A wall and the other side

I kind of hit a wall this week. I don't know if it is the constant onslaught of new subjects or the relentless pace of essay writing, but yesterday evening I wrote one professional responsibility essay and I simply could not do any more. My brain was just full and I couldn't take it. Luckily S, having taken and passed the bar, understands these things and took me out for Mexican food and a margarita.

I also visited my old (not so old, but it seems like I have been studying for the bar for ages) office this week, which left me with mixed emotions. On the one hand I feel totally left out of life and I missed work a lot when I heard about the interesting cases that the lawyers were working on. It took me until today to let that feeling inspire me to get over this wall that i have run into and remember why I am doing this: because I want to be a lawyer.

That said, I got all my essays done for today, so it is time for a break.

bar

Whereas the first week of bar prep was all about getting organized and the second week was all about getting a rythem, last week was all about getting exhausted with bar prep. A lot of people were like me and found time for themselves last weekend, because even though it has only been three weeks it seems like ages since I have had extra time for myself. Now though it is time to grind through the rest of the review class. We are getting exhausted into some subjects now in which I have not taken the class: wills,trusts, secured transactions. Why cant there be more criminal procedure?

Time for studying and selfishness

S, who took the bar two years ago, said to me last night that during the bar you have a little more freedom to be selfish than one normally has. I notice the other students at school are all walking a with a little bit more focus and occasionally someone you knew well from classes will pass you without even noticing that you are there: usually on their way to or from Starbucks during our Bar class breaks. As much as studying for the bar is tedious, boring, and draining, there is something kind of nice about having such a singular focus. I feel like I have a purpose when I get up in the morning. Almost every hour of my day is planned out either as study or scheduled relaxation, eating, or exercising time. I don't really spend too much time thinking about anything else except the bar (and a little bit of wedding preparation here and there.) I have to admit, I have not been this focused in all of lawschool, maybe even my whole life, and it carries over into other areas. I have been amazingly good about getting the dishes done and my desk is cleaner than it has been in years. It must be that fitting such vast amounts of information into one's head requires a very systematic process and it just seems easier to plug away and keep everything organized than to let it fall apart. Then again, it is hard to tell what is going on outside my own head.

If I have to compare it, it kind of reminds me of when I first moved to Germany and was in a 6 week intensive German class. We had class in the morning and then we studied in the afternoon. I did a lot less studying then and a lot more drinking, but I was fresh in the country and I was fully absorbed in learning the language during most of the day, especially when drinking. It also kind of reminds me of being on swim team in high school. The first couple of days of the season were always kind of painful, but then every day you get a bit stronger and you can swim harder and stronger. We would always peak a week or two before the biggest swim meet (usually State) and then taper off so that we were relaxed and not exhausted when the big day came. I wonder if that is a good strategy for the bar as well.

We had this really annoying public defender speak in our professional responsibility class, but one story he told I found, well, it was something that stuck with me. He was describing some clients of his, big drug dealers, and they had told him how they prepared for big drug deals (meetings with lots of guys with guns and cash.) He explained what his client had said that he would get wherever he was going a day early then he would work out and relax the whole day before the deal and go to bed early.

I have a long way to go before I need to plan for the few days before the exam, but I might keep that in mind. For now it is the long schlog of class, commute, outline, practice essay, practice, essay, practice essay, then start all over again with a new subject.

Bar

I am three days into studying for the bar and I am already having trouble keeping a positive outlook, so I am going to try and remind myself of a couple of things.

1. When I am done, I will know the most about black letter law that I will ever know for the rest of my life.

2. If I pass, I will never have to take the Washington Bar Exam again

3. Even though there is a lot I still need to learn, it is kind of cool to realize how much I already know from the past three years.

4. When you are trying to memorize the law in 21 areas, sometimes the right answer really does match with common sense (the exceptions prove the rule, because there are all sorts of wacky things that you just simply have to memorize)

5. It still doesn't fee like summer here, so I don't mind as much sitting inside studying on a cloudy day.

Do not expect too much blogging for the next eight weeks. At some point I want to write a few retrospective comments on law school and such, but that will probably wait and then this blog will come to an end. Until then, wish me luck as I return to my study hole.

Its over.

Well, the first of three steps is over. Now I just need to pass the bar and get a job.

You know you're getting old when . . .

