June 8, 2012

Benjamin Jealous, NAACP President, speaking at Albany Law School, April 11, 2012.  Presented by the Albany Law School Black Law Student’s Association.


If you are interested in racial profiling, I highly recommend you watch Mr. Jealous’s speech.  Mr. Jealous’s remarks are followed by a panel consisting of Albany Law School Professors, as well as the Assistant Chief of Police from the City of Albany Police Department.  The video is 2+ hours, but Mr. Jealous’s speech is only takes up the first hour or so. 

6:54pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxN0g4GL
(Notes: 10)
  
Filed under: politics race relations law school naacp ben jealous 
April 28, 2012
illegalities: dixiepuddle: lawschoolmemes: Yeah, you’ve probably never heard of it. LOLLLL Hey Law Students! Follow illegalities! LTMC: .1% of the world gets this joke.  I am ashamed to say that I am not only part of that .1%, but was wracked verily with hearty guffaws.  

illegalities:

dixiepuddle:

lawschoolmemes:

Yeah, you’ve probably never heard of it.

LOLLLL

Hey Law Students! Follow illegalities!

LTMC: .1% of the world gets this joke.  I am ashamed to say that I am not only part of that .1%, but was wracked verily with hearty guffaws.  

7:12pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxKVu8JE
(Notes: 52)
  
Filed under: politics law school lawyers lawyering 
April 12, 2012
This photo was taken at a talk given by the President of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, at my law school.  Mr. Jealous spoke about Trayvon Martin and racial profiling.  I’m in the crowd clapping (I’ll leave you to speculate where I am).  The event was hosted by my friends in the Black Law Student’s Association (BLSA). I had the opportunity to have lunch with Mr.  Jealous before the event, and he’s incredibly intelligent, yet down to earth.  He’s very good at using what I’d call “bridge-building” anecdotes to bring whites into the conversation.  For example: when talking about racial profiling, he referred to the D.C. Sniper incident that occurred awhile back, and talked about how the police had a profile of who they thought the sniper was, which included the phrase “probably white male.”  As we know now, the shooter was Black.  But because they fixated on the race of the shooter rather than his behavior, they ignored every black man in D.C., and began pulling over every white male in D.C. on the basis of the color of their skin.  The eight or so behavioral characteristics on the police profile became irrelevant as soon as race came into the picture.  Fixating on race essentially made law enforcement officials blind, deaf and dumb to objective behavior which may have led them to the perpetrator faster. Mr. Jealous also talked about how some of his biggest successes with criminal justice reform occurred recently in the State of Texas under Rick Perry, where the NAACP was able to partner with a cadre of tea party republican state legislators to close the first prison in Texas history.  He remarked that quite often, the greatest resistance he faced in reforming our criminal justice system came from moderate Democrats who were afraid of looking soft on crime.  Again, another good example of Mr. Jealous using “Bridge-building” anecdotes to bring people into the conversation about racial justice by framing the issue in ways that his adversaries will be sympathetic to. All in all, it was a fantastic event that I was happy to be a part of.  It was especially cool to sit down and have lunch with the President of a civil rights advocacy organization with roots as deep as the NAACP.  Mr. Jealous’s speech was followed by a panel of three professors and the city’s Assistant Chief of Police, all of whom I think acquitted themselves admirably.  There’s a couple of national and local news articles on the event that have remarks from the panelists, if you’re interested. All in all, it was a very good day (and night, even).  I’m proud of my friends in BLSA for putting on this event, and quite pleased that we were able to get the law school community to come together around an issue that, all too often, is shoved to the wayside as an impolite conversation (i.e. racial profiling and racism more broadly).  Here’s to hoping that something good comes of it.  And also that one day, my Black friends won’t have to tell their children to behave differently around others because of the assumptions other people make about them, explicitly and subconsciously, based on the color of their skin.

This photo was taken at a talk given by the President of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, at my law school.  Mr. Jealous spoke about Trayvon Martin and racial profiling.  I’m in the crowd clapping (I’ll leave you to speculate where I am).  The event was hosted by my friends in the Black Law Student’s Association (BLSA).

