Scholarship is not Philosophy

In Trusts & Estates, we’ve moved on to revocation of wills. Things can get complicated very quickly when someone doesn’t dispose of an old will after making a new one. Hence the following question from my textbook: “Did the revocation of the revoking document . . . revoke the revocation (of the revoked document)?” (Thomas P. Gallanis, Family Property Law, 5th Ed., 226 (2011).)

This topic also yields itself to distractions regarding spelling. As I take notes (by hand – that is, without spell check) I find myself wondering, “Does that word have a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”

Revocation can take place in many ways. A Virginian’s will, for example, is void if he or she “cuts, tears, burns, obliterates, cancels, or destroys” it. (VA Code § 64.2-410.) I’m guessing that the author of that statute had fun writing it.

In Business Associations we spend a lot of time talking about policy. That prompted the following question from my professor when he was trying to make a point: “Let me rephrase this question: Why are lawyers bloodsucking parasites?”

I’ve spent a lot of time researching this week. Mostly that involves the somewhat mind-numbing activity of skimming law review citations and articles. The first few aren’t too bad, but when I get to the third or fourth hour of browsing similar articles looking for a specific facet of a topic about which dozens of people have written, I start to get a little stir-crazy.

This has led me to the idea that I’m much less of a scholar than a philosopher. By that I mean I don’t care for researching and study just for the sake of research and study, but I do like thinking about and discussing ideas just for the sake of thinking about and discussing ideas.

Database of thousands of law review articles on every imaginable facet of the legal world? No thanks. Panel discussion of the very same topics where people are expressing the same ideas and asking the same questions? Bring it on. Maybe that’s why I generally prefer class time to homework.

Except, of course, when I get to read sentences full of verbal gymnastics like that one from my T&E textbook.

October in Virginia: flowers . . .

. . . and falling leaves.

On Wills

“Where there’s a will there’s relations.”

– Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L. Sayers, A Presumption of Death 285 (2002).

In Trust & Estates, we’ve finished discussing intestacy and moved on to wills. The main thing to keep in mind with a will is making sure it’s done correctly; courts can be exceedingly (and ridiculously) inflexible about meeting the requirements. (Some courts have loosened up a bit, but better safe than sorry.)

One of those requirements is, of course, a signature. This led to potential problems for Theodore W. Dwight, the founder of Columbia Law School. Prof. Dwight neglected to make his will until he was on his deathbed. (This was, according to my professor, despite having taught Trusts and Estates Law. My professor also claims that Prof. Dwight resigned from Columbia in a huff when the school switched from a W&M style curriculum to a Harvard style curriculum.) After finally having his will written, he began to sign it and got as far as “Theodore W. Dwi­–…” and then suddenly died.

Bad timing.

(I don’t know whether the will was ultimately considered valid.)

There are, of course, reasons to declare even a correctly executed will invalid. One example is insane delusion. It’s not simply being delusional that invalidates a will, though; the delusion has to actually affect how you make your will. For example, your will can still be valid if you believe you are Napoleon, but not if you try to leave everything you own to the Empress Josephine.

Another case we read was regarding a woman who got involved in a cult and made a will to leave everything to the cult’s leader. She later changed her mind, but was prevented from changing her will by physical duress (they wouldn’t let her sign it), fraud, and possibly murder. The court (wisely) struck down the will that designated the cult leader as beneficiary of her estate (good job, New York Court of Appeals). That’s one of the more extreme cases we’ve read in T&E.

Meanwhile in the world outside of law school, the avian population at the lake has ballooned. I ran through a large group of geese the other day to an absolute cacophony of honks. I’m not sure if they were mad at me for disrupting their party, warning each other to get out of the way, cheering me on, or protesting being caught between the cars on the street and me on the trail.

Also, the trees are no longer a uniform shade of green. Most of the change is the summer’s solid green fading into a variety of green hues, but there are also smatterings of brown, yellow, orange, and occasionally red. I prefer the range of colors more than the continuous green wall of summer.

And today we had our first day of autumn-like temperatures. Yay for the impending sweater season.

I stopped mid-run by the lake one day. The ducks
immediately and excitedly rushed over. I think they
were expecting food.

Little did the ducks know, I stopped
mainly so I could take a picture of the
heron. I did feel bad, though, so I
walked down the next day to feed the
ducks (and a lot of geese) some Chex.