Merry Christmas!

Man this has been a hectic past couple of days. I think the worst thing about having finals end only 3 days before Christmas is the fact that since we law students don't have any time to shop for gifts while studying, we're forced to get all our shopping done at the last minute (the worst time to do it). In past years, I would scoff at the people who were out on Christmas Eve doing "last minute shopping." "Should've done it earlier," I would say. Last night, standing in line at Borders just before closing time, with gifts piled up to my chin, I reached a sort of understanding.

Target looked like it got hit by a tornado, especially the toy and electronics sections. The mall was jam-packed with people, and the lines everywhere were out of control. Drivers are also especially bad this time of year. I think its because they're too busy thinking about the people left on their lists to notice other cars... or other people. Yesterday for instance, I almost got hit three times. One of those times I wasn't even in a car.

Anyways, I'm glad that Christmas is finally here. It's like the shopping day off. Come Monday, it's going to be nuts again as people return stuff and go post-Christmas bargain-hunting.

I learned my lesson this year. From now on, I'm doing my Christmas shopping in August.

Home For The Holidays

Welp, after a good 5 hours of traveling (walking -> bus -> BART -> AirBART shuttle -> airport -> airplane -> car), I'm finally home for two [measley] weeks of vacation. The nice thing about Christmas vacation in post-high school education is the fact that there's no homework during the vacation. You can just relax and not worry about having to finish a paper or read a case or something.

Well... okay there is one thing I have to worry about. Starting December 1, we plucky law students are allowed to send letters to potential employers requesting jobs for the upcoming summer. Most people I know put off the stress of sending out dozens and dozens of resumes and cover letter until after finals. Now that finals are over, the stress doth rear its ugly head once more.

Alright enough with the bitching. This whole employment application thing shouldn't be too bad once I get the hang of mail merge. Postage is gonna be expensive like a muther though...

[---]

Wait a second... it took me five hours to get home? Shit... And I took a plane too. I should've just hitched a ride with someone driving down. It would've spared me the inconvenience of having to walk to the bus stop in pouring rain... or being squeezed in the back of a place to the point where my butt fell asleep...

Free At Last

I haven't left my apartment for 4 days. That's right- for almost 100 hours, I've seen nothing other than the walls of my little 1000 square-foot piece of Berkeley heaven. Granted, it's been raining like a mofo these past couple of days and so I wouldn't want to go outside even if I could, but still its the principle of the thing.

I got home after running some errands on Saturday, and I immediately dove into learning everything there is to learn about criminal law. Prof. Westen's final is a take-home final, and so after we download it from the school server, we have 24 hours to write up our answers and upload it back to the server. Not too bad, assuming that you've studied. As of Saturday, I hadn't studied. So for 2.5 days, I stayed in bed, with my laptop in my, well, lap, reading Westen's memos and outlining, leaving my covers only if I needed to use the bathroom. Then, yesterday at 1:40pm, I took a deep breath and downloaded the final. 24 hours later, I've written over 3000 words, proofread it, and uploaded it back to the server.

Holy moly, I guess I'm done with finals.

I think my first act as a free man will be to do my laundry (free men require clean underwears). Then maybe I'll actually leave my apartment building. I should check my mail.

Contracts Final Tomorrow!

About 60% of it is going to be short answer and multiple choice. There's only going to be one essay question. How weird is that? Everyone is freaking out about the non-essay section too.

I remember a time when students greeted multiple choice questions with a sigh of relief, while essay questions were to be feared. Not anymore. In law school, essays = chance to bullshit/grab partial credit points. Take that away from us, and we're left with the prospect of answering questions that might actually have *gasp!* a right and a wrong answer...

CivPro Final Tomorrow!

Finals Weeks = Final weeks...

...of my sanity.

Before coming to law school, plenty of people told me "you need to save your personality and your social life to disk before you enter law school, and then reboot it when you graduate."

I guess the point of this cumbersome and somewhat technically incorrect analogy was to emphasize the fact that law school would take up every single waking hour of your life to the exclusion of friends, fun, and frivolity.

After coming to Boalt, I quickly learned that this wasn't necessarily true. I had plenty of fun and my share of frivolity, with plenty of studying time to spare. I'm convinced that whoever said that you couldn't have a life in law school was obviously not a Boaltie.

But now that finals are around the corner, I'm realizing that there may have been some truth to that saying, at least during finals. Every single day this week I've been waking up early, going to class/review sessions, then outlining in the library until my brains fall out. Each day, I've gotten home no earlier than 1:00am, only to go to bed and start again the next day. I haven't had time to call friends, email, blog, or even cook dinner. To everyone who I've been meaning to call: Sorry! Chris will be back in a few weeks.

So here I am, on a Friday night, in the library. *Looks at watch* Shit! I gotta get back to work!

[---]

P.S. if you see any new blog entires, the likelihood is that I already had them pre-written and pending in Blogger. Just one more reason why I like the Big B better than Xanga...

THIS Is What I Came to Law School For

Today in contracts we learned whether or not you have to pay that squeegee guy who comes over to your car when you're stopped at a traffic light and squeegees your window without your request and then expects money for it.

Turns out that his expectation of being reimbursed for his "benefit conferred" isn't legally enforceable because there was no bargain or negotiation for the exchange. They even have a name for these types of people: officious intermeddlers.

So pretty much, if you don't pay him, he can’t sue you for the money. He can still probably break your window though.

Finally! Some practical knowledge!

The End Cometh...

A surefire way to tell that the end of the semester (and thus, the impending Doom that is finals) is near is when you get to the end of the assigned readings for your classes.

Yesterday, I finshed the readings for Contracts and CivPro, and the last readings for Crim are around the corner. I have to admit, it's a little weird. It's kinda like saying "goodbye" to a good friend. A good friend that weighs 10 pounds. And sits on your back. Every day.

Normally, this isn't really a big deal since I had as much, if not more reading as an undergrad. However, I feel a certain... affinity for my law readings because, unlike undergrad, I did all the reading. Every. Freeking. Single. Page. Now that's devotion.

Hell, after reading 1,000+ pages over a span of 14 weeks, you'd become attached to your textbooks too.

I think that some of the weirdness also stems from the fact that the end of reading means there's nothing left to do but study for finals. O_O

Pop Quiz

My buddy Thomas, who sits next to me in Crim, was like “Soooo good....”

