Meta-Advice For Incoming Law Students

So you want to know what law school is going to be like. And if you're here, you must be reading blogs to get some of that information. Q at Passionate Discourse has some advice for incoming students, and CM of Magic Cookie has an equally thoughtful response. PBB has some ideas, and links to some more.

I don't have any sage wisdom for you, except to try to have fun while you're in school, because you only live once and should try to have fun while you're here. But I do have some general advice about the stuff you may read in books or on the internet: be aware of selection bias.

A lot of blogs and (especially) books about law school are written by people who are not happy with the law, because people unhappy with the law are much more likely to write about it. There are a lot of people in law school who really wanted to be writers all along. That may not be you. Maybe the law really is for you. Maybe you'll really like it. That's okay. You're allowed to enjoy yourself.

With A Vengeance

Ha! I'm back!

I went away for a while, but you should have known you'd never be rid of me forever. School is starting back up all too soon. Got a new look for the new year. I wanted to bring all the posts I squandered on TCW on to this site, but it turns out there's no elegant way to do that, so you're stuck with the mess below.

Ann Coulter is a Deadhead

Honestly, words fail me.

Golden Gatecrashers

We wound up at a house party last night held in a four-story post-industrial bachelor pad that must have metastisized off of Los Angeles at some point and bubbled up to the top of a hill in Pacific Heights. The downstairs living room, appropirated as a dance hall, had a pool running down its length with a thirty-foot movie screen set into the wall above. We never got concrete information about whose hospitatlity we were abusing. Having slipped past a preoccuppied bouncer with the square shoulders and distant looks of People Who Know Where They Are Going, we had to collect information discretely. Rumors circulated that this used to be mayor Gavin Newsom's house, that the summer sublet was costing its inhabitatns fifteen thousand dollars a month, and that pulling on one of the wall sconces triggered a secret door. When pressed, we would claim nebulous connections to "Steve" and mutter about a gallery opening. Thrilling, but being well-dressed and packed in among hundreds of other guests, we were never in any serious danger of ejection. Later, I was drafted to carry a keg by someone in a hat who seemed to be in charge. It could well have been Steve.

If I was Canadian

this survey tells me I would be an autonomous post-materialist. The description sounds pretty accurate, and it correctly identified Steve Jobs as an icon. So that was kind of impressive.

Market Segmentation

The other day on the way to work I saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart with a large, hand-scrawled sign on the front that read, "Liberalism is a mental disorder."

My first reaction was that this was a curious strategy in bluer-than-Massachusetts-blood San Francisco, where the vast majority of people he runs into will be liberals. Maybe the idea is to corner the conservatives-who-give-to-bums niche with a distinctive appeal? Maybe it's just to provoke a reaction and draw passers-by into conversation. Maybe it's a sincere reflection of political belief, begging strategy be damned.

Then it hit me - this man was literally asking for handouts.

Maybe the sign was ironic. It would work on so many levels.

Why Isn't India Good At Soccer?

Large population, former British colony (they invented the modern rules), has other sporting traditions from them (Cricket, e.g.). But my roommate tells me that Vikash Dhorasoo is the first player of Indian descent to play in a world cup. Even if that's not accurate, shouldn't you expect to see more Indian players internationally?

The Romero Effect

In high school a friend of mine told me he had been keeping a diary for a few months. "Looking back, I sound really unhappy."
"That's weird, you always look like you're having fun."
"I know. I don't feel unhappy."
"Maybe it's just that when you're out having a good time, you don't bother writing in your diary. Then you only write when there's nothing else to do, and you're bummed out."
"You know, you could be right."

Anyway, last week was great. My parents came to town and took me out to incredible dinners, I went to a free concert in Golden Gate Park, I watched a ton of well-played soccer and participated in lots of poorly-played beer pong. Good times.

Auspicious Beginnings

Today was my first day at Summer Employer. I got in the wrong elevator on my way up this morning, and was flying past the fifteenth floor by the time I realized there was no button to press to take me to my office. On the way home, I got on the bus going the wrong direction, and rode for ten minutes just to get back to the stop I'd got on at. Fortunately, everything outside of such transportation went pretty well.

Party At Our Place

By the way, these Hint of Lime Tostitos? WAY more than a hint.

527s

Why do they even make jeans that aren't relaxed fit? I tried on a "regular" pair of Levi's and couldn't even sit down in them. And it's not like I'm trying to cram trunklike legs into there either - I'm built like a damn stop sign over here. How do people ever get the things on?

