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Law Students

The Once and Future Lawyer

Observations from a 3L law student on the East Coast.

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Last Entry: July 01, 2010 at 16:35:00

What's an 8 letter word for what happens when a jury plays sudoko during a trial

Posted on June 11, 2008
This little noticed headline caught my attention earlier today. Apparently, one of the attorneys during a trial noticed a few of the jury members writing vertically instead of horizontally. Notwithstanding how that can be noticed, it turns out that five of the jury had decided that finishing their Sudoku puzzles (and some crossword puzzles) was more important than paying attention to the trial...

A way to change oil prices without reaching into the pockets of big oil and business

Posted on June 10, 2008
I will refrain from publishing my thoughts on the economic policies of Senators McCain and Obama for a little while longer since the jury is still out on which plan is actually productive and which is full of air. In the meantime, permit me to offer an idea into the internet discourse on how the Republicans and Democrats over on Capitol Hill can do something to help out the middle class in this growing gas crisis...

New Indiana Jones Movie - mildly entertaining, but not worth the $10

Posted on June 08, 2008
I finally got around to seeing the new Indiana Jones movie this weekend. I had heard from initial reviews that it was okay, and even from a couple of my friends that it was entertaining, and I figured, "hey, it's Indiana Jones, of course I'm going to go see it in the theater...

Justice O'Connor lends her name to an online civics program for middle schoolers

Posted on June 05, 2008
Personally, I think this is a great idea. Justice O'Connor is colloborating with James Paul Gee, a professor at Georgetown on Our Courts, "an upcoming online learning program for middle school students." See G4C: Justice O'Connor Talks Our Courts Learning Game; Retired Justice Developing Online Civics Lessons; ASU Law school press release...

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Fantasy football owners can breath a sigh of relief, for now

Posted on June 02, 2008
As I mentioned last week, there appeared to be some truth to this fantasy sports case being challenged in the federal courts and teed up for the United States Supreme Court to take. The Supreme Court, however, thought otherwise and denied cert in the case...

Texas Supreme Court agrees that the police needed more to enter the polygamist compound

Posted on May 29, 2008
I still have not followed this case any more than I did when the story first broke any more than reading the headlines. I saw that the Texas Supreme Court has upheld the Court of Appeals decision, which had held that the removal of the children from the compound was unwarranted...

If the Clinton campaign was a public corporation, there would be multiple shareholder derivative suits

Posted on May 26, 2008
I have to confess that I was offended by Clinton's most recent remarks, which admittedly, have been blown out of context. I have no reason to be offended by them, but they were just stupid. I accept that it may have been a misstatement, and I also accept that similar statements were (largely) ignored by the press when put in a press article earlier in March...

American Airlines attempts to show that it's not going bankrupt by gouging passengers who wear excessive amounts of clothing, such as shirts

Posted on May 22, 2008
In the world of the ridiculous, American Airlines has decided that charging an extra $25 for a second checked bag is not enough to save them from inevitable bankruptcy and government takeover. In a rather pathetic attempt to "save money," the company has decided that if you check ANY bag, you're going to tip them $25 for the pleasure of doing so...

Paper money discriminates against blind

Posted on May 20, 2008
Well, I'm not going to comment on this too much other than to speculate that this sort of suit (a 2-1 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision) will certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court at some point. See Paper Money Discriminates Against Blind; Court Rules U...

Myspace suicides and same-sex marriages - and you thought the subway series was something to chatter about

Posted on May 15, 2008
Not that I have been following this case beyond the headlines, but I saw that the mother in this MySpace case where the mother posed as a 16-year old boy to pretend to be in love with a girl, which led eventually to the girl comitting suicide. See Mom indicted in deadly MySpace hoax...

Any former basketball player realizes the point when the game is over, so why can't Clinton do the same?

Posted on May 06, 2008
As promised, I have not bothered to spend much time thinking about this election since my numbers suggested that the delegate game and debate over who has a better shot of beating McCain has long been over. (I also note that at least one website has come up with similar projection numbers without any credit to anyone...

Clerk bluebooking

Posted on May 06, 2008
What is interesting, at least to me (and only to a certain degree) is how different some of my co-clerks' styles are when it comes to the bluebook. Obviously it controls, but there are certainly liberties taken sometimes with how short cites, reference cites, books, typeface, parentheticals, etc...

The Volokh Conspiracy almost has the correct plot script for Supreme Courtships

Posted on May 03, 2008
I saw on Above the Law a thread on Supreme Courtships, the show apparently about the lives and melodrama of this particular subset of clerks. I have written about this show twice before, including the pilot plot. See Fox Greenlights Supreme Courtships and Firms Bump to $35k and The Supreme Courtships Pilot Spoilers...

Last night's Lost episode - best one this season

Posted on May 02, 2008
I haven't said much about Lost this season, not because I haven't been watching it, but because it just hasn't been that good. Last week's episode, The Shape of Things to Come, was decent, but overall bad (I thought). Last night's episode, however, Something Nice Back Home, started bridging a lot of these gaps that have been created in this season...

Spitzer call girl sues 'Girls Gone Wild' and thinks she has a better chance than the Borat Frat Boys

Posted on April 29, 2008
Here's a quick morning headline sure to get a laugh: Spitzer call girl sues 'Girls Gone Wild.'. A few weeks ago, when 'Hookergate' was all the news in NY, there was some talk of having this call girl pose nude for 'Girls Gone Wild.' But, upon doing a little internal due dilligence, it turned out she had already posed...

