Go to Lunch With Your Law Professor: Get Personal
I always find my professors a little intimidating the first couple of weeks of class before I get to know them a little better. I’m especially afraid of them when they use the Socratic method…but this semester I got a head start. My secured transactions professor offered to take us out to lunch in small groups and put out a sign up sheet the very first class. A couple of friends and I decided to take him up on his offer and went out with him last Wednesday after class. The day that we were scheduled to go out to lunch with him, our Professor started class by saying how disappointed he was in us as a group. I thought he was going to say something about us not understanding the material or something but instead he said that no one had signed up for lunch with him for the rest of the semester. I felt relieved and glad that he really wanted us to sign up for lunch with him. Professor Kaufmann insisted that we had to pick the restaurant so of course we went with Thai food, our favorite. We walked to 9 Tastes in Harvard Square.
The walk over was full of small talk and long awkward pauses because none of us knew what to ask or say at first. About halfway there we came to an understanding that we would just alternate asking questions. By the time we got to 9 Tastes we knew what everyone was doing for the summer and that our professor had clerked for Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. Our conversation in the restaurant was much less awkward. We slowly became more and more comfortable talking. Professor Kaufmann told us how he came to write a biography of Justice Cardozo, what the law school was like forty years ago, and how he came to teach secured transactions. We got to know our professor on a more personal level as well, which was really nice.
I sometimes forget that my professors are people who go home after work and have normal lives. I find that my professors intimidate me less the moment after they mention a child or spouse in an anecdote they tell in class. So getting to know my professors helps me to get over my fear of the Socratic method, which Professor Kaufmann definitely loves to use, and just focus on learning the material rather than freak out because I might be called on next. I definitely think the rest of my class should take advantage and sign up for lunch as soon as possible. Teachers who have been around as long as Professor Kaufmann have a lot of wisdom to share and not taking advantage of that seems just silly.
[thanks to nicmcphee and hls in focus via cc]
Random Thoughts on Libaries, Internet, Constitution, & WHORE
Admittedly, there’s no official diagnosis to narcolepsy, but I’m suspecting that’s what I have because I find myself dozing off every 5 minutes or so. One moment I would be reading about “suspect classifications” and my next conscious thought was about something else completely unrelated to Con Law. I looked at my notes and somehow, I had jumped all the way to “non-fundamental rights.” Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.
I’m not sure how to keep myself awake. I’ve tried just letting myself fall asleep naturally. I ended up sleeping 12 hours and feeling like I barely slept a wink. I’ve tried taking sleeping aid but that knocked me off for at least 6 hours, which means if I don’t go to sleep early, I wouldn’t be able to wake up in time for the exams.
I’ve often wondered how often I’d fallen asleep in all of my classes. Looking at my notes, it seems that I’ve missed quite a chunk of lecture (esp. con law). So did my non-narcoleptic friends. It seems like our whole class had a black-out everytime we attend con law lecture. Now I need to figure out how to keep myself focused on this long exam.
It’s not that the subject matters aren’t interesting. They are. In terms of substance, I find this semester more invigorating than last semester. The problem lay in the fact that the schedule is too demanding. We simply couldn’t handle extra classes three days in a row at 8am in the morning. There’s only so much my brain could absorb in one day. More than one professor protested the schedule assigned to my section, but the person in charge of Records & Registration was unmoved.
Almost to the end. Almost. I just need to survive through 5 more days.
W.H.O.R.E. Witness Having Other Reasonable Explanation
Usage: Criminal Law
My favorite quote from my crim law professor:
“If I’m going to be labeled a W.H.O.R.E. by working for free or charging a fee, I rather be a high class W.H.O.R.E.”
The Library or Internet Decision
When the internet was first invented, I barely noticed it. When AOL began its mass CD-mailing campaign, I barely winked. When my brother taught me the purpose of internet (e.g. chatting, e-mailing), I finally began to believe that there is some sort of purpose to this technology called “internet.”
A decade after my first brush with the world wide web, I stopped frequenting the local library. The reason? I can look-up all the information on the internet. With the exception of textbooks, the internet has offered interesting articles in place of out-dated paperbacks. Why bother watch one hour of painful local news when I can simply skim and select the type of news that interests me at my own pace during the time of my choice?
