Goodbye Contracts I

The Contracts final yesterday was about as fun as standing beneath a shower of canned goods for three hours, but it's over. Stay of Execution says it's normal to feel like you've been dragged behind a bus after you take a final. I didn't really get that feeling after the Torts final last Tuesday, but yesterday, yeah, kinda like that.

For the entire semester I sat in Contracts class and thought how simple and easy it all seemed, but then I got to the exam and, well, let's just say I had a great teacher who made it look easy. I've learned a lot this semester about what I need to study and how I need to study it, and especially about how to organize my notes and outline as I go, so I'll look forward to Contracts II next semester. I mean, I don't have much choice, do I?

Now it's time to party on to Crimlaw and CivPro. Both are 3-hour funfests; Crimlaw will allow book only (no notes or additional materials), while CivPro is open note, open book. I'm kind of looking forward to Crimlaw—it's been my favorite class all year. But CivPro? Mega-ugh. If anyone out there likes CivPro, I'd love to hear something that might make me care about this subject. I mean, the way my prof taught it, the whole subject seems to be a way for lawyers and parties to avoid dealing with the merits of disputes by screwing around with procedural hocus pocus. Sure, jurisdiction and the due process the rules are ostensibly meant to ensure are vital the justice of our system, but in my ideal world, I'd be able to leave the procedural issues to someone else. If wishes were fishes....

Posted 06:26 AM | Comments (1) | law school

Bye, Bye, Torts; Hello Contracts

Torts exam is history. Thank goodness. It wasn't so bad; 6 single-spaced pages of a fact pattern revolving around the mishaps of two rich California heiresses spending a month on a back-country farm for a "reality television" program (a.k.a. "The Simple Life"). Yay. The exam was divided into four parts. First, one of the girls got into a "scuffle" with her host mother, who then locked her in her room for the night without dinner. Assault? Battery? False Imprisonment?

Second, one of the girls brought her pet dog, who was carried off by her host farmer's dog, who turned out to have rabies. The dog bit the girl. Possible issues of negligence on the part of several people (including, potentially, the cameraman who was witnessing everything, but case against him probably weak).

Third, the girls made a bet with each other to see if they could get the two brothers in their host family to fight over them. Possible IIED? The boys did fight. Possible intentional torts? Other issues were embedded in here as well.

Finally, the girls went out one night and bought alcohol—negligence per se on the part of the store that sold the beer because there was a statute forbidding such sale to minors. The girls then went drinking and driving (negligence?), had to swerve to avoid a rock that had fallen in the road because of a coal mine's recent blasting activities (strict liability for ultra-hazardous activities?), swerved again to avoid hitting a deer (hooray for intervening causes to make causation simply impossible!), and ended up running off the road and straight into someone's living room.

There were lots of other issues in there, and I'm sure I missed many and analyzed others poorly, but the important thing is, it's over. It's also curved, so how poorly could I have done? Nearly 9 pages of typing in 3 hours, 3,900 words (Extregity is so abysmal, but at least it has a word and page counter), and it's over. Over. Bye, bye Torts! I will not miss you.

Now, on to Contracts, tomorrow at 2 p.m. Offer? Acceptance? Status to contract? Fraud, misrepresentation, duress? Is a writing required? Would restitution be appropriate? Ugh.

But you know, it's actually great to finally be taking exams. It's like a relief. People have been warning me for about a year about how hard the first year of law school is, about how the exams are so horrible. And no, they're not really fun (although, if you knew you weren't being graded, you might be able to enjoy the sort of adventure sleuthing aspect of picking up clues to spot issues and the remedies/arguments your professor has embedded in the facts), but none of it's really that bad. I will live, and I'll live a lot better when these silly rituals are over. I've been spending time longing for a paper to write instead of exams to study for because I'm better at thinking more slowly and in depth than I am at memorizing and spilling my brains out on a tight schedule, but the great thing advantage exams have over papers is this: If you just wait long enough, exams will be over. And that's true. Regardless of what I do for the next week, by noon on Thursday, December 18th, I'll be finished with the first semester of law school, and I have to say that will be a wonderful thing.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll study a little...

