So, if you don't already know, let me give a nota bene: do not, I repeat, do not stare upward at the sky during snowfall. Staring into the heavens while snow is falling is a one-way ticket to being hypnotized, entranced or otherwise rendered useless. This is particularly troublesome while driving on a long, dimly lit road.

This is a bit how law school feels right now. There is so much to do, assignments constantly being added, bits of information to remember, on a level hard to sufficiently explain as really, truly extraordinary. So, regardless to your work or prior school experience, just trust my subjective picture here. It's a lot and we 1Ls get so wrapped up in the consistency of it all we get hypnotized, and it's hard even to care if there's an end in sight.

In other news, evaluations came out (for most of us) this past Friday. Northeastern uses evaluations, not traditional grades. Don't sweat it, though, because the grading system is somewhat analogous. Somewhat. Instead of letter grades we get "Outstanding," "Excellent," "Very Good," "Good," "Marginal Pass," or "Fail." The professor makes the decision on how they feel we did on their particular final exam and grades accordingly, then gives a brief (and generally, it's very brief) explanation of that evaluative grade and maybe our performance in the class.

I did decently. I'm happy and I knew the material. That, I feel, is supremely important.

Posted by Ira at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After coming back from a fantastic trip skiing this past weekend and a federal holiday with which to read for the coming week, I slogged into the LSSC work for my group's Thursday deadline. Besides completing my portion of the research on South Africa, I volunteered to help the team charged with checking and editing citations.

This may seem rather esoteric and eye-gougingly banal, but the devil is in the details and legal research and writing is all about the details. Citations and their proper usage are a big deal in legal writing, as they inform future readers of your work on what research you're basing your information. So, we spent hours and hours of pain apiece correcting mistakes in citation. Some persons seem to have made the mistakes carelessly, without really using the source for appropriate citation usage (The Bluebook), others succumbed to a common problem with my group's research--we're dealing with foreign material from the UK, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Australia, France, and South Africa. Seriously foreign material, not just foreign to us as 1Ls.

In our Research and Writing section of LSSC we're currently drafting a Motion to Dismiss a case and a memo in support of that motion. Know that these documents are directed at a fake judge presiding over a fake case involving our fake client--but it seems like great experience researching areas of law with which we're overwhelmingly unfamiliar (e.g., workplace discrimination in violation of the ADA), and great experience persuasively writing motions and memos.

A concern with these LSSC assignments, in conjunction with our continued reading for Criminal Law, Contracts and Constitutional Law, is that as we do more and more research the work and pressure will continue to ramp up. Unlike the fear I've heard from other law offices over fiery in-group squabbling as people get stressed out about this increased and demanding amount of work, my concern is focused on the sheer logistics of these group projects. Is it really a good idea to ask thirteen people to compile a project and give them all an opportunity to participate in writing and researching and editing, and overwhelmingly ask them to have it ready in such a short amount of time?

I'd like to believe it truly is, but I don't know. I'll keep you informed as we near mid-March. Projects are presented to the client and law-school community starting the week of March 24.

Posted by Ira at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Criminal Law we've just finished discussing the need for prohibited or unlawful conduct (basically, a "crime") to be specifically written down and accessible in a statute in some form or another. The basic (read--very basic) premise is that one needs the opportunity to know ahead of time that a certain type of act should not be done. Why? Because the will of people--that is, the legislature--decided that it should not be done.

We read a California case from 1970, Keeler v. Keeler(go ahead, click on it), where a husband brutally beat his (soon to be ex) wife for cheating on him. Due to the beating and its severity the baby, with which she was eight months pregnant from the other man, died. Note that the wife lived. The prosecutor brought a murder charge for the killing of the baby and he was convicted. Ultimately, however, the Supreme Court of California overturned the conviction because there was a question whether or not an unborn fetus counted as a human being. Basically, under the homicide law passed by the legislature of California in 1850, the unborn fetus was not considered to count as a human being. So, can the husband be convicted of taking the life of someone or something that never lived?

The court decided that it was the role of the legislature (as the democratically elected majority) to define an unborn fetus as living or not living and not the role of unelected judges.

Now, I in no way intend to start a debate on whether or not the Court's legal opinion in this case is correct OR when life truly begins. I described this jarring case because--for me personally--it has been very relevant. My hometown, Jacksonville, North Carolina, has been a hot-spot of media attention for the past week and a half after a pregnant female marine went missing and they later found what they believe to be the remains of her and her fetus buried in the alleged murderer's back yard. Sparing you any more details (for you can always read the news article at the link if you don't already know), the burial site is but a mile from my mother's house. If that wasn't relevant enough, there is a lot of talk around town (and I imagine in the District Attorney's Office) of whether they will ultimately indict for the murder of the unborn baby. I don't recall from my two years working in a Public Defender's office in North Carolina whether there is a law in the state making the murder of a pregnant woman (and her fetus) a double homicide.

There are a lot of presuppositions in that last paragraph (e.g., that we or the authorities know who the murderer is; that it actually was a murder; that they'll ever catch their suspect), but such is the nature of the criminal justice system, the nature of our media, and the nature of our humanity.

In lighter and more refreshing news, I'm going skiing tomorrow. This is somewhat of a delight for an out of towner who generally grew up near the coast--to be able to drive an hour and go skiing. Well, skiing that doesn't involve water. It's great, especially with all the fresh snow.

