Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A funny little post on 1L's first semester grades

As I mentioned before, 'tis the season of 1L first semester grades (and the subsequent rechecking or puffing of egos).  Check out this post from Above the Law on what some top law schools are doing to help their students feel better about their grades.  Be sure to read all four pages to get the pics and read about some top professors' early mishaps.  

See http://abovethelaw.com/2012/01/the-early-bird-gets-the-in-class-candy/

Two bits of news

It's been a quiet week or so . . . I spent a lot of time with my students preparing them for submitting their rough drafts for their trial briefs and preparing the client counseling teams for competition.  I received the trial brief drafts yesterday, and I have begun reviewing them.  Two down, thirty-six to go!  Anyway, I have two bits of exciting news.

(1) Scalia and Garner are coming out with an additional volume to their Making Your Case from what the Thompson/West Rep said yesterday.  I'm beyond excited, and I put in a request for a copy of it.  The book was due out last month, so it should be coming along soon.

(2) One pair of my really talented students announced that they had changed their minds and are going to try to win the Moot Court competition in a couple of months.  They had previously thought they were going to let it slide and focus more on their doctrinal classes, but they have decided otherwise.  I'm very excited to hear this because I think they will really enjoy themselves.


In addition, let me throw out that if anyone has any public service jobs available on the East Coast or on the West Coast or any international law research opportunities, please let me know --- I have students interested in those positions.  

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Three Cheers for Lexis Advance

I received access to Lexis Advance last week, and I have to say that I'm REALLY impressed with it.  Yes, there are a few bugs and things that it doesn't do yet (as our OU head librarian figured out), but it is really easy to use and very helpful.  I especially love the Shepard's timeline for cases, which helps tremendously for complicated cases (READ:  TENNCARE CASES).  Lexis Advance also has the folder, highlight, and note functions I (and probably many others) have been requesting for a long time.

I have yet to try Westlaw Next, but I've heard that it is also pretty good.  As a bit of a grumble, I've been locked out of my TWEN website all morning because of server issues on Westlaw's end.  I was ready to post several documents for my class, but I'll have to wait and do it later.  

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Preparing the meal

Last night, I talked with my sister-in-law about different issues facing us, such as job concerns, parent concerns, spousal concerns, etc.  While talking about what she faced as a psychologist, she described that all she can do is give the person the tools to change his or her thinking.  She can't make that person actually change, and she can't force the person to want to change.  Rather, she helps them identify their weaknesses or issues, and she provides them with alternative solutions to how they currently address those weaknesses or issues.  She also evaluates each solution with the patient to help that person make a more-informed decision when next faced with the same issue.  For instance, when confronted with flashbacks to battle while dealing with a newborn, a positive alternative solution might be a man talking with his wife about what he is experiencing instead of charging out of the house and disappearing for hours.  She essentially creates a table of options for particularly troublesome issues, and she lets the patient choose the solution.

I've encountered this idea of preparing a mental meal several times in the past month.  For me, one of the most frustrating parts of teaching is disinterest, which, to me, really means that the student is underperforming.  I can see the potential, and I so badly want the student to be interested and maximize his or her potential, but there just isn't the interest.  I've recently learned that many of my students aren't reading the textbook pages I assign.  While my initial reaction was a mixture of frustration and disbelief (again, the dismay of underperforming), I needed to remind myself that my job was to present the meal.  I could not make the student eat.  Yes, the writing assignments were likely harder without reading the book, but that was the student's choice to make.  No matter how much that rubbed me the wrong way or how much it went against what I personally would do, it was not up to me.  Rather, I was there only to present options for mental eating and digesting.  Some gorged, some satiated themselves, and others merely sampled.  I'm realizing the variance is okay and the freedom that comes from that realization will let me become an even better professor.   

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Yo ho ho, a woman's on board! (well, almost)

It seems that the esteemed Belle Meade Country Club has bent to the forces of change, and it is now considering one woman for membership.  See http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120110/NEWS/301110071/Belle-Meade-Country-Club-considers-woman-full-membership.

Now, it just needs it voting-rights African-American, and it can sail off into the sunset.  (catch my sarcasm).