I had the opportunity to have lunch with Mr.  Jealous before the event, and he’s incredibly intelligent, yet down to earth.  He’s very good at using what I’d call “bridge-building” anecdotes to bring whites into the conversation.  For example: when talking about racial profiling, he referred to the D.C. Sniper incident that occurred awhile back, and talked about how the police had a profile of who they thought the sniper was, which included the phrase “probably white male.”  As we know now, the shooter was Black.  But because they fixated on the race of the shooter rather than his behavior, they ignored every black man in D.C., and began pulling over every white male in D.C. on the basis of the color of their skin.  The eight or so behavioral characteristics on the police profile became irrelevant as soon as race came into the picture.  Fixating on race essentially made law enforcement officials blind, deaf and dumb to objective behavior which may have led them to the perpetrator faster.

Mr. Jealous also talked about how some of his biggest successes with criminal justice reform occurred recently in the State of Texas under Rick Perry, where the NAACP was able to partner with a cadre of tea party republican state legislators to close the first prison in Texas history.  He remarked that quite often, the greatest resistance he faced in reforming our criminal justice system came from moderate Democrats who were afraid of looking soft on crime.  Again, another good example of Mr. Jealous using “Bridge-building” anecdotes to bring people into the conversation about racial justice by framing the issue in ways that his adversaries will be sympathetic to.

All in all, it was a fantastic event that I was happy to be a part of.  It was especially cool to sit down and have lunch with the President of a civil rights advocacy organization with roots as deep as the NAACP.  Mr. Jealous’s speech was followed by a panel of three professors and the city’s Assistant Chief of Police, all of whom I think acquitted themselves admirably.  There’s a couple of national and local news articles on the event that have remarks from the panelists, if you’re interested.

All in all, it was a very good day (and night, even).  I’m proud of my friends in BLSA for putting on this event, and quite pleased that we were able to get the law school community to come together around an issue that, all too often, is shoved to the wayside as an impolite conversation (i.e. racial profiling and racism more broadly).  Here’s to hoping that something good comes of it.  And also that one day, my Black friends won’t have to tell their children to behave differently around others because of the assumptions other people make about them, explicitly and subconsciously, based on the color of their skin.

2:08am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxJWw7Hu
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: politics race relations albany law school ben jealous naacp 
April 8, 2012
Adventures In Legal Academia: Is Marriage A Contract Or A Legal Status?

The following is a short essay I submitted in response to a question (noted in the title of this post) that was assigned by a professor vis-a-vis law school.  I thought I’d post it here for anyone that has too much free time on their hands and wants to ponder minute distinctions in how the law views the marital relationship.  Have at it.


A Futile Distinction: Marriage as Contractual Relationship vs.Marriage as Legal Status 

            In August of 2010, Judge Vaughn Walker of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California released a 138 page opinion declaring California’s Proposition Eight unconstitutional.[1]  In that opinion, the plaintiffs challenged an amendment to the California constitution passed by California’s voters in a 2008 referendum.  The amendment added Article I, Sec. 7.5 of the state’s constitution, which read: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”[2]  The opinion contains various references to the legal “rights and responsibilities” that are granted to couples who choose to marry in California.[3]  The opinion also uses the word “status” in reference to those rights and responsibilities over twenty times.[4]

            Nearly a decade prior, a man from Georgia named Michael Phillips sued his ex-fiancé in state court alleging that his fiancé had improperly withdrawn nearly $2,500 dollars from the couple’s joint checking account.[5]  In response, his ex-fiancé, Tracy Blankenship, counter-sued inter alia for ‘breach of promise to marry,’ a common law contract action.[6]  Among the other claims advanced by Blankenship was ‘unjust enrichment,’ “which applies “when as a matter of fact there is no legal contract, but when the party sought to be charged has been conferred a benefit by the party contending an unjust enrichment which the benefitted party equitably ought to return or compensate for.”[7]  Phillips and Blankenship pursued their claims in front of a jury, and Blankenship prevailed on her claims for ‘breach of promise to marry’ and ‘unjust enrichment,’ resulting in a combined jury award of roughly $24,000, which was upheld on appeal.[8]