You know you are getting old when you are pulled over by a sheriff and told you are driving too slow. Yup. We were out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I came to a four way stop at an intersection. I had made a wrong turn so I didn't really know which way I wanted to go. I made a left and the sheriff pulled in behind me. The road turned into the on-ramp for Highway 2, a two-lane state highway. All of a sudden, the sheriff had his lights on. When he came to the window, he asked me if I knew why he had pulled me over. I had to admit, I had no idea. He then told me that I was creating a hazard because I had not accelerated fast enough onto the highway, and to make things worse, I had changed lanes (to the slow lane.) It was only after he asked me the next question that I understood that his stop had been a pretext. He asked: Have you been smoking marijuana today? I was thinking, do you know I work at a prosecutor's office and my fiancee is an attorney and we were out birdwatching and having a picnic! He said he smelled a "faint wiff" of marijuana. Really? In your imagination? Because I have a beard and S was wearing a bandanna, we were profiled as stoners.

While I understand what wend through his mind: they are driving slow and look like a couple who might smoke pot, as a prosecutor, it pisses me off when cops do things they are not supposed to do. What if I did have a trunk full of weed? A good attorney could have shown that his stop was pre-textual. Since when is it illegal to drive carefully?

We were just waiting for him to pull us out of the car and ask to search the vehicle. He stopped just short of crossing the line and let us go on our way. I guess he was hoping we would just confess, which a lot of people do. The people who could best take advantage of the fifth amendment really don't understand it. Just watch an episode of COPS and you can see that.

So, because I was able to keep my mouth shut and not make any smart-mouthed comment to the officer (which is a way you can get an officer looking for something, anything to cit you with) we were let off, but S has not stopped giving me a hard time for driving like an old man.

Driving Record

I just sent in my bar application--that required self-reporting confession of past acts that must be revealed to the bar before they will let you sit for a two and one-half day exam. The hardest part was trying to remember all of the addresses where I have lived for the past 5 years. I have moved four times during law school! I also had to least all past crimes including traffic infractions and parking tickets.

I noticed some interesting things in listing out all of my confrontations with the law (you can assume that haven't been all that many since I passed a background check to work at a prosecutors office.) I must have been afflicted with the all-too-common testosterone fueled need for speed for a couple of years in my late teens and early twenties. I had a string of speeding tickets throughout my college years and also enough unpaid parking tickets from the university parking enforcement that I once had my vehicle towed, but for the most part I mostly had a lead foot.

IN the years after graduating college, I pretty much stopped getting speeding tickets, but I had several tickets for expired tabs. I see a lot of people in court who are in court on a suspended license from not paying speeding or other tickets. Most of them are poor and choose to pay for food or new clothes for their kids than pay for speeding tickets and often they are pulled over because they didn't have valid tabs on their car. The reason people do not have valid tabs can be nefarious (stolen car, stolen plates, etc) but they can also be economical (can't afford the emissions test, the licensing fees, etc) or because you are lazy and forgetful. The latter was the case with me. The latter was true for me. I can remember putting off going down to the licensing place until I got the no tab ticket.

But in the last three I haven't had a thing, not so much as a parking ticket. Part of that is the result of not owning a car for a year and one-half. There was no speeding then. The other part has been working in a personal injury firm and a prosecutors officer transforming me into a defensive driver and strict follower of the traffic code. When you read about thousands of car accidents, DUIs, reckless driving cases you realize what a dangerous place the roads are and how important it is to be a careful driver. The other added benefit of not speeding and keeping your tabs up to date is even though you may get places a bit later and you have to make sure you check your mail, you sure do save a ton of money. $112 speeding ticket? No thanks.

Opening Day

After a week of rain, cold, snow, and general "when is this winter going to end" dreariness, the sun has stepped onto the deck in time for opening day, which just means I would rather be at the ballgame than in professional responsibility class. But it is a bit too early to start skipping class for baseball games. While I am here, I might as well start thinking about the assignment I have to turn in in a couple of weeks, which is a description on my own philosophy of lawyering. Maybe I could just hand in a link to this blog! Speaking of this blog and ethics, I have been wondering what kind of limits a lawyer has on blogging. Certainly, there are plenty of legal blogs, but most of those focus on the state of the law in a certain area. The rules of professional conduct prohibit a lawyer from revealing information relating to the representation of a client. I think blogging about pending litigation would probably be off limits, but what about all of the crazy things I see in court on a daily basis? Because the court is an open public forum, it is probably OK to recount what happens in court, but on the other hand, prosecutors have special duties. The Washington rules of professional conduct 3.8 (f) states:

except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the
nature and extent of the prosecutor's action and that serve a legitimate law
enforcement purpose, refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a
substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused and
exercise reasonable care to prevent investigators, law enforcement
personnel, employees or other persons assisting or associated with the
prosecutor in a criminal case from making an extrajudicial statement that
the prosecutor would be prohibited from making under Rule 3.6 or this Rule.

