Movie Daze

I've watched many movies in the last few days as part of finals decompression and just generally because I haven't had the energy or focus to do much else. Here's what I've seen recently:

• Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle: See it. Funny funny funny, combined with some biting social commentary mainly having to do w/racism, xenophobia, and various social stereotypes, plus more funny funny funny.
• Hotel Rwanda: Another must-see, if you haven't already. Don Cheadle is awesome. This movie is the opposite of funny. It's a blinding indictment of global politics, and especially the “Western world.” And it's happened/happening again in Darfur.
• The Final Cut: Possibly the worst movie ever. Do not see this. Trust me. The concept might have been good, but the execution? No.
• Garden State: Loved it. Sweet, funny, awkward, but definitely time well spent.

While three out of four were pretty good, I'm still feeling a little movied-out now. I was thinking about seeing that hitchhiker's movie, but maybe it will have to wait until the paper is done. If you've seen it, what do you think? Great, good, ok, or awful? Should I wait for DVD?

Posted 10:34 PM | Comments (6) | ai movies

Obligatory Post-Finals Post

Hi. Finals are over. Aren't you all glad? No more finals whining! The following recaplet is just a few notes so that when I get my grades I can return to this post and remember why they are what they are.

To put it simply: Thursday was long. It started with closed-book CrimPro where I spent the first ten minutes basically dumping the essential parts of yesterday's post onto scratch paper. I then tackled the one essay and it seemed like things were going well. My braindump contained just about every case and bit of law I needed for the answer and my discussion felt fairly complete and well-cited. Then I hit the multiple choice (2/3 of the grade) and my game fell apart. My long comment on DG's blog explains more about why I was not prepared for the multiple choice, but the short story is that I just didn't study for the fine distinctions between only very subtly different possible answers. So that really really sucked. About half the 60 questions I felt fairly certain about; the other half? A mix of no clue and educated guessing. But hey, it's over, right?

I tried to study for the six hours between CrimPro and PR, but I didn't have a lot of luck. My brain was like rubber and any information I tried to throw at it just seemed to bounce right off. So the PR final was a scramble through notes, the ABA Model Rules, and the Restatement of Law Governing Lawyers. I'm sure I got about 50% of what each question was looking for, but I'm also fairly confident I missed at least one issue one each question b/c of my lack of familiarity w/all the rules. My big hope is that most everyone else did the same, but that's always the hope on a curve, isn't it?

But again, I'm done with finals, and I keep reminding myself that at this point done is better than done well. I'm finished worrying about it all. Now I have a relatively fun 30 pages to write for Feminist Legal Theory, and it looks like I will be learning more about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and similar state laws than I ever expected I would know. It's likely I'll be posting about that a bit more in the next few days.

Posted 10:21 PM | Comments (2) | 2L

Whined-Up Toy

I am a wind-up toy that whines.
Finals are my winding mechanism.
Wind me up and hear me whine.
I am a whined-up toy.

But my days are numbered.
That number is one.
Today I will wind down.
Or up. I can't tell. Oh well.

Actually, yesterday's Fed Cts. exam wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I didn't own it, exactly, but it tried to give me that “juris-my-diction crap,” so I shoved that up it's... whoops! Actually, I already have forgotten what was on that test. I've been busily filling my head with crim-pro for my closed book (no notes, no nothin') final. Here's a taste of what I'm trying to make sure I have in my head:

Katz = search. Aguillar-Spinelli and Gates = probable cause = fair probability. Watson for warrantless arrests. Gerstein hearings for people arrested w/out warrant--McLaughlin says the hearings must be w/in 48 hours or less to be “prompt.”

Terry for reasonable suspicion and stop and frisk. Mendenhall to distinguish stop from seizure via the “free to leave” test. Bostick for the free to decline officer's request or otherwise terminate the encounter. Hodari D for “free to leave” applied to suspects who run -- when cops show force, suspect much actually submit to the force before it becomes a seizure. Florida v. JL for rejection of the “firearms exception” to Terry. Cortez to help define reasonable suspicion as “fair possibility.”

Weaver saying that race can be a lawful factor in cops' decision to approach a suspect (racial profiling), but should not be the sole factor. Wardlow for running alone is not reasonable suspicion. Chimel for search incident to arrest of grab area w/in immediate control of suspect. Also Robinson. Whren for pretextual arrests for purpose of search are permissible.

Carrol doctrine for no need for warrant to search car if you have probable cause, including trunk. Acevedo for police can search any container in a car w/out a warrant so long as they have probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime.

Exigent circumstances that mean no warrant is required for S&S: hot pursuit, police and public safety, risk of destruction of evidence. See also Dorman factors for determining whether circs are exigent. Special needs exceptions to warrant requirement (if only purpose in search is law enforcement, no special need and warrant still required for): safety inspections of homes, administrative searches, drug testing of employees or school children, police checkpoints and roadblocks. Cady v. Dombrowski for inventory searches. Schneckloth for determining whether D's consent to search was voluntary (totality of circs). Drayton for burden of proving voluntariness is on gov't -- preponderance of evidence.

Weeks for creating exclusionary rule, Mapp for applying it to states. Leon for good faith exception to exclusionary rule. Rakas for establishing standing to challenge violation of 4th amendment right (using Katz test of legitimate expectation of privacy). Wong Sun for excluding evidence that is fruit of poisonous tree. Murray for independent source exception, Andrade for inevitable discovery exception.

Massiah for lawyer must be present once you're formally charged. Miranda for requiring police to give mini-lecture in crimpro upon arrest and before custodial interrogation. Elstad for no cat out of the bag exception. Dickerson for making Miranda “a constitutional decision” that Ct. will not overrule (b/c of stare decisis) and which Congress cannot overrule. Public safety exception to Miranda. Berkemer for Terry stops are non-custodial. Innis for it's interrogation if police should know it is reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating response from a suspect. To be valid Miranda waiver must be voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. Mosley for a cooling-off period gives cops second crack after suspect invokes right to silence. Edwards for per se rule if you invoke right to counsel, cops must leave you alone unless you initiate. Oregon v. Bradshaw for initiation means D indicates willingness and desire for generalized discussion about the investigation.

Powell v. Alabama for D in capital case has right to counsel. Gideon for right to counsel for indigents in all felony cases. Abersinger for extending right to counsel for anyone facing imprisonment.

Wade for identifying suspects -- impermissible suggestiveness can cause in-court ID to be excluded unless it's independent of tainted pre-trial ID. Manson v. Brathwaite for reliability is lynchpin of ID.

Whew. I have a lot of that in my head (and more detail about each point so I can talk intelligently about it), but not all of it. Once CrimPro is over, it's on to PR this evening, but that's open note so who cares?

See you when my finals are over when I hope to no longer be a whined up toy

Posted 06:55 AM | Comments (4) | 2L

Ridiculous Dilemma

Look! It's more of The Usual!