            How do we reconcile these two anecdotes?  Is it possible that marriage is both a legal status and a contractual relationship?  In a word, yes.  And in fact, any attempt to confine the legal definition of marriage to one or the other is, at least at our current place in history, doomed to failure.  As of 2004, there were 1,138 statutory provisions in the United States Code “in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.”[9]  Even in California, Judge Walker’s 2010 decision in the “Prop 8” case was in part the result of a previous decision by the California Supreme Court that held certain statutory language within Cal. Fam. Code § 300 unconstitutional.[10]  The language of that provision provided that “[m]arriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary.”[11]  The In re Marriage cases decision held the phrase “between a man and a woman” to be unconstitutional, but left untouched the language which defined marriage as arising out of a civil contract.[12]

            The existence of common law contract actions for damages arising from a breakdown in marital relations, or agreements made in pursuit thereof, firmly etches the patina of a contractual relationship onto the marital union.  So long as the law purports to treat the marital relationship as a contract, and grants litigants the right to act on it as if it were, marriage will, by definition, remain a legal contractual relationship.  But this does not change the fact that the laws of both the federal and state governments confer status-based rights onto individuals whose relationships meet the statutory definition of a marriage.  So long as there are laws on the books that grant rights and responsibilities based on a person’s marriage “status,” marriage will also, by definition, be a legal status as well.  Can it be both?  Of course it can.  Why not? 

            It is tempting to analyze this bifurcation of marriage definitions by focusing on one aspect of the marital relationship, and then elevating it to a sort of legal primacy.  One could, for example, argue that the marital contract comes ipso facto prior to statutory recognition by federal and state authorities of a couple’s marriage status under the law; and therefore, a contractual union forges the crux of the marital relationship.  But this is nothing more than a “chicken-egg” argument that fails to resolve the original question.  The fact that a state recognizes a marriage only after a binding marital agreement has been entered into doesn’t change the fact that the state is using the marital agreement as one element of a statutory definition, pursuant to which rights and obligations are granted.  That statutory definition is itself ipso facto a legal status.  Chronology does not dissolve the simultaneous existence of contractual duties with status-based rights and obligations in a marriage.

           Thus we see the problem with attempts to isolate the definition of marriage: to define marriage only as a contractual relationship leaves unaccounted for the thousands of rights and responsibilities that are granted to married couples under federal and state law. To define marriage only as a status leaves unexplained the actions which lie in civil proceedings for injuries sustained in marital relations; many of which are based on a breach of contractual obligations.[13]  The only consistent logical position is that marriage occupies both realms.  There is no practical or philosophical exigency that requires us to resolve the matter in either direction.

            The fact that courts continue to adjudicate both civil disputes, and the statutory rights & obligations granted to married couples, demonstrates that there is no inconsistency in these positions.  Any peradventure in this realm is purely academic.  At our present place in history, the law treats marriage as both a legal status and a contractual relationship.  In order for it to cease to be one or the other, the law must stop treating it as such.[14]  Until that time comes, the only way to explain the full scope of the marital relationship is to tolerate the fact that it occupies both realms: it is a contract that can be relied and acted upon in court; and a status that legally entitles and binds the parties.  


[1] See Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921 (2010).

[2] Id. at 927.

[3] See, e.g., id at 929, 961, 994.

[4] See generally id.

[5] Phillips v. Blankenship, 554 S.E.2d 231, 232 (Ga. Ct. App. 2001).

[6] Id. at 232.

[7] Id. at 233.

[8] Id. at 232.

[9] Memorandum from Dayna K. Shah, Associate General Counsel, Gov’t Accountability Office, to the Honorable Bill Frist, former Majority Leader, United States Senate (Jan. 23, 2004), available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf (emphasis added); see, e.g., Perry, 704 F. Supp. 2d at 962.

[10] See In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384 (Cal. 2008).

[11] Cal. Fam. Code § 300 (West 2008).

[12] In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d at 453.

[13] See, e.g., Blankenship, 554 S.E.2d at 232 (discussing Breach of Promise to Marry and Unjust Enrichment Claims); Schultz v. Duitz, 69 S.W.2d 27, 29–30 (Ky. Ct. App. 1934) (discussing the disposition of property given “in consideration of [a failed] marriage contract[.]”).  But see infra note 14 (discussing the state trend of abolishing civil actions predicated on breach of promise to marry).

