WHY SHOULD YOU RESEARCH?

Because if you don't you could let the Juice loose.

DEPOSITION -- TEXAS STYLE

The guy on the right, whose left hand comes into the picture, is Joe Jamail. He is the guy that represented Pennzoil in a case against Texaco and made about $335 million when they won.

MIDTERMS

Midterms were last week. In law school there is (usually) only one test, and your performance on that test results in your grade for that class for the whole semester. Now, at some point in the history of legal pedagogy someone (no doubt there were several someones) objected to this. So law schools said, "O.K., we will give you a midterm -- but it doesn't count." Several of my classmates were a little stressed about this, maybe it was the general test taking anxiety or the fear of finding out what they don't know. I was probably more relaxed than I will be when it comes to the real thing, and I can't decide if that was good or bad. As far as spotting legal issues I did well, but I took a little long to write about them. My hope is the nervousness that the real thing brings on will work to speed me up. That and a little practice.

MAKER FAIRE

I was able to get out of town this weekend and go to the Maker Faire in Austin. Lots to see. I took about 300 pictures, had a fish taco, and drank a few cans of the king's lager. Also got to see some friends from UTSA. My (untouched) pictures are here.

SAID OF KIPLING

only the mediocre can sustain a constant level.

FIRST GRADE IS IN

I now have points on the board. 25% percent of my grade for legal research and writing has been decided, and being in the 80th percentile is a good place to be. Unofficially that would be about an A-, which in law school terms is good stuff.

GREAT JUDGE NAME

Billings Learned Hand, who is usually called Learned Hand. He authored a few of the opinions I have read so far, and has the reputation as one of the most influential American judges -- even though he never served on the Supreme Court.

DON'T TASE ME, BRO

FEELINGS ABOUT LAW SCHOOL SO FAR

So far things are going quite well, and I am digging the experience. Socratic method, blue books, green books, casebooks, horn books, pizza, beer, unfair competition, mind games, and more beer. Life is good. I am finding myself a little more open-minded, not that I was close-minded before, and not that I'm going to change the way I vote or feel about policy kinda' thing. What I mean is that I want to hear the other side of the argument, now more than before -- playing devil's advocate can be fun (especially when it drives others crazy -- see mind games). In a practical, if you ever want to argue for a living, sense it is never a bad thing to consider your opponents arguments and feelings. Especially before you start the argument.

FIRST GRADE

Today my subsection, and I , took our first quiz. This represents a quarter of the grade in our legal research and writing class. I feel that I did well on the quiz. Seems as if my subsection-mates did not feel like they did so well on it. Needless to say this made me feel pretty good -- not for their concern for failure, but if there is only one 'A' and they don't get it I will not feel too bad.

BUSY WEEK (or so)

I did my first memo for my legal research and writing class, covered up graffiti, hosted family, did a practice exam essay, and read ahead and prepped for classes up until next Monday. The legal memo was kinda' fun -- we took a fact pattern and a case and used the decision in the case to support a decision we made about the fact pattern. Our fact pattern involved a tortious interference case in which our client paid to have her broodmare bred with a champion stallion, but was accidentally bred by a donkey instead. This breached the contract and our client wants to sue for it, but the nature of gestation introduces a problem. The issue now has to do with the statute of limitations; if the incident with the donkey was the time the clock started we'd be too late, but if the clock started when it was discovered (when the mule was born) we'd be alright. Appropriately enough the case had to do with the discovery rule. In order to be able to use the discovery rule in this situation the tort has to be either: 1) fraudulently concealed; or 2) inherently indiscoverable. Given these facts what would you argue?