LSATflashback

Today is the LSAT, the Law School Admissions Test, which is required for every student applying to law school. About four years ago I was sweating hard in a large examination room, after six months of study and preparation. As I walked into the law school, I saw a bunch of signs about the exam and I instantly had a flashback to the bad days leading up to the exam. It doesn't seem that hard now, after taking a few 6-hour law school essay exams and preparing for the Bar Exam. But at the time, the LSAT was just about the most frightening thing I could imagine.

Of course, you know I didn't do too badly on the exam, because I got into my first choice law school. That's all ancient history now, but I still can't help but feel a twinge of pain for all the kids working hard downstairs right now. Their minds are swimming with fact patterns and logic problems. And I feel even worse knowing that many of them will end up in law school as a result of their taking this test. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Book stack

I always wondered how many books I gathered during law school, so a few weeks ago I stacked them all up on the table to see how high it went. It was a pretty big stack, and I couldn't even find several of my books. It would have been almost a foot taller if I had all of the books in the stack.

I didn't include my bar preparation materials, which would have added 36 more pounds and about two more feet to the stack. In fact, the weight of the book stack was worrying me when I took the picture, since I had the book stack on our hand-me-down kitchen table.

I did want to provide some sense of scale for the book stack, so I put Lindsay up on the table to for reference. I don't know why I thought Lindsay would be a good standard unit of measurement, but at least she thought it was funny.

Always read the footnotes

The following is currently footnote 73 of the draft of my seminar paper:

The video game at issue in Davidson was StarCraft, one of the most popular PC games ever produced, with total sales to date exceeding 9.5 million units. Vivendi, Introduction to Vivendi Games 4 (2006), http://www.vivendi.com/ir/download/pdf/VIVGames_EuropeRoadshow_June2006.pdf. Widely recognized as one of the best real-time strategy games ever produced, StarCraft has enjoyed enduring popularity in North America and Asia, and helped launch Blizzard Entertainment to the top of the video gaming world. One of the keys to the game's success was the successful implementation of the Battle.net gaming site, which enabled users to play the game online or on a local area network. The Battle.net servers have expanded to also host World of Warcraft, the most popular massive multiplayer online role playing game, with over ten million subscribing users. Nearly ten years after its first release, there are still nightly StarCraft tournaments in South Korea, where the game has a large and faithful fan base. Press Release, Blizzard Entertainment, Starcraft® II Released (May 19, 2007) (http://blizzard.com/us/press/070519.html).

I'm not kidding; that's really in the footnotes. I've always wanted to put something like that in a boring legal paper, and I finally got a chance. It's actually somewhat relevant. We'll see if my professor notices it.

Glorious

This came in the mail today. (Click the player for the accompanying audio.)

I can now kiss my 5-year-old, 35 lb CRT monitor good-bye!
Audio credit: Project Gutenberg, via Hallelujah Chorus.

Legally Blonde moment

My sister really loves the movie Legally Blonde. Whenever I mention something about law school, she says, "Oh, like in Legally Blonde." The movie in general bears no resemblance to reality, either in or out of law school, but there are a few small details that are fairly accurate. So I grudgingly admit that she's right.

However, a friend of mine had a truly Legally Blonde moment last summer while working at a prosecutor's office in California. They gave him a bunch of little cases to work on, like drug possession and other misdemeanors. My friend was questioning a defendant about the incident, and it went something like this

My Friend: Alright, let me try to understand the situation correctly. You and your buddy were in the house when the cop got there, right?
Defendant: Yeah.
My Friend: Where were you?
Defendant: I was sitting on the couch.
My Friend: Where was your friend?
Defendant: In the kitchen.
My Friend: And where was the cop?
Defendant: At the door.
My Friend: Where were the drugs?
Defendant: In the bathroom. Oh . . .

My friend calls this his "Perry Mason Moment," but even I have to admit it's a lot more like the scene in Legally Blonde where Luke Wilson's character asks the alleged lover of the woman on trail what his boyfriend's name is and he responds without thinking, "Chuck."

I never thought I'd say it, but the guy with the pot should have seen the movie. It might have saved him some trouble.