Also, if you run the Levi's store in Union square, in the commercial center of a major American city, you have no business running out of pants in my size. You're the jeans store. That's all you sell. You are, or should be, where I go when I want jeans and want to be sure you will have my kind. I am not happy you did not have pants for me. I need pants. I know this is San Francisco, but I can't just go around pantless.

Okay, glad you're with me on that.

Substitution

At Walgreens, they keep the Claritin tablets in one of those locked display cases "to keep [their] prices low." I didn't want to track down and summon one of their "team members," so i looked for a generic brand. Sure enough, there's Wal-itin right next to it on the shelf, same active ingredients and no protective case.

Those sly bastards. I'd be angry if I wasn't so damn impressed. Plus, it was almost half the cost, and so far works just as well.

Stealth Help

I was wandering around today, as part of my ongoing mission to stomp on every square of pavement in this town, when I stopped back home to find the front door open. Music was coming from inside. I crept up the steps to find a startled-looking Hispanic woman carrying laundry through the living room. How dare she! That was my mess. I'd already been feeling guilty about it, guilty enough to half-heartedly make my bed in the morning, and that was when I thought it was just mine. Now that somebody else was going to clean it up, I felt really bad.

Because apparently, we have a cleaning lady. One who not only vacuums and tidies up, but who washes my sheets too. Didn't hear about that from the roommates. This is crazy - I'm a twenty-three year old with a maid. Who does that? Already I can feel my self-reliance diminish as I allow one essential life skill to be handled by professionals. I don't want to be one of those people who aren't good for anything but signing the checks!

Still, it is nice to have clean floors. And she flipped over the cheap reversible throw rug I got at IKEA, and it really does look better this way.

Guarded Optimism

It's nice to see a rundown on Kos of ten reasons why Bilbray is toast in the runoff election in my hometown congressional district, but I'm not quite ready to believe the hype. After all, there is one big reason to expect that Cunningham's seat will go to another Republican.

Misled

So far the city has not lived up to the reputation alluded to in my title. It's been clear, calm, and in the seventies. I spent today hiking around and into downtown, and I came back sunburned.

I fear the climate is trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I think it's working.

Assholes 1, Blueberry Farmers 0

Tucker Max wins a defamation suit.

After viewing the tuckermax.com message boards, which are read by people using screen names like "Jerkoff," "DrunkenDJ," and "footinmouth," the intended audience could not mistake the site for the New York Times. In short, it palpably is not serious.

Link from Glenn Reynolds.

Das Boot

I went to REI today and bought new hiking boots. In fact, more than boots, I got an entire Foot System, which apparently includes two layers of sock. I love REI because the staff are friendly, knowedgeable, and proudly unhip. I somberly traded notes with the boot guy on layering, waterproofing, and other un-fashions. "What matters about boots is how they feel on your feet - don't worry what they look like." He recommends longer hiking socks because they can wick more water away from your feet and stopping immediately at the first signs of a blister. "Don't worry about what anybody else is doing - you sit down and take care of it right away."

Going hiking is Serious Business. There are mountains involved. It is done by Serious People, and Serious People are too Serious about hiking to worry that they look square. Squares are sturdy. You build things out of squares. Being square is good.

A good pair of boots isn't really good until it's been properly broken in, so this afternoon I wore them when I walked the dog, tromping like a German tourist.

Re-Acclimated

Back home in San Diego!

I spent all of yesterday sitting around the house, wondering why it was so damn hot everywhere. After months in the frozen wastes of the Northeast, my blood had congealed into a viscous sludge that jealously held on to every joule of heat. Exacerbating the situation, I had gotten used to wearing shoes every day, eschewing the traditional footwear of my native people.

Now I've got my sandals back on, and I feel much better already. I hear that you can thin the blood too, either by taking aspirin or drinking alcohol. I never did like pills.

Fin

So my 1L year is over. Here's the part where I would write a thoughtful retrospective and share with you all the hard-earned wisdom I've gained since September. Looking back in my archives at how I felt going in, there's plainly a lot to say. But I don't feel like compiling it right now. No telling when or if I will.

Everyone working on law review, I pity you. Everyone else can find prints of my soulful "Make Love Not Law Review" design at cafepress.

I'm done here for the summer. I'm writing a different blog, The Coldest Winter, until the fall. I may start back up here after that, or maybe somewhere else. I'll let you know.

