The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Everytime I turned around, it seemed, at the second day of orientation yesterday, some event or conversation had me contemplating the various demographic groups to which I belong.

The first event was a continental breakfast. While being served bagels is not that unusual, being served rugelach, a Jewish pastry, is something I haven't before experienced outside my grandma's Bronx apartment. While normally it would have been a novelty, I got the distinct sense that Jewish delicacies were far more the norm here. In fact, I realized that while being Jewish and being female normally rendered me a minority in most communities, at BU it was not necessarily the case for either categorization. There seems to be quite a few Jewish students - and lots of other Jewish people in the neighborhood as well (hence being able to get Jewish deli conveniently) - and these days law student populations tend to be at least 50% female, if not more.

The aspect where I am distinctively feeling like a minority is with respect to my age. One of the staff members told me that about half the students entering the law school had taken at least a year off. But that means that at least half are coming straight out of their undergraduate education, and of the other half who took time off from school, they may have only taken a year or two. A year or two is not insignificant, but it's not the same as the seven year pause I've had between academic careers. I've hit a stage in my life where I don't want to fool around. I've learned lots of life lessons, and while I'm sure there are more to be learned, I'm eager to put those I've mastered into practice at school. I'm not sure if I'll have much patience for younger students still on the steeper part of the learning curve of life. (It's not that I couldn't empathize, but I don't want to be reminded of the angst I experienced when I went through that. I am happy to have the period from 22-24 resigned to the past - transitioning from semi-adolescent student to fulltime grown-up wasn't as easy as people had made it sound.) I also have little patience for what seems to be a youthful tendancy to equate drinking alcohol with "fun".

In a sense the latter item isn't particularly dependent on age. There are a few older students who like to go out drinking, and I also know there's a lot of younger people with no interest in it (I was one of them when I was younger.) But after last summer, I have no tolerance for the selfish, out-of-control behavior of drunk people. And I have little motivation to join in this alleged fun. I can spend my money on other things that bring me greater enjoyment, and why would I want to jeopardize my physical (and mental) well-being with with the consequences of drinking? It's not that I'm a teetotaler; I can enjoy alcohol in certain situations. But never where the purpose of the occasion itself is to imbibe. When I drink I drink like a Frenchman, using alcohol only to lubricate the social experience, not to define it. These other students seem to like to get plastered for sport, and I fail to see the appeal in that at all.

After the general orientation events I went to a meeting of OWLs (Older, Wiser, Law Students) and that made me feel much better. Some people were younger, only a few years out of school, and some were older and a few were married with kids. But it was nice to connect with other people who saw life and law school more similarly to the way I do. It helped overcome the feeling of isolation I was feeling earlier as I milled around during the social events at orientation. There seems to be this prevailing aura of high school settling in over the experience, and I really want nothing to do with that. I'm hoping that OWLs will provide the opportunities to escape it.

Within OWLs (and I'll extend this invitation to anyone who's not part of it) I want to start a "30 Club." I will turn 30 during the academic year, in late April at a completely unfortunate time (during finals preparation.) Nonetheless, I don't want the occasion to slip by without a celebration, so what I'd like to do is get all the people who will turn 30 during the school year so that we can take turns feting each other.

The final area where my demographics came into play was my geographical diversity. Today I finally realized the benefits of being connected to more than one community. One of the orientation speakers was a professor who had spent time at Cal. I related strongly to some of the details in his story, understanding exactly what he was talking about when he referenced the Berkeley experience. Then a subsequent speaker brought a life-size cardboard statue of Derek Jeter (NY Yankees shortstop) to drive home the point she was making. It was a pretty daring thing to do in the midst of Red Sox territory, and afterwards when I dropped by her office to introduce myself I used our mutual Yankees fandom as an overture to our conversation. Later at another social hour I began lots of conversations with East Coast people and West Coast people (and even a French woman) by citing something from that place that we had in common. It's always easier to make connections with people when there's common ground, and it seems I've got a lot of ground covered.

I wish to say at the outset that I like my law school. Boston University ["BU"] may not be Harvard, and we may all be nursing the bruises to our egos, both faculty and students, from not being able to have secured positions at the little brick schoolhouse across the river. But we've all licked those wounds and have gotten on with the business of substantive education that relies more on the caliber of the work we do now than on having won the admissions lottery several months ago.

In particular, I still stand by the previous nice things I've said about the faculty. Certainly some are better than others. But some of the good ones are fantastic. The law school seems to hum along as an autonomous unit, not perfectly, of course, but reasonably satisfactorily. I have, however, no love for the university at large.

Last fall I sat back and watched with horrified bemusement at the saga of the aborted anointing of a new University president. Ironically we were currently learning in Contracts class all about promissory estoppel and detrimental reliance on promises when the ultimately jilted Mr. Goldin's leaked memos in the New York Times intimated that very thing. On the surface initially Mr. Goldin seemed like a good candidate for the job. The university was certainly enthusiastic about the prospect, going as far as to declare a day off of classes as a University Holiday in honor of his inauguration. This led to a flurry of hasty and embarrassed emails when the deal fell through and students were left with what amounted to a day off from school for no good reason (except for the law students whose academic calendar is regulated more by the Bar than BU and were thus ineligible to miss a day of classes).

However, one of the seeds of Goldin's undoing was the allegation of his intention to clean house and rid the university of presumed sycophants to the outgoing president and lingering megalomaniac-in-charge, John Silber. Credited with building up the university from a commuter school to reasonably respected institution, he was also credited with driving away other qualified academics with his insistence on doing things his particular way. Thanks to his work in raising the caliber of the institution it now mattered that it be run better than he was apparently capable of. The point in having a new president was to help inoculate the university from criticisms particular to Silber. With that in mind it's not illogical for the new president to ensure that the administration in general was sufficiently distanced from him.

My support for the idea withered, however, at the rumor that Dean Cass of the law school was on the hit list. I'm new at the school and I don't know all that much about its inner workings or Dean Cass. But I've met him and he's congenial, articulate, seemingly responsive, and he seems to have a reasonable and productive level of respect from the faculty. He's also been in charge for 14 years or so and that constancy cannot easily be dismissed. For even if there were a better person out there to be dean, they'd have to be considerably better in order to make up for the instability that such a replacement would inherently inflict.

At the same time, I was a little troubled by the column in today's Boston Globe castigating Dean Cass. The issue is over the money apparently raised for a new law school building. The current building is not particularly functional, being much taller than wide and cursed with the lack of scalable infrastructure typical to many structures built in the 1960s. I often joke that rather than having the Corridors of Academia we have the Stairwells and Elevator Shafts of Edification. Climate control is more of a myth than a reality; wiring is antiquated and not upgradeable. The building is not neglected but there's a limit to how much good new carpet and paint can bestow on such a dysfunctional structure. Around the country many law schools have lately gotten snazzy new buildings and so the one at BU compares increasingly poorly.