The long week

Last Tuesday I started a short course that met for a couple hours every evening during the week and in the afternoons on the weekend. The course itself was fairly interesting, but the schedule was extremely difficult. It was a busy week even without the short course, since I had several noon meetings and a make-up class that took up all of my lunch times. I was also sick most of the week, so I felt pretty crummy, but I couldn't afford to miss so much class. I also had to prepare for a charity fund-raising event my legal fraternity held on Friday. So I helped set up and prepare for that, but I didn't get to stay because I had to run off to the evening class. After class on Saturday I immediately left and drove to Huntsville so I could see Becca's brother's school play. I was planning on driving back that night, but it let out so late that I just crashed there and drove back the next morning in time to be back for the final short course class. After being at school for seven days straight, I felt like I was ready for a weekend. But the week was only beginning.

Yesterday I took the final exam for short course. It was a 24-hour take-home exam, which is essentially like a paper that you have to write in 24 hours. But Becca was feeling terrible yesterday, so I came home to help out with the Babe in the afternoon. So after I put the Babe in bed, I went back to school and worked until 10:30 pm. I came in early again this morning and got it all finished up and turned in, which is a big relief. My biggest problem with the exam was keeping it short, since the professor explicitly said "Brevity is a virtue." So I cut it down to 10 pages, and I hoped that was short enough for him. But if he doesn't like it, it's his own fault for asking extremely complex exam questions to a bunch of people who have a lot to say on the topic.

And that's basically why I haven't blogged much. This week may be just as busy, however, since I have a draft of my seminar paper due on Friday and I haven't written a word of it yet. Also, I have to finish my bar application this week. Busy, busy, busy.

I'm looking forward to Spring Break next week.

Life without my laptop

My laptop is fairly old. I got it in 2005 and it gets pretty heavy use. Not only do I use it several hours a day, I also carry it around with me from school and sometimes work. So it's not entirely surprising that it has some issues right now. For the past few months I had an occasional problem where the backlight of the LCD screen would just cut out on me. It was annoying and often inconvenient, but if I restarted it always came back on. However, a little over a week ago it started turning off all the time, often before start-up even finished. I also started having random crashes with increasing frequency, which is bad news for all of my data on the computer. So I backed everything up I could think of and sent it off to be serviced. I payed quite a lot of money for that computer, and I could have gotten a cheaper laptop, but this one came with a 3-year warranty. And that just happened to be how long I would be in law school. So I got the extended warranty, and it's a good thing I did.

I had my laptop serviced once last year, and it was fairly painless. The company sends me a prepaid UPS box with custom foam packaging to send the laptop to the service center. I send it off with information on what the problem is, and they fix it and send it back. Last time it took seven days arrive at the service center, get fixed, and return by UPS. I think that's pretty fast, and I'm hoping it's just as fast this time. However, since the problems are more significant this time around, it may be longer. I've been taking hand-written notes in class and typing them up afterwards, but it's very time-consuming and it's hard to keep up with the professor's lecture when I can't write as fast as I can type. So I keep my vigil and wait for my laptop to return. Hopefully it will be back this week.

In the meantime, I have a particularly busy week because I'm taking a week-long evening short course. So I really need a computer. We actually have an old laptop I could use, but it has two significant problems. First, because of some loose connection in the motherboard, the battery doesn't charge properly. That means I have to mess with it just to get it to charge, and it won't charge while the computer is on. So I only have about an hour to use the laptop. The other problem is even more troublesome -- the hard drive doesn't work. At all. It's corrupted so badly that I can't even reinstall an operating system.

However, I'm desperate enough that I tried a few things, and one of them works as a limited, temporary solution. There are a few versions of Linux that boot off a CD and don't use the hard drive at all. I can't currently access the BIOS settings on the computer, but it was already configured to boot from CD if the hard drive wasn't present. So I disconnected the hard drive and booted up using Puppy Linux, my favorite minimalist Linux distribution. However, for some reason the wireless card won't work when the hard drive is disconnected, so I have to plug the hard drive back in while Puppy Linux is booting off the CD. Then I manually configure the wireless card, load the drivers, and get online. From there, I can take notes and email them to myself. However, since I never know when the power will run out, I usually take notes in an online word processor (like Google Docs, or my favorite web service, Zoho Writer). That way all my data is automatically saved online, so no matter what goes wrong with my jury-rigged set-up, I still have my notes.

If all that sounds confusing, it is, but at least I have something to work with. In fact, I used that set-up to write this blog post, so it can do some things. But here's hoping that I don't need it by the end of the week.