Posted 09:48 AM | Comments (4) | law school

Gore's Endorsement of Dean

Of course I think this is a great thing. It may not quite be worth $100 million, but I doubt it's going to hurt. Some people are saying it means bupkis, and if Gore had been sitting around doing nothing since the 2000 election debacle, I'd be tempted to agree, and even to fear that Gore's endorsement might hurt Dean. However, as Joe Conason notes, Gore's thinking seems to have changed since the 2000 election debacle. If you don't think so, check out the speeches he's given in the last year (one in September 2002, another last August, and another just last month which I attended).

Scott Rosenberg has a good response to those who say that Dean simply isn't electable : they were wrong before when they said Dean had no chance of winning the nomination, so why should we listen to them now?

Some people seem to think the race for the nomination might be over—and that was even before Gore's endorsement. They might be right, but it would certainly be foolish for the Dean campaign to start working on that assumption. As everyone kept saying at last night's debate, nothing's over until the votes have been cast; even if Dean wins Iowa (possible) and New Hampshire (seemingly certain), he's looking a bit sad in South Carolina, and there are many more races he needs to win before he could take the nomination. Check out the most recent Pew Poll for a breakdown of the early primary numbers by race, class, gender, and education, among other variables.

FWIW, I think Kucinich was the hands-down winner of the debate last night. (Of course, his campaign thinks so, too.) Kucinich clearly nailed Koppel and ABC on their deliberate strategy to focus the debate on the process of campaigning rather than the issues. That process is important and certainly a worthy debate topic; one of the reasons Dean is getting so much support (I believe) is that he's saying that the way we elect leaders in this country is broken because elections are merely sold to the highest bidders, which are always corporations and special interests. See, for example, today's announcement that only countries that supported the war in Iraq will be allowed to bid on contracts there—that's not a move that's good for America, it's a move that's good for the corporations that put Bush and Co. in the White House. The medicare "reform" package that just passed is another, just as blatant example: HMOs will begin getting billions of dollars in payments from the federal government almost immediately, while the much-hyped prescription drug benefit—supposedly the reason for the whole bill—won't even begin for two more years. Can you say "pay-offs to corporate donors"? I knew you could. Oh, and don't forget the revolving door between government and industry—another way the money flows to control public policy.

Sorry. Tangent. The point is, if we hope to break the stranglehold those corps and interests have over politics, then yes, we need to reform the election process, and Dean seems to be doing that, so making the process at least some part of the debate was worthwhile. However, Kucinich's bigger score was to point out the way the media can manipulate campaigns through the questions they ask or don't ask, the things they emphasize or ignore. Kucinich showed he wasn't afraid to offend Koppel or ABC, and that willingness to stand up to the media is something we certainly need in a president. Finally Kucinich delivered a terrific little manifesto (near the bottom of the page) with his last comment linking the Iraq quagmire with problematic domestic issues:

I would suggest that Iraq is actually what this debate is about. And if you don't make the connection between the $155 billion we've spent in less than a year, the $400 billion in the bloated Pentagon budget and the fear that's driving this nation into greater and greater involvement in Iraq, if you don't make that connection, then you're never going to understand why we don't have money for health care and housing and education.

Our entire domestic agenda is at risk because of our occupation of Iraq. That's why I suggest it is urgent to put this on the agenda, to end the occupation, to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out. We want this country to be safe. We want this country to be secure. Our presence there is leading to greater instability. My administration, my election will be about the end of fear and the beginning of hope in America.

Yeah, I support Dean because I think he has the best shot of winning. But my real hope is that a Dean presidency will simply be a good step closer to the day when a candidate like Kucinich could actually be elected. That day just isn't here. For now, we've got to work with what we've got, and that's a front-running Dean who is saying many of the right things and, so far, is not prostrating himself before the altar of corporate financing, which is great. Today's Washington Post suggests the race might come down to a battle of Dean v. Clark. Part of the theory being that Gore has made a play to create a new "wing" of the Democratic party separate from the so-called "Clinton wing," which is thought to back Clark. And the race continues...

Posted 09:29 AM | Comments (3) | election 2004

Super Study Break

Have you noticed how many extremely fun things beg for your attention when you're supposed to be doing other things (like studying for finals)? There are so many diversions, it's hard to know where to begin.

But first things first: Be sure to chew gum during your exams! It supposedly improves your memory performance. Thanks to Ditzy Genius for the tip (and these other tips), and congrats to her as well for surviving exam numero uno.