That would seem to indicate that writing about all of the humorous things that happen in court might fall under the category of extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of hightening public condemnation of the accused, which is really too bad because there are some stories that I would really like to share, but long before I started this class I had determined that a lawyers ethical commitment is the most important part of being a lawyer. This class is incredibly boring, but ethics seems to be to be so indispensable to the practice. However, getting that down on paper as a philosophy is not easy. It would be easier to just recount the humorous things that people say in court.

Back from Break

Just when I was beginning to enjoy school, I had to go work full time for a week during spring break. Now doing homework again seems dreary and uninspired. Now I am counting weeks until school is over, even if it means the bar exam is on the other side of graduation. When I am at work, I feel like I have a purpose. At school, I just feel there is a lot to do that just has to get done, and while the larger purpose of getting a law degree is at the forefront of my motivation right now, I know that as soon as I have it it will be pretty meaningless unless I have some work that gives me a purpose for using it.

One thing that is becoming clearer to me is that I really enjoy doing criminal law. It doesn't surprise me that the worst grade I have received so far in law school was in my criminal law class. The worst grade I received in all of high school was in German and I ended up with a Masters degree in German Literature. There seems to be some sort of pattern there. Now I just have to find a job that will pay the bills.

This is actually very true

back burner blogging

Blogging has been on the back burner lately. Last week I was working on an appellate brief for work, which meant my extra free time was taken up with that. This weekend I needed some non-law time. It is not true that you cannot have a life outside of law school or the law, but you have to take it for yourself, because you could become totally absorbed by the work. Plus, I got a Wii for an early birthday gift, and that has taken priority to blogging, but I promise some new posts soon.

Lies about Law School

This is the first in a series of posts I want to write in the coming weeks. Now that I am in the last half of my last semester in law school, I think I am entitled to indulge in a bit of reflection on the whole process.

If you are thinking about going to law school and happened to stumble upon this page, there are some important things to consider about law school before you make your decision that you will not find in your law school's brochure. In fact, they are going to make sure you don't understand them until after the deadline for receiving a refund on your first semester has pasted. If after you have read this and still want to go to law school, then you should go; otherwise, find a different career.

Lie #1: After you get accepted, everything will be OK.
Almost everyone I know in law school has told me that when applying to law school they thought that as soon as they got accepted, everything else in their career would fall into place; they, and I, believed that once you were in the door, your first internship would be lined up, then your first job, then your meteoric rise in whatever field you accepted, and then partnership. The real competition is against those who are trying to get into law school! False. In fact, once you are in, getting accepted is meaningless, because now you are competing with the accepted students for the limited internships and later you will compete with all those young lawyers from all the law schools and in their first five years of practice for your first job. At least when you are applying for law school, you are not facing the impending doom of your student loan repayment grace period ending six months after you graduate.

On a positive note, during your first semester you will probably be thinking: wow, there are a lot of really smart people here, but by your third year, you will wonder how most students ever got into law school.

Three-L

I think I am enjoying school right now more than I have since my One-L year. As much as the One-L year was stressful, it was also new, so my interest remained piqued a lot of the time. My motivation over the next three semesters progressively dwindled. Because of a combination of actually working in the legal field and getting better at learning exactly what I needed to learn to do well on the exams, much of the reading seemed superfluous and the classes painfully uninteresting compared to court. This semester, my attitude is a bit different. I don't know if is the fact that I only have four classes and only on two days a week, or if I am enjoying the specific classes that I have, or if the thought of the bar exam and finding a job is so daunting that being in school does not seem so bad. I think it is the latter. I realized that it might be a long time before I get to be in a seminar political theory with 4 other students and an expert in the field and have a conversation for two hours a week. There will never be a job where ethical issues are presented like interesting problems to puzzle over as they are in my professional responsibility. And there will never be a trial like the one I am preparing for in trial clinic class where no one has to pay any money or go to jail at the end. After twenty years of schooling, the real world has to come at some point, and, honestly, I do look forward to the responsibility of having a real job as a real lawyer with real consequences, but I sure am going to enjoy the time I have left in school while it lasts.