We were told that money was raised to build a new one. It wouldn't be ready while we were still in school, but it would be soon after. That would still be of value to us as current students since our school's ranking is handicapped by the facility. A better facility would likely raise the ranking and at a time when we would be out looking for jobs and could use the extra prestige a higher rank would bestow.

So it's with alarm that I read the article suggesting that the needed money had all but evaporated. What will happen to the new building now? On the other hand, the column reads like a smear piece. The accusations are rhetorically provocative but not particularly informative. Dean Cass is widely known to be politically conservative, so this "revelation" hardly comes as a shock to the more liberal students and faculty. It's more disappointing that he might be a Microsoft apologist, but it's impossible to discern from the column if he's truly a buddy with Bill or simply concerned that the legal arguments against the company might not withstand a rigorous analysis.

The article may serve to raise an important issue, but jury is out, so to speak. I don't know what happened to the money, and it would be unfortunate if the plans for a new building were scuttled or delayed. It would also be unfortunate if there was some sort of culpability on the part of Dean Cass, particularly because I believe him to have been so personally committed to making it happen. I do know, however, that an article was written that poorly articulates concerns whose legitimacy has not yet been determined. I write as I do now to encourage all who would care about such matters to get the information needed to make a reasonable determination before rushing to judgment on the basis of an article that throws more mud than sheds light.

Edit 3/9/04: Here is a letter from Dean Cass to the law school community.

Well, the plot thickens, I suppose. Our dean resigned.

In his letter of resignation he said it was "with mixed emotions" that he steps down, and I think those words also reflect how his announcement has been received. Still no one really knows what happened to our building fund, although an audit is underway and there should be an accurate tally of how much money was actually raised somewhat soon. The larger problem turned out to be not that the building groundbreaking would be delayed, but that there was a sense among many students and faculty that answers to their many questions on the matter were not suffiently forthcoming.

Still, the Dean Cass had done a lot for the school over the years, raising its ranking and hiring distinguished faculty. He was here for a long time and the instituion is better for it. There's no deep animosity toward him that is satisfied by this turn of events.

If a change was to be made, it's better that it happens now. The longer the questions swirled unanswered the worse off we'd all be. But still, it seems unfortunate, for Dean Cass and for the school community, that anything had to change.

Posted on 4/18/04, but date changed closer to when the announcement was made and it should have been posted.

Among the many, many activities I have going this semester, I've been working with the Law School Assembly to figure out ways to improve the school. Our new dean, and the rest of the administration, has been extremely proactive and welcoming of suggestions for making the process, the building, and the experience better.

Towards that end I've mostly been involved with the Communications Committee, and we've been trying to figure out how the blizzard of information the school needs to tell us can be more effectively disseminated. We've been having meetings with various stakeholders to try to figure out what works, what doesn't, and what can be done differently.

Meanwhile, there was a latent issue related to student group use of classrooms. As president of the IP Law Society I'm well aware of the scarcity of facilities – I've often had to shuffle our meeting times in order to get a room. I'm further stymied by there being a paucity of rooms we can eat in. If we have to have a meeting over lunchtime because it's the only time we can get a room, we're going to need to be able to eat during it. Otherwise people will either not show up, or if they come they will be all cranky and unfocused. But ever since the classrooms got new carpet this year there has been forbidding food in them.

The policy has left the groups hamstrung. It's hard enough to get a group going and sufficiently congealed that it won't peter out immediately. Being able to meet, often and effectively, is critical to getting groups off the ground so that they may be a resource for students. I happened to mention in one of these meetings that the no-food rule was a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy. That we might maintain our clean carpets, but at the expense of maintaining our student groups.

Apparently the penny-wise argument resonated, and the meme was relayed to the power-that-be in charge of the rule, who reversed it. So today it seems I did make a difference, albeit in a small way. Stay tuned for tomorrow...

Backdated a day to when I intended to post it.

BU has a decent-sized foreign program, attracting many foreign L.L.M. students and J.D.-equivilent exchange students. I'm not sure of the total numbers but I would say there are at least several dozen of such students enrolled every semester, maybe even many several dozen.

Last night the program threw a party for the participants, and I, as a "buddy" to two of the students was invited to come. Over the summer I had volunteered to be a peer advisor to two French students. One is an L.L.M., and the other is still working on her initial law degree. (In France, like in many other parts of the world, a law degree is really an undergraduate degree. She's still the French-equivilent of an undergraduate and actually just turned 21 - last night in fact.) Neither have ever really called upon me to help advise them, which I guess is good for them but makes me feel a bit superfluous. I do sit next to the non-L.L.M. one though in my International Law Process class. So far the only service I've been called upon to do is explain baseball to her. It's an amazingly complicated sport, if you start to think about it. I got as far as explaining pitch count, foul balls, and home runs to her. It might be next spring before I get around to teaching her what happens to a ball hit into play, because now she wants to learn about football.

But the point of this post was just to mention the food at this party. It was potluck, and people were encouraged to bring dishes from their native lands. It was the most eclectic meal I've ever had: Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Argentinian, Colombian, Dutch, Greek... all at the same meal (and on the same plate...) For my part I brought chocolate chip cookies because a) I make good ones (I once brought some to a Christmas party at the home of my boss's boss, and she subsequently left me a voicemail message raving about them, saying how she "came from a long line of Canadian bakers" and had never had cookies this good) and b) cookies are a very American thing. Yes, they have biscuits in England and France (and most of Europe I guess) but they aren't the same. I once bought a cookie in a French patisserie and it was horrible. Like a rock. (Good for a Chevy, bad for a cookie.)

But I realized also when I was living in France that non-Americans coveted American cookies. My colleague's wife invited me over one weekend to show her how to make them. We had a lot of trouble getting them to come out right: for one, the French don't often seem to use liquid vanilla, and the dry vanilla threw off the liquid content. The ovens are also smaller so the convection isn't the same, the proportions need to be converted to metrics, and the French also don't seem to use brown sugar either. Let's face it, the French do nice things with batter but assembling cookies is not one of them. They also have no taste for peanut butter, so the peanut butter cookies I made were lost on them. But the day after this cooking adventure I mentioned it to my French class, then comprised of two dozen people all from countries other than the US or France, and everyone got all excited and demanded the recipes.

With this in mind I brought my cookies. However, there was so much food there that they went largely uneaten. That is until I walked around with them at the end offering them to people, ostensibly to be friendly and generous but really just to troll for a compliment. Interestingly people could not believe I made them from scratch. But I did! Really! I may not be the world's greatest cook, and I may not have used a kitchen in more than a year and a half, but I do make great chocolate chip cookies.

Hillary Clinton joke redacted 11/17.

I just got done with an agonizing tech check. A tech check (with its sibling "source coordination") involves double-checking all the cites in a paper that is to be published in an upcoming law journal issue. Because I'm on the BU Journal of Science and Technology law this is the kind of thing I get to do. Lots of.

