I went to law school, hated virtually every minute of it, dropped out, dropped back in, and bitched and moaned like a toddler. But law school ultimately allowed me to do precisely the job I always most wanted to do: be a writer. I could not do what I do today -- cover the courts and the law -- unless I had gone to law school.
The huge irony is that if I had known back in law school how happy I would be 8 years later, I'd have had the time of my life! I would have loved my classes, taken more interesting ones, never gone to an event I hated, done even more clinical work, learned to salsa dance, and made better friends. It would have been like undergrad, but in better shoes. The reason I got stuck was because I let myself feel stuck, thinking that unless I treated law school the way everyone else treated it -- as a dark tunnel to the world of corporate law -- I was doomed.
The best thing about law school is that it really will blow open a thousand career doors for you. But you need to see them. You need to tap your way along the dark tunnel -- feeling for soft spots, and listening for folks on the other side to tap back. You need to be true to your heart; true to why you went in the first place. And you need to do whatever it takes to fight the fear and the sucking noise that will otherwise pull you into a life you may not want.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
More Law School Talk
A symposium entitled Being and Becoming a Law Student found here. A worthwhile read for anyone who can find the time or is willing to procrastinate with even more reading. Here's a sampling:
The Law and Everything Else
Stummy has a great post on how law students see and understand the world. So I guess this means that boyfriends/girlfriends can be said to not only be temporary but repudiative?
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
My Favorite Drink
And it can be my favorite drink, seeing that I don't have to worry about fetal alcohol syndrome.
If It Worked For Me, It Could Work For You
Liz cheerfully said hi to me today. Therefore, slapping ass is a good ice breaker. Now go try it Brian.
Fordyce Word Of The Day
abstruse
adj : difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge
examples:
Niall's speech is usually abstruse.
Women's logic is abstruse.
adj : difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge
examples:
Niall's speech is usually abstruse.
Women's logic is abstruse.
I'm In Good Company
Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavs and multi-rich guy, has his own blog here.
Well I'm Out $10
Two reasons why I'm going to lose this year's pool. First, I made my picks based on Pac-10 pride - I not only have Arizona getting past Duke, but I have them going to the Final Four. Second, there's more than just me in the tourney pool.
UPDATE: "Experts'" picks here and some advice on filling out a bracket here.
UPDATE: "Experts'" picks here and some advice on filling out a bracket here.
Something on Spain
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh on why multilateralism probably isn't a good thing.
Those voters' position would be understandable -- perhaps not terribly sound in the long term, but understandable: The deaths were caused by Aznar's policies, since if he had not supported the Americans (over the opposition of most Spaniards, as I understand), the bombings probably wouldn't have happened; therefore, let's punish Aznar, and send politicians a message to prevent this from happening again.
But if that's so, then doesn't it show that we can't allow our foreign policy to be vetoed by other nations? After all, if we agree that we may not do what we think is right and necessary for our national security if any one of England, France, Russia, or China says "veto," then our enemies can paralyze us simply by influencing one foreign country. The influence might be exerted by bribes (more here), or by threat of terrorist violence. But one way or another, an enemy that couldn't break down our resolve could still stop us from doing what needs to be done by breaking down the resolve of one of the veto-owning countries.
The foreign countries' decisions may simply be probative of their own desire not to be attacked, not of what's the morally right thing to do in the abstract, or what's the practically right thing to do for us (or even what's in the aggregate interests of humanity generally). And I don't see why we should ascribe to a view of legitimacy that makes our actions illegitimate whenever the terrorists are able to force other countries to oppose us.
More On Taiwan
The recent discussions of Annie and Brian on foreign policy leads me to link to this but don't for a moment think that I'm trying to add fuel to that fire. I'm just trying to give Brian another reason to hate the French.
China and France will hold rare joint naval exercises off the mainland's eastern coast on Tuesday, just four days before Beijing's rival, Taiwan, holds presidential elections.
China's official Xinhua news agency made no link between the exercises off Qingdao -- about 780 miles from Taiwan's northernmost point -- and the election.
But the show of military strength and solidarity signaled China's desire to isolate the self-governing island before the vote and its first-ever referendum, which Beijing views as a provocative step toward independence.
Monday, March 15, 2004
Today
An uneventful day for most but unfortunately not for one of us. Here's to hoping Annie feels better soon.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Stop Your Bitching
I was intially going to link to this because it has law school tips and who can't use more of those right? But now I'm linking to it because it includes this:
I'm annoyed. At least she's kind enough to prescribe beer as a remedy to law school ills.
Curving at a 2.9 is lame, and for the first time in your life, you will probably get a "bad" grade. If I can get a C+ in Crim Pro and survive, so can you. No, I never had gotten a C before in my life. Yes, it hurt.Well let me tell you, it hurts a hell of a lot more when the curve is a 2.3 and it's lamer too when C+ is considered a "good" grade.
I'm annoyed. At least she's kind enough to prescribe beer as a remedy to law school ills.
Did I Just Hear What I Heard?
Just saw Peter Jennings reporting from Iraq and he expressed surprise that the Iraqi's were actually grateful towards the U.S. military. I guess it's still hard for some to believe that Iraqis in general prefer U.S. military presence rather than having a crazed, bloodthirsty dicator in control.
Moot Court Round 2
Well moot court is mercifully over for me. I'll do a full write up of today's moot court round when I finish Monday's reading.