Dear Writers and Producers of Grey's Anatomy

I hope you're happy with that shit you pulled last night. Your wildly implausible yet irresistibly compelling storylines are making it very hard to concentrate on the Property exam I am meant to be taking. Thanks a lot.

Trevor

P.S. See you tonight at 9 for the conclusion!

Sabotage

You know what's awesome? Ask A Ninja. Happy Studying.

A Theory of Justice

My Super Sweet Sixteen has reinvigorated my belief in estate taxes.

Blodgett

It's just like me to wait until I'm only here six more days before I finally take the extra five minutes to walk to the Olympic sized pool instead of the MAC. It was totally worth it.

Also? I'm only here six more days. My first year of law school is all but over. That's crazy.

Comments!

It has come to my attention that readers previously had to register with Blogger in order to post comments. This oversight has been remedied.

Favored

Andy asks that I link to his new, non-secret blog. The old one was so secret that I never saw it, only hearing whispered rumors of its existence. The new one is decidedly less secret. Andy lives two doors down from me, so it would be awkward if I were to say no.

If a little learning is a dangerous thing, how much do we need to know before we are safe?

I Am Old

I just got an invitation to a friend's engagement party. Holy crap.

Burnout

There's something about reading several hundred pages of voting rights cases that makes me long for a good old fashioned monarchy.

Also, the results from the course lottery are back. The all-knowing Algorithm, in its ineffable wisdom, gave me Con Law, Corporations, Admin, and Fed Courts all in the same semester. I think there's a drop mechanism. There had better be.

War Weary

The more time I spend in Crim, the more sympathetic I become to calls for drug ledalization. And not just beacuse I have to read so many cases about it.

Practice Safe Shooting

Amber has a thought-provoking post comparing conventional attitudes towards sex and firearms.

Outre Couture

So I just got a splashy e-mail from the recruiting list. Why is Thomas Pink holding a cocktail reception? They are not a law firm.

DRAGON

This is in my inbox this morning:

Today i bought a lab coat which i will be using for chem 36 and whatever chem lab i end up workin in. I was curious if anyone with mad art skillz would be willing to draw a badass dragon on my coat for $10-15 (name your price). Email me if you can do this.

Badassly yours,

[my friend]

How great is that?

Vici

Finished my oral argument last night. The title here is misleading since they didn't actually name winners, but it's a victory just to be done. In truth, my team kicked ass.

I agree with CM, too: I really enjoy this stuff. Even when it's the ungraded portion of a pass-fail writing class (where my teacher has told us "You will get a low pass over my dead body") and the stakes are absolutely zero, it's thrilling to be up there making your case. I am way too competitive for mediation.

Finally, whoever invented the suit is a genius. I saw myself in the mirror as I was heading off to the arguments and immediately thought, "Hey, that guy looks like he knows what he's doing!" It's uncanny.

Blinkering Juries

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink (and also this blog here), gave a talk on campus yesterday, packing the hall to capacity. He went over Blink's main themes, focusing especially on the fragility of expert judgments and how adding more information to a decision-making process can paradoxically reduce its accuracy. He told the stories from the book about symphonies immediately starting to hire women when screens were placed between the auditioning committee and the candidates and ER doctors better diagnosing chest pain when only allowed to consider four simple factors. The upshot of the argument is that people's judgments, even finely tuned expert judgments, are washed out by hidden biases that the experts themselves are not even aware of.

Applying these insights and pointing to wildly divergent sentencing rates between defendants of different race, Gladwell argued that we should experiment with stopping juries in criminal trials from knowing certain facts about the defendant. At its crudest this would entail putting defendants behind a screen and at the most extreme a form of trial by transcript. Gladwell argued this isn't as crazy as it sounds, as social psychology research has shown that laypeople are flat out terrible at telling if someone is lying by looking at them, so maybe juries wouldn't even be losing any potentially relevant information.

Gladwell figured that we'd know if this worked by watching if the gap in conviction rates across races closed. I tried to ask a question about how we'd make sure we were becoming more accurate and not simply more random. After all, coin flips to determine guilt would wipe out race as a factor but hardly be an improvement in terms of justice. I didn't phrase it very well at the time, but afterwards some friends and I tried to brainstorm about how you'd run an experiment without having to convince a state legislature to go first.