First we look up the cited sources in the library and xerox the pages referenced. We want to make sure the source actually exists and that it says what the author claims. It's a bit like a scavenger hunt, although if the author cited correctly we should be able to find everything. Then we need to make sure that the cites themselves were written correctly. This is the tech check part, which ended up being much more aggravating than it should have been.

The reason for the aggravation is because we use the Bluebook¹ as our style guide. Most legal periodicals and other materials do as well. Only we aren't actually taught how to use this book. We are instead taught, in our first year writing class, how to use a different book, called the ALWD. I think it stands for "Association of Legal Writing Directors," and it's supposed to be a better book. It IS a better book. Although I think it overlooks certain types of documents we might need to cite, it simplifies the rules and gives better examples that cover most of the permutations explicitly enough that we can be confident in our correctness if we follow them. The same cannot be said for the Bluebook, which contains far more minutiae and permutations and subtleties to rules, and then gives only very general examples to so that you cannot so easily feel so confident in your correctness when you try to follow them.

But herein lies the problem. The Bluebook requires much more training in order to learn to use correctly and effectively. And we need this training, not only for our journals but for nearly any other legal writing we will do in our future. But are we taught it? NO!!! We are taught instead how to use the ALWD, which has very limited application.

The effect of this curriculum choice is that when I find myself (inevitably) needing to use the Bluebook, I am not equipped to. I likely miss important rules I should have been following but didn't know to look for, plus the learning curve involved means that the simplest activities, like tech checks, become massive ordeals. Like most people involved with the law, students and practitioners, I don't have that kind of time to spare. And this is important. For our journal we need to get it right lest we lose esteem in the profession. The really annoying thing is that I'm actually a very good proofreader (at least of other people's work; my own work I'm sometimes too close to to recognize the mistakes) and could easily catch all the nits and mistakes, if I knew what to look for. With this tech check I feel like I've wasted a lot of time that I couldn't really spare just to turn in something that may very well have its own mistakes.

I and my peers would have been much better off if last year we had been taught this important skill.

¹ The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 17th ed. 2000). (What the cite would look like, except that the title would appear unitalicized but with small capitals for its case.)

Posted 11/17.

Edit 12/3: It also turns out that for academic papers we are supposed to write for our various classes, we also need to bluebook. So, again, it would have been really helpful if someone had shown us how. Students that aren't on journals never even get the flimsy little rushed tutorials that I got, and yet are still expected to be able to do it properly. We could graduate without ever figuring it out, and despite what Mark has said, it may very well come up again.

Lately I've been surfing around to other law students' blogs. There's a lot out there. Some are virtual ghost towns, set-up and posted to in earnest for a week or month but now long forgotten. Some are vain and trite. But there are several out there that have plenty of thoughtful, articulate posts. I like Jeremy's blog, for instance, which seems to be regarded as one of the pre-eminent law student blogs around. He's extremely prolific, insightful, and funny. I also stumbled upon Sua Sponte, who has interesting things to say as well. She transferred law schools, which gives the documentation of her Great Change a character that most law students' blogs wouldn't have.

But I really want to talk about this post by Jewish Buddha. Apparently he had the choice to attend BU, but ultimately opted for George Washington University law school in D.C. In this post he talks about how he thought about each option, and on what basis he made his eventual decision. What stood out for me was what he said about BU, about the positive "vibe" he picked up on when he visited. Even though he ultimately chose the vibe-less GW, he appreciated what BU tried to offer him. When he described it I knew exactly what he meant.

I realize that in writing about my Great Change I never really talked about the admissions process, and maybe I should. I'll start at the very beginning. In April 2000 things were going nicely in my life: I had a good career, I had a long-term relationship, everything was fine. By April 2001 I wondered what small puppy I had run over to end up with this karmic payback. The boyfriend was gone, and with a layoff, so was the career.

Actually, the career could have been sustained. As it was I was still able to eek out a living in the tumultuous months of the dotcom bust before I eventually began law school. But the layoff forced me to look at my situation. When the best I could do in that career was impress the president of my company, no matter how much I liked and respected the president, that wasn't enough. I needed to be able to do more in this world.

For a long time, years and years, I'd been kicking around the idea of law school. When I was much younger I tried to kick it very far away, wanting nothing to do with it. Then when I was with my boyfriend, who himself was a law student, I started kicking it around more seriously. He was miserable in law school, but somehow that didn't dissuade me. I was becoming very curious about what he was learning and started to think that maybe, just maybe, law school was the place for me after all. But I did absolutely nothing to pursue it.

Until the layoff and my epiphany, at which point I announced to myself in a fit of pique, "Screw it, I'll go to law school." I let that thought sit and fester for a few weeks. If it was really only the product of a grumpy mood it would soon dissolve. But as it set in, I realized I was more and more at peace with the idea. It was off to law school for me.

I aimed high. I picked 5 schools I really wanted to go to, well-respected institutions in places where I'd be willing to live: Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown. I didn't get into any of them. But that was ok, I knew that might happen and I'd decided to apply in two stages. If I didn't get my top choices the first time around, I would try again the next year, and this time add some "safeties." I reasoned that it was worth it trying to get into those top schools, even if it meant delaying things. But I was only willing to delay it a year. At a certain point it would be time to get on with my life one way or another.

For the "safeties," I added UC Hastings, in San Francisco, Santa Clara, and BU. I did not include GW, and the only explanation I can give for that is that I forgot. When I thought about schools in D.C. to apply to I didn't remember it was there. I didn't remember that it was a similarly-ranked school as BU, with a respected IP department, in a metropolitan area where I'd be willing to live. So the reason I did not end up in the same predicament as Jewish Buddha was simply because I had forgotten to apply to the other school. D'oh.

But as it was, I still had my own dilemmas. Of all the aforementioned schools, I had acceptances to Santa Clara, UC Hastings, and BU. Santa Clara was the easiest to decide against. Although it is steadily crawling up the rankings in terms of reputation, and it's known for its IP curriculum, it wasn't yet at the same level where BU or even Hastings were. And this is where the ex-boyfriend had gone, and he wasn't exactly singing its praises. Trickier was the Hastings-BU decision. Hastings meant I could stay in the Bay Area. It was tough to decide to uproot my life, and the doubt I had about doing that still shows up in my life and is often reflected here. But I decided, before setting anything in stone, to make one more visit to BU, just to be sure that I was doing the right thing in turning it down.

I came out on a miserable weekend in March during a miserable winter in Boston. I came out from California on the red-eye, and bleary and jetlagged dragged myself over to the school. The first person I encountered, in the admissions office, didn't fill me with warm fuzzies. But I decided to meet some more people. I talked with a current student, I sat in on a class, and I had a long and lovely chat with someone in Career Services (who, sadly for me is no longer there – but gladly for her as she has left to pursue her own horizons). I spent a long time wandering around the law tower that day, and even as I rode the elevators constantly and gazed out the window at the intractable sleet I was overcome with a strange but undeniable sense that I belonged there. I'd picked up on that vibe too.