But specifically at this point, what really bums me out about this particular round of finals is that I think I could do pretty well if I didn't have to take all three exams in two days. Unlike last semester, this semester I went to class, I read (most of the time), I took good notes, I paid attention and I actually cared about the subject matter of these classes. All of those factors suggest I should do just fine on the finals, but that's looking really unlikely since I practically have to cram the material for all three classes into my head at the same time. And yeah, I know that for the bar exam you have to cram info for many more subjects into your head at the same time, but this isn't the bar exam. This is finals, and this finals schedule puts me at a disadvantage in the curve b/c the majority of my peers will not have had such a compressed study schedule. For the bar, everyone is basically in the same boat as far as having to cover so many subjects at once.

My professors and the GW administration tell me to suck it up. That's how things work at GW—you pick your classes and by doing so you pick your finals schedule. If your finals schedule blows, that's your own damn fault and your own tough luck. So add this to the list of reasons I'm less than satisfied with my law school experience at GW. If you're still choosing between law schools, consider one that does not force its students to make the ridiculous choice between either taking the classes they want, or having a sane finals schedule. The solution to this dilemma is to offer conflict exams, but that would just be too easy, wouldn't it?

Does any other school operate this way w/finals? Does yours?

Posted 06:22 AM | Comments (12) | 2L

Fed Courts Fu

Remember that moment in The Matrix when they're training Neo how to fight? At one point, supposedly after ten hours straight, he wakes up and looks at Morpheus and, somewhat shocked, he says “I know kung fu!”

I wish studying for law school finals was like that. I would love for someone to plug something into the back of my head that would allow me to wake up three minutes later and say “I know fed courts!”

Unfortunately, the matrix has me so I guess I'll just have to keep studying.

Posted 09:17 PM | Comments (3) | 2L

Choosing a public interest law school

A reader wrote in recently with a dilemma: He has been offered a “full-ride” scholarship at a school at the higher end of the top 50 in the U.S. News rankings, or no aid but admission at an upper top-20 school. He'd like to do international public interest law related to poverty issues. Which school should he choose? Also, more generally, what factors should he look at for each school to compare them and make this decision?

If you have any thoughts, please share. For starters, here's a slightly edited version of my response to this reader:

First: Congratulations! Getting a full-ride to a top-50 program is an awesome accomplishment!

Second: Knowing what I know now after two years of law school, I would definitely take a full-ride at a top 50 school with a very solid reputation in my desired area of specialty. No question. Why? Because my impression has been that school rank or prestige are probably helpful—even in public interest law—but the difference between upper top-20 and upper top-50 is just not worth the $90-$150k dollar difference involved in a choice like yours. That said, I really don't know what a PI employer (esp. one in international poverty law, for example) would do when faced with a selection of candidates from these schools. My guess is that, most things being equal, the employer would likely want to hire someone from the higher ranked school. Yet, it wouldn't be that simple because you've obviously already distinguished yourself enough to get this scholarship, and I bet whatever earned you that (your previous work in the field, I'm guessing) would also earn you special attention from employers.

So, another way to put this: You're clearly shoulders above the average upper top-50 student, which is why you got the scholarship. That distinction will show through to employers, so I would say your career chances at the upper top-50 school will be nearly as good (if not exactly as good) as at the upper top-20 school. If you were going into BigLaw, the choice would be much harder. But in PI law, my impression is that school rank just isn't that huge a factor. Your resume will be strong from either school so employers will give you a serious look, either way.The quality of your legal training probably won't vary much between the two. Graduating with zero debt (or very little -- I assume “full ride” includes room and board) is huge because it makes you more flexible -- you'll be able to consider a wider variety of jobs w/out making your heavy debt load a major factor in your career decisions. From where I sit, your choice is clear: I would choose the full ride at the upper top-50 school.

HOWEVER, I'm just a 2L and what do I know? Not so much. I'm just speaking for me. You may have different considerations. How do you feel about the possible debt you'd accrue at the top-20 school? Do you see any differences in the two programs (besides the obvious factors of cost and location) that make you lean one way or the other? You may have tried this already, but what if you did this: Remove cost from the equation; assume both schools would cost the same. Which would you attend and why? Now remove cost AND rank from the equation—which would you choose? Doing this will force you to focus on other, possibly more important factors, such as:

• Classes: Look at the courses offered at each school and make a list of 8-10 courses you think you'd really like to take. Does one school have more classes that sound great? Also, call the registration people and ask how often your most desired classes are offered. Many schools list a number of courses in their curriculum materials that are actually only offered rarely. If that's the case, you may choose a school partly hoping to take one or two classes that won't even be offered in the two years you'll be there and taking electives (you probably won't get electives in your first year). The registration people should be able to tell you if this is the case.
• Faculty: Then look at who teaches the classes that really appeal to you. Read their bios. Do any of them sound like people who have done things you want to do and/or who are connected to institutes, nonprofits, gov't orgs or NGOs that you'd like to get connected with? Look at what they've published; you may not be able to read much of it, but you could skim some of the papers and/or read abstracts (many are online via SSRN and other places). Are any of these people doing interesting work? Do any of them make you say, “Yeah, I really would love to know that person and maybe have him/her as my mentor”? In your first year, faculty won't matter nearly as much, so look beyond to the electives you'd want to take.
• Journals: You may have no interest in being on a journal, so this may not be an issue. But if you have even a vague interest, you should look at the journals at each school and also at how you qualify to be on staff of one. If there's one that especially appeals to you (like the “Journal of International Poverty Law” or something), you should contact someone on that journal (phone or email or whatever) to find out how you could get on staff. Do they choose based on grades or writing competition, or both? If grades are a factor, how big a factor? How competitive is it? How prestigious is the journal in its field? Being on a journal in a subject area in which you want to work can be very fun and very helpful to your education b/c you'll read and write on specialized topics in that area.
• Clinics: Clinics are important to PI law and if either school has a clinic or two that grabs you, you should give that school extra points. If there's a clinic that would let you do exactly what you think you want to do, that's a huge bonus. It'll look great to employers and again, it will be excellent training for you. If you want to go further with this, call the clinic director and ask to speak with students who are in or have been in the clinic. Then ask those students what they did in the clinic and what they are going to do for their summer jobs or careers, and whether the clinic was helpful or worthwhile, etc.
• Career services: Does either school have someone one staff who is dedicated to helping PI students get PI jobs in summers and after graduation? GW has a person who does this as part of her job. This is nice, but it means that there's no one working full time year-round to maintain connections with public interest employers, research jobs and connections for you, and generally help you in your PI career building. In contrast, Georgetown has an entire PI office dedicated to this sort of thing. The more resources the school gives to this, the better it will be for you. In addition to what the career services office tells you, try to talk to students who are doing things you think you'll want to do. The career services people should be able to give you a couple of names you could email so you could ask about their satisfaction w/the school's career services, etc.
• Summer funding: As a PI student, you are not so likely to find summer jobs that pay; therefore, it's good to know what grants will be available to you in the summers. For example, GW gave out $165k this summer, spread among approximately 50 people; at least 100 people applied for this pool, meaning only 50% who wanted funding got it. You should be able to find those kinds of numbers for each school. This shouldn't be a deal-breaker factor for either school, but it's one more piece of data that might help you make a choice.

