Why my Criminal Law Class at Duke is Similar to my Third Semester Spanish Class at Sonoma State OR Why Civil Procedure is Like Sex

Just as a fun little exercise, I have (approximately) matched up particular law school classes with random undergraduate classes I received similar marks in.

Criminal Law (2.9) = Third Semester Spanish (B-); Democracy, Capitalism, Socialism (B-); Introduction to Arabic (B); Legal Aspects of Real Estate (Santa Rosa JC, B)

Torts (3.3) = M*A*T*H Colloquium (B+)

Legal Writing (3.3) = Introduction to Biology (B+); Twentieth Century Europe (B+)

Contracts (3.3) = Introduction to Physics (B+); Introduction to Statistics (B+)

Property (3.6) = Statistics Consulting (A-); Introduction to American Politics (A-)

Constitutional Law (3.6) = International Political Economy (A-); Americanism (A-); Political Science Senior Seminar (A-)

Civil Procedure (4.0) = Seminar in Econometrics and Forecasting (A); Human Sexuality (A); Seminar on Global Positioning Systems; The American South (A); Introduction to Astronomy (A); Commercial Real Estate Appraisal (Santa Rosa JC, A)

Couple other funny things to point out. Compare my 3.6 in Property with my B in “Legal Aspects of Real Estate” class at Santa Rosa JC, and compare my first year law school GPA (3.44-ish) with my high school cumulative GPA of about 3.2. Nuts.

GAH! UNDERGRADS!

This Spring, during the exam period, there was a phenomenon in the law library.  Almost inexplicably – well, not really, but – a sudden influx of undergraduate Duke students, as well as some law students from UNC and NCCU, appeared in the law library.  This caused chaos of immense proportions.  Some were offended.  Some were amused.  Some were checking out the undergrads.  Some (ahem, me…I know, I know – sorry guys) invited undergraduate friends to the library.  The culmination of the invasion of these undergrads was flyers distributed in the library (below), a Facebook group opposing the undergrad invasion, and even an article on Above the Law discussing the undergrads in our law library.  Some might describe the library scene as a regular clusterf**k.

The tables in the library were full, Cochran loft was over capacity, and even Star Commons was occasionally unavailable.  Never mind the scene in the parking lot.  So, as brilliant law students and brilliant future leaders of America, what was our brilliant solution?  Well, first we “spotted” the issue.  “Ah, ha!” we said, “Look at all the undergrads.”  And then, we used our law student genius to do the obvious.  Passive-aggressive bitching, of course!

Now, while I was not really offended by the undergrads in the library, I most definitely did not opt out of the bitch-fest.  Some people were very seriously annoyed with the undergrads.  And their point was well-taken.  I, on the other hand, was into the bitching because, well, I just love to bitch.  It really is a good time.  But I really have to come to the defense of the undergrads.  Yes, they took up a magnificent amount of space with their “science” books and “studying” and whatnot.  But, seriously, I am pro-undergrads-in-the-library for many reasons.

(1) Some of them are really nice to look at.  Given that we literally see a very small group of the same people every day, the fact that we have an opportunity to look at different attractive people from the normal group should be very welcome.

(2)  They are into stuff that isn’t law.  Now, I love to talk about legal stuff as much as the average law student.  But I get bored doing the same thing over and over too.  The undergrads that were in the library are interested in topics such as biology, economics, engineering, and a whole host of other things.  Plus, they’re more apt to discuss sports (and actually know stuff) and movies and other non-academic nonsense that everyone loves.

(3)  On that note, the presence of the undergrads provide an opportunity to make friends that aren’t law students!  Now, I love the Duke Law crowd, don’t get me wrong.  But if I can meet some new folks who are into other stuff, then I say, why not?

