Wal-mart Nation at War

It is not unusual that Wal-Mart has become a leit-motif of this blog. The company is the actual and symbolic enemy of anti-corporate, pro-labor, slow food, home-made, community based lifestyles and rhetoric for a while now. There are a lot of good reasons to dislike Wal-Mart, any of which should make you think twice about shopping there, but no one disputes its power and influence. I don’t know the exact figure, but if Wal-mart was a country, I believe that it would have a GDP that would put it in the top ten in the world. Maybe the corporation is the force that will end the boundaries of that modern phenomenon of the nation state. Much of Europe is unified under a single currency, but the difference in Europe is that the breaking down of the boundaries is to spread the wealth, whereas with Wal-mart, the goal is to expand the power of the empire of cheap merchandise. If any one doubts that Wal-mart sees itself as an empire, take a look at this article that appeared in the Times today discussing two job openings for marketing “generals.” In the age of information, war’s are won by who controls this information and there is little difference between Alexander’s march across the subcontinent and Wal-marts attack on culture except the weapons used. Many people are fighting back, but I have a feeling we are in for a show of how Wal-mart takes over the information age as if our own thoughts were cheap commodity.

Law School v. Med School

I recently mentioned to a doctor that I was in law school, and besides insinuating that many lawyers are anal, he had a sense of pity for those of us who choose the “other” career path. He went on to explain that medical schools try to make their students feel taken care of once they make it into med school. The real challenge is getting into med school but once you are there, you can basically coast. Law schools on the other-hand and still trying to weed people out. More than that, the first year of law school seems to be designed to pit students against each other. Not only do you have to be with the same students for all of your classes all year long, you are constantly reminded that each of us is only as good as we are related to everyone else. You are fighting for some number, and every step you make up the curve puts someone else below you, and every slip puts that many others above you. Add to this the pressure that this curve will someday effect which firm you work at, how much money you earn, how easily you can pay off your student loans, and on and on. The feeling is not one of cruising, and some days, the study of torts feels like a litany of what you might do to the person sitting next to you. In addition, classes are taught using the infamous “Socratic Method,” which is basically a student torture devise where a professor who has read and taught the case multiple times extracts out of your brain sometime the reasoning from a case and tries to apply it to a variety of hypothetical situations that extend to absurdity.

This all seems pretty horrible until you realize that there may actually be a reason behind the intellectual gladiatorial event of law school, and it has to do with the practice of the law itself. The nature of legal work is competitive. The courtroom is a battle arena of sorts, where attorneys use the skills developed in law school and practice to out-reason their opponents. And unlike other intellectual pursuits that can be practiced without anyone really minding the consequence, like my previous graduate studies in German literature, a judge is going to make a decision based upon your capacity to argue better or worse than your opposing council. We will continue to be “graded.” It helps to keep this in mind on the days when the battle feels particularly gruesome, as well as the fact that most of us who are in law school would rather be fighting it out against each other than to have our hands dug into a chest cavity or other such activities that med students are training to do. As for me, I’ll ride the curve and enter the ring of Socrates.

legal humor II

The parol evidence rule provides another good example of how the law lacks a sense of humor. The parol evidence rule forbids proof of extrinsic evidence to contradict or vary the terms of a written instrument and, accordingly, one who seeks, in a breach of contract action, to enforce an oral representation or promise relating to the subject matter of the contract cannot succeed. Once an agreement is reduced to writing, a party cannot present evidence that contradicts that writing, such as evidence that the writing was done as a joke. In the case of Eskimo Pie corp. v. Whitelawn Dairies, Inc 284 F.supp. 987 (S.D.N.Y., 1968), the court refused to allow evidence that a "non-exclusive" term in a distribution contract was really just a ruse to throw off potential anti-trust prosecution. In just the same way that such evidence cannot be introduced, neither can evidence that a contract was written as a joke. Rememer Lucy v. Zehmer 196 Va. 493 (1954) where Lucy offers Zehmer $50,000 for his farm an Zehmer wrote out a note stating he promise to sell the house for this price! Turns out Zehmer thought it was a joke between old pals while they were drinking down at the tavern. I guess this was like their regular banter and the topic of the sale of the farm came up repeatedly from time to time. Was Lucy fraudulently getting Zehmer drunk in order to slip his farm out from under him or just taking advantage of his drunken state? The court finds that Lucy thought it was a "serious business transaction" and also notest that "Zehmer was not intoxicated to the extent of being unable to comprehend the nature and consequences of the instrument he executed." This was a case we looked at when we were learning about mutual assent and objective theory of contract formation, and the court doesn't discuss parol evidence, but I wonder why not? How could Zehmer even introduce evidence that contradicts the written contract, namely evidence that the written promise to sell was nothing more than a joke? Well, Zehmer, the law does not have a sense of humor, except in the minds of law students who recreate the scene of this "serious business transaction." I was just kidding, even if you can get it in, is not going to work as a reason to rescind a contract. How very different this is from a comedic play, for example, where the whole point of the play is to make the viewer believe the premise so as to allow the mind to suspend reality on all sorts of absurd circumstances. The purpose of the legal text is simply not humorous.

