That's that.

The Property final was not so bad as I'd feared. I was still too fuzzy on when and how benefits and burdens of covenants run with the land, and maybe too squishy on the remedies available to a commercial tenant for breach of either express or implied warranties, but you know what? It doesn't matter now. It's done.

One thing though: Prof Property asked a policy question based on the Barry Bonds homerun ball question—should the kayaker who catches the ball get to keep it, or what about others who put work into trying to get it, or should it belong to the batter or the ball park or the baseball team or the government? It was a good question and fun to answer because it called for us to think about what we're protecting via property law, and why we might protect it. These are good questions to ask. But I was thinking as I answered, why is this question based on such a meaningless scenario? In fact, why are nearly all law school cases and hypos (except in crim law) based on such meaningless things as a coffee company's rights? What about a homeless person's rights? What about a single mother's rights? What about the rights of Guantanamo detainees? Why doesn't law school ask students to think about things that matter? By focusing almost entirely on middle class and business interests, law schools end up allowing students to ignore vast swaths of society, and then we wonder why poor and traditionally "underserved" groups don't have more and better legal representation. Broken system.

But more on that another day. I have a week of vacation with the famdamily (my sis arrived last night and my parents arrive today), then the job starts. All fun ahead. Meanwhile below is a list of links I haven't had time to read or comment on, but which are worth a look and which I hope to return to later. Enjoy!

• Professor Smith on law review.
• Dubitante's analysis of the law school study group curve. It sounds exactly correct to me.
• Salon's review of Bruce Sterling's new novel, The Zenith Angle, which sounds like a sci-tech thriller of sorts.
• Salon's article about Morrissey, who has a new album out recently. (I was a huge fan of Bona Drag and Viva Hate, somewhat less of Kill Uncle and Your Arsenal, and then I kind of lost track of what he was doing.)
• The Waddling Kitchen's menu for harried students. I'm not so harried at the moment, but there are some awesome ideas here. If WT ever decides to bail on law, he's definitely got a future in food—cooking it and writing about it so that you want to cook it, too. [link via Buffalo Wings]
• Jeremy on lawyers' self-loathing and on the debt v. public interest dilemma. May I suggest the two are connected? I hope to write something more about this soon. (See also Scheherazade's thoughts on the issue. More humor from Jeremy here. This guy is brilliant.

Posted 08:28 AM | Comments (14) | law school