also not helped. I have only been able to work a day or a day and one half each week all year long. This places limits on how involved with work I can become. It feels like I go in, spend a few hours remembering what I was doing, do a little bit of work, and then am gone for another week. One thing I look forward to this summer is being able to work 5 days a week.

Until then, all I can do is just push through the next three weeks. I have to write a 25 page paper on treason and terrorism, give my oral argument for legal writing, take my evidence exam, and write a take home exam. If the end of this semester goes as past have, I will probably be blogging more frequently.

Apropos blogging. We had a panel of journalists in our constitutional law and terrorism class yesterday. One of the journalist made reference a couple of times to those uncredible bloggers. I do not claim to be journalism, but as a blogger for the past couple of years, I feel a bond with those other self-made publishers and it is interesting to see how those in traditional arbiters of information feel threatened by rogue writers. However, one thing bloggers could probably use is some editors. There should exist a consortium of bloggers who also function as editors for each other's works. The same logic applies for movie directors who produce their own movies. (did you see that horrible Kong!) Without editors, we tend to just ramble on, so I will stop now.

University Life

The Virginia Tech shooting today is horribly tragic. Maybe I feel more disturbed by this tragedy because I am still attending University. I have always enjoyed the quiet sanctuary of a University. There is still a piece of me that longs for the professorial life, and I spent almost all of the last 12 years in some way connected to a University. I cannot imagine how those students, especially those who live on campus, are feeling tonight. Even after the threat is gone, that sanctuary has been punctured. I do not know what is going on lately with these shootings. In the last couple of weeks there has been this shooting, the shooting at the CNN building, the shooting at the University of Washington, and a couple of months ago at the mall in Utah. Is this a trend? Or is it that we simple hear about these events immediately through the channels of modern media? My thoughts are with all of those who lost loved ones and friends and all of the students in Virginia.

Legal Writhing

My legal writing brief is due tomorrow, so I haven't been doing much more than that in the last couple of days. The problem I am up against now is that the school has placed an unrealistic page limit on our brief. I was looking through some Division II criminal briefs as examples and most of the briefs are over 30 pages and only cover two issues. We are expected to cover three issues and do it all in 25 pages. I know it is because the professors do not want to read more than that, but it is an unrealistic expectation. I realize that there is something to be learned by forcing conciseness and courts do not like excessive wordiness, but I definatly cannot get all my arguments covered in 25 pages. I have already cut two whole pages of text and have a page and one-half to go.

I'll admit it; I suffer from a specific writer's malady that makes cutting down tough. My ego is wrapped up with my writing, so when I cut out whole sentences, I feel like I am cutting something important out simply because I wrote it.

I should take some lessons from our new Chief Justice, John Roberts. In his first dissent for the court in Massachusetts v. EPA, he wrapped up his views in 14 pages. Granted, justices have more leeway in dissenting opinions because they do not have to worry about being binding. It is simply a place for them to say how the rest of the judges got it wrong, and he dismissed the case based on standing. Regardless of the merits of his global warming opinion, his writing style is wonderful. He is very concise and easy to read, especially compared to Steven's majority opinion. The other thing that worries me about Steven's opinion is the creation of a new basis for standing, a "special solicitude" for Massachusetts. Robert's called this "an implicit concession that petitioners cannot establish standing on traditional terms" Id at 44. The majority creates a new standing doctrine without citing any precedence. Maybe this is revenge by the liberal justices for the court choosing Bush as president in 2000, or as one blogger said, this case should be renamed Bush v. Gore's Movie.

Weekend Update II

Before the weekend gets too far away, I wanted to finish the posts I have been meaning to wright about it. On Saturday I celebrated my 30th Birthday. It was a great night. I invited a bunch of friends to come bowling with me (to get in the mood of the year I was born.) Even people who did not think they were going to bowl got on the rented shoes and rolled. There is just something so fun about knocking things down, especially when you throw in your friends and a bunch of pitchers. I must be getting old though, because I didn't end up in the gutter by the end of the night. I have learned recently that it takes a lot more out of me if I drink too much, so I have been taking it easy.

