Procrastination

Instead of revising my first memo, reading, working on my legal research homework, or preparing for the ADR competition tomorrow, I'm being held hostage by the web's goodness. For example, who could tear themselves away from this letter slamming the hypocrisy and anti-competitiveness of Microsoft? And don't you want a MSfreePC? And whoa, Time Magazine's cover story this week is Mission NOT Accomplished. You know things are bad for Bush when you see Time shouting about it. Professor Cooper has the roundup on that, including a breakdown of the poll numbers.

In a more law-schooly vein, but also sticking with the anti-corporate fun, I'm loving the rants against Lexis and Westlaw at Three Years of Hell and MyShingle.com.

For great fun during a study break, you can't beat The Mr. Sanffleburger Corporation Children's Show! (I't a flash animation w/sound, so be careful if you're in a quiet office or library.) Conform. Consume. Obey. [link via TYoH]

Last night we had sangria and tapas at Jaleo, then we saw Lost in Translation, which was an incredibly great movie largely because it walked the line of being a horrible movie but just never really crossed over. In that' way it's a refreshing departure from the Hollywood norm, and it's also refreshing because its pace is human. Instead of relying on quick cuts and lame action scenes to keep viewers engaged, the movie relies on great character development to keep the plot moving. Both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give stellar performances. We were going to see School of Rock, but it was sold out. Lucky us; "Lost in Translation" was just that good. Highly recommended.

Ok. Must. Work. Now.

Posted 08:09 AM | Comments (3) | law school life generally

Second Amendment

The Boondocks today is awesome. Who among the textualists will explain to young Riley what the "framers" intended when they wrote that bit about guns?

Hmph. That's what I thought.

Posted 02:38 PM | Comments (1) | law general

Suits

Calling all cars! Calling all cars! The urgent question has become:

How long can a guy go in law school or a legal career without owning a suit?

Ok, quit laughing, will you? I'm serious. I don't own a suit. I never have. And after making it this far in life w/out owning or wearing the uniform of capital, I don't have any desire to start now. Yeah, that's right, the uniform of capital: Men run around trying as hard as they can to look identical in their black suits with "understated" and "dignified" leashes tied around their necks. They look ridiculous. And why do they do it? Who are they trying to please? The man.

A corollary to today's question: Is it possible to wear a suit and not be a tool?

And but so, maybe I'm joking a little, but I'm serious about the fact that I think suits look ridiculous and I'd really prefer not to ever own or wear one. I feel like Bartleby. I prefer not.

Damn.

Yesterday I listened to a guy lecture a group of 1Ls for 20 minutes on the rules of appearance for successful lawyers. The hair must be slicked like a movie star's, you must be clean-shaven, you must have a certain collar (not button-down; you want the ones w/the plastic in them to make them stand up right), you must not have a colored shirt w/white collar and cuffs (you're not a partner yet, idiot), your shirt must be white or light blue, you must wear a belt, your tie must be at the perfect link, you must remove earrings, you must wear shoes that can be polished and they must be polished (don't forget to polish the sides of the soles!). Speaking of shoes, if you look down and you can see the soles sticking out around the edges, you need new shoes.

The guy just went on and on. And he was serious. It was sickening. And yes, I know he's an extreme case, but I really just want no part of that kind of business.

Mr. Clothes was supposed to be giving us tips on the upcoming ADR competition, which I sort of stumbled into blindly. Apparently you've got to look as much like your colleagues as possible if you're going to negotiation an agreement with them. Who knew?

Posted 06:22 AM | Comments (6) | law school

Real Advice

I forgot to mention in the last post that Liable has some really excellent advice for 1Ls and pre-1Ls on her blog. I especially agree with the first point about briefing the heck out of cases—it helps tremendously. However, I've had to abandon that thorough briefing in the last week or two because there's simply no time for it, plus all the reading, plus the extracurriculars, plus all the legal writing stuff. Our first draft of our first memo was due this week and that took up the majority of last weekend. Thank goodness the memo was closed—we didn't have to do any outside research for it. As for extracurriculars, this week alone features meetings of the law dems, EJF, and NLG, the ADR (alternative dispute resolution) competition, the pro-bono fair, and legal observing at the IWFR rally. It's crazy. I'm learning to write shorter briefs.

Finally, Prof. CivPro gave some helpful advice yesterday about reading cases. Don't just read to find the issue, the holding, the reasoning, etc. Also look for what the case leaves unanswered. For example, if Shaffer v. Heitner says that a court cannot seize virtual property (stock in a corporate entity) to establish jurisdiction, does it say anything about real property? Think about how cases would be different if the facts changed slightly, and if the holding and reasoning would still apply to those changed facts.