About this Blog

This blog does not contain legal advice and none of the legal discussions are meant to serve as such. Heck, I am not even a lawyer. Are you really going to trust the ramblings of a law student who is blogging instead of studying? This blog will consist of short observations about the highschool-like quality of law school, longer comments about interesting aspects of the law from either my school work or from the world at large, and occasional comments about a topic relating to the rest of life outside of law school, which can feel at times relatively insignificant. Please comment or offer any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered here.

legal humor

I have had some requests from my readers (all three of them) for some more vignettes of law school humor. I guess reading about the law alone lacks the laughable, and I don't mean that in a humorously sarcastic way. Unlike, say, the study of literature, the law lacks a sense of humor. Sure, there are plenty of lawyer jokes and I know there can sometimes be a humorous moment at trials, but the law itself is almost completely lacking in humor. Sure, if you read certain case law, written by certain judges, you will find a humorous line (like the opening line from
Frigaliment: "This issue is, what is chicken?," which is really only funny until you realize that that is the issue the court must decide.) There are also humorous situations that you find in the case law, but this is a pretty dark humor like the case of Webb v. McGowen, where McGowen, seeing that a large plank was about to fall on top of his boss Webb, somehow dives from the upper level in such a way to prevent the plank from falling on Webb but causing serious injury to himself. Outside of humorous lines and humorous situations, however, the law has no room for humor, and this seems to be based on the fact that those who practice/ create/ follow law take it seriously. Laws themselves are not funny. The supreme court does not decide one way or another because they want to amuse the parties and leave the lower courts doubled over in laughter when they read the cases for precedent. When law is made, it is made to be taken seriously, and this is what separates it from other literary disciplines. Philosophy has fully accepted humor, which can be seen in the Derridian sense of play and deconstruction, even Shakespeare's comedies were about some universal truths, and one of my favorite writers, Tom Robbins, regularly employs humor as a means to disarm the mind from its rationalistic mechanisms, opening it up to the potential for new and fresh ways of seeing the world.

The law is a curmudgeony old man and does not like sudden insights, flashes of new ideas, and a sense of play. The law is about battles, about two sides arguing their points with the goal of winning. The law itself, cases and statutes, cares little for the individual parties, for the same reason that it abhors sudden flashes of genius: the law shouldn't just apply to one case (unless we are talking individual contracts) but rather is a system of evolving standards, of a constant against which future parties can adjust their behavior, and other judges can rule on the behavior of these parties. The whole concept of stare decisis is in place to prevent the sudden swinging back and forth of rules that would result if every conflict was tried on a case by case basis, but humor on the other hand thrives on the sudden surprise, the flash of unexpected, and the purposeful throwing oneself of balance for the sake of deep cathartic release.

With this in mind, you must imagine the type of people that are attracted to law school (there are always exceptions that prove the rule.) People take the law very seriously and a lot of young lawyers (and I am assuming this will be the case as I progress through this career) take themselves seriously. The worst part about the end of the semester just around the corner is that I will have to listen to a bunch of people who take themselves too seriously repeat such phrases as "I am going to fail," "I can't forget that I am being compared with everyone else" and "I am sure practice will be nothing like this." This is not funny, and I know as much as everyone else that grades are important, but only so long as you learn to think, and along with learning to think comes the capacity to step back and not take what you think so seriously, to give it some room to breath, and when that is all said and done, then it seems we can accept the seriousness of the law without sacrificing the fluidity and freedom of though upon which the system of common law is based. (but who is really thinking about whether the law has a sense of humor? just me. you won't find this discussion in the cases books, or in a study guide. maybe it is my previous training in literary theory that cases me to want to know how the law fits into the larger scale of human consciousness or the fact that I have always been more of a big picture kind of thinker rather than a detail oriented mind, and I am trying to fit that way of thinking into the world of legal thought, which is so obsessively focused on the details. )

This post is decidedly not very humorous, and maybe that is a sign that law school is slowly eating away at my sense of humor ( you ever notice that it is mostly non-lawyers who tell lawyer jokes). I should go back and read about our friend McGowen and make a sudden and seemingly impossible leap in order to save humor from lawschool.

outlining!