You'd have to do something like videotape tons of trials and keep track of them, then add to your data set only those where the defendant was definitively proved guilty or innocent by evidence that emerged after the first trial. Show the tapes to a control group jury and see if they accurately convict the people that were later proved guilty and acquit the innocent, then show doctored tapes that obscure the defendants or mask their voices to experimental groups and see if they did any better. If would take a lot of time and a lot of videotape and a lot of people (one trial run requires 12 subjects!) but it could be done.

Rendering Unto Caesar

I just did my taxes. I owe the bums $76. That's like over a hundred and fifty tacos at J-Box. Dude.

Patriots Day

This business is news to me. This just showed up in my inbox:

Hey guys,

Tomorrow is Patriot's Day. For those of you who don't know, Pat's Day is a Mass. tradition celebrating the day the Revolutionary War started - you know, what with the shots heard round the world in Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere riding his horse all over the place, or some nonsense like that. What I know for sure is that, today, the holiday involves drinking on a Monday morning, the Sox playing a game at 11 am, and thousands of crazies doing some sort of "fun run" they like to call the "Boston Marathon." In a nutshell: anybody who's anybody in Boston is going to be hanging out near Kenmore all day tomorrow, drinking, watching the game, and cheering on the runners - and I think a group of us should join them.

So, if you'd like to (1) go into Boston, (2) drink beer, (3) watch the marathoners cross the finish line, and (4) grab some burgers, all in time to be back at Harvard for 24, drop me an email. My plan is to leave Harvard at 3, go to Kenmore, drink until the runners start looking fat, grab dinner, and come home. But the plan will fail if we don't have a quorum, so do email me if you wanna come.

And just remember: If you don't celebrate Patriot's Day because you're too busy studying, the terrorists have won.

That sounds like a good holiday, but now I'm terribly conflicted. I have to go to Law of Democracy class tomorrow, or the terrorists win. But now I also have to go drink beer and watch the marathon, or they still win! Damn, that was cunning of them.

Build A Nuke, Hug A Tree

The co-founder of Greenpeace has a dogma-defying Op-Ed in the Washington Post advocating the dramatic expansion of nuclear power, for environmental reasons.

It Doesn't Have To Be This Way

Sometimes I get a sneaking suspicion that some people are making this law stuff harder than is strictly necessary.

In adoptiong rules that allowed enforcement of implied reciprocal negative servitudes, the courts supplemented, but did not repeal, either the law of real covenants or the law of easements. This leaves us today with a confused muddle.

Joseph William Singer, Introduction to Property §6.1 at 233 (2d ed. 2005).

Make Love Not Law Review

Someone on the Parody cast had a shirt from another school that played off the classic protest slogan, reading "Make Love Not Law Review." I looked for where I could get one of my own, but was disappointed with what was available on the internets. So, inspired by a couple originals, I made my own. If you're at HLS and want one drop me an e-mail with your size, since they cost less when you order in bulk. If you're somewhere else, feel free to use the design. Share and share alike.



Black and white version available here.

Let It Not Be Said That We Reject The Trivial

I don't know why I think this is funny, but I do. Via ShangriLaw, And The Lord Sent Ten [Shoe] Plagues Unto Egypt.

Uh, happy Passover.

Nerves

"I don't know about the oral arguments this week. I'm kinda nervous."
"You mean the mock arguments? The practice ones?"
"Yeah."
"That are practice for the real oral argument, which is ungraded."
"Uh, yes."
"An ungraded part of a pass-fail class."
"Yes. Nervous."

Ballsy Constitutional Argument of the Week

In Daggett v. Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, 205 F.3d 445 (1st Cir. 2000), the plaintiff-appellants sued to strike down Maine's election laws that provided for generous public financing of political campaigns. After raising $5 donations from enough residents of the state, candidates could receive as much money as anyone spent in the last election if they agreed not to take any money from private parties. The plaintiffs argued that those restrictions weren't voluntary, but unconstitutionally coercive because the public funding scheme was too good a deal. Oh no! This deal is too good! I'd be crazy not to take it! They must be forcing me!

The lower court judgment for the defendants was affirmed.

Upgrades

At some point I'm going to have to get one of these fancy new notebooks just so I can run Windows on it because EVERY DAMN FINANCIAL AID PAGE DEMANDS A MICROSOFT BROWSER!

RAAARGH!

Not Because They Are Easy, But Because They Are Hard

There is a new show on MTV where a crack team of young men tours the country in a minibus trying to break as many world records as they can. It is called Call to Greatness, and you must watch it. The very first record they try to break is for most times kicking oneself in the head in a minute.

