Barrister by day, Bacardi by night

On the umpth day of Christmas

My true love gave to me ...

• 12 (actually 13) International Business Contracts
• 11 Mentors to send christmas cards 
• 10b-5 Rule (on insider trading)
• 9 Thousand Sixhundred Fifty-five Dollars of tuition to pay next semester
• 8 boxes of IKEA furniture
• 7 study buddies
• 6 supplimental books to read
• 5 EXTRA POUNDS
• 4-hour work days (yes, I'm still working)
• 3 hours of sleep
• 2 loads of laundry
• 1 multiple-choice exam

Ah ... 'tis the season.

Tape recording so last century

AU's Washington College of Law is the nation's first law school to use podcasts, as of next semester teachers might start assigning their pre-recorded podcasts to students before class; class time would then be used strictly for discussion. Fourteen lectures have been posted for WCL's Copyright course, and they've been accessed more than 1,500 times; 11 have been posted for the Evidence class, and there have been more than 1,100 views of those. Read more at MTV Headlines.

Finally, my day in court

Many law students read of the Supreme Court justices, but how many actually see the justices in action? That's right, Justice in Action.

I heard two cases before the Court Tuesday, I'll spare you the dreadfully dull
details of thefirst case, but in the second, Georgia v. Randolph dealt with consent searches when cotenants disagree. In Randolph, a domestic dispute brings the police into the house where the wife then tells the officer that there are drugs upstairs. The husband, who happens to be a lawyer, refuses to allow the officer to search but the wife says its okay.

It's of course difficult to ascertain the position of any of the justices by their questions alone. After all, maybe they're just playing devil's advocate. It's also questionable whether some of the justices are even paying attention. Why, Thomas and Scalia seemed half-asleep. Ginsberg mentioned that she wasn't clear on all the facts and Breyer didn't read one case both parties cited (Matlock).

Overall, the experience was awe-inspiring. Stevens and O'Connor were still on the ball. Despite anyone's misapprehension, Roberts was, nonetheless, impeccable to watch.

Live from D.C.

Life in D.C. has been on the constant move. I've been juggling around so many tasks that I often find myself awake at 1:23 in the morning. On the weekends, I just want to lie in bed and sleep. At work, I have six cases on my desk that I'm working on (breach of contract, enforcement of foreign judgment, 3 wrongful discharge, modification for custodial visitation). I recently drafted my first complaint (the court paper that begins a law suit) and I spent an afternoon looking for the clerk's office. In the meantime, I'm still debating about whether the law review write-on competition is worth the added hassle. I'm supposed to write about the national security ramifications of the Alient Torts Claim Act when allowing people outside the U.S. sue multinational corporations for labor abuses. However, I'm rarely in the library because I'm often attending various seminars, panel discussions, and conferences. Just looking ahead, October will certainly be a busy month. There's a conference in Chicago followed by another meeting in San Francisco I need to attend. Plus, I fly out to Boston for a call back interview. And my girlfriend wants to visit Atlantic City.

Ebb & Flow in a Big Pond

Have I bitten off more than I can chew?  I never realized just how big a law school Washington College of Law (WCL) is.  There are over 380 incoming full time first-year law students.  Throw in the part-time and evening students and you have nearly 500 1Ls.  Oh, let's not forget all the international LLM students.  And I'm just one of 42 transfer students.

School will be in full swing next week and I'm already seeing the crowds growing in the library.  Student huddling over printers and crammed into tiny cubicle desks.  As an incoming transfer student, I'm already bombarded with e-mails from the Career Services Office, Financial Aid, and the Registrar's Office.  I've got a reception at 4:30.  I've got Orientation at 6:00.  I've got two apartments to visit at 7:30.  I've got cover letters to write.  And first thing Friday morning I need to find a locker.

It's all so overwhelming.  The difficulty being a transfer student is starting all over.  I was once part of Law Review.  Now I have a 60-page write-on competition just to regain my once lost honor.  I had 5 interviews lined up for me at the Sunbelt Minority Job Fair.  Now that I'm no longer at Texas Wesleyan, I have to decline all my interviews.  Instead, I'm fighting out with 600 other law students for an OCI bid.  There are 87 additional employers who have resume collection boxes.  And it's not even the first day of class.

On another note, I saw a familiar face yesterday.  Ah, you can always count on Professor Gillmer to brighten a lost soul.

American University

As of August 22, 2005, I will be attending American University Washington College of Law.  I know that I am foregoing a number of honors at Texas Wesleyan University, however, to be competitive in the D.C. job market, American University offers a greater exposure to internships and job prospects.

Grades are trickling in

This semester has once again proved that you can slack off and still make it into the top 15 percentile.  Granted, I slaved my ass off the last three weeks before finals but I didn't allow school to consume my life entirely.  I didn't go to all my classes this semester.  I didn't read my entire casebook cover-to-cover.  I didn't brief for every single case.  However, I did pull a hare out of my ass everytime I was called on.  So I can still manage to be the same cocky S.O.B. with half the academic effort.

I'm sitting at nearly a solid B+ (pending the final grade from legal writing and research ... Father, Son, & Holy Ghost).  It does frighten me that Short gave out five A+'s this spring semester.  But since there's no spreadsheet available this semester ... we'll have to wait until Judgment Day.

Update:  I finished my semester with 3.297 cumulative GPA.

Study Aids

IT'S OVER -- 1Ls NO LONGER*.