[14] There has indeed been some movement in this area.  Many states have abolished civil actions for breach of promise arising from marital relationships, enacting so-called “anti-heart balm statutes” (hereinafter AHB statutes). See, e.g., Wis. Stat. Ann. § 768.01 (West  2009); Minn. Stat. Ann. § 553.01 (West 2010); N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 80-a (McKinney 2009); see also 11 C.J.S. Breach of Marriage Promise § 2 (2012).  However, even if all fifty states were to adopt AHB statutes, this would not resolve the fact that the law still views marriage as a contract for a variety of other purposes.  See, e.g., 52 Am. Jur. 2d Marriage § 25 (2012) (discussing incapacity to contract as a basis for annulment).  Resolving the definition of marriage neatly into one of “status” or “contractual relationship” would require nothing short of a revolution in the law of both the federal and state legal regimes.  Until such a revolution comes, marriage will retain its dualistic legal status.

10:42pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxJLAp9t
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: marriage law school 
March 6, 2012
Just my Law Review being cited by the Supreme Court. No big deal. (Annotation is clearly in original).

Just my Law Review being cited by the Supreme Court.

No big deal.

(Annotation is clearly in original).

11:09pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxHblQqJ
(Notes: 30)
  
Filed under: justice stevens law review law school 
February 15, 2012
Justice Brennan Still Dominates Law School Textbooks

How could he not (From April, 2011):

I’ve noted before how often current law students comment about coming across Justice Brennan’s opinions in their casebooks.

Most recently, a law student in Boston noted on Twitter, “why did Justice Brennan have to write so much… more to read lol #lawschool #civpro”

Now, a political science professor has now come forward with evidence that Brennan is in fact one of the most frequently cited justices in constitutional law casebooks.

Steven B. Lichtman, a Shippensburg University professor, analyzed the eighteen leading constitutional law case books and discovered that Brennan was the justice with the third most excerpted opinions. (He finished behind top ranked John Paul Stevens and the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who came in second.)

Rounding out the top ten were Antonin Scalia, Byron White, Sandra Day O’Connor, Harry Blackmun, Anthony Kennedy, and, in a three way tie for ninth place, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall and Potter Stewart.

I wrote Lichtman asking for what he thought might explain Brennan’s high ranking and he suggested it was a combination of Brennan’s status as the most consistent and coherent liberal voice on the Court and his role as “a counterpart to the Rehnquist/Scalia conservative axis.”

Lichtman said the last factor was particularly important since he found “textbooks sought to present a point-counterpoint accounting of caselaw.”

“If you’re going to do that, Brennan is the most likely candidate to excerpt, since he was on the Court when the liberal foundation was established under Warren, and still on the Court when that foundation was undone under Rehnquist,” Lichtman explained in an e-mail.

Lichtman published his findings in the latest newsletter of the Law & Courts section of the American Political Science Association, which you can read here: Law & Courts newsletter.

7:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxGT-Ni9
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: justice brennan law school 
January 20, 2012
Law School Applications For Fall 2012 Drop By More Than Fifteen Percent

Ugh, thank god.  My future employment prospects thank you, Class of 2015.

10:30pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxF605CA
(Notes: 12)
  
Filed under: law school 
December 19, 2011
McSweeney's: Look, We Can Either Study For Our Law School Finals, Or We Can Bring About The Violent Dissolution Of The American Legal System.

It’s been a long semester. At this point we’ve read hundreds of pages of judicial opinions and sat through countless hours of lectures on legal theory and case law, and now we’re down to the wire. Exams are less than a week away, and the way I look at it, we’ve only got two options: we can either buckle down and hit the books harder than we ever have in our entire lives, or else can can attempt to bring about the violent downfall of the institution of rule of law in the United States of America.

And between you, me, and this three-hundred page Crim. Law outline I got from a 2L, that second one just sounds more viable.

Sure we can study. We can go over our notes and take a couple practice tests and pray we get good enough grades to land a sweet summer firm job. But let’s be realistic. How hard is it going to be to understand the complex web of choice-of-law analysis implicated by Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins? Now how hard is it going to be to instigate a bloody nihilistic revolution the primary result of which will be the complete collapse of the federal and state judiciaries and the instantaneous and complete invalidation of four centuries of American law and jurisprudence?

You’re shaking your head.

Let me ask you this: Have you even tried to wrap your mind around the English common law system of easements and servitudes? It’s perverse. It’s the kind of perverse that makes you want close your copy of the Restatement, put the caps back onto your rainbow highlighters, and then proceed to organize a paramilitary overthrow of one of the most democratic and legally equitable societies ever established in the history of humankind.