The job

A few of you asked about my cryptic reference to getting a job. I was a little vague because I hadn't accepted the offer yet, but I've made a commitment now, so here's the deal. I accepted a position as a clerk with a judge here in Nashville, which means that we'll be here at least for the next year-and-a-half. Many judges hire recently graduated law students as clerks as part of a mentoring process. In some ways, it is sort of a continuation of a legal education, since judicial clerks get to see the inner workings of the courts. For people who want to work in litigation, it can be especially enlightening to see how a judge comes to a conclusion and what a judge thinks about different legal tactics and argument styles. Apart from the general satisfaction and relief of having a a job, I'm looking forward to the clerkship experience. So now I just need to pass my classes, graduate, and pass the bar. I think I can do that.

The down side of a clerkship for us is that we will still have to find a permanent job in another year. But I'll be a better candidate by that point, I will have passed the bar, and I will have more experience under my belt. Recently graduated law students really aren't that useful to their employers for the first few months or years, because you really learn things by doing. Class can only prepare you so much for the profession. A lot of firms like to hire judicial clerks because they don't have to train them as much. Many judicial clerkships are also quite prestigious, especially those on the federal appellate level. Supreme Court clerks are especially in high demand, and they can basically go anywhere they want. My clerkship will not be so fancy, but I think that may be to my advantage, since I'll actually be dealing with cases from day to day.

Even though Becca still may be a bit torn between Nashville and Huntsville, we are really glad that we don't have to say goodbye to our friends here for a while longer. Nashville is a nice town, and I'm glad we get to stay.

What law school exams are like

I never write much about law school exams, other than that they make my brains turn to mush, but it occurs to me that the whole process is rather foreign to some people and that most people don't know what they're like. Almost all law school exams are essays. Each essay usually presents a fact pattern, a story of some series of events or recently enacted legislation. A student must then identify all of the pertinent legal issues, usually focusing on the issues covered in the class, and explain what is the likely result if the issue was brought to trial. Essentially, a law school exam is like an undergraduate essay exam, but written so broadly that it is virtually impossible to adequately identify and discuss all of the relevant issues. This is complicated by the fact that virtually all fact patterns in exams are close cases or issues that have not yet been resolved in the courts, forcing every student to predict the possible result along multiple approaches or results. It is not unusual for each question to have an answer of a couple thousand words, and there are usually three or four such questions on an exam. The only thing a law student can do is know the material as well as possible so she doesn't have to waste any time and spend 3 or 4 hours madly typing.

Exams at Vanderbilt take two weeks. The result is a 3-week period, starting in the last week of class, during which almost every student in the school spends long hours in the library or study rooms. The inevitable result is an enormous amount of stress and tension -- it is almost palpable when you walk through the library. The stress isn't helped by the fact that law school grades, with few exceptions, are determined exclusively by the grade on the final exam.

The customary method of exam preparation in law school is outlining. During this process, a student takes her notes for each course and distills them down to a workable document that includes the most important elements of the class. Some students have hundreds of pages of notes for a given class, and outlines can exceed 50 pages -- long enough to require a table of contents just for the outline itself. Most professors allow students to bring casebooks, statutory supplements, notes, and outlines into the exam, although there are a few sadistic professors that have closed-book exams.

Almost everyone at law school nowadays takes exams on a computer. We download and install the exam software that, when initialized, locks the student out of any other function on the computer so as to prevent cheating. The exam software presents a very simple typing screen and not much else. (We were all thrilled a couple years ago when they introduced spell checking!) At the end of the exam the content is stored electronically on a server or on a USB drive. There are occasionally a few terrified students with technical problems, but they are usually taken care of.

Exams are usually taken in the larger classrooms. Once the exam proctor starts the exam, up to 150 students open their exam packets in a simultaneously flurry. There is a period of silence while the students read the exam, but that silence is eventually broken by the first "tak-tak-tak" sounds on a keyboard. Soon, more people join in, until the entire room is filled with the quiet but persistent drum roll of fingers on keyboards. Sometimes people finish before time is called, but most people continue typing until the bitter end. At this point there isn't much tension or stress -- just the frantic typing. Several hours fly by practically before you can blink. After time is called, the exam packets must be turned in within 60 seconds, which results in a race to the front of the room if a lot of people were typing until the end. Then the room is filled with nervous laughter and relief, and students mentally shift gears to prepare for their next exam.