Those are all the big factors I can think of now. I think if you gathered as much data you could get on these variables and tried to compare the programs, you should be on your way to making an intelligent and informed choice here. I don't know how much time you have, but even if you can only surf their websites and make a couple of calls for each school, I think doing so would be worth your time. Once you have some data on these points you'll have to make the choice about what the debt means to you. Before starting school, I figured the debt was no big deal. Perhaps that will prove to be true, but now it looks like a huge deal. Even if it doesn't affect my life or career too much, it weighs on my mind and adds a sort of general anxiety to the future. Living without that would be worth a lot to me, but that may just be me.

Posted 10:10 AM | Comments (14) | advice law school

The Usual

Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. And whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. However, whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. Therefore, whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine.

So there.

Posted 07:27 AM | Comments (11) | 2L

Feed me, please

All right kind peeps, I need to ask a small favor. Can you feed me, please? By that I mean: Can you make sure your blog produces an RSS or Atom feed so that lazy yahoos like me can read all our favorite sites in a feed reader (aka, “aggregator)? Whadya say?

If you don't know what I'm talking about with all this ”feed“ business, please see this introduction to RSS. If you use Blogger and you don't know how to create a feed for your blog, here's what you need to do: Go to your ”Settings“ tab and click the ”site feed“ subtab. Say ”yes“ to publish site feed, and make descriptions ”full.“ Click Save Settings and rejoice! You have now fed me and all your other adoring fans!

For those of you using Xanga, well, um, I don't think Xanga will produce feeds b/c it looks like the whole theory of Xanga is to keep people inside of Xanga. (I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like.) So may I suggest something like Feedburner? It should create a feed for you w/out too much trouble.

It would make me most highly pleased if the following blogs had feeds:

• Buzzwords
• I'm a PD
• Mister District Attorney
• Blonde Justice
• WonL
• Woman of the Law
• Crim Law
• Injustice for All

I am absolutely certain that this is an incomplete list, so I'll just make a blanket request to anyone who reads this: If you have a blog, please make sure it has a feed. If I haven't looked for a feed on your blog yet, I'm sure someone else has, and if they didn't find one, they were very very sad. Worse, they may have wandered off to other regions of the internets, never to return, because, well, let's face it, some people are like that. So make sure you've got a feed, and all your readers will be fat and happy. Yes?

p.s.: If anyone has more tips or tricks to make it easy for people to make sure their blogs have a feed, please share.

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (20) | meta-blogging

Scalia Is Politicizing the Judiciary

Listening to NPR I just heard a clip from an interview with Justices Breyer, O'Connor, and Scalia yesterday at the National Archives. One of the things the Justices discussed was the way courts and judges have been criticized recently (especially from the political Right) and Breyer said, more or less: “It's always been this way. Judges make tough choices and some people are always going to be unhappy with those choices, but that's all fine so long as everyone follows the rule of law.” That's the standard answer.

However, Scalia couldn't pass up the opportunity to “play politics” (as Republicans are fond of saying) with the question. I haven't found the full text of what he said anywhere online, but in the clip NPR played Scalia said something like this: “If you take the position that the Constitution is a living document that the Court will interpret anew for each generation you make the Court a very political body and people will rise up against that.” (You've got to see his actual words; they're much better than that.)

Again I say: Whatever, Nino. Of course, he is clearly correct that people some people do not like the idea of, um, change. But it's disingenuous for Scalia to imply that his “originalist” perspective would generate less animosity toward the Court than would any other perspective. Originalist arguments about Constitutional interpretation are exactly that—arguments about how to interpret words that some white guys wrote a couple of centuries ago. Those words have no immanent meaning that we can “discover” through historical research or any other means (although, obviously, historical research contributes much to our understanding).

Originalists may like to argue otherwise, but again, originalism is just an argument, and therefore it's controversial, and therefore a Court run by originalists would generate just as much animosity as the current Court generates—possibly more. Scalia knows this, which is why it was a dishonest political ploy for him to imply that an originalist Court would resolve current debates about the judiciary. I give him props for being media-savvy enough to promote his agenda at an opportune moment, but it's ironic and a bit hypocritical for him to use a politically loaded claim to criticize the Court for being overly politicized.

Oh, and on the subject of our overly politicized courts, it seems some evangelical Christians want to remove funding from the courts to stop them from making decisions evangelicals don't like. Brilliant, don't you think?

Posted 09:26 AM | law general

Study Breaks

Classes are over and studying has begun. Here are a few things I've noticed on my, um, “breaks”:

• There's a rumor running 'round that the new Dean of GW Law is going to be Richard D. Freer. I have absolutely no idea how reliable this information may be, but speculation is always fun.
• The second edition of Blawg Review is up at Likelihood of Confusion. There's an incredible amount of great content linked there, so if you have some free time, check it out. I'd especially like to follow up sometime soon on some of the great links in the “Law Blog Anschluss” section about whether blawgs are going to replace law reviews as the best sources of legal scholarship and commentary. De Novo is also currently running a symposium on the topic of law review... [link via Ditzy Genius]
• Monica at Buzzwords continues to make Alaska sound like paradise with a post about Moose Drills at the daycare center, the difference between a snowmobile and a snow machine, and “life in fishing villages and on isolated north pacific islands.” Oh, and if you don't believe Alaska is paradise, she's also got visual proof.
• Blawg Wisdom has been updated with a link to a great post from Divine Angst about applying to law school as a non-traditional student and link to a new review of Should You Really Be A Lawyer?
• Every single word written by the Public Defender Law Clerk is fascinating. Maybe I'll even be able to use some of these anecdotes in my crimpro final. (Don't laugh. It's a great way to rationalize reading blogs when I'm supposed to be studying.) Thanks to Luminous Void for the link.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I will return to my slow and methodical attempt to master the finer points of incorporation (um, for at least the third time in law school), retroactivity, and the 4th-6th Amendments.

Posted 02:21 PM | 2L lists

Save Phil! Today!

The Alliance for Justice has begun a campaign to save the filibuster, which includes a fun little flash animation pitting Phil A. Buster against the One-Party-Rule Bot. Very nice.

The AFJ is also holding a rally today at Georgetown law school to help focus public attention on the importance of the filibuster in the context of judicial nominations. Speakers will include Senators Dick Durbin, Edward Kennedy, Charles Schumer, and Joe Lieberman.

