Slacker & Slacker LLP

I turned this into a federal judge

2007-03-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

I had an assignment from a federal judge in my non-graded one credit class. The assignment that the entire 1L class had to do was to write about a situation in which your integrity was challenged. The purpose was to foster integrity and to create a noble system free from lawyer jokes. Find this assignment ironic and hypocritical, so did I. Here is what I turned in:

My moment of integrity that I will discuss is this very assignment. We have been assigned to challenge ourselves to think of situations of integrity as an integral part of becoming a lawyer. This is a very difficult concept to take seriously, since law school and the profession rewards people for doing just the opposite. Lawyers who are more self-interested, less involved in the community, less interested in truth, and learn how to play the game at the expense of their own knowledge, categorically succeed more than those who don’t. People who are better human beings do worse in law and are constantly encouraged to compromise their morals. I thought it was an ironic choice to talk about disclaiming sophistry for the more noble Socratic pursuit of truth; what we learn and what helps us succeed as lawyers is to become good sophists. You mention how the few bad apples give lawyers such a bad reputation and are the ridicule of countless jokes. The problem isn’t stopping the rotten apples, but changing the system so that the bad apples aren’t constantly rewarded and propelled through the profession. My integrity is telling you that an assignment that most students take as a joke since there is no grade attached will hardly challenge anyone to have more integrity.

I find it even worse that this assignment comes from law school, an institution that has no justification for the hazing process of bottomless work. It is good to work hard for noble enterprises, it is good to test to see how far people can go, but it is horrible to put students in a system that balancing any other value besides law school will hinder their education and result in ridicule of classroom participation. To take away from values such as family, friends, moral enterprises, relaxing, community service and fun is to bereave us of what is most essentially human. The most hypocritical part of law school is in its testing methods. A student who happened to pick up the right testing method does better than a student who is far more knowledgeable about the law. The student who takes a three hour test well, with no instructions on how to take the test, gets six figure salaries in a few years; where the student who has the integrity to pursue a more genuine knowledge of the law will scrounge to get a third of the salary at the public defenders office. Personally, it is hard for me to accept that the system has integrity when the one sentence “Finish your exams” is more valuable to your career then 300 hours worth of studying. Especially when you are not informed on how the tests will be graded. Surely a huge problem such as this is answered by the integrity of the law school program? The Law schools in America answer to this problem is willful blindness and increasing every single thing that is wrong with the system so their US News ranking will increase.

I am constantly amazed that a subject that studies fairness, justice, and integrity has so little of any of the three. I apologize for the bitter rant between studying for my classes, but at least it is honest and has integrity unlike many of the papers in the stack that you are reading right now.

Funny Conversation

2007-03-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Funny Conversation between two law students

Student 1: I hate her she’s so rude to me

Student 2: You should totally kill her

Student 1:But seriously I can’t stand her

Student 2:Just kill her, if you kill her that means you don’t have a soul

Student 1::::perplexed:: And that’s a good thing?

Student 2: Of course, if you don’t have a soul your grades will go up at least 10 pts per class. It may be your best shot to get into the top 10 percent.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

2007-02-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

It is cold in the northeast.

I'm sitting in a writing class at 8:15 on a Friday morning.

I'm supposed to be asleep right now. Fridays are supposed to be my light day, academically speaking. I have one class at 1:40 in the afternoon, so I can sleep in, relax, and then wander over to school for an hour and a half, and then head out into the city with friends.

Three days a week I start at 8:30 in the morning. Wednesday is supposed to be one of those days.

This week, Wednesday was the first day that nature finally decided to show me what "winter" actually means. I grew up where there wasn’t a real winter, so this was a new experience for me. I was prepared, though. Heavy coat, check. Waterproofed shoes, check. Gloves, check.

So I wake up early Wednesday morning, fire up my computer, and check my email. Lo and behold, an email from my writing professor saying that, because of the inclement weather, she will not be coming in to class today.

Now keep this in mind: my school is not closed. I still have to go in for my class at 10:15, and I'm already awake. It is not worth going back to sleep, so instead I relax for a while in my apartment. I finally go outside and brave the cold, the wind, and the sleet, and make my way to my contracts class.

At this point, I would like to talk about sleet. Where I grew up, we did not have snow. Maybe once a decade, some snow would fall at the highest point in town, but it would never stick once it hit the ground. There would be hail occasionally, of different sizes, and it was fun to stand on the porch and watch these tiny balls of ice pound onto the sidewalk. Sleet, however, is a horse of a different color. Instead of balls of ice, sleet is frozen rain. And it STINGS. The street I live on has winds that alternate directions from day to day. Wednesday’s patterns meant that it was interesting to walk from east to west (towards school), navigating frozen intersections and snowy sidewalks. It also meant that it was painful to walk from west to east (towards my apartment), braving not only the frozen intersections and snowy sidewalks, but doing it all with sleet whipping in and stinging my face and eyes almost shut. I enjoy cold weather, but sleet is something else.

But back to the story. My writing professor tells us that we can make up our class on Friday morning, joining her 8:30 section that day. Meanwhile, another class has scheduled (and rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled) a training session for 9:00 Friday morning. A few more back-and-forth emails between my classmates and our writing professor gets the class moved back another half hour to 8, which is why I'm sitting here way too early in the morning.

So today, instead of just a Constitutional law class in the afternoon, I have a writing class at 8 in the morning, a training session at 9, and Con law at 1:40. On top of that, a leak in the roof above the fifth floor makes my fourth floor apartment smell like something between a wet dog and rotting wood thanks to the water that made its way down into my walls.

You've got to love winter in the northeast. At least I'm finally seeing a little bit of what I signed up for when I moved out here.

And fate has granted us a three day weekend to make up for this early morning suffering, so if I brave the weather it will be for something fun instead of to go to class. And it will definitely be after 11 in the morning at the earliest.

And before I sign off, my favorite quote from the semester so far, courtesy of my criminal law professor, talking about different theories of punishment:

"You understand 'eye for an eye' and 'tooth for tooth.' You may not agree with it, but you understand it. But what you get for 50 grams of coke doesn’t exactly come from the bible."

Back to the grind

2007-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

I got back to school two weeks ago. I did absolutely nothing over winter break, and it was wonderful! I have yet to do any reading for my classes, but for the most part I've been going. I've decided that this is the week I'll actually start working ... we'll see how that goes.

I've started on the job search as well. Hopefully I'll be able to find something back in California, but if push comes to shove I guess I'll just take a job I find near my law school.

Anyways, more updates will follow, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am alive, I've stopped napping all day, and new posts will be coming.

Thanks for reading :)

New Teachers, New Quotes

2007-01-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

Here are some solid quotes from my first week back.

"There's randomness in all law school exams and we have no idea what were doing, but we try hard. "

"You have the affirmative right to use your property as you choose . . . most of the time. You can't throw your book at people"

"The fundamental basis of human activity is no one gives a damn"

The Nightmare on Memo Street (Pt. 2)

2006-12-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the hiatus, I was busy with something. What was I busy with? Oh, Yeah, FINALS!!! They are horrible, however the Nightmare on Memo Street must continue.

The good news about the first memo is that I did alright. The bad news is I did alright. I feel sorry for the chunk of the class that did worse than me, considering I started 18 hours before the paper was due. Some people put countless hours into the paper and did poorly. For a subject that studies fairness and justice, I am constantly amazed at how little law school has either.

The thing that pissed me off about the memo is my writing professor gives no constructive criticism. Maybe other students in the law school world have ESP, but since I happen to be missing that gene, it is very difficult to improve without feedback. An occasional ‘good’ or ‘improve’ on the paper does not help. With no collaboration, no constructive feedback, and ambiguous answers in office hours, improvement is very difficult. This is one of my biggest grievances against law school; not allowing people to learn and improve from their mistakes (more to come on that topic later).