To what was he referring to?

A. Today’s lecture about complicity/aiding and abetting
B. The cute girl in the third row
C. The cute guy on the other side of the room
D. Prof. Westen’s handwriting
E. The Bailey’s Irish Crème Kahlua “special additive” in his coffee

Turkey Day!

Goin' home for Thanksgiving today. When I get back, it'll be T-minus 2 weeks until finals.

I've been flying up and down California a lot these days, and one of the things I'll definitely be looking forward to is the airport security people making me take my laptop out of my bag to be screened separately.

Have a good Thanksgiving!

This Is the Sound of Studying

Two and half weeks until finals!

I was told by many people that the atmosphere around the law school would get really stressful as finals approached. I can't say that I sense that yet, though for a couple weeks now, there's been an undercurrent of unease as I suspect that many 1L's are beginning to freak out in private.

I think a lot of the stress has to do with the fact that 100% of our grade is based on the final. No midterms, no papers, no quizzes. If your first year in law school really is like drinking out of a fire hose, how is one supposed to study for such a beast?

It turns out there are a lot of different ways to tackle the massive amounts of material that they throw at us. The most popular way to do it is with outlines: 10- to 30-page pieces of academic flotsam filled with nuggets of knowledge. Essentially, we take everything we've learned the entire semester, boil it down to the important stuff, then put it down in bullet-point form.

At the beginning of the semester, lots of 2Ls and 3Ls were telling us to start early- as much as a month and a half before finals. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to wait a little bit and start... this weekend. It turns out that the combined experience of 2Ls and 3Ls contains more wisdom than I initially thought. Outlines take a really really long time to work on. I spent this entire past weekend working on my Contracts outline, and I only got through a third of the course.

Of course, I could just do the easy thing and buy commercial outlines, but much of the learning actually comes from writing the outline yourself. Alternatively, I could opt not to outline at all and use my undergrad studying strategy (wait until a few days before the final then cram- really bad idea), but where's the fun in that? If you're the type that learns by doing stuff (whether it be taking notes or talking it out with a friend), then outlining is definitely one of the better ways to help you get as much out of the proverbial fire hose as you can.

Looks Like I Owe Someone $5...

I got my elective assignments for next semester. As some of you may recall, the process for choosing the electives was somewhat complicated, involving evil robot hamsters.

I bid on 5 electives, and expected to get my #2 and #3 choices. This is because my #1 choice, CivPro II, had 1L enrollment capped at somewhere around 10. And given that it was being taught by one of the best professors at Boalt (he brings his guitar to class and sings songs about discovery... that's pretty badass), it's easy to see why the odds weren't exactly in my favor (somewhere around 1.5 students per mod or something).

I was so sure that I'd end up with Legislation and Constitutional Law that I made a bet on it (not sure with who though). I entered my choices, prayed a little, then waited anxiously as the hamsters did their thing.

Well this past Thursday, the registrar announced our class assignments, and lo and behold, I got my first and second elective choices. Woohoo!

Here are the classes I'm taking next semester:

Property
Torts
Written & Oral Advocacy
Civil Procedure II
Legislation

I'm pretty jazzed that I'm getting such a solid schedule. Apparently, nobody made any effort to fix the machine that randomly picked our classes, so some people I know actually got conflicting classes. I think the best part about next semester is that I get out every day no later than 3:30 PM, which, while compared to my undergrad schedule, is actually pretty pathetic, it still beats leaving school at 5:00.

What I Learned in Law School

Dear Mom and Dad...

Boalt = Crusty Old High School, Part 3

A little known fact: while the nasty mildew and other crap on the outside of Boalt Hall would lead one to believe that the school is "poorly maintained," it turns out it's just natural weathering, owing to the fact that it was built in the early 11th century by French Visigoths, who carved the school out of a limestone rock formation.

Deep Thoughts From Today's Classes

A summary of what I learned today, in convenient, easy-to-digest haiku form:

Crim:
Attempted murder
Nobody got hurt from it
Why is it a crime?

Contracts:
I say "potato"
You think I say "tomato"
Is there a contract?

CivPro:
The jury was drunk
SCOTUS says that it's okay
But it still seems wrong

haha... I really enjoy haiku, and I don't know why.

Network like a Polaroid Picture

Yikes! I haven't updated this for a while. But I have a good excuse! I've been working. Net-working.

This past week I went to not one, but two lawyer networking events. American Bar Association rules forbid 1L's from contacting potential employers about summer or future employment until December 1, but I've been told by 2L's and 3L's that these events are still a good chance to meet recruiters, talk to them in general terms about their firm, get some interpersonal conversational practice, and maybe even impress yourself on the minds of potential employers so that they remember you when they come back later for interviews.

[---]

On Wednesday, I went with some other members of the Berkekely Technology Law Journal to San Francisco for a "Women and Minority Law Student IP Summit," hosted by Microsoft.















There were several firms at the event handing out brochures and tons of sweet tchtotchkies. The main event of the night, however, was a talk given by 15 panelists representing the in-house counsel for huge tech companies:















I totally expected the Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft people to get into a Jerry Springer-like 3-way brawl on-stage, but it never happened. Bummer.

Afterward, there was a reception where we could talk to the panelists about their jobs, ask them questions about what it's like to work such huge companies, and maybe even get an email or two. I talked to the lawyers from Google, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The Google and Yahoo people were really cool, and really seemed to like their jobs. The Microsoft people were kinda weird, though they also seemed to like their jobs too.

[---]

On Thurday night, the Berkeley Center for Law and Tech hosted a huge event where over 30 of the biggest law firms in IP came and set up tables with even more toys and junk.

I used the evening as an opportunity to learn the firms' names and get a feel for their corporate culture. I only got to talk to about 7 of the firms, but I was able to collect business cards and I think I already have a partial list of firms that I might like to work for.

Probably the most interesting thing I took away from the night was the realization that lawyers, even in their stodgy pinstripe suits and garish ties, are just like anyone else. All the lawyers I talked to were funny, weird, and even kinda goofy. Most of them seemed to like their jobs, though talking to them about firm life confirmed my suspicion that law school is a reflection of life in a law firm in the same way the SAT is a reflection of life in college: they're nothing alike.