Also, now that I am getting older, I thought I should get a more clean cut hair cut. I had the barber chop off that mop that was growing on my head recently and I got rid of the mustache that was also taking us back to 1977. I almost look courtroom ready, but alas, I still have more than a year of school. It seems like too much school. I saw a friend from high school this weekend who started medical school the same time I started law school. He was out here during a break after finishing the first portion of the Boards. He is done with the classroom aspect of his education. What? Maybe you didn't read that right. Yes, in medical school, they understand that practical education is as important as classroom education. Law schools have not quite learned that. I think its because they don't want to give up that third year of tuition money, but from what I can tell, the third year is pretty much a waist. And it would be a lot more helpful if that year was used as part of a full year apprenticeship. I do not think anything will change any time soon, because the only people with the power to make that kind of change are people who have already completed law school and the bar exam. They simple do not have any motivation to make things more efficient.

I better get back to legal writing. I am going to a Mariner's game tonight, so that means I will not be getting anything done this evening. However, even at this late point in this semester, it is important to take a night off and to something fun.

We're number 2!

All of us who have legal writing this semester are under the thumb of our appellate brief. Our school prides itself on having a very good legal writing program. I have no doubt that there is some truth to that. We used to be number one. Even Harvard uses the textbook written by the professors in our department. But this year we fell a spot to number two. You can tell that some of the teachers and the administration had its pride hurt a little bit. When they sent out a school-wide e-mail with the new rankings, they included a rationalization for how we could have slipped a spot: the number one school hosted the major legal writing conference this year, so that must have been the reason they were number one. How else could Mercer University, who no one has ever heard of, have beat us?

It is probably good that they got a bit humbled. When you are number one, you stop working as hard. For example, I asked my legal writing professor to explain why you only put facts after the when clause of an issue statement. Her first response was: that's what the book you are supposed to be reading tells you to do. I was a little shocked. I know what the rule was, but I was still making the same mistake, so I was hoping she could explain it. Normally I like her hands off attitude, but it bugs me that I should be doing something simply because the book tells me to do it that way. However, in the end, that seems to be what legal writing teaches you: how to write the way you are supposed to write because we tell you what the rule is. It does not require thinking per se. It requires creative plagiarism.

Weekend Fun: Part 1

It was a busy weekend. Friday night was the mock trial competition. We did exactly what we wanted to do: good enough to put the experience on our resume but not good enough to qualify for regionals--i.e. third place. It was actually a lot of fun and got me even more enthused to get in an actual courtroom. It takes so much energy to do a good job at trial. Not only do you have to be very prepared and have thought of so much prior to even walking through the door, but you have to be constantly listening to your witness to make sure they give you the answers you want and to your opposing counsel to make sure they are not asking questions they should not be asking. My favorite part, however, was the opening and closing. I like the performance aspect of being in front of the judges. I like using timing and emphasis to keep their attention, draw them in, and hopefully see that your theory of the case is more reasonable than your opponents. I also had a really good partner, and my girlfriend did a wonderful job as a witness. At one point she had the whole panel of judges laughing at her character.

(if you read this post earlier today, I apologize for the strange " " that appeared in the text. I seem to be having some bugs with my blogging software)

random

I came across these two separate articles that seem to be related. Both speak about space junk falling from the sky, but neither of them mentions the other. The link? Fark.com



Space junk falls on airliner

Space junk falls in Somalia



The Gods and the internet must be crazy!

Is School Over Yet?

It is getting harder and harder to stay motivated for school.  I can only imagine how ready I will be for law school to be over next year.  A colleague of mine just came by and said he felt like he was living Groundhog day and my girlfriend woke up this morning and said in half-consciousness but full earnestness: "isn't it Sunday?"



For those of you who read this and who go to school with me, stop by the Men's Law Caucus table and buy some baked goods for our bake sale.  We are also selling those cancer bracelet things to support research for testicular and prostate cancer.  One student already came up and said she has a friend who had testicular cancer and how goes by the nickname "one-nut." 



