Airport Happy New Year

Hi from the Minneapolis airport. Did you know today is the 366th day this year? I've just had enough time to pay my $7 for the privilege of 'net access, download several hundred emails, delete several hundred comment spams, and learn that Jeremy Blachman is Anonymous Lawyer. Read all about it in the NY Times story! (Thanks to Monica for the tip in the comments here and for her links.) In the few seconds I've had to skim a few of the many links about it all, I've learned from Notes from the (Legal) Underground and Half-Cocked that there's some amount of controversy involved with the whole thing. I don't have time right now to understand what that's all about, so instead I'll just say: Congratulations, Jeremy! I didn't read Anonymous Lawyer much, but it obviously struck a nerve and if it helps to launch your desired career, then mazel tov! And to everyone else: Happy New Year! I'll check in again in 2005...

Posted 11:50 AM | Comments (2) | life generally meta-blogging

Vacation

It's that time of year again, the time when I leave this place and go to others to spend time with the famdamily in a couple of states beginning with M. None of the places I'll be in the next two days have very good connections to the internet(s), so updates here will be less frequent than usual. I'll check in when I can, but for now, congratulations to everyone who has finished their semester, good luck to those who have an exam or two remaining, and may you all have the happiest of holidays!

Posted 07:48 AM | Comments (6) | life generally

Publicity Thanks

Thanks to Jeffrey Rosen for mentioning ai in “Your Blog Or Mine” in today's NY Times Magazine, and thanks to Jeremy for pointing it out to me, and thanks to How Appealing for the mention and link as well. I haven't read the article yet, but I can tell you that if you're looking for the GW blog that talks about student sex scandals, you're more likely to find that stuff at Life, Law, Libido, or “L-cubed” as it is affectionately known. If you found the Times article interesting and ended up here, you might want to explore the archives; there may be some items in the meta-blogging category that you'll like. Also, I'm obviously curious to learn what people think of Rosen's article; comments are open. Thanks for stopping by!

Posted 07:46 AM | Comments (8) | meta-blogging

Question: Small Firm Private Blog?

Below is a question I received from a friend, and since I don't really know the answer, I thought I'd see if anyone else does. My friend writes:

Is there a way a small civil rights type law firm could get a free or extremely cheap blog that could be personal to them? Or is blogging essentially public? There has been talk about trying to have some sort of newsletter that people could easily post to, with comments about whats going on with them, their clients, their kids etc. but it would HAVE to be private as client information would be internally discussed......not a blog?

Does anyone know the best way to accomplish what my friend seeks? I know that WordPress allows you to password-protect posts, but I'm not sure if that would be secure enough for a private, small firm blog. I'm thinking they need some sort of intranet or otherwise secure network. If they ran their blog off of their own server and required a password to access the server, then a blog would work fine, wouldn't it? But then, that could be a little costly to buy and run a server, couldn't it? Or could you do this with a virtual server (shared hosting) with htaccess or some more secure password-protection for the directory in which the blog resides? Obviously, this question is a bit over my head. For those of you with more knowledge than I, please leave any suggestions in the comments or send them via email so I can pass them on to my friend. Thanks!

Posted 12:01 PM | Comments (5) | law general meta-blogging

Public Defender in Traffic Court

Blonde Justice posted a story a couple of weeks ago about a public defender in traffic court. It's an awesome story if you haven't seen it. She offers more insight into traffic court here and here. Public defenders rawk.

Posted 08:40 AM | law general

Blogging: Call for Papers

The other day I noted a couple of academics are studying blogging. Now, the academic journal “Reconstruction” is devoting an issue to the theme of “blogging” and is inviting “papers/projects/manifestos” on the subject.

We are especially interested in the experiences, theories and perspectives of those who actually blog. Feel free to propose other topics to the editors.

Interesting.