[---]

My week of talking to the lawyers was immensely eye-opening, but I have to be honest. While making connections with people from companies like Google and Yahoo, and big firms like McDermott, Farella, and MoFo is incalcuably valuable, the sweet junk they hand out definitely comes in a close second on the hierarchy of awesomeness. Look at all this schwag!















Unfortunately, this only represents a fraction of the stuff available during the two nights. My Sidley Austin tote bag (not shown) just wasn't big enough to hold the other assorted pens, water bottles, highlighters, business card holders, photon lights, calculators, leather mouse pads, note cubes, and fishing lures that some of the other firms were offering. I think I'll be just as happy though, with my Weil foldy-useless-map-circuit-court-paperweight thingy.

Doo doo doo doo...

That's the Windows start-up sound I hear every once in a while in the library or in class as someone forgets to turn off their speaker. It's a minor anoyance, but it serves as a reminder of just how prevalent laptops are in law school.

One of the most interesting things about law school is the fact that we take notes on laptops. I had always taken for granted the fact that I needed to buy one before school started, and like a good student, I got a nice Sony VAIO about a month before classes started. I guess I owe it to all the movies I'd seen about law school that showed people in class happily typing along on their sleek pieces of technological machinery.

Even after I got here, I never really gave it much thought until I talked to one of my mod-mates, Iris. "Don't you think it's odd that law school is the only graduate school where students take notes on compuers?" she asked me. "Uh... not really... well... maybe? Yeah sort of." I said. Iris (who, by the way, is a complete sweetheart- don't get me wrong) proceeded to explain to me that she planned to take all her notes with pen and paper, and that thirty years from now we laptop-istas would all regret using computers as we suffered from accelerated carpal-tunnel syndrome.

Then I got to thinking. Why is it that law students take notes on computers? I remember as an undergrad that to see someone taking notes on a computer was to automatically brand them an "overachiever" (or alternatively, "freak"). My friends in other grad schools all tell me that it's still rare to see students with laptops. But here in law school, latops are as common as... well, lawyers.

For me at least, I can definitely say that I'm glad I'm typing my notes instead of writing them. Given that my professors put handouts and slides on the web to download, it makes things that much easier. In many cases (like Talley's blazing-fast Contracts lectures), I think it would be physically impossible for students to keep up with the lecture if we were writing them by hand (I don't even want to imagine the massive hand cramps that would result... ever think about that, Iris?).

Perhaps most important of all, if I didn't have a computer at school, I wouldn't be able to write in my blog as often as I do. And I know that for many of you, that would be unbearable. :-)

Note to Self

Start writing your memos a lot earlier than the day before they're due. Especially when you know they're going to be more than 15 pages long. And especially when you know you're going to procratinate like a muther.

Ugh... 14 hours, 3 cups of OJ, 2 cups of tea, 6 trips to the bathroom, and 17 pages later, I'm finally done with Memo 3. Yes yes, I know that LRW is only pass/no pass, but I'm going to use this memo for my writing sample when I apply for jobs at firms, and given that the memo is about copyright and fair use, I figure it might pique the interest of the big IP firms out there.

Haha the funny thing is, I'm not really done. I still need to proofread and print it before I turn it in tomorrow (today). Experience tells me that writing papers at 2 AM makes for seriously incoherent sentences.

Picking My Knows

What week is this? 10th week? Seriously? Already? Shit. At UCLA this means that finals would be next week. Haha luckily, I'm not at UCLA. But what it does mean is that it's time to choose classes for next semester.

As you may remember from my earlier post, every 1L has to take the same set of courses no matter what school they're at. Currently, I'm taking Contracts, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, and the first part of my lawyering skills class, which leaves Torts, Property, and the second part of my lawyering skills class for next semester. In addition to this already imposing schedule, Boalt requires us to choose two additional electives- no more, no less.

In order to take a bit of the stress out of process of competing for classes, the registrar set up this system where we submit our top 5 classes in order of preference, and some evil robot or oligarchical panel of hamsters choose two of them for us. Ideally, we're supposed to get our top 2 choices, but it's not guaranteed. You know how hamsters are.

Thus began the two-week-long stressfest that is elective-picking. The ordering element adds an extra level of complexity, since we not only have to choose five classes, but also our preference for them. To make things worse, Shawn (my ASP tutor) told us that while the robot that picks our classes is evil, it apparently isn't very smart because it might actually give you classes with conflicting class times.

Today is the deadline for bidding on classes, so after some thought and a great deal of procrastinating, I decided on my top 5 electives:

1. Civil Procedure II
2. Legislation
3. Constitutional Law: Liberty & Equality
4. Introduction to Intellectual Property
5. Constitutional Law: Basic

Seriously, this thing is a freaking work of art. I have some interest in all the classes, it's ordered so that it's unlikely that the registrar will give me both CivPro II and Con Law (both are huge 4-unit classes), and it's set so that the classes fit together well in my schedule among the mandatory classes. I definitely would've put Intro to IP higher up on the list if it weren't for the fact that there are no reviews about the professor.

CivPro II is supposed to be really hard to get into (only 10 IL's allowed), so $5 says I'm going to end up with Legislation and ConLaw L&E.

It's All About the Benjamins

Today was an interesting day, namely because there was a lot of talk about finding jobs for this coming summer. You know, the one that's only eight months away.

Since law school is three years, we only have two summers in which to do something. The summer after the 2L year is the one in which most students apply to a firm and hopefully get an offer of permanent employment by the end of the summer. The first summer therefore, is the last summer ever in which we get to do whatever we want (as long as it's somewhat legally-related... law firms like to look at what you've done).

There are lots of options for the 1L student to do something cool in his/her first summer, including externing (still not sure how it's different from "interning") for a federal or state court judge, working for a government agency, working for a non-profit or public interest organization, and of course, working at a firm.

In applying to these jobs, time is of the essence. The ABA prevents 1L's from talking to either employers or the career office until December 1st, under the theory that 1L's have enough stress to worry about in their first couple of months at law school. Of course, what this also means is that EVERY 1L (at least the neurotic ones- me included) are going to send out tons of letters and resumes once that magic [*checks calendar*] Thursday rolls around.

Therefor, we don't have very much time in which to prep our materials to send out to all employers out there. In order to prepare us (both mentally as well as practically), lots of student groups, as well as the Career Development Office (CDO) are having programs this week in which they talk to us about how to choose a job, how to write legal resumes, and how to "get that summer law experience of your dreams."