Fins -> Legs

Scientists find 'missing link' between marine, terrestrial animals.

Analysis and "vulgar materialist" gloating available at Pharyngula.

Goosed

Watch Jon Stweart and the Daily Show take on their longtime favorite "maverick" John McCain over his attempts to appeal to the the conservative primary voters from "crazy base land." He asks, "Has John McCain's Straight Talk Express been re-routed through Bullshit Town?"

Sprung

Those are the sand volleyball courts outside the student union. They're being snowed on.

Twenty Questions

This online 20 Questions game is remarkably good. It guessed "toothpick" and "haircut" pretty quickly, though I was able to stump it with "easement."

Go watch this crazy montage of Isuzu commercials from the '80s. This is way before you could make this stuff up with computers, there are people actually driving those things!

Stankowski on Satori

The anonymous associate who posts BigLaw diaries over at Legal Underground has an interesting entry up about how a certain emotional awakening changed (for the better) his whole relationship with the firm. It honestly sounds to me like some of the stories of sudden awakening I read for a class on Zen theology. Now I'm going to wander around murmuring a version of Linji's phrase to myself:

"If you meet the Buddha partner on the road, kill him!"

Status Reports

With the semester begging to draw to a close and spring break all but over, I figured this would be a good time finally check my grades. Go back and see how I did last semester and what it might tell me about how to prepare this time around. I'm almost disappointed to report that there were no surprises on my transcript. I wound up in the middle of the distribution, with the variations I expected. I did better in the classes I liked more, scoring highest in Torts and lowest in Civil Procedure (and looking at the course evaluations, I can see I was far from alone in my opinion of the professor). Overall that's probably a good pattern for my mental health - do what you enjoy, because you'll be better at it.

So in all I'm happy (I'm much more comfortable with "contextual mediocrity" than Amber seems to be, especially since I'm in a fairly heady context), my suspicions have been confirmed and I won't have to wildly correct course next month. And I'm glad I waited this long to check my grades, because it forced some long-term perspective into the situation, and let me neatly dodge the horse-race neuroses at the beginning of the semester.

Too bad about those George Mason boys - I was really pulling for them. But it's great to see a PAC-10 team in the final. And boy but did UCLA dismantle LSU out there.

¡Fiesta!

So, uh, happy César Chavez Day. The pool was closed, but it was raining so I guess that's alright. I wouldn't have gone anyway.

We're Trying To Ride That Brain Angle

The guys who write the online comic juggernaut Penny Arcade have started recording their brainstorming sessions where they plot out ideas for the next strip. You can hear the latest one here. You have to be a huge nerd to get even half of it, and a much bigger nerd than me (which would really be saying something) to get it all, but it's neat to see how a strip comes together. They wind up paying a lot more attention to pacing than I would have guessed. And in the end, they wind up throwing away everything they thought of in the first half. You can see the final product here.

But in either case, the first minute of the recording is hysterical. Go listen, I promise. "There are so many unanswered questions!"

Do You Quarrel, Sir?

I don't know about you, but when I hear the back and forth about the Sicilian hand gesture Scalia made to a reporter the other day, I can't but think of a play:

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. [Aside to Gre.] Is the law on our side, if I say ay?
Gre. No.
Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.

Romeo and Juliet Act I: Scene I

I don't see why anyone is surprised about this. We've known for a long time that, whatever one thinks of his judicial philosphy, Scalia is a jerk. He relishes the role. And if you can't use life tenure to maybe-not-quite flip someone off inside a church, that what is it good for?

Border Skirmishes

I've been reading about the immigration-reform protests in the paper and online, but I had no idea it would get nasty so quickly. I saw footage of police wrestling down a high school student at a protest on the evening news tonight. When they dragged him off his face looked bloodied but defiant.

From watching the politics of immigration in California and Germany, I always expected this debate to be ugly, I'm starting to think I greatly underestimated how much.

Sunny San Diego

So, it's raining. What the hell?

There's No Need To Fear

Underdog Is Here!

Whan your team fails to qualify and your bracket bracket goes pear shaped as early as mine did, you're nothing but thrilled to see all the 1 seeds out of the tournament. Go Bruins!

Going Going Back Back

I have never needed a spring break as much as I need this one. Tonight I'll be back in San Diego, where sixty degree weather is considered cold.

