Sign up Now for the EJF 5K!

If you're going to be in DC this Saturday, March 26th, please plan to participate in the GW EJF Race for Justice 5K Run/Walk to benefit the GW Loan Reimbursement Assistance Program (LRAP). All proceeds will help enable GW law grads to work in the public interest by helping them pay back their law school loans. Sign up today! (Ed. Note: This entry has been post-dated so it will remain atop this page for the week. Oh, and because it's related and because it's so damned cool, check out the 2005 EJF Auction website, too!)

Posted 10:17 AM | Comments (1) | 2L

Buzzwords in Alaska

Hear ye! Hear ye! The latest edition of Ambivalent Voices features a conversation with Monica of buzzwords in which we talk about the lawyerly art of waiting, the awesome possibilities of student practice permits, the amazing beauty of Alaska, the cost of living in Alaska, and the Northeastern cooperative education plan that allows Monica to be in Alaska while most law students are still sitting in classrooms. Click below to listen, or right-click to download the mp3.

For more about Monica's great Alaska experience, be sure to read Alaska Update and Men In Jail. It sounds like Monica is having an incredible time in Alaska, and it just keeps getting better—as we speak, she's probably in trial! While you might not be lucky enough to be working in Alaska at the moment, if you would like to be part of a future episode of Ambivalent Voices, please drop me a line. (Use the email link in the top right of this page.) As I learned yesterday, you get more bees with honey, and what could be sweeter than an ambivalent podcast? Technotes: This podcast was recorded by phone via Slapcast.com. I added bumpers via Garageband (using loops that come w/the program) and compressed the mp3 in iTunes. To subscribe to Ambivalent Voices in a podcast aggregator, add this link to your aggregator's subscription list. You can access these recordings via the Ambivalent Voices Slapcast page, or find the local posts about each recording conveniently collected in the voices category here on ai.

Posted 08:29 AM | Comments (1) | voices

And There Is So Much Goodness

• Guess who is going to be a DC Law Student In Court next year! The interview was great, the job is likely to be even better. Yeah, the imbroglio is very happy today. ;-)
• Blawg Wisdom today features a request for wisdom on 2L scheduling. Please head on over and throw your two cents into the comments to help out a fellow law student!
• Blonde Justice recently asked for stories about bad prosecutors and sparked a lively debate, which Woman of the Law joined with gusto here and here. Awesome stuff. And also, congratulations to Woman of the Law on her job offer!
• Alaskablawg has an excellent post for law students and young lawyers explaining why lawyers might consider a career in criminal defense. I've been saving this because I wanted to write a more lengthy post about it, but since I have no idea when I'll have time for that, I'll just let it speak for itself.
• Properwinston says the peeps behind Law School Can Be Different (LSCBD) are “just mildly confused and highly ignorant about jurisprudential matters.” He shows he knows everything about everything in his more detailed critique of the LSCBD problem statement. My initial thought after reading around Properwinston a bit is that one problem with the concept of false consciousness is that it encourages people to think they have true consciousness. Another is that pompous condescension does little to advance thinking or debate on any issue. And also, I think there are some points worth more attention buried in all that self-righteousness.
• On the subject of LSCBD, Legal Sanity offers some helpful links and thoughts.
• Objective Justice is a new group blawg “dedicated to the objective pursuit of justice in law, politics, economics, and culture.” I have no idea what that means, but it may have something to do w/the quote from Ayn Rand at the bottom of the page. The site also claims it wants “to create a resource for law students and the public to analyze issues that are socially devisive” and that it “is friendly to those of any ideology,” so you may want to check it out.
• Heidi has a good post and lively discussion of the Schaivo situation, including a link to this great timeline of important developments in the case.
• Um, John Edwards is podcasting. Does this mean I can't do it anymore?

Posted 08:13 AM | Comments (5) | 2L lists

Busted by the Cop

So I was all set to regale you with tales direct from the mouth of one of DC's finest after a cop visited my CrimPro class yesterday.... And it was good, let me tell you. Some of the things he said would either blow your mind or confirm some of your worst suspicions and stereotypes. And I'd love to tell you about it, but I'm going to be an ass and keep it to myself. ;-) But really, it was fascinating, but “off the record,” which I guess means I can't say anything more about it. Is this blog part of “the record?”

