It is "blog on the Paycheck Fairness Act Day."

So I will celebrate by doing so. The Paycheck Fairness Act is a good thing. It would allow women who are discriminated against under the Equal Pay Act to get punitive damages. This is a good thing, IMHO, since it sometimes seems like punitive damages are the only thing that corporations will listen to. Further, it makes it illegal to fire somebody for discussing their salary.

It's a pretty modest expansion of the law, and in directions that I think are reasonable.

It has already passed in the house. If you'd like to bother your senator about it, here's a canned letter that looks pretty good, or you can just contact your senator directly, which is usually more effective.

CC

Chalicechick's theory on Elena Kagan

Solicitor General Kagan gets a lot of grief for being too conservative for Obama to pick her. I don't think she necessarily is, it is just that she has been running for the job of "Supreme Court Justice" for a really long time. As a potential Supreme Court Justice, she's not talking about her opinions on anything.

Except now she's the Solicitor General, and she has to talk about that. The Obama administration has adopted the Bush/Cheney theory of executive power, and Kagan has been repeatedly asked to defend that and has done so. But my guess is that her actual views, if not those on executive power on other things, are probably a lot more liberal than she gets credit for.

CC
who would love to see Leah Ward Sears, would be quite happy with Diane Wood, but doesn't think Kagan is a bad third choice.

Quick FAQ on the recent Supreme court decisions

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, some weeks I'm barely a law student. Recently, I'm knee deep in a paper on cyberharassment by third parties. But I have been paying attention to the recent batch of SCOTUS decisions and people keep asking me questions about them. And we all know I like to write FAQs.)

Q: Why have there been so many SCOTUS decisions recently?

A: There haven't been all that many, but the ones that are coming down are the most famous. Important/weird cases tend to get decided at the end of the term because the SCOTUS takes extra time to argue them.


Q. Is it just me, or have the SCOTUS decisions recently been less crazytown than usual?

A. The Osborne decision notwithstanding, yes, the decisions have been pretty reasonable.

Q: Why?

A: I credit the Sotomayor nomination. After all the crap conservatives gave Sotomayor for suggesting that a court might need diversity of background to make decisions that really took into account the perspectives of diverse parties, they couldn't go and prove her point by deciding that school officials making a 13-year-old get naked was really no big deal.

Q: What was up with Thomas' opinion in that case?

A: He mostly went off an old decision that said that a girl who was suspected of smoking in the bathroom could have her purse searched.

Q: So we should totally pop champagne about that case, right?

A: Eh. First off, without Sotomayor, my guess is it might have come out the other way. The transcript of the arguments really gives the impression that the Justices don't fucking get what the problem with making a thirteen year old strip because she might be carrying advil. Justice Kennedy was like "Is the nature of the drug irrelevant? What if it was meth to be consumed at noon?" and Souter thinks violating the student's privacy is less important that preventing accidental panty meth poisonings. (That's a paraphrase.)

Q: But the court ultimately overcame their fear of panty meth. So good, right?

A. Again, Eh. Ginsburg and Stevens were the only ones who thought the school district should be liable for the girl's emotional distress. The other ones said that making a 13 year old get naked so there could be a search for Advil was insufficiently obviously wrong for it to be actionable.

Q: Is it obviously wrong?

A. If Scalia and Ginsburg and Souter and Kennedy agree on something, it's usually pretty obvious. I would totally have voted with Ginsburg and Stevens.

Q: What about the case about the voting rights act?

A: This is an opinion that I haven't read, but my impression is that the court wanted to find for the municipality with making the smallest possible impact on the voting rights act.

Q. Why? I would think that the court would be overturn the voting rights act since doing so is the properly Crazytown decision to make?

A: Right, but again, overturning the voting rights act would make Sotomayor's confirmation a lot easier.

Q. I want some crazy. What does Justice Thomas think?

A: He thinks that striking down the Voting Rights act would be not a "sign of defeat" but an "acknowledgement of victory," the implication being that, ya know, Racism is over.

Q. Oooh. That's good crazy.

A. It's ok. I like Scalia's brand of crazy better. He's crazy in a your-Crazy-Uncle-Harry-who-makes-Thanksgiving-fun sort of way. Thomas is more like one of those ranting dudes in a bar who won't shut up about how the Bears are the best team ever in absence of any evidence that this is the case. More importantly to me, you normally can get why Scalia feels the way he does even when you disagree which is usually and Thomas is a much greater believer in cherrypicking the one case that's with him and ignoring everything else. And Scalia is snarky and loves to talk to the press enough that he sometimes has to recuse himself because he's already talked about the case before it's argued. He's loads of fun. I'm tempted to name a World of Warcraft character after him.

