This post is coming to you from about 32,000 feet in the air, somewhere between Durham and Houston. I have to say that, so far, this is probably the best flying experience I’ve ever had – so much so that I felt compelled to blog about it.
Now here’s the thing. I really am not a fan of flying in general. I would prefer to take a train or drive. But given that the distance separating my law school and my family home is about the width of the continental United States, and because I plan on maximizing the utility of any time off from school that I get, flying is definitely the better option (See also my lack of a vehicle).
With that being said, the beginning of the day was fantastic. Last night, I reserved a spot on an airporter shuttle. On the shuttle, my travel companions included two beautiful girls, one doing a dental specialization, the other in the medical school. I will say this much – nice looks, very cute personalities, and good small talk is not a bad way to start a day.
On the other hand, the third person (a little gender ambiguous due to voice/dress, but probably a girl) seemed a little snobby toward the shuttle driver. If I recall, she even notified him that “you forgot the door,” referring to the fact that HER door was left open after she got in. Who knew that Duke’s d-bag reputation was also being promoted on the female side? Anyway, that person left me shaking my head, but it was reassuring that at least three out of four young Duke professional students are not douche bags.
When I got to the airport, I found out that my flight had been delayed! BUT – this was not a bad thing. I had a three hour layover in Houston ahead of me. Now, I have a one and a half hour layover ahead. No problem. And I ended up getting a benefit out of the delay – Continental Airlines provided me with a free drink coupon (and 10% off my next flight!)! So, I’m thinking perhaps I will procure a bloody Mary soon.
Why did the delay happen, you ask? That’s actually slightly disturbing to be honest. Apparently there was a leaky windshield. As in, when they checked the plane today, the cockpit was sort of randomly soaked. When we got on the plane, the pilot assured us that “they checked all the electronics.” Well, I sure hope so.
Now some of you may be thinking “Functional-yet-slightly-moist aircraft, cute med students, a free alcoholic beverage, a coupon for a discounted ticket – how can this guy’s day possibly get any better?!”
Did I mention I just finished my first semester of law school and now have something like two and a half weeks off to try and get jobs, drink, eat, visit, and generally screw around? Also, the last day I was in Durham in 2009 was filled with snow, cider, bad wine, and some Christmas music. Cheers!
But somehow, the best part of the day so far came from the most unexpected source. A screaming small child on the airplane, seated immediately behind me. Here’s the moment that I still, halfway to Houston, cannot stop chuckling about. Perhaps five to ten seconds after the plane left the ground, we went through a low cloud. The kid behind me was ecstatic, to say the least, and joyfully proclaimed “WE’RE IN THE SKY!!!!!!” Similar moments of joy have followed, although that was by far the most memorable.
Awesome kid.
Now, to review the fall semester of 1L year:
Civil Procedure:
Probably my favorite class in terms of the discussions and relative applicability of concepts in real life. Professor Charles was a solidly Socratic-styled professor, and the discussions were usually pretty good. Bringing in the Minnesota Chief Justice was solid, and his talk was quite memorable (“You should tell them about my bong water dissent” was quite the opening line). Also, skipping all class material for a day to discuss a decision made by the US Attorney General was hilarious, and even more awesome when all of those debates from high school international relations (shout out to Mr. Wayne Phillips) and history class popped up again among the more politically inclined of the law students. I really appreciated “Drinks with Charles” (and Jang and Porter as well) and hope that I can participate again in the future. Charles was also solidly available for office hours, and his lack of saltiness in reaction to my ignorant 1L self was much appreciated. Watching the “Thriller” music video on the last day of class was simply hilarious. Charles exit on the last day – leaving after the music video to a round of applause – was well deserved.
Then there was the exam, which I studied waaaay too much for. Side note – how does one study for possible policy questions? My policy answers seem mushy and uncreative. Anyway, question number one was an awesome, if predictable, fact pattern (“Tigre Woodsy” of the “Professional Gymnast Association” (PGA) cheating on his wife “Zhee Sweede” with various mistresses, and losing his “Neekay” sponsorship). Questions two and three = fail though. Why? Question two I couldn’t really figure out how to answer, and question three I couldn’t think of any creative (read: non-obvious) policy considerations. Dang. Also, I really hate word limits.