See you there?

UPDATE: Um, I didn't make it to the rally. It would be great to hear from someone who did...

Posted 09:18 AM | ai action alerts

First Last Time?

It's hard to believe, but about eight hours from now I will never have another 2L class. I can't exactly say I'm sad about that. It's hard to believe, but there it is.

On Monday I was sitting in a line at the Financial Aid office talking w/some of the other people in the line about the whole process and one of them said, “well, at least this is the last time we have to apply for financial aid.” The 2Ls nodded and agreed that that was a good thing. Then, a few seconds later, the woman who had first made the comment seemed to realize what she'd just said. “This is my first last time!” she exclaimed.

And it's true, sort of. Technically, there are lots of “first last times” in law school: Your first last time to have a first class, your first last time to apply in the first place, etc. Still, it's nice to think I will never have to apply for law school financial aid again. I think. I mean, I might have to apply for a bar loan, but that's different. I will never have another 2L class. I will never have to wonder if I'm going to get a GW summer grant. What else? I'm sure there are more “last times” coming, and I look forward to them.

For now, it's that bittersweet time when it's thrilling to be done with classes, yet almost sad at the same time. I was especially sad to see Fed Courts and Crim Pro end yesterday. Both of them were great (if maddeningly difficult at times) classes taught by absolutely superb professors, and both of those professors offered parting words of advice at the end of the last class.

Prof Fed. Courts had two tips, which I paraphrase as follows:

• True power lies in the ability to achieve a purpose. When you graduate from law school, you have power and privilege. You can help people, give a voice to people who would otherwise not be heard, to effect social change. I encourage you to think about how you want to use this power. Don't just make money; think about how you can use this power.
• Don't ever stop being a student.

Excellent advice, I thought.

What Prof CrimPro had to say was also very memorable. He joked that one of the few ways he has to measure his success is in how confused he makes students about what they “really” think, so he judged the class successful b/c many students over the semester had come to him to say things like, “I thought I wanted to be a public defender but I don't know if I can defend these guilty people,” or “I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor but I don't know if I can prosecute these innocent people.”

But his overall message was that we, as lawyers (or future lawyers) are the guardians of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. “Be careful with our rights,” he said. And to paraphrase, he said: “What we have covered in this class are the rights that make us most free, those that define what it means to live in a free society. Some of them, and the debates about them, may be difficult to understand. Why should we protect the clearly guilty? But those of us who have faced power, and in its face felt lonely, or weak, or scared, perhaps we can understand. Imagine what it means to be suspected and prosecuted for a crime. Imagine United States v. You. W/out you the Bill of Rights is just a bunch of words on paper. With you, there's a chance that U.S. citizens can be both free and safe. Be careful, be brave, good luck.”

See, I told you these professors rocked.

Posted 09:03 AM | Comments (6) | 2L

Define “Rich”

Bruce Bawer, “a freelance writer living in Oslo,” wrote recently in the NY Times that, despite conventional wisdom, Norway is not the world's richest country. On the contrary, Norway and its Scandinavian siblings just perpetuation lies like this “to keep people believing that their social welfare system, financed by lofty income taxes, provides far more in the way of economic protections and amenities than the American system.”

Hmm. Could be. I really don't know. But I do know that the evidence Bawer uses to support his claims does not seem very convincing. That evidence? Norwegians don't get brand new cars every year or two like Americans, they commonly pack their lunches rather than popping out to the local deli at midday like workers in New York or Paris might, they do not order pizza every night for dinner, and gas costs (gasp!) $6/gallon. Does this mean Norway is not a “rich” country, or does it mean that it's not a wasteful and gluttonous country?

What I love most is Bawer's claim that Spaniards “live far better than Scandinavians” because Spaniards can buy alcohol much more cheaply. Yessir. There's no better measure of “wealth” and quality of life than how cheap the gin and tonics are.

Bawer does cite figures showing that the GDP (gross domestic product) of Norway and its citizens' “spending power” is lower than that in the U.S. That's not surprising, really. Norway doesn't sacrifice the health and welfare of its citizens and environment in order to squeeze out one more point of GDP like we do here in the U.S. You have to ask yourself: What good is that vaunted American spending power to the millions of Americans who can't afford health care?

Posted 07:25 AM | Comments (4) | general politics

Does this mean I have delusions of grandeur?

Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

[another fun procrastination, this one brought to you via Blonde Justice]

Posted 08:04 PM | Comments (3) | life generally

Summer School!?

Speaking of money, GW gave me no funding this summer to help out as I work for free at the public defender's office. I was at first pretty miffed about this; I mean, if helping raise over $60k to support public interest law at GW doesn't qualify you for a summer grant, what will?

But then I thought, hey, there could be very good reasons I didn't get any money. For example, they gave me money last year, so maybe they want to spread it around a little, which is good. Also, maybe the committee could see that I'm already going to pursue a public interest career, regardless of whether they encourage me by giving me money, so it figured the money would be better spent encouraging someone else. Fine. That last is a slightly perverse rationale since it seems to punish people who demonstrate a real commitment to public interest, but whatever. I don't have any knowledge of how the committee made its decisions; these are just possible rationales that I thought of and they made me feel a little better as I fished in my wallet and found only lint. For all I know they simply looked at GPAs and filtered that way.

But like I said: Whatever. I have to pay the rent this summer, and the only way to get a loan for the summer is to take at least three credits, so hello summer school! I'm so excited to get to take a class or two while I work 40 hours/week this summer! That is so awesome!! I mean, wow! What could possibly be better!?!

Grrrrr.

Posted 09:08 AM | Comments (11) | 2L

Money Milestone

The deadline for financial aid applications at GW is tomorrow and, of course, I'm just getting around to filling everything out. There's a reason I put this off: Filling out all these forms forces me to face the fact that I have sold my soul. Exactly to whom or what I sold my soul, I'm not sure (did I have a meeting a couple of years ago with Satan, or was that just a dream?), but it certainly does not belong to me any longer.

For the record, today I officially owe the government and various banks just over $100,000. Yeah, that's six figures. Quite an achievement, don't you think? About 1/4 of that is not accruing interest at the moment; the rest grows like every day like some mutant spawn. Including that interest and what I will have to borrow in the coming year, the total should approach $150k before all is said and done. Cool.

You know those counters that show the national debt skyrocketing? I think someone needs to devise one of these for students so we can program in our loan amounts and interest rates and watch our debt grow. Yeah. And we can post these things on our blogs and show the world how poor stupid we are.

How much do you owe? Generally when you hear people bragging about money it's because they have some surplus of it, but hey, I'm all about making lemonade here. Shall we start a $100k and more club?

Posted 10:21 PM | Comments (13) | 2L law school

Sounds Superfine to me

Your Inner European is Swedish!