A look at the law and salaries from October 1996

Posted on April 27, 2008
I was doing some spring cleaning today and came across an article from the Oct. 28, 1996 edition of US News & World Reports (pp. 89-99). The article was the "20 Hot Job Tracks" and basically outlined what jobs were hot and up and coming. While I can't imagine the actual reasons I saved this article (other than it probably had something to do with my pending college plans and having no real idea of what I wanted to do), the article has a certain nostalgic quality to it now, and warrants brief discussion...

High school skipping to meet a presidential candidate costs him his presidency

Posted on April 23, 2008
A rather simple observation on a rather silly story that was on the news today. Apparently a couple of high school seniors caught wind that Senator Obama was taking a pit stop near the high school and two of these guys decided to cut class to run out and meet him...

American Idol jumps his contract

Posted on April 22, 2008
I saw this the other day online and thought to myself, "now, I can't imagine his American Idol contract allows him to do that." And sure enough, it does not. See American Idol's David Cook's digital MP3 album yanked from Amazon. The gist of what happened was that this kid David Cook (who is probably going to finish in the top 2 or 3 of this year's poorly rated contest) decided that he didn't want to go through the proper channels and make a quick buck by releasing some tunes through another vendor seemingly unaffiliated with American Idol...

Texas polygamy and the family lawyers/judges that are fixing their coffee right now

Posted on April 17, 2008
I make this note only in passing because I have a couple of friends who are involved in the family court system either as lawyers or clerks. Supposedly, or at least according to the attorneys I have spoken to, at some point in one's legal career, one crosses paths with the wonderful world of family law...

The Sky is Falling and NASA gets into a pissing match with a 13 year old

Posted on April 16, 2008
I just saw this story this morning and since I vaguely remember reading something about this a few years and again a few months ago, thought I would click on it. Supposedly, an asteroid is projected to come within a few thousand miles (which is close, relatively speaking) of Earth in about 20 or 30 years...

Headlines are good at being poorly misleading

Posted on April 14, 2008
I have many more fun things to discuss, based in part on the nice weather and my past and pending travel plans, but for now I'll simply chime in on yet another example of bad reporting, or at least "bad headlining." I only clicked on it because it seemed to be legally related and did not make any sense, and when I read through the article, saw that it made perfect sense and the headline was merely sensational gobbledegook...

AA starts to fly south, will dissenting shareholders skybus back?

Posted on April 09, 2008
I have no idea whether AA is publicly or privately owned, but with all of Wall Street shaking on Bear Stearns, subprime mortgages and other messes, I can only imagine the types of litigation brewing in the airline industry (and particularly AA given that flights are being cancelled left and right)...

Fancast - probably the best current source for online television - and it's legal

Posted on April 07, 2008
I came across this site today and must provide a slightly unusual free bit of advertising for the service. The site is Fancast, and while it apparently is some subsidiary of Comcast, it has worked out licensing agreements with a bunch of shows, essentially allowing one to watch entire seasons of current and old shows as if you are watching them from the actual network website...

Conclusions of Match.com part deux: Still not worth the money

Posted on April 07, 2008
My second attempt at Match.com, this time as an entry-level employee as compared to as a student had much less success. My conclusions as to why are strewn throughout this entry, but essentially echo those found in these other sites: Match.com sucks for the professional type, if there is such a thing...

Attorneys generally are quite ready to pump themselves up

Posted on April 06, 2008
I do have more relevant and timely topics to talk about, I just have to get the time to talk about them. I have noticed, however, that many attorneys, upon finding out that you are (a) either a law clerk, (b) have worked as a clerk, (c) have an interest in law, or (d) have ears, are more than willing to monopolize a conversation about themselves and their accomplishments...

Some april fools day humor

Posted on April 01, 2008
I am tempted to weigh in on a couple of more timely stories, but at least one of them may wind up in front of me at some point in the next month or so, so I'll simply state that the clerkship work I have been getting lately has been quite satisfactory and interesting, on a multitude of levels...

Lighting system during oral arguments: Red means stop, just like when you're driving

Posted on March 27, 2008
I am constantly surprised by the number of lawyers who don't understand the lighting system the court uses during oral arguments. Green means go, yellow means you are in your reserve time and red means stop. I have no reason to believe this isn't the same everywhere...

Finally, the Sirius-XM merger is approved

Posted on March 24, 2008
There are plenty more interesting things to write about, such as the ongoing battle against anonymity in the AutoAdmit AK47 case, a similarly related issue with the JuicyCampus.com gossip site, and a tenuously related issue from the 7th Circuit (Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc...

Supreme Court to hear gun ban case today

Posted on March 18, 2008
I admit that I haven't followed this case too closely other to hear the generalities that it involves the Second Amendment. Nevertheless, the D.C. Gun Ban case is to be argued today and will undoubtedly spark controversy for everybody no matter what the court decides...

Westlaw's green "c" misleading

Posted on March 18, 2008
This is just a quick gripe about Westlaw. Sometime in the past few months (or at least I've started to notice it, maybe it's been around for a while), Westlaw has begun using its green "C" for "C"ite (meaning something has cited to that case or statute) whenever a party has a brief that cites to the case...

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