You know, some schools like California Western automatically drop its bottom 25 percentile whether or not you passed.  At Texas Wesleyan and most other schools, you just need to endure the gauntlet with a 2.0 GPA.

I woke up this morning with 10 dashes on my left forearm -- one for each pint or shot since noon yesterday.  And there's no hang over because the celebratory drinkings won't stop until at least Sunday.  My group of friends started at Fox & Hound and then broke for a couple of hours.  I took a nap in between.  Then it was off to the horse tracks at Lone Star Park where I came out 40 cents richer (after deducting beer money, admission, and parking).  9:30 PM?  It may have been too late for the likes of Eric Yepez and Robert Ridgeway, but for those of us who could tough out the evening, the party was just starting at 8.0 downtown.

I never realized how many people I never talked to.  The truth comes out at the end of the year or at least at the bottom of the fifth bottle.  Let by-gones be by-gones.  Whatever trespass occurred on-line or off-line, this was the time for reconciliation and merriment.  I learned that some people were offended when they weren't invited to my Halloween party last year.  What?  That was 6 months ago.  Next year, I'll throw a more and bigger parties.  I'm glad to finally know more my classmates and not just by their reputations.  I never beat Ian McKee's 18 drinks.

Looking back, I must admit that I had the best study group partners at law school -- Gillmer, Harrington, Short, and Snyder, which all happens to be my professors.  As Sara Hammerstead pointed out, "Jack, do you just sit outside their [our professor's] offices and come up with questions for no other reason than to talk to them?"  Yes, yes I do.  After all, why bother with commercial supplements when you can get a direct answer from the person who's writing your exam?  Especially, when you didn't pay enough attention during the semester.  So I made drew up lists of questions, hypotheticals, and points of clarification so that I could bombard them with e-mails and message board postings.  And, if necessary, be an office squatter.  As I always say, know just enough to get by but know how to find the answers to everything else.

Of course, my regular study posse (Eric Clark, Cody McDonald, and Jordan Watson) were indispensable elements to the studying process.  We spent the past three weeks cooped up at the library on the main campus.  There are fewer distractions -- save a handful co-eds.  We had elements, diagrams, flow charts, and what nots sprawled over the giant white wall.  By the time we were finished, the library was out of dry erase markers.  We threw up multiple-choice questions and hypotheticals on video projectors.  We spouted out rapid-fire Q&A's at each other.  Some days were more productive than others; after all, there's only so much I can stand of these guys.  In the end, I attribute my second semester's survival to these guys.

*assuming that I passed all my classes.

Uncommon Law

Whatever you may think is the law is most likely not the law, in-fact.  The bane of my existence has been this attempt to identify what law applies, particularly in multiple-choice questions.  At least you can discuss various options when it comes down to essay questions.  Ever since Day 1 of law school, I could never understand why we had to differentiate between law and equity.  And to this very day, the only distinction I observe is purely academic.

For all you outside the legal community, courts back in merry ol' England were seperated between "courts of law" and "courts of equity."  The former awards monetary damages as a remedy in civil cases whereas the latter provides injunctions and court orders.  Now in the 21st century, American courts can do both under one roof.  So while answer D is a correct statement of the law ... no, no ... it's inapplicable because the cause of action is at law and not at equity.  Confused?  Don't read on.

Speaking of the common law, it's not really all that common is it?  After all, the law is different in every state and varies depending on whether its a majority or minority jurisdiction that follows the Restatement, the Uniform Commerical Code, the Model Penal Code, or some other authority.  The common law being anything not adopted by statute.  For instance, Texas common law differs from Oklahoma common law.  So whether modification of a contract requires writing when the contract expressly demands it, the answer is not C because D is a better answer.  Whereas choice C states "modifications for a sale of goods contract over $500 require written expression to satisfy the Statute of Frauds", choice D is more accurate because "UCC Section 2-209(3), which applies to sales of goods, demands strict compliance with the written requirement."

Wisdom of Bodhisattva Short

Should I ever become a law school professor, I'd be weary of how accessible I make myself to law students.  God bless, Professor Short because we've asked him more questions in the last few days via newsgroup postings then we have all semester long.  With less than 9 hours to go, time is of the essence and everything is down to the wire.  Forget taking notes, forget making outlines, just read Short's exam discussion board and you'll probably catch up on everything that you've missed.  However, don't let other disgruntled students get on your nerves, they just don't want to wade through hundreds of "stupid" questions.

THE COMMANDMENTS imparted to us by the Great Short ...

1. First of all, "the great Short" is the preferred title.  Thanks for using it.

2. My teaching has been called many things, but it has never (to my face) been analogized to the dumping of the ice-cold contents of a chamber pot on students, but I guess it was just a matter of time.  The indignities....

3. Q:  Any bonus points for not using extra pages, keeping answers very brief, and otherwise reducing time it takes you to grade exams?
   
   S:  Probably not.  But you will have my unending gratitude, which is worth . . . well . . . not very much, come to think of it.

4. There are lots of pages to your exam.  Currently, there are 59.  Don't freak out.  A lot of those pages are blank, so you can write your short answer answers directly on the exam.  Breathe.  Also, there won't be 2 stapled parts to your exam.  It's all together in one stapled set.

5. Get some sleep tonight.  Pleasant dreams of happy equitable servitudes romping through a jointly held leasehold.  Or something.