Big Media

Cool! Today's Boston Globe has a big story about the clinical program I'm in. The focus is on the program as a way for young lawyers to get ever-rarer courtroom experience. I chose the housing clinical because it had a reputation for sending students into court the most, so that's pretty validating.


I will be working at that very table tomorrow morning, under the supervision of the two lawyers you see talking there on the right. The story says they're changed the rules to let us at the Lawyer For A Day table actually make arguments in court - which I hadn't heard about but would be good news. Previously we could give advice and help clients prep, and we could represent them in out-of-court mediations. It would be great if it brings more volunteers in too - it always feels like battlefield medicine out there. People come in with these grave problems and all you can do is try to patch them up in a hurry and hope for the best.

Now back to editing my memo for Rounds tomorrow. I think it's due by 5 today.

Late Additions to the Roster

I suppose I should have mentioned Harvward Bound earlier. I know Andrew from the musical. Good kid.

Political Engagement

Today must have been Democrat Day here. John Edwards was doing a signing at a bookstore off the square so I dropped by, but his speech and the Q&A were cancelled by the bookseller at the last minute. They wanted him to focus on revenue-driving signings. Later the HLS Democrats had a dinner with former New Hampshire governor Jane Shaheen and Congressman-elect John Hall from New York. There was free chicken parm! Shaheen is a big DLC moderate who chaired Kerry's presidential campaign and John Hall is a musician with views left of Lennon's (look, a pun!), so I was mildly disappointed that they didn't so much as bicker. I wanted to ask Hall if he thought is would be desirable or even possible to try to reach deals with the president, as opposed to just passing popular things to make him look like an ass for vetoing them. Sadly, I didn't get picked in the brief Q&A. Instead we got to hear both of them hedge about Hillary's presidential prospects.

I sat around afterwards with the law school's hardcore campaign junkies as they handicapped '08. Most interesting prediction: Obama will officially declare in two weeks, raise a ton of money over the Internet, and replace Clinton as the presumptive front-runner. Plus, Clinton isn't actually going to run anyway. "I mean, we all know she can't win, right? And they're probably as smart as we are. Maybe even smarter." Then we had an extensive discussion about exactly how one would have that focus grouped without letting on that it was the Hillary campaign doing the asking.

When I got home I saw my shirt had arrived from JohnEdwardsIsGood.com. Better late than never.


I figured I'd share since photos of my in navy tees with yellow writing drive the internets wild.

BUI

Yes, Anchor steam is good. Drinking Anchor Steam while biking, maybe not such a good idea. Hope they wear helmets.

Verbing Weirds Language

Facebook has a feature called Status. There's a little box that says "I am [blank]" and you fill in the [blank], and then all your friends can see a little message that says "Trevor is [blank]."

I suppose it was created with prepositional phrases like "in the library" in mind, but we quickly moved on to other parts of speech. I had my most vivid oh-my-gods-I'm-really-in-law-school moment last week when my companions at lunch had the following exchange:

A: "I really love your facebook status, B. 'B is a gerund.' Hot."
B: "Yeah, I guess I should probably change that to 'present participle.'"
A: "Oh. I thought you had it wrong on purpose, and that was a joke."

Me, I just changed my [blank] to "going to defer to experience, and stop ascribing your mom's description of him as a 'sex god' to hyperbole," because I'm fourteen and I like your mom jokes.

Also, I like your mom.

In bed.

I'll stop now.

Fresh Indignities

San Diego's thrilling comeback win over hated rivals the Raiders was preempted by my local CBS affiliate for ... motocross.


Plus, the Pats beat the Bears.

The Leviathan

In one of my cases for the clinical program, our clients had won a very large judgment against their landlord at trial just before I was assigned. After getting an appeal dismissed, I had to file for an execution, which tells the state to enforce the judgment. You do this be sending a certified copy of the judgment and a nice letter to the local sheriff. He then takes the creditor's land (by force, if necessary), auctions it off, and hands the proceeds to you. No amount philosophy reading could so forcefully drive home the point that political power is ultimately founded on the capacity to project violence.

You can even see the sheriff's report in the registry of deeds:

This execution was this day at thirty minutes past nine o' clock in the forenoon placed in my hands for the purpose of taking the lands of the within named judgment debtor(s) Firstname Lastname.