Exams periods are offered each morning and afternoon for two weeks. Some slots are reserved for certain classes, while other periods are open for students to take any unscheduled exam. Each day before 8 am and 12 pm there is a cycle of nervous students cramming in the library and study areas, after which they crowd into the exam rooms and the tension subsides in the rest of the school until the next cycle begins. These cycles continue until exams are finally finished, and the students scatter to their various parents' houses or vacations or jobs until they have to return the next semester.

Law school is kind of it's own peculiar world sometimes. I'm almost done with my fifth cycle of law school exams, with only one left, and I'll be glad to move on. But since lawyers will have to deal with deadlines and trial dates for the rest of their life, there is some method to the pressure-cooker environment in law school. We've had a few emotional breakdowns at school, but not too many. Most of us will emerge tougher and wiser, and a perhaps a little more jaded, which is generally good preparation for the practice of law.

This Day in History - Satan wins his case

On December 3, 1971, one of my favorite federal court cases was handed down, giving Satan a legal victory. Yes, that's right, the Devil himself got sued and won. (Feel free to make any "devil's advocate" jokes here.) It's one of my favorite court cases to read, and since it's so short, I've reproduced it here with a little commentary and explanation of terms in the footnotes. And yes, this is a real court case.

54 F.R.D. 282

UNITED STATES v. SATAN AND HIS STAFF
W.D.Pa., 1971

United States District Court, W. D. Pennsylvania.
UNITED STATES ex rel. Gerald MAYO
v.
SATAN AND HIS STAFF.
Misc. No. 5357.

Dec. 3, 1971.

Gerald Mayo, pro se.¹

MEMORANDUM ORDER
WEBER, District Judge.
Plaintiff, alleging jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §241, 28 U.S.C. §1343, and 42 U.S.C. §1983 prays for leave to file a complaint for violation of his civil rights in forma pauperis. He alleges that Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff's downfall.

Plaintiff alleges that by reason of these acts Satan has deprived him of his constitutional rights.

We feel that the application to file and proceed in forma pauperis² must be denied. Even if plaintiff's complaint reveals a prima facie³ recital of the infringement of the civil rights of a citizen of the United States, the Court has serious doubts that the complaint reveals a cause of action upon which relief can be granted by the court. We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant in this judicial district.⁴ The complaint contains no allegation of residence in this district. While the official reports disclose no case where this defendant has appeared as defendant there is an unofficial account of a trial in New Hampshire where this defendant filed an action of mortgage foreclosure as plaintiff.⁵ The defendant in that action was represented by the preeminent advocate of that day, and raised the defense that the plaintiff was a foreign prince with no standing to sue in an American Court. This defense was overcome by overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whether or not this would raise an estoppel in the present case we are unable to determine at this time.

If such action were to be allowed we would also face the question of whether it may be maintained as a class action. It appears to meet the requirements of Fed.R. of Civ.P. 23 that the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, there are questions of law and fact common to the class, and the claims of the representative party is typical of the claims of the class. We cannot now determine if the representative party will fairly protect the interests of the class.⁶

We note that the plaintiff has failed to include with his complaint the required form of instructions for the United States Marshal for directions as to service of process.⁷

For the foregoing reasons we must exercise our discretion to refuse the prayer of plaintiff to proceed in forma pauperis.

It is ordered that the complaint be given a miscellaneous docket number and leave to proceed in forma pauperis be denied.