Today, Shawn, my mod's ASP tutor, brought in a bunch of his mod-mates from his 1L year to talk about what they did. Some worked for federal magistrate judges, some worked for the county DA's offce, some worked for the public defender's office, and some went to firms. One guy actually spent his summer doing legal work in Thailand. Apparently what they did their first summer didn't have too much of a bearing on their ability to get a high-paying firm job their second year.

Key piece of advice from Shawn: "As long as you have a good story about your summer to tell in interviews, it doesn't matter what you do. So do something you're interested in."

Of course, working for a firm during the summer has a huge perk going for it- namely, the huge wad of cash you make. Judicial externships are completely unpaid, and while public-interest jobs aren't paid either, Boalt has a fund which gives stipends to students who pursue public interest work during the summer. Pretty cool.

The CDO had an information session about externships this evening after class, and while it was only marginally helpful in terms of new information, it did get me thinking about all the possibilities available to me this summer.

I had been planning on working at a firm this summer, but I just might end up going for the unpaid judicial externship. Sure there's no money in it, but I think it would be kinda fun to see how the legal system works from the inside. It also wouldn't hurt to be able to say you're buddy-buddy with a federal district or circuit court judge.

*sigh* ...time to dust off the ol' resume, I guess.

General CivPro Awesomeness

Okay so today in CivPro, we were discussing Markman v. Westview, a case dealing with the issue of whether a judge or a jury should decide the meaning of certain words in a patent.

Vetter: Does anyone know how this case is different [from the other cases we're talked about this week]?
Danny: *raises hand* It’s about patents?
Vetter: Yes, that’s right. It’s also about two parties, named Markman and Westview.

Hahaha oh SNAP! After that, Vetter proceeded to call Danny "Captain Obvious." Haha no just kidding. But if he had, I seriously would have fallen out of my chair right there. You really don't expect a guy like Vetter to be such a smartass like that...

Halloween in Law School redux

Okay so I think I spoke too soon about people not being in costume. Apparently, I only needed to wait until the afternoon for all the wackos creatively dressed people to come out. I was also apparently looking at the wrong class. While most of the 1L's declined to dress up, a significant number of 2L's and 3L's were a little more brave.

Around 3pm, the Boalt Women's Association and BTLJ had a joint Halloween kegger. That's right- free beer and candy just before CivPro.















This is Bryant and Bora. Bryant is the co-chair of APALSA, and today, he dressed up as a box of tissues. Bora, along with 3 other girls, came dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.















The library staff decorated the Pole Forest for Halloween. I guess you could call it the "Haunted Pole Forest."















I also saw various witches wandering about the school, and one lady wore a full Southern Colonial-style dress, which was awesome. Maybe next year, I'll scrounge up a white sheet, cut holes in it... and go as a cut-up bedsheet.

Halloween in Law School...

...is exactly the same as regular law school.

I think that there are going to be all kinds of Halloween social events held by student groups throughout the day (especially during lunch hour), but as far as I can see, nobody in class today is wearing a costume. It's kinda disappointing, though at the same time I'm glad I didn't wear a costume to class...

I think there are also some Halloween parties going on tonight in various places, but it's a Monday night-- a law school Monday night--, and so I don't think there's going to be any excitment happening tonight for anyone older than 22. There are some party-types here in law school, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few of my classmates came a little late to class tomorow.

For Halloween, I was thinking about going as a "sane" person, but then I realized that most people would see right though my disguise. Either that, or "emo", but then I realized that since I would just look like 60% of asian Weezer-wannabes, most people wouldn't even realize I was wearing a costume.

Note to Self

Things to do this weekend:

[x] Print & read cases for LRW Memo 3 Outline (~15 cases)
[ ] Write Memo 3 Outline (due Monday)
[ ] Complete LRW Bluebook citation exercises (due Sunday)
[ ] Read CivPro textbook pg. 1015-1032 for Monday
[ ] Read packet on rape for Crim lecture Monday (~60 pgs.)
[ ] Find and read article for Crim group presentation (~? pgs.)
[ ] Read packet for Contracts lecture Monday (~77 pgs)
[ ] Cite-checking party for BTLJ (Sunday 10am-2pm)
[ ] Complete indexing packet for BTLJ (~2 hours, due 11/4)
[ ] Maintain sanity

Boalt = Crusty Old High School, Part 2

Yup, we have a locker room. Except I remember that in high school, there was enough space between the lockers that I didn't get my ass felt up 5,000 times by people passing through while I tried to grab my books.

*shakes fist at Earth's axial tilt*

What the poop? It's only 6:45 and it's already dark outside!

When I'm studying in the library after class, I use the daylight outside to gauge how long I've been persuing nerdly activites been there. I look out the window and if it's dark, it means that I've been there for a while and hopefully been productive. Now that the days are getting shorter and night is falling faster, my whole system is falling apart. Nowadays, when I get out of class and look outside and see that it's dark, it signifies nothing more than the fact that I've been in class all freeking day.

Backy from Breaky! ...Sucky.

Crim class at 9am. The first class after fall break. It’s really overcast and pretty gloomy outside.

You can see the gloominess mirrored in the faces of my classmates. Everyone, even the normally talkative people on the other side of the room, are pretty subdued. Haha I seriously doubt that the last thing anyone wants to talk about after more than a week of vacation is the definition of "reasonableness" and the difference between negligent and reckless homicide.

Break... Hammer Time!

Yay! I'm going home for fall break!

Fall break, you say? What the hell is that?

Haha that's exactly what I said when I looked at the school calendar and found out that we have a week off from school in the middle of our semester. I guess it's kinda like spring break or something. I can't blame it on the semester system though, since it appears that the undergrads don't have a similar gap in their calendar. Maybe the law school decided to recognize our stress and take pity on us? From what I hear, things will quickly speed up (people start reviewing, outlining, and preparing for finals) after we get back, so maybe that's what it is. *shrug*

Anyways, it'll be nice to go home, see the parents, eat something other than chicken and broccoli, and see friends. Who knows? Maybe I'll do some studying too.

Mod 5 <3's Vetter

So in case you haven't figured out from my past posts, my mod pretty much loves Prof. Vetter. At Boalt, each mod has a discussion section alone with a professor. In our first meeting with him, we were pretty turned off by his unexciting demeanor and his tendency to mumble and slur his words.

