Ok. . . so that commenting system by HaloScan isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Right now, it has disappeard. I bet when (if) it comes back up it will have erased all of my comments. I guess beggars cannot be choosers. It was free.
I am getting the tar beaten out of me this week and it’s only Monday.
I noticed that I haven’t had the burning desire to post here during the past few days. Then I realized why. I am working on my first real writing assignment for school and its totally got me tuckered out. I hate that. Same thing happens with reading. I have to read so much for school that I find I don’t even want to pick up a newspaper. I used to read the Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal when I was working (I refuse to link to the WSJ because they charge for all of their content). I need to figure out how to get my brain to understand that this is good writing, and that newspapers, fiction and poetry are good reading. It’s like breaking up with a woman, your brain automatically tries to protect you by convincing you that all woman are bad, when in fact only some are.
Just testing the “blog this” tool on my toolbar. Now I can post without busting up my flow. . . This is where I was when I decided to post. Recording Industry Association of America
Great post on bilingual conversations…
audio post powered by audblog
There is absolutely nothing wrong with August and Everything After. You can even like “Raining in Baltimore” now that you aren’t there.
I miss you.
I have been writing this @#$%&! motion to dismiss for the last 3 hours. I am realizing that my understanding of these 7 cases in relation to one another is not as “seamless” as I would have hoped. Taking these disparate cases, and trying to weave a coherent rule from bits and pieces of each is a lot harder than I though it would be. Each court decision I’d like to cite as precedent, has language that helps me and language that hurts me. Not mention that I actually feel the other side should win (apparently, most judges do too). I have never had to “take the other side” in an argument. It is quite frustrating to sift through decisions that you agree with, looking for sentences that can help you prove that they were wrong. . .
I signed up for flavorpill’s weekly email of “all things hip in NYC.” I assumed I would get it once and ditch it. I was pleasantly surprised. The events they pub are eclectic, often cheap, and on almost every occassion, ones I would have otherwise missed. They add true value and I literally trust that they won’t let me miss anything important. I would pay for this email. . . By the way, The Manchurian Candidate is showing at the Film Forum from Friday to Sunday.
Because I am in law school, I am beginning to get out of touch with the world. I just learned last night that Johnny Cash died. I knew several of his songs prior to his latest album. But it wasn’t until I heard his remake of Hurt (originally by Nine Inch Nails) that I became a fan. I almost cried the first time I saw the video for that song. Apparently Mark Romanek did the video. He has worked with some other amazing acts. Oh. . . I guess he directed One Hour Photo too.
Goodbye Johnny. I wish I’d had a chance to know you better.
So you go to law school thinking. . . I wanna know what the lawyers know. You go to class and they give you textbooks that only contain cases. There’s no lesson, followed by illustrative cases. Just cases. Maybe if you are lucky, after the case, will follow several notes. But they aren’t notes. . . they are questions provided to confuse you. These questions take what you assumed was the lesson you were supposed to derive from the case and make you think you are wrong.
And then the process of breaking you down begins. At first, all of the cases use Latin terms like “pari delicto” and “volenti non fit injuria.” Slogging through a 5 page case with a law dictionary takes hours. You learn to “brief” cases, in an attempt to distill each case down into a general “rule of law” After you become handy with the dictionary and begin to speed up, the professors switch tactics. They start assigning 8 cases a night and begin to examine the economic underpinnings of each case. I should note that these economic analyses are no where to be found in the text. I have never read a case where the judge explicitly said, “from an economic perspective this case’s holding will incentivize. . .”
The kicker is this. After you learn to determine the economic theory or public policy which the professor assures you lies just underneath the surface of every case (if you look just a little harder. . .), exams come. And exams only test you on the rules you stopped looking for because your professor didn’t seem to think they were very soundly reasoned anyway.
