B < PL

we're now at the point where we're starting to get an understanding of the way certain justices think and whether or not we agree with that thinking. one of my early favorites is Learned Hand, after all, the man came up with the calculus of risk theory (also called the calculus of negligence). What is it? It doesn't matter - just know that it was a pretty novel idea in it's day and a very bright man just made it up out of thin air, and courts have been applying it ever since. how's that for being learned?

death penalty?

random 2am musings:
so we began a discussion in criminal law on the death penalty. professor cottrol asked "what are some reasons for keeping the death penalty?" we got the usual answers such as "deterrence" and "retribution", but no one gave the argument that is prevalent in Texas: "it's sanctioned by the bible." which i think is a load of crap. most people forget that the death penalty is sanctioned in the OLD testament under the abrahmic and mosaic covenants. people conveniently forget that these covenants were superseded by the NEW covenant, so unless you're jewish (and most texans aren't) that's an invalid argument...another thing that's not realized is that capital punishment was necessary in the ancient world. the tribal society was necessary for survival. you depended on your neighbor in those days, and anything that your neighbor did that threatened the stability of the tribe also was a threat to your very life. therefore capital punishment was indeed an deterrence and a necessary one and even the most trivial (by today's standards) infractions were potentially dangerous to society. we've evolved since then.

gaslights

Just some random 1am musings (an attempt to avoid writing my office memo):

the gaslight anthem fucking rocks - the best band that i've heard this year. i bet even the Tech Poet would dig on some of this stuff (the "59 Sound" album, maybe not the old stuff).

Being a 1L is getting rough, this is not a healthy lifestyle whatsoever. In bed at 3am every morning. Up by 9 on most mornings. class, class, class. cases, cases, cases. beer. cases. memos. beer (i don't want to go out, but it beats sitting in the library pulling your hair out and cursing dead justices).cheap, processed food (no time to cook)...this can't be good. this can't go on for too much longer...can it?

moosic

i finally got around to updating the music on my play list (see right). the list includes, for the first time in a while, some country tracks. check 'em out. you won't be disappointed ... and the gaslight anthem has totally taken me by surprise - they'll be in DC at the end of October (during fall break!!!). ok, now back to writing my office memo...

game time

i hear lots of talk from fellow students (mostly 1Ls and 2Ls) how they don't care about grades because they want to work in the public sector, rather than a private firm. I say that's bullshit. if you don't want to work for a private firm and make an obscene amount of money that's fine. but don't mask mediocrity beneath the cloak of altruism. don't pretend like your disdain for the private sector is a reason not to reach for the stars.

i say that what ever path an attorney chooses to take we each owe it to our clients to fulfill our human capacities no matter how much difficulty and sacrifice is required. this is even more so in the public sector where the (supposed) motivation is to affect genuine change. i don't know about you, but if i have someone pinch hitting for me i want a major leaguer, not someone from the farm club.

so with that said...game on.

sound advice

A young boy wrote a letter to Associate Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, in 1954 seeking advice for preparing for a career in law. Justice Frankfurter's response is below ... I hope that I've dispatched the duties owed to my chosen profession:

My dear Paul:


No one can be truly a competent lawyer unless he is a cultivated man. If I were you, I would forget all about any technical preparation for the law. The best way to prepare for the law is to come to the study of the law as a well-read person. Thus alone can one acquire the capacity to use the English language on paper and in speech and with the habits of clear thinking which only a truly liberal education can give. No less important for a lawyer is the cultivation of the imaginative faculties by reading poetry, seeing great paintings, … and listening to great music. Stock your mind with the deposit of much good reading, and widen and deepened your feelings by experiencing vicariously as much as possible the wonderful mysteries of the universe, and forget all about your future career.


Sincerely,


Felix Frankfurter.

a prayer for relief

sounds weird, i know, but a "prayer for relief" is the standard way to ask for a legal/equitable remedy in a complaint in most jurisdictions. just one of those archaic things from the early days of the common law that has been carried throughout the centuries, you'll find of lot of that in law school. it's a good thing that someone, somewhere decided to let some traditions die.

hmm. what's new in DC? not much just getting settled into a study groove that has been absent these first few weeks, so i'm definitely ready to sponge up some of these gritty details - and yes some of these cases can be quite graphic.

last night i had the good fortune to introduce my boss/mentor/friend/colleague from back home to 51st State, so that was pretty cool. tonight is the one bar review per month that i'll allow myself to go to, so it better be a good one (yes, i'll have my reading done for friday crim and contracts).

one cool thing about where i live is my grocery store, safeway; it's underneath the watergate hotel. see the big main building (curved)? the safeway is right under there - along with a cvs, liquor store, a chinese restaurant frequented by bob dole, and a few other shops and restaurants - all UNDER the watergate - it's insane!

balance

as i mentioned before, balance is key. we spend the better part of our week in class and when not in class we're huddled inside the library like a bunch of pasty losers asking each other things like "how does equitable estoppel apply in Ricketts v. Scothorn?"

