Doubting Socrates

respite

2005-12-23T08:26:00.000-08:00

off to amsterdam......

enjoy your holiday.

Criminal Law Final

2005-12-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

It's 12:37pm.

Final begins at 1pm.

I went to bed at 6:30am this morning and woke up at 8am.

I'm too exaughsted to be stressed.

I would kill for an open book exam right now.

Good luck all.

Studying for finals....

2005-12-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. ~Baruch Spinoza

From: Mr Serkiz

2005-11-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

I had to remove the last post.

Again. I was not trying to imply anything about the Cheng's Assistant other than people in torts were becoming frustrated with his commentary.

In no way should this had been read as disparaging his character, or that he doesn't overall contribute positively to the class.

He understandably took offense at what I thought would be read by a handful of people who would have seen it in the context it was meant.

Cheng's assistant and I have since resolved the misunderstanding. He's a reasonable, articulate and genuinely nice guy.

I've removed the post because I believed some of the comments were needlessly cruel to him and others read far too much into the situation exacerbating the "drama."

I have never meant to be anonymous. The link to the blog is attached to my AIM profile which I give out freely. I don't advertise who I am because I never saw the need.

It seems though some commenter thought it necessary to do it for me.

So anyway, my apologies again.

The post wasn't written in the mean spirit it was perceived and the comment left by Cheng's Assistant didn't warrant the reaction it received.

Hopefully this is behind us.

I have a memo (to) finish.

Good luck on yours.

~Shane

(This was a fascinating lesson on the type of drama something so innocent could spark in a social community so insular, sectarian and pressured to perform.......)

I can breathe again....

2005-11-07T02:08:00.000-08:00

Relieved.

Angst....

2005-11-06T16:47:00.000-08:00

I should be getting my memo back tomorrow. I've been operating with an anxiety induced knot in my stomach since I handed it in two weeks ago.

I'd be happy with a B. I can't bring myself to hope for anything more even though I know a B wouldn't justify the work I did on it.

This is definitely the most difficult aspect of law school.

The pressure.

IÂm sure every section feels this way, but I really feel mine has a disproportionate amount of really bright, motivated and hardworking students. I think at least half of my section (or more) was dressed up on the day of the scholarship awards. As undergraduate, this would have been a welcomed prospect, and I try to think that way now, but then you realize only two of us might get the A in legal writing. It makes you want to be in the stupid section.

Are there really "smart" sections and "stupid" sections?

I've heard they put scholarship students in sections together to weed them out...

Is this true?

I am not used to fighting for grades, having always done well thanks to hard work or inherent ability. IÂve realized that you can bust your ass, do everything exactly as you should and in the end it may not be enough to score the grades, law review, moot court, or the job you want. (A few 2LÂs have more than once alluded to this)

The work has become daunting. The pace of classes has picked up. Finals are looming on the horizonÂ.

I'll read for five or six hours a day, finish everything for the next day and then realize I should be staying up and outlining or refining my outline instead of sleeping, eating. Watching a movie...

Breathing.

There is always something that could/should be doing, and if I'm not, someone else probably is.

I havn't seen any nasty competitive in-fighting yet.

Has anyone else?

Does it happen at BLS?

Now that winter is approaching and we have less and less daylight, there are days I leave my apartment when it's dark and get home well after the sun has set.

Looking forward to Christmas and New Year in Amersterdam...

Entrapment? Clearly.

2005-10-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

I submitted my memo at 9:13 am, with two minutes to spare having spent the last two hours hunkered in a large cushy chair at Starbucks proofing and making last minute revisions.

I went was up until 3:30 am last night finishing the memo.

Would you believe that I didn't procrastinate?

I nasty head cold and a preparing for a conference kept me from any serious work on my memo until Thursday and Friday. Saturday the conference prevented me from doing anything more, and I spent most of yesterday working on it, taking breaks only to eat, go to Starbucks, and watch West Wing. (TOBY!)

It's distressing that you could spend so much time and effort on something and have absolutely no idea how it's going to be evaluated. I'd be happy with a redeemable B, and will allow myself to hope for a B+, though wouldn't be surprised if I ended up with a C or an A-.

I have a nagging feeling I've left out some crucial element, or missed some egregious typo or grammatical error.

I keep telling my self, it's the process of learning to write effectively as a lawyer that is the important part of these exercises, and then the fact that it was worth 40% of my grade weighs in.