So you already know the end of the story, because here I am at BU. It is where I belong, particularly because I can make it be where I belong. I've gotten involved with committees helping make the school an even better place. I avail myself to as many of the opportunities available to me. I connect with classmates and professors. Even on the bad days, I still sense the vibe was right.

Intended for 11/17 but written and posted 11/21.

11/25: Allusions to Jewish Buddha's sex adjusted per comment below... Oops.

One of the ways I've gotten more involved with my school is through the IP Law Society. Some classmates of mine had begun it last year but weren't interested in running it this year. I was and ran for president. I like being president of organizations. Like when I was president of the Silicon Valley WebGuild I regard it was an excellent way to support my community. I do enjoy "being in charge," and being so I like enabling other volunteers to do good work through the organization as well.

The first thing we've done this year is put on a panel in IP law careers. On Thursday we had 6 panelists, from technical patent prosecutors to entertainment lawyers to government policy setters, talk about their career paths and what others could expect working in the field to be like. We had a great turn out of students as well, pleasingly enough, especially in light of there being a competing career panel at the same time.

Originally someone from the Career Development Office was going to moderate, but I ended up doing some of it as it went on. We covered the meta issues about the lay of the field as well as specifics on how to hew out one's own career path in this area. Afterwards the panelists, who were very generous with their time, stayed around and answered individual questions from students. All in all it was a great success, and I'm particularly appreciative of the Society member who had done so much to extend all the invitations to the speakers and make our event happen.

Intended for 11/19 but written and posted on 11/21.

I'm taking 5 classes this semester. I bought books for 4 of them. They cost $462.50, and that was still one book short, which itself cost $105.75.

But I got lucky. Someone else I know spent $404 for books for ONE class(!)

Water, water everywhere...

If the several feet of snow on the ground weren't enough, the pipe bursting in the law tower over the weekend nicely added to the ambient moisture content. Students haven't been too affected - the water was mostly isolated on the 4th floor, where all the (now extremely soggy) administration offices are - except that it forced some elevators out of service. It's already questionable whether the existing 6 elevators were adequate for getting everyone where they needed to go (it's a 17-story building), and as it is one elevator has been out of commission for several weeks while they try to upgrade the entire service. The deluge has left us then with only 3 functioning elevators, which is definitely not sufficient. (Lots of people have been late to class.)

And for still more flooding fun, today there was also this (from another department at BU):

From [an administrator]
To [affected students]@bu.edu
Subject Grad student lounge closed due to weather damage

Dear students,

Please be advised that the Graduate Student Lounge in the basement of [a different building] is currently closed due to weather damage. The door was either blown open or accidentally left open during the blizzard, and the water damage from the resulting snow is currently being cleaned. All power to the area has been cut off, and the extent of damage to the computers is not yet known. We will do our best to repair it, but at this point it is unclear whether that will happen in the near future. In the meantime, please plan to do your studying and socializing elsewhere while Building and Grounds attempts to dry it out.

Stay tuned for next week, when BU will be visited by a plague of locusts.

My law school is a rough place to be a law student interested in public interest work. As a student there's not a lot of money available for summer work grants*, and as a graduate there's not a lot of money available to help lighten the enormous debt loads most of us will have when we finish.

* (There's some money, but it comes from the student-run Public Interest Project. Applicants need to do a ton of legwork to even be eligible - mostly in the form of various activities to raise the money - and still there's no guarantee that you'll get any if demand exceeds supply.)

The school recognizes the problem, however, and is working to do something to improve the situation. The alumni office, as one stakeholder, has invited students to suggest ideas for how they might effectively fundraise to provide support for its public interest-minded students.

Towards that end, I'm hoping I can get ideas from others in the blogosphere on how other law schools support public interest legal work. What kinds of programs are offered? Loan forgiveness? Grants? How do these work, and how are the schools able to fund them? What kind of endowment do they need to do this? Do they give money to all the students who need it? How much? A lot to a few, or a little to a lot, or something else?

If you have any answers to the above questions please let me know. I'd like to be able to recommend something to my school so it can better attract and support students interested in these kinds of careers.

Edited 1/30.

At the beginning of the semester I had to defend my student group's budget request to the Student Bar Association. When I went into the meeting I noticed that the president didn't appear to be in the room. I was concerned - he's a nice guy, and I had been fully expecting him to be presiding over the process like he had the semester before. Worried, a few days later I asked some students if they'd seen him and was he doing ok. Oh yeah, they said, he's fine. But apparently he'd resigned as SBA president.

The Student Bar Association is a student-elected body whose mandate includes allocating student fees to the respective student groups and their own planned social activities. And yet there was no official communication from them that one of the duly-elected officers had vacated his position, nor any word about who had replaced him.

Meanwhile, at the budget meeting I did manage to get the money we requested, but several people voted against it. Including one person whom I recognized as having voted against my budget last semester. I don't know why she voted against it, but it does raise the very real concern that her political judgment may not sufficiently correspond to my (and my group's) needs. But that's her choice, and I can just vote for someone else who would better represent me at the next election. Or can I?

It was sheer coincidence that I happened to be able to notice both her votes. If I had been looking in another direction and missed her votes; if I had not recognized her and known who she was; if I had not been present at either meeting (I'm present at very few SBA meetings, mostly because that's what we have representatives for, and also because there's very little way for a non-SBA student to even find out when they are) I would not have had an inkling about how she had voted. Just as I have absolutely no idea how anyone else ever votes, because there's no record of it: the SBA records in its minutes only aggregate votes (e.g., 7-2) and not those of individual representatives.

If SBA officials vote against my group's budget request, or vote on other matters in ways that don't correspond with my interests, I should be able to hold them accountable next election. But I can't, because there's no way of knowing who these people are and how they voted. Elections should be a day of reckoning, when the voters can weigh in on whether they approve of how their representatives have been advocating for their interests. But because we have no way of knowing who was advocating for what, the elections are rendered meaningless, reduced to mere popularity contests that install a certain clique of students into a position of power we will never be able to review.

Normally it would make sense to put a (peer-elected) democratic body in charge of certain school support functions, like budget allocations. But it only makes sense if they embody the essence of democracy, representing the will of its constituents. Without transparency there's no way of knowing if they do. Given the current situation at my school, the unelected administration appears to be more transparent that the current SBA cabal, and at the moment would seem a better choice to handle some of these functions.

Of course, a change in administration to one less student-friendly and transparent would change this equation, and future students would long for the days when *they* had the control. The problem is that I'm already longing for those days, because right now there's no basis for any confidence that the student body, at large, is actually in charge.

This situation cannot stand, and I will need to look into getting it changed. The Student Bar Association is responsible for working on behalf of all the students, and that responsibility requires communicating with them openly so that we can make sure they are.

Last night was Law Prom. I didn't bother to go last year because it sounded kind of stupid, but I decided to go this time so I could say I'd been to one. I remember when I was visiting law schools as a prospective student all of them had bulletin boards with pictures from their law proms. It seemed like such a seminal law school event, I thought I should try it at least once.