I suppose it's a start, but it seems like the Club should have at least named several women (and several minorities).  Mrs. Adelaide Davis Stevens is totally a token woman, and this step really only serves to cast doubt on the Club's stated intention to diversify.    

Review of Scalia and Garner's Making Your Case

I just finished reading Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner's book Making Your Case, and I have to say I thought it was pretty good.  I am a big fan of Garner, who I think has a lot of good, practical ideas about legal writing and how to make it fit today's society and over-worked lawyers.  I am not a fan of Scalia in the least.  As I've mentioned before, I find him to be pompous and rude.  Yes, there's a bit of that in this book, but it is easy enough to overlook.  I will admit to agreeing with Scalia that contractions should not be used in formal legal writing.  I find contractions to be a little like jeans -- they're good for off-the-clock time, but we need to wear suits to work.  Overall, though, I think the book is very easy to understand, and I think it gets across many points without belaboring them.  I wish it came in a physical form that was easier to hold open so that I could copy some of the tips for my students with greater ease, but on the grand scale, that's a pretty minor critique.

As for using it with the Newmann textbook we have assigned our students, I think it will fit well as a supplement.  I've already added a quote from the book to my power point presentation on persuasion (there's a p-filled alliteration for you!).  I think the book will be especially helpful for those of my students who really want to do well at oral arguments later this semester.  I'm thinking that I may ask if anyone wants extra resources to read, and if anyone says yes, then I'll copy the oral argument section.  It is chock full of really solid advice that would help a 1L, who is preparing for something he or she has never done before.  I think I will also pull out some of the ideas for my lecture on oral argument.  One idea in particular that I liked was taking only a single manila folder up to the podium -- we've all seen people whose many papers go flying about as they nervously get up to the stand.  In the moot courts I did, I took a single sheet of paper, but I like the idea of the heft of the manila folder and that no one else can see what you've got written there.

Overall, I recommend Scalia and Garner's book, and I think it would be a useful tool for practitioners (especially young ones), and I know it will be helpful to law students.  

Friday, January 13, 2012

Some more pictures of the author

Every so often, it's good to look at dog pictures . . .  here are some of ella (the author), henry (the intern), and milo (the editor).


This photo is like a combination of The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather, and Rin Tin Tin.

This is Ella's toothy smile as she takes a Christmas morning biscuit.

Henry the intern -- always intruding on personal space and always on the move.


Henry the intern wondering why we can't go for a run right now.


Ella taking a nap on the couch.  She has a standard nap time of 3:30 - 5:00 pm.


Milo the editor -- apparently he just read something that made him feign dying.  We'll have to work on that.


Ella is checking up on Milo to make sure he didn't actually die from bad writing or bad ideas.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Well, I survived

Two days ago, I picked up my fall semester evaluations.  I have now officially survived my first semester of teaching.  I learned a lot about teaching, about life, about academics, about locale differences, and about the law.  Let's go for round two.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

3 Interesting Things

I know, I know, "things" is such a vague word.  I could have used the term "documents," but that is pretty stodgy.  With my time off for the winter break between semesters, I've been working on my manuscript and reading all sorts of books and blogs and such.  And let me be perfectly clear that when I say "all sorts," I mean all sorts -- they ranged from five editions of The New Yorker to a scholarly book on the black plague to people.com to legal writing books to cookie recipes.  Because this blog is primarily focused on legal issues, I wanted to share two law review articles and a recent District Court case.

First, in one of the many conversations I had with several professors about my mid-semester evaluations, I was told to read Martha Chamallas's The Shadow of Professor Kingsfield: Contemporary Dilemmas Facing Women Law Professors (11 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 195 (Winter 2005)).  In the article, Chamallas talks about the expectation many law students have of what their law professor will look like and be like and the implications when the professor turns out differently.  For the sake of providing a uniform image, she chose Professor Kingsfield from The Paper Chase as her model law professor.  She writes, "Kingsfield is the prototype of the law professor because he actually defines 'competence' in the law."  (198).  He is a "sixty-something, white, meticulously dressed, [] demanding" man, who exudes confidence and "wrote the book" on contracts.  (198).  Chamallas talks about the troubling dichotomy students must then reconcile when their professor is a person color, is young, or is female.  All too often (and likely without intention), that "other" professor is discounted despite professional accomplishments because of not having the appropriate professorial appearance.  Chamallas provides some ways the law school community can combat this issue.  Overall, I think it is definitely an article worth reading and considering.