The internet revolution has changed the legal world as well. In our research and writing class, instead of learning the library codes, we learn about using online database to look up case law and treatises. In fact, some of us grumbled when the instructor told us that we had to learn the “traditional” method of legal research — going through rows of old books to locate an annotated case from the early 19th century, and so on.
And now, I can’t imagine what I would do without the internet. It’s not only my source of entertainment, but an essential part of my academic and professional life.
The United States Constitution and Governmental Duties to Individuals
It is common perception that the U.S. Constitution is one of the most powerful documents in the world. The U.S. Constitution guarantees certain rights and protects citizens against government abuses.
It comes as a shock that in fact, the Constitution actually says very little about the government’s duties to individuals.
In general, the Constitution prohibits the State from depriving individuals of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law,” but as Chief Justice Rehnquist pointed out, the language of the Constitution does not impose an affirmative obligation on the state to protect individuals from each other.
What power does the federal government have? The broadest powers, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, is the taxing and spending power. When the federal government wants something done, it needs to entice individual states to exercise its powers through financial incentives.
There exists a tension between the desire of wanting the government to stay out of your life, but step in to help you when the time is appropriate. The problem is that no one seems to have a handle on the government.
Another tension is the relationship between the federal government and the state government. The Constitution implicitly grants the state immense power, stating un-enumerated powers (not reserved for federal government) are reserved for the states. Unfortunately, discprencies in state standards for health care and policing make one wonder why is there no national standard?
The Constitution is a flexible framework, but it is a silent document. Is it time to amend the Constitution to make sure it serves the general population and not expose the vulnerable people to political whims?
[thanks to stan.faryna, kaibara87 and shelley's case via cc]
Law School Dress Code: Jeans & T-Shirts or Suits & Tie?
The first time this concept occurred to me, I was packing my bags for law school and my mother was staring at my clothes as I packed them. I asked her what was wrong and all she did was ask me whether that was all the clothes I was going to take with me. I said that of course it was because I had just packed all the clothes I owned. She looked at me in disbelief and said, “Don’t you know where you are going? You need to take some dress clothes.” She refused to believe that my jeans, t-shirts and sweatshirts were going to do the job. I didn’t really want to argue so we went to the store to buy some more “professional-looking” clothes. The first few days of orientation it was humid in Cambridge, so I didn’t need my “professional” clothes then. When classes started, I tried to wear slacks and collared shirts but after a while I noticed that not many other people were wearing anything fancier than jeans and polos or blouses. I decided to push the more “work-like” clothing to the back of my closet and get back to my more comfortable clothing.
Although I had returned to my more normal attire, I didn’t stop paying attention to what everyone was wearing so that I wouldn’t slip up and find myself completely underdressed. After a while, though, I stopped worrying about it because I realized that people were all over the board. Male students tend to wear jeans or khakis and polo shirts. Female students tend to have more variation. In my section, there were a few women who definitely shared my mother’s mentality. They came to class everyday with perfectly coordinated outfits and nail polish that matched their lipstick. Then there were people like me who generally didn’t wear makeup and only wore jeans and sweaters to class. Toward the end of the semester a friend of mine and I even started to wear sweats to our 8 a.m. property class because we routinely went to the gym together after class.
It wasn’t until the middle of the spring semester of that year that I thought about the subject again. I was sitting down with a group of people for lunch in the Hark. Somehow we ended up talking about clothes. I think someone said that they didn’t like wearing t-shirts and then suddenly another student from my section saw his opening and let us all know how he felt about the way students dress at HLS. I know he isn’t the only one that believes people should try a little harder when they are getting ready in the morning, but he went as far as saying he believed there should be a dress code. “This is professional school,” he exclaimed, “people should be dressing like professionals.” His plan involved a ban on jeans, sweatshirts and t-shirts. As someone who loves to be able to wear her gym clothes to class (and no, I’m not the only one), I have to say that I’m glad there isn’t a dress code here. I do applaud this guy though, I have never seen him wear gym shoes to class and I have never seen him without a collar.
Rest assured there is no dress code at HLS. I think people feel pretty comfortable wearing whatever they want and I don’t think that anyone ever looks out of place. On any given day there will be one person wearing a suit to class and another who looks ready for the gym. If you’re like me, you shouldn’t worry too much about buying special new clothes just to come to law school. You should just come with whatever makes you feel comfortable.
[thanks to ed yourdon and hls in focus via cc]