Q. Now what about the firemen?

A. The Ricci decision is another one I haven't read, though I've read a fair amount about it. One thing I'd like to know that I haven't seen is whether anybody has figured out WHY the African Americans flunked the test. Early standardized tests were specifically designed to keep New York Jews out of the Ivy League and had lots of questions like "Ballanchine:Ballet::Frank Gehrey:__________" that people from poorer backgrounds weren't supposed to be able to answer.

Q: How did that work out?

A: A New York Jew named Stanley Kaplan got very rich.

Q: So standardized tests can be racist?

A: Effectively, yes, but I don't know that this one was. I'd like to know if it was.

Q: Anyway, does Sotomayor's decision show she's outside the mainstream?

A: Not from what I've seen. She followed precedent, the SCOTUS just changed the law.

Q: Will the conservative pundits understand that distinction?

A: If they do, they won't let on.

Q: So what about the case about the Forensic Experts?

A: Crazy Uncle Scalia wrote an opinion that the reports of crime scene lab techs were functionally witnesses for the prosecution, and that the lab techs needed to be available for cross examination.

Q: What's the upshot?

A. Well, running a crime lab just got more expensive since techs will be spending a lot more time in court so the crime labs will need to hire more of them to get through the same number of cases. On the upside, people, with excellent reason, have become really skeptical of the work of forensics experts and this might actually restore their faith. And my undergraduate institution, which needs all the help in can get, has a forensic science program so the new lab tech jobs counts as a win for me personally there, too.

Q: What's weird about this case?

A: I think it by implication concedes that crime techs are not independent and are functionally working for the prosecution, something that has been fairly obvious to anyone who pays attention to this stuff for some time, but that is not typically formally admitted.

Q: Overall picture?

A: Obama should nominate Sotomayor near the end of every term. And anyone who loves law should read Souter's dissent is Osbourne, which includes a beautifully written, thoughtful, jurisprudential discussion that is not precisely on point, but still great.

Cory Maye's Appellate Brief

This has actually been out for a few days, but I hadn't gotten a chance to post it yet.

Long time readers will recall that I've been following this case for a long time, but I forgive you if you've forgotten the details as I think I'm the only one in my blogosphere who is following it.

If you need a refresher, here you go:


Remember the Corey Maye case?

CC presents the other side on Corey Maye

Wahoo! Cory Maye gets at least part of a new trial

Need something to be outraged about? Click here.

If you've been wondering who this chap Corey Maye is...

Does anybody here know how to open up a legal defense fund?

Excuses, the Bones season finale, and writers strike bitching.

Sorry I've been so lax in updating. The Write-On competition (which is how you get on to journals at GULC) is kicking my ass. My grades were respectable by any non-law-school standard, but not that great law-school-wise, so I'm going to have to rock this to make it onto a journal.

(I probably won't rock this. Seriously. Even the case we're supposed to be commenting on completely sucks. But I am trying.)

Anyway... I did catch the season finale for Bones last night. And as much as I appreciated the bathtub scene with David Boreanaz (Seriously. Thank you for that scene.) I am confused on a couple of points.

If everything happened the way it looked like it happened with the explosion:

What was the point?

Who stole the skeleton?

Why did Goremegon's assistant think it was rational to sacrifice himself for something so, well, silly? (That might be question one again, but seriously...)

What's the deal with his motivation for working with Gormegon anyway? I mean, an earlier episode revealed that this person had a support system that I envied. Why did he do this?

I assume they are going for brainwashing here, but I just did a paper on brainwashing (indeed, my entire practice case comment for my legal writing class was on the admissibility of evidence of brainwashing and the jurisprudential upshot of accepting brainwashing as a defense, explanation or mitigating factor) and brainwashing doesn't really work the way Bones made it look at all, and this is a show that is normally pretty decent on the science.

The acting in the episode was awesome. But the writing was some of the worst I've ever seen in TV, though I've gotten used to that this season. The writer's strike has not made me appreciate the writers at all as I wasn't terribly sympathetic to large portions of their cause in the first place* and it has produced so much bad writing.

CC

* The Networks' argument "You did get paid once to write the five minute episode we're putting on the web for free to promote the show. We're not getting paid when we show it, so we're not going to pay royalties for every view. That said, these things make the show more popular, which helps keep you in a job and insures that the show will end up syndicated, so everybody wins." made sense to me.