In other news, the prosecutor  scandal keeps going on.  I  had the opportunity to go have some beers with McKay last week under the auspice of discussing paper topics for his class.   We did not talk about the scandal at all and it  seems like he is ready for this whole thing to blow over; although people at the bar were buying us beers, so I didn't really complain.  We mostly talked about terrorism and whether or not it is a serious problem.  I did not think there was much debate about that and most of the public debate was on how to deal with terrorism, but it seems some people do not think terrorism is that big of an issue.  At a different event this weekend, I was accused of being Dick Cheney, because I said the issues of terrorism and the law will be important and changing for most of my legal career.  It has taken over four years for some of the prisoners at Guantanamo to get charged and sit before a commission.  Considering that fact, I do not know how anyone thinks these issues will go away anytime soon.  This is an important and changing area of law exactly because terrorism exists now as a particular form of violence against civilians which has grown in our fast moving media environment.  Never before could a band of armed rebels bomb a nation's soldiers thousands of miles away from home and have the news reach millions of citizens within hours.  Terrorism, as we know it, is only possible because the means of communication allow terror to spread. 

Spring Break

This has been the least spring break of spring breaks. I worked for four days last week and spent the fifth working on my appellate brief for legal writing. I did get away to the beach last weekend with my girlfriend. It rained most of the time, but we did get to walk on the beach and had a jacuzzi in our room. It is always nice to get away for a few days and give your life some perspective.



Since my last post, the prosecutor scandal has only grown. Professor McKay has promised to spend some time this week in class answering our questions, so I look forward to having the same opportunity as the senate had without needing subpoena power. Professor McKay seems to have changed his stance a bit since the first time he talked with us at the begining of the semester. At that time, he claimed that he wished to simply step down quietly and was not going to make a big stink. I heard him on the radio a few days ago talking about how he believes the wrongdoing necessitates an investigation from congress or an appointed federal prosecutor. I want to ask him if this change of tone came about because of what he has learned in the last months or because of the media attention he has received. Even though he held a relatively important position as a federal prosecutor, being in every newspaper in the country brings a whole other level of fame. Did the fame change his mind about the scale of wrongdoing?



The political atmosphere right now is highly charged and it seems like we are surrounded by scandals. Politics has always been contentious, but with modern communication, we now know about every power struggle that takes place in Washington. The Valerie Plame/ Scooter Libby/ Dick Cheney drama just keeps going on, and this federal prosecutor "scandal" seems to be gathering steam for no other reason than that there is a general sense that there must be something more to this.



I have said this before, but part of a legal education is an education about politics. In my own experience with small scale politics at school when we established the Men's Law Caucus, I have learned that it is possible to make something feel scandalous simply because you believe there must be something more to it. What is it that excites us about a scandal such that we almost want the scandal to explode, expand, and become even more controversial. Does it make us feel more important? Where we once might have brushed a conflict with another off, when put inside a political pressure cooker and when we get some attention for what we are doing, the conflict is all of a sudden escalated to a scandal. Then we are involved in something that feels all absorbing and and essential to our identity. I am not sure this is always a good thing. It is easy to loose track of reason when we are too tied up in a scandal. Is it really the case that a scandal reveals some hidden truth? Or is a scandal just the magnification of a human conflict because of focused attention by a lot of people who previously did not care one wit? In the law, the court tries to even the playing field of opponents such that even controversial cases are subject to the same legal principles. A scandal seems to me to be a controversy where the public no longer evaluates with reasoned principles.