It wasn't until we learned to look for the deadpan humor in his comments that we realized that he was actually one of the funniest professors at Boalt. When we found out that Mod 6 was contemplating making mod t-shirts, we decided to preempt them (our mod hates Mod 6... I'm not sure why) with shirts of our own. And who better to feature on it than funnyman Prof. Vetter?

We were able to whip up a shirt design within a day, featuring a Warhol-esque collage of Vetter's face and our Mod 5 slogan, "Vetter Does It Better":

Prof. Vetter loved the design too. We showed the design to him before getting them printed, and at first he threatened to give F's to anyone he saw wearing the shirt. We called his bluff (it's all anonymous grading), and he gave his OK.

We got the shirts printed through Cafe Press, and after a few weeks of coordination and planning, almost everybody had their shirts. We decided to wear our shirts together on the same day so that we could "shock and awe" Mod 6.

Today, we unveiled our shirts before the Boalt law community. It was pretty awesome. In addition to buying our own shirts, we all chipped in and bought Vetter a polo shirt and a mug with the Warhol design. We gave them to him today at the end CivPro. I also asked if he would take a picture with us...

Me: Professor, in honor of our awesome t-shirts, would you mind taking a picture with us?

Vetter: Well normally, taking pictures steals a part of my soul... but I’ll do it just for you.

Hooray! We definitely made a fashion statement today. We're also fairly certain that all the other mods were incredibly jealous. Haha it's amazing how much mod unity can result simply from a common desire to spite Mod 6.

Punk'd in CivPro

Oy... I got cold-called today in CivPro, and my performance was something less than, how you say? Competent.

Today we were talking about Rule 14 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides for impleader. At the beginning of class, Prof. Vetter threw a hypo at me which involved an issue of whether a defendant being sued by a person injured by a stray shotgun blast could claim, under Rule 14(a), that his damages were indemnified (not to be confused with contributorily liable) by a third party, owing to the fact that there was another hunter in the area. It's not as easy as it sounds. *sarcasm*

Anyways, despite having read the case the night before, I muddled my way through the facts of the hypo, since I didn't really have any idea of what I was doing. I gave a long, meandering, nonsensical B.S. answer, at which point Prof. Vetter stopped me and said: "So... in other words, you don't know." Then he turned to someone else. Haha ouch. Minus 12 hit points from Chris' ego.

I got a better idea of the concepts behind impleader as the class progressed, and I stayed after class for about 20 minutes with Prof. Vetter to make sure I understood them. As we walked to the door, I had this exchange with him:

Me: Thanks Professor... you know, I did read the case.

Vetter: Oh I'm sure you did. The hypo was pretty difficult. I adapted it from an actual case that involved tort liability, and I probably didn't phrase it very clearly...

*pauses to think*

...you know, actually I think it was fine.

Me: *awkwardly* Oh. Haha.

I would have to say Vetter is the best teacher of all the professors I'm taking this semester. In terms of his ability to patiently ensure that we learn the material, he's tops. He's a tall fellow, probably about 6'3", but when people ask him questions, he always stays seated and never tries to pack up his books or show any other signs of eagerness to leave. Sometimes, it's the little things like these that matter. He's a great guy, but I definitely wouldn't say that he's any less tough. :-P

[---]

On a side note, I bought Spicy Thai Kettle Chips from Cafe Zeb today as part of my lunch. Very tasty. They have got to be the most unique chip flavor I've ever had.

[---]

Seeing the forest for the... poles?

If there was one euphemism I would use to describe the general layout/floorplan of Boalt Hall, it would have to be "idiosyncratic."

And by "idiosyncratic", I mean "ghetto."

For starters, whoever designed the floorplan for this place obviously had little more a straightedge and some sort of sadistic streak because there are waaay too many 90 degree blind corners in this place for it to have been accidental. As a result, there are concave "don't even think about shoplifting because I can see you" mirrors everywhere:



















Second, funny things happen when lack of foresight runs head-on into budget constraints. Case in point: the Pole Forest.

This is the beloved pole forest:



















Apparently the story behind this oddity is that back before the North Addition was added (you can see the entrance to it on the other side), these poles used to be part of the stacks, with shelves mounted between them. When it came time to create a passageway between the old library and the new addition, they found that the poles were actually integrated into the superstructure, and that it would be exorbitantly expensive to remove them (i.e. they had better things to spend the money on).

The result? One must take a surreal "Alice in Wonderland-esque" trip through the magical pole forest in order to get to the other side. The little patio lights strung along the top only add to the general atmosphere of weirdness.

To be fair, once you do get to the other side, you find that the was trip well worth it. The North Addition (being new and modern) is gorgeous, and good thing too, since I spend most of my time there.



















Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder sometimes what this law school could have looked like had the architect not been curvilinearly-challenged.

Law School: Behind The Scenes, Part 4

Grades

It's a pretty well-established fact that law schools grade students on a curve. What this means is that you are technically competing against other students. Coming into law school, I'd heard plenty of horror stories about how savage law students could be in the pursuit of grades (tearing out pages from books so other students wouldn't get to them; refusing to share notes; pushing fellow students in the path of oncoming traffic, etc). Movies like Legally Blonde and The Paper Chase also help to reinforce these notions of cutthroat competition.

I think that there is truth to some extent in these stories. Law students are, by nature, a self-selecting bunch. In other words, the only type of people who would want to go to a top-tier law school are (for the most part) very intelligent, highly motivated, and pretty darn intense. People like this tend to be competitive as well. Since these are the only type of people that apply, these are the ones that ultimately get accepted into law school.

Recently, many schools have been taking steps to discourage competitiveness. I think it's an acknowledgement on their part that they are training people who will eventually have to work together. One of the best ways to hinder, or at least obscure the competitiveness inherent in all law students is to do away with the all-consuming pursuit of grades.

Here at Boalt, they've replaced letter grades with a modified "Pass/No Pass" system. Instead of A's, B's and C's, we get Pass, Honors, and High Honors (P, H, HH) on our transcripts. There's still a curve (10% HH, 30% H, 60% P), but all else equal, P's look better on the transcript (and are easier on the ego) than a C.