Seriously—just think about how stressed out you are right now. Now think about how unstressed you’ll be when you’re roasting marshmallows over a bonfire whose flames are fed by the nullified volumes of the United States Supreme Court Reporter.

Now, I figure if we can seize control of the broadcast media first, we can more readily disseminate instructions to comrades and partisan fighters near—hold on. Why are you looking at me like that?

Sure I may be “starting to really freak you out”—but is what I’m saying even half as freaky as the explanation of Coasian theory in our Property casebook? Where’s your sense of adventure and militant, vaguely anarchist anti-patriotism?

You know, H.L. Mencken once said, “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” Note that he did not say, “Every normal man must go ahead and follow through with law school and not dismantle the American polity through armed revolt simply because if he fails his Torts final he’ll probably never be able to get a six-figure associateship and have any hope of paying off his Grad PLUS loans.”

And what would the founding father’s have done, huh? What would James Madison do if he was staring down a four-hour, closed book Constitutional Law final? I mean besides, you know, not writing the Constitution. I like to think he would have just broken down and started destroying stuff rather than confront the reality of his own intellectual inadequacy and poor post-graduate educational decisions.

So who’s with me? Who among you will tear off the manacles of history and cloak yourself in the mantle of noble insurrection against the tyranny of law and the final examination thereof?

Fine. I’ll leave.

But know this—when the streets of Washington are thick with the perfume of cordite and the strains of the Internationale; when the Smithsonian’s tablet of Hammurabi’s Code has been ground into a fine dust whose motes will be contemptuously scattered across the plains, forests, and mountains that separate the Atlantic and Pacific; when the citizens of the new America gaze upon the cracked-egg dome of the defunct capitol building and contemplate the metaphorical spoiled yolk of the sort-of-hard-to-understand laws its legislature previously produced—when these inevitabilities come to pass, you shall be held accountable for your cowardice and collusion with the law school–industrial complex. Know that when the revolution comes, you—all of you!—will be the first against the wall.

Also, please give me back my outlines and rainbow highlighters.

LTMC: this is perfect in so many ways.

10:53pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxDVtN9k
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: law school 
September 16, 2011
Thinking About Lawschool? Some Advice From A Law Student.

I recently answered a question from someone about going to Law School.  I’d like to reproduce my (fine-tuned and edited) answer here for the benefit of anyone who is thinking about Law School.

First, there is a ton of literature that I suggest you read before deciding to go to lawschool.  The legal market right now is very tough because the market is a) flooded, and b) the recession has not spared the legal profession.  I will have over $200,000 in debt when I graduate, which means that I am seriously considering pursuing a career as a JAG officer in one of the branches of the military so I can get access to loan forgiveness programs.  And there have been many articles written in the past several years about the prospects of legal graduates.  Some exaggerate the gloom and doom in my opinion, but the more info, the better.  Here’s a smattering of articles to get you started:

http://www.slate.com/id/2288751/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.lawjobs.com/newsandviews/LawArticle.jsp?id=1208256428026&pos=ataglance&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/06_-_June/Dismal_job_prospects_for_law_school_grads/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704866204575224350917718446.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/aba-faces-scrutiny-as-job-prospects-debt-levels-for-law-school-grads-worsen/2011/07/21/gIQAjDJ3WI_story.html

Secondly, there is a spat of lawschools which are being sued right now for fraudulent reporting of after-graduation employment statistics.  Cooley and NY Law are the two high profile cases right now:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-08-10/new-york-law-school-sued-for-inflating-job-pay-statistics.html

in other words, be VERY meticulous in your search for potential schools.  don’t be afraid to scrutinize, contact alumni, and ask pointed questions.

Third, rankings in law school are a huge deal.  There are generally 4 tiers in the law school rankings.  I highly advise that you do not go to a Tier 4 school.  This will hurt your prospects of employment when you graduate.  I go to a tier 3 school (Albany Law School).  Albany has a very rich history, well-published professors and some prestigious alumni (including a former Supreme Court Justice) all of which help.  For better or worse, the reputation of the school matters.  