And at said time I seized and took all the right, title and interest which the within named judgment debtor(s) Firstname Lastname had (not exempt by law from attachment or levy on execution) on November 15, 2006 at thirty minutes past nine o' clock in the forenoon, (being before the time the same was taken on execution) in and to the following described real estate and is bounded and described as follows, viz:

[property description]

and I have levied this execution thereupon. (And immediately afterwards, by direction of the creditor's attorney [Me!] I suspended the further levy of this execution on said real estate.)

We've told the sheriff to hold off on the police auction for the moment for strategic reasons, but that's at our discretion. I could write a letter on Monday, and people with guns would go take some person's house away.

I for one am terrified.

Puritans

It is apparently against the law in Massachusetts to buy a bottle of wine on Thanksgiving.

I don't think I should have to explain how unacceptable this is.

Dead Enders

Today's Achewood could not be more true.


Every time some entity (and it is almost always a university or a government) insists on the transmission of a physical copy of some piece of information, I want to arrive in person and start breaking things. Electrons aren't good enough for you? Barbarians.

Orientations

I've been busy all week with performances of the law school fall musical, The Wild Party. Last night was the final show. We had to schedule it earlier than the others because the campus GLBT group was throwing their big OutLaw dance (get it?) in the room we were using as a theater. We were still striking the set after the show when guests started to show up. So I'm carrying fragments of scenery out to the dumpster, still in my stage makeup, when I run into an acquaintance from last year who's going into the dance.

"Hey Trevor! I didn't know you were ... um ..."
"Oh, no. I 'm just here because I was in the musical."
"..."
"That doesn't really change anything, does it?"

Rising to the Challenge

Reeling from my blistering criticism of his laziness, college roommate Mikey launches a newer, more pretentiously named blog. Could be good reading if you've ever wondered what exactly young hotshot management consultants do all day.

Tivo

If The Office wasn't already perfect, Friday Night Lights would be the best program on television.

Boutique Appeal

Full-service law firms have not fared well under my evaluation regime (and perhaps because they can sense this, I have not fared well under theirs). The lawyers at 1L Summer Employer styled themselves trial specialists, the legal equivalents of Smokejumpers, parachuting into the middle of bet-the-company litigation at the very moment when things seemed to be completely out of control. I still think that's awesome, and need to work out a way to spend a few weeks with them back in SF.

But I want to try a stretch back home in San Diego, and spend most of my interview time searching down there. I met a lot of people I'd enjoy working with. But these decisions aren't made entirely rationally, and a series of coincidences over the last few days has convinced me the I know where I belong. I am, I have been reminded, a big geek. I should really do IP.

It came to me the other day. A friend had just posted pictures of my Aquaman costume on facebook. I had just finished setting the port mapping on my wireless router so I could host a wiki for the drama club. I took ab reak by watching Battlestar Galactica. And then I got a package from IP Boutique. The one whose Big Rockstar Partner had a giant poster of the USS Enterpirse in his offce. The goodies were nice, but the real tipping point was this handwritten note. Less for what it says than for the penmanship. That cramped, rushed style - the mark of a writer more concerned about the information conveyed than niceties about how it gets there. It looks just like mine.

Improbable Heartthrob

Yesterday, a friend looking over my shoulder coomented that this blog "Makes women fall in love with [me]."

I know. I think it sounds crazy too. But I suppose it takes all kinds.

Maybe I should send the link out more.

Christmas Come Early

So this is what winning feels like. Feels good, doesn't it, guys? We should do this more often.

Quote of the Day

"Polls are now closed in California, also known as Cali, if you're kind of a douchebag."
-Jon Stewart

Is It Still Too Early To Rub It In?

As I walked by, the atmosphere at the Federalists' election night party seemed decidedly subdued.

1-0

Clinical work may be better that I originally gave it credit for. I went to actual court and argued an actual motion on Tuesday. I won! And clearly my fame has spread - the other side didn't even show up. THey must have feared my masterful stammering.

We were moving to dismiss their appeal because the other side filed it late. As the minutes wore on my supervisor and I really started to hope they'd turn up, just so we could make great jokes about how they were late to their hearing about filing a late appeal. How appropriate!

But we never got to make that joke, so now I'm relaying it to you. I am now telling hypothetical jokes.

It's been that kind of week.