After I got my first draft back I decided to be one of those stupid saps that spend hours on a paper. With some backwards logic, that I am in grad school, I better not hold anything back now. Needless to say it was stupid logic. Fear not slackers of the world, I will not make the error again. Study smarter, not harder. Overanalyzing is a mortal sin in law school.

The nightmare of the next draft did not begin to happen until the night before the memo was due. Believing that I could get more points from content than citations and style, I spent most of my time editing content (including the Questions Presented/Brief Answers/Statement of Facts). When I left the library to go back home at 11:30 the night before the memo was due, I had not put my citations in the paper yet. I figured midnight the night before is plenty of time. This would ordinarily be true except . . .

I lost my citations book. Where the book disappeared to is still a mystery to this day. Being that I am not one of those uber-geeks who memorize citations, this was problematic. So I did what any good slacker would do in the situation, went to bed.

There was no way to have a citations manual before 7:00 when the library opened anyway. However this put me behind schedule a couple hours and I had to work to the very end. I put the citations in with no problem and continued to edit. About 30 minutes before the paper was due, I found an error and corrected it. In correcting the error, it bumped down a section title line of the paper. No one wants a title line for a section as the bottom line on a page. So, I hit enter, to push it onto the next page and then went to the computer guys for advice. They could not figure it out and screwed around with my spacing, margins, and stuff. This made me rather frantic. I am pretty sure, but not certain, that I restored everything back to how I originally had it and the computer guy’s changes were not saved. I just hit enter and had a little extra space on one of the bottoms of a page. I did not have time to reread the paper for errors. So, with T minus five minutes I printed and turned in the paper.

To my horror, there was an empty line in the middle of a section. Normally I wouldn’t fret too much, but I am pretty sure I lost a significant amount of points for this (I think 4 points if its part of organization, more if it is part of style). This pisses me off because I lost points for something stupid and careless not for something that was legitimate. It’s even possible that the computer guy could have caused the error.

At least, I learned to leave an extra half hour to reread the paper before I turn the paper in.

I did do better on the final draft. Once again the good news is I did alright, and the bad news is I did alright.

The Nightmare on Memo Street (Pt. 1)

2006-11-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

Most 1Ls have a memo due sometime during the first semester. Unfortunately law school has this idea that you should be doing some of your work without the use of LEXIS and WESTLAW. This is a rather dumb idea, since we will almost always be using them in the real world and when we aren’t, my 5^th grade library skills will probably do the trick.

Luckily for me I am a slacker. Sometime before the final weekend to work on the memo we got access to LEXIS and WESTLAW. My writing teacher figured everyone was basically done with their research anyway. Not me, I hadn’t really started and this was rather awesome! I didn’t have to do book research.

This is where the good part of my story ends. Since I had not started the memo the weekend before it is due I decided that it’s probably not a good idea to get wasted and go out. As you will find out I should have. I worked diligently and was making a lot of progress; I would even say the memo was good. AND then it happened, the memo writer’s worst nightmare:

I went into my writing professor’s office hours the day before the memo was due. I had some trivial questions. But then I asked her a content based question. In responding to my question, she revealed that I put the central balancing test in the wrong part of the statute and that I would probably do better if I started over to fix the mistake. I still disagree with her opinion and think it makes far less sense than mine, but since SOME of the courts agreed with her and SHE was grading my paper, I decided that at 3:00 p.m. the day before the paper was due, I needed to scrap most of the memo and start over.

THIS SUCKED BALLS. I do not recommend writing a ten page research paper in less than a day, especially when you need to redo the research.

I scramble to get the new cases together and start writing. I can’t honestly say this was my best work, but I needed to write something. Around 10:00 p.m., I have about six pages and decide that I need more cases. So I sign on to LEXISNEXIS on my laptop and find that LEXIS isn’t working. I try another computer in the library; LEXIS doesn’t work at this computer either. After consulting with some friends I realize LEXIS is down. Luckily LEXIS has a 24 hour support network. So I call them and they have no idea what’s going on. After being reconnected and trying get them to fix their service for 45 minutes, they tell me if I leave the library and go home LEXIS should work. I tell them that I will and not to worry about calling me about the library network.

I go home and finish the rest of the content without editing or putting the citations in. It’s 4:00 a.m. and I can’t think anymore. I decide to take a 2 hour nap and finish before it’s due at 10:30 a.m. the next day. I set two alarms and go to bed (sleeping through one, which I have done before, would be disastrous). Around 5:00 a.m., I get a call. WHO CALLS AT 5:00 AM? LEXISNEXIS of course, to tell me the library is now working. My two hours of sleep interrupted.

I woke up at 6:00 and put the citations in and edited to the best of my abilities before the memo was due. This was not my finest hour, but at least I had something that I could turn in. I thought the nightmare had ended, but the Nightmare on Memo Street continues with the revision . . .

Proximate Cause and Pleading

2006-11-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

Two topics that would usually lead to an extremely boring post. But my Torts and CivPro teacher decided to make things more interesting.

On Proximate Cause:

I always enjoy a fun poke at evangelical religion. This one was great.

“Proximate Cause can best be explained like this: Everything is not Eve’s fault. She may have had the apple, but at a certain point we decide that the cause is too remote and we should take responsibility for our own actions.”

On Pleading:

“Early English pleading is like the Arabian Tales, you have to say the magic words, like ‘Open Sesame’, to get into court. They knew that failing to pay your loan was not disturbing the order of the King; they knew it sounded ridiculous, but without proclaiming the writ you couldn’t get into court. Nothing, really, has changed”

Last Legal Writing of the semester

2006-11-17T07:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my last legal writing class of the semester. I'm so excited to be done with that class for now. If I had to worry about writing my final memo and prepping for finals at the sametime I think I might have started freaking out for the first time this year. Luckily they were nice to us. Thank you law school for being considerate for once.

Last Resort to Avoid Participation

2006-11-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

It is commonly accepted that if you are called on in class there is nothing you can do. There has only been one try in law school history, to my knowledge, that has ever been successful after a teacher insisted on participation. Dan’s attempt to avoid class participation, although noble, resulted in the loss of using his laptop. This resulted in Dan not having a computer to avoid his writing professor’s wonderful teaching ability. But one monotone Yale law school valedictorian was able to do it, his name . . .

Bueller . . . Bueller

is Ben Stein. (This story comes via my Civ Pro teacher that went to Yale with him)

“Mr. Stein will you please explain the facts of case Slacker v. Gunner?”

::monotone voice:: “I didn’t do the reading”

“That’s ok, I will give you the facts and you can tell me your opinion”

“I really don’t wanna”

“This is law school, you don’t have a choice”

::still monotone:: “I don’t wanna, I am not going to”

::slightly raised voice:: “Mr. Stein”

“I am gonna take off my clothes, if you keep calling on me.”

::he proceeds to strip:: This makes the class rather awkward and the teacher moves on to someone else. Mr. Stein escaped participation unscratched. This act of brilliance makes up for the fact that you are a Nixon supporter and conservative views bares no resemblance to your people’s values. You are a hero for us all; no wonder why you graduated valedictorian from the best law school in the country.

What a worthless week

2006-11-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

I'd love to have something that was ever so funny/witty about things that happened at law school this week, but I opted to sleep through pretty much all of my classes except for CivPro so ... I have nothing interesting to report.

That is all.