Best Case: Christian v. Mattel (hilarious)
Worst Case: Gasperini v. Center for Humanities (Unnecessarily complex. I feel like the Supreme Court wanted to sound smarter than necessary.)
Contracts:
This class could be painful at times. The material could be fuzzy (quite often, really). The equipment could fail (microphones, Powerpoint presentations, and the seating chart were the most common culprits). At times we were in class for nearly double the scheduled time for the week.
But I am more happy that I had this class than any other. The reason? Professor Jerome Reichman, international man of mystery.
There are many puzzling questions that come to mind when I think of Professor Reichman. Where did his accent come from? What was he doing during that 20-year gap between 2L and 3L (and is this related to the first question)? Why are there so many pages in the supplementary coursepack? Why does the coursepack call the Restatement, Second of Contracts “freshly minted?” Who was on the other end of the line that time he picked up his phone and had a chat during class? It does not matter that these questions may never be answered. Why?
Because Reichman is possibly one of the most awesome professors ever. In terms of knowledge, not only do I now know a ridiculous amount about contracts, but also about a lot of policy arguments that go with the subject and what guys like Williston, Holmes, Llewellyn, and (obviously) Corbin contributed to the field. I also will never view boilerplate contract terms the same again. More importantly, this might be the most memorable class I ever take. Beyond the obvious things, like the enthusiastic recitations of various sections of the Restatement and UCC or certain speeches (“Get in. I’ll do the driving.”), Reichman brought both inspiration (I recall an early coursepack reading which stated in different terms, “you will be lawyers in a year,” that was particularly motivational), perspective (“Success on an exam does not mean success in law, and success in law does not mean happiness in life…I know a lot of miserable lawyers”), and kindness. It is also not possible to beat his exam tips (Favorites include: “Stay loose,” followed the next class by “Some of you have been wondering how to ‘stay loose. Well,….’” and “Once you have cut open the corpse…of the contract…”). Negatives? Occasional lack of clarity maybe, but this is law school, so that shouldn’t really be a surprise.
I also thought his test was the fairest and least painful of the bunch. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, exam over in three hours, and only one policy question – can’t beat that.
Best Cases: Graulich Caterer, Inc. v. Hans Holterbosch, Inc.; Lefkowitz v. Great Minneapolis Surplus Store; Frigaliment Importing v. BNS; Stambovsky v. Ackley; Krell v. Henry
Worst Case: Whitman v. Anglum
Cases Where Facts Sparked Some Outrage at Injustice: Williams v Walker-Thomas Furniture Co.; Henningson v. Bloomfield Motors; A & M Produce Co. v FMC Corp. (perhaps I have a future in consumer protection?)
<lands in Houston, gets off plane, buys Hanukkah gift for Bennett Roth-Newell at Houston airport, gets on another plane>
Moving on, from the sky somewhere between Houston and San Francisco…
A quick aside: I’m now enjoying some free bloody Marys (an aside within an aside – what would be the proper grammer, capitalization, and punctuation of the plural of “bloody Mary?” That is a hard ass question, good luck.) courtesy of Continental Airlines on my way from Houston to San Francisco. One thing I found pretty appropriate was that the vodka that the airline uses is Skyy vodka. Ha ha ha ha ha. Get it? Be jealous of my free booze. But seriously, that really made my day. Okay, back to the semester in review.
Legal Writing:
Above median on the memo. Got docked on citations like a dumbass though. But hey, I know all about the doctrine of impossibility in DC. Which is pretty cool, right? Right? C’mon…..?