Ok, I'm really going to read State v. Alston now. Erg.

Posted 05:20 AM | law school

Baby-stepping through law school

Early morning and I should be working on CrimLaw. And CivPro. And Torts—there's always more Torts ... so many little cases, each one refining the rule just a bit, giving you a twist on what seemed like a straightforward rule or area of law. The work in law school never ends, and it seems, in terms of quantity, to be getting harder. Yet, despite that, it's also getting a little better.

First, I'm starting to understand why I find it so hard to get stressed or really enthused about class. Classes are just too big and impersonal. After having spent three years in grad school for English, I'm used to doing lots of fairly complex reading, but I'm also used to being in small classes of 6-12 students which allow you to actually talk about and engage with the material you read. In grad school, I always knew that if I read closely and took good notes and grappled with the ideas the reading addressed, all that effort would be rewarded in class because I would be able to follow whatever discussion took place, and I would be able to contribute where it was appropriate. In law school, where most classes have 100 students, things are very different. Yes, if you read closely you can follow the discussion better and you'll get much more out of it, but you rarely (like a handful of times per semester) get the satisfaction of actually entering that discussion to test your ideas, put forward your own theories, make the material your own.

My takeaway lesson: Law school classes can be a very passive exercise; however, since you'll get more out of them when you actually participate, you have to actively and consciously fight that passivity. Since it's unlikely you'll be called on to speak, you might get more out of class if you participate in your notes by writing down the hypotheticals, then trying out your own solutions to the problems before your classmates arrive at the "right" answer, which the professor will then confirm he wanted. You have to read closely in advance to be able to do this effectively, so there's some incentive to stay on top of things.

I've also begun to see that there really are a lot of parallels between literature and law. One of those is the way they're taught. As a teacher of introductory literature classes, it took me a while to get used to how slowly and methodically I had to baby-step students through the basic elements of a story or novel: Who are the characters? What is the setting? What's at stake for the characters? (What's the plot?) Why do you think the story does X, when it just as easily could have done Y? How does this story fit in its cultural and historical context? Now, in law school, I see my own professors doing the same thing I did with my students, but instead of baby-stepping us through short stories and novels, my law profs are baby-stepping us through cases: What are the facts? What was the issue? What was the holding? On what reasoning did the court base its holding? How does this case fit into the larger development of its area of the law?

While I often appreciate the slow pace of this method (no, I don't want anymore reading, thanks), I'm also frustrated by the fact that it leaves so little time for any sort of critical reflection or meta-discussion of the material. While Liable says it sounds like my classes focus a lot on policy, I don't think they spend nearly enough time on the big-picture issues and the "invisible" (taken for granted) assumptions on which the law is based. For example, what are the social and political implications of the fact that punishment in our criminal justice system is largely based on utilitarian justifications? What are the alternatives and why have we ended up with this system over others? Or why are economic incentives so vital to the law of torts, and what implications does tort law's emphasis on economics have for culture and society? In contracts, who gains and who loses when courts decide to prefer an "objective theory" of contracts over any other?

My takeaway lesson: I'm sure there are classes in law school that attempt to engage these questions—at least I hope so—but I bet they come later, in the second or third year. Try to be patient and master the fundamentals; then you'll be better prepared for all that meta stuff to come. If you're impatient like me, perhaps recognizing that impatience will make the whole process easier by reminding you that you have to walk before you can run.

Posted 04:16 AM | law school

Ashcroft's Punishment Obsession

Attorney General John Ashcroft really, really wants to hurt people, but he doesn't seem to care about the practical effects of his obsession with harsh punishment. I didn't have to start law school to see that federal minimum sentences can be very problematic, and that trying to limit the judiciary's discretion in sentencing could dramatically change our criminal justice system for the worse. Stephen Saltzburg, a professor from my very own school, sums it up best:

"Law and order, tough on crime, tough on sentencing is still the popular way to go," he said. "It doesn't make it right."

This is why academic debates about just punishment are so frustrating; it doesn't matter if lots of law professors, law students, judges and even politicians understand that excessive sentences aren't good for society. So long as the majority of Americans believe that "tough on crime" means more prisons with more prisoners serving longer sentences, we'll continue to hold the honor of being the most punitive people in the Western world. Ah, and what an honor that is.