If I do poorly on this I could be in an inescapable hole which could prevent me from having a chance at moot court, a position on law review, not studying abroad, loosing my scholarship and ending up unemployed with crushing debt after three years.

And then I remember to breathe........

I'd consider breaking social convention and drinking my self into a contented stupor if my stomach weren't already in agony from the excessive espresso swirling around, and the need to do the civil procedure that took a back seat over the weekend.

Now it's a waiting game.

A Bad Writer? Or Just a Lawyer?

2005-10-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Ouch!

From the NYTimes..... October 16, 2005

The Basics
A Bad Writer? Or Just a Lawyer?

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Must lawyers write badly?
Scrutiny of the few available documents written by Harriet E. Miers, President Bush's pick to fill a seat on the Supreme Court, has inevitably raised that question. Some critics - including one, David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for this newspaper - have complained that Ms. Miers's prose, in columns written while she was president of the State Bar of Texas, was, well, awkward, empty and generally a little too lawyerly.
But writing those regular essays for a bar association can be challenging, especially in a state like Texas, where it is required that lawyers belong to the organization. Offending members is a risk not to be taken lightly.
"That's probably the single most - not difficult, but problem that every president has," said Eduardo Roberto Rodriguez, the current president of the Texas bar. Provocative topics are off limits, not least because lawyers unhappy with policies endorsed by the bar cannot simply withdraw.
It may often be safest for presidents of mandatory bar associations to say little, said James M. Finberg, president of the Bar Association of San Francisco, who writes an essay for his group's magazine. Membership in his organization, like membership in New York State's and other large bar associations, is voluntary.
"It doesn't even occur to me whether or not it's going to offend somebody," said A. Vincent Buzard, president of the New York State Bar Association.
But the quality of the writing itself is a separate issue. Avoiding controversy does not explain, for example, this carefully convoluted sentence Ms. Miers wrote in a September 1992 column: "We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective."
When lawyers write professionally they adopt the style of what they read: judicial opinions, legal briefs and law review articles, which are not scintillating stuff. For those who have a creative flair when they begin law school, keeping that spark alive requires effort. "After graduating they go into a law office somewhere where lawyerspeak is encouraged," said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School. "Once you get far enough down that road, it becomes hopeless."
In law school, writing style is not a focus of most classes, said Jethro K. Lieberman, associate dean for academic affairs at New York Law School, who has written about legal writing. "Nobody takes a judge to task for how he writes; we don't dissect opinions for problems of writing," he said. When lawyers use the passive voice and elliptical language, for example, they are just trying to sound judicial, Mr. Lieberman said.
Other people write badly, too, he added, a tad defensively. "It doesn't get remarked very often that writing is not a problem confined to lawyers," he said. "Writing is a problem confined to the human species."
JONATHAN D. GLATER

A day in the life of a first year law student......

2005-10-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

6:30am Alarm goes off, and is ignored
6:50 am Stumble out of bed into shower
6:50am-7:20am Shower, shave and get dressed
7:20am-7:40am Make lunch and eat breakfast
7:50am-8:30am Take R train to Brooklyn, while reading the New York Times
8:30am-9:00am Stop at Starbucks and get an iced quintuple venti vanilla latte
9:15am -11:00am Legal Writing. While professor goes over citation, check and recheck email, read CNN and BBC news , contemplate witty away messages, check all friends away messages--repeatedly in case they change….
11:00am-2:00pm Eat lunch, intend to go over civil procedure and read for criminal law, but chat with fellow socially starved 1L’s
2:00pm-4:00pm *fire drill…Civil Procedure: Removal from state courts. Listen intently; take notes and IM with fellow 1L’s and my sister upstate.
4: 15pm-5:00pm Take 5 train to Lexington and then R home keeping an eye out for suspicious packages.
5:00pm-9:00pm Starbucks again, another iced quintuple venti vanilla latte….read constitutional law for tomorrow
Pick up food for dinner
9:10pm-10:10pm treadmill and elliptical at NYSC
10:10pm-10:30pm “Dinner”
11:00pm-12:30am Reading criminal law for tomorrow
12:30am-??? Reading Phillip Roth in bed till sleep comes……..