I love sleep :)

E-mail Conversation

2006-11-02T17:41:00.000-08:00

Bill Clinton spoke at my school today. He is the most charismatic and persuasive person I have ever heard. His ability to relate to his audience and stick just to the facts is incredible. I will write more on his jokes later. This E-mail conversation between me and my Civ Pro teacher made my day.

"I wanted to let you know that I am going to be missing class today (11/2) to go see the Bill Clinton speech. . . (other letter formalities)"

Civ Pro teachers reponse:
"Invite him back to class with you. We were at Yale together and I know him."

CivPro teacher is awesome.

Dragon Slaying

2006-10-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

Law is a very serious profession. I admire the law’s diligence and commitment, but many times law is unnecessarily serious. Sometimes you need to laugh at life because were human. Human life is full of absurdity; we should not take it too seriously.

The Career Service Office at my school required all 1Ls to turn in a resume. Despite turning in a resume, fairly recently in our applications, the school wanted a new resume in “law school format”. The school did not want us to expand on our college experiences, only our professional experience. Since I graduated fairly recently my resume was very small and looked pathetic.

If there was any reason why I would need a resume, I would have taken it seriously. If I planned on turning the resume in soon, I would take it seriously. But since the resume did not count and was useless, I decided comedy was appropriate way to poke fun.

So I made a resume 20 minutes before it’s due. At the bottom where you put interests, I listed:

Philosophy, Partying, Long Walks on the Beach, and Dragon Slaying.

Everyone likes dragon slaying, right?

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of showing others the resume. Everyone had the exact same reaction: Laughing for a minute, then lecturing me on how I need to grow up and take school more seriously. Ordinarily I wouldn’t pay attention to this, but in a moment of stress and weakness of will, I removed the humor.

Apparently law school, not only makes you over serious and competitive, but makes you lose your balls, too.

If I ever see a resume like mine, at least I would know there a real person. There is no good reason why law school shouldn’t be occasionally comedic. I am tired of the seriousness and intensity. I want a law school that’s human.

Lawyer/Student Reception

2006-10-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the week I went to a lawyer/student reception hosted by a a club I'm in at my school in conjunction with a large firm in my city.

Most of it was useless, although the free food and drinks were very nice. Two statements made by the discussion panel really hit home for me though.

Hiring Partner of Hosting Firm: You're all law students so I figure most of you are type A personalities. (One of the man reasons I hate my fellow law students is that they're prickish type A's as opposed to the stoic confident type A's. Damn you people!)

Non-Profit Lawyer: If you think that you want to do some sort of non-profit work or small firm work, but want to work in biglaw for a few years to gain experience, when you get your first big paycheck, DO NOT GO OUT AND BUY A MERCEDES! I know far too many people who wanted to leave biglaw, but now can't afford to take the pay-cut.
(Seems pretty straightforward, but I guess those smart lawyer types aren't very good at handling finances)

What was I thinking . . .

2006-10-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

So I got a good idea. Why don’t we take a bunch of students, all from the top of their universities and put them in a giant competition with each other. The stakes, let’s set it at something high, lets say, prospects of having a successful career. They should be on a curve, meaning one doing better means another has to do worse. Let’s make it more interesting by not explaining the rules or giving the students any feedback on how they are doing relative to each other or how to do well in the competition. Success is met with more intense work from your adversaries. All of which constantly put pressure on everyone else. Additionally, In order to compete, you will need to study at least a modest, 8 hours a day. People begin to plan their entire schedule around the competition. They allocate more and more time into the competition. What if you just study occasionally? Well then you will probably lose. What if you value things other than the competition? You will lose. Any value for comedy? No. Any value for your humanity? No. Any excuses ever? No. This sounds like a great idea!!! People should sign right up.

Are you freaking kidding me?

This is insane. I want to . . .

LIVE A LIFE.

People may be nice outside of law school, but when people walk between the walls they are competitive assholes.

How does everyone buy into this bullshit?

More Funny Quotes

2006-10-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

“The penalty for throwing Barbies is not in Rule 11”

“A kiss is a form of battery”

“If the beans that the young Jack purchased from the crafty old man in the fairy tale ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk’ had been worthless rather than magical, it would have been only fair to allow Jack to disaffirm the bargain and reclaim the cow” – from Kiefer v. Fred Howe Motors

“If you had a civil rights case in 1960’s Mississippi would you rather be in federal or state court? If you don’t know the answer to this, you don’t belong in this life.”

On why punctuation matters:

“Woman! Without her, man would be nothing.”

“Woman, without her man, would be nothing.”

Such a great day

2006-10-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

I slept though my one class today. That was great, I really needed the rest. Who needs to go to Torts anyways?

My study group called me after class to see if I was coming to our weekly review session. I asked them what we would be going over today, and they said they wanted to compare outlines for a few classes. Since I haven't even started thinking about outlines yet, I opted to go back to bed, where I stayed until about 5pm. Can every Friday be like this?

Sometimes sleep is just the most important part of the day (it just so happens that sometimes = most of the time for me).

Emotional Distress

2006-10-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

I am another friend of Dan and David's from undergrad. I grew up in Northern California, went to school in Southern California, and this past August I moved to Boston for law school. I've posted some comments around the blogosphere as "Boston Law Student," and I will drop in here from time to time with my own law school experiences.

Striking fear into the hearts of 1Ls everywhere is that dreaded word. Exams. Off in the December distance is this amorphous evil that plagues us all and drives even the most ardent slacker to occasional studiousness. At my law school, exams are not as bad as at Dan's or David's. None of our classes have grades here. Instead we have 'narrative evaluations,"whatever that means.

Anyway, to prepare us for the exams and to give us a taste of what we’ll be up against in a couple of months, today we had a practice torts exam. Now for those of you who don’t know, torts is the section of law that that has to do with most civil lawsuits. People suing for everything from serious injuries to corporate irresponsibility. Cases range from the standard (A sues B for causing an injury to A when B acted negligently and crashed into a building) to the ridiculous (woman goes into a hospital for fertility treatment, and comes out having lost her leg).

Well, we took this exam under the same conditions that we will be under in December. Since I have a laptop, I was going to use it for the exam. I downloaded and installed the software that they assigned. What this does is lock down the computer, only giving access to the current word file to prevent cheating. Sounds like a good policy, right? Everyone has an equal chance and an even playing field. Nice theory, anyway.

So as I'm finishing up, with a few minutes to spare, I add some information to my test at the last second. To make sure everything is ok before I turn it in, I hit the spell check button. I had done this once or twice before as I went through the exam, making sure things were ok as I went. Now I was on my final time. I clear any serious issues and then I can finish up.

So I move the mouse to the toolbar, hit the spell-check button, expecting the window to pop up...

And the screen clears. Suddenly, I’m looking at my computer desktop, and the software is closed. Hmmm. Not good, but probably no big deal. I had been saving early and often in case something like this happens. But to get back into the software, I have to call over one of the technical support guys to log me back in. He comes over, takes a look at my computer, opens the software, and says…uh oh.

So now my mind starts to race. What happened? What’s the problem? What did I do? What did you do? He looks at the computer and tells me what I already know. The file is gone. My exam has disappeared. My computer has eaten my answer.

Well, what am I supposed to do now? Tech guy calls the academic affairs boss into the room. He takes a look at the situation, and wants to schedule some time with me later in the day to retake the exam that I had just spent the last hour working on. Well, as you can probably imagine, this just makes my day. Now those of you who know me well have seen me react badly to similar types of situations, but I’m doing my best to keep my cool and work the problem instead of doing all the evil things to everyone around me that are flashing through my mind.

As calmly as I can, I explain that I follow the "save early, save often" philosophy that comes from years of traumatic experiences with Microsoft Windows products. I know that somewhere, deep in the bowels of my computer’s hard drive, is my exam. I know it is there because it has to be there.