W.D.Pa., 1971
U. S. ex rel. Mayo v. Satan and his Staff
54 F.R.D. 282

_____________________
¹ Pro se is a Latin term that means that the person is representing his or herself in court without an attorney. In this case, the guy probably couldn't find an attorney who was willing to embarass him or herself by filing a case against Satan.
² "In forma pauperis" is another Latin legal term meaning that the court would waive filing fees, which can be quite expensive in a case like this.
³ Even more Latin mumbo jumbo. A "prima facie" case means that the appellant or plaintiff has shown all the necessary information required by law. As you can probably tell, the court is pretty skeptical that Mr. Mayo can actually prove that Satan and/or his minions have violated Mr. Mayo's constitutional rights.
⁴ I think this is actually pretty funny. In order to try a case, a court has to have jurisdiction over someone. You can't really sue someone from China in your home state unless they have some connection to that state. It Here, the court is questioning whether it has jurisdiction over Satan.
⁵ Yes, that means that Satan sued someone in New Hampshire. I actually like the legal tactic of the defense attorney in the New Hampshire case, arguing that Satan is a "foreign prince" who can't sue in the U.S. I guess the tactic didn't work in the old New Hampshire case and Satan still could sue the guy, but the court in this case is still skeptical.
⁶ You may already know this, but a class action lawsuit is when one person or a small group of people sue someone (or more often, a company) on behalf of all similarly situated people. One of the requirements for a case to be certified as a class action is that the named parties adequately represent the interests of all the people in the class. The problem in this case is that Mr. Mayo would have to show that his alleged temptations and pitfalls were the same or similar as other people's, and that he would represent their interests in a lawsuit against Satan. I can only assume that Satan worshipers would be able to remove themselves from the class.
⁷ This is, without a doubt, the best line in the whole case. In order to sue somebody, you have to give them written notice that they are being sued. In federal court, this usually requires federal marshals to go to the defendant's place of residence or business and serve them with a copy of the complaint. Except Mr. Mayo can't exactly provide the marshals with an address of where to find the defendant, because the defendant is Satan. And that would mean that he'd have to tell the marshals to go to hell.

Thoughts on representation

For the past few months I've worked in the legal clinic at my law school. Students in legal clinics can be authorized to practice law under the supervision of their professors, so I've had a small caseload and have actually represented a handful of clients in court. I've worked personally with clients before in a firm I worked for, but I wasn't the one who was personally in charge of their legal representation. This time it was just me. The clinical professors make sure we students don't go to far astray, but they mostly let us learn how to do things on our own.

In the past few months I've learned a few things about what it's like to be a lawyer. Any practicing attorney can tell you the same thing, but since most people that read this blog aren't' lawyers, I thought it might be interesting to list a few things I've learned. None of these observations comes from any particular client of mine, but rather from the totality of my experiences. The specific lessons in the second list, however, come from things I've actually seen in court.

General Observations

• Most of what I do for clients doesn't have anything to do with the law. A lot of what I do is just listen, nod, and help them make some tough life decisions. I feel a lot more like a counselor than I do a lawyer some days, but that's what the clients need sometimes.
  
• A lot of clients don't know what they want. Frequently, they really just want someone to hear their story. So sometimes you'll get them on the witness stand and ask them a question, and the answer that comes out of their mouth has nothing to do with what you asked. They just have something to get off their chest, and they start ranting and raving.
  
• Corresponding with the above observation, sometimes the best thing you can do to adequately represent the legal interests of your client is to get him or her to shut up.
  
• There really are some sleazy defense attorneys out there. I've read some documents that I wouldn't have signed my name to, and I've heard some things in court that were completely unethical. I make a mental note of those attorneys, because if I have to deal with them, I know they aren't above playing dirty.
• If you refuse to play dirty, opposing counsel might not care. But the judge and clerks will notice over time, and they're the people you really want on your side. I'd almost rather that a judicial clerk like me than a judge.

Lessons Learned from Court

• It is never a good idea to come to court stoned.
  
• Do not lie to the judge, especially when the other side as a tape recording of what you said.
• If you are female, do not dress like a Bratz doll when attending a hearing. Alternatively, if you are male, please ensure that your trousers stay up throughout the duration of the judicial proceedings.
  
• It is hard to convince the judge that you need a restraining order from your boyfriend when you are sitting together, talking, and laughing.
  
• Do not talk back to the judge unless you have a burning desire to add a contempt charge on your blossoming list of offenses.

Thoughts on a civil rights video

For the past several weeks one of my constitutional law classes has focused on racial classifications. Suffice it to say that Brown v. Board of Education is only the tip of the iceberg in this complicated legal arena, and given the Supreme Court's decision last term in Seattle School District, it's still a relevant issue in our society. As part of our focus on the legal doctrine, our professor arranged for a special viewing of a 1960 television special about sit-ins in Nashville. I wish everyone could see the show because it was interesting and well-done, but it's apparently hard to get ahold of. We had to order it from the Library of Congress. Here are a few things that came to mind when I watched the video.