Posted 08:33 AM | meta-blogging

CounterInaugural Constitutional Issue

A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), one of the big anti-war organizers, applied for a permit to occupy space along the route of the presidential inaugural parade on January 20th, but apparently the National Park Service is stalling on that permit. According to A.N.S.W.E.R., the Park Service is giving permits to Bush supporters first, and if there's anything left over at the end, maybe protesters will get it. Hmm. Sounds like a bit of a problem with “constitutionalizing the gatekeeper,” meaning making sure that the permit process is fair, equitable, and consistent with the demands of the First Amendment. According to “Constitutional Law in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series)” by Jerome A. Barron, C. Thomas Dienes, “[b]road delegations of authority, even when cast as content-neutral, indirect controls, invite censorship of unpopular views” (427). I wonder if A.N.S.W.E.R. will be able to argue that the National Park Service has an overly broad authority in the protest permit process, and that by denying protesters permits while granting permits to supporters, the Park Service is censoring “unpopular” views. (Putting aside for the moment that some 49% of the country voted against Bush, which hardly makes expression of protest against Bush “unpopular.”) In City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co. (1988), the Supreme Court said that “a facial challenge lies whenever a licensing law gives a government official or agency substantial power to discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of speech by suppressing disfavored speech or disliked speakers.” (Barron 428). Here, it appears (from the little I know) that A.N.S.W.E.R. could bring an “as applied” challenge to whatever permitting statutes or procedures the Park Service is supposed to follow, arguing that, regardless of how those rules are worded, they give the Park Service substantial power to discriminate, as applied. Of course, by the time such a legal claim came before a court, the inauguration might be long over, so this strategy may be pointless. And I'm sure A.NS.W.E.R.'s lawyers know all of this much better than I do, and I'm sure they know even better strategies for challenging the permit process. I'm just saying, maybe I learned something this semester after all. Maybe.

Posted 08:26 AM | Comments (5) | election 2004 law general

Moving On

Now a full month after Election 2004, the future of the Democratic party remains unclear. Move left? Move right? Fight fight fight? The fighting is in effect. According to this story, Peter Beinert wrote a popular analysis of what went wrong in which he bashes groups like MoveOn.org, but MoveOn's not backing down. It sent a letter to its members saying:

“We can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers. In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.”

By “we” MoveOn meant the grassroots supporters who gave time and money to help defeat Bush. And that's the most startling and meaningful thing to come out of this so far, as far as I'm concerned—the size of that grassroots base. Get this:

Financially, the DNC has not suffered terribly under this new regime -- it raised $309 million this year, compared with the Republicans' $385 million. As Arianna Huffington has pointed out, however, the DNC raised its money from a much wider pool this year. In 2000, its donor base was 400,000, while in 2004, 2.7 million people gave to the party.

2.7 million donors, up from 400,000! That's incredible. Maybe the DNC should organize a donor poll and ask all those 2.7 million donors to vote on the direction of the party. At least then it couldn't be accused of ignoring its members. How many donors gave to the RNC? According to the FEC, it looks like the Bush campaign had 210,109 individual donors; however, the number may not be directly comparable to the DNC's 400,000 because many more people may have donated to the RNC generally. The directly comparable number for just the Kerry campaign (not including donations to the DNC as a whole) is 219,493. Pretty similar. Meanwhile, another volunteer inside the Kerry campaign says the campaign itself was utterly incompetent, badly organized and badly run. I don't have much commentary to make on this; I'm just noting it for the record.

Posted 08:01 AM | election 2004

Congratulations, Eva!

Ok, I'm going to admit it: I kind of enjoyed watching most of “America's Next Top Model” this season. It's L's thing, really, but I get sucked in to watching it most of the time. Yeah, I know, that's a problem. But admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery, right? But since I did enjoy it, I just wanted to congratulate this season's top model, Eva. At times I thought maybe Nicole should have won, or Norelle, but I liked Eva all along and she was hands down the best choice of the final four or five. Heather Havrilesky (who now has her own blog) has a great piece in Salon about why Eva was the best pick, and about why the show is so wrongly watchable:

See, this is what makes “America's Next Top Model” so much less predictable and more fun than shows like “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” -- it's not based on the whims of fellow contestants, or worse yet, the whims of The Donald. (Who in the world thinks inept political femme bot Jen should have made it this far?) Tyra Banks and a carefully selected panel of extremely egocentric, bizarre, sadistic human beings pick out the next top model, and they do it by looking at actual photographs and footage of the girls strutting on the runway. These women do real work, as silly and staged as a lot of it is, so that by the time a winner is chosen, we have a very concrete idea of how good each woman might be at this profession.

Unfortunately, according to Havrilesky, a lot of the show's appeal has some deep connection to the trauma of growing up playing with Barbie dolls. I can't say I share that exactly, but still, the piece is a fun read if you watched the show. For the record, I do not watch “Desperate Housewives” or “Runway” or anything else like this (except insofar as “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” are like it, which isn't very far), so maybe there's hope for me yet.

Posted 04:27 PM | Comments (1) | tv land

Free Time Pays

I pulled $1.17 in change out of the tub of our washing machine today. Who knows how long those coins had been skating around in there, but from the looks of a few of them, it had been a while. Very clean money, though, that's for sure. Ah yes. Free time (as in: not a single stitch of homework to do) is a wonderful thing.