2005-10-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

I think it has been a mistake to emphasize the fact that Harriet Miers has not been a judge, and to use this as a reason to oppose her nomination. History has shown that many of our best Supreme Court Justices, even Chief Justices have not been judges before they took their position on the SCOTUS: Marshall (John), Warren, Berger and Rehnquist to name a few. (Ok, while I'm not I fan of Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy, it would be difficult to argue he wasn't a proficient and informed justice....) The difference of course is that before they were appointed they were governors, attorney generals or the secretary of state; Miers ran the Texas Lottery. She simply is not qualified, and the appointment reeks of cronyism........

Don't take my word for it.......

"I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country."

"Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues — loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ... "

"Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery."

"While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right. To casually spurn the people who have been taking slings and arrows all these years and instead reward the former commissioner of the Texas Lottery with a Supreme Court appointment is like pinning a medal of honor on some flunky paper-pusher with a desk job at the Pentagon — or on John Kerry — while ignoring your infantrymen doing the fighting and dying."

"Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA as put Miers on the Supreme Court."

"However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one. Both Republicans and Democrats should be alarmed that Bush seems to believe his power to appoint judges is absolute. This is what "advice and consent" means. "

The above are taken from this liberal firebrand......

An attempt to answer t.a.l.'s question......

2005-10-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

When I’m sweating in Civil Procedure, nodding off in Constitutional Law, or stressing over a four page memo assignment I think about driving to Berkeley, California and working full time in a progressive bookstore during the day, and reading at night in a café. I think about sneaking into the Czech Republic and busing tables in a Prague restaurant learning Czech and reading Kafka at night. I think about applying for the internship at This American Life so I can work on making radio documentaries, collecting little audio snippets of people’s lives and collating them into smart, moving and witty narratives that enlighten and amuse. I think about going back to Java Joe’s Coffee House and making muffins and scones full time, spending the evenings sipping strong coffee in the Parlor Commons and wishing I was somewhere else. I think about becoming a correspondent for NPR in Istanbul, Paris or Buenos Aires.

Before I decided to come to law school I planned on entering a PhD program in Sociology. I was taking a graduate course in ethnography, doing research on the construction of masculinity and its performance in fitness spaces and working on an honors thesis about indigenous movement responses to neo-liberal globalization policies in Latin America. I loved the work I was doing and could have gotten into some very good programs, but the idea of commiting the next 8 to 10 years to studying the same thing and making very little or no money in the process was beginning to look less and less feasible. In my ethnography class I met someone who was pursuing her PhD after getting her JD. She had spent several year organizing labor groups in Argentina, and was teaching a class at the Gallatin School and had hoped to write a dissertation using her experiences and practical insights. I began thinking about spending 3 short years learning about the law, and using it to “affect a real change in people’s lives” and figured I could use what ever experience I garnered to write a kick ass dissertation for a PhD in the future.

So I took the LSAT and applied to schools at the last possible moment. In my last semester I started researching the types of jobs that were available to JDs. On a whim I looked at some message boards and web pages discussing salary levels for first year associates at the major firms. I was completely seduced by the possibility of making 125,000 dollars my first year out of law school. I was willing to trade in any sort of convictions I had against giant firms acting in the interest of corporations as they plundered the planet and the poor for the possibility of nice apartment in Manhattan and a Saab. This is assuming I could do well enough to rank high enough in my class to get these types of jobs.

This did not last very long. I have since put it back into perspective. Why would I want to work 80 hours a week and feel like shit about the work I was doing ? I cringe when I think of law school as a professional training program churning out lawyers ready to serve the highest bidder regardless of the human costs. While I enjoy the material and haven’t had any difficulty keeping up with or understanding any of the work, I am not driven to learn law in order to secure a plum job at the end. I’m content with understanding the material, its connections to the other readings and its application to “the real world.” It is fascinating to see the how law develops and how the influence of ideology, social forces and the weaknesses and strengths of individual justices and legislators shape the legal framework of society and its direct consequences on individuals After law school I’d like to work for a couple of years for an international agency or non-profit till I can pay down debt so I can then pursue a PhD, or get a job with NPR……

We’ll see how I feel after finals…….

I love studying law.........

2005-10-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

but I don't want to be a lawyer.

I shot myself in the foot and Mens Rea is not that difficult......

2005-09-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

I completely slacked over the weekend.

Friday: blur

Saturday: Read NY Times. Saw Corpse Bride (not worth it). Went shopping at the Union Square Farmer's Market. Oggled Jessica Lang and Mikhail Baryshnikov at l'Aile ou la Cuisse on Bleeker and Grove. Watched my roommate in an operatic street performance. Saw Proof (Paltrow's performance was excellent, otherwise the movie was a watered down version of the play.) Went out for coffee. A wonderful day, save the lackluster movies. I rarely see major Hollywood releases, and the day I choose two, I was expectedly disappointed. I should have seen Everything is Illuminated and Stupide Garcon instead........