• People dressed a lot nicer back in 1960 than they do today. The average person on the street looked pretty sharp. All the people in the show, black or white, were dressed in nice shirts, coats, ties, and dresses. I like being casual sometimes, but I think we've lost something by eliminating the need to dress up.
• It's one thing to know that segregation happened and that people fought to undo it. It's another thing to watch a man at a lunch counter get cigar ash dumped in his hair and his suit coat torn apart by bystanders just because he happens to be black. I was born 20 years after it happened, and it segregation still doesn't seem real to me in some way. But I think it's important to realize the grim, harsh truth.
• After watching the movie for 15 minutes I began to predict what different people would say when they were interviewed by the quality of their orthodontics. Most of the protesters were young black students who were educated and well-spoken, and they represented themselves very well. The people who harassed and assaulted them, on the other hand, almost invariably had thick southern accents and bad teeth. One brilliant young gentleman with particularly bad incisors and an almost unintelligible drawl was interviewed in prison for beating up one of the white students who was marching with the black students.
  
• It was weird to hear words like "Negro" used in a formal setting. Nowadays no one uses that word; it's almost a slur. Lots of the aforementioned people with bad teeth also liked to use the n-word.* I'm sure it was more common back then, but they way they used the word, it was clearly meant to be hurtful even then.
• On one hand I'm kind of proud that the Nashville sit-ins resulted in the integration of the lunch counters at all the department and variety stores in downtown. Nashville was the first southern city to achieve such integration, and within months, 27 other cities had followed suit. On the other hand, as the film pointed out, there were plenty of public places that still were segregated, including bus stations, restaurants, etc.

* In my original post I wrote the actual word, rather than use the common "n-word" euphemism. Becca suggested that I not write a racial slur, even when discussing its historical use. She asked if I would have written the f-word, to which I replied no. In my mind, words like the n-word differ from obscenities in that they have a historical context that should be understood. Certainly, it was very striking to hear people use such an offensive phrase in the video. It helped me realize the harsh reality that the brave protesters faced. However, I didn't intend to offend anyone by writing this post, so I have subsequently sanitized the terminology.

James Cooney on the Duke Lacrosse Case

James P. Cooney, III of the law firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice spoke at Vanderbilt Law School today, and he gave a fascinating presentation about what has come to be known as the "Duke Lacrosse Rape Case." Mr. Cooney represented one of the three young men accused of raping an exotic dancer at the Lacrosse House. Vanderbilt Law School has many important speakers, but Mr. Cooney's remarks were excellent and so thought-provoking that I'm going to mention a few of my impressions after listening to him.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer, overwhelming volume of evidence contradicting the accuser's story. I've read many newspaper articles, blog posts, and book excerpts about the case, but it was a very different experience to have fact after fact presented that disproved the woman's story. The phone records alone made the alleged assault virtually impossible, and there was other evidence including ATM camera footage, credit card transactions, metadata from digital photographs, and reports by neighbors. Essentially, the Durham Police Department and the District Attorney had to try very hard to ignore that evidence. Even several months after the incident, when the accuser changed her story about when the attack happened, a similar series of phone calls and credit card transactions contradicted her account. Also compelling was the fact that DNA samples from 5 to 8 different men were found in and on the accuser's body, but the the three accused young men were ruled out with 100% accuracy. In fact, so was the entire lacrosse team. Mr. Cooney was an engaging public speaker, and while I'm glad the charges were dropped and the accused declared completely innocent, I would have liked to see Mr. Cooney in the courtroom. He would have been very entertaining to watch. However, it was very clear that the young men were guilty of no more than a profound lack of good judgment. The entire presentation was videotaped, and I hope Vanderbilt puts it up on its website as the sometimes do with important events.

While taking questions after his presentation, Mr. Cooney noted that anyone in the public eye has to pay attention to three different types of media: the mainstream media outlets, 24-hour news channels, and the blogosphere. Particularly with respect to the blogosphere, he noted that you simply cannot say something nowadays if it is not true, because within minutes of saying it, someone somewhere is checking your facts. And if it isn't true, it will come out in a hurry. He also noted that his client was fortunate that North Carolina has a law mandating that prosecutors open their files to defense counsel, because Mike Nifong's deceptions were only revealed before trial because he had to turn that information over.