Posted 01:18 PM | life generally

Break Reading 2

One more potential pleasure read for the upcoming break is “John Henry Days” by Colson Whitehead. I started it over the summer but only got about 50 pages into it when I had to put it down for some reason. I think that reason had something to do with class, but I'm not sure. Has anyone read the book? I really loved “The Intuitionist”, so I'm certainly prepared to enjoy “John Henry,” as well, and what I read was a great start.

Posted 11:43 AM | Comments (2) | ai books

Halfway

And then the third semester of law school was over. Evidence was 78 multiple choice questions in three hours (thanks to “Undercover Classmate” for that info ahead of time!—he/she should start a blog!). I felt like I was basically guessing on probably 60 percent of them. Not good. About three people in my testing room finished in about 1.5 hours, so I'm guessing those are the people who knew the rules cold and didn't have to consult their notes at all. I assume they got 70-78 of the questions right, or if they didn't, other people did. The curve may not be kind. But it's over. I feel great relief, though obviously nothing like last year at this time. I was just going through the motions of being a student this semester; I put very little in, and feel I got very little out of the semester. That's disappointing, and there's no good reason or excuse for it. Sure, I was busy working two part time jobs and writing a “novel,” but those were choices. I plan to make better choices next semester. I have no desire to be a gunner, but I would like to make better use of my time in law school so that I can get more out of it. The fact that doing more reading and thinking about my course topics might also make finals and grades less of a disappointment and nightmare is obviously a good thing, but I'd also just like to feel like I've learned something when the semester is over. I learned a great deal this semester, I'm sure, but I could have learned more, and I hope next semester I will. As of now, the schedule for next semester includes:

• Federal Courts (3 hrs)
• Criminal Procedure (3 hrs)
• Feminist Legal Theory (2 hrs)
• Ethics (2hrs)
• Consumer Legal Clinic (3 hrs)

All of those are classes I picked because they focus on topics I want to learn more about, which is a good start. I'll still be working for the non-profit where I worked this semester, I'll still be posting every two weeks on that other blog (which eats up a surprising amount of time, actually), and the clinic will require some unknown amount of extra time (6-8 hours/week, I think is what they say), so I'll certainly be busy. Still, I hope to prioritize better, use my time more wisely, and balance the load a little more toward my class subjects. That's the plan at this point, anyway. Of course, now it's time for a complete break from all of that, and when I get back, my good old devil-may-care attitude may have returned. We'll see.

Posted 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | 2L

Welcome Future Rabble Rouser!

Congratulations to my good friend and frequent ai commenter, Famous P, who became the proud father of a healthy baby girl late last night! Famous P is, among other things, a rabble rouser who hates nothing so much as social injustice and abuse of power. I'm guessing his daughter will be much the same, for which we can all be thankful. The world needs more people with the strength and courage to stand up for what they believe. (We now return to our regularly scheduled programming: Evidence evidence evidence...)

Posted 07:43 AM | Comments (2) | life generally

The Finals, The Finals

Gee, that was not fun. Forget what I said about finals being overhyped. Well, don't forget it, just qualify it. They're overhyped if you followed and understood things fairly well during the semester, which is like saying they're easy when you know what you're doing, which is like saying nothing, so nevermind. Forget it. I know nothing. Nuteeng! Ok, I know that multiple choice questions are no longer my friends. So much for the edumacated guessing. It works fine if you've edumacated yourself ahead of time; otherwise, those questions can kill you. And evidence is going to be all multiple choice. Let the mindgames begin! Now, after three finals in less than a week, I'm getting a little weary of the process. The last one is tomorrow. If you have any secrets for remembering and organizing all the rules of evidence in your head, now is the time to share!

Posted 08:44 AM | Comments (8) | 2L

Corps Study Break

What better way to take a short break from studying the antisocial behavior of American corporations than to read this short piece on a new test for psychotic CEOs?

Ever wonder what leads a lavishly compensated C.E.O. to cheat, steal and lie? Perhaps he's a psychopath, and now there is a test, the B-Scan 360, that can help make that determination. The B-Scan was conceived by Paul Babiak, an industrial psychologist, and Robert Hare, the creator of the standard tool for diagnosing psychopathic features in prison inmates. The B-Scan is the first formalized attempt to uncover similar tendencies in captains of industry, and it speaks to a growing suspicion that psychopaths may be especially adept at scaling the corporate ladder.