Sunday: Slept in. Made vegan chili and a vegan pasta-bake for the week. Family birthday party on Long Island. Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad.....and then very very little work.

Ok. I seem to have forgotten I am in law school over the weekend. I woke up this morning and was swiftly brought to my senses with the realization that for tomorrow alone I have to write my first legal memo for LWR, I have to read Civil Procedure and brief Mas v. Perry to hand in, and read Torts. Will I make the 11pm showing of the Daily Show. What about the Almodovar movie from my library that is already two days over due????

Come now.

I have a list of contacts for a conference that need to be uh, contacted.

So I've learned my lesson. The work for classes cannot necessary be done the night before, and weekends are no longer sacred retreats into a milieu of movies, good books, food , spirits and friends.

Criminal Law (where I am now) has become really tedious. Cohen has been lecturing for 45 minutes now on something that is very clearly outlined in a very well written and clear text which he coauthored. Either he thinks we're idiots, or has very little faith in the clarity of his text.

Now he's doing a spectrum on the board between civil negligence and recklessness. Torts with Cheng deja vu.

Gotta go....I am a juror.

Menlove's Flaming Hayrick

2005-09-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

Vaughan v. Menlove
132 Eng. Rep. 490 (C.P. 1837)

"... he ought not to be responsible for the misfotune of not possessing the highest order of intelligence."

A diplomatic way of saying it's not my client's fault that he's a drooling idiot....

Redundancy

2005-09-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

We are studying subject matter jurisdiction in civil procedure.

We've discussed and read about subject matter jurisdiction in our introduction to law mini-course and in Marbury v. Madison in constitutional law.

Why are so many people taking notes in a way that would make me believe they're coming across this for the first time?

I'm not sure the commute was worth it today......

I could be spending my afternoon with Sam Adams and Woody Allen.

Chance Encounters....

2005-09-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I began reading My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, one of my favorite writers. Pamuk, Turkey's most famous modern novelist weaves a beautiful story out of sex, murder, art, and religion against the rich tapestry of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious Ottoman Empire.

In yesterday's NY Times I came across an article discussing charges brought against Pamuk in Turkey for "public denigration" of Turkish identity for bringing attention to the Armenian genocide, during World War I. Pamuk faces three years in prison if he returns to Turkey, a potentially embarrassing prospect as Turkey tries to court the EU in its bid for membership.

This morning I picked up Samantha Power's "A Problem From Hell" America and the Age of Genocide to read on the train on my way to brunch with an old friend and a Tulane "refugee" at Cafeteria in the West Village. The first chapter discusses in detail the American inaction and complacency in the Armenian Genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks, particularly Mehmed Talaat, the former Turkish Interior Minister. Inaction and narrow geopolitical concerns allowed over a million Armenians to be murdered or expelled from Turkey. Afterwards Turkey waged a public relations campaign to improve its image culminating in the installation of Attaturk's ultra-nationalist regime. Talaat tried to leave his past behind him, and may have gotten away with his "crimes against humanity" had an Armenian student, Soghomon Tehlirian, not walked up behind him on the street in Berlin and shot him in the head.

The murder of Talaat and the Armenian extermination caught the attention of Raphael Lemkin a Polish Jew studying linguistics in Lvov, who wondered "It is a crime for Tehlirian to kill a man, but not a crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million men..."this is most inconsistent." (17)
Lemkin later went on to coin the word "genocide" and warn the world about the likelihood of another mass race and ethnic based extermination, shortly before Hitler began his campaign. To this day Turkey denies genocide took place, the United States has been a passive witness to the genocidal killings of Jews in Europe, Bosnian Muslims in Srebenicia, the victims of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the Tutsi's in Rwanda, every time paying lip service to "Never Again."

How is this relevant to the Civil Procedure I should be reading now???
Fullerton has expertise in international human rights law.
Ok, lame excuse, I just thought the bizarre coincidence of 3 days worth of random reading complimenting each other so beautifully were worth mentioning. At the expense of civil procedure of course.

Blame it on the Mullahs!

2005-09-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

Beware! Iranian mullahs are watching the Weather Channel!