Posted 08:49 AM | Comments (4) | 2L

Questions for Cops

Tomorrow (March 22) a police officer will attend my crimpro class and Prof. CrimPro has promised we can ask Officer Friendly whatever we want and he will give an honest answer. So what do you want to know about cops? What have you always wanted to ask a cop but were afraid to ask? Post your questions in the comments ASAP and I'll try to ask all of them that come in before 11 a.m.

Posted 07:36 PM | Comments (3) | 2L

How Can Law School Be Different?

I linked to this a couple of weeks ago at Blawg Wisdom, but a group of 1Ls at GULC (including the Scoplaw and Swanno) have started a new site called Law School Can Be Different (LSCBD) as a way to maintain and advance a conversation they have been having about improving legal education so that it better serves both students and society. It's an awesome project and is definitely worth checking out. So far they have focused on a bit of the history of Section 3 at GULC, as well as where legal education stands today as far as they're concerned. I would like to see them expand this into a nationwide dialogue about the purposes of legal education and how more schools could learn from Section 3 and start thinking critically about their own curricula. I have suggested a nationwide conference on the subject. Let's make it in Spring '06, about this time next year, maybe during the Cherry Blossom Festival here in DC so that can be an added incentive for people to come. Invite law students and legal scholars from around the country, but especially try to get participation from those who have written extensively on the subject of reform in legal education. Next year could be the perfect time to do this since it would coincide w/the release of the first Equal Justice Works Guide to Public Interest Law Schools. Anyway, as I mentioned on the LSCBD discussion board, if you're interested in changing legal education, you might also be interested in this recent discussion at law.com in which Stephen Friedman, the new Dean of Pace U. LS, talks about how he wants to change legal education. He says:

We need a powerfully different way of looking at what we're doing as law schools. What I'm talking about is a revolutionary notion. There is a lack of alignment between legal education and the needs of law firms. The legal world has changed. Firms are bigger, they have to train associates much longer, and law is becoming more specialized. We have to train our students to hit the ground running. What's fun about being a lawyer is being a lawyer -- not a first-year associate. The faster we bring students to being productive lawyers, the happier they'll be.

Yeah, let's align legal education more closely with the needs of firms. That'll be good for society. Right. Some of the other things Friedman says sound a little better. I'm thinking Mr. Friedman should be on the list of speakers at at the upcoming “Law School Can Be Different” conference? What do you think? UPDATE 03-21-05: I've been meaning to say something about this for a while, but on the subject of what's wrong w/law school and how it could/should be different, this critique of law school exams is very helpful. An excerpt:

And, of course, the key lawyering skills -- the ones that separate highly successful practitioners from mediocrities -- are barely taught in most law schools, outside the clinic, let alone tested: tenacity, diligence, thoroughness, collaboration, consultation, fact investigation, and, crucially, the willingness to admit error and start over from scratch. Those qualities will actually put you at a disadvantage on law school exams. Far better to rely on flashes of insight and an ability to write on the fly.

The rest of the article explains why the typical law school exam is flawed and goes on to denounce the MPRE and the multistate bar exam. Great stuff.

Posted 12:23 PM | Comments (6) | 2L law school

Sad Anniversaries

One year ago today: Grrr.... Shockingly, Kerry lost. One year ago yesterday: I noted that the U.S. war in Iraq had created all kinds of negative consequences and wondered whether some “showdown with al Qaida leaders” was orchestrated to distract Americans from looking closely at the war's anniversary. * Today: Tens of thousands protested the war in Iraq, and in the U.S.? Nothing that I know of. We're too busy worrying about baseball players on steroids (gasp!) and one woman and a feeding tube. It's great to see we have our priorities straight. *The link to that “showdown” has now broken and I've forgotten what it was all about. Awesome. Blogs are basically useless when links break. Is there any news source you know of that leaves its articles online so that links won't break?

Posted 08:36 AM | Comments (3) | general politics