There is this legendary legal study practice called outlining. It basically consists of taking all of your notes from reading cases and from class lectures and compiling them into one document that you can use to study for the final. It is increadably time consuming albeit helpful, and it requires going back and actually learning all those points that you just mentally skimmed over during the semester. It was a gloomy morning for everyone this morning as I begin to outline starting with contracts. I have become fond of saying "contracts are like Oklahoma. It's Oh K!"

spring break

I just got back from an overnight escape in Olympic National Park. For a whole 24 hours I had no wireless networks to connect to and could not get cell coverage. There weren't even any clocks at the resort. It was nice to get out of the city and into nature. We fell asleep to the sound of the Sol Duc River, we soaked in sulfur hot springs, and saw lots of deer and birds. It was the perfect backdrop to do some free reading. And what do I read when I am not reading law books? A non-fiction discussion of environmental, sociological, and historical sources of American dissatisfaction titled Affluenza. The basic summary is that by placing consumption of consumer goods above leisure, health, and family, our environment, minds, and families are getting destroyed. There is a lot of good facts in the book, and it is a good read for anyone interested in why so many Americans seem to be just not quite completely satisfied with their lives despite an abundance of goods and vacations.

When I got back, I took a quick (less than five minute) test that calculated my ecological footprint. http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp This is a pretty rudimentary test, but I learned that scientists believe that it takes 4.5 acres per person for the earth to remain biologically productive, and my footprint requires 18. Now, I guess I can feel good that my footprint is 6 acres lower than the American average of 24, but it hardly felt sufficient considering I hardly eat meat, I don't own a car, and I live in an apartment. I guess just living in America puts us on a certain level where we expect large quantities of food, the freedom to fly around the country several times a year, and credit (how do you think I am paying for law school--I am going to have to participate in our destructive and consumptive economy just to pay back my loans)

Another interesting point in the book is that more and more people are not communicating with family and friends in person, but rather everyone is living in isolation and communicating through computers, cell phones, watching movies, etc., and well, this is true, but until the world is structured in a different way, it seems to me that blogging for example is a way of reconnecting people. Even though the only people who read this are my girlfriend and my parents (hello) before I started blogging, I may not have brought this topics up. Now, there is something to be said about people sitting around the table and sharing their ideas, but as I said, until we all have the free time and live in the same place, this will have to do. Blogging has been in the press a lot lately, and I have to say that the emphasis on privacy and miscommunication seem to be a bit misplaced. I don't ever put anything on here that I wouldn't want someone to read. If people are afraid of too much of their personal life being discussed online, then they shouldn't do it. On the other hand, while blogging seems to be mostly a one-ways street, I don't think this is necessarily so. I read many blogs where the comments section is longer and more interesting than the original post. One of the great aspects about blogging is the variety of perspectives that are brought together in one forum through the process. So, feel free to leave a comment on this or any other post. I read them. I respond to them, and I certainly feel that going to law school is not a process that one undertakes alone, so the recording of it does not have to be a hermenetically sealed monologue.

Madame Bovary

"At last Leon swore he would not see Emma again, and he reproached himself with not having kept his word, considering all the worry and lectures this woman might still draw down upon him, without reckoning the jokes made by his companions as they sat round the stove in the morning. Besides, he was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet."

Is this an accurate description of the necessary sacrifices of a lawyer--to give up the passions and lofty enterprises of youth. Is Flaubert correct that his young lawyer "bears within him the debris of a poet?" Must the poet die or is there a way to integrate the one with the other? It is Friday night at the beginning of spring break, and you would have no problem finding a seat in the library tonight. There are some students here, but you could give them each their own floor. I would probably not be here if I was not at my post at the circulation desk working for my federally backed $6.50 /hour work study position (emphasis on study). The only work involved is checking out study guides and books to students, answering an occasional "where is" question and, everyone's favorite, keeping up on the arcane task of weekly update filing for subscription services. In case you have have no idea what I am talking about, the library, despite most people researching online, receives weekly supplements to volumous texts on a variety of subjects. My job has been consistently to update the United States Tax Reporter, a tedious exercise of removing pages 27,683z-2.13--27,683z-30 and replacing it with the same pages plus one or too. Your mind goes numb from trying to remember numbers in the 10,000's and the filing usually takes about two hours per update. I was once working through the 20 some odd volumes when a practicing lawyer who was using the library came by, laughing, and said. "You guys still do that. That was my job in law school years ago. The United States Tax Reporter is the worst." Well, this is why it is so important for me to find a law job. There must be a better use of my time than as a sorting machine, something that has at least a slight semblance of the poetry of law, or prose, or even a simple aphorism.

