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.