So the tech guys kick it around for a while, look at the places where the file is supposed to be, and have a look of deep sympathy and sorry for me predicament. Finally, boss tech guy comes in and asks to see my computer. Well by now I have told a few of my friends what’s been going on, and they tell a few of their friends, but more on that in a few minutes.

Anyway, head tech guy takes my computer from room to room to hallway to try to get away from crowds of noisy 1Ls relieved over the end of the exam. Naturally, I go with him. He makes a few calls and finally starts opening up hidden files in hidden folders, looking deep into the hard drive in a place that no one would ever have guessed. Finally, he comes to a file that matches what he was told my exam should be named. It looks like it was last changed about the time I last saved, although I can't be sure. I ask to check the file to make sure it is the right one, but of course it is encrypted, so I just have to trust this software (yeah, right) that he has the right file. Anyway, head tech guy takes the file away to get it decrypted, formatted, and sent out for grading. I just hope that it is at least close to the final version that I wanted to put together. That's as good as it is going to get for me on this go around.

Well, after that, we have torts class. Imagine that, torts class after a torts exam. Sounds like fun, right? Well anyway, I go home for a little while after torts for my lunch break, and then come back for afternoon classes. As I'm walking into my classroom, I see a classmate of mine, and we're talking about the exam (of course). His went fine, he’s glad that it is over, regular, expected things.

Then he asks me how mine was. I start to tell him. Well, I was just finishing when I hit the spellchecker and it crashed. He interrupts my at that point. "That was you?!" he says. Apparently, my story is spreading. I told a few people while they were working on my computer. They told a few people this story from the exam. And they told a few people.

Now I won't pretend to know how David felt getting grilled by his contracts professor. I've given some right answers and I've given some wrong answers in my two months here, but I've never had a long face off in any of my classes. But I do have some idea what its like to go into a room and have people talking about what happened to you. Not the greatest experience of my life, but at least its making a fun story for my friends.

I'm trying my best to not be a slacker in law school. Days like today don't make it easy.

Good Ol' Merriam-Webster

2006-10-15T23:50:00.000-07:00

Misery-

Pronunciation: 'mi-z&-rE

1. A constant emotional state in law school. Especially when writing a lengthy open memo over the weekend.

2. Not going out on a Saturday night because you have to work on a lengthy open memo. Waking up the next morning and not watching any Sunday football because you are so far behind on the memo.

Maybe slacking and getting a bad start is not always a good idea. Am I bitter? You bet.

Hell-

Pronunciation: 'hel
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English

1. a synonym for law school.

2. A subject of much scholarship to whether this place is actually better than law school. Most scholars find this subject highly debatable. (more to come in a following post)

I find the subject of law school interesting and am excited to be a lawyer, but the working conditions demanded border on inhumane.

2 complaints for today

2006-10-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well ... I guess technically it's only one complaint for today, and another complaint about yesterday, but that's just being picky.

First off, it snowed yesterday! WTF!? Frozen water ... falling from the sky ... and I'm not on top of a mountain with a snowboard strapped to my feet. This is not ok. Snow belongs at vacation destinations, not on the city streets ffs. I was just trying to enjoy a nice lunch in the sukkah ontop of my law school building, and it starts snowing! I thought I'd have a little more time here before that started. Oh well, hopefully it won't be doing it again soon.

Second, I've decided why it is I hate law school. It's not the actual school, its not the amount of work, its not the professor's grilling you; that's all things I can handle, I knew I'd signed up for coming into this mess. The longer I'm here, the more I realize, it's the other students that I hate, not the school.

Today the professor was talking about some theory of duty in torts, and he asked "Does anyone disagree with this?" One person raised their hand, and when called on answered "I agree with it because ..."

PUT YOUR DAMN HAND DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP. He did not ask if anyone agreed, he asked if anyone disagreed. You do not disagree so don't answer the damn question.

Uuuugh. Law school is like high school, but not all of that bothers me. Cliques are fine, gossipy as fuck is fine, its the small amount of people that's the problem for me. Looking back to high school I referred to a lot of people as situational friends. You really didn't have that much in common with people other than the fact you were in the same place at the same time with a limited amount of people. Sure you were "friends" when you where in school, but outside of it? You're completely different people. The same thing is true in law school for me. Yes there are a few really cool people that I enjoy hanging out with, but for the most part, if I wasn't in class with you, I probably would never want to talk to you; but now for some reason we go out to bars together? Ugh ....

I need to meet people that aren't law students. I hate these people.

Hand Written Notes

2006-10-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

I received an e-mail early in the week from the head of the Legal Writing department at my school. I got the pleasure of having a meeting with her to "discuss my participation in TBLWP's class". That was exciting. For this point on I am officially banned from using my laptop during Legal Writing. I must hand-take all my notes for the rest of the semester in the hope that I will stop goofing off online. BASTARDS!!

On the plus side, after my meeting with the head of the department I went to TBLWP's office hours and explained to him why I found the course so boring (his teaching style being a huge part of it), and this morning in class he devoted a section of time to "frustrations about legal writing" and he spoke about himself. He even tried to be funnier and more engaging. Hopefully this trend will continue. Unfortunently, if it does, I'll still be taking notes by hand.

I think I may have made a mistake

2006-10-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

So this week's legal writing, was just as boring as last weeks. I don't think it could ever be interesting. Useful? Maybe ... But interesting? Never.

I'm hoping it'll get more interesting next semester when we move on to IP specific issues, but that's just getting this post sidetracked.

So I'm sitting in class, the Prof is done talking for the day, and once again it's work silently by yourself time! (I thought law school was supposed to be like High School, not like elementary? WTF?)

The Prof hands out the non-graded/non-handed in worksheet for the day, looks straight at me and goes "Mr. Slacker, I WILL be expecting your participation today."

Damnit! What did I get myself involved in?

Disturbing Thought

2006-09-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the market to pick up some groceries. I passed by the produce isle and saw several tomatoes spilled on the ground. I thought nothing of the spill, at the time, and went on with my shopping. Fifteen minutes later I returned to the produce isle and the spill was still there.

A normal person would only think to avoid the spill, but law students are not normal people.

Only, one thing ran through my head, TORT LAWSUIT!!!!

It’s disturbing when you can’t even do your marketing without law on your mind. What is law school doing to us?

Some how law school made me an even bigger dork

2006-09-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

It's around 4am for me, which means it's 2am for David. I'm still awake, and bumming around online.

David: So what'd you do with your friday night?
Dan: Went to services, then came home and avoided studying by watching anime.
David: Damnit, it's friday, stop staying home and watching anime, go out and get a life!

I swear ... if I didn't have project runway and lots and lots of anime (Ergo Proxy rocks!) I'd be insane by now. (Drinking helps too)

L'Shanah Tovah!

Today's legal Writing aka I'm glad we have anonymous grading

2006-09-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

So since we don't actually cover anything in legal writing and our prof seems to have something against letting us out of class early, he normally hands out worksheets for us to work on for the last 40 minutes of class. These worksheets are never handed in, and are only for "practice". So today, we were talking about topic sentences and case description sentences. The prof handed out a case, and then asked us to write our own sample topic sentences.

Terribly Boring Legal Writing Prof: Mr. Slacker would you mind writing a sample topic sentence on the board?

Me: Um .... actually ... yes I would mind.

TBLWP: Oh ..... (awkward silence while the class looks at me) Did you prepare a topic sentence?

Me: No, not really

TBLWP: Well can you come up with one right now?

Me: Probably, but I didn't even bother to read the case ... so ... I dunno about that either.

TBLWP: Well what were you doing for the last 30 minutes?