Wal-Mart Goes Organic

Well, just a few days ago I was talking about Wal-mart's buying power and what would happen when they get into the organic business. Would their purchasing power cause them to controll aspects of the organic market such as what constitutes as organic? Well it looks like this is not just a speculative exercise but a pending possibility. Wal-mart is looking to take some of the market now held by Whole Foods.

Parol Evidence, Personal Jurisdiction, and Resume

It feels like a long time since I have posted, and I guess that is a good thing. I think it means I have been focusing harder on my work. We are getting into some interesting ideas right now. In civ. pro. we are working through the development of personal jurisdiction reading, what I here, are classic cases: International Shoe, World-Wide Volkswagen, McGee. I don't find it particularyly challenging, but that might also be because my current memo in legal writing is on an issue of personal jurisdiction in the internet context, based on the Zippo sliding scale for determining whether jurisdiction can be based on a defendant's website. I have been seeped in the analysis of "minimum contacts" and "fair play and substantial justice" for weeks, so I am getting more out of the cases we read in class, because I am not coming at them cold.

In Contracts we are starting to learn a series of rules for the rest of the semester, beginning with the Parol Evidence Rule. From what I understand, the basics of the rule are that when a court faces a written contract with unambiguous terms, no oral testimony will be allowed to contradict the written terms. As our contract professor said, it is not about evidence but rather interpretation, it is not parol (oral, unwritten) because it is about the intepretation of written text, and it has so many exceptions it is hardly a rule.

In a final note, I finally got my resume together and am going to meet with career services tomorrow. Got to pay the bills this summer! Look for a long post this weekend. Next week is spring break, and I will have time to catch up.

Here is an interesting thought. What happens when Wal-mart wants an organic section to their supermarket, and because they are such a powerful merchan

It looks like we are going to have nice weather this weekend, which can work to one's advantage or disadvantage to writing a memo on federal court jurisdiction in a case of internet commerce. On the one hand, it is going to be hard to not want to go outside, take the dog to the park, and pretty much do anything but analogous case descriptions. On the otherhand, I generally have more energy when the weather is nice, which means that I can work real hard on the memo and then get outside and do all of the above. In addition to the memo and the regular homework, I have to, have to, have to get my resume up and running so that I can meet with the career services and seriously begin to look for work this summer. I am afraid of being left out in the cold, but I think I fear getting my first "real job,' i.e. something other than a summer blue collar job that I am doing to make money before I go back to school. I am going to start small, with the resume builders; maybe a volunteer opportunity is the best to get my feet under me, but even those require applications and resumes, so I am going to have to hope that the sun gives me energy to get a lot of work done, because the urge to postpone the work to bask in the sun will be strong!

milk, eggs, bananas, bread, and cola

Here is an interesting thought. What happens when Wal-mart wants an organic section to their supermarket, and because they are such a powerful merchant, they begin to contract with agribusiness to fill the growing demand for organic food, but because of Wal-mart's size, they can dictate the price at which they want to buy. What shortcuts will be made in organic food production when profit again takes precedence over quality and sustainability? Look at this article today in the NYT about Wal-mart dictating to coke the type of products they want Coke to produce to sell at Wal-mart and think about this in terms of the debate surrounding organic labeling. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/business/03walmart.html? ex=1299042000&en=95bc5bd00b01e78c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Interesting area of law

Organic Labeling I:

I am going to be making a few posts in the next couple of days on an area of law that is current and that I have been thinking about. If I find enough information, I might turn this research into a short article for the environmental law journal.