But then every bit of writing I've ever done professionally I did on a "We paid you to write it once, now we own it and will use it as we like" basis, so the "We're not being fairly compensated unless we get paid every time you use our work" argument seems really odd. Or maybe I'm just jealous.

He may look scary, but he's a nice guy.

He was at tonight's basketball game between GULC professors and
members of Congress.

$323,000 plus raised for Washington Legal Clinic for the homeless. I
heart my school.

As of this writing the Hoya Lawyas are leading the Hills Angels 22-21,
but whatever happens, we won.

I find legal research and writing classes a pain

at the same time, if I ever write something like this it will all have been worth it.

I think you should read the whole thing where he takes their claims apart piece-by-piece but here's an excerpt from the end:


Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims—or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims—from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

I find it striking how people who are writing letters of complaint usually can't do it this well. Lots of people try to make the other party feel bad, make moral judgements and exaggerate their issue with crazy comparisions and/or obvious advertising fluff treated literally. You'll note how this gentleman doesn't say "When you accuse me of violating your patent, it's like a human rights violation in Darfur" or "Your company motto is 'Excellence in Cables,' but you have failed to be excellent in the following fifty ways:". He keeps it focused on the issue at hand and strictly practical about the matter.

And I suspect he will get exactly the result he wants with no additional fuss.

Awesome.

CC
who has found the "only madmen write letters in excess of three pages" rule to be accurate, usually, but is delighted to consider this an exception to the rule.

If my name were "E. Barrett Prettyman," I would change it before somebody went and named a courthouse after me.

and other thoughts I had while observing courtrooms in DC for a morning.

(When class assignments aren't graded, I see no reason why I can't write them like blog posts.)

Landlord-tenant court seemed to be all about everyone wanting to go home as soon as possible. Judge Fern Leibowitz presided over a courtroom that looked like an office. The clerks in the front of the room had pictures and little toys on their desks. The environment was informal and the hearings went very fast. The bailiff ignored ringing cell phones and people were in and out of the room constantly. Almost everyone wanted a continuance.

One case, Argyle Properties vs. Ethan Gomez, was representative. The renter’s legal aid attorney announced that the claimant had fallen behind on his bills because he had gotten sick. The landlord said he’d never heard that before the hearing. The renter’s attorney wanted to set up a supervised payment plan for an amount less than the rent because he said a recent increase had been illegal. Again, the landlord’s attorney said it was news to him. Judge Leibowitz told Gomez’s attorney to bring some sort of proof of the sickness and everyone agreed to discuss the matter again in two weeks. It amazed me how routine it all seemed. Lots of tenants represented themselves, some with knowledge of the system that suggested they were experienced lease-breakers.

I had not caught Judge Leibowitz’s name and was waiting in line at the clerk’s office to ask when Mr. Arniss, the attorney for Argyle, got in line behind me. When I introduced myself and told him why I was there, he was happy to give me his opinions on the proceedings. He called Washington DC the most “tenant-friendly” district in America and outlined several of Argyle Properties’ recent cases, asking me with each description if I thought the outcome was fair. He didn’t take “Well, I haven’t heard both sides” for an answer.

The Courtrooms at the DC District Court were more reminiscent of church. They were quiet and respectful. Probably the most interesting hearing I attended all day was a detention hearing in front of a Magistrate. The US. vs. Mendoza involved a convicted drug dealer who ran from the police for what my suburban self would say was no apparent reason. Officer Sidney Catlett of the DC police testified that he had seen the defendant running away, holding something at his waistband. Catlett had predicted where the defendant was running and taken a shortcut while two other officers followed the Defendant. Before Officer Catlett caught up with him, the defendant had stopped. When the officer came up to the defendant, there was a gun lying on the ground and the two other police officers on the scene said the defendant had thrown the gun down. But the only officer at the hearing was Officer Catlett. The defense attorney, whose name I didn’t catch, did a very impressive job of muddying the issue and making it clear that the witness had not actually seen the defendant throw down the gun.

I did think it was strange that there were a few points that went unaddressed:

1. Both prosecution and defense spent a lot of time asking the officer questions about exactly where he ran. It was admittedly confusing at the time as the streets were irregular, but in writing this paper I looked the defendant’s two block run to the address in question up in Google maps, which showed the odd layout of streets and made it very clear what had happened. I wondered why nobody bothered to bring a map, preferably one blown up to poster size.