Me: Just sort of staring at the wall.

At which point someone from the back of the class raised their hand and volunteered a topic sentence. Thanks for taking the heat off :)

Legal Writing sucks.

My Legal Writing Notes

2006-09-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Legal Writing is by far the worst class I have. Just to give you an idea of how boring/painful I find this class I've decided to include my recent class notes. Keep in mind this class is an hour and forty minutes long, and these are all the notes I took for that one day. G-d ... just thinking about legal writing pisses me off.

Legal Writing – Lecture 5 – 09/14/06
Fuck this class!

Professor’s Thoughts of the Week – kill me now.
• Law school is not fair. (omg ……… are we paying to be here?)
o Mirrors real life, which is also not fair. (Are you fucking kidding me?)
• You can extract rules of law from reasoning

Plain language concepts
• Omit surplus words
• Reduce passive voice
• Directly state your point (Point: I want to hit this professor)
• Avoid repeating points (Did I mention I hate this class?)
• Is a relatively new movement.

Umm … zoned out for a bit … and now he’s drawing cans on the board? So confused …
• You can move the can up and down but side to side movement is restricted ….
o WTF!!!
o Oh … ok … his point is use fewer words while describing things, and be more accurate.
He chose a retarded patent example to show this. I want to hit this man.

First citation rule
• The first time you mention a case name it must be a full citation!

Textual Citations – Rule 10.2.1
Citation Sentence – Rule 10.2.2 – Table 6 and Table 10 = additional abbrev. To use.
Global Citation Rules
• Abbrev. The 8 Corp. things and widely used acronyms 10.2.1(c)
• Know The 10.2.1(d)
• Generally, no first names unless it’s a biz. 10.2.1(g)
• 1 party on each side of the v (single party rule)
• don’t use et al. 10.2.1(a)
• eliminate state of, city of, 10.2.1(f)

The Empire Strikes Back

2006-09-15T17:05:00.000-07:00

Just when you would think Contracts Professor and I were in slacker equilibrium, that I had won the battle of wits: The Empire Struck Back.

::cue the Empire Strikes Back music::

Most people don’t like being called in class. But it happens to everyone; on occasion someone may even get called on twice in a big class. But, three times is just plain ridiculous. Seriously, who gets called on three times in class? He clearly has a grudge against anyone he calls on three times. Being called on three times is just not right. Well if you think that he called on me three times in class you would be wrong, he called on me four.

“Mr. Slacker, you have been awfully quiet lately, why don’t you explain x aspect of ABC case.”

Ordinarily this would not be a problem, but case ABC is a blurb mini-case that we had read a month ago. If it was a full size case, I could have pulled up an old brief, but since it was a small mini-case, I had nothing written down. This case was not on the reading list for today’s class. By all rational standards we would not be held responsible for this case today.

Like a rational human being, I kindly explained the predicament that I was in and suggested that he cue me in on certain facts, or to call on me later after I had read over the case. He took insult to the first suggestion and decided to ream me with the second.

One person later he called on me. The minute between the first and second time he called on me was not enough time to read the case. This was kind of ridiculous, but I had read enough to get the gist. I agreed with the person before me even though Contracts Professor kind of implied that the answer was wrong. I had not yet found anything in the text to suggest why Contracts Professor was right and the other student was wrong and didn’t want to invite on anymore pain. He made some quip and then moved on to some others.

He then started on case DEF. I had read DEF and knew it well. I raised my hand, implementing my aforementioned strategy of becoming Mr. Question Guy to avoid being called on. There was a half an hour left in class and I am fairly certain that he intended to spend almost all of that on this case.

He called on me and implied that this ought to be good.

“I figured I should try to redeem myself” I jokingly quipped back. The class found this funny.

I nailed the case. He fired question after question at me as if it were rounds of artillery. But I kept nailing every single point of the case. So instead of the Socratic Method taking 25 minutes of class, it took about 5 minutes of rapid fire questions to me.

Although, impressed with my intelligence, Contracts Professor was not impressed that it didn’t take almost the rest of the class. He also was not going to let me win the war of wits.

He moved on to another mini-case, this one vaguer and took far more abstraction to understand. He called on me for the fourth time on a very difficult case.

What??!? Didn’t I just nail a case proving my worthiness? Yes, but he was definitely not going to let me have the last laugh and he wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar for nothing.

I kind of skimmed the case earlier and did my best. But I had only got some of the points and was missing part of the idea. He reamed me for trying to redeem myself and outsmart him. He won.

I figured out the case after he moved on to a good chunk of other people, but before I could quip back, he said the answer.

I wish I had a happy ending to this story, but sadly it ends there. Just like the Empire Strikes Back, with the good guys losing.

But fear not, there will be a Return of the Jedi.

::cue star wars closing music::

Quotes of the day

2006-09-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

My CivPro teacher is brilliant and one of the most prominent judges in the state, but more importantly he is absolutely hillarious.

Consider the follwoing quotes today:

"I have never understood the name of the Federalist Society; it should be the Anti- Federalist society. Hamilton is your symbol, but he was in favor of a strong elastic federal government. Your symbol should be Jefferson who was an anti-federalist, but Jefferson is a Democrat. Then you would be the Democrat society, which is a rather ironic title, and quite understandable not to call yourselves."

"Subject matter jurisdiction is like kryptonite you can always pull it out of your pocket to kill jurisdiction at any time, just like you can always take kryptonite out of your pocket to kill superman."

"Every case shows that states have jurisdiction over all state issues, well except for Bush v Gore"

"No one cares about section 3 of Article 3, dealing with treason, except for Anne Coulter"

These quotes made my day

This IM made my day :)

2006-09-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

Undergrad friend: so they don't really call either of you guys mr. slacker, huh?
me: hah
me: no

You know law school sucks when . . . (#2)

2006-09-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

You go to school sick.

Ordinary human beings miss work or school when they are sick, but not in law school. If you are going to miss a day it’s because you need to take time off or because you didn’t do the reading. You certainly do not want to miss school because you are sick, especially if you did a long reading section.

This has an unintended effect of making everyone’s life more miserable then they already are in the first year of law school.

Whys that?

Well since you go to law school when you are sick, you get other people sick. Since they keep coming to school when they are sick, soon everyone is sick.

Now you have 2 hours of contracts to read tonight, 2 hours of civil procedure, and you have to read them with a stuffy nose and a sore throat.

The people who get really stressed out have it the worst. I feel sorry for those poor souls. They are crazy enough to be studying to the point of improper health when sick, which makes them more sick and there studying harder to do because they get more sick.

Mandatory attendance is good in that at forces students to learn and not excessively slack. But it works adversely when it’s taken to the extreme, and encourages people to take improper care of themselves.

People need to put that one class in perspective, catch up on the reading on the weekend and take care of themselves.

What a way to start the day

2006-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

I stumble into Civil Procedures at 9am, still half asleep. I woke up late, and didn't have time to get my morning coffee. I made it to class just in time, and was still booting up the laptop when the Professor took his place at the head of the class.

"Mr. Slacker, what is truth?" He bellows.
"Umm ... huh .... I'm not sure what you mean ..." I reply while rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"It's a simple question, and I'll ask it again in-case you didn't hear me. What is truth?"

This is not how I wanted my Monday to begin.

I tried to give some standard bullshit response about how truth is subjective, and can there really be a truth. There can be a factual truth (in some regards ...) but is there a TRUTH? I don't know.

This was not the answer he was looking for, and he proceeded to take the first half of class to lecture us about how the adversarial process we have in the American legal system is designed to "smelt a more perfect truth".

What a day ...

Most annoying person ever! The Leg Shaker ...