Second, one of the legal writing blogs I read this past break discussed Jessica Slavin's Imagining the Law-Trained Reader: The Faculty Description of the Audience in Legal Writing Textbooks (16 Widener L. J. 983 (2006-2007)).  Slavin focuses on how many of the high-value legal writing texts continually explain to students how busy, impatient, and perfect real world attorneys are and how that idea over-generalizes.  I feel like Slavin is stating the obvious -- of course, it's a generalization!  We all know someone who doesn't fit the mold.  However, I know that many attorneys also do fit that mold, and I know that many of my friends work for those attorneys.  I think that perhaps LRW professors can make an effort to help explain the wide spectrum of personalities of attorneys, but it seems rather obvious.  Different people have different personalities; why do I need to teach that?  In addition, I definitely believe in the "prepare for the worst and hope for the best" mentality.  Personally, the judges I worked for were amazing and very fatherly.  They were and remain my friends.  The practicing attorneys I met and worked for were less so, but because I had been trained to prepare for the worst, I was ready for them and could handle them.  Overall, I was not impressed, and it seemed like Slavin's article was a weak grasp at an article for publication.

With that harsh critique said, I think that, when taken together, Chamallas's and Slavin's articles point to the need for an honest discussion and acknowledgement of the rainbow (and I'm not just talking about race) of people who are now attorneys and law professors.  It's no longer just the Kingsfields, rather, it is possible to be a corporate attorney in Manhattan at a large, international firm and be a tiny, soft-spoken woman (I know someone who is doing it!); it is possible to be an African-American man running his own entertainment law firm (another friend); it is possible to be an Asian-American man working for the government (a third friend); it is possible to be a caucasian, six-foot tall, strawberry-blonde, yoga-loving young woman as a legal writing professor (it's me!) . . .  the possibilities are becoming endless now.  Yes, we should acknowledge the differences and celebrate them; as I see it, we, as a educators and attorneys, have a duty to let our students know that someone's value as a lawyer is based on accomplishments not on appearances.    However, as I said above, I feel that it is also our duty as educators and attorneys to prepare students for the Kingsfields of the legal world.  They are a part of the spectrum too, and although their portion of the legal rainbow may be getting smaller, they are still there for reckoning, and I believe if our students are trained to handle them, they'll be okay.

Third, (I  know, I'm long-winded today), I wanted to highlight the civil procedure case DFSB Kollective, et al. v. Kenny Tran, Case No. 11-CV-01049 of the Northen Dist. of California.  One of the issues in this case dealt with whether the use of social networking sites and other inter-active internet sites gave California personal jurisdiction over the case.  The court ruled that those internet activities certainly did give jurisdiction, and the court continued to grant a default judgment against the defendant for over $645,000.  To give a little more background, the plaintiffs were Korean corporations with their principle places of business in Korea.  The defendant lived in Australia, and he operated his websites from Australia.  Because the defendant was using California companies (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to complete his business, the court held (through a series of elements) that California had sufficient personal jurisdiction over the defendant.  This ruling cracked the rules of jurisdiction open even farther. We will see if the defendant will appeal to the 9th Circuit.  This is one to watch.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Juveniles in for Life Without Parole

I just read Rachel Aviv's piece No Remorse in the January 2, 2012, edition of The New Yorker.  It follows the story of Dakotah Eliason, a fourteen-year-old who contemplated suicide or homicide and decided to go with homicide.  He shot his sleeping grandfather in the head (and the grandfather eventually died from the wounds), and promptly began speaking to the police and investigators.  He was tried as an adult and found guilty of first-degree homicide, which carried a mandatory sentence of life without parole.  Dakotah was transferred to an adult prison, and he began his life as a convicted felon.  Aviv does a wonderful job of tying in the relevant legal cases and explaining the history and development of the American juvenile judicial system.  She also points out that life imprisonment for juveniles is forbidden in every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, the two countries that refused to sign the  United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  This is definitely an important article to read.