MOOT COURT (2)

Wednesday night was moot court. We were up against two different teams, and two different judges. In each round we argued a different side of our case (first for the respondent and second for the petitioner). The first round seemed a little more difficult, and the second round ended with me feeling very strong about our chances. On Thursday night after class we went to the "Break Party." At 11:30 or so the breaking teams were announced. Of 154 teams 32 brake. The breaking teams were read by rank from 32 to 1. We were nervous when we hadn't been called by the time the 5th seed was called. Apparently we are our own worst critics. We broke 2nd. I joke that my comments about opposing counsel's need to Shepardize were the reason for not taking 1st. It was an occasion for yelling and jumping around. First round of competition starts on Monday evening. We don't plan on taking any prisoners.

MOOT COURT

Tonight was 1L Mock Trial. We rocked. I think we are going to break.

Breaking means we go on to compete against other classmates who also broke. It was a little difficult, and nerve wracking. It was fun.

I also learned that it is not appropriate to try and make the opposing counsel look bad... no matter how tempting it may be.

IMAGINE THIS...

You go to the mechanic to get new tires, but you end up getting new o-rings instead. Simple mistake, right? Now imagine something similar happened at the hospital. Women Goes for Leg Operation, Gets New Anus Instead. Sounds like negligence to me.

LISTENING TO...

I picked up this album the other day. It was one of those impulse things that you do just to get one song (Wilder Than Her), but end up liking the whole thing.



"Drive-In Movie" (Fred Eaglesmith)

FREE TUITION AT HARVARD

"Harvard Law School is announcing that it will pay the third year of tuition for all future students who commit to work in public service for five years following graduation." (Link to HLS News)

Sounds nice, but I don't think I would commit to five years of public service. Tuition for one year at HLS is upwards of $41,000. I think the pay difference in a public service position and a position litigating for the private sector is going to be quite a bit more than $41,000 over five years. Of course, I know that isn't the point. There may be some unintended consequences, but I think the more people in public service the better.

PSA

I'M ALL BRIEFED OUT

I turned in my appellate brief on Friday, just a little before 5 pm. Glad to be done with it. Not as pleased with it as I could have been. It comes down to, if there were more pages allowed, a little more time, etc. I think that I made good arguments, and did a detailed analysis -- which is the main point of the exercise. However, because I wasn't satisfied with it I started moving things around in the last few days. Even rewrote the most of one part. I just hope someone did much worse.

Spring break is here and it couldn't have arrived soon enough.

DELUDED LAWYERS AND CAPITAL LETTERS

“Lawyers who think their caps lock keys are instant ‘make conspicuous’ buttons are deluded.”

In re Bassett, 285 F.3d 882, 886 (9th Cir. 2002).

ANOTHER REASON I LOVE MATH

A 140-year-old math problem was recently solved. There are still cool things to be solved. P vs NP is still my favorite.

ZOMBIES

I mean no harm by this, my friends.

WHEN I GET A LITTLE COIN TOGETHER

I'm going to go out and buy each one of these... in vinyl.

APPELLATE BRIEFS

We're about to start week nine of semester two. There are 16 weeks altogether, so if your playing along at home that equals seven left to go. The first thing to finish up is legal research and writing. What is due is an appellate brief. I have been working on mine since late January. It will be such a great feeling to have it completed, reviewed, revised, and turned in for a final grade (on or before March 14 at 5:00 PM).

After coming this far I have decided that the most difficult part of the whole brief process is source selection. Had I known what I now know it would be much easier -- but then again that's why we play the game.

Law review articles are very helpful when it comes to finding good sources. In fact, don't even look for cases on point until you've read a law review article that is on point. Next, Shepardize the cases that seemed to help your case, because the last thing you want to do is use something that is no longer good law. First thing is first, and in this case it is more important to find things that support your side. (You get to go back and get the things that you can use to trash the other side later.) It may also be helpful to sort your cases in the order of occurrence, a decent article should have already done that, to determine the direction of the court. This could be helpful for your argument.

Once you have a few well recognize cases, and an idea of the direction you will take, start writing. Break it up into parts. First by parts of the brief, then by issue, and even further to arguments by issue. The "smaller" (or more single topic focused) you write the less abstract, and difficult, this is. Support your arguments with headnotes from your cases. Apply the law from those cases, or distinguish your case. That is all you are supposed to be learning. How to use the law by applying what has been decided to what has happened in your case.

After you have written it all, read it from the opposite point of view and tighten up your arguments. Rinse and repeat.

That's it for now -- back to my brief.