2006-09-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

The way our classrooms are setup here are in long rows of seats, the seats are physically connected to the desks on this strange swinging arms, and the desks themselves are divided into groupings of two. So two people sit connected to the same table, then there's a slight gap, two more people connected, gap, two more, etc, down the row. This morning I came a little late to class, and had to take a seat in the far back row so I wouldn't disrupt class by taking my normal seat.

Now let me tell you ... I believe I have found the most annoying person to ever exist. I am so glad that is not my normal seat, and I feel horrible for anyone that has to sit next to this man on a regular basis.

The Leg Shaker! OMG! I fidget. Move a little here, a little there, you know how it is. I feels really odd to sit completely still, but this man brings fidgeting to a whole new level. His leg was pumping up and down like a jackhammer the whole class long. And since we're connected to the table in pairs of two, I was lucky enough to have taken the seat connected to him. The whole table would move. I didn't know I should have taking Dramamine before coming to class, but next time I'm late, I'll remember. Maybe I should start caring it in my bag just in case.

I asked him to quick shaking numerous times throughout the class. It was distracting, annoying, and just downright rude. Everytime he'd stop (without an apology) and then start shaking again within five minutes. This continued for the next hour and forty minutes. By the end of class I wanted to hit this man.

For the love of g-d ... if you sit in connected seats, sit fucking down, and keep fucking still, other people can feel you moving!

How I became the most infamous 1L in law school (Part 2)

2006-09-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

Last time on great tales of the slackers, we learned how I managed to survive two days of bombardments of questions from Contracts Professor, the most feared teacher at my law school. We learned of the slacker’s worst nightmare, to be called on and grilled all the time in Contract Professor’s class. This is both thoroughly unenjoyable and interferes with proper slacking. See Part I

By now the school counselor had heard of me because of students complaining that they did not want to be grilled like me. (Still trying to figure out why students compalined in detial about how specific other students get grilled, but I appreciate the empathy)

So how did I manage to outsmart a Rhodes Scholar into stop calling on me?

So I was sitting in class after getting grilled about the UCC, looking at the several Mr. Questions Guys constantly raise there hand and not being called on. I was thinking, it serves them right for being pompous pricks and raising there hand for everything.

And then it hit me, like the apple hit Newton.

I must do the most unthinkable thing possible.

I had noticed that there is one thing that Contract Professor avoids like the bubonic plague: Our friend Mr. Question Guy. He can not stand the Mr. Question Guys of the class and never calls on them, ever.

I had to become Mr. Question Guy. If I ascribed to this philosophy that I most try to avoid then Contracts Professor would surely not call on me. I could return to slacker equilibrium.

This new theory of mine had one unfortunate consequence. I actually needed to study the cases well. If he called on me I better know the case, so that I can take away all the fun of him grilling me.

So cue the 80’s montage and picture me struggling to turn pages in my contracts book and as the montage continues me reading a whole lot more and briefing. Then picture me at the end of the montage being ready for Contracts Professor.

The next class came and somehow by the middle of the class, Contracts Professor had still not called on me. The class was discussing the most difficult part of the case. A good chunk of people had been called on and were unable to get the answer to the case.

I decided it was time to make my move. I raised my hand.

There were several other people with there hands up and one guy in the class that he was currently grilling. Cutting off the guy mid-sentence, Contracts Professor responds.

“Please excuse me for interrupting you, but the temptation to call on Mr. Slacker is too high right now”

Then I nailed it. Nothing more needed to be added. Contracts Professor was clearly impressed and somewhat shocked that a slacker could come up with a tricky answer. He even called my reasoning, Mr. Slacker’s rule.

But I wasn’t finished yet. I knew the hardest part of the next case too. So when the time came I raised my hand.

My hard work and genius began to pay off, as behavioral science began to run its course. Contracts Professor avoided calling on me like the bubonic plague. Cue Beethoven “Ode to Joy”

I raised my hand again. It kept on working.

Contracts Professor has yet to call on me again to this day.

I simply read the case real well for one case, and about 1 out of every 4 classes I raise my hand and say something real insightful to appease Contracts Professor.

The slacking world is once again at peace.

Everyone is happy, I get to slack, and Contracts Professor gets insightful information from me on occasion. If he ever gets uppity ill just keep raising my hand and he will stop calling on me.

Someone needs to stop taking notes

2006-09-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

As annoying as Mr. Question Guy is, I've discovered someone that manages to be far more annoying without ever opening his mouth.

Mr. Loud Typer. Mr. Loud Typer in my section changes his seat for every class, so my little click and I have yet to find out who he is. But everyone is in agreement, that man types way to loudly. Even one of our Professors has noticed. Last week during Contracts, the professor stopped class and proclaimed "Even with my mic turned all the way up, I can't hear myself talk over someone's excessive typing. You have laptops, not typewriters, keep it down out there in note-taking land."

I don't know what this person's problem is, do they have really fat fingers? Maybe their bones are incredibly dense so the weight baring down on the keys is more than normal? I suspect he's just an overeager note taking; diligently recording everything the Professors say with such enthusiasm that he gets carried away and just starts pounding on the keys.

What ever it is ... it needs to stop. Move your fingers with speed and agility, just don't pound the damn keyboard. Thanks!

How I became the most infamous 1L in law school (Part 1)

2006-09-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

It was a normal day in my contracts class. The professor is bombarding us, with the Socratic Method style questioning. I realize this professor is fairly intense and demands respect, but I had no idea what was coming. He definitely gets a thrill out of freaking people out, by showing how they did not understand the case or how they did not read the case carefully. He instills fear in students like a lion staring down at you and is the most feared teacher in the school. Often I am not completely sure that the people he picks on aren’t going to cry. But at least it’s only for a minute, a few minutes at max. In all fairness he is brilliant, a Rhodes Scholar, and has a great sense of humor (British dry wit). But he is intense and demands respect.

So out of the blue on a fine Monday afternoon, Contracts Professor calls on me.

Now being that it was the second day of class, I had not realized the depth that you need to read the cases. So I browsed over the case on the bus ride from the parking lot. I only understood the basic ideas. The case was assigned on Friday but he did not get to the case till the following Monday. I did not review over the weekend. I had errands to run, other cases to read, and alcohol to put in my liver.

So come Monday, he asks me my opinion on the case.

He proceeds by bombarding me with questions about offer and acceptance until I am in complete vertigo. First I try to BS; this is usually an effective technique. Worst case scenario, you may not look smart but at least it looks like you did the reading. But trying to BS my way through was not working very well, since he wanted exact quotes from the case. I obviously can’t supply the answer since I just browsed over the case. He realizes I haven’t read the case’s details at all and then corners me with a question I couldn’t possibly answer by just browsing.

So I figured I should put the charm. I reply that I had not highlighted the case and apologized for my lack of preparation and suggested that he call on someone else. If you thought this is where he stopped, you would be very wrong. He then prepared to grill me on another case we had read. I had also only browsed over it a few days back. He continued grilling me on the cases for about 10 minutes. I think he was frustrated that he couldn’t get me to fold and be embarrassed. But the class was in sheer horror that this teacher could fire bomb after bomb at a student, in such a way to attempt to try to make them feel like shit. There was much gossip in the locker room about the guy that got grilled by Contracts Professor. If you think this is where the grilling of me ends, you are still very wrong.

The very next class, Contracts professor calls on me to explain facts of a case. Which, after a momentary pause I was able to successfully do. He then proceeded to grill me for another ten minutes with questions, which I somehow manage to dodge the heat. He finally moves on to another student. I am greatly relieved and figured I am safe for the rest of the class. There are plenty of other students to pick on in an 85 person class. With every other student he had called he had limited his attacks to about 3 minutes, tops. Both of my encounters had been far longer than any other student.