Prosecutor to Professor

In our Constitutional Law and Terrorism professor's own words, he was subject today to the "seemingly unbridled powers of the legislative branch." As pictured above, our professor, otherwise known as former U.S. Federal Prosecutor for the Western District of Washington, John McKay was called to Washington today to appear before a Senate Judiciary sub-committee. The most interesting part of his testimony that I watched this morning on C-SPAN was his comment that he and his fellow prosecutors would have stepped down quietly if it had not been for the Senate making a big stink. He also stated that he did not think there was a Federal Prosecutor, currently serving or in the past who would give in to pressure of the executive or a Senator and sacrifice their prosecutor's independence. While I am not sure I can fully believe that statement, human nature what it is, but I certainly know it is true for him. We have had guest speaker after guest speaker in his class that have all described Mr. McKay as one of the most brilliant, innovative, and ethical U.S. Attorney's to ever serve. These compliments were not simply bestowed by other government employees but by the lead federal defense attorney for Washington who stood repeatedly on the opposite side of the courtroom from Mr. McKay. I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to be one of his students and Seattle University is very lucky to have snatched him up for a professorship. I do not know what kind of deal they have, but the school should seriously consider making his position permanent.

Most Senate hearings are the same. Each Senator is given ten minutes. The first eight minutes they usually use to fill with their own thoughts in the form of a long winded question. Then the answer comes and in most cases, I am sure the answers have been mulled over long before the hearing. Remember that in situations such as the hearing today, you are looking at possibly four of the countries greatest criminal prosecutors. They are unlikely to fumble an answer. It is the same way with nominations to the federal bench or when Condoleeza Rice testifies.

One thing I have had further reinforced from following this story is that you should never get your information for the media. From what I have learned from McKay and from the assistant U.S. attorney that taught our class today is that McKay was fired for a political reason when he had a disagreement with a higher up in the department of justice. This in itself might be unfair and a loss for their office, but it is hardly unusual. He has a political appointment and people get fired all the time because they prove incompatible with a person higher up in the chain of authority. Now, on the other side of this issue is the change to the PATRIOT Act that allows the Executive to appoint temporary Federal Prosecutors indefinably, thus circumventing the Senate confirmation process. For this we really have the Congress to blame because they let this slip into the Act and are all upset now that the Executive is exercises the power that Congress gave it when the PATRIOT Act was amended. Yes, it sucks that the DOJ feels it necessary to get rid of their political enemies, but it is Congress that let them.

(I am going to be a little selfish here and say that this whole thing has worked out really well for me because McKay is now teaching. I also get the feeling that McKay is pretty happy with the teaching gig).

Read more about today's hearing.

Feeling Better

I am feeling much better today. I spent Thursday afternoon and most of Friday in bed again and by mid day Friday my fever had broken. I don't have my full energy back, but I no longer feel sick. All this means that I have to face law school again. I was able to get some work done while horizontal, but I am not sure how much actually stuck.



Mostly I read the trial transcript for the appellate brief I have to write in Legal Writing, which was pretty entertaining. It seems like criminal defense attorneys are the only attorneys who are pretty much allowed to blatantly lie in the court. The defendants were charged with methamphetamine manufacturing. Neither took the stand, but during his closing argument, the attorney for one of the defendant's kept going on that there were many other plausible arguments for the chemicals that were found in his small trailer. For example, he was a pack-rat on a mission to clean up the world, which explains why he had a mason jar full of coffee filters testing positive for psudophedrine residue. Also, it is equally as believable that the chemicals found that are normally used in meth production could have been used for cleaning rocks-a legitimate purpose; and my client could be a rock collector! Did the attorney really think the jury was going to buy that argument. I am sure the defendant was sitting in the courtroom and I doubt he looked like your rock collecting type. (come to think of it, isn't rock collecting a thing pot smoking hippies do? That association wouldn't help him though) Those two "other possible stories," which were supposed to raise a reasonable doubt in the jury came along in a string of possible stories, which would only lead me to think as a juror: "this guy is just making this stuff up."



Can you tell I am writing from the State's perspective? The interesting thing about the case, the real case, is that I am pretty sure the guy was cooking meth, but after being convicted by the jury, his conviction was overturned by the appeals court because of bad cops (improper search). This raises a question that we, as a nation and as lawyers, have been struggling with for a long time: why should we allow a criminal to get free just because the cops showed up at his place and entered inappropriately? On the other-hand, I like the idea of cops not being allowed to come into my apartment for no apparent reason. I guess in our constitutional balance we allow some guilty men walk so we don't innocent men are not charged and we can all be more secure in our person and possession.