And it goes on. By next semester, we’ll all be reaching for the Golden Ring of Law Review. Clerkships go to those on Law Review. Teaching Positions go to those on Law Review. The best firm jobs go to those on Law Review. And somehow, we’ll all be convinced by then that it would be an honor to be allowed to work an extra 40 hours a week on top of our classes, for no pay, to edit the papers of professors. And for this privilege, you have to learn the arcane rules of the “Blue Book.” The “Blue Book” contains the rules of citation for the legal profession and is produced by the Law Reviews of Columbia, Harvard and Penn and the Law Journal of Yale. My professor admitted the other day that it is used by everyone, not becasue it is the best, but because it is the oldest.
I have many lawyer friends. I thought maybe they’d admit they’d been had. They wouldn’t. They patted me on the shoulder and said it would get easier with time. I’d come to understand the law. I spoke with the lawyers in my family. I thought maybe my relatives would give up the lie. Nope. Apparently the siblinghood of lawyers is stronger than family. They said, “it’ll make sense by the end of the first year.” They urged me to “just work hard at it.” In the end you’ll learn to “think like a lawyer.” And here’s the rub, no one can define what it means to “think like a lawyer. . .” No one.
I haven’t been here long, but I know this isn’t rocket science. They just work you hard and confuse you purposefully in order to indoctrinate you. They break you down, convince you to chase new and foreign goals and wait to see who wins. I bet the law firms aren’t even paying law schools for this ingenious “outsourced human resource department.” Law schools are simply an intricate (and inexpensive) means of determining who is willing to work their fingers to the bone. The law schools even screen potential candidates and set up interview times. You know in many schools, you don’t even get to pick who you interview with? It is all decided by class rank. What’s left for law firms but to pick the best. . . and here the best means those who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the reward of more work.
Well, this has turned into a rant (can we tell who is mad that he has to read procedure tonight?). I actually like this stuff, I just wish that this process was more open and less shrouded in mystery.
Tim (an INTP) hipped me to this site. It is oddly accurate. Especially the one about being laid back unless a “ruling principal” is violated.
INFPs generally have the following traits:
I have to write my first legal motion tonight. It feels funny when I attempt to write in a legal fashion. So much of the legal text I read is dry, and utterly confusing. Never before have I had a hard time understanding who, what and when a sentence is referring to. I wonder if I can write this motion for dismissal in a manner that follows the rules, but is clear and easy to understand? What I mean is. . . is it the form that makes these things so difficult to understand, or is it typically the authors?I heard once that lawyers write that way for job security…
Apparently, David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) has been an artist (in the visual sense) for over 35 years. His newest installation uses PowerPoint. . . It’s currently showing in the lobby of the Conde Nast Building at 7th and 42nd Street. I’m going to have to sneak over there between classes tomorrow.
So. . . I did some blog research today. Seems that there a million of these “law student blogs” out there. They even have a name. . . “blawgs.” Nice to hear other people’s stories. I particularly enjoyed Sua Sponte. An interesting issue seems to be the anonymity vs. full disclosure debate. I actually began this blog, anonymously, after having a non-anonymous blog for the last several months. I can’t figure out where I stand on the whole issue. I guess I’ll just feel it out as the year goes on.
I just started going to the gym for the first time in years. I feel old.
Got killed in Procedure this morning. I found out something intertesting though. . .I was asked to provide the class with a definition. But instead of the definition of a word (e.g. Volenti non fit Injuria. . . the volunteer suffers no wrong), I was asked to define a concept. It was this big picture view that I had a hard time with. When I taught programming last year, I found that this was the hardest thing for a student to do. They could identify, for instance, an object when they saw it, use it to solve problems, and understand its component parts. But they all had a hard time summoning up the language to answer the question of “so what.” They never got the why of it.
I am noticing a lot of overlap between the skills it takes to learn programming and the skills it takes to learn the law. I will return to this topic soon after I fleshed out my ideas.
Wow. I just went up on the deck on the 12th floor and my heart stopped. To the south, I can see two bright beams shooting out of the ground into the night sky. . . it’s September 11th.
I had one of those days where I couldn’t string enough words together to make a coherent sentence. To top it off, my Professor caught me not paying attention and called on me. At least I didn’t try to BS.
On call tomorrow in Procedure. Got to get some sleep.
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