so when the weekend comes around it's time to have some fun. friday wasn't too much fun, I was really run down from the week and I just wanted to grab a couple of brews and vent a little. Me and a friend went to 51st State and had a few - then we ran into some folks from our section, so we had a few more. Before I knew it we're engaged in discussion about the awesomeness of george strait, and the best method for picking ticks off one another...ok, it was sort of fun. The not fun part was when i got up to answer nature's call. I went and did my thing, but on my way back to the table i started to get that sick-spin-y feeling so i knew it was time to go ... i made it back to my apartment, and immediately stripped, got a blanket and laid on the floor 'til i felt better. then i made the folly of drunk-texting a girl that i don't like all that much (but again: drunk) and set up a date for saturday. when saturday rolled around i had to find a good excuse to get out of it.

saturday rolls around (i did manage to get out of it by saying that i took a nap, and wound up oversleeping ... lame, i know, but it's all i could think of - i'm not that smart) and i wound up meeting two friends, todd and brian, at 51st ... that's when i fell in love. the waitress at 51st is a first year nursing student...she's amazing. nothing happened, but we'll see ;)

we met up with 3 other friends (2 from our section -will and bobby - and one from section 15 - jesse) at 51st and were weighing our options. will knew about a party that some 2Ls were throwing, and todd was all about this jazz bar around the corner in georgetown. we figured more chance of chicks at the party so we went there. the 2Ls embraced us lowly 1Ls and we all just bs-ed, drank, and were merry. until the beer ran out...at about 2am we weren't able to get anymore beer from the keg although we could totally feel that there was beer in there. after about 20 minutes of trying 2 different taps we concluded that there was a problem with both taps - i then had the brilliant idea of disassembling the 2 taps and using the parts to build 1 tap that worked - success! we were back in business!

after a while things got to that drunken stage where people just start yelling out nonsensical things. i was talking to the host of the party and he said he was from massachusetts - todd heard this and asked him if he ever read jack kerouac (b/c kerouac was from lowell, mass.) then todd just starts yelling out kerouac is the fucking man!!! i started arguing that hemingway is the fucking man! todd starts yelling that he wants to go listen to jazz. a great, albeit drunkenly sloppy, literary conversation ensued as everyone on the patio at that moment circled around to give their 2 cents.

after things got tiresome we decided to call it a night as we all had a ton of reading to do. so we gathered our posse and we realized that we were missing one person - we found todd still on the patio in the same conversation. we told todd that we were heading out and asked him if he was coming with. he replied "i want to listen to some jazz." then he resumed his literary conversation. we left.

first post from DC

it's been a while, i know; but the past few weeks have centered around moving, finding my way around a new city, and beginning my studies - so i think the absence is justified.

where to start? DC is a amazing city! the people are extremely friendly; i think it has to do with everyone here being from somewhere else. on the first day of law school orientation we were introduced to our courses, our professors and classmates. GW picked a great group of people for the 2012 class. out of 500 or so students i've only met a handful that weren't just cool people. the professors are phenomenal, some of the best in the country - i'm feeling like i made the right choice.

that's the good part. the bad part: this life is fucking brutal - i wake up at 8am and go to bed at 3am. the time in between is filled with classes, and the reading of cases, the outlining of cases, and the drafting of memos. when i do finally go to bed i pass out from sheer exhaustion. but we do try to find a balance - every thursday is "thirsty thursday"; the law school provides free beer in the student lounge. from there it's on to "bar review" a weekly function organized by the Student Bar Association. for the first bar review the SBA picked up the tab. that was all kinds of awesome, except that i didn't do the reading for my friday class b/c i was having too much fun...good thing i didn't get called on in class! so i've decided to limit myself to one bar review a month - and it's conditional: i can only allow myself to go if i've done my reading!

i take saturday's off to run errands, etc. so it goes without saying that friday night is party night! last friday we (me and some members of my section) went to a place called Froggy Bottom. it's a decent joint with a cheap IPA and decent burgers. this past friday we went to The 51st State which, even though they don't sell any IPAs (i had to drink a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale), has a much nicer pub-like atmosphere (the frog is stashed away in a basement on Pennsylvania Ave.) From there we checked out a place called The Guards in Georgetown. it was pretty much an undergrad bar, but there's a dance floor in the basement, so it turned out to be pretty fun. saturday a friend from back home was going out with some girlfriends and i tagged along :) we went to a place called Muse Lounge in Chinatown. straight up d-bag club - definitely not going back there, but it was actually really fun dancing with her and her med school peeps [again :) ].

Oh - there's also some cool random things that happen too. i was riding my bike the other day and the presidential helicopter, Marine One, comes in no more than 100 yards over my head - i was a football field away from the president (sort of)!!! also, yesterday, i got to see the presidential security detail up close as they were pulling into the white house. those guys are no joke. they're armed to the teeth and, i'm sure, are in no mood to play games - they're shoot first types.

well, time to read torts and civil procedure now - more on DC adventures later.