Yeah, I bet this test is going to go over like gangbusters in the halls of corporate power. People are going to be banging down the doors of these researchers to get a chance to take this test. Not. Still, what fascinating data might we find if we really could screen all CEOs and other top corporate officers for antisocial tendencies? In my class notes for corporate law I quoted Prof. Corps saying “Greed is a perfectly understandable human emotion.” Perhaps he's right. It sounds reasonable; we're all familiar w/greed, right? To quote Morpheus:

It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.

But how understandable is greed, really? What's understandable about gain for self at the expense of others? It's anti-social, and another name for antisocial is psychotic. In this view, greed is contradictory to human self-preservation, and therefore not understandable at all. The only thing that makes it understandable is culture, and American culture teaches us that there is, in fact, almost no higher value than greed. Greed is exalted in our society precisely to the extent that it is against our best interests; the social structure must constantly struggle to convince us of the value of individualism, independence, and self-interest in it's ugliest form—greed. If it were so natural, we wouldn't need the constant stream of rhetoric about how great these values are, would we? What if, instead of thinking of greed as natural, we thought of it as abhorrent? What if we valued interdependence, cooperation, social-interest, community strength, equality, and justice for all? Hmm. Wouldn't that be weird?

Posted 04:59 PM | Comments (8) | 2L

Studying Blogs and Blogging

Now is apparently the time in the history of blogging when academics decide to study the phenom. First, a researcher at UNC is studying blog ethics, while another seeks “thoughtful adult bloggers (a18 and older)” to interview for what sounds like a very interesting master's thesis. Follow those links if you'd like to help out.

Posted 09:22 AM | meta-blogging

10 Best Books 2004?

The NY Times has released its list of the 10 best books of 2004 in both fiction and non. Funny, none of the books on my potential reading list are on the Times' list. I think I'll stick with my list, along with the suggestions you all have made. So far it seems like Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is winning the race, although I do very much like Care's advice to read Into the Forest first, then try to get to something else. Or maybe Jonathan Strange. . . or I'm still into The Baroque Cycle. I mean, I want to read it someday, for sure, but is now the time to start? Hmm... Isn't thinking about reading great fiction so much more fun than studying for finals? Yeah, it definitely is. In addition to reading, I'd like to catalog all the books L. and I own so we can see what we have. I have a CueCat barcode scanner, I have the free and very impressive Books for Mac OS X software, and I have the books to scan in—I just don't have the time. L. thinks I'm a big fat geek for even wanting to do this, but once you've got them all cataloged, you can do cool things like find them when you want them. You can also do something like putting a list of your books online, which could be useful somehow, I think. Anyway, it sure would be better than studying corporations. But then, the bar for that is really, really low.

Posted 08:45 AM | Comments (6) | ai books

Ding Dong Wedding Bells

Congratulations to Raquel, my friend and fairly frequent commenter here. She's getting married to a wonderful boy named E! The two of them have promised not to let the marital industrial complex grind them down, which bodes well for their future, I think.

Posted 05:53 PM | Comments (4) | life generally

BlawgCoop & WordPress

Welcome to Legal Fictions, a new 1L member of the BlawgCoop! Legal Fictions is currently undergoing the finals process along with many of us, but he's keeping a healthy perspective on the whole thing. If you have time, wander over and say hello. Incidentally, BlawgCoop (or Co-op) is open to all, and now supports WordPress as well as Movable Type, thanks to the generosity of Dreamhost, which just tripled our bandwidth allowances and added one-click support for installing WordPress. Pretty cool. I've played a little with WordPress and found it to be a very nice and robust blogging platform. It seems to have just about all the functionality of MT, and then some. For example, it allows you to post “private” or “secure” posts to which you can control access—might be nice for when you want to rant about your professors or fellow students, but don't want all the world to see. I fear that could cause some trouble, though. What if I posted a “private” rant to which I gave you access, then you quoted my rant and blogged about it on your own site? I'd still be in the same trouble as if I'd just made the post public in the first place, wouldn't I? My thinking is that any idea of posting “private” stuff online—material you don't want other people to see—is just asking for trouble. But that's a tangent. The really cool thing about WordPress is that it's released under the GPL, which means no one will ever be able to tell you what you can or can't do w/your installation of it, something Dive Into Mark called Freedom 0. That's certainly something to think about if you hope to be blogging for more than a little while. I know some people (like Dive Into Mark) jumped from MT to WordpPress when MT started its new licensing scheme a few months ago, and some of those people wrote extensive comparisons of the two programs. Here's one from Burningbird, another discussion here, a comparison of the template systems in WordPress, MT, and Blogger, and an essay by the same person on why he decided not to switch from MT to WordPress. In all, it sounds like the consensus is that WordPress remains a bit more difficult to customize than MT, but may be easier for newbies to manage apart from fiddling with templates and stuff.