On to study breaks and things to think about other than law school exams! First, Three Years of Hell (TYH), who is also studying, recommends the "I Hate Republicans" song, which is certainly entertaining, if a bit bracing. The same site (Bushflash.com) also created this "Mission Accomplished" animation, which it then adapted for the Dennis Kucinich campaign. TYH doesn't agree w/any of this, by the way, but it was nice of him to point it out.

In a similar vein, you might enjoy FOXed, which ingeniously combines that disconcerting "Matrix"-themed Poweraid commercial from last summer with clips from those fair and balanced folks at Fox. Sure, it's a 2.2 MB download, but you can study while you wait!

If you feel like doing something a little more than watching movies, you could chip in a few dollars to a good cause. Here's an appropriate one for me at the moment: "Procrastinators for Dean." Or donate something for the troops via a USO Care package. Donate in someone's name as a Christmas gift to them, or donate in your favorite candidate's name as a way to promote your candidate. Or just donate. It will build good karma that you can harvest on your exams.

Want a break from politics on your study break? Then take a gander at this gigapixel image of Bryce Canyon National Park. Very cool, but what will we do with gigapixel images? I mean, yikes, it's almost too much information, isn't it? And here's another great gift idea: The Pop-up Alice in Wonderland. If you don't feel like buying, you can listen to an interview with the bookmaker, or even better, make your own pop-ups!

Finally, you could begin getting into the Christmas spirit by reading or listening to John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story (sappy/touching), or listen to David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries (hilarious).

I'm off to a torts final soon. I just hope no one assaults me along the way. Again, good luck to all test-takers!

Posted 09:43 AM | Comments (2) | law school life generally

Torts Nightmare

I'm not very well prepared for finals, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised I'm starting to have nightmares about them. Last night it was torts. First, at a Q & A between my entire 1L section and the dean and our other professors, I raised my hand and asked, "Are we supposed to be getting a general introduction to torts in our first semester, because all we got was negligence and strict liability. Isn't there more?" ProfTorts (in my dream) responded, "I'm glad you asked that; we're going to cover everything else today."

Then I got lost on the way to class.

When I finally got to class, ProfTorts had a surprise for us. Without saying a word, he simply started handing out exams! Everyone around me started working industriously on theirs, but I could only stare at mine in disbelief. This was supposed to be the review session! ProfTorts looked at me and smiled. "I thought we'd just get it over with," he said.

Finally, I imagined I typed my exam on a PDA-type device (like a Palm), and that there was no way for me to print it out or transmit a copy to my professor. Total nightmare.

I think I better study harder. Torts final is tomorrow. I'm wondering about suing myself for negligence in exam-taking. My theory of negligence is that I should have studied at least two more hours every day since November 25th (just before Thanksgiving). If I run the BPL, it seems that the cost of such a precaution would have been fairly low—I probably would have simply needed to cut my web-surfing time and studied instead. Meanwhile, the likelihood that I'll do poorly on exams because I didn't study those extra two hours seems rather high, and the seriousness of the injury I'll incur by doing poorly also seems pretty high (though certainly debatable). I suppose those two variables would be left to the jury; what would a "reasonable person" say?

Is there such a thing as a reasonable person when it comes to deciding how much studying for law school finals is sufficient? You certainly couldn't use a "reasonable law student" because, on this question at least, that would be a contradiction in terms. Some law students would certainly be panicked if they'd studied the same amount as I have, but then, perhaps those people aren't khaki. It's so true: No one sees my grand master plan!! But will that be a sufficient defense if I'm found negligent?

My defense against my theory of negligence might be that law school grades are infamously arbitrary; more studying does not necessarily mean better grades. Therefore, it's a mistake to assume that my negligence caused my bad grades. Other possible explanations include the capriciousness of the grader, what I had for lunch before the exam (what should I have? I wonder...), and the fact that I had to use a Windoze computer to take the exam. It's been statistically proven that people who use Windoze are less likely to be smart. (Ok, I made that up. Is it ok to make stuff up on exams?)

Here's another question: Would failing your law school exams allow you to use a res ipsa loquitur argument to get to a jury in your negligence action against yourself? But for the fact that you can't sue yourself, I think so. I mean, it's pretty much a given that if you study, you'll pass, so failing would likely give rise to an assumption that someone has been negligent, don't you think?

Posted 06:02 AM | Comments (5) | law school