2. There was a lot of time spent on what the officer saw, but neither the prosecution nor defense asked him if he had HEARD a metal gun being thrown onto a concrete sidewalk on an empty street in the middle of the night. Whether the answer was “yes” or “no,” one would think it would have helped somebody.

3. Nobody brought up the issue of fingerprints on the gun one way or another.

4. Nobody even speculated why the officer who’d seen the least was the one sent to testify. Given where the defense was going with how little he saw, I would think they would have at least mentioned that he was a strange choice of witnesses given that his testimony was mostly hearsay.

After some negative testimony from the defendant’s parole officer about the defendant’s harassment of an ex-girlfriend, the magistrate ruled that the defendant should remain in jail until his next court date, saying sardonically that the defendant’s supervised release had been “eventful.” The magistrate was quite sarcastic to both sides. I wondered if he was showing off for the law students in the back.

After the verdict, a depressed-looking woman in blue jeans waved goodbye to the defendant. I wondered if she was the old girlfriend or a new one. Either way, she was very understanding, all things considered. As we filed out of the room, I caught Officer Catlett and asked him why he was the witness if the other officers were closer. He said he didn’t know.

The detention hearing had taken under an hour, so I watched the first argument in In Re Fannie Mae Securities litigation, about whether Fannie Mae should be forced to turn over 4,000 documents to a plaintiff that was, I believe, the state of Ohio. They had turned the documents over to a regulatory agency voluntarily and the argument was over whether this voluntary submission of the documents to the agency meant that the documents were not privileged. At least, that’s how I understood it. This argument had been going on since well before the first motion to compel was sent in April 2007.

As I did my observation right before this paper was due, several of my fellow students were working on it the same day. Half a dozen had attended the detention hearing and come upstairs to the securities case. After about 45 minutes of listening to Attorney Melanie Corbin argue for the plaintiff about discovery rules, I figured I had seen enough. I had to get back to work, and the securities hearing looked like it would go on for hours. When Ms. Corbin sat down and one of her co-counselors stood up, I slipped out of the room.

One of my classmates left the same time I did. As we waited for the elevator, I said “Didn’t it blow your mind how the detention hearing only had one prosecutor and one defense attorney and this one motion has a dozen people in expensive suits on each side?”

“Why not?” My classmate asked, totally without irony, “The motion in the securities case is important.”

On writing an appellate brief

Justice Holmes' frequently quoted aphorism "a page of history is worth a volume of logic" notwithstanding, it would be awesome if I could use logic and common sense a little more, especially in a closed-packet* context.

I've been warned against "deciding what makes sense and making the common law say that" and I'm trying not to. Also, I have an awesome argument that has to do with the subject of the case at bar that I don't think I can use at all because the common law has a different subject. (I'm being evasive here on purpose as I don't want to do anything that could be construed as an honor code violation. If you're at all curious, ask me about this in 72 hours and I can fill you in after the paper is turned in.)

Not a request for help, I can assure you. Just a rant. I'm sure there are ways to sneak my own logic in, I just haven't figured it out yet. I'm sure I will get there with practice. (Pun ignored.)

CC

*We give you the cases you're using and you're not allowed to use any other ones.

Ps. One of the scarier impacts of law school is that I find myself growing a little bit fond of Justice Scalia because honestly, nobody writes a wiseass dissent like that guy.

Luckily, it's easy to sober oneself up.

How to narrowly avoid looking like a dumbass at Georgetown law.

1. Be talking about Hillary Clinton with a professor at a party.

2. Find out mid-conversation that said professor worked for the Office of the Independent Counsel investigating the Rose Law Firm during the Whitewater scandal.

Luckily, I hadn't said anything I wouldn't have said if I'd known this information at the beginning of the coversation. But I've vowed to keep closer tabs on my professors' backgrounds.

CC

Winter blahs

We have a week-long winter term here at GULC, and I'm in the middle of a superspeedy class on international law that is focused on deportation/rendition/extradition and related issues. For the last few days, we've been doing a simulation exercise and I played a judge in the European Court of Human Rights. It was fun, but exhausting. My questioning was hard enough on my peers that my TAs didn't think I was a wuss, but nobody hates me either as far as I know. I also emailed my Con law professor from last semester and asked him if he wanted to submit an amicus brief. (He didn't.)