Fourth, which schools you can get into depends nearly entirely on your LSAT score.  Whereas undergraduate schools don’t focus on SAT scores specifically, Law schools place roughly 80% of their focus on LSAT performance.  This may seem unfair, but the reason they do this is because Bar Passage Rates actually mirror LSAT performance fairly consistently; so admitting too many students with average or low LSAT scores is a fairly good predictor of loweing your school’s Bar Passage Rate, which can be a death-knell for a school’s academic reputation, Tier rankings, and admissions.  In other words, if you decide to commit, study your ass off for the LSAT.  Spare no expense on study aids, and take as many practice exams as you reasonably can without burning yourself out.

Fifth, Law School is nothing like undergraduate school.  I usually arrive on campus around 9:30am and I am either in class or doing work until 7:30-8pm.  You can’t cut corners, and it’s extremely unwise to procrastinate.  There’s no trivial material.  Every single assignment is necessary to understand the subjects you’re learning, and you will cover significantly more material per class than you did during your undergraduate experience.  You can’t really take days off for mental health either.  You’ve got to plan your breaks and down-time ahead of schedule to avoid that.

Sixth, Law School is the first time you’re going to be exposed to a Professional Code of Ethics.  Being a lawyer is not like most other jobs, where a small mistake isn’t a big deal.  Making a small mistake as a lawyer can result in someone going to jail, or being convicted, or screwing a patient out of healthcare, or ruining a family’s life by screwing up their grandmother’s will in a way that makes it legally unenforceable; or forgetting to add the last “zero” in settlement paperwork that ends up screwing your client out of a ton of money. All of it is Legal Malpractice, and you are legally liable for all of it.  You have got to be confident in yourself if you’re going to go to Law School, because even honest mistakes aren’t ok anymore.


Sounds intimidating and depressing, right?  Well as I’m sure you can guess, it’s not all bad.  Here’s the upswing:

Law school is intellectually rewarding.  Everything you learn here has real-world application.  As I said: nothing you learn is trivial.  Everything you learn in class could easily end up in a Memorandum of Law or an Appellate Brief when you graduate.  This makes it extremely interesting and engaging.

Law school peers are, in aggregate, smarter and more dedicated to their education than many of your undergraduate peers were.  If you are a nerdy type, then you will probably enjoy the fact that people in Law School are typically brighter than your average student in undergrad.  This is not to say that most or even all undergraduates are dumb.  Far from it.  What I mean is that all the kids who treated college as “highschool part 2” are gone.  You’re looking at a body of kids who all at some level understand that they are making a commitment that will determine the trajectory of the rest of their life.  This means that they are actually interested in the material they are studying, and you won’t necessarily feel like a dork for wanting to raise your hand in class and take a vigorous stance on something you read (though doing this too much will get you labeled a “gunner,” a term you will become very familiar with if you decide to go to Law School).

You’re not alone.  Unless you go into solo practice, you’ll usually have associates to check your work for you to make sure you’re not making the type of mistakes that will expose you to Legal Malpractice.  So even though you have to be meticulous and careful, you’ll have other people to check your work most of the time, and vice versa.

Finally, Law School grants you an opportunity to do something extremely meaningful with your life.  Remember that every Supreme Court case that ever meant something in this country was argued by some group of lawyers.  Brown v. Board ended separate-but-equal.  Loving v. Virginia ended anti-miscegenation laws.  Roe v. Wade gave women constitutional protection for their Right to Choose.  Lawrence v. Texas made homosexual relationships legitimate.  Behind all these cases was a hard-working, coffee-drinking, 14-hour day working lawyer who was trying to get justice for their client, and for society at large.

And it’s not just the Supreme Court.  If you go into civil practice, you could end up fighting health insurance companies in State Court to make them pay for a cancer patient’s transplant; or bringing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of State affiliate of the ACLU to force your state to properly fund Public Defender offices so indigent Defendants aren’t constructively denied their 6th Amendment right to counsel.  Or you could end up as legal counsel for a Union, negotiating with employers to make sure that the workers you represent aren’t getting screwed.  Or you could end up writing the legal brief that defends some naive, innocent kid from the RIAA when they try to sue him for $1000000000000000~ dollars for illegally downloading 3 lady GaGa tracks.

So there you have it.  Lots to consider.  It’s a huge investment of time, debt, and responsibility.  Oh, and Don’t Do It For The Money.  Unless you plan on graduating in the top 10% of your class (extremely hard to do) you will probably not be starting at a very impressive salary when you graduate.  Do it because you love it.  Do it because you’re genuinely interested in learning the law, in being an attorney.  And because you’re not afraid to work hard.