It was ok and not TOO high schoolish. (True, my mom drove me there, but in high school I actually drove myself...) There were some hors d'oeurves and plenty of drink tickets. I had two drinks, which was fairly unprecedented for me. (I don't usually drink because normally I have to drive off somewhere or something sometime soon.) My faculties were fairly taxed, which you can see for yourself since I wrote the previous post as soon as I came home (maybe I write better drunk?) But some people were really inebriated by the end. One friendly guy kept trying to tell me something. He was really enthusiastic about what he was saying, but I couldn't understand a word of it. Some of that was because the music was loud, and he was much taller than me, so I really couldn't hear him. But even when he bent down and shouted, I still wasn't entirely sure he was actually speaking English. I just nodded and smiled, and eventually he seemed satisfied with having made his point, whatever it was.

Today I managed to get 5 faculty members into the same room at the same time.

Last fall I got an idea for an IP Law Society event – why not get the IP faculty together to talk about what it means to learn IP. Great. But pulling it off was surprisingly challenging. We were going to hold the event as a "brown bag" event. The Dean of Students often sponsors talks by faculty or other speakers during lunchtime hours when many students are free, and she agreed to cosponsor this one. But there are only so many time slots when that could happen. And they were almost entirely all taken up with faculty workshops, so no one was available.

Back and forth this went. Every time I though I figured out a good time and ran around booking the room and confirming with everyone, it would fall apart when someone couldn't do it. Finally we had to think outside the box and schedule our "brown bag" lunch talk for 3:45 in the afternoon.

But it worked. Everyone came, we got a crowd of students, and a good talk ensued. I moderated the panel, and I think it was useful for the attendees. I commented at the end that as a 2L I'd had the benefit of the advice from most of these professors, so I was pleased there was a forum where others could receive it as well.

Edit 3/23: I talked to one of the professors today and he thought the event went really well. Several 1Ls expressed the same opinion. We should probably do it again next year. Me, I'm amazed by how the whole thing went from an idea in my head to a realized benefit for others. I really love it when that happens.

I've talked before about the support BU provides for lawyers interested in public interest lawyering. It is to the credit of the new administration that there has been a renewed effort to provide the necessary support for students who want to do this kind of work, both during the summer[s] and after graduation. Dean ad interim O'Rourke has mentioned on many occasions when alumni were gathered these worthy programs the school is trying to further develop, and both she and the alumni director have been actively soliciting donations for them as well as providing a lot of support for the existing student-run Public Interest Project (PIP) summer grant program and its fundraising efforts.

One of the things PIP does to raise money for summer grants is hold an annual auction. Grant applicants solicit donations that can be auctioned off, but others involved in the school community donate as well. Professors, for example, not only bid on items but also make other donations that people would be interested in paying for, like use of a vacation home or a dinner prepared by someone with a cooking specialty, etc. Depending on what's offered these donations can fetch bids in the hundreds of dollars, either from alumni or in some instances from groups of students themselves. (The chance to play basketball against a team of favored/reviled professors is always a popular item that first-year sections like to go in on...)

But about Chris Strang. I'd begun to hear of him at 1L orientation. People referred to him in a rather iconic way. There were law students, and then there was Strang. When people said his name, everyone nodded knowingly.

The myth was further solidified in this year's Legal Follies production, when he was included as a character in various skits. The actor portraying him did so by wearing the ancient Jets sweatshirt that Strang is notorious for wearing. Strang was kind enough to lend it to them. They never gave it back. Instead they donated it to PIP to be auctioned off.

A sweatshirt? An old sweatshirt? As far as I can recall there was no mention of it even being laundered. And of a classmate? Ah, but it was no ordinary classmate – it was Strang!

And so at open auction late in the evening the sweatshirt was auctioned off, fetching a $500 winning bid. Which was then met, and met again, by the Dean, for a grand total of $1500. For a sweatshirt. Strang's sweatshirt.

I believe the sweatshirt was bought by a consortium of interested students, although there was quite a bit of competition for it so I'm not quite sure which of the several consortia bidding actually won it. There's now talk of having it framed and hung somewhere in the school, like a trophy, to further immortalize his legend at BU. So that years from now, when we are all hardened attorneys and come back to the school to show our kids around, we can point out the Strang sweatshirt. And all those alums who attended from 2001-2005 will look at it, and look at each other, and nod knowingly once again.

In the "let's get all excited about meaningless things with suspect methodologies" department, in the new US News and World Report rankings BU seems to have moved up to #20. That's a not-insignificant jump from where we were when I'd applied (I think we were at #27 two years ago?).

Interestingly, we are tied with George Washington. Guess it doesn't really matter that I forgot to apply there after all...

The law school had a fire drill today. It was good to see how it would all play out. Because if it had been a real fire, I think we'd be in trouble.

There's only two stairwells in our 17 story + ground floor + basement building. And possibly a thousand people spread throughout. (Several hundred, at least. Figuring that there's about a thousand people in the student body, even though not all of them are in the building at any one time there's also quite a few also faculty and staff to be counted as well.) I was on the 14th floor. It was smooth sailing down until about the 7th floor when all of a sudden there was a bottleneck in the stairwell. I thought perhaps it was because everyone was trying to reach the ground floor, although that might not be true because there's another exit on the first. The bigger problem seems to be that there are two 100-seat classrooms on the fifth floor (and one on the 6th), and all of those students needed to feed into the stairwell streams too.

But we managed to get everyone out of the building. At which point it was time to get everyone back in. I figured there was no way I was going to catch one of the 5 operational elevators back up any time soon, so I decided to walk. All 14 flights of stairs. Carrying my backpack which is about half my size and weight. (My evidence professor passed me at one point. I called him a wimp because he only had to go up 11 floors and wasn't carrying anything.)

So here I am, back on the 14th floor, writing this. The odd thing though: I understand why I'm winded, but why do my teeth hurt?

Immediate edit - This just in from the Dean:

The fire alarm system today was triggered by a contactor’s refilling of the sprinkler system on the 17th floor. This should not have happened and we hope will not happen again. Thank you for your patience and good humor.

Then she invited people to email with any comments about how the inadvertant drill went. I did.

I just got home (it's midnight here, despite the time stamp) from the annual banquet for my journal. I had a good time. It was held at an Italian restaurant, with family-style all-you-can-eat food and an open bar. So I indulged, drinking in the course of an evening a midori sour, glass of wine, and something involving Coke, rum, and kahlua. For me that's a lot, but I was eating at the same time and so did not end up under the table.

Afterwards some of us walked over to a nearby bar where apparently a lot of BU Law students were hanging out. The place was notable for its mechanical bull. After signing away my and my descendants, ancestors, and next-door neighbors' rights to sue, I tried out the bull. I actually did very well, lasting a full 30 seconds before deciding to surrender to gravity. I think the trick was to be drunk enough to be willing to try it, but not so drunk as to have no sense of balance. I saw a lot of people tip off after 8-15 seconds, but then again I think these people might have been tipping over just as quickly even when on solid ground.

