Fifteen Minutes of Trial and the Four Broadway Memo

The W&M 1L class is terrific. The law school has an annual Thanksgiving Basket Competition between the 1L sections. Well, basket is a bit of a misnomer. It’s more of a pile-of-donated-food-in-a-creative-way competition. The previous record was about 4000 cans of food. This year’s 1L class: 7000+ cans of food and some donated cash on the side! (The lobby was very crowded.) I have some great (and very creative) colleagues.

That was the major event at school this week.

A recent, much more minor event took place in Civil Procedure. A class on court rules and procedures would seem to need a lot of time spent on talking about trials. Not so much. We covered trials in 15 minutes and moved right on to preclusion. The part of law that draws the most attention in popular culture is one of its smallest components.

My big project of the week was my final legal memo. For an idea of how much time I’ve spent working on it, I’ve managed to listen to Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Wicked, and The Lion King (Broadway version). And I’ve had some silent work time as well. Happily, it will be done tomorrow morning.

Which is also why I’m going to bed now.

Short Observations

I have twenty-one classes and three finals left of my first semester of law school. (I’ve always enjoyed counting down those sorts of things.) This has felt like the shortest semester of my entire educational experience. I might, however, change my mind about that during finals when my three tests are spread out over two weeks.

My schedule for spring semester was posted the other day. I won’t have any classes before 10:00, which feels incredibly late in the day to get things going. And I thought an 8:30 class was late.

Of course, morning hours are a great time for homework and running, so a 10:00 schedule will be nice in that regard.

Best recent discovery: there is a track about two miles from my apartment. I’m very happy to have a large rubber circle to run on.

Second best recent discovery: the library is deliciously silent on Saturday mornings before it opens (I accidentally left for work half an hour early on Saturday…this is what happens when each day starts at a different time).

Also, the Jamestown Ward loves Muddy Buddies. They made short work of the batch I brought for today’s Linger Longer. Chex + chocolate + peanut butter + powdered sugar = yum.

***

Torts case of the week: thaw causes large chunks of ice to float down river…ice piles up by boat 1, causing it to come loose from post…boat 1 floats away into boat 2, causing boat 2 to come loose…boat 2 drifts into drawbridge, bringing down one of bridge’s towers…boat 1 enters the wreckage and wedges into boat 2, creating a dam…bridge’s second tower falls…banks of river flood for several miles. Petition of Kinsman Transit Co., 338 F.2d 708 (2d Cir. 1964).

It’s like a handy analogy for when life seems to be piling up all around and threatening to engulf you. (No, that’s not what life is like for me right now; I’m just making an observation.)

Scattered

This week I discovered a new joy: running through falling leaves. A long road lined with tall trees (in kaleidoscopic colors) mixed with a little wind makes for an almost magical atmosphere.

I also made the happy discovery that music helps me focus on homework. This was a surprise because in the past I always found music to be a distraction – or at least I convinced myself it would be a distraction and never listened to any while doing homework. But that is not the case with law. When I’m having a hard time concentrating, I turn on some tunes and somehow that works better than silence.

Food also helps.

Cold weather in Williamsburg seems to take a wade-slowly-into-the-pool rather than a jump-in-the-deep-end approach. The temperature has gotten down below 35 degrees once or twice, but then it slides right back up above 60. So maybe it’s more of a dip-a-toe-in-the-water-and-decide-it’s-too-cold-and-come-back-later approach.

My car in the morning. It looks like more leaves in real life.

School news: I forgot to go to class one day. I left Torts with my mind on other things, went to the lobby, and sat down to eat my apple. A bit later it dawned on me that I should have been in Legal Practice for the last fifteen minutes. That was a first for me; I’ve come close to sleeping through a class once or twice, but I haven’t forgotten about class before.

In my defense, the Legal Practice class schedule is constantly changing. Our regular Tuesday and Thursday classes are often cancelled for Library lectures, labs, or individual conferences. And our adjunct class is often cancelled for individual mock client counseling, client interviews, or oral reports.

(No worries: I did make it to the last forty minutes of class, and no problems ensued.)

One of my major homework activities this week was highlighting portions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including rules for summons, personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, venue, joinder, impleading… I could keep going. Civil Pro is a somewhat tangled topic.

Scattered leaves, scattered focus, scattered weather, scattered class schedule, scattered homework.

Good thing there's music. And food.

Refuge

This week in Criminal Law we discussed a very difficult topic. My homework for those classes constituted the most unpleasant reading I have ever done.

It wasn’t unpleasant because it was surprising; I understand that there is a great deal of evil in the world, and in a law school setting I expect to encounter some of the most abhorrent things in life. Instead, the unpleasantness came from the nature of the topic and from seeing it up close. Being in close proximity to something repulsive touches your mind and emotions in a way that nebulous and undefined evil does not.

I suppose I’ve had a rather sheltered life. I’ve never been subjected to certain ideas. I’ve never had to deal with the difficulties those ideas raise. Some people might view that kind of life as a weakness. They might see it as silly or naïve or out of touch. But I am so, so grateful for it.

I’m grateful I grew up in a strong family and a good home. I’m grateful I was raised by righteous parents who taught me the Gospel. I’m grateful I’ve been surrounded by good influences and opportunities. Because of those things, I still recognize that good is stronger than evil, and that most people still want what it good.

I'm grateful I don’t have to be afraid of the world, because I know how to find the good in it.

***

Quick seasonal report: The trees in Williamsburg are now a bright mix of greens, oranges, reds, yellows, and browns. And thanks to daylight savings time (and our location on the eastern edge of the time zone) the sunset today was at 5:06. I tend to read at nighttime, so maybe that will help me get my homework done earlier…

Entertainment

This week has been entertaining.

First, the weather cooled down a little and I managed to run twenty miles over the course of the week. I haven’t done that much for a long time and it felt really good. Yay for a long fall season. And yay for sea level oxygen, which makes me feel like I’m in better shape than I really am. (The cooler weather also brings the added bonus of decreasing the bug population – or at least driving it underground.)

The neighborhood woodland trail.

Second, I took my first law school exam. It was a low-key experience (75 minutes long, worth 5% of my grade) intended to give my cohorts and me a foretaste of finals. I’ve never taken a test I would describe as entertaining before, but this one qualified. The basic format of a law school exam is as follows: the professor makes up a story containing as many wrongful acts or broken laws as possible. The student’s job is to identify the lawsuits that could arise from the story and analyze the expected legal outcome. So it boils down to writing a serious evaluation of a really wacky story. Apparently, that’s fun for me.

Speaking of wacky stories, here is the Torts case of the week: A woman’s car won’t start, so she goes inside to call a mechanic. On returning to her car, she finds it occupied by a large baboon. (Candler v. Smith, 179 S.E. 395 (Ga. Ap. 1935)). I know it sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s a true story. That would make for a rough morning, wouldn’t it?

The third entertainment of the week: I came across the doctrine of “de minimis non curat lex,” (i.e., the law does not concern itself with trifles). I found this ironic because with everything from rules of citation to minute distinctions and interpretations, the law sometimes seems to be nothing but trifles. (Even the reference I found was in an appellate opinion overturning a lower court’s decision to ignore a small event.) Sometimes I feel like Richard C. Wydick did in describing the fanatical defense of certain grammar rules: “One wonders whether there are not grander things to worry about.” (Plain English for Lawyers, 5^th Ed., Carolina Academic Press 2005, P. 95.)

In other news, the idea I had about not needing to look for a job until next spring has been debunked. My summer job search ostensibly began last Friday. It’s good to plan ahead, I guess. Especially since I’m not yet entirely settled about what direction to take my career.

I suppose it doesn’t matter too much, as long as it’s entertaining.

Moot (Maybe)

I had my first experience with moot court this week. My Torts professor arranged for a local lawyer to come argue a case before a handful of “judges” (law professors or similar) in W&M’s courtroom. It gave him an opportunity to practice an appellate case he’s working on, and it gave my class a taste of a real courtroom case. Our guest argued the plaintiff’s side and my professor argued the defendant’s.

It was interesting to listen to. Shortly into the lawyer’s arguments, the judges interrupted with questions. The end result, rather than a TV lawyer type speech, was a four on one conversation with the judges pushing as hard as they could (in a respectful, dignified way) against the lawyer’s rationale. Of course, my professor received the same treatment. It’s kind of odd to hear the judges suddenly switch their arguments to the other side. And it gave my brain a good workout in trying to keep up.