(4) Last but not least, and really, combining each of the other three reasons, undergrads in the law library provides law students with more, and more diverse, people to hit on.  More dating options can really never be a bad thing.  As an added bonus, the undergrads might be impressed with your status as a law student in ways that other law students are not.  And the crowded tables provide the perfect excuse to sit next to someone and start a conversation.  Win-win?  I think so.

So, law students – next time there are undergrads in the law library, give peace a chance.  And maybe make a friend.  Or maybe more.

I am [Apparently] an Insensitive Ass

So here I am, once again sitting on an airplane, working on my blog, listening to the first officer’s doublespeak about the “spacious cabin” and the five hours of remaining flight time which will give us “plenty of time to sit back and relax” (posted a while after flying home)  I’ve also been reminiscing on another terrific law school semester at Duke.  Importantly, I’m trying to figure out what I would like to include in the article which should end up as something of a summary of the past semester.  But alas, along in my mind came a memory of a magical day of sexism and/or awesome.

Of course, I’m referring to a comment made by a particularly notable law firm partner at the final lecture of the “Dean’s Lecture Series.”  This particular fellow is an old, rich, white dude.  Moreover, he was flanked by what appeared to be two other white dudes who, if not old and rich, are at least graying and well-off.  This, seemingly, did not sit well with some of the audience (or so I was told).

Anyway – our distinguished guest told us, for about an hour, about how his career progressed over the years – not boring, but certainly nothing of particular note.  It was like grandpa telling stories. When he reached the end of his talk, the floor was open for questions.  One of my more feminist-minded classmates inquired (and I’m paraphrasing here) about inequality in the workplace, specific difficulties for women employed in large law firms, and what the speaker’s firm was doing to remedy those inequities.

A fair question, to be sure.  I’ll leave the debate over equality in the workplace (e.g. if and how it exists today, and whether it is achievable) to another post, but it seemed to me that there was a subtle hint of criticism or contempt in the question.

The speaker’s response was not what one would describe as the finest work of a wordsmith.  It was neither elegant, nor particularly apt in constituting a clear reply to the question.  But one could easily tell what the man was trying to communicate in response.

Paraphrasing once again, the response went something like this: “[describes firm's gender-conscious initiatives and discusses the difficulty of keeping women in the firm]…but a lot of women want to take time off to begin raising a family….In this job, you cannot really even have a social life.  [ponders word choice momentarily]  To become a partner in this firm, you basically need someone to stay home.  I mean, I have several female partners and, you know, they have wives too.”

[laughter and/or horror ensues, depending on which audience member one is looking at]

“But I’m serious.  Their wives just happen to be men.”

Keeping in mind that I am **severely** hazy on the exact words, hopefully my audience can get the gist of the dynamic in the room at this point.  In case my lovely readers cannot put it together, there was a mix of laughter (mostly coming from the men, but also including some of the women in the room) and shock (dare I say solely coming from women?) at what had just been uttered.  Moreover, not only were the offendati irked by our speaker’s comments, but furthermore were offended by the laughter of others in the audience.

This is where my lack of sensitivity comes in.  I laughed.  To this day, I do not see what was per se wrong about what the man said, perhaps aside from poor descriptive use of the English language.

I will concede, first and foremost, that he surely did not choose his words well.  But I also do not think that these words were said with any sort of underlying implication of male superiority, sexism, animus, or whatever one wants to call it.  What the man was attempting to say (and to me, did say quite clearly given the amount of ruffled feathers in the room) was that at some point, there simply are not enough hours in the day for a woman or man to work in his law firm and devote much attention to other pursuits – such as raising a family or having a social life – and therefore a stay at home spouse is necessary if one plans on raising a family and working in his firm.  That happens to be the message I got from the comment, and the fact that he was very straightforward about the type of business he was in was, if nothing else, refreshing.