Posted 12:18 PM | Comments (1) | law school meta-blogging

Conlaw Too

Two-L final two was . . . Well, I don't know, actually. The only thing certain is that it's over. I got to the final and started looking through my outline and realized I'd printed it out with some of the items collapsed.* Oops! This meant my outline was incomplete for two questions and I had to rely on a downloaded outline I'd brought with me to fill those gaps. I don't think that was a big deal, but who knows? It felt mostly fine, but I finished 15 minutes early, which is an ambiguous sign. There were 9 questions, some with subparts, and the directions informed us that most questions could be answered in 2-3 sentences. I wrote a lot more than that for most, but not for all, so we'll see what that means. Generally my post-exam thinking (and not just for this exam, but for all of them) is something like: Initial euphoria—It's over! —followed fairly shortly by a period of increasing concern that I totally failed, followed by a period of not caring/not thinking about it, followed by learning the actual grades and dealing w/whatever the reality ends up being. Concidences: This was a ConLaw II exam, and it was in the same room as my ConLaw I exam. I also finished that one early and got my best grade so far in law school. I'm not going to interpret that to mean anything. The ConLaw I final included a multiple choice section, and I was a pretty good edumacated guesser, I think. On to Corporations, the class I took so I could “know my enemy.” I'm just kicking myself now for not taking it pass/fail. The exam is Monday morning. Here's a sample question from an old exam in that class:

Assume that Ellie Mae has won. She moves to include Mayberry, inc. in the valuation of Clampitt Oil Co. to determine the value of her shares in dissolution. Please write your opinion disposing of this matter.

Ha! That makes me laugh! I have no clue even where to begin with something like that. It's going to be a loooong weekend. * I take notes and assemble outines in NoteTaker, which is—tadah!—an outliner! The image above and right shows you what it looks like. The arrows pointing down mean that section is “expanded,” showing you all subsections, while the arrows pointing to the right mean that section is “collapsed,” with all subsections hidden. This is super-convenient when you're sorting through information b/c you can “hide” what you don't need at the moment and focus on just what you're dealing with. It's also nice for making study outlines b/c you can put all the extraneous stuff in the “collapsed” part, and just print out the essentials. Of course, that only works if you remember to expand the right sections before printing...

Posted 09:59 AM | Comments (3) | 2L law school

What Will We Miss?

Studying for finals is like writing a paper in a way—it can be an enjoyable process of discovery, learning, understanding; however, too often it gets rushed (thanks to my good friend Procrastination) and that makes it much less fun. One day between finals is just not enough when you haven't done a good job preparing ahead of time. Number two exam for 2L goes down this afternoon. As I studied last night, desperately trying to condense due process, equal protection, and free speech doctrine into my tiny little head, I had an odd thought. When this is all over and law school is long behind me, will I miss this? I know I will. I mean, I'll miss something about it, at least. Will I miss the studying for finals? I don't think so, but I'll miss things I can't even think of now, I'm sure. Life is like that. Or nostalgia is like that. Sometimes life and nostalgia merge. It's always easier to appreciate things in hindsight. I just wish I could learn to appreciate those things in presentsight. Like now. But then, it's good to want things, isn't it? Perhaps we'll miss things like this: Twas the Night Before Lawschool Finals.

Posted 07:15 AM | Comments (1) | law school

Pleasure Reading Poll

With another final coming up Friday (tomorrow!), I need to study again, or still. Therefore, I leave you with this question: What should I read over the upcoming holiday break? The choices currently on my list of possibles (recommended by friends or reviews I've run across, or just things that I've wanted to read for a long time):

“Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)” (Neal Stephenson)

“Girl With Curious Hair (Norton Paperback Fiction)” (David Foster Wallace)

“Checkpoint: A Novel” (Nicholson Baker)

“Into the Forest” (JEAN HEGLAND)

“Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel” (Susanna Clarke)

Please share any thoughts, comments, or additional recommendations. Thanks! Note: This post, including all links to Amazon, the images, etc., was created in about two minutes using ecto's new Amazon functionality. While I wish it allowed me to choose some other database (like Powell's, for example), it's still very very cool.

Posted 08:40 AM | Comments (15) | ai books

Is Wilder Better?