Relaxed and peaceful.
You like to kick back and enjoy life.

Who's Your Inner European?

I actually think my Inner European is Finnish, but Sweden would be fine. If I could fit my whole music collection on my stupid toy hard drive I would be listening to the Replacements, "Anywhere Is Better Than Here" right now. Writing this paper blows.

(Thanks to Denise for helping me procrastinate by linking to this poll...)

Posted 08:59 PM | Comments (2) | life generally

Stepping up to the G4

Hi. This is a new G4 iBook speaking. Can you hear this Panther roar?

Right. Enough marketing-made-OS-naming-convention silliness. The deal is, I got a new computer and I know you just can't wait to hear all about it. ;-)

First, as I mentioned here, the old iBook started showing some strange behavior a couple of weeks ago. At first I thought it was just because the hard drive was full; I've been running on 2GB or less free disk space for some time, playing a constant game of backup and delete to make sure I keep at least that much free. (Mac OS uses free hard drive space for virtual memory so if you hard drive is too full, the whole OS can grind to a crawl or a halt b/c the system basically runs out of memory. This is especially a problem on something like the 2001 iBooks which had a max RAM capability of 640 MB—not really enough for OS X.) Still, I had been playing this game for some time when the computer started locking up for no apparent reason, and up to that point I hadn't really had any problems. The last time my computer had random lockups was when the hard drive was failing in the summer of 2003.

Do hard drives typically only last two years or less? Possibly, but I would be surprised if the problem was in the drive because the computer still seems to start up fine; it's only the monitor that doesn't seem to work any more. If I start it up and listen to the disk activity, it sounds like it's starting up normally. I can login (blind using keyboard only), and once it's all started up, I can start and use programs via keyboard commands (thanks to Quicksilver). For example, I can use the iBook as a really big iPod because I can start up iTunes and listen to music, but again, no screen. The computer also boots into firewire disk mode so I can retrieve information from it, but still the screen shows nothing, not even a faint image, just black. And then, every once in a great many restarts, the screen decides to turn on, and once it's on, it stays on and functions fine until I shut down or let the computer go to sleep, and then the screen won't come back to life again. Not good.

Is this a bad backlight? A poor connection between screen and logic board? I don't know; the extended warranty expired last December so Apple has nothing to say to me. The "genius" at the Apple Store just sort of smiled and said "could be" to all of my theories about what went wrong, although the consensus seems universal that this doesn't sound like the infamous logic board problem I mentioned before. I don't have the time right now to try to fix it (nor is it worth spending much money on), but once the craziness of the end of the semester is over I will play with the connection between screen and logic board and see if I can make it work more consistently. (Thanks for the suggestion Mr. R. I've also tried all the non-invasive tips mentioned here, but to no avail.)

So the old 2001 iBook has been replaced with a new 2004 iBook. It's the base model, which means it cost me an even $1k. I've ordered 1GB of RAM to max it out at 1.2GB, so the total comes to $1150. In 2001 I paid $1495 for the iBook, plus $125 to max the ram (at 640MB), for a total of $1620, so that's nice.

Some thoughts on the new iBook:

• The keyboard feels a little stiff, but that's probably because it's new. The keys are also opaque and PC-esque, while those on my old iBook were transparent and cool. But the opaqueness might be better in the long run b/c it shouldn't show dirt and grime quite so much. My old keyboard was pretty disgusting. Speaking of which, the "C" key on the old keyboard is totally blank—the printed letter was long ago worn away completely by my constant use of command-c. The S, D, and L keys are also mostly gone, as is the comma.
• As kmsqrd noted in the comments to the last post, the standard 30GB drive on the iBook is perversely small, especially considering it comes loaded with over 15 GB of stuff! That makes it, effectively, a 14GB drive. Yeah, that's perfect for a "digital hub." Not. Unfortunately, Apple's retail stores do not sell iBooks with anything but the 30GB drive; to get a 60 or 80GB drive you must order from the Apple Store online. I was a little panicked and wanted a replacement computer right away so I figured I could make do with the small drive. I've since learned that the only way to upgrade the drive w/out voiding the warranty is to have it done by an authorized Apple specialist (not an Apple store), and even then the drive won't be covered by Apple's warranty, but the rest of the computer will be. Now I'm thinking I should have just ordered from Apple online; I'd have the machine now and it would have plenty of drive space. Yes, my impatience made me dumb. I guess I'll continue to play the backup and delete game!
• Not surprisingly, this machine is much faster than my old one. It will be even more so when the RAM arrives. Going from a 600Mhz G3 to a 1.2Mhz G4 will do that.
• This iBook has an internal CD-burner, which may not sound like a big deal, but trust me, this is like a huge technological leap for me. My old iBook had no internal burner, so I had an external USB burner (anyone want that?) and it took 30-40 minutes to burn an average CD. Then, with some OS upgrade around last summer, my external burner became unusable b/c it didn't have a memory buffer and the OS was suddenly requiring that. So since last summer, I've had no CD-burning abilities, which was a drag, certainly. Now I can burn CDs in a matter of minutes. Is there anything I can burn for you? ;-)
• I do not like the Lucida Grande-like font staring at me from below the screen. I preferred the old Serif font, whatever it was.
• I have already ordered my "free" upgrade to Tiger.
• I'm happy to now have iLife '05 and I'm thrilled to finally have a computer that can actually run those apps (esp. iMove and Garageband) without spending most of its time in beachball mode.

That's probably much more than you wanted to know already, but I did want to thank everyone for their comments on the last post, including the buying tips for a replacement computer. My decision was based on the following:

• I wanted a replacement ASAP.
• I wanted a portable. I found an incredible deal on a desktop— 17" 1.8Ghz G5 iMac w/superdrive, airport card installed, and Applecare extended warranty for only $1349! It was hard to pass up such a great deal, but, well, it's tough to fit an iMac into a book bag to take to school.
• I wanted the "ruggedness" of the iBook, as well as its small size. I seriously considered the 12" G4 Powerbook, but I decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, the prices start considerably higher and I didn't think I'd really appreciate the extras you get for that cash (except for the larger hard drive and extra RAM). Second, Applecare costs $100 more for Powerbooks than for iBooks, and it's basically required for a laptop. (I still have to buy it for my new iBook, but I'm putting it off for now in hopes that I'll have the money for it later in the year.) Third, I assume that the slightly smaller size of the Powerbook means it has less internal padding and "stuff" to protect the machine from abuse (I could be wrong) and carrying a computer to and from school every day gives it plenty of that, so I figured the iBook was the best choice.

So while I seriously considered the Powerbook and the iMac, the iBook won again. You can be sure I'll have plenty to say in the future about whether this was the right decision, but for the moment, I'm just happy to be computing w/out a care again. Now if my new computer would just write my paper and prepare my presentation for me (both due Monday), I'd be set.