Another comment Mr. Cooney made which struck me was his reminder that the presumption of innocence doesn't happen unless we make it happen. My experience in criminal law has been entirely on the prosecution side until recently. The crimes I helped prosecute were quite serious (child sex crimes) and I think the prosecution team did a very good job of understanding the stigma and baggage that comes with an arrest or indictment on such charges. But I know that not all prosecutors are so judicious. The violent reaction and near-universal condemnation the three young men is pretty embarrassing, especially that of the 88 Duke professors that condemned the accused, the whole lacrosse team, and all wealthy white men in general. I'm especially embarrassed that Houston Baker, one of the more unapologetic of that group, was recently hired on here at Vanderbilt. Right now I'm working the a couple cases on the defense side, and I can really appreciate the rights of the accused. The short lesson of the Duke Lacrosse case may be how dangerous one rogue prosecutor can be, but I think the long-term lesson is how dangerous public opinion can be when it fits with what we want to believe. As James Cooney warned at the end of his remarks, "Justice doesn't happen by itself." It's up to each of us to make sure it happens, even if it isn't convenient or goes against our suppositions.

Legal Clinic

This week has been one of those weeks where I had lots of stuff going on and several good blogging ideas, but didn't quite get around to posting anything. One of my classes this semester is a clinical class, which means I work in the legal clinic and represent a few clients under the supervision of one of the professors. We ended up taking a case at the last minute, so with less than two days left before the hearing, I had my hands full interviewing the client and witnesses and preparing for trial. I'm still not done with the case -- it got continued, which is pretty common.* But the stress is off for a little while.

The legal clinic has been a great educational experience thus far. There really isn't any substitute for standing up in court and addressing the judge or going toe-to-toe with belligerent opposing counsel. You have to learn by doing. I almost think that every student should have to take a clinic class, because it's the most practical part of my legal education so far. I'd like to think that I'm not dropping $150 k on nothing.
_____________________
* When I told Becca that the case got continued, she said that I got "Jarndyced." This is actually a rather clever legal and literary reference to the epic Jarndyce & Jarndyce lawsuit in Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which gets stretched out for decades and finally ends when the lawyers have used up all the money in the estate for legal fees. I just wanted to point out how clever, funny, and legally savvy my Becca is.

School's Out

I will be much happier in 3 hours, 15 minutes. It doesn't even matter if I do poorly on the exam. I will be done, and that's all that matters.

Panic!

It's really pitiful, but all of my blogging lately has been about exams. That's mostly because all I've done lately is study.

However, last Thursday night my in-laws came to visit because my lovely sister in law, Kiki, flew into Nashville on her way home from school. We had a leisurely pancake breakfast Friday morning and played with The Babe. After my 6-hour exam, it was just what the doctor ordered. And since my mother-in-law loves P.F. Chang's, we went out to eat there for lunch along with Becca's grandparents.

At this point in the story, you're asking yourself why the title of this blog post is "Panic!" Well, I'm getting there.

I spent the afternoon on Friday at our local library doing work on my paper that was due on Monday (today). I wrote about four pages and then came home and watched a movie with Becca. I figured I would get up on Saturday and go back to the library and write the rest of the paper. I could then spend Monday morning revising and cleaning up the citations and easily have time to turn it in before 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon.

Now you start to see where the panic might come in. Obviously, something is going to upend my carefully laid plans. And you are so right!

Saturday morning started with a bang. To put it politely, Becca was violently ill in the morning and incapacitatingly ill for the rest of the day. Our best guess is that she got food poisoning from something at the restaurant, although we really aren't sure. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up after poor Becca and taking care of her and The Babe. So rather than working on my paper, I spent almost the entire day mopping up, doing laundry, and going to the store for ginger ale and other sick people supplies.

By Saturday evening Becca felt well enough to eat two pieces of toast, which was a big improvement from that morning. After The Babe went to bed I got a little work done on the footnotes of the paper, but very little progress otherwise.

Now you see the major drama of the week. But wait! There's more!

As is my custom, I didn't do schoolwork on Sunday. So I woke up at 5:30 a.m. this morning and drove to school and immediately got to work. I made steady progress all through the morning with only a handful of interruptions. My goal was to turn in the paper at 3 p.m. to give myself a buffer before the actual deadline. By 1:30 p.m. I had mostly finished with the paper, but it was weak in several places, so I spent the next hour ironing out the wrinkles and inconsistencies. By 2:30 p.m. I was starving, so I decided I would print the paper off, get a bite to eat, and revise the paper.