For some perspective on the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I have looked back to Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave; A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago a text I studied in an undergraduate sociology class. Heat Wave analyzes the horrors affecting the poor, the elderly and the black citizens of Chicago after a devastating stretch of 120 degree weather in 1995. Similarly to New Orleans the poorest and marginalized citizens of Chicago suffered disproportionately from a so called natural disaster. What we leaned and can be said about Katrina is that while the weather itself is a "natural event" (though I guess you can argue human induced climatic change could have played an effect...) the disastrous results are entirely man made. The structural inequality present in New Orleans created a divided city with an established and insulated upper and middle class, and neglected ghettos where poverty and violence where hidden in the name of le bon temps. Sickeningly some commentators and the head of FEMA himself, Michael Brown took the time to point out that the people who stayed are partly to blame for their current misery. He is of course assuming, as Barak Obama noted, that every one has an SUV they can pile their children in, put a hundred dollars worth of gas in the tank and wait out the storm in a hotel room.....For people living paycheck to paycheck, who rely on public transportation, have no credit cards, distant and equally poor families and elderly relatives to care for it simply wasn't an option. The ugly fact that people are reluctant to admit is that their race contributed to their poverty in a racially divided country and their poverty condemned to death when Katrina came knocking on their door.

An article on the BBC website last week said it so well.

"The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better. It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream. The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America. That is what presidential campaigning is all about. But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown - along with the response to it - is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and over-stretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored. " (Matt Wells, Story from BBC news:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr//2/hi/

americas/4210674.stmPublished: 2005/09/03 08:43:13 GMT

There was an article in the NYTimes today that mentioned a dead body that has been sitting on the streets for days.......yes days.

Hours passed, the dusk of curfew crept, the body remained. A Louisiana state trooper around the corner knew all about it: murder victim, bludgeoned, one of several in that area. The police marked it with traffic cones maybe four days ago, he said, and then he joked that if you wanted to kill someone here, this was a good time. Night came, then this morning, then noon, and another sun beat down on a dead son of the Crescent City. That a corpse lies on Union Street may not shock; in the wake of last week's hurricane, there are surely hundreds, probably thousands. What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable. Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet. (Dan Barry, September 8th, 2005)

The Bush administration's response was initially apathetic (Black people in Louisiana do not contribute to the Republican Party) then mock outrage, to comfortable but meaningless platitudes. Can the American people see this? Remember Bush won an election after sinking our economy, lying about a cause for war, letting Osama Bin Laden get away ......etc. They can always count on the short attention span of the American electorate.

Ok....enough diatribe. It's time for Torts.

Say goodbye to some beloved civil liberties........

2005-09-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Chief Justice Renquist is dead.

Bush now gets two spaces to fill on the Supreme Court!
I feel the need to vomit...

Though it will make for an interesting year in Consitutional Law........

Cafe Trotsky, El Crimen Perfecto and some really smart judges.....

2005-09-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Cafe Trotsky

Gershon and I discovered a great little place in the lower east side/east village for dinner and coffee. Cafe Trotsky is a little "hole in the wall" on Orchard Street, with an amazing "old world charm." The crab bisque was to die for as was my butter and sugar crepe. If you want to skip dinner there stop by for a Einspanner, known to many as a espresso con panna but instead of whipped cream it's served with Schlag before or after a movie at the Landmark Sunshine.

El Crimen Perfecto was a super movie:

"The director of "El Crimen Perfecto" ("The Perfect Crime"), 34-year-old Álex de la Iglesia, has been hailed as the successor to Pedro Almodóvar, who produced Mr. de la Iglesia's first film, "Accion Mutante," in 1993. Mr. Almodóvar's influence is visible in this film's crisp, almost cartoonish visual style; its bright, pulsating colors; and its generous use of slapstick.
But Mr. de la Iglesia's bleakly cynical worldview is a far cry from Mr. Almodóvar's expansive humanism. There are no heroes in "El Crimen Perfecto": Rafael and Lourdes are a callous, self-serving pair, locked in a zero-sum death struggle that recalls the pulp-noir couples of James M. Cain." NY TIMES - Dana Stevens

I'm reviewing Lawrence v. Texas (2003) for criminal law and stumbled across a paragraph from the majority opinion that makes me warm and fuzzy inside:

" The case...involve[s] two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government... The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."

Of course Scalia disented.......

ok back to the books.........

Fight for your right to write........on a chalkboard.