It's weird to hear the professor referring to people from other countries as "aliens." As a Chick who was raised on ET and Star Trek, I've never had the negative connotations some people have for the word. But I'm not used to hearing it at this point as UUs tend to regard it as non-PC.

It's raining a lot here, which is a good thing as it follows the drought from this fall. I hate to drive in the snow, and I'm not very good at it, so I'm pleased that at least we haven't had snow.

I'm looking forward to seeing the YRUUs put on the play I've been writing. Admission is $20 a head and the profits go for University Education in El Salvador. I'm humbled by the idea that I'm writing something that will help even a few folks in El Salvador go to school and live better lives. Kim wrote in the comments that I should let other churches perform it. I had been kicking around something like that for awhile. I'm going to look into the proper language to license it so that YRUU groups may perform it as long as at least 50 percent of the profits go to a non-political charity.

But yeah, if you have a charitably-oriented youth group, shoot me an email and we can talk about it.

I'm also working on an RE curriculum on Christianity in the Culture, though I haven't field tested that one as much as I wanted to this year. I don't suppose anybody reading this knows the proper person in the UUA to send those when I finish them?

Anyway, life is actually pretty good. Probably the reason I'm so bummed is that the ChaliceRelative is moving to the Presbyterian Home in a month. (No, smartass, not Scotland, it's an old folks home in DC that is run by the Presbyterian church.)

When I was a child, the Chalicerelative lived in our basement. She was the RE person at a large Presby church in DC. Once, her car was broken into while it was parked in front of our house, but all that was stolen was a volume of The Interpreter's Bible.

Upon hearing of the crime, my five-year-old self, a Nancy Drew devotee, ran to her room, grabbed her notepad and started looking for clues. After a bit, I came into the house and proudly announced

"Well, we know one thing. The thief loves God, but he hates Justice!"

This is probably the most told-and-retold family story about CC, especially since I got into law school.

Some years ago, the Chalicerelative asked me what I wanted in her will. The first (and really only) thing I asked for was the remaining volumes of that Interpreter's bible.

Now the Chalicerelative's Interpreter's bible is boxed and in the backseat of my car. When I was helping her pack on Sunday, the Chalicerelative reported that the Presbyterian home has an excellent library and she gave it to me. She won't need it and she knows I want it.

Well, I thought I did.

CC

Christmas hits all at once.

In the last 24 hours, my life has broken out in Christmas. Yesterday Afternoon, the guy from the Court Reporting place we use sometimes came by with bottles of wine and I would say at least fifty bucks in fancy chocolates. (Item: They are the court reporters we use second most often and this morning the other paralegal and I really are asking ourselves what the court reporters we use most have done for us recently. Bribery really works when the people who make the business decisions are twentysomething paralegals, especially when everybody charges about the same so the clients don't care.) I drew my Secret Santa person for the office.

Last night was my last property class. (And I am so sincere when I write *sniffle.* I LOVED that class. I know nobody loves property, I did.) I ran around property class handing out invitations to my New Years Eve party and slipped one under the professor's door.

This morning, the other paralegal and I were trying to figure out who has whom for secret santa. She kept listing possible parings off on her fingers. Without missing a beat, I grabbed a pen and drew a diagram that would have made Stanley Kaplan's heart skip a beat. Our girl still knows a classic LSAT problem when she sees one.

I was looking at my calendar and I am taking only one official work day off for my VACATION. (Boxing day.) If I'm not an idiot, I will take Tuesday off to put final touches on my outline for my property final. Christmas Eve and Christmas day I have off anyway.

Again, presuming I'm not an idiot, I will take the day of the Con law final off and probably New Year's eve given the party that night. (Want to be invited to my party? Shoot me an email. I have invitations to mail for a lot of you anyway sitting in my bedroom unstamped, but I also have an email version of the invite.)

So assuming non-idiocy, I'm only working 15 days in December.

That is 75 billable hours assuming I work at an optimum level, achieving five hours even the day of the firm's holday party. (Item: I haven't worked at an optimum level thus far. And I'm writing a blog post now. And it's almost time for lunch...)

New Year's Eve is a Monday, so if I do my party preparations over the weekend I might work then. This weekend is property final weekend, and I also have three parties and invitations to two more that I'm not attending. Next weekend is Con Law Preparation weekend. One review session before then. Gotta buy at least a secret santa present before then. Will do lots of shopping online.