According to Wired, a new trend in traffic management and highway engineering is to remove explicit controls—such as signs and painted lines on the road, and even curbs to separate street from pedestrian zone—and replace them with implicit controls—basically the alertness and cooperation of the drivers, pedestrians, or bicyclists using the roads. One advocate of this new hands-off approach explains:

“Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road.”

So the idea, generally, is that you encourage community and cooperation by removing the safeguards that would keep you safe if you're antisocial or don't try to cooperate. What's interesting is the corollary argument that social safeguards actually encourage antisocial behavior; they assume such behavior is going to occur, they plan for it, they legitimize it, and therefore ensure it will exist. Does this mean that the more we regulate or try to make our world safer, the more we'll actually be making our world more chaotic, and less safe? The idea reminds me of two stories I tell all the time (and which I've probably told here before). Both are about lifelong NYC residents who visited Utah. One was a woman who stood on the edge of Bryce Canyon watching a beautiful sunrise and complained that “they should cut down all these trees—they're blocking my view. The other was another woman who stood on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and complained that there was no railing to prevent people from falling over the edge. These stories come to mind because I think of NYC as a place that's tightly controlled and regulated; the population density is so great, that people have come to rely on the ”rules“ of life in NYC to get by, so when they go someplace that's more open, less tightly controlled, they don't understand it, it makes them uncomfortable. (I'm thinking out loud here; I don't mean to disparage NY or NYers.) Those two stories, and the above article about the roads make me wonder if what we need is fewer laws, rather than more. We seem to have entered a stage of society where people will do anything, so long as there's no explicit rule or law against it, or even if there is a law but they think they won't get caught. See Enron, see the rise in plagiarism and cheating in our schools, see the general lust for wealth above all else. And I wonder if this is because people have stopped thinking about what's right, what's appropriate, what's good, and instead simply think about what they can get away with w/out breaking the rules or getting caught. As if the rules of society, or efforts to encourage better behavior, actually end up encouraging worse behavior. Does chaos encourage cooperation? I suppose it's the logic behind the Libertarian Party. Another siren singing, I think, but also there's something here that's good...

Posted 08:27 AM | Comments (3) | life generally

That's One

Finished with 2L Final Numero Uno (of four). Cake. Ok. Not, but I'm telling you, law school exams are way overhyped. Way. And I'm not saying that b/c I'm so smart and studied so hard and knew everything and am trying to be scary or jerky as Naked Furniture notes blawgers are sometimes wont to do. In fact, I studied very little and was pretty nervous going in. I'm just saying that it turned out that just showing up to class most of the time, writing down what the professor said, and organizing that into a quickly-referenceable (is that a word?) format was really all it took to do a passable job on that final, and that's usually all it takes. Ok, I won't get an A, but that's still me doing a public service for everyone else in my class. I wouldn't want to blow the curve for everyone else, would I? Oh, but for the record, there were some holes in my outline dealing with federal preemption in the realm of labor law, union work preservation clauses, and something else that I could tell was supposed to be an issue but I couldn't for the life of me figure out. So like I said, no A on that exam, but definitely middle-curvish, I'm thinking, and that's superfine with me. Law school really is much nicer when you stop worrying about the first letter of the alphabet. Three more to go. Onward!

Posted 08:34 PM | Comments (1) | 2L law school

Suggestion for law professors

I'm off to 2L Final Numero Uno and I just re-read an email I got from the Prof. in response to a question I'd asked. It strikes me that professors would do well to announce the following policy: If you want to ask any questions of the professor about the class via email, you must CC the entire class. The professor will then CC the entire class on the reply. This would have two potential benefits. First, it might reduce frivolous emails to professors for silly questions students can figure out for themselves. If you know the whole class will see your email, you might be more careful about what you ask and only ask questions you're really stuck on. Second, everyone in the class could benefit from the professor's response, rather than anyone getting an unfair advantage. I imagine some would say this is unnecessary b/c if you are a gunner (or just a good student) who wants to have a lot of interaction with a professor, you should reap the rewards of your efforts in asking legitimate questions and you should not have to share those rewards w/everyone else. This makes sense if you see law school as a competition. However, if you see law school as a series of learning opportunities, the “everyone shares alike” policy above seems more likely to produce more of those opportunities, generally.