Regarding the “wife” comment – which I understand was interpreted as somehow dismissive of either (1) housewives, (2) househusbands, or (3) female attorneys with househusbands – I simply feel like the man was honestly trying to refer to any generic stay at home spouse.  Here is my reasoning: HE IS AN OLD DUDE.  AND OLD PEOPLE SAY SHIT THAT REFLECTS OLD TIMES.  It it that far-fetched to think that a man who attended law school before my parents were born would not instantly and expertly find a term to use that refers to men who stay home and take care of the kids?  I suppose “stay-at-home-spouse” or “househusband,” or something along those lines could have sufficed.  But are we really going to infer some greater social message, or take offense to an older fellow who could not think of a better term than “wife”?

Wait.  There actually is a social message here.  Unpleasant as it may be for some to ponder, women have not achieved complete equality.  Avoiding the reasons why this is the case, and leaving the definition of what exactly “equality” means to those who seem to have a greater interest in the subject than I do, I would ask why our history cannot suffice as a sufficient explanation for an old guy’s verbal slip-up?  Historically, and certainly for most of our distinguished guest’s life, women HAVE been (generally, not strictly) relegated to roles as housewives.  In other words, our speaker seemed to me to be describing what he saw in his workplace in the words that he knew how to communicate such experiences with.  Some might call it a cultural norm of sorts that he was referring to.  One would think that, as people who arguably are training themselves to see beyond the “plain text” of words, to interpret cases and facts with an eye on history and practicality, and to spot ambiguity wherever it exists, we might also be able to see beyond an old lawyer’s poor wordsmithing.  And rather than criticizing the man for his choice of words, I would encourage my more critical classmates to at least pause- for a moment and consider the substance of what he was trying to communicate.

But perhaps I’m simply not offended easily.  Perhaps I just accept that history has set out some unfortunate circumstances that people have to work through to change things.  Maybe my incredibly (overly?) tolerant college education taught me that yes, one can make a valid criticism of society at large without villifying an individual or pulling broader meaning from a single statement – an individual data point, if you will.  And maybe, just maybe, I’m in no position – as a young, white, American, straight, middle class male from a suburb of a relatively liberal major city – to even voice a credible opinion on the multitude of issues facing women and minorities (sarcasm fully intended).

But I also think that history can teach us things.  Even, and perhaps in particular, unfortunate history can teach us things.  And instead of talking about the lecturer’s use of a gender-specific term, perhaps instead my critical classmates should ponder his message.  I think, in discussion, that my constitutional law professor had the issue properly framed.  Sure, we discussed gender in the workplace and role stereotypes, and all of that.  But he also turned the conversation toward something much more important.  He challenged our class to ask ourselves what we want our lives in the law to be.  Did we actually want to work for a big, prestigious law firm, and make our way up to partner, and work so much that we did not have time for our families and friends?  Or was there another life in the law that we wanted to live?  And in my opinion, what we should be doing is not engaging in an ongoing search for every disadvantage society places on us or on some broader group, but instead searching for what we truly want and destroying the obstacles that society may have placed in our way.

Oh separately – by the way, ladies – you’d all date a guy that wanted to be a stay at home father, right?  Because there’s no (historically- and/or evolutionarily-based) social dynamic that dictates that many of you wouldn’t, right?  Just making sure.

This Week in Out-of-Shape Sports

It appears I’m back in the athletic mood, though this time without the athletic fitness level.

Monday and Tuesday treadmill runs were the beginning of my athletic endeavors this week.  Not that anything about running uphill for a half hour is impressive or exciting, but hey, we’re trying to get back into shape so some baseline fitness is probably necessary.  I’ll let you all know when I have some.

Wednesday is when I began my real high-level athletics.  I’m talking about the first bowling match for the “Dickered Terms,” the finest bowling team at Duke Law school.  Composed of Choksi, Holmes, Lee, and myself, we plan on dominating the league this year while out-drinking all other teams and sporting the creepiest mustaches at the alley.  My first game, I could not hit a damn spare for the life of me, so instead I put up a bunch of 9′s and an extremely low score of 120.  The second game was better, though I would’ve liked for more strikes to fall.  I did hit many more spares, however, to finish with a 152.  Going to have to get better to be the best.  I smell rapid improvement ahead, however.