Two days after the con law final is my office luncheon. Two days after that I leave for Vegas and four days of deadly sins with my husband. (Pride=Staying in classier hotel than some, Lust=It's Vegas, Gluttony=8 dollar steaks, Wrath=We always fight at some point on vacation, Envy=Window shopping, Greed=Non-Window shopping. Sloth=Especially if I get that upgrade to a room with a hot tub.)

I will hate myself in May, when I am scrambling to make my hours for the half-year mark. But I will be out of school by late May and can work late again or a weekend. I forget that in real, non-student, life working all day Saturday is the exception, not the rule.

I really feel more relaxed and happy than I've been in a long time. Last Friday, Jana-who-creates took me out and we ate tapas and I had three delicious drinks and a sort of peace descended over me that has been with me all week.

I usually hate Christmas. It has depressed me ever since I grew up sufficiently that recieving presents wasn't the point of the holiday. Holidays with my family are impossible, so I have spent the last six Christmases with my in-laws. The ministers who read this column will sympathize with how I feel about Christmas with my in-laws because they know what it is to enjoy a party, yet on some level still feel they are working. It's not my in-laws fault any more than it's the fault of the well-meaning congregant who invites the minister to a cocktail party. It's the nature of the minister/daughter-in-law job.

This Christmas feels like the first one I've ever had that was totally on my own terms. In some ways, the crazy schedule I keep the rest of the year has given me permission to be selfish and demand alone time with my husband, a party with my friends, and lots of cheer.

I'm starting to realize why other people like this holiday so much.

CC
Who can't wait to work on her property outline.

So, CC, how's law school going?

It was snowing last night in my hometown of Northen Charm and Southern Efficiency, so I gave a girl in my property class a ride home. She was Ivy league undergrad, not that I pay attention to such things, so let's call her "Ivy."

She barely had her seatbelt fastened before she asked about my outline in exactly the tone one asks about the Redskins. The final is Tuesday. We're all like that.

"Well, I'm not writing it chronologically from scratch," I said. "I'm not much of a notetaker, so I'm using old outlines from friends and commercial outlines and what notes I have and combining them that way. I take an old exam for practice, tweak my outline, take another old exam, tweak, etc. I started at the exams from the early 90's and I'd like to get through all his old exams before Tuesday"

"Oh, Ok." She said. After a beat she added, "I took an old exam earlier. That stuff about Estates and Interests scared me. I emailed the prof, though, and I was so relieved when he said not to worry about it and things we didn't go over in class wouldn't be on the test."

"We didn't go over estates and interests in class?" I asked.

"You didn't know that?" She asked, openly horrified.

"Umm... No. I'm not much of a notetaker. When there were a bunch of questions about it on the old finals, I just assumed I hadn't taken notes for a couple of really important classes."

"So you've been studying all that Rule against perpetuities stuff? But he hasn't taught in class since like 2002. And it's impossible!"

"Oh, the rule against perpetuities isn't that bad," I said. "All it says is that a property bequest can't go on forever. You can, say, leave your house to your wife until she dies and then leave it to your son forever, but you can't leave it to your son 'til he dies, then his son 'til HE dies, then HIS son until HE dies and soforth. The common law rule is that estate has to vest within 21 years after the death of the last person alive at the time of the writing of the will to die. Fetuses count. Also, some states have a uniform code that says wills have a flat 90 years to vest. It's more complicated than that in places but that's the jist."

Ivy stared at me like I had sprouted tentacles. "You learned ALL THAT? But it's not on the test!"

"Ooops," I said. There wasn't much else to say. We were in front of her apartment anyway.

"I'm just sorry you wasted your time," Ivy said airily, climbing down out of the jeep.

We said goodbye. I drove away, realizing that I didn't think of it as a waste of time at all. It would have been more efficient to study only what's actually going to be on the test, but I kinda liked knowing that stuff. Besides, you never know when "indefeasibly vested remainder for life" is going to be the answer on Jeopardy.

I'm probably rationalizing here, but I have to say, that I drove home thinking that maybe there's a reason why I don't share the academic success of people like Ivy, but I'm so interesting to talk to.


CC
Who is better at playing the game than she has ever been, but apparently still has a few things to learn.

Hi.

I haven't forgotten the Chaliceblog. I'm just busy studying.

And recovering from studying.

And planning to study more.

And reading books and taking a tape course about how to study more effectively.

I'm not saying that I won't post before my property exam on December 11, but I won't be myself.

CC
who is thinking of how, upon hearing that I had brought my property textbook to Renn Faire, a friend of the CSO's said "I used to hate you because you got into GULC. Now I'm cured."