Posted 12:50 PM | Comments (7) | 2L law school

Going to war with the army you have

So my first final is today, and I just learned from Mr. Dumsfeld, er, Rumsfeld, that “you go to war with the army you have,” not the one you might want. I wonder if my law professors will understand that explanation next spring when I'm digging around in local landfills (their offices) for armor for my vehicles (passing grades). (Yeah, it's a tortured metaphor, but finals will do that, ok?) UPDATE: I just noticed that Naked Furniture applied the Dumsfeld logic to finals hours before I did, and her post is much much better, so go there. Now. You won't be sorry.

Posted 09:07 AM | Comments (4) | 2L law school

Oh final exams, how I loathe you!

As I study for finals once again, in this, the third finals season of my law school “career,” I once again find myself having difficulty studying. I need to run an ad like this, too. Apparently, fear is a bad motivator for me. But as I try to make myself study, I'm also hoping that these stupid tests won't be as hard as I anticipate they will be. I've come up with a great rationalization for convincing myself that they won't be. I used to be a teacher; I've written and administered final exams. So I know that one of the things teachers do, collectively, almost without realizing it, is attempt to convince students that their exams are very difficult and important and must be taken seriously. This is because teachers have so little means by which to encourage students to actually study and maybe even remember some of the material covered in their classes. But I also know that my final exams were never as hard as I tried to make them sound; I knew that a smart student could get an A just by showing up in class most of the time and remembering a few of the things I'd said. I can only assume that law school exams are the same. While none of my professors has tried to make his (yes, all male profs this semester) final seem overly difficult, they don't have to; the difficulty of law school exams is legend. But that's just it—there's no way they could live up to their purported difficulty, is there? Spot a few issues, write a few essays about them. How hard can it be? ;-) One other thought on finals: This is the time when I once again become convinced that I am not cut out to be a lawyer, that I don't have what it takes, that I'm not good at the the things the legal profession requires and values, that I, in fact, hate the law, and that it hates me. I start thinking about what I will do when I drop or flunk out of law school. There's this guy who owns a little quickie mart a few blocks away where I go sometimes and he always seems happy; he just hangs out and reads books and listens to the radio and rings up a customer now and then. At finals time I start thinking, maybe I could do that, too. Maybe that would be just fine. Thankfully, now that I have a little, teensy weensy bit of experience working in legal offices, I can look at these feelings of inadequacy and imminent failure with a bit of perspective. When I was working last summer at the public defender's office, I didn't feel inadequate; in fact, I enjoyed just about every part of what I saw of that job. And when I've gone to work this semester at the civil law nonprofit where I've been working, I've enjoyed that a great, deal, as well. When I'm faced with a “real” legal task, I seem to be able to complete it just fine, and to even get some enjoyment out of the work. It's only when I'm faced with a law school final, and with all the anxiety, stress, and oh-my-gosh-my-whole-future-is-riding-on-this-grade hoohaw that goes with it—only then does my confidence crumble, my desire to complete this degree evaporate. So the lesson is simply that the cliche has proven true so far for me: Law school is not law practice, and just because you hate the school part doesn't mean you'll hate the practice part. (And btw, I don't hate the school part; I hate the finals part. The rest of the school part is ok, although it does leave a lot to be desired.) Um, but if anyone has some great study aids (I'm thinking killer concise reference charts or tables, stuff you can glance at for an overview or reference) for an introductory course in labor law or a standard sort of Con Law II survey, please do share.

Posted 10:30 AM | Comments (4) | 2L law school

DG Uncloaks

Ok, it took me a while to notice b/c I've been out of the habit of checking since the mad squirrel took over, but Ditzy Genius has reemerged, sort of, for the time being. Welcome back, DG!

Posted 10:33 AM | meta-blogging

Ruthless Emotional Demagoguery

Actus Reus says Legal Fiction knows how the Dems can win next time around:

You think you need to reach out and be nicer and make yourself more palatable. No – you need to do the opposite. You need to get meaner and stop reaching out. Your goal should be to make more people viscerally despise Republicans because they are the party of (1) scary theocrats and racists; and (2) “big corporations.”

To accomplish this, Legal Fiction, channelling Karl Rove, says to use wedge amendments and wedge votes to flush out the right wing nuts and put them on the run, then “publicize the wackos”:

. Say “the party of Falwell and Shays” every damn day. ... Say it again and again — “the party of Shays and DeLay.”

Oh, and:

Democrats should demagogue the hell out of privatizing Social Security, outsourcing, flat taxes, drug importation, and national sales taxes. Class warfare baby — again and again — every single day. Make 'em hate the rich. Make stuff up if you have to.

Do you hear the sirens singing?

