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Saturday, 30 December 2006
Blogiday
I have been on a blog holiday of sorts recently--taking time from blogging and other pursuits to grade a mountain of exams. And no, this is not a picture of my foot. Or my computer.
I am finally nearing the end of grading, though, so hopefully I will be back in the blog saddle very soon. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.
Wednesday, 20 December 2006
Senior women lawyers 'vastly underrepresented'
Law Times, Canada -
Currently, 56 per cent of law school graduates are women and those high numbers have been around for quite a few years, but as McCarthy Tétrault LLP's ...
Michael Geist's year-end roundup
p2pnet.net, Canada -
L is for the LSAT, the standardized test required for admission to virtually every law school in Canada. The LSAT attracted heated criticism after it was ...
The power and relevance of Ojibway sacred stories
News@UofT, Canada -
Johnston was the first female aboriginal law student and first aboriginal law professor at the Faculty of Law. She is featured in a special Women ...
Watch YouTube video and help find killer
Electric New Paper -
VIDEO-SHARING website YouTube has now become an unconventional crime-fighter in Canada, triggering alarms over police intrusion. This still image from a one-minute video upload on the YouTube website by Canadian police shows people entering a bar in ...
Video about Stupid Law Students...
Part 1:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N0UN_ZIaYjQ
Part 2:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3K9uGmvw8cg
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
Thin Line Between Love and Hate
But it's certainly better than taking exams. Which gets me, at least tangentially, to a recent question posed by reader Shell of Shelley's Case. In a comment to a recent post, Shell asked: "I am curious as to what your least favorite and most favorite subjects were during law school."
Talk about flashing me back.
Favorites would include the following, in no particular order. This is a list of favorites, mind you, and not a list of courses that were necessarily most beneficial, either in a generalist practitioner sense or in the sense of being useful courses for specializing in a particular area of law. Come to think if it, those are good subjects for future blog posts in the spring, when course selection decisions are being made by law students nationwide.
But back to the question at hand--some of my favorites, in no particular order.
- American Legal History. This course can be excellent for history lovers, and also for getting a broader perspective on the evolution of law in general and American legal developments in particular.
- Administrative Law. This may be evidence of a character defect on my part, since many people do not like taking this class. Part of it was the prof I had (Gary Lawson, who is now at Boston U.), and part perhaps because I had very, very low expectations going in. But it was also just a fascinating course in many ways, and one I love teaching now.
- Contracts. Perhaps this is more evidence of a character defect. But I loved the story of the rise and fall of formal contract theory, and how economic thought had influenced the law in this area. And it's another course I enjoy teaching.
- Law and Economics. This is not a bar course, but the Law and Econ movement has had such a huge impact on the law in recent decades that I think students ignore it at their peril. And I was an economics major (undergrad and masters), so it was right up my alley. For those who think economic theory is not relevant to "real world" lawyering, can you say "policy argument"?
- Civil Procedure. I honestly think I liked this course not so much for the subject as I did for the professor, Marty Redish, who was absolutely superb.
- Property. Clearly I am a geek, since I seem to be mentioning far too many 1L courses. But I loved the evolution of the law in this area too.
Least Favorite courses: Actually, only 1 really comes to mind. The grand prize goes to:
- Bankruptcy. Argh. I am not sure what it was about this course that I did not like, but I did not like it, Sam I Am. It had economic theory in spades, which I do generally like, and it was business-oriented, which should have made it interesting to me. It was also not my first experience with code courses, so that doesn't explain it. And the profs (there were 2, and they team-taught) were fine--I actually took them again for another course. But this course was just no fun at all. Far and away my least fun course.
All in all, part of what this list shows is that I actually enjoyed law school for the most part. And that the courses that have stuck with me over the years and influenced my thinking about the law were a combination of core (1L and bar) courses and other courses, and sometimes not the courses I would have expected. Which perhaps suggests (a) that the core courses are core courses for a reason, and (b) that students should not just blindly take what others tell them to take (i.e., the "bar courses" or the "fun courses.") But again, more on the subject of course selection in a later post.
And now, back to grading.
Friday, 8 December 2006
And in Other News . . .
Exam Advice
At Shelley's Case, blogger Shell has useful advice on studying for exams from a student perspective. Shell's advice is always reflective and thoughtful.
Not Exactly Hell on Wheels
At the the Legal Underground, blogger Evan Schaeffer has posted a video in which he lectures on Civil Procedure while skiing. He claims in the video that he is the "first ever lawyer [to ski] while discussing the Federal Civil Rules of Civil Procedure"--at least to discuss it on tape. I am pretty sure he is right about that.
Note that Schaeffer, truly thinking like a lawyer, limits his claim to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Perhaps lawyers in Colorado or Utah have covered their respective state rules while on the slopes? Or maybe someone has discussed criminal procedure rules on skis? But then again, Schaeffer's claim is not limited to someone on Alpine (downhill) skis, so he has beaten the telemarking, cross-country crowd to the punch. Which goes to show that a good lawyer knows when to qualify his claims, and also when not to.
Common Scents Advice
Over at Frugal Law Student, there is a post about ounce of prevention and sins of omission. For those who have not read the FLS, its tag line is "helping law students mitigate their crippling student loans since 2006."
My favorite advice in this particular post (which is by Mrs. FLS)? "Take care of your clothes," which translates to "don't wash your clothes more than you have to." Here's the best part:
That's bold advice. Good advice, perhaps, but a bold statement nonetheless. The point is, many Americans do presume that if you wear it, it needs washed. In Mississippi during August, I dare say that presumption works very, very well. At least with my clothes it does. But what about in March?
Adventures in Exam-Taking
Law school can be so all-consuming that your priorities get a bit skewed. When an alarm goes off, you are concerned about losing your work, not losing your skin. Or perhaps you begin to wonder whether a felony or a tort has been committed. How's that for "thinking like a lawyer"?
From my days in the practice of law, I can say that such skewing occurs there too, especially when you are billing by the hour. "That fire alarm took 0.4 hours of my day," people would say. And I have known attorneys to not evacuate a building because they were too busy. In fact, I believe I did that once or twice myself. Skewing indeed.
Even on 9/11 in DC, some people stayed in the office well after it became clear what was going on. That time, though, I did not.
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
Blink! and The Tipping Point
The Tipping Point really got me thinking about ways in which I can build up both my law practice, as well as my publishing business. I think that other lawyers could really benefit from reading this book, and that law students should try to read it before going into practice. The book is essentially about how to disseminate an idea or a product or a service in a way that will make everybody want to be a part of that idea or product or service. Mr. Gladwell has a wonderful way of taking very complex ideas and making them approachable. I appreciated his real-life examples of Tipping Point phenomena. This kind of book is excellent for expanding one's mind, and should be on the required reading list of any professional.
Monday, 4 December 2006
The Tinkerbell Syndrome
Also, for those who are just embarking on their law school career/application, check out Law Target, a blog by Essien from Toronto. He is currently in the process of choosing which law school to go to (he was accepted by three, last count), and it will be interesting to see how his life progresses.