There's also something called a "Sub-pass". I haven't fully figured it out, but my understanding is that it's something akin to "grade purgatory": it's not a pass, but not a fail either. From what I've heard, it's extremely difficult to get an F in a class. You're pretty much guaranteed a "pass" if you do all the assignments, turn them in on time, and take the final. It seems that one would actually have to go out of their way to get an F. As a result, the saying around here is "P = J.D."

As if this grading system weren't laid-back enough, I just learned on Friday during the Third Day of Orientation that for the first semester of our 1L year only, the registrar would be converting all "sub-passes" into "passes". In other words, it's impossible for me to get anything less than straight passes in all my classes this semester. What a freaking awesome school.

Of course while this all looks good on paper, it still doesn't obviate the fact that the self-selected law student is inherently intense. So despite the comparatively laid-back grading system, I still haven't met anyone who is willing to settle for straight P's. In fact, more than a few people I've talked to have expressed an intent to attain "straight HH's". I personally find these people to be somewhat insane, given that in my small mod section, only 3 people will be getting that coveted grade. We have a name for these kind of people: "red-hots."

Nonetheless, I think everyone here appreciates the lower levels of stress. There isn't a constant atmosphere of tension in the air (though I hear that changes come finals time). I also get the sense that students are more laid-back here. I haven't come across any books with pages torn out yet, though I still wonder sometimes if I should be walking so close to the curb...

[---]

Next time: So is there life outside of law school? Do they have extracurricular activites? What about clubs and student government? Why the hell aren't you on AIM anymore?

[---]

Just when you thought it was over...

Today I went to Boalt's "Third Day of Orientation."

It was a continuation of the two days of orientation we had back in August, and all 1L's were required to attend. When I first heard that we had to come to school on a Friday (I usually get Fridays off), I was not a happy camper.

The topics included instructions on how to enroll for Spring semester classes, a reminder about the school's honor code, and distribution of our preliminary Spring schedules (I found out that my days will be starting at 8:45 AM... whoop-dee-freeking-doo) .

A significant portion of the day was also devoted to discussions about legal professionalism and ethics. We listened to a professor talk about how to be more profesional and ethical lawyers, and then we broke into little discussion sessions where we talked about hypothetical moral dilemmas.

The talk made me really think about the practice of law as an institution. The Legal Profession is more than a job; it's something bigger. When we become lawyers, our behavior doesn't just reflect on our own character, but on the character of every other lawyer in the profession as well. It's sort of like a big exclusive club that you can only become a member of after 2 life-destroying exams (LSAT & Bar) and 3 years of school. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of all that when you're just a lowly, struggling 1L...

So anyways, the idea is that we should be more mindful of our behavior and how it is perceived by others (namely, our clients). It's kinda sobering, but I guess it's important to think about the next time I consider shredding a document to avoid discovery.

So yeah... despite all the initial grumbling, I guess that today wasn't a complete waste. Nevertheless, as awesome as my mind-blowing lawyer-ephiphany was, it was still only second to the tasty free lunch. :-)

Mac & Cheese & IP Litigation

Today during the lunch hour I went to an awesome talk (and more free lunch) held by an IP litigation attorney from the San Francisco office of Kirkland & Ellis.

Unlike past talks where the lawyers give a lecture on pending cases and other interesting legal issues in the world of intellectual property, the guy today gave a sort of strategic talk about how to cross-examine expert witnesses. Since a lot of IP litigation involves experts, it's important to figure out ways to defeat the ones put forth by the other side.

Anyways, he proceeded to tell us about a multimillion-dollar case (called the "O.J. Simpson of patent trials") he worked on in which he defended some companies against a claim of patent infringement. A key part of the opposing party's case relied on testimony from a star expert witness. He successfully applied his techniques for effective cross examination, discredited the witness, and ultimately won the case.

Listening to him talk about this trial took me back to my days as a high school debater. The rivalry! The intellectual battle of wits! The sweet taste of crushing and completely and utterly embarrasssing the other team! Right now, IP litigation sounds like a lot of fun.

The attorney from Kirkland was also pretty funny. Best part of the story:

"So after completely discrediting their expert witness, I decided to call it a day and head back to California early. I was in the airport when I saw one of the lawyers from opposing counsel. He was reading a book, and so I went over and said hello (though we were on opposite sides of the case, we all try to get along because we're professionals). He said to me, 'Wow... you're heading back early today!' And I thought to myself 'Yeah, because I totally demolished your star witness. Just read your little book.'

[laughter]

Yeah... sometimes I get a little chippy."

Hahaha what a great guy... he said "chippy"...

!!!

Ohcrap... Prof. Westen is calling on people in my row... I better stop writing and start paying attention...

Crim shouldn't be in the morning

Today we're finally getting to the topic of homicide in Crim Law (I mean, isn't that what most people think about when they think about criminal law?). All this craziness about first and second degree murder and manslaughter and negligent homicide and malice and whatnot is interesting and all, but I think there is a more significant issue:

Have you ever broken down the word "manslaughter" into its component parts? Have you noticed that it breaks down into the words "mans" and "laughter"? As in "man's laughter"? Isn't that weird? I think it's weird.

Boalt = Crusty Old High School

Remember the dark, dank, gloomy, nasty bathrooms in your high school gym? To paraphrase from recent Staples ads: "Yeah, we got that."

Semester Seshmester

I was thinking to myself today about well... what day it was, when I realized that UCLA undergrads are just starting their Fall quarter this week (last week was Zero Week, yes?).

Lemme tell you, it's very odd adjusting to the semester system.

For starters, I only got an abbreviated summer vacation. Since the quarter system ends later than the semester system and the semester system starts earlier than the quarter system, I got the shaft and enjoyed a grand total of two (2) months of summer vacation between graduating from UCLA and starting law school. It's always funny when classmates with Ph.Ds and years of work experience ask me what I did between undergrad and law school. I usually respond with a blank stare.

Law school for me started on August 18 with orientation, which means that I've been at Boalt for almost 8 weeks already. And we're only halfway through the material in most of my classes. If I were still at UCLA, around this time I'd have already finished midterms and would be gearing up for finals. Yikes.

Haha I guess all this opining is just a result of my newbie-ness to the mystical semester schedule. This 15-week thing is new to me. I've never had a "fall break" before (I'll be home the week of Oct. 17, btw). I don't know how to deal with a "finals week" that spans two weeks. And I'm still not sure how to deal with the school year ending on my birthday.