A little bit of time elapsed.

Then it happened.

“Mr. Slacker, where in the entire UCC code would you find justification for the claim?”

The class fell silent and the faces all around me are in sheer horror at the prospect of being asked where in the entire Uniform Commercial Code a justification is located. Especially since no one had any idea that they had to look up anything in the UCC.

I was flabbergasted and didn’t know what to say. I did not say anything. I think I chuckled at the sheer ridiculous nature of the question. I flip through the book to humor him.

“Is it in there? Or are we just making this up?” He quipped as he attempted to make fun of me.

“Being that your asking, I am willing to bet that it is” I retort sarcastically .The class laughed out loud. It’s safe to say that he did not rather appreciate this. Although, I think deep down he found my answer rather hilarious. He proceeded to grill me and grill me hard; harder than any student before.

I struggle with the case which I had read, but not briefed, and reconciling it with the UCC. With several awkward pauses of 30 seconds where he had the class wait while I was reading the UCC I slowly found the needed material.

I eventually, concocted several UCC codes and several facts of the case to give the right answer. I was relieved. I think he was impressed with my intelligence, but not impressed that I am a sarcastic slacker that did not buy into his game of fear. Secretly I think he respected me more for it though. At the minimum, I had gotten the right answer unlike the first day.

But nonetheless, he had made it his mission to continuously call on me in every class. This is certainly a problem and thoroughly unenjoyable. So I came up with a way to defeat the Rhodes Scholar in a battle of wits.

The talk in the locker room after class was almost entirely about me. I had probably around 20 people come up to me and express their sympathies. They spread the word to other 1Ls, and soon the tale of the slacker that Contracts Professor keeps calling on was infamous. They feared being the person getting called on like me. My fellow students were supportive, I am thankful.

To see how I turn it around you must wait till part 2.

You Know Law School Sucks When . . .

2006-08-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

You do briefs over breakfast.

Like most other red blooded Americans, I take my breakfast time seriously. I have more important things to do like . . .

Watch TV

I usually wake up turn on CNN, Fox, or MSNBC. After realizing that they are hyping up stories beyond the proportionate level of importance, there is another important task watching reruns and bad day time television. Saved By the Bell and other educational programs on how to properly slack, The Practice and other law shows that are unrealistic, Dawson’s Creek and other like soap operas, Montel, Maury, Tyra Springer, and Oprah, Judge Judy, Jean-Luc saving the galaxy on from Klingons, Ferengis, and Borg on Star Trek: the Next Generation, bad comedy routines on comedy central, and the worst movies in HBO’s rotation.

Law School is ruining this perfect opportunity to enhance my intelligence with these great ideas of western civilization certainly equivalent to Plato, Nietzsche, and Shakespeare. Oh wait, I don’t have a TV yet, due to lacking funds and time. So here I am briefing my cases that I probably should have already done with cheerios, as law school slowly eats away my free time.

Am I bitter of losing my free breakfast time? Of coarse not

Joining the conspiracy

2006-08-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

So I started class this week, my first class was civil procedures. Upon entering the class I was greated with the phrase "Welcome to the conspiracy!" I was told that I was joining a profession. Our professor then continued to explain to us that all a profession is, is one giant conspiracy against lay people. A profession is something full of esoteric knowledge that serves no other point than to keep lay-people from understanding what was going on. I was told civil procedures is that esoteric knowledge and that I had a whole semester to look forward to learning this knowledge.

Let me tell you .... it feels great to be part of a conspiracy. Esoteric knowledge here I come!

Mr. Question Guy

2006-08-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Mr. Question guy is usually not the smartest or dumbest guy in the class, but studies more than most. He/She (although I have seen more guys) is intent on proving their intellect to their peers and professors, so they decide that they are going to ask irrelevant questions in class. These questions are usually highly specific in topic and have very little interest to most people in the class. Even worse, sometimes they ask questions that they already know the answer to, in order to appear more intelligent. I see through it and I bet most other students do, too. But, Mr. Question Guy is generally nice and friendly, just lacking in social skills. In order to show that I have no ill will and only want to help both you and the rest of the class here is my letter to Mr. Question Guy.

Dear Mr. Question Guy,

Congratulations on getting into law school and having great study habits. There are a few issues that we your class mates would like to share with you. First, the professor is not talking specifically to you, but the entire class. When you raise your hand every 5 minutes you look like that third grade kid that your elementary school teacher is desperately trying not to call on. This does not impress your professors or your fellow students. You don’t need to answer each question or pose specific new questions to every issue, we know you are intelligent and study. Do ask questions that are on topic and insightful. Also, make sure all of your questions are of interest to the majority of people in the class. Diligently try to avoid asking personal interest questions during class. There is a perfectly suitable time to ask these questions; before or after class. I ask questions after class, too. Give others a chance to answer some questions. Do not ask questions that you already know the answer to, this is heavily annoying. Do present your opinion on issues when relevant. Don’t act like an arrogant prick; you are not smarter than everyone because you raise your hand. The only advantage is that you save yourself a few reps on the weights at the gym. Do go to the gym, it will get your mind off law school for a little while. Use your discretion in asking questions, with respect to the size of the class. You can ask more questions in a class of 20 then in a class of 200. In case this is too general I will make this into a statute so that you can better understand.

Law school statue of how not to be Mr. Question Guy:

“Do not ask questions, unless they are both insightful and you have not asked a reasonably large amount of questions during the class. Ask questions after class if they are not relevant to everyone else and don’t ask frivolous questions to prove your intelligence. Avoid asking questions at the end of class, ask them after class instead. Don’t act like a prick. In general, use discretion when raising your hand.”

I hope this will be sufficient to help you. We can provide common law cases to help define ambiguities in this statute if necessary. Please don’t look up every word 5 times and ask useless questions about this statue it goes against the point. You know what it means.

Love,

Your Fellow Concerned Law Students who want to help you avoid being Mr. Question Guy

The First Week

2006-08-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

On the first day of class I stroll in a minute late and sit in the last row. I figured the professor would be giving a speech about the honor and glory of the law, something between Braveheart’s ‘Sons of Scottland’ speech and Any Given Sunday’s ‘Inches’ speech. Explaining how we had made such a respectable choice and the great many possibilities that lie ahead.

I was wrong.

The professor was already digging into the details of the assigned reading. Cut and dry. The prof. was more entertaining, then I had expected, to his benefit, and I respected his no B.S. attitude.

There was one other thing that I noticed as I scanned the room. There was only one person in the entire class that did not have a laptop or notebook in front of him/her. Yes, ladies and gents, it was me, your local slacker-at-law. It had yet to be a full minute in law school and I was already late and behind.

Throughout the week I learned people actually seemed to be studying frequently. I am not accustomed to studying regularly, since I was able to get away with very little in undergrad. But I decided I should probably catch up and invested in a notebook (my laptop is in the mail). So I did the reading till I understood what was going on. But fear not fellow slackers of the world, the next night I was out and about hitting the bars.

Figuring that I needed to redeem myself for showing up unprepared to the first class, I showed up to class the next morning at 8 o’ clock, after the night at the bars. The other law students that I went out with did not show up. Mom would be proud. I hope this redeems me to the karma police of legal studying.

So come Friday, there was once again only one person in the classroom with no notebook or laptop. I figured I don’t really take notes on most of this stuff anyway. I had already read the case and understood it. I don’t understand the people who frivolously scribble every detail down. If something is important I am all for studying and putting in what is necessary to meet your goal, but people just act out of fear, nerdiness, or their love to flaunt their intelligence and hear their own voice. The one’s that love to hear their own voice are the worst, more about them later.