Well, I better go start doing my research for this rather than just keep blabbing on. Happy weekend y'all.

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working sick or sick of work?

I am working from bed today. After two days of sleep, I tried going to class yesterday, and it took almost everything out of me. I haven't been sick like this in years. My girlfriend keeps telling me I just have to stay in bed if I want to have any chance of getting better soon, but I don't like just lying here watching advertisements for Binder and Binder, Social Security Disability Advocates. I did that kind of work last summer, and I know that the $600 a month one can get from Social Security Disability would not be enough to live on. Still, it is hard to get focused on school again. I just picked up the trial record for the appellate brief I have to write in legal writing and wonder if I am ever going to be able to do this work day in and day out.



I am at a difficult point in my studies. Thus far I have been carried along on the spirit of naive curiosity. I knew so little about the law when I first started. I don't think I knew the difference between a law and an ordinance, let alone what a summary judgment was. The whole thing was such a mystery to me that it was exciting. I felt like I was learning a whole new way to see the world that I had not previously explored. Let's just say, the honeymoon is over.



It is not that I now find the law boring. Rather, I find it overwhelmingly complex and difficult. There is so much detail that I have to learn that I feel I have lost touch with my initial excitement. I must be experiencing what those students who always wanted to be lawyers experienced during the first year of law school: this stuff is technical, often very dry, and requires an immense amount of work to be successful. It is no longer enough to just be curious. If I am going to learn this stuff, I am going to have to want to learn it. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with one of those brains that can simply learn information for the sake of accomplishing the task at hand. I am the type of person who has to feel that what I am doing has meaning.



Lying in bed with aches and a stuffy head really gets you thinking about why it is you are doing what you are doing. Would I rather be doing something else? No. I have tried other "careers," and I can tell you that you run up against the same wall. I am up against the wall that separates armatures from professionals, getting by from solid accomplishments. This is not just a legal challenge but a challenge in myself to commit to something and do it the best I can. Maybe getting sick will help me get over this hump. As Nietzsche said:

“Enduring habits I
hate... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my
misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect,
because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through
which I can escape from enduring habits.”

I feel like I have been going non-stop since this semester started. In fact, I feel like I have been going non-stop since law school started. So much so that I was not so much learning this semester but getting through. I feel like being out of the look sets me at a new starting point and maybe I will escape through the back door and begin to feel less overwhelmed by the mass of information I need to absorb.

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Sick Day

I have not taken a sick day like today in many years. I have asleep most of the day, only to awaken for some food and to walk the dog. Usually I can pull through the couple days a year when I get sick and make it to school, but this time it was too much. I think I have been fighting this for a while because I first starting feeling the symptoms a few minutes after I sent in the final copy of my Brief for legal writing last night at 11:00 P.M. It was a downhill slide from there. I must be in the mid-two-L slump. Life as a lawyer still feels very far away, and I do not feel like school is getting me very prepared. I am going through the motions, but I don't feel like I would know what I am doing if I was out there practicing. Maybe it is a good thing then that being a lawyer still feels far away.



The problem with legal writing is that you spend 8 weeks working on the same brief. If you make mistakes, you don't get to really learn from them because you only really write two briefs in the semester. It seems like it would be better if we spent less time on each brief and wrote more of them. Over the course of last year's legal writing class, I wrote four memos, and the last was considerably better than the first. That was the result of making mistakes on the first two and having an opportunity to start from the beginning on later memos without making the same problems. With this kind of learning, repetition is the key. I will stop complaining about legal writing now. Complaining about that class at law school is endemic. You would think we would all be more appreciative considering we supposedly have the number one legal writing program in the country.



Time to go back to bed. This has been too much thinking for my sick head today.

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Group Work

I am inherently averse to group work at school. I rarely study as part of a study group, and when I do, I do so only on a limited basis. It is not that I don't think groups can be helpful or even productive, but that is often the exception rather than the rule. I have said this here before, but there are people in law school who really shouldn't be there. A girl in my medical liability class responded to the professor's question about whether medicine was an exact science by saying: "Um, like, isn't that what we are learning in this class?" I wonder how she got into undergrad, let alone law school. Of course I want everyone to learn and be successful at law school, but there comes a point where you have to watch out for yourself. If that student asked me to be part of a study group I would decline without hesitation.



Group work can be a pleasure, and I am excited about my group for my forensics class. Everyone in the group is very intelligent, does their work independently, and when we get together, we do so for a limited amount of time to focus on the task at hand. It can work. The law, probably like most professions, requires skills of both independent work and group work. No one can get through law school alone, but for any group to work, each person has to bring a relatively equal amount of knowledge to the table, albeit different knowledge. We all see different things and focus on different aspects of a case or a project and by combining the different views, we all know more. You would think that with all of the cut-throat pressure of the One-L year, some of the idiots would have failed out and you could put a good group together with about any set of students. Not the case, and the same is probably true in practice.

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Disclaimer

It has been a while since I have blogged about blogging, but I think it bears repeating the purpose of this blog. I blog with my real name, so that I can take responsibility for what I write. After all, the contents this blog are nothing more than the thoughts of a single person, me. They do not reflect the beliefs or positions of my employers, my law school, my associations, or any other person. Nothing that I say should be taken as an accurate representation of anything other than my own personal thoughts. Because I blog with my real name, I am very aware of the consequences of my words, and I have stood by the policy that I do not say anything here I would not feel comfortable sharing publicly through another medium, such as a good old fashion conversation in person.

While this blog has been primarily a one-directional conversation, I am always open to hearing your comments. Unfortunately, the comment function is still broken and I am very limited in my computer skills. Therefore, if you would like to leave a comment, e-mail me at hiltops@gmail.com and I will post your comments to the blog. I will only exert so much editorial control as the blogger comments would let me. (keep or delete) Again, thanks for reading.

Men's Law Caucus and Other News

I apologize for the long neglect of this blog. I have not gone this long between posting since I began blogging. There are multiple reasons for my absence, the major one being law school. Sometimes it simply takes up all of my intellectual energies. My reservoir of resources was spent on establishing the Men's Law Caucus, which required two appearances before the Student Bar Association Board, a meeting with the Deans, a meeting with the Women's Law Caucus, a meeting with our to-be faculty advisor, and lots of politicking. The work paid off. Not only were we approved along a 12-1 vote with two abstentions, but we earned the respect of the SBA board by our respectful and persistent submission to the Boards, sometimes hostile, questioning. No previous group has been submitted to such scrutiny, which can be seen in one of two ways.

Either we were victims of some sort of reverse discrimination. Or we are simply on the cutting edge, which always creates resistance. I do not feel in any way like a victim. That might in itself be an indicator that things are still pretty good for an upper middle class white male. I would rather think that the lively discourse was the result of our little organization being on the cutting edge. We are pushing the envelop, so it seems quite normal to me that we would be treated differently. I am unsure if the difference in treatment should amount to "discrimination." It might in the most technical sense, but part of the reason we set out to set up this organization was to stir the soup. We like the shock value of out name and we think the shock has been productive in furthering the conversation on gender at law school, in the profession, and in personal relationships in general.

On a somewhat related note, I won the pot at our regular poker night. It is nice to win, and I will never turn down the $35 I took home after a night of fun, but winning is not really the point. The point is to get together with a bunch of friends who are very busy and have an activity that allows us to keep our minds busy while we laugh and relax. It was during a poker night that we decided to start the Men's Law Caucus after all. In the end, the organizations main purpose is based on this premise: the law should be fun. Yes, the law is very serious. Peoples lives are sometimes in your hands and often their money, their home, or their business, but it is a very fun profession. Like poker, sometimes you will loose, and sometimes you will make it big, but what would be the point of all the work if it was not fun?

I will trying and write more often. Until then. . .

Nothing Specific

I do not have anything specific to write about today, but it seems like a long time since I have written. In the meantime, I have received all of my grades. I stopped short of submitting an article along the same lines as my last post to the Prolific Reporter (our law school weekly publication) on the advise of someone who knows much more about university politics than me. I am happy with this discretion. I can get away with a lot more in this blog than in the more public forum of the PR, and the last thing I need is to piss off a bunch of law school professors. If I am going to do that, I am going to take some precautionary steps first like suggesting my late grade fee plan to the administration. Maybe that can be one of the projects of the new law school group that I am founding with some other students: The Men's Law Caucus.

Our school already has a Woman's Law Caucus, and while they admit men , they are decidedly focused on issues of women in the law, which is a good thing. There are also lots of other groups, 32 in all, that fulfill the needs law students who either have a specific political leaning, interest in a particular area of law, or who share a certain ethnic identity. There is, however, no group for students who are not politically active "ethnic" students interested in the study of business law (for example). I heard that some students at the University of Washington started a Men's Law Caucus, but it became somewhat controversial because they never went through the official process for starting an organization and printed up a bunch of t-shirts that could be interpreted as mocking the Woman's Law Caucus. While I do find it kind of amusing when I tell people we are starting a Men's Law Caucus, my intention in helping found this group was not to mock. I talked with a lot of students who said they wanted to be involved in a law school group for the camaraderie, the networking opportunities, and for their resumes, but did not know where they fit in with the other groups. So we are just a law school group for a law school group's sake!

What I did not forsee is that this group is basically shaping up to be a fraternity. Never did I think I would be part of a fraternity; although, never did I imagine I would be a lawyer. On the other-hand, I am very excited, and I think it is going to be a lot of fun. We are planning a charity poker night event, a charity run, and possibly a law school "Man of the Year" talent show. We also hope to sell Men's Law Caucus briefs with the words "Case Briefs" printed on them (law school joke.) Look for them coming soon!

We go before the Student Bar Association board next Monday and ask for approval. The only thing we have left to do is find a professor who will be our faculty advisor. In that, I am very grateful I did not piss off the law professors by proposing a fee for turning in late grades.

Late Grades

Some days I feel I am getting ripped off by my law school. When all is said and done, my legal education is going to cost me the price of a small house in some states (probably not Seattle because of the out-of-control housing market.) I realize that I am getting a pretty good product for my money, and after I have passed the bar, start working, build a successful practice and work honestly and hard, a law license can be a license to print monety. However, that does not mean that I should not expect the highest quality from my professors and my school.

If you think back a month ago, I was just finishing up my finals. As a matter of fact, I took my first final six weeks ago. With the exception of extreme weather, which is a real possibility this winter, or sickness, if I showed up late for any final, I would be failed in that class without exception. Whereas the standard for students is quite high, our esteemed professors live under a somewhat more relaxed standard. The deadline to turn in grades was last Friday, and it is not unusual for the registrar to take some time trying to sort out grading curves and such, but I would expect to have most of my grades by this point. Not so. I am lucky to have two of my five grades. I talked with a student today who hasn't received any grades yet. There are some classes where this situation is shameful; I hada class with 9 students in it and we all turned in papers 5 weeks ago and we have not received grades yet. Also, this class is not even curved, so the grades cannot be held up in some administrative process. The only answer is that the professor has simply has not finished. (I found him totally incompetent to teach, so I don't know why I thought he would be competent to grade our papers)

I propose a new system. I even understand that several law schools already have this system in place. For every day that a professor is late in turning in grades, he/she will be charged 100 dollars to be placed in a fund for student organizations. Every students who completed a course has already fulfilled his/her contractual obligations of paying the university, attending classes, and taking the final, but in this bargain, the deans, the administrators, and the professors have all the power-- at least for the meantime!