UPDATE: This is how second round went: First up was Peters, and he did fine. He didn't do as well as he did last week though. He didn't know his intro quite as well and when he asked the court whether he should give a recitation of the facts I think he was tripped up a little when the C.J. said, "It's up to you counselor. We know the facts." So it began. The justices were a little tougher on him this time around. It was a hot bench and he, like all of us there, were constantly interrupted and constantly challenged on everything we asserted. Peters' voice cracked a couple of times but it wasn't too noticeable - maybe I'm just used to it. He was no where near as persuasive with his arguments this time around as well. Also, at the end when he asked if he could conclude, the C.J. said, "You may, but briefly, in one or two sentences." Of course, Peters went on for about five sentences. As a last note on Peters' performance, he forgot to reserve time for rebuttal but in his defense - I can't believe I'm defending the guy - he wasn't reminded about it by the bailiff as opposing counsel was last week. But overall not a bad performance considering it was a very challenging court.
Next up was myself and it was bad. I mean bad. I really should have prepared more. So I stumble through my intro and sensing that I was having some trouble the court jumped in. All I remember is that I grilled on due process and I wasn't giving an ok, let alone a good, response to any of the questions. I think the C.J. was a bit annoyed with me especially when I couldn't tell him where the due process clause as it applied to the states was found in the amendments. It was very tough and I got some sympathy from one of the justices who tried to toss me a softball but I missed that one as well. This is how BS the whole thing is though. At the end, I was told that I started off great and was answering their questions well and were surprised when I said, "I'm done" when the five minute card came up.... That's right I tried to conclude halfway through. But not even conclude because I didn't say anything to the effect of, "So in conclusion..." or "For the foregoing reasons..." rather I just said, "I'm done." Of course, as I was about to walk away, much to everyone's dismay, I was told by the C.J. that I wasn't done by a "No, no you're not." So I stayed up there for five more minutes getting my ass handed to me. As I was saying though, it's all BS because, as they encourage everyone, I too was encouraged to go on. I expressed my disinterest at continuing with repeated 'I'm dones.' and was repeatedly encouraged to go on. Whatever.
The opposing counsel of Yumna and Halil did a fine job. They too were attacked repeatedly by the court and at times were caught off guard but they handled it well. Yumna was pressed on police misconduct and Halil was caught on due process like I was. Not too much detail on them because I wasn't paying too close attention seeing that I wasn't going to rebut.
Anyway, it's all over for me. Of the four of us in the room, I think Peters and Halil are going on to the third round. Yumna is going to be up north visiting her sister during third round. Yours truly, will be trying frantically to catch up on his studies.
UPDATE: This is how second round went: First up was Peters, and he did fine. He didn't do as well as he did last week though. He didn't know his intro quite as well and when he asked the court whether he should give a recitation of the facts I think he was tripped up a little when the C.J. said, "It's up to you counselor. We know the facts." So it began. The justices were a little tougher on him this time around. It was a hot bench and he, like all of us there, were constantly interrupted and constantly challenged on everything we asserted. Peters' voice cracked a couple of times but it wasn't too noticeable - maybe I'm just used to it. He was no where near as persuasive with his arguments this time around as well. Also, at the end when he asked if he could conclude, the C.J. said, "You may, but briefly, in one or two sentences." Of course, Peters went on for about five sentences. As a last note on Peters' performance, he forgot to reserve time for rebuttal but in his defense - I can't believe I'm defending the guy - he wasn't reminded about it by the bailiff as opposing counsel was last week. But overall not a bad performance considering it was a very challenging court.
Next up was myself and it was bad. I mean bad. I really should have prepared more. So I stumble through my intro and sensing that I was having some trouble the court jumped in. All I remember is that I grilled on due process and I wasn't giving an ok, let alone a good, response to any of the questions. I think the C.J. was a bit annoyed with me especially when I couldn't tell him where the due process clause as it applied to the states was found in the amendments. It was very tough and I got some sympathy from one of the justices who tried to toss me a softball but I missed that one as well. This is how BS the whole thing is though. At the end, I was told that I started off great and was answering their questions well and were surprised when I said, "I'm done" when the five minute card came up.... That's right I tried to conclude halfway through. But not even conclude because I didn't say anything to the effect of, "So in conclusion..." or "For the foregoing reasons..." rather I just said, "I'm done." Of course, as I was about to walk away, much to everyone's dismay, I was told by the C.J. that I wasn't done by a "No, no you're not." So I stayed up there for five more minutes getting my ass handed to me. As I was saying though, it's all BS because, as they encourage everyone, I too was encouraged to go on. I expressed my disinterest at continuing with repeated 'I'm dones.' and was repeatedly encouraged to go on. Whatever.
The opposing counsel of Yumna and Halil did a fine job. They too were attacked repeatedly by the court and at times were caught off guard but they handled it well. Yumna was pressed on police misconduct and Halil was caught on due process like I was. Not too much detail on them because I wasn't paying too close attention seeing that I wasn't going to rebut.
Anyway, it's all over for me. Of the four of us in the room, I think Peters and Halil are going on to the third round. Yumna is going to be up north visiting her sister during third round. Yours truly, will be trying frantically to catch up on his studies.
Moot Court Unscripted
Second round for me today and all I'm doing to prepare is to go over Halil's brief when I get to campus. Good thing plaintiff/defendant is semi-appropriate. Save the well wishes because I intend this to be my last round of oral arguments.
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