Why I'm going to law school

2006-08-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the other Slacker of Slacker & Slacker LLP. I'm Dan, and I went to undergrad with David. We're both great at slacking, hopefully we'll both be great at law school.

My journey to law school took a much different path than David's. It was never my intention to go. All I wanted to do was be a video game designer. I slacked through undergrad, doing just the bare minimum (less than that in some cases), played video games all day, smoked a lot of pot, and somehow managed to graduate. My amazing GPA was under a 3.0, and I actually had to stick around an extra year due to my extraordinary slacking abilities. And no I didn't graduate with multiple majors or anything crazy like that. I took 5 years to get a single B.S. It would have been four, but the last class of my fourth year I slacked so damn well that I didn't bother reading the syllabus for the class until well after the drop deadline. Upon reading the syllabus I learned that section attendance was mandatory and actually counted towards my grade. Now in true slacker style, I had never been to section. I didn't even know who my TA was, so I couldn't e-mail anyone to ask how to get around this requirement. Yadda yadda yadda I failed and had to stay an extra year. The class was the last in a sequence and was only ever offered during Spring quarters. So I spent fall and winter bumming around, and then finished up in the Spring. Luckily the law school I had been accepted to the year before was kind enough to defer my admissions so I didn't have to reapply. Avoiding extra work though deferment. Yay!

Now how did someone that never went to class, that never thought about going to law school, and had never taking a polisci/law course at all decide to go to law school? Free food! I was hanging around campus one day (a rare thing for me, I normally avoided campus at all costs) and Kaplan was sponsoring a free LSAT test. One of those take a test, see how you did, now pay us to do better things, and they included free food for all test takers. Now I had just smoked, and was really hungry. Not one to pass up free food even if it requires a little bit of work (Free food is one of the rare things that will stop be from slacking) I decided to take the test. I did surprisingly well for someone who'd never seen an LSAT before in their life. I ended up taking the real LSAT a year later and then applied to law schools.

The hardest thing about applying was getting letters of req. For someone who never goes to class, it ended up being really hard finding professors that remembered me, and would write a letter. Although seeing how huge classes are at UC schools, I'm not sure it would have been easier if I had gone to class.

So now I'm getting ready to go to law school. I'm going for a duel degree - j.d and a masters in computer science so I can hopefully get into software patents or preferably something involved with setting technology law policy (I'd love to work for the EFF). At the very least if I hate law school, I can drop out and keep doing my masters program. How will my slacker-self adjust to a setting like law school? Hopefully very well. Everyone says law school is like high school, and if there's one thing high school has a lot of, it's gossip. And the only thing besides free food that will stop me from slacking is gossip. People say I'm exactly like a high school girl. I love gossip. I spread it, I hear it, I find it, I make it up, I devour it where ever it is. And if I'm about to put myself in an environment that supports gossip and high schoolish behavior, then maybe I'll be involved enough to actually go to class and learn. Only time will tell.

Enough of this long boring introductory post. I start class in two weeks (poor David started already) and will post more entertaining things then.

Why I am Going to Law School

2006-08-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Slacker and Slacker LLP home of great tales of slacking in Law School.

After hearing from many people that law school is a horrible life decision, the first question you should ask is: why would a slacker ever want to go to law school, face three hard years of school, and a difficult legal world after?

I am still trying to figure out the answer myself. But here is my best shot. It all started out on a weekend at the end of my junior year of college when I was visiting home. My Dad offered to take me out to ‘Olive Garden’ and I thought 'Sweet, good Italian food, what a fun dinner this will be'. I was wrong.

During dinner sometime my Dad asked me 'So what's it going to be Business, Law, or Medicine?’ After briefly entertaining the idea of getting a PhD in philosophy (running around cold and hungry on the street rambling incoherently about Nietzsche and Kant did not sound appealing) I told my dad that I was not interested in going into the business world, like him, and I don't like blood. The next day my Dad enrolled me in an LSAT class.

I figured I am passionate about philosophy and law is like philosophy in that it has a lot of arguments. So I figured this could work out. But, I really didn't think about it, too much. Like any other healthy third year in college I was too busy thinking about parties and girls. My furthest extent of being productive was useless philosophy debates at 3 in the morning, but I was certainly not worrying about the future.

Maybe I should have realized it is a sign not to go to law school after I only answered 7 questions in an LSAT section after I panicked, or the fact that the LSAC gave me the Sabbath test by accident (which has a harder curve and gives you a lower score), or the fact that I regularly scored in the low 170s on my practice tests, yet somehow scored less on the real test, but I had set my mind on going to law school and I am one stubborn kid when I set my mind to something.

Next you would think that my adventures visiting schools would deter me. But I sure am stubborn. I found myself in one of America’s finest cities that offered me a lot of scholarship money. There was this cute girl that I had stricken up a conversation with and was getting rather friendly. We were in the back of the crowded auditorium and she asked me who I was here with. I was baffled and thought this was an obvious question, but responded 'just myself'. I have never seen a girl seemed more turned on, that quickly, from such a short statement. She was twirling her hair rapidly, and her eyes look like Bambi’s, as she responded 'Oh my God, you are so mature'. Ordinarily this would be a great thing. But I was in a crowded auditorium, and my plane leaved in a couple hours for the next school. In any other venue it would have been a done deal, but being in a crowded law school auditorium ruined it. This left me frustrated

Next I found myself in another of America’s fine cities. This one is far colder, denser, with very few attractive women. This city looked like where they send all the failures of Jenny Craig. After arriving in this city and being unhappy over the events of the other girl, I decided to hit the bars. So I mistakenly had the great idea of walking 9 streets to save the money on the taxi. What a horrible idea! I began to walk when I ran into a lady begging for money on the street. I felt bad and gave her the change in my pocket. Next I heard something rather shocking. 'Sir, I want a sandwich. Can you buy me a sandwich?' I told her I did not have any more money, but she didn't buy this. She decided to follow me for 4 blocks asking me for a sandwich after I was no longer talking with her. I feel real bad for people in that situation, I really do, but I was seriously freaked out. A bum was chasing me around for a Freakin’ sandwich! I was happy when the bum left me alone, until I saw what appeared to be a body bag next to a steaming sewer. I am almost positive this was a bum sleeping, who wrapped up in a blanket, but in the event this was a dead person I decided to get a cab for the last two blocks. By this time I am somewhat traumatized, it is sad that some people have to live like this. On the Brightside I rocked the bar/club and the waitress was getting me free drinks. She said I was charming. Who am I to argue?

I didn’t ultimately decide to go to either one of those schools, but the decision between the three schools I was deciding between was difficult. After I feared that I may drive Dan and some of my other friends insane if they had to listen to me debate between the schools any longer, I made a decision. When I went to my e-mail to withdraw from the other two schools, I received an email from another school which I was on the waitlist, admitting me. This further extended the process, and seemed that the process was taunting me. I ultimately kept with my original decision.

So after this grueling process and hearing why not to go to school, why am I going? Well at the moment I don’t have any other ideas. But for fear of ending up as one of the Barely Legal: The Blog reasons not to attend law school, here is my best shot at a better one.

I find the law and its implications interesting. Although, I am sure I will have many thankless and useless billable hours in the future, dealing with legal issues interests me. If there is someway that I could further justice or improve society it will be worth it to me. I am sure most cases I will deal with, especially at the beginning, will be uninteresting. But every now and again, rarely, I will get to work on some interesting legal issues and make my small contribution in helping the legal process and improving lives. I would still rather talk about philosophy over law, but they don’t get billable hours. My head may like philosophy more, but my wallet is a fan of billable hours.