The following post is not intended to supplant constructive action on any of the issues raised. For instance, I've already spoken to the Dean about some of the specific problems I recently faced and suggested that the difficulties faced by student group leaders be addressed more systemically.

However, I still want to post because any student group leader may face in some form the same challenges I did, and hopefully in articulating them it will be easier to take the corrective action that will benefit all groups and their leaders.

Also, I have some frustrations I would still like to vent.

Some classmates of mine, as 1Ls, last year started the IP Law Society. It was no small task: there's a not insignificant learning curve to figuring out how to register and run a student group, and it all has to be figured out early in the year, when, especially as a 1L, you're trying to figure out everything else about law school. But they managed to get a few events together, and the organization was sufficiently in tact for new officers to take over this year. I ran for president, and like many other organizations I've been involved with, if you're willing to do the work you can get the job. I like running organizations and putting together events. I've done it before successfully, and I'm starting to think I might actually be good at it.

At the beginning to the year we planned the events we wanted to do. Last semester we did the IP Careers Panel. Then earlier this semester we did the IP Faculty Panel. From the outset, however, we knew we wanted to do another event as well, something addressing a particular issue of IP law. We decided to do this event in the spring, and late in the fall semester we met to decide the topic and speaker(s) we would pursue specifically. We decided that we wanted to invite someone from one of the advocacy NGO's who's been tracking these things to talk about the state of IP legislation in Congress.

Although we knew whom we wanted to ask to speak, we didn't make any specific invitations at that point. I personally didn't feel comfortable inviting someone before I knew if we'd have the budget to cover their travel expenses. I didn't think anyone would come if we didn't offer it, but I wasn't going to offer before I had the cash in hand in case we didn't get our budget approved. It was not an idle concern: not only had SBA reps voted against our budget request the previous semester, but after the money had been allocated we got an email from the then-SBA president saying that the SBA had over-extended itself and would welcome any money to be returned to its coffers. Getting the money we requested did not strike me as a sure thing at that point.

And it wasn't. Early in the spring semester we made our official budget request. We had budgeted for food at a general meeting and perhaps some other incidental expenses, which were approved easily, but the bulk of our budget request centered on $250 to cover transportation costs for a speaker. We came up with that figure, as we'd done the previous semester, because it would cover the plane or train ticket for someone traveling from New York or DC. We didn't ask for a higher amount that might cover a ticket from California because we didn't think we'd get it, even though it would have given us more flexibility on whom we could invite. We decided it was best to make a more modest request to increase the likelihood we'd get it.

But we nearly didn't. There were even more nay votes than the last semester and a lot of scrutiny about why we didn't use up all our money the previous semester. I can understand those questions to some degree: the SBA rightly does not want to allocate money to a group that won't use it, thereby depriving another group who might have been active of those resources. But I had answers to those questions. I brought with me to the meeting an email from the panelist who had to cancel on short notice, explaining that he had been called into court for a last-minute hearing. I brought with me the email I sent to another attorney to try to plug the hole. Meanwhile, it should also be remembered that we did have the panel, it was very successful, we spent our budget on the panelist who hadn't cancelled, and I had managed to plug the hole at the last minute after all. Only "unfortunately" the last minute panelist was someone local who had no expenses to reimburse. We asked if we could carry over the remaining budget allocation to the spring so that we wouldn't have to ask for more, but unfortunately the budget process doesn't allow for it. Use it, or lose it, and so we had to ask again for the money to have this semester's event.

So while I understood the questions, I still don't understand the nay votes. It seems to me that everyone is focusing on whether or not we manage to spend our money, not whether we run successful events that provide value to our fellow students. At least that was the impression that our group took away from the budget meeting (and the comments here would tend to support.)

The problem we then faced occurred when our best-laid plans started to fall apart. For this, blame can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the US Supreme Court. When it agreed to hear the appeal of Morpheus v. Grokster, all the interesting people we had wanted to invite to talk about copyright legislation got their schedules turned upside down in order to deal with this major piece of copyright litigation. As I sent out invitations I received responses one after another saying, "I'd love to be there, but I can't," because all their cycles had been spent dealing with the case. It was very flattering for the most part that they didn't say no right away – they took time to seriously consider it. But unfortunately their thoughtfulness ended up taking up time we didn't really have to spare.

Meanwhile, we'd already done one event during the semester. Technically, we'd now done all the events we really needed to do this year to be considered an active group. We wanted to do the other, but what drove us to continue to was that we felt we NEEDED to do it. We felt that if we didn't, we'd never get funding from the SBA again. And it couldn't just be any event; it had to be one that allowed us to spend the $250. Earlier in the semester I'd had in hand a perfectly good offer from a local speaker I couldn't accept because it wouldn't spend the money.

But then, huzzah! We got a speaker, who came up last week. I was very excited: he was an excellent speaker, eminently qualified to speak on our chosen topic, a topic we thought was extremely important to inform students about. But it was now April. Students' attentions are turning to finals. Some classes (like my trial advocacy one) are actually holding finals. We fully expected that it wouldn't be quite as well-attended as our other events.

But I expected more than 15 people! There's no reason that at this school we couldn't have pulled in 30-60 on this kind of topic - at least! The sparse crowd was embarrassing. It was embarrassing to the group; it was embarrassing to the school; and it was personally embarrassing to me. To get this speaker I had to use the connections I've fostered to help develop my career, and I can't help but feeling that I've compromised them. The implied deal for someone giving up their time to come up and speak is that I would deliver them an audience. And I couldn't hold up my end of the bargain.

There are a few issues for why that was, even beyond the generally bad timing of being so late in the semester. One has to do with communication – did people even know about the event? The answer is yes and no. There are certain communications channels that worked well for us: we used our mailing lists, we flyered, I asked the IP professors to announce it in their classes, and we got listed in newsflashes (a webpage the school uses to post reminders and announcements). Still, on hindsight I wonder if we should have flyered again, should I have sent a reminder email, should I have done this, should I have done that...? Clearly there were some small things I could have done. And there are certain structural problems with communications in the school that also explain any of the communications breakdowns. But the truth is that none of these things really caused the problem. Doing the same exact things for previous events had always resulted in the good-sized crowds we were looking for.

A larger problem was that my audience got double-booked. The Careers office planned an event that overlapped with ours, and one of the 1L professors extended his class so that it overlapped with it as well. This is what really frustrates me, because I went to great lengths to make sure there would be no conflicts. Earlier in the semester I looked up the master schedule for all the 1L sections and all the IP classes and figured out what times would work out for as many people as possible. Tuesdays at 3:30 was one of those times. We had a choice between the last Tuesday of the semester or the one before it, but the group's consensus was that earlier would be better. That choice nearly got scuttled when I went to book the room and found that the Dean had booked another large room, so I had to check with her to make sure we weren't competing for the same people. She gave me the thumbs up, so I went ahead and inked in mine.