Freedom of Press

Bill of Rights: Amendment 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Suppression of Free Speech?

I promise I will get away from political issues and back to the law soon. As a note about my previous two posts, I understand now why some of the normal election regulations did not apply to the caucuses. The caucuses are private events run and funded by the political parties. As far as this post goes, I am concerned about this trend of our public representatives asking private individuals/companies to limit speech they find offensive. This reminds me of when Harry Ried wrote a letter to Clear Channel asking them to fire Rush Limbaugh for comments he made on the air. The speech that the founders were particular concerned with protecting is political speech. That means the freedom to comment on any figure in the political, public sphere. I hope NBC puts Schuster back on air soon and Clinton should take some lessons from Obama on how to brush off inappropriate comments made by pundits who have to somehow fill 24 hours of news each day.

Personal Info

Well, the democratic party is not requiring that you have any kind of identification when you show up at the caucuses this saturday (see previous post,) but they would like you to provide them with all sorts of personal information such as your name (duh,) address (duh,) phone number and e-mail. In addition, they want to know your race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender in order to use affirmative action to create a diverse delegate pool. I guess diversity is more important than whether you are a registered voter or not.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080207/NEWS01/24161373/-1/RSS02

Election Law

We received a piece of junk mail today-well, not exactly junk mail. We received a political flyer. It was an endorsement ad for Hillary Clinton from the American Federation for State, County, and Municipal Employees. In addition to promoting their endorsement, the last page explained how to caucus, which takes place here this Saturday. I was struck by one of the explanation which stated:

"You don't need to bring ID, but you should bring your family and coworkers."

It caused me to wonder, what is stopping me from renting a bus, driving to eastern Washington, paying a bunch of illegal farm immigrants to drive over for the day, give them lunch, and get them to caucus for the person I wished. Wondering if this could possibly be true and wondering what the flyer was trying to encourage from Hillary supporters, I called the caucus hotline and asked the person on the other end of the line that exact question, and he answered: "Well, technically you could do that." To my question of how the precinct determines if the caucus goers are even registered voters, he said that all someone needs to do is sign a statement at the door. I may not know that many illegal Mexicans, but I could probably round up a group of felons. From reading all the police reports I read, I know where they like to hang out.

I simply do not believe that requiring people to have an ID disenfranchises anyone. Anyone who is legally allowed to vote can get a license, or an ID card and the fact that some people are too lazy to get an ID does not mean they are disenfranchised.

But I didn't get into this with the volunteer on the other end. I just asked where my precinct was and will go to add my one vote, and whatever posse of registered voters want to come with me.

Who do you want as president?

Watch these two videos and ask yourself who you would want for president? Who would inspire you to sacrifice for your country? Who presents a vision for the future of the country? One person presents a vision; the other sounds like we owe a favor to the campaign. One creates a vision; the other sounds like you will be scolded if you make the wrong decision. I do not spend too much time on politics in this blog, but listening to one of these speeches left me with chills. One of these speeches sounds presidential. Listed for yourself.

Funny Law

I am doing some research on what kind of implied consent warnings police officers are required to give to a person arrested for a DUI before the drunk driver submits to a breathalyser test. Basically, the law does not require that you be smart in making your decision, just that you have an opportunity to choose between taking the test and refusing. In fact, consciousness is the minimum requirement for determining your capability to reason. This is what the law says:

While the implied consent law requires that a motor vehicle operator suspected of being intoxicated be given an opportunity to make an intelligent choice as to taking or refusing a chemical test of his breath, there is no requirement as to such a person's capability of reasoning, so long as he is conscious. State Dept. of Motor Vehicles v. Riba (1974) 10 Wash.App. 857, 520 P.2d 942.

I thought that was pretty funny, and it is good for my argument.

"BA"

One of the most fun and amusing moments that I have had in court came last week. While in jail court, we had a stipulated bench trial that centered around one issue: does mooning a police officer after you have been arrested for DUI constitute lewd conduct. I had to keep a straight face as I argued that it is possible to have one's genitals exposed while mooning, because showing one's behind is not enough to constitute lewd conduct. After court, the judge and I continued the conversation and he thinks it is possible to moon somebody without exposing one's genitals, but the reason the city lost was because he didn't think that the intent of the lewd conduct ordinance was to punish people for that kind of behavior. He also did not think the officer was offended either. It was one of those fun arguments that I really did not care if I won because the defendant was already pleading guilty to the DUI, and it is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to continue practicing criminal law.

The rest of my courtroom time this week was not nearly as fun. I did a jury trial on Tuesday on a charge of telephone harassment domestic violence. We had a weak case and he was acquitted, which has had me thinking all week about what I could have done better. I was again reminded how the most important part of a trial is getting your good evidence from your witnesses out in a simple understandable logical manner. Taking direct testimony is very difficult and it is so easy to get all tied up and have it come out in a jumble. It did not help that we had a recanting victim and I was handed the case 30 minutes prior to when I had to get up in front of the jury.

From a pedagogical perspective, it is really better to loose a trial. When I have won, I usually just enjoy the victory and forget about it. Loosing causes you to think about what you could do better. I would feel worse if there was a victim who really was on board; on the other-hand, I loath the fact that somebody gets away with hitting or harassing another person because the victim goes along with the perp's version of events. It kind of left me with a bad taste and I think I have been a bit harsher in plea negotiations this week. I wonder how a prosecutor balances that sense of punishing people for their wrongs and making sure that punishment is imposed fairly and not based on the whims of one's mood. Something to ponder. . .

Last Semester

I apologize for the lack of posting lately. Honestly, I really have not even been on my computer much at all except for what has been necessary at work. And besides work, I have not really thought about the law since my last final. I started a trial last week, but it ended in a mistrial half way through the defendant's opening statements (not my fault,) which was kind of sweet because the defense counsel had been a bit of a jerk to me in the past and it was fun to see him squirm in front of the judge. Plus I did not like the jury and hope that the pool is better next time we get a crack at the case. But beside that, I have not thought much of the law. We took a weekend trip up to Pacific county because S had a hearing at the court house there. It felt very "My Cousin Vinny," except that I was in the Marisa Tomei without the knowledge of cars. The county only has one judge and probably only a handful of lawyers. It was not surprising that he thought he may have to conflict out on the case because he knew the parties. How do you avoid that in a small town like that. We stayed at a small hotel a block from the courthouse, which also happens to be in FEMA zone (last months floods.) There were FEMA agents staying in the room next to us. After the hearing was over, we went to the beach and practically got blown off our feet. We also visited a lighthouse and had oysters at Chester's bar and grill. I fit in in my flannel and beard. S was the only woman there, besides the bartenter, and the only woman with teeth. When the phone rang, the guy sitting at the bar said "if its my wife, tell her we're divorced." I started my reading for the semester toning. It included J.S. Mill's On Liberty--he did not know what a paragraph was and rambles on for long sentences before he actually says what he wants to say. I liked the subject matter just not how it was written. And then I had to read two articles about how the practice of law makes you a depressed alcoholic who trades free time, sanity, and health for money and the false dream of a meaningful profession. I think the profession, for professional responsibility, is going to try and impart some wisdom about how we might do things differently, but it sure does suck to have to read about how negative things have become for lawyers. Isn't there some inspiring stories about being a lawyer out there instead of this dribble about how much it sucks to work at a big firm billing 2200 hours for a six figure salary. I can tell you that much of the negativity is true based on what I see in those who graduated before me, but it is a little late for that. Greedy law schools have already let in too many helpless idealistic confused twenty three year olds right out of college with a dream of fast cars and downtown apartments to prevent the suffering that lies ahead. It is a good thing I went to law school because I saw how much working 60 hours a week in a kitchen could suck. It makes the long hours of the law seem pretty reasonable.

Well, there you have it. Some thoughts on the eve of my last semester of law school. I was hoping to take only easy classes that would let me slide by on a minimal amount of work, but because the registrar has done such a horrible job of creating a schedule I am stuck with what I have. One of my professions already wants us to turn in a thought piece for the first day of class. I hope that does not keep up. When I saw that, I looked for another available class, but I have to stick with it because administrative law lab is really not an option. Enough ramblings. I will probably be posting more often now that I have to sit through classes again. Yes, it is very clear I have senioritus, but can't I get a little break? This will be my 44th semester of school.