Posted 12:42 PM | Comments (7) | mac geek

Bury Me Deep

All right, now's your chance. My trusty iBook, the one I've used nearly every day since December 2001, has apparently died. Oh, and as I've mentioned, finals, final presentations, and final papers are all coming up next week. Joy. This means that if you have ever been on the receiving end of my gloating about how great my Mac and OS X are, if I have ever left a snarky comment on your website about how much better your life would be if you would have bought a mac... well, here's your chance for some payback. I hereby invite you to hurl all those snarky comments right back at me b/c yes, it's true, my trusty Mac failed at just about the worst possible time.

I think maybe it was a Dell in sheep's clothing.

To be specific, the computer actually works fine, but the screen is black, and that kind of makes it hard to use the computer. The machine may have fallen victim to the notorious logic board failure for which Apple basically issued a recall. If my computer would have had this problem one month ago, Apple probably would have repaired it for free. However, since my computer decided to work for the last month, and the repair program ended March 15th, well, too bad for me. Thanks, Apple.

But it's not so bad. If I had an external monitor I could still use the machine, but I don't, so right now I'm typing this on my exam Dell. This means that I'm not too concerned here because all my data remains intact and accessible -- I just have to put the iBook in disk mode and hook it up to another mac to copy anything I need. Also, I just backed up everything important on Saturday, so I'm good there. The real problem is just that all that data is pretty much dependent on having a mac, and since I currently only have a PC, that's kind of a problem. Expect ai to be coming to you soon from some other Mac OS X machine, probably a G4 iBook, since that's the most acceptable upgrade I can get right away. There are some sweet deals on 17" 1.8 Ghz iMacs right now, but they would be a little hard to take to school with me, so I'm thinking another iBook is the way to go.

But hey, that's all for tomorrow. Today is your chance to remind me how much Macs suck, and you're not going to pass up an invitation like that, are you?

Posted 08:41 AM | Comments (18) | mac geek

Prosecutors Not Playing Nice:

Instead of whining (or am I whinging?) about finals, I'll suggest you look at this new Objective Justice group blawg, which I'm sure I've mentioned before. Its editor is seeking some feedback about whether NY prosecutors are acting improperly in their prosecution of Republican Convention protesters. My take: Yeah, the “mistakes” by the prosecutors here look pretty intentional, but intentional or not, this is just another reason why our regime of “law and order” requires good defense attorneys with enough resources to do the investigation to reveal these prosecutorial or police “mistakes.” And speaking of defense attorneys, Arbitrary and Capricious has a great link to a private investigator's take on both prosecutors and defenders. Here's a taste:

There is a general reason why prosecutors are more accepted than defense attorneys. In general, Prosecutors wear the white hats: They stand for law and order; they represent the State; they prosecute the guilty-atleast most of the time; they are public servants; they are on the side of the truth and the angels. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, generally represent defendants guilty of some wrong doing. (Thank the creator for that! Would anyone want to live in a community where most of the defendants were innocent?)

Amen to that. In addition to the great bit Skelly pulled out, the rest of the PI's piece is absolutely worth reading. It helps explain why prosecutors can get away w/more “mistakes” than defenders can and concludes that:

by zealously defending their clients, guilty, innocent, or somewhere in between, [defense attorneys] help preserve a system of justice that only rarely convicts the innocent.

Preach on, brother.

Posted 09:03 AM | Comments (2) | 2L

Finals: Cake

I was told yesterday that I should not whine about finals anymore because it makes my fellow law students nervous. Sorry about that. I'm sure it won't be so bad. I mean, I haven't started studying and my first final is two weeks away and I have three finals in two days and I still have to do my taxes and file my FAFSA and see if I can find some money to pay the rent this summer. Oh, and I have a paper due next Monday, and a 2-hour presentation to give that day in Feminist Legal Theory, and another 30-page paper due for that class by May 1 or so. So really, I don't think there's anything to be concerned about, do you? ;-)

Posted 08:09 AM | Comments (5) | 2L

U.S. Politics Has Definitely Jumped the Shark

I can't believe anyone is taking John Bolton seriously as a possible U.N. Ambassador, let alone getting ready to confirm him in that position. His attempts yesterday to explain his career of anti-U.N. vitriol were not even plausible, yet he's on his way to nomination? Again, I can't believe I can't believe this; it's nothing new. This comes from an administration that gave highest honors to the people responsible for massive intelligence failures, and an administration that has placed environmental protection in the hands of the oil industry, etc. Up is down, black is white, night is day, war is peace. I just can't track the insanity anymore and I remain convinced that is the secret to this administration's success: Sane people are so horrified by the things this administration does every day that we can't even formulate a coherent response. We've been paralyzed with horror and disbelief. If so, all this craziness is our own fault—a consequence of the failure of our imaginations, our inability to prepare for and respond to the avalanche of bullshit that has rained down upon us almost ceaselessly since Yubbledew was first propped up as a presidential candidate. It's our fault that we care about reality, and our mistake to insist that public discourse have some connection to at least a plausible account of history and the world around us. Damn, we suck.

Posted 08:43 AM | Comments (9) | general politics

Say Hello to Blawg Review!

Blawg Review, the new “carnival of the blawgs,” has just published its very first edition, hosted by Notes from the (Legal) Underground. This inaugural installment features dozens of great posts from lawyers, law students, and law professors, and covers a vast range of topics from cybersquatting to cookie monster to breastfeeding to billable hours—and more. Definitely some great reads there. If you haven't yet heard, Blawg Review is sort of a peer-edited collection of the self-nominated “best” that the blawg world has to offer each week. Or, as George's Employment Blawg put it, Blawg Review is about “making the best of the blawgosphere more accessible and enjoyable to read.” Blawgers nominate their own posts for inclusion (although I suppose you could always nominate someone else's posts, couldn't you?), then the “host” editor decides what to include in each week's review and organizes and presents those posts in whatever way he/she sees fit. The host changes each week, which means the style and emphasis of the review will probably change a little each week, as well. It's a neat idea, and will most definitely be worth checking in on each Monday (especially, ahem, on September 5th for the back-to-school edition, and September 29th for the I-don't-know-what edition). And, as the editors have frequently emphasized, the review will only be as good as the material that gets submitted, so keep that in mind as you post in the future and be sure to forward your best or favorite stuff (or, I suppose, stuff you'd just like to get before a wider audience) to Blawg Review, following the simple submission guidelines. Congratulations to Blawg Review on a great start!

Posted 09:17 AM | law general meta-blogging

Spring Finals Whine

Cherry blossoms are pretty. The end of semester is not. I want to go bike and be crazy. Yet here in the 'brary I rot. Finals, they loom like a nightmare. Yet reading is just such a chore! I pay for this “fun” that I can't bear, just so I can become a boor? Method there is in this madness? And how is that something you know? Just now I see only the badness, And how finals are going to blow!