Man, I better go read my CrimLaw...

Posted 06:11 AM | general politics law school

Does Clark hurt Dean?

According to the Washington Post, some Dean supporters are changing allegiances since Clark joined the race. I'm still trying to figure that out, and the only reason I see to prefer Clark is his military background. However, I still question the basic assumption that someone with experience as a warrior would make a good President. I just don't think people have thought this through very well. For example, the Post article says:

Lynne Pedersen of Meredith, Mass., was holding Draft Clark signs when the novice candidate arrived in Manchester [NH] on Friday. A registered independent who usually votes Democratic, she said, "I'm looking for a security blanket for our country, and I don't think any of them [the other Democrats] represent it, but Wesley Clark does."

Now think about that for a minute. What is a "security blanket for our country"? Isn't a security blanket something very young children cherish because they believe it somehow protects them or makes their lives better? In other words, isn't a security blanket merely a false sense of security? Why do we want a false sense of security for our country? No thanks. I'd prefer someone who's spent his life helping people and who has a proven track record to back up his policy positions. At least until we see more from Clark about what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. I mean, the guy does come across amazingly well on tv, but that's not all that's necessary to be a good President, nor is being able to fight wars.

Meanwhile, it looks like Dean is ready to take Clark on. Yesterday on CBS Dean said:

"I think that Wes Clark is, first of all, a good guy," Dean told CBS's "Face the Nation." But Dean added, "I think what you see in the Wes Clark candidacy is a somewhat of a desperation by inside-the-Beltway politicians."

"You've got a lot of establishment politicians now surrounding a general who was a Republican until 25 days ago," said Dean.

Hmm. So does this mean all hope is gone for a Dean-Clark ticket? Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure neither of them was ever too interested in playing second fiddle, anyway.

Posted 06:16 AM | Comments (2) | election 2004

New Find

Brian Leiter, of "Educational Quality Ranking of U.S. Law Schools" (aka, the Leiter rankings) fame, has a blog. This may be old news to you, but it's new to me, and very welcome. See, for example, his discussion of legal realism, about which I hope to say more shortly.

Unfortunately, he's not linking to any other blogs, so we can't follow his brain around to see what he's reading (although he may not read blogs much, anyway). He also isn't opening his posts to comments as far as I can tell, which is too bad. Still, it should be a great resource. Welcome to blogging, Professor Leiter!

Posted 05:15 PM | Comments (1) | law general

Say No to Bush Hatred

It seems that as Democrats start to see their fortunes waxing, some are venting their frustration at the last few years of Republican excess by declaring their hatred of George W. Bush. The editors of The New Republic and The National Review recently engaged in an extensive debate on the subject, and while I haven't read all they've said, I can say that I think hatred, and particularly personal hatred, is the wrong channel for the Democrats' anger and resentment.

Bush is merely an exponent of an agenda that is antithetical to both democracy and to Democrats—the conservative agenda that values personal profit above all else. In this way, today's conservatives (who are very different from conservatives past) are simply antisocial; they oppose society's best interests because they see those interests as conflicting with their own. Democrats (or liberals or progressives or whatever term you want to use) see this as a myopic view, to say the least, and yes, it can be infuriating.

What's more, Bush lied and is lying. That's enough to make anyone mad. Even Congress is finally admitting there wasn't enough evidence to go to war in Iraq, although admittedly Congress is trying to blame the "intelligence community" for Congress's own failure to exercise its Constitutional responsibility to put a stop to the executive's war madness. But that only emphasizes the fact that we should never trust our elected officials—not a single one of them. Rather than trust them to do the right thing, we need to actively ensure that they do the right thing by being more active and vocal in the political process and by voting them out when they don't. Today's conservatives have a nice gimmick about trust, though. They say socialism is inherently doomed to failure because human beings are inherently self-interested. This isn't true, but it's one of America's cultural fictions and the vast majority of Americans believe it. And yet, if human beings are inherently self-interested, then we have to assume that politicians, including Bush, are also inherently self-interested; therefore, when they say, "trust us, we're doing what's best for you," we have to assume that they're lying, because they've already told us that they're only going to do what's best for them.

Anyway, all of this is enough to make a more liberal thinker's blood boil, but hatred is a poor solution. Instead I recommend we channel our energies in better directions. Let's start with determination to elect better leaders, and to ensure those leaders are accountable to the people who elected them. This may not solve all our problems, but it's a start.

Posted 07:29 AM | Comments (2) | election 2004 general politics