Thursday was quite the experience.  I showed up to…wait for it…rugby practice.  You might say, “But Ponch, you don’t play rugby!”  You would be correct, up until Friday.  Then you would be wrong.  After receiving an announcement from the graduate student association here at Duke, which mentioned a graduate rugby team, I decided to give it a try.  I have no real idea what’s going on, am incredibly out of shape, and am small compared to everyone else at the practice.  I’m also still feeling pretty beat up.  But that was some fun shit.  Reminded me, perhaps appropriately, of both high school football and high school soccer.  I shall show up again on Monday, hopefully with cleats this time.

On Friday, my work week was completed on an academic high when I found out that (a) apparently at least three professors thought that I understood their classes relatively well, and (b) I pwn civil procedure.

Today, Saturday, I continued my athletic pursuits by using a putter that I bought at Play-it-Again Sports for $20 to putt at various targets in my room, usually successfully.  I imagine that I will be a smokin’ putter by the time law school is done.  This will serve me well in my career by allowing me to kick the crap out of my future bosses at golf for seventeen holes, before letting them win on the 18th.  I also watched basketball and ate chips.  Great day.  I highly recommend Kettle brand’s Honey Dijon variety of potato chip.  Delicious.

Separately – Holt!  Get me that restaurant review!

Stop the Complaining Over Nothing.

To The Person Who Made the Anonymous Complaint About the Writing Class Grading:

I don’t know who you are.  I don’t know what your background is, where you are from, or how you got here.  Odds are, I probably have a very high opinion of you, to be honest.  You’re also probably a decent, nice person.

But, there are just some lines of douchitude that you may not cross.

Let me explain: When our professor made an offer, two days in advance of the vote, to allow the class to alter the weighting of the first two graded assignments (which, I should add, was fairly negligible – 25/25 to 20/30, where the 30% assignment was whatever assignment a student did better on), he did so to give everyone a chance to think about it.

Which leads me to my first question: Why did you not voice your concerns about this matter PRIOR to the vote?  Were you hoping it could go your way?  Were you being lazy?  Or were you just too weak-minded to actually voice your opinion when something actually could be done to address your concerns?  Which were not even significant concerns in the first place.

I don’t even think that these overblown concerns were the problem themselves.  WHY WAS THE COMPLAINT IN FORM OF AN ANONYMOUS NOTE?!?!?!?!?!?  OVER NOTHING!!!  ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE A COMPLETE GUNNER, AT LEAST MAN UP AND SAY WHAT YOU THINK!!!

You forced our professor to send a little explanation to the class listserv, addressing all of your ridiculous concerns, because you couldn’t bring this petty garbage up in advance of the vote.  And you absolutely HAD to be anonymous about it?!

Stop being a wuss.  If you actually give a crap, man up and speak your mind.  And don’t complain after the fact.  Some people…..wow….

Thank You,

Poncho

Back, Back to Durham, Durham…and a Happy New Year!

Well, here I sit, once again blogging from thirty-someodd thousand feet in the air, after quite a winter break, and after reading the first eightyish pages of a book titled Supreme Courtship on the plane. Great title, right?

Any, time to begin with the usual new year mumbo-jumbo. Resolutions! Right? Here’s my top ten.

10. Get a car. Seriously, I’ve got about a two mile range without one, and a bunch of the roads here don’t have sidewalks or bike lanes. Generally not a good thing. Also, I cannot get to a rowing machine without a car. This is a terrible, terrible thing, given what my fitness level used to be.