Property:
Ah, the small section class. Section 2, how awesome you are. Bummer that we don’t get a small section class (or for that matter, a softball team…Go Unestoppables!) next semester! Professor Wiener probably made the best use of Microsoft Powerpoint I have ever seen. Of my four professors, Wiener’s slide shows were far superior, combining technical prowess, humor, and utility (in terms of actually helping the class learn stuff). Moreover, Wiener also made an effort to have lunch with everyone in the class, and had all of his students over for some North Carolina barbecue courtesy of Allen & Son Barbecue in Chapel Hill. The meal also included pie.
Now, for the above reasons alone, Wiener was a pretty kick ass property professor, although on occasion his level of saltiness would reach pretty high levels. But let’s add some other deeds of awesomeness, related specifically to our utterly awesome softball team, the Unestoppables. Wiener played in our last game AND came out for pizza and beers afterward. Check-plus.
As for the class itself, I enjoyed that we covered a wide breadth of property subjects, and in retrospect am very glad to have been able to read as much for as many (I think I made a reference there, but there isn’t any internet on the plane, so I’ll have to check online later) property topics as we did. I also enjoyed the (shockingly current) Archie/Betty/Veronica fact pattern. Upon later checking the Wikipedia article, I also learned about some fantastic real-life IP issues between the owners of the rights to the Archie cast of characters and various erotic writers. These issues are why the cluster***k that is Property is great.
On the note of the exam, all I will say is that my concerns from other exams were reinforced here. It is just awful to try and guess whether you should offer more in-depth analysis on fewer than all of the issues, or alternatively just try and touch on every issue. I went with the shotgun approach rather than the sniper approach. Let’s hope that pays off come grading time. Also, again, I suck at policy questions. I am just not that creative.
Best Cases: Schild v Rubin, Stambovsky v. Ackley, Swartzbaugh v. Sampson
Worst Case: Kelo v New London
Cases Where Facts Sparked Some Outrage at Injustice and a Lack of Any Practical Legal Rule: Kelo v New London
The Unestoppables:
Perhaps the greatest team in Duke Law Softball League (DLSL?) history. Never mind the actual record. At least we aren’t total D-BAGS like the teams that TOOK WALKS IN SLOW PITCH SOFTBALL. Also, we didn’t actually argue balls and strikes, which was just as douche-baggy. But we did field surprisingly well in the absence of any <ahem> athletic support, and the girls on our team could swing the bat a little. Now, I’m not a moral victory kind of guy, but we were pretty kick ass.
JD Class of 2012:
You know, I have to say, we are pretty awesome. From everything I can tell, we’re some of the least freaked-out, neurotic law students out there. On the downside, all you people are really frickin’ smart, which screws the curve. So I guess it’s something of a push.
Well, not really. Not even close to a push, actually. You’re all just too cool. I won’t go through the list of all of the stuff people have done like Hoye did at orientation (does ANYONE know who the beekeeper is?!), but to say the least, the our class has been unbelievably friendly. Plus, as far as I can tell, grades are based on luck anyway.
LLM Class of 2010:
Definitely the most fun loving group at the law school. My new friends from abroad, mostly already lawyers, definitely know how to party. I will say this much: Halloween + electronic-techno-euro music + Journey (the band) + booze + a form of dancing that resembles jumping around and hugging = a good time. Bravo, non-Americans!
Also, I learned (while bowling with three Belgians against four other Belgians) that the Belgians apparently have a strong claim to “French” fries. I assume that the French probably would just surrender the rights to fries if the Belgians happened to bring it up in casual conversation.
Campout:
Wow.
Duke Football:
DUDE – having a football team is awesome.
Duke Law School Intramural Football:
I played two of the games. This was extremely fun. I shall play more.
Dean’s Lecture Series:
Some of the speakers have been good. I’ll go no further.
Most Overused Phrase or Saying (now taking nominations):
Current nominees include:
“Think like a lawyer”
“Argue both sides
“IRAC”
“Can these cases be reconciled?”
Biggest Complaint:
“Stop arguing about everything!!!” OR
“Talk about something that isn’t law!!!” OR
“Understand when I’m being sarcastic!!!” OR
“Understand my movie quotes!!!”
Posted by prezidentv8 