Posted 07:06 AM | Comments (5) | general politics

More Law School Reform

Welcome to Don't Know It From Adam, a new blog from Adam Wolfson, a U of Michigan law student who formerly wrote Cicero's Ghost (which has now been shut down). One of Adam's early posts takes off from the recent 5-by-5 on the question of how to improve law school. Adam notes that Michigan has recently begun discussing how to improve the grading system; he supports “moving to a more sophisticated version of 'Pass/Fail,' like the ones implemented at Boalt Hall (Berkeley’s law school) and Yale Law.” He offers good reasons for why such a system would be preferable to the standard A, B, C, and plus, minus system in many law schools. Sounds great to me. One other reform I forgot to mention before: Law schools (and the ABA) should create more flexible ways for students to get academic credit for internships and externships and remove or at least qualify the ridiculous restriction that prohibits earning credit for any work that also earns a paycheck. As I understand it, law students who want to work and get practical experience during law school currently have a choice to make. They can either get paid for their work, or they can get academic credit for the work, but they can't ever get both. I'm told this is one of the ABA's rules schools must follow if they want to be “ABA-approved.” This is ridiculous for two main reasons: 1) Law school is already too expensive, so anything students can do to reduce their debt should be encouraged. 2) Practical work experience can provide an invaluable education for law students, and can be far superior to sitting in classes in terms of actually learning to practice law. What's so evil about allowing students to reduce their debt and get great practical experience at the same time? UPDATE: I just noticed that Michigan's possible grade system changes are the topic of considerable discussion over at Letters of Marque.

Posted 09:38 AM | Comments (4) | law school

Why do you blog?

As some people have already noted, an article in this month's Student Lawyer magazine has something in common with this blog—your humble ambivalent blogger wrote them both. And since Student Lawyer has yet to get its own blog or enable any sort of feedback feature on its site (other than letters to the editor, of course), I happily offer this forum for your feedback on the article. Comment away! Specifically I wonder: What do you think of the general argument that blogs/blawgs are valuable for law students? More to the point, why do you maintain a blawg? Do you do it for any or all of the reasons the article discusses, or are there other reasons for your habit? Also, what about that whole “blawg” moniker? It's kind of cute, but is it worth anything more than that? Should we talk about law-related blogs as “blawgs,” or is the regular old “blogs” preferable? Are there other negatives to blogging as a law student that the article doesn't mention? Finally, thanks to everyone who responded to my calls for input on this article early last summer. As you can see, I basically just took the great things a lot of you said and wrote transitions between them; I'm just the messenger. Also, I had much more material than the magazine had space for, so if you sent in comments that aren't in the article, it's only because of that lack of space. Related food for thought:

• Non-law bloggers talk about why they blog.
• An article in the December ABA Journal called “To Blog or Not To Blog? Some Associates Who Asked That Question Say Web Logs Advance Careers, Exposure,” p. 33. I can't find the article online, but it features comments from Kevin O'Keefe, one of the few making a living from blawging, Matthew Lerner, the anonymous author of Underneath Their Robes, and Jeffrey Lewis.
• Of Blogs, Bloggers and Blawgs, an April 2003 article from the ABA's Law Practice Today.
• Interview with the Bloggers from the above source, both by Jim Calloway, an Oklahoma attorney.
• This short introduction to blogs by Carolyn Elefant.

UPDATE: “Blog” is apparently the number one word of the year, according to Merriam-Webster (via AmbivaBlog, which shares me ambivalence about this, obviously). And in related law-blogging reading, see also What Weblogs Can Do For You, a brief primer for legal practitioners by Evan Schaeffer.

Posted 03:19 PM | Comments (12) | meta-blogging

You're a conlaw prof

You know you're a professor of Constitutional law when you tell jokes and then have to explaining them and then you still have to tell your listeners you're joking. Today a student commented that criminal defendants have a right to choose to make no case and instead depend for their freedom on the prosecutor failing to make her case. In response, my esteemed ConLaw II professor (who has probably been my favorite professor this semester both because he's so knowledgeable and because he just seems like a likable guy) said that reminded him of an old cartoon where two prisoners are talking and one says, “If my lawyer said 'no questions, your honor' once, he said it a hundred times.” The class was silent. So my good professor proceeded to explain that the cartoon was saying “no questions” meant “no defense” and that that meant the defense attorney wasn't doing his or her job. Still, the class remained silent, so the good professor shouted, “It's a joke!” Everyone laughed. Students are so well-behaved. Or maybe we're just all pretty humorless about now as finals loom.

Posted 02:26 PM | 2L