9. Go to the gym consistently. See also resolution number 10. While I somehow managed to maintain my weight over the first semester, the ratio of muscle to fat has noticeably dwindled. I literally feel weaker, and the lack of veinage in my arms is simply disappointing to look at as I type endless amounts of law stuff every day. I believe I can do better at being awesomely strong this semester. Gotta be ready for intramural football and softball whenever it comes up. Also, I should start a Duke Law rowing club to beat up on Harvard Law’s rowing club. That would be pimpin’.

8. Fu Manchu February. It’s coming. Be ready.

7. Figure out how to study for law school. I studied too much last semester, but probably not efficiently at all. I need to do better at this.

6. Get better grades in law school than I got this semester. Even though I have absolutely no clue how I did – as law school testing apparently is based on random subject matter, in a style you’ve never seen before, and graded on a curve – improvement is always welcome. Though an incredibly unlikely scenario, this resolution is void if my grades turn out to be a 4.3. Instead it will be replaced with a resolution to hold a celebration for some random event. Perhaps a George Washington’s Birthday Party?

5. Take more pictures. In fact, I should just resolve to carry my new camera around. I seriously don’t have enough from the first semester. Like a handful, maybe. This must change. I need records of Duke-Law-land because I cannot imagine returning to Durham too often after I leave (not to rag on Durham – it’s a solid place – but I mean, home is home).

4. Eat healthier when its business time. Not that kind of business time, but real business time.  The Wendy’s/Taco Bell binges on nights with lots of reading or outlining seems to me to be a big fail just waiting for the family genetics to kick in. I should probably avoid that.

3. Get a job! I mean, for summer. Work in progress, of course, but going well so far.

2. Go on a date. I know nobody calls them dates anymore, but I haven’t taken a girl out in a good long time and it’s fun, so I’m going to try and do that at least once this semester. Seems like a solid resolution.

1. Have more fun. First semester was great, why can’t 2^nd semester be better?

Going, Going, Back, Back

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!!!”

Blogging During a Final

15 hours in, about 14 hours to go.  This. Is. Ridiculous.  Although…I have stayed up for four days before…not sure why or how, but I did do that.

Anyway, just felt like blogging during the ol’ final.  Yep.  Wish me luck.  More blog posts and (hopefully) rants once finals season ends.

Commentary on the Future of American Business

After the tragedy of the law vs. business school football showdown tonight, I felt compelled to comment on some possible trouble I see lurking in the future of American business.  Or perhaps the present really.  Who knows?

Anyway, long story short, we had a game tonight, and as mentioned, it was against the business school.  On the drive following a play where one of the fatties on the biz school team lowered his shoulder on a teammate of mine, we decided to run a sweep to the left.  I proceeded to make a block like so:

Note that I was being as gentle as you could be for football, as this was only an intramural game and nothing to get excited about.  But I found the following quote by my adversary quite disturbing:

“Hey there’s no blocking!”

What…

the…

f**k?!

My reaction looked something like this:

I really wanted to call this guy an offensive name of some sort, but also did not want to embarrass myself too much, so I was able to retrain myself and say something only mildly stupid.  If I may say, there is no way this guy played any sport growing up, casually or in an organized setting, that was not golf, tennis, or badminton (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  But anyway, back to my main point.

Regardless of the fact that there was blocking throughout the entire game and all season long, and the fact that they probably had the most annoying sideline in the league, not to mention the trucking of our guy on just the previous drive, or the fact that I was being very gentle with my blocking (Footnote: this guy was maybe 125 pounds, and standing straight up.  Excessive force was by no means used on my part, because this was probably the only guy I think I’ve ever met on a football field that I potentially could have hurt.), I just want to know one thing.

Have we gone soft America?  Are we really at the point where just minutes after somebody gets trucked on the other team, that we are really going to whine and complain and moan about the softest block this side of a girls’ powderpuff game?!  Are we that soft and/or forgetful?!  Really?!  Is this the face of American business?

Sweet mercy, America, what happened?!

Prepared for Take Off – 1L Exam Season, Semester 1

Ready?

Yup.

Good to Go

And here we go.