One last thing: there are a few public law schools floating around that charge ALOT LESS for tuition than most private institutions.  Buffalo Law in New York is one such law school.  If you do some research i’m sure you can find others.

There you have it.  A brief primer for the prospective law school student, from a law school student.  Hope it helps.

8:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnx9bdQGg
(Notes: 18)
  
Filed under: law school 
April 30, 2011
Law School, ctd.

logicallypositive said: Okay, so another question for you: in your law school experiences, would you say a thorough understanding of symbolic logic would be a benefit to a prospective student?

Absolutely.  Training in both Philosophy and symbolic logic are very relevant to a Law School education.  Being able to identify when propositions are properly stated as the basis for a conclusion (and when they aren’t) is absolutely essential when doing legal work.  It’s really half of what you do in legal practice.

For example: here’s a section from my recent Appellate Brief, wherein I was hypothetically serving as Counsel for the United States Attorney’s Office against a First Amendment Claim by an employee who was fired for “inappropriate” speech which she published on her blog:

V.

GOVERNMENT OFFICES WILL BE UNABLE TO OPERATE EFFICIENTLY IN THE FUTURE IF THE SPEECH THAT APPEARS IN SCHROEDER’S BLOG QUALIFIES FOR FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION

 

The Supreme Court’s holding in Waters gives public employers the flexibility they need to maintain the efficiency of public services.  The Court’s holding in Waters grants this flexibility in two ways: 1) reducing the burden of proof on public employers who wish to terminate an employee, and 2) by broadly defining “reasonableness” as it pertains to an employer’s investigation of the facts prior to terminating an employee.  Recall that prior to terminating Schroeder, Kessler was aware of distractions in his office.  See R.15   Kessler was then informed by Attorney Doyle that Schroeder owned a blog which was being discussed by court personnel.  See R.15.  Kessler then spent the weekend studying Schroeder’s blog.  See R.15.  Only after all these events took place did Kessler come to the conclusion, based on all the evidence available, that Schroeder’s blog was either causing a disruption, or had the potential to cause a disruption.  See R.15. 

To conclude that Kessler’s investigation of the facts prior to terminating Schroeder was unreasonable, or that Schroeder’s interest in speaking outweighs USAO’s interest in delivering efficient public services, would be to effectively surpass the standard for reasonableness laid out in Waters; finding that Kessler’s investigation was unreasonable would be to require, as a matter of law, that Public employers must, at a minimum, 1) have verbal confirmation from subordinates that an employee’s speech is being discussed outside the office, 2) be aware of a current disruption in the office to which the employee’s speech might be connected, and 3) participate in a 48-hour investigation of the employee’s speech; all of which must occur prior to terminating the employee.  And even these three factors would not be enough to justify a dismissal.  Imposing these requirements on public employers as a matter of law would make it extremely difficult for public employers to terminate an employee whose speech is causing (or has the potential to cause) a disruption in public services.  Furthermore, if Schroeder’s interest in writing her blog outweighs USAO’s interest in maintaining efficient public services, even if Kessler’s investigation was reasonable, then this Court would effectively be asking public employers to take measures that are beyond reasonable if they wish to terminate an employee whose speech may be disruptive.  This approach would completely undermine the core holding in Waters, and effectively prevent public employers from preventing disruptions in public services before they occur.  It is therefore imperative, as a matter of public policy, that the standard of reasonableness from Waters be accorded, and the District court’s holdings in this case be reversed.

That might give you a feel for how legal argument tends to work.  Prior to this I had 4 previous sections in which I laid out the state of the law, and explained why it favored my client.  In other words, you lay out your foundations, and apply the law to your client’s situation.  Part of being a good lawyers is being able to explain both a) legislative intent, b) the relevance of prior court holdings, c) distinguish facts of cases which don’t favor your client, and d) explain why any possible adverse consequences are either unlikely or justified as a matter of public policy to preserve the interests of future clients in the same position.

A sound knowledge of symbolic logic will absolutely help you in law school.  I actually have a friend who was a philosophy major that’s here, for what it’s worth.  Definitely a useful skill.

6:32pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnx4kwYGF
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: politics law school 
Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »