mcsnee

Whee.

One poorly organized (and, thankfully, ungraded) written assignment and two idiotic in-class questions (mine) later, I'm done with my first week of Legal Writing.

After two attempts, I still don't have the right Civil Procedure book.

Our Torts professor appears likely to be hellaciously difficult.

I have been unable to determine whether there's an assignment for our first International Law class.

It's gonna be an interesting term.

(On the bright side, the new library opened this morning. It is AWESOME.)

It's funny how it happened.

This time last year, I really had no idea what I was doing with my life. I wasn't chasing some greater purpose; I was cashing my paychecks and just getting into playing bar trivia and going to baseball games and enjoying Denver.

And now here I am with a (relatively) clear goal in mind and a plan to achieve it. I have a future career. And all it took* was the realization that I was probably never going to make very good money doing tech writing, and I sure as hell was never going to enjoy it, followed by coming home drunk one evening and signing up for the LSAT.

And, in my mind, that latter thing was really the only actual action I needed to take. Once I had my LSAT admission ticket, everything else just kind of happened. I needed to do well, so I studied. I needed to pick a school, so I did. I needed to move, so I did. At every step along the way, I had people helping me. And here I am.

This was the best possible birthday present I could have given myself. I don't mean to be a motivational speaktard, but, seriously... if you're thinking about making a change, it may take less than you think.

We had double Contracts today (because our Property professor is out of town and we needed to make up the Contracts class we'll be missing on 7/4.

In the afternoon class, we discussed the IVF cases from yesterday, and the professor broke us up into four groups--one was a legislative subcommittee considering IVF legislation; the other three were various special-interest groups.

And, of course, I was chosen spokesman of the Catholic Laypersons' Leadership Organization, and had to argue for a position that is diametrically opposed to my own. It was a pretty cool experience, especially since I got professorial kudos after class--he asked if I was actually a Catholic, and said that I had pretty much nailed the position's actual arguments.

It gives me some hope that I might not be as ineffective an advocate as I have feared. I'm kind of looking forward to trying out for moot court in the spring.

Yow.

Today's Contracts homework included Halbman v. Lemke (WI 1980, restitution when minors disaffirm contracts) , Batsakis v. Demotsis (TX 1949) (judicial inquiry into the value of consideration), Kass v. Kass (NY 2000) , AZ v. BZ (MA 2001) (two cases that reach seemingly opposing public-policy conclusions about the disposition of fertilized embryos in IVF cases), and, almost as an afterthought, Raffles v. Wichelhaus (a.k.a. The Peerless Case).

Trying to wrap my head around the implications of this last case after reading the first four feels a little like what I'd imagine trying to win an Olympic weightlifting competition would feel like after running a marathon.

turma fart - (n) - a pun whose sole saving grace is that it relies on professional jargon, greatly limiting the number of people who groan at it

Example:
Anne's high school has a huge spring dance for juniors and seniors every year that most impartial observers would agree is the best in the state. Her school's principal, a family friend, makes a personal vow to Anne that Anne's senior dance will be the best the school has ever held. Believing this promise, Anne purchases a very expensive dress and induces her boyfriend to hire a limousine to transport them to and from the event. On the night of the dance, however, she arrives at the school gym with her date to find only a few card tables set up in a corner with cans of generic diet cola and plates of saltine crackers, and a handful of couples swaying desultorily to elevator music piped over the school's intercom.

Distraught and in tears, Anne flees outside, intent on returning home. There is a steep grassy embankment next to the area where the limousine is parked, and Anne slips and falls, staining and tearing her expensive dress, and gouging a large scratch in the limousine's door with her shoe.

Does Anne have a case on the grounds of prom-is-sorry ass topple?

I'm so glad I'm here.

We're at a panel discussion of Boumediene v. Bush with a really interesting group of legal scholars, including Madeline Morris, who is the director of Duke's Guantanamo Defense Clinic. Professor Morris was special counsel to Boumediene in this case, and the clinic has been instrumental in the Hamdi, Hamdan, and Boumediene cases.

I just looked back through my entries for the last week and a half, and realized that they've all been very negative.

That doesn't reflect how I'm feeling 90% of the time lately. I love it here--I feel challenged for the first time in years. I like the people in my class. The school is comfortable and modern. The professors are awesome. Everybody has been at great pains to make sure we understand that, by and large, we only need to ask about opportunities either to find them or to make them happen.

The classes themselves are far more interesting than I'd've thought the subjects of property and contracts could be. I've had a couple of days where I've been worn out and watching the clock, but by and large I'm involved and interested in the discussions and am disappointed when class ends.

I know there'll be times over the next three years when the difficulty will get to me, but for right now, I'm kind of deliriously happy with my choice to attend law school, and to do it here.

Damn. Just read Jackson v. Seymour (Sp. Ct. of VA, 71 S.E.2d 181, 1952), in which, basically, a guy buys some land from his sister to help her out during a time of financial distress, discovers there's merchantable timber on it, and sells the timber, realizing a profit of ~10x what he paid for the land. His sister subsequently takes him to court.

The court gives the property back to her, AND:

By way of incidental relief, the plaintiff is entitled to recover of the defendant the fair stumpage value of the timber removed by the latter from the land, with interest from the date of such removal, and the fair rental value of the property during the time the defendant was in possession. [Emphasis mine.]

Dude got hosed.

So, in spite of the fact that, in all likelihood, I won't have a job this time tomorrow, I'm kind of inordinately happy right now. Why?

I have a Duke email address!

... No, no... it really doesn't take much. Why do you ask?

I'm doing a little dance in my chair. I call it the "Starting Law School At The End Of May" dance.

I got into the JD/LLM program.

This trip has been great.

I landed at RDU a little after four yesterday. Durham is about as confusing as Atlanta, crazy-street-directions-and-names-wise, and I drove past my hotel about five times before I managed to find it. Once I had dropped my stuff off, I went over to the Duke campus and poked around the law school a bit. I unfortunately missed the Brown v. Board of Education presentation they had yesterday, but I did get to hang out with a Carleton alum at the Hispanic Law Students Association dinner last night, followed by "Bar Review," which is a weekly law-school outing to different bars in the Durham/Chapel Hill area.

Everybody I've spoken to has been very enthusiastic about the school, the opportunities it affords, and the quality of the students and faculty. Now, of course, they trot out all the really enthusiastic students and the funniest, most engaging professors for these events. But there are a lot of enthusiastic students here, and a bunch of engaging professors.

The school itself is beautiful--they've undertaken a lot of classroom renovations over the last five years with some pretty impressive results, and they're currently renovating the library and adding what looks to be an incredible new 24/7 public space called the Star Commons. All of that will be done by the time I start in the fall.

After all the speechifying and the mock class were finished, I hustled down to the financial-aid office, where I discovered that I had crossed paths with my award letter as it headed to Denver and I headed here. They're offering me $42K over three years--not even close to a full ride, but more than the minimum figure I'd set in my mind as the amount it would take to get me to come here. There'll be a lot of loans, but I'm hopeful that I'll either be in a position to pay them off with a good job after law school or will be able to take part in the loan-repayment-assistance program if I end up doing public-interest law.

I'm considering a late application to the LL.M. program, which would mean a June start instead of an August start. That would be a little harder to do, timing- and money-wise, but the opportunity to get two degrees in an area I'm interested in without much extra effort and to participate in a summer in Hong Kong next year are likely to be too tempting to pass up.

So, in short, I've made my decision. I guess this makes me a Blue Devil.

I got into Indiana-Bloomington. One of the main reasons I applied there was that they apparently offer a lot of scholarship money. I should find out in the next couple of days what they're offering--the admissions packet and scholarship letter are headed here via priority mail.

I definitely got a false sense of how this admissions process would go from the first few admissions. Between the 13th and the 26th of February, a period of slightly less than two weeks, I heard back from four schools. I figured that by mid-March, I'd know most of what I needed to know about my options.

Instead, in the two weeks since the 26th, I've heard nothing from any additional schools, nor have I received any financial aid information from the schools to which I've already been accepted.

So I keep checking my email, checking the mailbox downstairs, visiting the websites with application-status checks, and generally watching the pot.*

I'm very bad at being patient.

Edit: Duke has been charmingly persistent about contacting me every few days with some new information. I just got another packet from them, from the Duke Bar Association. I just wish they'd send me some financial-aid stuff.

* st_sardonicist: This is not to be confused with "smoking the competition."

I just had a great conversation with a Duke Law alum. He was really knowledgeable about the differences between Duke and some of the other schools I'm applying to, and it's sounding more and more like it might be my kind of place.

Trivia: won.

So, here I am, trying to figure out where the hell I'm going to school next year and how the hell I'm going to make it all work, and of course, on a Sunday night when I can do Absolutely Nothing^TM about any of it, I'm starting to panic about stuff.

... Like what I'm going to do after my lease here is up at the end of April but before I move out of state if I decide to go out of state. Or if I should plan on just going to Michigan or Minnesota or NC or wherever at the end of April instead of in August. And where I'll work if I do that. And how I'm going to afford, oh, any of it. Never let it be said that I have trouble finding things to worry about.

I'm really surprised and pleased to find what good friends my trivia peeps have become over the last month or two. Allen, Sarah, Kat, Andrew, and Jenny (all of whom live in my building) have really been a lot of fun to hang out with both at trivia and during the rest of the week, too.

I should've remembered.

The envelope from Regent University School of Law looks a lot like the other envelopes I've been getting for the last couple of months. The name tickled something in my memory, but it wasn't until I opened the letter and read the dramatically italicized opening lines that I remembered:

Dear Joshua,

Attacks on our nation... Violence in our schools... The breakdown of families and morality....

Where will America find the leaders to chart a course through this crucial time in history? And where will those leaders be trained and equipped for this great task? As you begin the process of deciding which of the ABA-accredited law schools best serves your goals and dreams, I encourage you to take a close look at Regent Law School.

Regent Law School is unique among ABA-accredited law schools because our mission is to raise-up [sic] Christian leaders who are called to serve in the legal profession and who are committed to being part of the solution to the challenges that face our nation.

The letter goes on to discuss how their faculty includes "former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft," and manages to slip "ABA-accredited" in a third time in the first three paragraphs. It talks about the school's close association with the ACLJ, the loony Christian fringe's answer to the ACLU: "one of the nation's most influential public interest law firms with offices on the fourth floor of our law building."

And because I'm grouchy after an hour in traffic, I ( wrote 'em an email. )

I got into Minnesota.

I found out because they sent an email to the "Admitted Students" list, talking about an upcoming "Campus Preview Weekend." Thinking I must have been sent this in error since I'd heard nothing official, I gave the office a call.

"Oh no," said the woman at the Admissions office when I called. "You were supposed to get a call tomorrow!"

"So I did get in, then?" I asked, wanting to be sure.

"Yeah, you did. You'll get a call tomorrow."

"Thanks!" I said.

I just got into Duke Law!

They've offered a travel subsidy to visit the school next month. I think I might take 'em up on it. Still pretty low on my list of preferred schools, but we'll see.

I think my favorite part of this whole law-school application process has been opening my mailbox every day to find a fat package with a viewbook, flattering letter from a dean, and application form for some law school or other.

Clearly, I'm a sucker for mail.

As of today, my applications are in to the following schools. It appears I'm very first-half-of-the-alphabet-centric.

• UCLA
  
• Colorado
  
• Columbia
  
• Duke
  
• Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
  
• Indiana (Bloomington)
  
• Michigan
  
• Minnesota

DU has continued to not get back to me about scheduling a tour. I'm going to call tomorrow. Northwestern's application process is too much of a pain for a school I doubt I'd attend if they accepted me. Wisconsin and Iowa sent emails that didn't include fee waivers. I have saved applications for all of those sitting in my LSDAS account.