Also, I played this kareoke game on the Xbox with some friends last night. That sort of thing is really fun. It almost makes me want to learn to sing.

A Brief Struggle

I'm off to turn in my appellate brief for Legal Research and Writing. For all the anguish I saw it causing around campus all week, I thought it went surprisingly smoothly. I started editing after dinner yesterday and got to bed by 12:30.

Three lessons learned:
1. It is SO much easier to be a respondent than an appellant. Your argument is much simpler, as you just have to say, "Appellants say X, Y, and Z, but they are being ridiculous. The district court was right. They are way smart. And sexy."
2. Microsoft Word has some stupid powerful features. Learn to mark your headings and citations, and it will make the tables for you automatically. This is so cool.
3. Choose your partner well. Mine was randomly assigned, and luckily I got someone of similar temperament who always got her work done with time to spare. Nicole, I love you.

Now, time to go make red cover pages! Whee!

Spring!

Yay!

Bracketology

In my inbox this morning:

So [student name] leads the pack and the battle for the wine after the first 32 games, picking an impressive 25 of them correctly in an upset-filled round. This places him in the top 2.1% of all brackets filled out on espn, as shown in the right column. Impressively, all non-alum members of Sigep are doing better than the national average. Sorry Trevor, if we were having a contest to fill out the worst possible first round bracket, I’m not sure I could have beat you.

Rounders

I'm proud to announce that I was the very first student eliminated from tonight's charity poker tournament. I went out on the first hand when I was in for half my starting chips with a higher two pair than my opponent and he hit a a boat on the river, and I called to lose all my money.

Sometimes the bear gets you.

After Party

Parody is over. I'm kind of sad it's over, but it will be nice to have those 30+ hours a week back. Maybe I'll learn some law or something.

I met Jeremey Blachman tonight. He's much smaller in person that I imagined.

Foul Trickery

"I can't believe how nice it is today!"
"I know. I heard the high was 65!"
"You know why that is, right?"
"Spring?"
"No, it's admitted students' weekend. It's always warm for that."
"Oh yeah, it was like this last year too."
"It always is. Kagan must have a special deal with God or something."
"God? Dude, this is a law school. Who do you think we'd really make a deal with?"

Our Own Backyard

They found liquid water on one of Saturn's moons. Awesome.

Vagina Monologue

I think I might be the kind of person who gets his ass fired for doing somehting stupid at the company Christmas party. But today Cella reminds how comforting it is to learn that some people have stories even more embarassing than yours.

I Award You No Points

When video of the Parody gets out I will be all but unconfirmable, but if I was a judge, I too would quote Adam Sandler movies in my opinions.

Hangin' Out

Professor CrimLaw:

The overwhelming majority of murders are commited by young people. People my age, we just chill.

Leg: Broken

Opening night was a success! My hall was there and they said they were laughing from start to finish. For a while there I was worried that all the jokes would only be funny to those of us that had heard them for weeks and weeks. But it went great, and I even got to meet one of the people I play after the show.

The cast party afterwards was something else too. I remember playing Champagne Pong, and at some point I lost my shirt and decided to wrestle the producer. He actually knows how to wrestle. This morning, I am bruised.

HLS JD, P.I.

Once someone on the hall learned you can look up marriage licenses on Lexis, he immediately set about researching our families. It was all for laughs until he uncovered one father's previous marriage of five years, that he had never told his children about. Remember what Spider-Man syas, kids: with great power comes great responsibiilty.

Basket Case

Things I thought I'd never learn in law school:

1. How to throw a cheerleader into the air.



2. How to catch a person so thrown.

Inside Baseball

"Oh my God, did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"My gunner asked me out."
"What do you mean your gunner?"
"From our fantasy draft."
"In your elective?"
"Yeah. You get one point every time they talk, with bonus points if they bring in outside information, the professor cuts them off, stuff like that."
"Awesome."
"Not awesome! He can't ask me out! He's my gunner!"
"I meant about the league. But doesn't this raise some conflicts of interest?"
"Well obviously I can't go out with him."
"If you could say, 'You always say such insightful things in class' to make him talk more, that would ruin the league."
"Exactly."
"Plus, he's your gunner."
"I feel like I should get bonus points though."
"Because he's a gunner outside the classroom too?"
"Yeah. It carries over to the rest of his life."
"How'd he ask you out?"
"E-mail."
"Definitely bonus points."