On the upside though, the semester system has its perks. Besides giving us fall break (freeking awesome, if not a little weird), my time here feels less compacted, so that I don't feel that I'm always constantly studying for a test. As a result, I have more time to kick-back, relax, and uh... read for class.

Walking through the halls...

Between the students pulling their rolly-backpacks/briefcases and the [seemingly] hundreds of people filling the narrow halls during passing periods, I realized today that law school looks (and feels) a lot like an airport terminal.

Law School: Behind The Scenes, Part 3

Reading

The reading that they assign in law school really isn't that bad. Every night I get anywhere from 3 to 20 pages of reading per class, though it's rare for me to have more than 40 total pages of reading on any given night. For those of you who are familiar with social science classes (and their thick-ass readers), I would even go so far as to argue that I have less reading in law school than I did as an undergrad.

So what's the big deal about the reading? Well, unlike classes in undergrad, there is a much higher expectation (and thus a lot more pressure) to actually do all the reading. At UCLA, I could get away with only doing half the reading (or sometimes none of it at all). As long as I went to lectures and the review sessions before tests, I was fine. Here in law school, the professors assume that you've done the reading in preparation for that day's class. They jump straight into the material without any sort of summary of the reading or whatnot. As a result, it's actually in your own best interests to get the reading done so that you actually know what the hell they're talking about.

I have 2 "heavy" textbooks (1 each for Crim and CivPro), and a little reader thingie for Contracts. I usually do the readings out of at least one of the heavy textbooks at school that way I don't have to lug both textbooks home. Thus, most afternoons after class, I stay in the library to do it.

Coming into Boalt, I thought I was going to be something of a pitiful law student, since I read kind of slow. For me at least, I read slow because I have to read the same page at least twice in order to understand what's going on. To my relief, I found out that most of the people here are just like me - they're all equally freaked out about their slow reading ability too.

In order to get the readings done, I block off at least 3-4 hours per night so that I have enough time to get it all done. It seems like a lot of time at first, until you realize that, living alone in an apartment with no TV far from downtown Berkeley means I really don't have anything better to do. I'd hate to imagine how the parents and the married people in law school handle the reading...

[---]

Next time: Grades Grades Grades... the fire beneath law students' feet. If they're so freaking important, why Boalt doesn't have them?

[---]

Oh Vetter, you so FUNNY...

These are a couple funny things said by Prof. Vetter in CivPro today. Imagine these quotes delivered in a completely monotone, deadpan voice.

"What's the difference between a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and a motion for summary judgment? It's not a hard question. I guarantee you that this question is really really easy. Somehow students always seem to confuse the two. But I guarantee, I represent to you, that this is really, really easy!"

[to a student who was stumped on a question] "I'm not trying to surprise you. I'm not trying to make it hard for you. I'm not trying to ambush you... though I'm not above that... but that's not what I'm asking.

Haha okay so these might not be that funny right now... I guess it's one of those "you had to be there" things...

Funny, I usually like the color blue...

Here's a pop quiz: what's wrong with this legal citation?

See Electronic Enterprises Co., Inc. v. Davenport, 457 F. 2d 997 (N.D.Cal.1972).

Well everyone knows its supposed to be:

See Elec. Enters. Co. v. Davenport, 457 F.2d 997 (N.D. Cal. 1972).

DUHH...

[---]

So today I had to go to a Bluebook training session for the Berkeley Technology Law Journal (BTLJ), of which I am a part. The session lasted for two hours and it_was_excruciating. Let me tell you a little something about the Bluebook.

This is a Bluebook:



As you can see, it's in its eighteenth iteration.

The Bluebook is this little guide created and refined by a group of anally-retentive law students and other scholars over the course of the last 50 or so years. Within this dense little piece of work are guidelines to to properly and uniformly citing or abbreviating pretty much anything you would want to cite or abbreviate when working on things like legal memos and law journals.

There are 415 pages in this edition, and they cover every possible instance of well, anything. Take for example the almost 200 pages of tables and reference charts that tell you how to properly cite and abbreviate every law journal, statute, treaty, court, and periodical in existence. After looking through this, I had only two words to say: holy poop.

In order to ensure that people looking at a citation in a law review or a legal memo don't have anally-induced shit-fits, The Bluebook is very precise about where and when to place periods, italics, underlines, and even spaces, to ensure that all citations look the same wherever you see them.

Some examples of Bluebook uber-anality:

• Never begin a quotation with an ellipsis. If using an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation, use four periods with each separated by a space. If using an elipsis in the middle of a sentence, use three periods separated by spaces, unless there are more than two sentences being quoted at which point you use four periods.
• When making parenthetical notes, begin it with a present participle and do not place a period inside the parentheses, unless it is a sentence quote, at which point you put the period inside the parentheses and outside the parentheses, unless the quote is more than 49 words long, at which point it cannot be a parenthetical and must instead be a separate block quote.
• Use "Id." in place of a full citation when referring to the citation immediately preceding it. The period at the end of Id. must be italicised. Use supra instead of Id. when referring to previous cites not immediately preceding. Supra is not acceptable in legal memos; they can only be used in legal publications.
• When using the phrase "see, e.g.," the first, but not the second comma is italicised.
• When citing cases, place a period but no space after abbreviations with single letters and numericals, but place a period and a space after abbreviations with more than one character.
  

This is just a taste of the anality contained within this tome. Imagine rules like these going on for about 415 pages, and you have an idea of what I have to deal with when I start cite-checking and proofreading articles for the journal.

I foresee myself hating The Bluebook very much, and it's a shame because it's a really nice shade of blue...

Law School: Behind The Scenes, Part 2

Class

Everyone talks about the Socratic Method and how scaaaary it is. Now I don’t know whether it’s because I go to a more laid-back school or whether law school just isn’t as bad as everyone says, but getting cold-called in class isn’t any different from the class discussions I had as an undergrad. As long as you do the reading, you won't find the questions hard, and even if you are completely clueless, the professor will either help push you in the direction he wants to go, or move on with the lecture. In other words, don't worry about being humiliated- everyone else is just as worried as you. In fact, the cold-calling is pretty limited in all my classes because there are usually a good number of people in each class who are willing to raise their hand and volunteer answers or ask questions.