I always underestimate the time it takes to revise a paper. The paper was only 12 pages long, but it had over 40 footnotes. I also tinkered with some of the early footnotes during revision, so I had to go back and make sure the cross-referencing footnotes were correct. I worked quickly, but apparently not quickly enough. As I made the revisions to the last page of the document, I looked down at the clock. It said 3:46 p.m.

This was Panic Number 1. It was a small size panic.

I had 14 minutes to go up to the lab, print out my paper, and run downstairs to turn it in to the registrar's office. That was cutting it close, but it was doable. I immediately saved the document on a USB key and ran up to the lab.

When I got there, there were three other people in my class frantically printing out their papers. We commiserated and cursed ourselves for procrastinating so much. The computers in that lab are older and slow, so it took several minutes for the computer to start up. Nevertheless, I was feeling like I could pull it all off until I opened up my key drive and opened the document. It was the wrong one. I had saved the wrong document on the USB drive. It was 3:54 p.m.

Panic Number 2. This was medium-sized. Maybe medium-large.

Thank goodness that I had brought my laptop up with me. I whipped out the USB key, plugged it back into my laptop and quickly put the correct document on the drive. I plugged the USB drive back into the lab computer and waited the agonizing minute for the computer to recognize the drive. It finally loaded and I opened up the document and hit ctrl+p. It was 3:57 p.m. I exhaled a shaky breath and walked over to the printer with my knees shaking little. It was close, but I would make it.

Except that it didn't print.


Panic Number 3. Full on freak-out mode, complete with shaky hands and several choice phrases coming to mind.


I ran back to the computer to figure out what the problem was. I eventually discovered that the default print setting of that computer was to save a document image to disk, so that's what it had tried to do. I changed the setting to print to the printer, and as soon as I was sure that it was actually printing this time, I made a rather undignified run down the stairs to the registrar's office.

The registrar is one of the most persnickety people I have ever met. There are strict time limits on exams, and they are fully enforced. Even if you finish your exam in time, if you don't bring the exam envelope up to the registrar within 60 seconds, you are marked late. Yes, they are that strict. So are some courts, which is probably why they do it that way.

Anyway, the policy rationales behind strict time limit weren't what I was thinking about as I went downstairs. I was wondering if the school clocks were faster than the clock on my phone. Because the clock on my phone said 4:00 p.m.

So what happened? How did it end?

I got it in on time. I was the last one to get it in before the deadline. There might have been someone who turned it in later, but I didn't stick around to find out. I staggered out of the registrar's office and shared a knowing glance with a classmate who looked like she was still hyperventilating from the experience.

"It's over," she said. And she was right. Three down, two to go.

Chronology of a 6-hour exam

08:03 AM - recieve exam packet

08:55 AM - finish reading fact pattern

09:30 AM - finish one problem; 15% done

11:00 AM - finish second problem; 50% done

12:00 PM - finish third problem; 85% done

12:30 PM - finish fourth problem

12:47 PM - freak out after discovering huge omission on problem 3

13:15 PM - finished

13:20 PM - okay, really finished this time

13:27 PM - turn packet in

13:37 PM - blogged about it

Booking it

Law school is very competitive. My school isn't particularly cutthroat, but some competition is inevitable when you put 700 intelligent and ambitious people together and dangle 6-figure salaries for the winners. I spent most of my adolescence and early twenties excelling academically. But the more education I got, the tougher the competition. By the time I reached law school, I had gone from top-of-the-heap to middle-of-the-road.

One quirky tradition my law school does is that after every semester, they announce the top student for each class. This is called "booking" the class. Getting that top spot is somewhat prestigious, even though it doesn't really matter too much. I have a friend that has booked at least one class every semester of his law school career. I basically have a "B" average, so I'm never a contender on the list.

This year I didn't even open the list when it was sent to us in a PDF attachment. However, much to my surprise, I got several emails the following day congradulating me on booking a class. I thought surely there must have been some mistake. But when I checked the list, sure enough, there was my name next to the Immigration Law class. Since my GPA is pretty lackluster and my job prospects after graduation still gray, this was a nice ego boost. What most people didn't know is that my immigration class only had about a dozen students in it -- booking a class is a lot easier when you aren't competing with 70 other students. But since I'll be working in immigration this summer, it's nice to know that I might be somewhat competent in the area.