She who works full time and goes to school responds to the minister quality-of-life discussion.

I mentioned yesterday that theCSO and I were plotting to sneak out of town for a long weekend in Vegas at some point.

I should clarify that between work and school, the earliest I could possibly get out of town is Thanksgiving or Christmas, and Thanksgiving would be really inadvisable because of finals week. GA and visiting theCSO's family for a few days at Christmas are the closest I've had to a "vacation" in the last several years. I will spend most of Saturday working on a paper, and possibly portions of Sunday after I teach YRUU.

I arrive at work at 8:30 and leave at 4:30 Monday through Friday. I'm due in class at 5:45, where I remain until 7:45 or 8:45.

If I have a doctor's appointment, I fill out a form asking my boss if it's okay for me to take two hours off and I get her signature.

I don't necessarily have to be cheerful and loving in the sense that ministers do, but I do have to be detail-oriented. If I make mistakes on a subpoena or if I don't fully understand what I'm writing down about the complexities of the commerce clause's impact on the Congressional power to tax and spend, then I will regret it. (And citations. Non-lawyers would not frigging BELIEVE the crazy method we have for showing which case we're getting an idea from. It's so complex that the samples we get from our professors and TAs regularly have mistakes.)

I will only be doing the work and school thing for four years. After that, I will be an associate at a law firm for another seven or eight years, assuming the most conventional path, and we know the crazy lives those folks have.

So I'm effectively booked up until I'm forty one.

Ok, I'm exaggerating slightly here. Summers will be easier, and I hear that the first year of law school is the hardest.

And this is the life I've chosen, and I don't regret it a bit. I'd rather be immersed in interesting work and have cool things to talk to theCSO about in the hour an evening we get together than do something boring all day and then just come home at five and Veg Out like lots of people do.

But seriously, it's tough all around. Lots of us have near-constant drains on our intellectual and emotional energy. Few of us are surrounded by people who understand what we go through and apply that understanding to their expectations.

Still beats ditch-digging.

CC

Things that look weird when seen through a UU lens

It's funny how, as a UU, I tend to forget how despised atheists are. Among UUs, and indeed among my friends, being an atheist is perfectly acceptable, being a pagan is an adorable eccentricity, and being a Conservative Christian is the really unusual thing.

I don't realize that outside my social bubble, it doesn't work that way. For example, I nod along with my theistic friends' complaints that people think they are weird for believing in God so often that I tend to forget that it is illegal for atheists to hold public office in at least one place where I've lived. (Is this law unconstitutional? Sure. But it's not like an atheist is getting elected there anytime soon anyway so nobody's bothered with a test case.)

I first thought of this when I saw "Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, America's brainiest couple, confess that belonging to one of America's most reviled subcultures doesn't mean they believe scientists can explain everything" as the header on a story for Salon. Reviled subculture? Atheism.

That story sparked my interest, but I got busy and forgot about it. Today, again on Salon, a college student has written to the advice columnist asking for advice about how to "Come out" as an atheist to a family that won't accept it.

When I was a reporter, I was told not to let anyone know that I wasn't a Christian or a lot of them wouldn't talk to me. When you're a reporter, lots of people in town not talking to you will eventually cost you your job. I've known pagans who weren't even in the public eye who still had to keep their faith a secret for fear of employment consequences.

Anyway, I'm thinking about that today, and thinking about how theists in UUism frequently complain, essentially, "If I talk about how I'm a theist, people won't like me. If I preach about what I want to preach, people will complain because people like different things."

One would think being allowed to run for office would be some small consolation.

CC

The stink of law school

One more thought for the day...

Several weeks ago, when I was first starting school, Kim asked me if there would be any content on this blog for people who think law is boring and if I thought I would alienate my non-legal readers.

Being me, I responded with something wiseass.

But her question has stuck with me.

When I was in high school, I read a series of books by Ferrol Sams about a kid coming of age as the second World War is beginning. In the third book, When all the world was young, he goes off to medical school.

The medical school Sams describes is much like one imagines medical school with really smart kids working really hard all the time. They dissect so much that the formaldehyde soaks into their skin. They can't smell it, but one night they go to the movies and the entire rest of the theater walks out because they can't take the smell.

I do get that in a metaphorical sense this is happening to me. When I got married, I thought about weddings constantly and everything I wrote about was related to pew bows and tulle. (New readers: I'm being a little facetious, my wedding had neither.)And now Kim's question is echoing in my head even as I write about politics and law, talk about law school at parties and generally act like it's the only thing in my life.