And after all that proactive effort still got only 15 people. (And we only got that many because we held the start until 4, in order to get the people held in that 1L class.) Perhaps there is little that can be done about the class extension – after all, classes should get the top priority – but perhaps the school can encourage professors not to wait until the last minute to schedule their make-ups. Our snow days happened months ago – there'd been plenty of time to make up the lost class hours well before April. The school also desperately needs (and, from what I understand, will soon get) a master calendar, so that we don't have these kinds of conflicts where the CDO and the student groups schedule their events on top of each other. No one wants that. (The CDO would have gladly scheduled their event at another time if it had known about the conflict.) I probably should have dropped the CDO a line anyway, just as a matter of course, but hindsight is 20/20, and I guess that detail got lost in the thousands of others I was dealing with trying to make this event happen.

The thing is, what we really should have done was pushed the whole thing off to next semester, so that we could do it right. It's such an important issue, and it really deserved proper attention. And my speaker deserved an audience! But doing so never seemed like an option because of this requirement to spend the money.

Under the circumstances, the requirement seems absurd. I could understand the SBA's objection to allocating money for events that aren't firmly settled if it was either a really large amount of money, or if the group had never managed to get its events together. But we did events last year, and we did events this year. We did good events that people liked. We weren't asking for money and then being flakes – the things that came up that disrupted our plans were things beyond our control.

So we did what they wanted and spend the money, but possibly at great cost to our collective (and my personal) reputation, which may affect our ability to get future speakers. We also provided little to no value, in spite of the hundreds of dollars that were spent, because no one was there. It's failing to see the forest for the trees if precise budgeting is more of a priority than supporting our student body constructively, and unfortunately that seems to be the situation right now.

Meanwhile, as a separate concern, I also wish the university at large would organize its bureaucracy in a way to be, if not more supportive of, at least less of a burden on student groups. For example, two weeks ago I got a nasty form letter from IT threatening to turn off our group email account IN A WEEK unless I got a letter from our sponsor to justify keeping it. First I had to figure out who was the sponsor. It turns out to be the Student Activities Office who administers all university student groups. The SAO gladly wrote me the letter, which I then had to HAND DELIVER to the IT office down the street. Email wasn't sufficient, apparently. Of course, it was an exercise in futility, since the letter attested that we were an active group for 2004-5 academic year, which ends in a matter of weeks. It would make much more sense to sync up the SAO and IT so that when the SAO makes us reregister in the fall it could automatically communicate to IT so that student group leaders can focus on running their groups and not being emergency carrier pigeons.

In any case, my general zeal and enthusiasm for running groups is at an ebb. I normally have vast quantities of energy to throw at it, but at the moment I'm burnt out. And not just because I'm generally tired from the semester. Running successful events is a lot of work but can be tremendously rewarding. If the events are doomed to fail, though, then it becomes just a soul-sucking endeavor. It can be a huge commitment, running a student group, and if it's going to be so needlessly taxing it's just going to burn out a lot of good people and cause their groups to wither. And that's hardly good for the school or its students. To whatever extent possible, running groups should be made as easy as possible. They are a huge bonus for the school, a tremendously valuable asset created entirely by interested volunteers. It should not be so hard to make that kind of contribution.

At the PIP auction students bid for more than just Strang's sweatshirt. One of the other coveted offerings was the student-faculty basketball game. A chance, perhaps, to school the professors who'd spent the year schooling you...

Section B had won the bid, and the game was on Wednesday evening. It was yet another fine and completely absurd moment at BUSL. The students had taken it REALLY seriously. Their team not only had uniforms, but so did nearly every student in the section. One of the student's parents apparently owns a silk-screening shop, and so t-shirts were made up. They were bumblebee yellow, with "Section [B]" written on them, except that instead of the "B" there was a cartoon illustration of a bee. The girls then had black shorts as well, with BU and ZZ written on the back. The uniforms were completed with yellow tube socks. Nearly everyone from the section was decked out in at least the t-shirts, save the two student "coaches" who were wearing the requisite suit and tie. And the "6'3 Persian" running around wearing a bee costume.

Meanwhile the faculty was decked out in their own t-shirts and gym shorts. And while Section B had a contingent of about 20 extremely enthusiastic and largely plastered cheerleaders to lead sideline and halftime cheers, the professors had just one or two non-playing professors sitting in their corner. The half-time show was all Section B as well, featuring choreographed dances by the Section B cheerleaders, and a belly-dance by a yellow and black clad classmate. Because what basketball game would be a complete without one of those?

There was quite a, um, buzz surrounding the game. I bumped into Dean ad interim O'Rourke coming into the gym before the game and asked where her loyalties lied. She hedged, saying she was neutral, "Like Switzerland." I scoffed, and questioned how anyone with a life-size cardboard cutout of Derek Jeter in her office could possibly be neutral about anything. As it turned out, she sat in the professors' corner, next to Professor Pettit, who himself had conflicted loyalties being not only a professor, but one of Section B's professors. He was sidelined with an injury, but because normally he plays on the faculty side I guess he felt he had to stay true to his team. On the other hand, Professor Barnett, trading up from the Supreme Court to the basketball court, claimed neutrality but was seen on the sideline with his Section Bees wearing a Section B t-shirt as well. Barnett is from Chicago and from what I gather used to see Bulls' games. None of them, to his recollection, ever had a half-time belly-dance, or a giant anthropomorphic bee, so I'd say he's moving up in the world...

The game was close for quite a while, but in the last few minutes the students pulled ahead and took the victory. This despite referee Ryckman's somewhat biased officiating. Personally I was hoping to see my former Torts professor get called for a personal foul, but, alas, I was deprived of that irony.

For a peek at the nonsense, a Section Bee posted pictures here.

I'm wondering if this is good, bad, or otherwise: taking more than one class with a professor.

There are a lot of professors at BU, but I in many instances I will probably take a second class from one I had before. For instance, EU law was taught by my contracts professor. Had I taken IP law I might have had my Civil Procedure professor again. (My friend from my 1L section had both this past semester. He called it his "retro semester.") I'm planning to take Tax with the professor I had corporations with, and I'll be in Trademark with my professor from Copyright and Rhetoric. If I also take Consumer Law it will be taught by my Evidence professor.

For the most part, this is just how things work out. EU law is only taught by the one professor, so it would necessitate having her again. In some instances there might be more than one professor who teaches the course, but only one section works into the schedule. Then there's the Tax course that I'm taking almost entirely because I like the professor. On the flip side, there are probably courses I'm avoiding because I didn't enjoy the previous class I took with the professor.

The concern would be that I'm limiting myself to the panopoly of perspectives offered by the faculty. On the other hand, if I know I learn well from certain professors, it would seem to make sense to try to take more of their courses.

On the other other hand, maybe this is a non-issue and not worth dwelling on. Still, it was an observation I thought worth raising.