Posted 05:47 PM | Comments (5) | 2L

Wisdom of Adams

Chapter 28 of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams reads:

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso fact, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not. And somewhere in the shadows behind them—who? Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?

Is it just me, or is this a pretty good summary of the summary of American politics in the last, oh, couple of decades? And related to the issue of how power circulates and the almost unimaginably awful consequences of the fact that it's never as it seems, The Long Emergency, a brief synopsis of where the world is at in terms of energy resources and consumption, is about the scariest thing I've read in a long time. If true, we're screwed. Sometimes I really wish I had a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic (more here) so I could just hitch a ride to another planet or something.

Posted 02:01 PM | Comments (4) | ai books general politics

EJF Auction: Ain't Sharing Grand?

Imagine the biggest classroom at your lawschool packed with over 200 people screaming, laughing, clapping, cheering, eating pizza, and drinking copious amounts of free beer. Now imagine some of your favorite faculty dressed up as characters from “The Wizard of Oz,” standing at the front of the room, and encouraging their students to bid hundreds of dollars on everything from a tour of the Supreme Court to shooting lessons with a professor. It was wild. It was woolly. It was the GW EJF Public Interest Auction and it was a smashing success. Thanks to the generosity of GW faculty and students, the EJF collected something over $30k yesterday, all of which will be disbursed in grants to probably around 10 students working non-paying, public interest legal jobs this summer. That may not sound like much to those of you at schools that routinely bring in twice that much at your public interest auctions, but it continues the tradition at GW of each auction doing better than the previous one, so it means we must be on the right track. Speaking of auctions that routinely bring in seriously big dollars, the Samples Collection points to Michigan's auction site, which includes a list of auction items. From a quick look at that list, I see one obvious difference between it and ours at GW: Michigan gets donations from firms, GW doesn't. Being a DC school means local firms routinely refuse to help us out in any way b/c if they give to us they'll feel obligated to give to Georgetown and American and UDC and Howard (all DC law schools). Or maybe they just give to G-town and give the rest of us the finger. I love the cover of the SFF's auction program; the whole thing is very polished and professional. It looks like MI gets more travel stuff -- flightseeing in Alaska, ranch visit in Nebraska, use of home in Nova Scotia, etc. We haven't had anything like that at GW in a couple of years. A few years back a generous prof donated a weekend at her beach house for 6 or 8 students; they apparently each brough 6-8 friends so there were 40-50 people there and they were all trashed for the entire weekend, pissed off the neighbors, and left the place half-destroyed. So that prof has never donated that item again and I think word has gotten around that GW students can't be trusted w/things like that. On a similar note, other profs are starting to put limits on their alcohol-related donations to make sure they don't get embarrassed by having to be at dinner in a nice restaurant with a group of completely drunk law students. Am I detecting a theme here that GW students aren't the most responsible drinkers? Continuing with the quick Michigan auction comparison: At GW we also have only one SCOTUS tour (we had it for the first time last year and got it again this year thanks to the incredible generosity of Prof Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy), while MI has a couple. I guess that's b/c MI has more people clerking for SCOTUS? Poker w/a prof is a good idea; we've tried to encourage this, but no prof has taken the plunge yet. Lunches or other meetings w/judges are a good idea; we don't get these, either, for some reason. Again, maybe part of the difference is that MI grads are better placed in clerkships or more alums are judges? I'm guessing MI also has a well-developed alumni outreach program that helps the auction bring in some of these kinds of items. My understanding of GW's alumni outreach is that it basically didn't exist until the last couple of years and since then it has tried to help a bit but so far that hasn't really paid off. The school administration also zealously tries to control any contact anyone related to the school makes with alumni or law firms b/c the administration wants to tap these people for donations to the school itself and fears that if they give to other things (like the auction), they'll give less to the school's general expenses. That's the message I've been given, anyway. Note to alums and firms: If you give to “GW Law School” generally, a huge portion of your gift might end up in the coffers of the university as a whole so the law school and law students may benefit little from that portion of your gift. If you give to the EJF everything you give goes directly to help students working in the public interest. The choice seems clear to me. ;-) Back to the comparison: Skydiving w/a prof!? Awesome. Boat rides on the great lakes? Cool, but we can't really do that in DC. Overall, GW auctions off a lot more “dinner and drinks w/a prof” or “pro sports event w/a prof” kinds of things than MI does, it looks like. We also auction shooting lessons w/a prof for 6 students, which generally goes over well, and a rather unique item we've had the last couple of years is “personalized sniper training for 4 students.” Yeah, weird, huh? Ironic that a DC law school would be doing something like this, but it brings in big dollars and it's all in the spirit of fun, so there you go. This little comparison reminds me: It would be great to provide a place for law school public interest groups around the country to have a place to share tips and ideas to make their auctions better. Gee, do I see yet another new blog in the future? ;-) If anyone wants to help get something like this going, BlawgCoop is ready to host....

Posted 09:50 AM | Comments (3) | 2L

GW EJF Auction Today!

When haven't been busy not reading and failing out of law school recently, I've been working behind the scenes to help ensure a successful EJF Public Interest Auction. The auction is today, and with 60 cases of beer, 150 large pizzas, costumes, a giant balloon rainbow, and gregarious faculty all set to entertain and auctioneer, it promises to be an absolutely awesome time. And that's not even mentioning some of the incredible donations on offer. I constantly complain about GW's support for public interest law, but I commend GW's faculty for stepping up at auction time to make this a real success. Thank you to all who have donated! See you at the auction! Note: Anyone can help support public interest at GW by donating via PayPal!

Posted 08:22 AM | Comments (3) | 2L law school

Cannot Read

I'm going to fail all my classes this semester. I seem to have developed an uncanny inability to read for any of my them. It's just not happening. I open books, I look at the pages, I close them again. Repeat. Nothing registers. It's like my brain is a bucket and it's full to the brim with caselaw and rules; I keep trying to pour more in but it just flows right back out and down the drain, so why bother trying to pour at all? Thus, this whole thing ends. The Imbroglio fails out of law school because he can no longer read. There's a poetry to that, don't you think? I have to run now and cringe though another class hoping my name does not pass the professor's lips. What good letters of recommendation? You mean, you have to convince professors you're hardworking and diligent and smart and capable in order to get good letters to get good jobs and clerkships? Damn! Why didn't someone tell me!? Oh yeah, they did. Ugh. The good news: Once I fail every class this semester at least I'll be spared the agony of a third and final year of this. But here's the worst part is: Law school doesn't really suck. A lot of this is very interesting material, but the bucket is just full. Or something. I don't know.

