I was walking past an open door meeting between a law student and a professor today when I heard this gem of instruction:
“You’ll have a factfinder, either a judge or a jury, and their job is to find facts.”
Normally, our faculty is quite esteemed and highly regarded. I’ll cut this particular faculty member some slack since it’s Friday.
-jd
According to SI in this article by Tom Verducci, since I can’t find a solid definition of the word anywhere, doryoku is a japanese word meaning “unflagging effort.” I love that concept, especially in baseball and I suppose in a few other select endeavors that I consider to be just as patriotic and necessary to the soul. What am I talking about? I’ve referenced it a number of times in my blogging career, most recently in this post called “Going the Distance.” Basically I like to see my ballplayers sacrificing themselves for the team. I like to see parents giving their all for their children, citizens devoted to their country, people devoted to mankind, students - even when broken by a crim law exam - gutting through a tort final a day later. You get the picture.
This applied in other situations as well. For instance, I’m not a “dog” person normally, but I’ll be damned if a dog doesn’t get to me if it demonstrates loyalty to my family; unflagging effort. The same goes for someone who chooses a profession or hobby or religion even if it’s different from mine. I imagine Jedi as having doryoku. The one exception would be if you do not respect someone else’s doryoku towards their own thing, even if it is against you. The ultimate experience or demonstration, say of sportsmanship in baseball would be to have two athletes showing doryoku in facing one another.
How does this apply to me and my law school-oriented blawg? Just trying to get psyched for the bar since I applied for a bar loan today. Of course, the lending company could always cut short my doryoku before my summer of endurance and unflagging effort even starts. Then another Japanese concept would apply: seppuku!
-jd
I’m prepping for the law school’s annual poker tournament where the top prize is a BarBri giveaway. Prep includes reading a Hemingway short story, drinking a mojito(s), attending a green beer kegger, listening to my roommate watch Casino Royale, and paying my bills. Oh, and saying, “come here mousy mousy mousy,” in a Sean Connery voice (must be the mojitos and the 007 in the background).
I wonder if winning the free course is a taxable event. Probably, though tax law was awhile ago. Ignorance is bliss and I hate law school for teaching me that really, it isn’t.
-jd
I had a great sleep last night. I went home after a meeting and had some stuff to do, but nothing imminently important and so I lay down in bed to “rest my eyes” around 11:15 PM. Well, lo and behold I fell asleep and the room was the perfect temperature and the covers felt great and I was fortunate to have set my phone alarm and was able to hear it wake me at 7:30 AM even though it was on vibrate across the room. I grabbed the phone and hit snooze a couple of times (having the phone on vibrate is no less annoying to keep hearing, except I don’t worry as much about pissing off my apartment mate or neighbors). Then I realized that I wasn’t really that tired and should get up and skim the reading that wasn’t imminently important the night before. By the time I had showered, it was nearly 8:40 and so I had to start moving quickly to make it to my 9:00 business planning class on time.
This time of morning is like a land grab at my law school. I won’t complain about parking, but will just observe how it is sort of like at a concert parking lot where a long line of cars full of students who wanted to squeeze out the last second of sleep, file into the parking structure and one by one take each space. When you arrive around 9, you just assume you will be parking far away and so I went straight to the bottom of the lot and got a space and walked up the flights of stairs with everyone else who had just arrived. I was sort of fast-walking as it was about 8:55 at this point and my classroom was in the farthest law school building from the lot. Finally, just as the chimes from the clock tower began striking 9, I walked up to the door and read the note saying that our professor was out sick and that class would be cancelled. A three-hour morning block class cancelled.
It was a miracle.
-jd
P.S. Couldn’t they have emailed?
The Middle is Always Trod Upon
First, let me begin with a disclaimer: pro bono work is excellent work and the bar is right to encourage it out of principle. Possibly one of my only regrets during law school is that I didn’t volunteer in the clinics (oh wait, no I was turned away the first time I tried…though I still wish I had tried to do it later).
Why do I bring this up? I discovered last week during our school’s graduation gown fitting that those students who had participated extensively in programs designed to provide free legal aid would have a special accessory to wear at graduation. Of course I already knew that the elite minds, probably already with lucrative post-bar offers in tow and able to discern the call of every law school question with ease, would get to wear a distinction on their caps and gowns for graduation. Now I find out that those destined to be poor will also be honored leaving those who toil in the middle of the curve to waste away in obscurity just as the middle class does in society (this is assuming most clinic volunteers are likely to be going to PD offices, citizens rights outfits, and other very worthy though non-lucrative assignments post grad).
Now, I disclaimed because if it weren’t for my stunning debt-load, I would probably like to at least consider committing myself to some sort of rights-oriented use of my law degree. At the very least I would have spent more time volunteering and less time trying to enter competitions, obtaining editorships on journals, and procuring firm-based clerking positions that would ensure me at least a place in small to mid-size private firm - for the sake of survival and paying my bills upon graduation. Unlike the pro-bono students who likely have either the scholarships, the family-backing, or some other means of not having to worry about loans or the uber-smart order of the coifers who also will not have to worry about money (again, acknowledging wild assumptions), I work hard but will only be in a plain black robe with a plain black hat.
I mainly wrote this because I liked the idea that flashed before me upon noticing the most likely future financial haves and have-nots of our class were beings recognized just as the rich and poor are always recognized in society. The middle of the class and the middle class always seem to go un-noticed. I don’t really care what I’m wearing for graduation. I didn’t even walk at my undergrad commencement so just showing up is probably enough to satisfy my parents. Hell if I spend $150 plus k on an education you damn well better bet I’ll show up for the paper that acknowledges that un-godly sum. I don’t really have a point so I’ll make a wild transition and be happy for the probably middle class truck driver from Georgia who today announced that he won half of the record $390 million Mega Millions lottery.
-jd
As a fun aside, I’d never heard of Mega Millions before, but saw on the news that people were clamoring for lotto tickets. I thought, “what the hell,” and went down and bought my state’s lotto ticket not realizing that it was not the same as the Mega Millions ticket. Where is my special cap?