Law And Economics

Over at Passionate Discourse, Q reports how Legal Research professors use peer pressure to motivate students as they work on their latest assignment. By second semester everyone has figured out that the marginal benefit of work in a pass/fail class is pretty close to zero, so it takes something special to get us motivated. That law and econ stuff is really biting them in the ass. So they make eceryone work in pairs, and get the students to stress each other out. Q admits to falling for it.

I have an appelate brief due Tuesday that uses the same system, but I've experienced a different dynamic. Instead of spurring each other on, my partner and I are engaged in a game of slacker chicken, with each of us procrastinating for as long as possible and hoping the other will take the initiative. We each know that the first person to blink will wind up doing more work. It's a classic collective action problem.

And it may be even more complicated than that. Maybe we're both putting off studying to show what cool people we are. Maybe we're countersignaling.

When The Boogie Man Goes To Sleep, He Checks His Closet For Jack Bauer

Fans of those great Chuck Norris jokes or 24 will enjoy this list of Jack Bauer sayings. But it leaves out a few of my favorites, which I will reproduce below.

For fans of the latest season:

The only reason you are still conscious is because Jack Bauer doesn't want to have to carry you.

For viewers concerned about the romanticization of interrogation:

One time Jack Bauer lost his keys, so he tied himself to a chair and tortured himself for half an hour until he told himself where they were.

For everyone, but especially those jerkoffs at Division:

If everyone listened to Jack Bauer, the show would be called 12.

This Post is Dedicated to David Hennes

That dude is scary good at remembering names.

Between Parody rehearsals and classes picking up as the semester goes on, I've been out of the firm reception game for a while. But I made it out last night, and it was definitely worth setting aside time for. The event was at Finale, a speciality dessert shop down in the square that makes, I have learned, one hell of a cheesecake. A smaller venue, but still not too crowded. It was refreshing to be at one of these things without the usual crushing mob of students - I don't know if we missed them because it was Tuesday or because February is relatively late in the cycle. And the lawyers were friendlier than average too, especially for people from New York and DC offices. One partner I talked to tried to explain how their attitude was tied to a "modified-lockstep partnership model," but it was a little too intricate to grasp. Something about growing pies. Maybe on trees. Because that would be pretty sweet. Pie trees.

I hear there's another event there on Thursday. Should be a lot more crowded, but I bet the cake will still be good.

Boston Bluegrass

I just learned that the Cantab in Central square brings in bluegrass bands on Tuesday nights. Last night a band called The String Dusters rocked the house. It was amazing. I just sat there with a big stupid grin on my face for the whole show.

Summers to Retire

I never had any beef with the guy, but it looks like he may be on the way out.

[Update] A message in my inbox from Summers confirms it. He links to a letter to the community.

Iraq: A Koan

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. To prevent the failure of the occupation of Iraq. If we pull out now the occupation will be a failure!
Q. Would it have been easier to have never occupied it in the first place?
A. Ah, but if we never occupied Iraq, then the occupation certainly would have been a failure, now wouldn’t it?
Q. [meditates for many years]
Q. Now I am enlightened.

Part of an extended Q&A at Fafblog.

A Few Bad Apples

Malcolm Gladwell has an amazing article in the New Yorker about how social policy is complicated when the distribution of problems follows a power law instead of a bell curve. Effective solutions to problems like homelessness and police abuse can be deeply counter-intuitive. Come to think of it, the social costs of terrorism all but certainly follow a power law distribution.

Link from Matthew Yglesias, who is always excellent.

Really Tied the Piece Together

When they first told me that my part in the Parody would include two dance numbers, my reaction was somewhere between "oh shit" and "okay, but it's your funeral." So I was amazed when one song really came together last night in rehearsal. Not that we looked like professional dancers, but the standard is a bit lower when your musical is a big piece of tasteless abortion humor. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

We've only worked on this thing twice, and it actually looked pretty good. It made me a lot more optimistic about our compressed rehearsal schedule.

Wow

I was worried that the silly bomb-in-the-body plot in the Grey's Anatomy episodes after the super bowl augured its creative demise, but I was wrong. It is still the best show.

Randall v. Sorrell

I'm in Ames courtroom right now waiting for the start of a moot court argument in Randall v. Sorrell, an upcoming Supreme Court case that pits the ACLU and the Vermont GOP together against that state's campaign finance law. There was one of these at the start of the semester, and I thought it was really cool. They've got James Bopp from the James Madison Center for Free Speech, who will argue the case in front of the Supremes. A bunch of students from my Law of Democracy class are here, and so are Josh and PBB.