Posted 08:47 AM | Comments (9) | 2L

Crimlaw Clicks

Some great reads recently around the crimlaw blogs:

• Congratulations to Indiana Public Defender who just won a sweet “Not Guilty” verdict at trial after the jury deliberated only 19 minutes! “I guess they needed some time to pick a foreman and use the restroom before they set my client free.” You gotta love that.
• Courtroom 302, a new book about one Cook County, IL, courtroom and the U.S. criminal justice system generally, sounds like a great read. The review at that link was written by David Feige, who apparently has a book of his own called Indefensible coming out soon. His blog also looks terrific.
• I'm A PD's When your guts are thoroughly hated is a riveting and candid voire dire vignette about how one “bad seed” can spoil the whole jury pool and possible responses an attorney might have when she sees this beginning to happen. It includes the following speech I'm A PD gives her clients before going into trial:

  Sit up straight, pay attention, take notes (or pretend to), and look confident.  You're the ice man, got it? Stay cool, I got your back. And if I don't, you won't catch me getting upset, you see? I'm cool, you're cool.  Innocent people don't get phased by every little thing. There are going to be 24 eyes on you at all times. If anyone throws you a look, you let me know. If there's anyone in there that doesn't feel you, you let me know. They're going to assume you're guilty, don't let that throw you. Let them look at you. You got nothing to hide, and they'll see they're looking at an innocent man. Ice man, okay?

  That's awesome, and the rest of the post is a must-read for law students planning to do any criminal defense trial work. I'm A PD sounds like a great attorney; her aggressive interior covered by a cool cucumber exterior reminds me a little of the attorney I worked with last summer. She posted this a couple of weeks ago ... I hope the trial went well.
• Mike at Crime and Federalism links to this post about how to talk to a lawyer and adds a couple of extra points specific to talking to a criminal defender. Mike is also collecting recommendations for quality books and resources dealing with cross examination.
• Gideon at a Public Defender wonders why the legal community gives so many awards for pro bono work.

  No one ever gives awards to the Legal Aid lawyer, or the countless hard-working public defenders. So what is it about the big corporate attorney who provides pro bono representation that is so special?

  Gideon says the post has no point, but the point is perfectly clear to me. This is like the larger professional version of the legal education bias I've been discussing in the comments here—it's as if the whole practice of law is designed to default to BigLaw, and if you do anything else (including pro bono work if your a BigLawyer), it's like you're doing something “special.” And yet, if you do this “special” non-BigLaw full time, you're somehow not special. But then, perhaps this is nothing to get too bent out of shape about. While BigLawyers get plaques and mentions in the trade press for their pro bono efforts, I doubt those “awards” are as satisfying as the rewards public defenders and legal aid lawyers get every day from their full time service in the public interest. You think?
• Monica at Buzzwords sounds like she's still having a great time interning at a public defender's office in Alaska. She's so busy doing a trial by herself that she doesn't really have time to write about all her experiences, but that pretty much speaks for itself. Wow. Go Monica!

Posted 01:00 PM | Comments (1) | 2L lists

Arrogant and Out of Control

You know, I'm still surprised that I can be surprised by current political events, but today's Republican “leadership” just continues to amaze me. Check out what they're saying about the death of Terri Schaivo:

Joining DeLay in taking issue with the judiciary was Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who said, “The actions on the part of the Florida court and the U.S. Supreme Court are unconscionable.” Also, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina said the case “saw a state judge completely ignore a congressional committees subpoena and insult its intent” and “a federal court not only reject, but deride the very law that Congress passed.” DeLay said he would make sure that the GOP-controlled House “will look at an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president.”

First, you've clearly lost all perspective on how the American legal system works if you start declaring that it's “unconscionable” for judges to follow U.S. law and the requirements of the Constitution. Second, a U.S. Representative shows a grave lack of respect for both his own elected office and the judiciary by declaring that judges are “arrogant and out of control” just because they made decisions with which he disagrees. Such statements are not only reprehensible, they suggest a downright dangerous view of the principle of separation of powers. Would DeLay prefer a judiciary that simply asks “how high” every time Congress tells it to jump? Sorry, but our system is set up to give judges a healthy measure of insulation from political pressures precisely so that politicians can't tell judges how to decide controversial cases. Um, Tom? Maybe you should take a civics class or something, or maybe some pills. I'm sure there's some drug that could help with your egomania and delusions of grandeur. Finally, who is going to look into the arrogant and out of control Republican Congress that thumbs its nose at the Constitution and the American people? Sheesh.

Posted 09:48 AM | Comments (5) | general politics

Washington Lawyer: Do You Blog?

The Washington Lawyer's April cover story is entitled “Do You Blog?” Well, do you? The article was written by Sarah Kellogg and covers everything from the birth of blogs and RSS to the benefits and perils of professionals publishing online. It's a great article, but it would have been even better if it would have provided links to to all of the many blogs it mentions.* In case you'd like to check out the blogs mentioned in the article, they include:

• Bag and Baggage by Denise Howell
• CrimLaw by Ken Lammers
• Fourth Amendment by John Wesley Hall, Jr.
• May It Please the Court by J. Craig Williams
• The Blawg Review by Stephanie Tai (not to be confused with, um, Blawg Review
• My Shingle by Carolyn Elefant
• Dennis Kennedy's blog (Kennedy calls Kellogg's article the best article he's read on blawging)
• The Trademark Blog by Martin Schwimmer
• SCOTUSBlog from Goldstein Howe
• Ernie the Attorney by Ernest Svenson
• The Statutory Construction Zone by Gary O’Connor
• Environmental Law Net (which seems to stretch the definition of “blog” a bit, it seems)
• Underneath Their Robes by Article III Groupie
• Blawg Wisdom, which links to content from many law students and legal practitioners
• Reid My Blawg! by Reid Trautz
• And several others that are linked at the end of the piece...

I enjoyed talking w/Sarah a few weeks ago for this article, and I'm flattered to have been included among such company. I do have two small clarifications. First, the article suggests that Blawg Wisdom is where I keep a record of my progress through law school, but actually, to the extent that I do that at all, it's here, on ambivalent imbroglio. Blawg Wisdom is intended to aggregate the advice and experience of other law students. Second, I don't think I usually talk in the short, choppy sentences in which my quotes were rendered in the article. However, I've conducted enough phone interviews to know that sometimes a writer has to take small liberties to translate the interview into the article. In all, “Do You Blog?” is a great summary of where legal blogs have been, where they are at the moment, and where they might be headed—definitely worth checking out. *I had this same problem when I wrote “Join the Blawg Bandwagon” for Student Lawyer magazine. Here's a tip for editors: If you know an article is going to be published both in print and online, ask the writer for two versions—one complete w/links for the web, and one w/out links for print. Or just ask for the one with links and delete the links for the print version. Either way, you'll have a better product in the end.

Posted 07:51 AM | Comments (2) | law general meta-blogging