During the final months of last year, there was some important litigation relating to organic labeling. Since cooking is a hobby of mine and I like to support local and organic farmers / ranchers / dairies this legislation and related suits caught my attention. The major contention by organic farmers is with the corruption of the organic label by allowing into products labeled “organic” traces of non-organic products that are either not available on the market or are too costly for food manufacturers in the business of producing processed food. This legislation is the result of lobbying on behalf of large agri-business and particularly offends the small organic farmers whose business is based largely on the public’s trust of the authority of the “organic” label. The statute reads in relevant parts as follows:
7 § 205.606 Nonorganically produced agricultural products allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as "organic" or "made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s))."
The following nonorganically produced agricultural products may be used as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as "organic" or "made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s))" only in accordance with any restrictions specified in this section.Any nonorganically produced agricultural product may be used in accordance with the restrictions specified in this section and when the product is not commercially available in organic form.(a) Cornstarch (native)(b) Gums--water extracted only (arabic, guar, locust bean, carob bean)(c) Kelp--for use only as a thickener and dietary supplement(d) Lecithin--unbleached(e) Pectin (high-methoxy)
[FN1] Includes matters within the responsibility of the Federal Grain Inspection Service.
SOURCE: 65 FR 80637, Dec. 21, 2000; 66 FR 15619, March 20, 2001, unless otherwise noted.AUTHORITY: 7 U.S.C. 6501-6522.

This statute is taken up in a case by an organic blueberry farmer from Maine in Arthur Harvey, Plaintiff v. Mike Johanns, which traveled up the court of appeals.

no space, no post

Monday morning is the most difficult time to find a seat at the library. I found the last desk on the third floor. Everyone is back at it in full force.

I know I do not have a new post for you today. I guess it is just that time of the semester when things start to get full, or bloated, and since I get to be supreme court on my blog and decide the law, I am going to allow that to be ok. I will keep working on a larger post, but in the mean time I will keep everyone updated with some shorter posts.

I was up in class for civ. pro. today. I got off to a bad start and was not able to answer a question abour multiple plaintiffs in a diversity action and whether their joinder under rule 20 is allowed under 28 U.S.C. 1367 supplemental jurisdiction statute when one of the parties does not satisfy the requisite amount in controversey. Those rules have trickly language and it is hard to think on your toes when the professor is prodding you for the answer and the rest of the class is just glad it isn't them (unless they know the answer, which I know some, like my desk partner :) did). Oh well, you can't win them all. I think I made up for it when I answered with some grace his questions about pendant claims and parties, the answers to which I was mostly able to put together from the diagrams that he had drawn on the board. So see, it is possible to think on your feet, but only after your feet are on the ground

where is the hump to get over

I have nothing to really base this finding on besides my own observations (i.e. a well funded study with a control group and a nationwide survey,) but I think this is the hardest time of the year. We all came into the first year with a lot of enthusiasm, which basically carried us through our winter finals. However, now I hear lots of people either talking about how they just are not that into the law right now or they are just excited about their summer jobs or some other goal in the future. In addition to being "mid-winter" and "mid-semester," we have been in the same classes with the same faces for almost six months, and at this point we are all in a bit of a rut. I have not met to many new people lately, and I can really only speak for myself, but the studies feel like a bit of a rut right now. Maybe this is like the day after X-mas, in that last week was so full and exciting and this week is just back to the grind of reading cases and making briefs and doing legal research, but this is the hardest time of the semester for me so far and I am in some major need of inspiration. . .

lost grant and lost restatement

What a touching moment in the middle of Property when our absent minded professor was looking for his copy of the Restatement of Property in order to quote directly from it, and he uttered the following words: "Where are you Restatement? Did I mislay you?"

I don't think the whole class could here him. This was a gem of commentary from inside the scattered recesses of his mind that is only available for those of us in the first two rows.

Moot Court Wrap Up

I have somewhat of a shorter entry this week and it is coming a bit later (it is a three-day weekend). I hope to bring back some deeper analysis next week, but on re-reading this, I think there is some worth in these late at night ramblings.

I. Case of the Week:

As I think back to this week, no case stands out as particularly interesting. I know I said I was going to talk about easements, but for some reason I just can’t get excited about disputes between parties pertaining to who has a right to the underground sewer pipes. In the words of our property Professor, “when you buy a house with plumbing, you believe that the effluent (this was his word and I have not yet figured out if this is the proper legal term or just how he describes the contents of sewers) must be able to go somewhere,” but just like the situation in that case, my Property (reading) is backed up and unknowingly filling the basement of my mind. In case you have not figured it out by reading these ramblings, let this be a reminder that I am full of s*#t. The reason for lack of preparedness (I still at least read all of the cases, unlike some of the students in our section [see last weeks post on passing in class]) was because I was working on our case for the moot court competition. Between getting all dressed up in my suit and standing in front of a panel of “mock judges” and a altogether independent presentation in our legal writing class called “senior partner meetings,” where a group of us associates in training presented legal research to the “senior partner,” I almost felt like a lawyer. My partner in the moot court competition even gave me a yellow legal pad before we had our day in court, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Before my ego gets completely out of control, I must remember that my legal understanding is still trailing behind the costume, and there is still a lot to learn before anyone should trust me with their legal affairs, but that is what this is all about—this law school experience that still feels so new—and this was certainly a week were I felt first how far I have come along and secondly, how far I still have to go.