The "lawyering skills" class is something that has developed more recently, as law schools realize that they are as much a professional school as an academic institution. At Boalt they call it Legal Research and Writing (LRW), and next semester it’s called Written and Oral Avocacy. In LRW, we learn to read, research, and analyze cases and then write legal memos. Next semester, we learn how to make oral arguments, etc.

The entering 1L (use that term instead of "first year law student", and you'll sound much much cooler) class for my year was about 266 people, split into 9 modules, or "mods" of about 30 people. The idea is to encourage more personal contact, both with fellow students and the professors. My Contracts and Crim Law class are big "lectures," in which they put together 3 mods, for a total of about 90 people. They're the biggest that classes get here, and considering the fact that they're under 100 people, it's not too bad. My Civil Procedure and LRW classes are with my mod only, so those feel very cozy, like the average undergrad discussion section.

[---]

"So what's the reading like? Isn't it supposed to be overwhelming or something?" Stay tuned for part 3!

Sometimes there IS such a thing as free lunch...

I just came from a weekly speaker lunch held by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. The speakers today were a couple of lawyers from Latham & Watkins, and their talk was about patent law and patent reform.

Both of the lawyers were involved in patent litigation (the defense of patents that a company holds - not to be confused with patent prosecution, which involves just applying for and acquiring patents). As they talked more about the field, the more interested I became in intellectual property law in general. Yeah, patent law probably sounds pretty boring, but I mean, c’mon! How cool would it be to defend a company’s patent on sippy-cups (something one of the lawyers was actually working on)?

Another thing I took away from the presentation was the view that the patent process needs to be reformed. With patent approval rates of 85-97%, it seems like you can patent almost anything. And people have tried. Did you know that somebody actually patented a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Lunch was tasty too. Lasagna, salad, and little mini-éclairs. Somehow, food always seems to taste better when it’s free.

Food for thought from Crim

Can you be held responsible for crimes committed while you’re drunk, if being drunk means that you didn’t have intent to commit them? Haha this is probably something you lushes out there would be interested in knowing...

Prof. Westen: "Sometimes it's okay to get wildly intoxicated!"

It's Constitution Day!

...okay Constitution Day was actually on September 17, but don't tell the Constitution that, okay?

As many of you [probably don't] know, Congress recently passed a law creating Constitution Day. It was created with the intent of ensuring that kids around the country learned about civics and the awesomeness of the Founding Document by requiring all public institutions of learning to provide educational programming about the Constitution.

Boalt's contribution to that was this nifty panel discussion held today during the lunch hour where Dean Edley and other faculty and notable legal people talked about the challenges the Constitution faces as the world continues to change in ways the Founders never dreamt possible.

Anyways, I went to check it out because Dean Edley, John Yoo, and Judge Fletcher were there.

• Dean Edley's wry sense of humor is always amusing, and he didn't disappoint.
• John Yoo is somewhat infamous in the political and legal world because he worked for the Bush Administration, where he wrote a series of memos justifying torture in the name of the War on Terror.
• Judge Fletcher is a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is cool in and of itself. But it was also nifty to see him because he is one of the three guys who wrote my Civil Procedure casebook.The other two teach Civil Procedure at Boalt and Penn Law (Tyler actually has one of them for his CivPro class).
• The other speakers were also good. Jesse Choper wrote a Constitutional Law casebook that I read as an undergrad. Erin Murphy just joined the law school faculty

It's pretty mind-blowing to be in the presence of legal minds like these. The resumes for each of these guys is HUGE. My only gripe about this event? No free food. :-(

Law School: Behind The Scenes, Part 1

Courses

Okay so for those of you who aren’t aware, the first year courses are the same at every law school:

Contracts
Civil Procedure
Criminal Law
Torts
Property
“Lawyering skills”

What most people aren’t aware of is that this means that during your first year, you’re going to learn the same stuff no matter what law school you go to. What sets the “top tier” schools apart from the “lower tier” schools isn’t the quality of the material; oftentimes, the casebooks are the same (Tyler (at Penn Law) and I have the same CivPro books, for example). Rather, it’s the prestige of the faculty (how often they get published) and the specialty research in specific fields of law. To some extent, the prestige of the school will also affect you chances at working for spiffier, more exclusive law firms and the like.

This uniform approach to legal teaching was invented by some dead white guy at Harvard in the 1800’s, and the idea isn’t so much to teach the material, as to teach students how to think like a lawyer (as I’m sure many of you are aware from Legally Blond). The most interesting thing about this setup is that all our courses the first semester are already set. On the first day we got here, they handed us our class schedule and that was that. This semester, I’m taking Contracts, Civil Procedure, and Criminal Law, and the first part of my lawyering skills class. Next semester, I get to take Torts, Property, lawyering skills, and an elective.

[---]

So what are classes like? What's this about the "Socratic Method"? What the hell are "lawyering skills"? Stay tuned for Part 2!

Notes from CivPro

It's so funny... Prof. Vetter's voice can often be sleep inducing. As a result, you'll usually find almost everyone from our mod in Cafe Zeb buying coffee 5 minutes before class starts.

Shot of Boalt at the end of the day

I left school today around 7:00 pm...

Introducing "Law School: Behind The Scenes"

Be on the lookout for my new ongoing series, "Law School: Behind The Scenes". Every once in a while, I'll be writing short little blurbs providing insight into law school, at least from my perspective. Maybe you'll learn something interesting about this mysterious world. And for those of you who are interested in law school, it'll hopefully give you a better picture of what to expect when you get here.

News from Contracts

Wow a lot of people have been talking about it, but I didn’t really notice until today: Prof. Talley really does have tight pants… O_o

Coming full circle

Well, here I am back with Blogger. My very first blog was a Blogger blog, created back when I was still in high school and when Blogger wasn't owed by Google. I've since been on Xanga. Today, I decided to give the Big B another whirl.

Now that it's owned by Google, it seems that there is a lot more functionality and flexibility built into Blogger. For starters, they apparently host images for free. I'd like to try blogging throughout the day, instead of having the semi-weekly summaries of my life that my Xanga has become...

I created this (theoretically) with the intent to provide a better glimpse into law school life. I know that at least for me, law school was this big mystical place. I wanted to demystify it with interesting and hopefully humorous insight into life here at Boalt. It's also a good outlet for my random thoughts, which, as many of you know, can be harmful if not let out. Just kidding.