2005-09-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Cheng cancelled Torts for today and Monday is Labor Day, hence.......
I have a 4 day weekend. This makes me happy. Very happy.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the BLS ACLU meeting. I'm excited about several of their action campaigns including Immigrant Rights, Voter Registration and LGBT. The co-chair began the meeting by telling us how active and productive the organization is, and that its reputation extends beyond our little corner on Joralemon. Apparently the first success the enjoyed was the ability to write club and organization's announcements on the chalkboards. Crazy Radicals......

Now that we've finished our first full week of Law School I have some reflections I'd like to share.

1. My professors are incredible, or seemingly so. They all seem fair, make the material as relevant and interesting as possible, and in Cohen's case rather funny. I would feel very comfortable approaching any of them if I was having difficulty with the material, or generally wanted to talk about law.....

2. The cliqueness that was apparent during intro to law and the first day of classes seems to have subsided. I think people are starting to let down their guard, Feil Hall inhabitants are branching out, and the commuters are starting to find each other.

3. In general everyone seems extremely committed to working hard and doing well. Class comments, questions and responses are usually clear, well thought out and intelligent. Having come from an undergraduate institution that had a liberal acceptance policy its refreshing to be surrounded by like minded, hard working and intelligent people.

4. While some of the orientation activities may be a bit taxing and repetitive I really appreciate the administrations efforts to make this transition as easy for the 1Ls as possible. I can't think of anything I would have asked for that hasn't already happened or is being offered.

5. The bathrooms on every other floor is definitely cause for complaint. For people who may be reading this who are not at BLS, it's not that there are floors without any bathrooms, just that a floor will have a men's room or a ladies room on alternation floors. So if you have class on the 4th as I do, and are male, as I am you either have to go to the 3rd or 5th floors to relieve yourself.

6. The wireless internet service has been sporadically shitty. We got an email today that seems to promise some resolution to whatever issues their having by the time we get back on Tuesday. In the meantime I've been carrying around an ethernet cord to plug in, which is unfortunate, as my only cord is the 20 foot bright blue monster I have leftover from my days in the dorm.

7. I have developed a healthy peeve in my first week. Fellow law students who insist on banging, literally pounding on their keyboard while trying to transcibe every word the professor utters. It is soo loud and distracting. WORSE is when they do it in the library, and you can hear them 4 tables and 3 study cubicles over. ENOUGH ALREADY! Have some mercy on your poor laptop and your fellow 1L's.

8. I have heard from veterans of the 1L experience that there is always someone in a section or class that feels they must try to answer every questions, or have a comment for every hypothetical the professor poses. I have decided who this person our section (though I've been spared as he's not in my smaller sections) and hope the professors will catch on sooner then later and ignore is wildly flapping hand. (ok, so he doesn't flap his hand, but it makes for a good picture and he might as well.......you know he wants to)

9. I have also heard that Brooklyn is extremely competitive. I can understand the inclination. You have 300 (?) relatively intelligent and driven people working hard to be in the top 30 to secure the job of their dreams..........So far it seems people are generally satisfied with doing their work to the best of their abilities, trying to get a bit of an edge here or there but still willing to help and answer questions. There are a few people I see lurking around nervously asking about how long someone read, or what they think the cutoff will be for A's or anticipating who they do and don't have to "worry about."

10. Brooklyn Law is really really white. It's a shame. Are other law schools this racially homogeneous. There are more guys wearing kippot in my section than there are African Americans.

11. There's a group of students who seem really flippant and unmotivated in my section. Now they are either all geniuses who do not need to do work, they work their ass off behind close doors and are simply lying about the drinking and smoking they're doing at Feil, or they have rich mommies and daddies and law school is merely a diversion to delay the "real world" for awhile.

12. The workload has been manageable so far. I've enjoyed reading cases thus far, and briefing is definitely time consuming and sometimes challenging but more then worth it. The greatest difficulty I've had is working out a system of reconciling my expansive and often disorganized class notes and my reading notes......perhaps I'll take some time doing that.
Any suggestions?????

ok......that's enough for now. I'd love to "hear" about other people's experiences and observations.....

I have a date tonight with a very special someone.....we're grabbing dinner somewhere in the West Village and catching a showing of El Crimen Perfecto.

Obiter Dicta...

2005-08-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've been at Starbucks for about 5 hours now, my iced quad-venti vanilla latte is long gone and my empty stomach begging for attention. So this is what law school is all about.