First, how far I have come: in preparing for moot court, I wrote an opening statement, I prepared a witness, I wrote questions for direct, I prepared questions for cross, and then I gave my open, directed my witness, crossed the opposing witness and objected to the other sides questions. I had no idea what I was doing. My understanding of litigation is entirely based on David Kelly and Law and Order, but somehow the “thinking like a lawyer” that our professors talked about so much at the beginning of the year has begun to pervade my thoughts, because in the midst of this exercise (completely hypothetical) I really began to believe our arguments. I believed in our case whole heartedly, and I felt what it might be like to make arguments for your client because you believe that they have rights.

Second, how far I must go: this is a summation of the advice given to me from the panel of judges: Look at the judges. It is important to make eye contact. This goes together with not using your notes too much. I used my notes as a crutch and know that I could have directed my client without them, but thus far my law experience has been all on paper, so it was difficult to stand up and intuitively react to a “legal situation.” Next, I told a story in my opening argument, but I also needed to outline the law that we were going to use and ask the judges to apply to the facts we were going to show in our “story.” There was a lot more, but one of the judges gave the advice that we shouldn’t think too much about this stuff. It was our first opportunity to get involved with litigation and we will have a lot of time to build on the experience.

II. At Lawge

Since I have been pretty involved in the moot court this week, I really have not kept up with the legal word outside of law school, but if you really need to see how the law applies to our everyday life, just go to any newspaper website and type in the words law, legal, court, etc. and you will get some story. I hate to disappoint my readers, all 3 of you, but this is going to be a short post this week. Don’t worry though. It is getting cloudy in Seattle again so it will be a lot easier to sit at the computer and write blog posts than it was in the last week of clear skies and sun.

III. Gossip Column

I have to say I was pretty impressed with the attitude of those fellow moot court participants. Everyone took it seriously, but from what I saw no one took it so seriously that they were not cordial with the other competitors. Even though there were six winners from 40, most of us were there just to improve our skills at lawyering. And for those who won, well, there were not real surprises. There are some people whose charisma and seemingly perpetual preparedness seem to just put them one step ahead of the curve and if the rest of use can put our egos aside for a minute, we can enjoy studying with these colleges. There are a few students, not the brightest, who seem unable to do this. They relate to this whole experience as a competition with the rest of the students and not as a collaborative learning experience. I understand that we have an “adversarial system,” but outside of the courtroom we are all trying to become the best lawyers we can be, or at least that is the ideal that I strive for. It is for this reason that I do not tell my grade to anyone, and I do not ask for anyone’s grades. I also try and compliment those students who do well in class, and for those who bomb, well, I will make fun of their ignorance on this blog.

IV. Judicial quote

I think this quote accurately describes how I felt about my mock court experience:

"I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned--as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented--interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night."
-Robert H. Jackson, Advocacy Before the Supreme Court (1951)

Looking forward to t

Looking forward to the weekend.

I sure am glad it is Friday and look forward to the three day weekend. I think I will be taking at least one full day off, a luxury that I may not be able to afford later in the semester, but you can all look forward to an installment from the land of property law. Since I am officially behind in that class from my preparations for moot court, I will use my other two days to catch up and ease my way into easements. Plus there will be a wrap up from the moot court. Happy Friday.

Moot Court

I will be participating in the One-L Moot Court competition on Friday night. My partner and are dutifully working out witness statements and cross examination questions while the civil procedure book sits jealously closed in my back-pack. I guess law school is about more than case-books even when our Civ. Pro professor claims that this is the most exciting case we will read in his class all semester: Something about a peeping tom!
Well, look for the weekend wrap up where I will fill in the details of the administrative law moot court competition and maybe some thoughts on peeping toms. I should get the T-shirt I saw in a shop window while walking to school and wear it to class tomorrow. I read: “I fell in love with you the very first time I spied on you through your window.”

Mid-week surprise

Since we have been talking about insurance companies so much lately, I though I would add to the monologue this curious ruling from a court in Florida. An insurance company has a duty to warn or cancel a policy when it learns that an individual is planning to kill an insured in order to collect on the life insurance policy.

Look for more tidbits