Hopefully, more to follow. They say they're bringing a moot on the Texas redistricting case soon.

The OC as IR

How are the US, Britain, and Iraq like Ryan, Sandy, and Marissa? The Yale daily news breaks it down.

Ten Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You

Courtesy of BoingBoing.

Dear Harvard

Please do not delete my e-mails just because they are a month old. There are lots of times when I need old e-mails, like when they have information I need to fill out financial aid forms due at midnight. I am very angry about this right now. Very angry.

Trevor

One of my favorite places had up a link to this thread where people are taking old Garfield comic strips and removing all the animals' dialogue, so it's only Jon that talks. They're hysterical. Here is my favorite:

Noblesse Oblige

Two kids from my section promised that if they were made Prom King and Queen, they'd donate the $100 prizes towards a tab at The Kells, where beers are only a dollar on Wednesdays. We saw them elected in a landslide. Everyone sure was happy this morning we don't have class at 8:50 on Thursdays any more.

Hell? See You There

This is downright evil, but it is certainly the greatest blonde joke ever.

Trumped

For everyting I ever thout was funny, Russ and Mike of Barely Legal show how I was not only wrong, but also straight-up retarded. What are you doing here? Read them instead.

Aspirations: Crushed

All this talk about grades and being sad reminds me of this shirt from Dinosaur Comics:



Me, I'm gonna continue my campaign of studied ignorance so I can test this "grades don't matter" theory the profs keep pushing. But if you know someone who's upset that now they can't make law review, show them this. Then hit them in the head for wanting it in the first place. Somebody has to knock some sense into these people.

Grades

Grades are up. I'm not going to look at mine.

Calvin and Hobbes

A friend sent me this comic. It's really sad. Like Puff the Magic Dragon sad.

High Satire

So I was cast in the Parody. I've got two speaking roles, one public figure and one current student. Thankfully, I have no singing or dancing roles. That would have been a bad idea. I'm just looking out for the audience here. I can't tell you more, because everything is very top secret hush-hush. Apparently most people who get parodied think it's a compliment, but sometimes we get sued. I'm pretty sure we win, but I'll have to check.

By the way, this theater business takes up tones of time. But at least now I have a good reason to weasel out of commitments I made last semester. What's that, Journal of Law and Technology? No, I'm sorry I can't help you edit scholarly papers. I'm busy this month. Mocking the very idea of justice.

Temperate Climes

It was ridiculously warm today. I sat outside and read in a t-shirt and sandals. The ice skating rink has finally thawed completely, and is now just an ice skating pool.

You Too Can Have This Fearsome Power

Eugene Volokh extols the dark art of multiplication.

Hostile Takeover

Who would have known that the video game geeks at Penny Arcade would make the best comic about outsourcing I've ever read. It's got it all: a self-referential shift in visual style, betrayal, and senseless violence too.

An Unorthodox Strategy

I just got an e-mail from a 3L who is starting a blog to get a job. He figures it will let him "exhibit[] marketable skills in an untraditional way". I always figured that blogging, especially under one's own name, could cost a law student a fairly significant bit of market value. Maybe I'm wrong. In either case, he seems to be getting class credit for carrying this out as a kind of self-directed research project, which is either a pathbreaking bit of scholarship or an admirable exercise in raw chutzpah. So either way, good on him.

The site is called 3L Epiphany.

I Want to Believe

People are endlessly fascinated by the power supply for my five year old iBook. I got three questions about it just in this class alone. It is shiny:

Identity Politics

"I don't know. They seemed like a really WASPy firm."
"Trevor, you are a WASP."
"W ... A ... S ... Ha! I'm not Protestant!"
"You're Catholic?"
"Nope, pagan. Sun worshipper."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I'm looking to capture some prisoners of war to sacrifice to my heathen idols."
"You realize that Pagan is still a P word."
"Curses."

Dim Chief

Prof CrimLaw:

I actually think this case is pretty clear. Burger was not a very creative man, and any time you see something that looks like a coherent argument in one of his opinions it's usually because one of the litigants gave it to him. He wasn't the brightest bulb in the - however that sentence ends. I once had an e-mail debate with a colleague of mine about who was the dumbest Chief Justice we've ever had - he thought it was Burger but I wasn't so sure. I don't know why I'm telling you all this.