I know you know this, and I know it, too: I'm going to get over it. Probably not before the end of the semester, but I am. I will get balance back. I will write about religion again, I will have petty philosophical musings, I will tell amusing stories about my smartypants friends and post some new detective stories at Has CC mentioned she writes fiction?.

But for now, I appreciate those of you who are tolerating the stink of me starting to do the hardest thing I've ever done.

CC

Wow. People I've made fun of keep winning Nobel Prizes this year.

If I can ever find the paper I wrote in college on Doris Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor, I will post it here. It was two pages of tasty snarkage. (Dystopia novels don't work for CC.)

Abovethelaw.com's headline on Gore was "Law School Dropout Wins Nobel Peace Prize."

Snerk.

CC

Action hero fantasies

Gun control is not my personal hill to die on one way or another*. That said, I do think guns make people stupider.

I noticed a prime example of this today as I was reading this article about a teacher who is getting divorced and is afraid her ex-husband is going to come after her and how she wants to be allowed to bring a gun to school. Also, she wants to defend herself from school shootings.

From the article:

Katz won’t say whether she has ever taken her 9 mm Glock pistol to school, but she practices with it regularly and has thought about what she would do if she had to confront a gunman. She would be sure students were locked in nearby offices out of the line of fire, and she would be ready with her pistol.

And everybody would be fine, because, you know, the shooter would allow the students to be safely locked in offices before his dramatic showdown with Katz, in the school shooting she has staged in her head.

This reminds me very much of post VA-tech school shootings when Michell Malkin was criticizing the students who survived for not singlehandedly taking the shooter out when he stopped to reload.

I do think it is human nature to imagine awful situations and figure out how we might cope. I'm sure lots of people have ninja fantasies when they imagine themselves being able to take out a gunman who is hurting other people. And it always works out. The desks are always arranged in a way that facilitates us sneaking around, the gunman always falls for our bluff, we're always able to dodge the bullets and our heroics never put anyone else at risk. Oh, and we're a crack shot when we're scared for our lives. Really.

But IMHO, one has to be a special kind of stupid to ASSUME that the situation is going to work out that way, the way Malkin and Katz do. I think most of us get that the whole "our friend fakes a heart attack and while the guy is distracted, we knock the gun out of the guy's hand, which surprises him so much he goes right down when we jump him" genre of fantasies is a fantasy, and that things we're not prepared to cope with will almost certainly occur in a violent situation.

The thing is, I'm afraid it's exactly the sort of stupid owning a gun makes some poeple, as if the power of owning a gun magically gives one the power to dictate the rest of the situation.


CC

*That said, I am against the "trespassers can be legally shot" laws some states have. During my time in North Carolina, I saw two or three cases of actual burglers being shot and half a dozen cases of teenage kids sneaking out, teenage kids' friends sneaking in, people having car trouble who were looking to see if the lights were on before knocking, being shot. It really seemed to do FAR more harm than good.

Questions I'm asking tonight

1. Why the fuck is it still in the high eighties in Washington? It's October and I'm tired of being so warm all the time.

2. One of my professors said "A lot of law professor questions take the following form: 'I'm thinking of a color' Don't worry about it, just raise your hand and suggest a color and he will keep calling on people until somebody says the right one."

This is the most useful thing anybody has said to me in the last five weeks.

That said, intellectually I get that I'm not alone, so why do I feel like the only colorblind person in the class?

3. How is it that a religious person with a deep fondness for her fellow humans and typically great tolerance for other people's foibles can grow to genuinely hate someone in five minutes just because she would not stop asking the professor the same question over and over again and thus prevented my question from being asked at all?*

4. Sigh.

CC


*It was literally like:

Person: Can you give us a more complete sample of what you want?
Professor: No, I don't think it would help you as much as you think.
Person: Why do you do it this way when a sample would be so useful?
Professor: Well, partially because I don't want you just working off my sample.
Person: But you gave us a sample for certian parts of the paper? Why can't we have a sample of the whole paper?
Professor: Well, those are the parts that you should be focusing on anyway.
Person: But If I could have a sample that included the introductory paragraph...
Professor: You could make an introductory paragraph by looking at the topics you're going to address and explaining what you're going to talk about. Try reading the first sentence of each paragraph.
Person: But if I had a sample of the paper...

(CC begins to ponder banging her head into the desk until she loses conciousness.)