It was a good illustration of the unknown, grey areas in the law. In fact, there is very seldom a black-and-white “right” answer in law school. The answer is usually maybe. Or probably. Or “we think this is what it means.” Or, “we’re not sure and it would be really nice if the Supreme Court would clarify this for us.” My Torts professor has told us repeatedly, “If you came to law school looking for answers, you might as well head right back out the door.”

And it actually makes sense to have all that fuzzy grey area. If there is a black and white answer, you don’t need a lawyer. As another professor mentioned early in the semester, no one hires a lawyer to tell them what the speed limit is.

Maybe that’s why law school feels so different from other academic endeavors. It’s not about learning facts and knowing answers. The lawyer’s harvest is greater when there are more grey areas.

Switching gears away from the law school front, we had a Relief Society activity on Saturday where I tried to live up to my name and quilt a few stitches on a ward service project quilt (I was pretty slow – I prefer tying quilts to the stitching part).

I’ve also taken to watching Studio C (on YouTube). The comedy is a little over the top sometimes, but it feels good to laugh and it’s nice to watch something lighthearted after reading casebooks (especially the criminal law one).

Outside, a bunch of leaves have now fallen off the trees. There are so many still on the branches that it’s hardly made a dent, but there are certainly rake-able quantities. Leaf blowers are showing up on campus. The trees are generally still green, but perhaps a little less vibrant than before.

So I guess fall has arrived. Maybe.

Geese on the lake closest to my apartment.

My new cutting board (etched glass from yesterday's RS activity).

Read Law

The main greeting question people used to ask me was, “Do you still run?” My move to Williamsburg has ended that 13-year tradition and I’m now usually asked some version of: “How is school?”

It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, so my typical reply is something to the effect of, “It’s good. It keeps me busy.” Short and vague.

I suppose the difficulty arises in part because of common preconceptions about law school (for some reason it’s hard for me to give an answer when I feel like the other person is already expecting a certain type of answer). Or maybe it’s because I can’t always tell whether the questioner wants a general benchmark of my status as a law student, or a deeper, analytical reply.  Or perhaps it’s because my impulse is to share the experience rather than the technicalities; the experience is more interesting, but more difficult to put into words. And it takes a great deal of technicality to explain experience.

Well, tonight I’m going to describe one or two technicalities of law school. With any luck, that will give a small taste of the real experience.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout talks about her father going to Montgomery to “read law” (Harper Lee, Ch. 1). I have always liked the ring of that phrase. But I never knew how literal it was until I began “reading law” myself. That’s about what law school amounts to. My homework is a nightly list of items to read. For precision, I could add “talk law” and “write law” to Scout’s description, but the bulk of the work is still reading.

What do I read? Cases. Dozens of them.

I used to think law students spent a lot of time studying constitutional and statutory law – founding documents and subsequent legislation. I’d heard of casebooks, but I imagined the cases were only tangentially related, like colorful illustrations in the margins. Instead I’ve found that the constitutional clause or the statute – if there is one at all – is more like the heading of a chapter which is followed by paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of cases.

And some of those cases are crazy. Last week there was one about an armchair thrown out of a hotel window amidst V-J Day celebrations in 1945. Another case was about a steer falling through the ceiling (note to county and state fairs: please don’t put 600 pound livestock on the second floor). Then there was a case about the robbers who stole a police car in an attempt to escape, then stole another police car when the first one was disabled.

As you can tell, it can be very entertaining. (Side note: it’s remarkable how often alcohol is involved in the events that precede litigation.)

All of this reading has changed my view of what “the law” is. Before school, I would have described the law as the US Constitution, the various state constitutions, and state and federal legislative statutes, with a few regulations thrown in for good measure. But that’s only a small part of it. “The law” also includes the always evolving common law* and innumerable court decisions. I’ve been forever disabused of the grade school notion that the legislative branch makes the law, the executive branch enforces the law, and the judicial branch interprets the law. That’s a nice simplification for elementary civics, but in reality they all make law – especially the judiciary.

*The common law is for wrongful acts such as battery. Legislatures don’t need to make laws (though they can if they want to) to tell people not to hit each other.

So on any given night (unless it’s Sunday), I can be found in various places reading through a handful of cases and trying to distill from them the underlying principles and rationale of “the law.”

Good thing I like to read.

This is the bridge I drive over on my way to and from school each day.