I've finished the Civil Procedure reading for tomorrow, though having finished Buffalo Creek last week, it was fairly easy. The written assignment, finding the federal circuit and district court jurisdictions for various places around the country was easy but tedious. While I don't have a reason to assume I fucked the assignment up I've checked and rechecked every detail and am unreasonably anxious about it as it has to be handed in and will be Fullerton's first impression of our abilities. (Honestly though all that it could possible show is our deft Googling abilities, or lack thereby)

I've just finished the reading for Tuesday's Constitutional Law class and briefed (in my own rudimentary way) Marbury v. Madison. As an undergrad philosophy major I took a Hermeneutics and Deconstruction class and can say Heidegger's Being In Time and Derrida's Margins read like a John Grisham novel in relation to Supreme Court decisions in the early 1800's, or maybe I'm just partial to the ramblings of European men....

For interested parties, the New York Times Magazine, available yesterday to delivery subscribers like myself, or today for the plebian "per-issue" mob, featured an article on the future of the Supreme Court. Even if you're bogged down in class work take the time to give it a quick read though on the subway or toilet.......

Word of the Day: mandamus

Is it possible to use mandamus in a sentence having absolutely nothing related to law........having spent more time than I care to admit trying to I'm going to grab some food at the "greasy spoon" down the block........

Chanting Down Babylon.........

2005-08-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Babylonia En Guagua

"......solo voy con mi penasola ca mi condena correr es mi destino para burlar la ley perdido en el corazonde la grande babylon me dicen el clandestino por no llevar papel...."

Watching the Manu Chao documentary of his performance at the Grande Hall de ls Villette. I'm doing this of course to avoid reading Civil Procedure and getting ready for the wedding I'm attending in the Garden State tonight.

Tomorrow is a family Simchat Bat in Staten Island and then I will have to buckle down.

Anyone else a Manu Chao aficionado?

One down, Seventeen to Go..........

2005-08-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

I started an entry earlier this morning while waiting for Cheng to show up in Torts and when I pushed the "Save as Draft" button I discovered I had been booted off line. It seems the wireless service at BLS leaves much to be desired.

I'm at a Starbucks on Steinway St. trying to "flesh" out my notes from Criminal Law and Torts. I jot don't the main points of the lecture and class discussion instead of transcribing every utterance so I can focus and make the necessary analytical connections. It seems to work for me, as it forces me to rehash the lecture at my own pace while working with my cryptic jottings and coming up with a detailed account of the class.

Criminal Law yesterday began with Cohen mumbling about his desire to kill an unfortunate class mate who is NOT from Baltimore and brandishing knives at late arrivers. A fellow 1L seemed a bit confused about the 9 am starting time and wandered in at 9:15 seeing a room filled with eagerly typing students hanging on to every word, and thinking class began at 9:3o mumbled something about "over-achievers" as she took her seat. I think the Criminal Law text is really well organized and understandable and didn't have any difficulty with the material. I would love to get some people together in the class and meet occasionally or even weekly to discuss the hypotheticals and questions posed in the text. I think that would be a great focus for a study group. If you are reading this and have Cohen for Criminal Law on Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am let me know if you'd like to form a group for this or any other classes our sections we share.

I finished the book on the Buffalo Creek disaster for Civil Procedure, and have to say that I agree with Solan that A Civil Action would have been more compelling, but it was a fast read regardless. The procedural points were so clear and reiterated so often it was impossible not to be aware of their import.......There were times though that I thought Stern was kicking the proverbial "procedural horse" to death.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality and price of the food provided by dining services. Having just graduated from a school where the food was horrid and cost what it would had you gone out to eat this is a huge relief. A large coffee is one dollar! While it isn't Starbucks it is sufficiently strong and will do. This week I've had a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie every day......They are dangerous and at 50 cents a piece, dangerous and oh so accessible.

I have a confession.........

I do not live in Feil Hall.

Yes that's right. Actually I do not live in any available campus housing. I don't even live in Brooklyn. I have the impression that most of the people in my section live in Feil or in its vicinity and have already settlled into small groups while I wander around aimless and alone....sniff sniff. While I couldn't convince my self to stick around for Bar Crawl yesterday, I am eager to meet some like minded 1Ls who enjoy a good films, neighborhood bars, politics and gasp.......the finer points of law.

begin.......

2005-08-25T00:08:00.000-07:00

Midnight.....

Still have to read Criminal Law for tomorrow morning.............