I hope everyone has a pleasant holiday weekend!

Posted by Ira at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm going to review this past week in reverse. No real reason--just enjoy the ride.

We had Monday off due to a somewhat expected Snow Day. Sadly, like many 1Ls, I spent most of it working on my group's LSSC project. Truly sad, because I was hoping to go sledding down some of the larger hills near where I live. This could have posed a problem because 1) I don't own a sled, and 2) I planned to go sledding with my dog (a 140lb. Great Dane). Irregardless, that didn't happen.

As I mentioned in my last blog, the previous subcommittee in which I formed a part researched the governmental response across the United States to homelessness. Since Friday, we split up into different research subcommittees based on foreign countries to be analyzed. I am now one of three researching the state of homelessness in South Africa. We're working vigorously, planning our week out down to the hour. We must compile our information with the other four subcommittees' information on their own individual countries and have it prepared for review by next Thursday.

Note that this is only a preliminary step and an introductory look at the countries we chose to research. We have much more work to do before our presentation to our client-organization at the end of March-early April.

Last Wednesday the International Law Society (ILS) hosted an Immigration Law Conference with five panelists. The event was planned by ILS and co-sponsored by the Queer Caucus (QC), the Business Law Interest Group (BIG), the Asian and Pacific Islanders Law Students Association (APALSA), the Latin-American Law Students Association (LALSA), and the NUSL Co-Op Office. It seems to have been a big hit and had a fairly good showing. Our panelists came and spoke on the status of immigration laws and policies in America and the paths to reform. We had three lawyers, a social worker, and a policy analyst all working in different areas of immigration law.

Later this week (seriously, I intend to write a second blog this week), I want to discuss some of the more enlightening cases we're studying in our classes.

Posted by Ira at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Normally I post two blogs a week (because I know the demand is so high), but you'll notice I deviated from this last week. That's what law school is all about, I'm afraid--deviation from best laid plans due to reprioritization. Despite the hundreds of angry and discontented emails I received eagerly asking why I had not posted and what was going on in 1L life, I chose to apply my efforts to finishing my law office's LSSC research plan.

In four groups we all did research on different facets of the state of homelessness in the US (including the role of the judicial system in the lives of homeless persons) and pulled together an updated summary of our research and what we think our next steps should be. Remember that our project goal is to research how homelessness is addressed (or not) in foreign countries.

Besides being part of one of the four teams (we researched the weighty subject of the governmental response to homelessness), I helped edit the document for clarity, punctuation, etc.

In approx. three days our law office pulled together thirty-one pages of research on homelessness in America. And that is only really a brief introduction.

On Monday 1Ls also started our traditional "law" classes and the Research and Writing component of LSSC. So far, in a simplistic nutshell, I've learned that Contract Law is about promises made and how they can be enforced, Constitutional Law is about the powers of the government (specifically the Supreme Court of the US) and the actual Constitution to tell states where legal (and maybe political and social) boundaries are, and Criminal Law is about punishment. All about punishment for violating the generally decided "social norm."

The busy, busy, busy begins again.

Posted by Ira at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About a year or so before I even filled out a law school application I read Scott Turow's "1L" at the recommendation of a colleague. For those of you who don't know the book (or can't surmise it's subject matter from the title), Turow describes his first semester as a 1L at Harvard Law School. Of the many memorable points in the novel, he closes by briefly describing the start of his spring semester.

Turow rehashes in quick fashion everything he felt he'd learned during "the" first semester, and then discusses how the second would be different: he'd make time to read the paper at least once a week; read a book for pleasure; spend more time with his wife; and, in general, take things easier. He mentions knowing he would have time for these because his grades didn't qualify him to be on the Law Review, but forcefully notes that irregardless of the circumstances he would make time. That his life would not be all about law school.

I thought of this on my walk to school today and realized a great difference between our situations: Scott Turow didn't have a huge LSSC project in the offing.

My analysis ended there because I don't like to analogize when too many factors come into play. E.g., Turow reluctantly went to Harvard (he disliked stodginess and the 'good ol' boy system' if I recall) in the 1970s, and I'm proudly at Northeastern (bastion of Experiential Learning and Public Interest) in 2008.

So all that remains of that thought, then, is the LSSC project. Today 1Ls began school three days before classes resume, entering into an "intensive first week" of our project. We essentially have a steep learning curve to overcome and little time in which to do it. All deadlines and program expectations were laid out, on top of our client agency's expectations and project interests. To me it all seemed like some great desert sea, an ocean of sand dune-deadlines. Whenever we reach the summit of one dune, we have but uncovered and put in sight the next one to be scaled--dead ahead.

It sounds gloomy, like some Sisyphean objective merely created to work and exhaust us. Yet, I know it's not. And, like all great treks where the journey is many-obstacled and seems endless, I know that the end is more than the destination. We will all come away, I think, greater somehow and more knowledgeable than we can now fathom.

Mapped against this, pragmatically, we will also have done what lawyers do: represented our client to the best of our ability and delivered the information and the advocacy asked of us.

As my group's project is for the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, I'm off to research info. on the state and federal governmental responses to homelessness...with my eyes on the dune ahead.

More to come...

Posted by Ira at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)