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.