My opening salvo at De Novo included this:

At BU we usually call our professors "Professor [LASTNAME]." In return, particularly in 1L classes, they call us "Mr. or Ms. [SOME MISPRONUNCIATION OF OUR LAST NAME BECAUSE THE ACOUSTICS ARE BAD AND THEY CAN'T HEAR US CALL IT OUT NOR GUESS INTUITIVELY FROM THE CLASS ROSTER]." In the second and third year classes professors sometimes call us by our first names. This happens mostly in seminars, and in conversations outside of class, although I had one professor who calls us by our first names in a lecture class. Although he's new, a young, hip, happening prof and possibly a harbinger of BU professors to come.

But last semester I had two visiting professors from other schools where the norm is that everyone is called by their first names. Students and faculty. They came to class and said we could call them by their first names. But none of us did. We couldn't. It felt sort of wrong somehow. Law school (at least for us) is a formal place, and breaking down that formality while within the context of the formal teacher-student relationship just didn't compute.

On the other hand, I wonder if I will forever call any of my professors "Professor [LASTNAME]." One of my BU profs had once introduced herself by her first name to me the first time I met her, well before I was in one of her classes. "I'm [FIRSTNAME]," she said. "But in class, I'm Professor [LASTNAME]." I decided I was too nervous about making the inevitable faux pas when I used the wrong name, so by policy I've decided not to use firstnames until I have my JD in hand. Then we'll see, because I'm sure there's some profs who will always remain "Professor [LASTNAME]" to me.

I thought I should at least note having completed one of those seminal law school activities: grading the writing competition.

Last year I'd kvetched about having to do the writing competition. At BU it's ostensibly the Law Review write-on competition, but unlike some other law schools we use it as the write-on process for all the journals. The torture I put myself through last year wasn't for naught, however, because I made it onto the journal I wanted.

(Yeah, maybe it would have been better to have gotten onto Law Review. But I like the subject matter of my journal, and I had a much saner journal experience last year than my friends on Law Review. Only two issues a year means many fewer tech checks...)

This year, as an article editor, I had to help out with the grading of the entries. I'm not quite sure how the entries were divvied-up between journals for grading, but I personally had a wad of 19 to grade. I didn't have the whole entry though - I didn't have to grade the memos. I "just" had the citation correction parts and the one-page editing portions to review.

For the citation correction part, candidates had 25 cites that needed to be put into correct ALWD form (which is fairly unuseful, because the journals use the Blue Book rather than the ALWD. But because students have been taught the ALWD during first year writing, we can only test them on what they know. This will probably change shortly, however, because the school just changed the curriculum to the Blue Book to help sort out the journal bottleneck of needing to edit articles using a standard we had no clue about.) A perfect cite was worth 4 points, and we could deduct from there. Some cites were easy and most people got them all right (leading me to wonder what was going though the heads of the people who didn't), although some were just nit-baiters and often lost one or two points for small stuff. What was kind of interesting is that there were some entries that were really good - getting all 4 points on most of the cites - but when they got off they really got off and would get 0's on some of them. Whereas other entries tended to lose 1-3 points on lots of the cites, but never washed out completely on any of them.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to grade was the editing assignment. People were judged partly on technical corrections - which most people did with about the same level of competence. Harder to grade was the more substantive corrections. The original essay had been horribly written - no transitions, and sometimes it was hard to figure out what the overall point was. I tended to grade higher the entries that took the essay, divined what the gist was, and then rewrote it to make sure that point got across. The more bold the corrections, the better, at least as far as I was concerned. (Assuming, of course, the corrections were actually an improvement.) The problem is, it's a little unclear how everyone else graded theirs. There weren't a lot of instructions. We were told, however, to curve the grades - meaning I had to have at least one entry with a certain score at the high end and another at the low end, and the remaining scores needed to average in the middle. It leads me to wonder if ultimately candidates will be chosen not so much by the absolute point values from their competitions but by relative rankings. But I don't really know, because I'm not part of that process.

In any case, it was the first time I'd ever really graded anything. It sort of gave me some insight into the incredible annoyance grading exams must be for the professors. (Although at least they can wield more dominion over the scoring than I could.) I can't say that I particularly enjoyed my "power." Grading the entries was only slightly more fun than actually writing them, so that's obviously not saying much. (Also, perhaps "fun" isn't the word. "Less-pressured" might be, since at least my fate wasn't hanging in the balance this time. Unless I failed to finish my grading, in which case I would have gotten me and my journal into trouble.)

Note: like exams, competitions were graded anonymously. I could only see the numbers given to each entrant. I have no idea who any of the people were who wrote them. And I'm very glad for that. It was hard enough to make tough evaluations of my peers even abstractly. Being able to associate personalities with entries would have been disastrous, although as it was I could still come to "know" an entrant based on how he/she did with both the cite check and the editing parts. People who did one with care tended to do the other with care as well. Or at least I kind of hoped they did...

I posted again at De Novo:

The ABA has recently promulgated a new requirement that law students may not "be enrolled at any time in coursework that, if successfully completed, would exceed 20 percent of the total coursework required by that school for graduation (or proportionate number for schools on other academic schedules, such as a quarter system)." (See August 2004 revisions to Standard 204(e) available here.) At my law school that means that even though the university at large lets students take up to 18 units per semester with their tuition, law students will now be limited to 17.

Perhaps advocates for the rule change might argue a 17 unit maximum is not a substantive change from a pre-existing school rule permitting 18. But not so.

- Given that there are only two years when students can choose their own schedules,
- Given that courses are not offered every semester,
- Given that not all faculty teach every semester,
- Given that it's sometimes hard to make the unit math work out (if most classes are 3 or 4 units it's hard to hit 17 precisely),
- Given that students don't necessarily know before the second year begins whether they will be accepted to externships, clinics, or study abroad programs,
- Given that students don't always know before the second year begins what kinds of externships, clinics, study abroad programs or classes they would like to do,
- Given that there is so much to learn in the universe of law, and
- Given that even the most directed students may change their minds along the way,

the lower unit count can have a significant negative effect on the breadth of curriculum students can experience by considerably limiting their flexibility.

I'm not necessarily objecting to unit maximums in general. The school, naturally, will have some motivations to limit the student's schedule. The quality of the student's overall education may diminish if the student becomes spread too thin. Also, the school wants to make sure class spots are available to all who need them – if one student takes up too many seats, there won't be enough left for the rest of the class. But each school, understanding its own offerings and resources and relationship with its student body, is in the best position to set that unit maximum. And to make exceptions to its policies when appropriate. And students, if they are unhappy with the school's policies, are free to take their business elsewhere. But when the rules come from the ABA, students are instead forced to concede discretion over their own intellectual enrichment to this distant institution that they often have little, if any, direct contact with and who has absolutely no accountability to them.

Furthermore, the rationale behind the ABA's rule pales given the practical impact it has on students' education:

"To assure that students spread their studies out over the course of the program, Standard 304(e) would not allow a school to permit a student to be enrolled at any one time in coursework that would exceed more than 20 percent of the school’s requirements for graduation."

Even presuming that every semester the school offers identical opportunities – which certainly isn't true at my school and I doubt is true at most others – it is not at all apparent what is to be gained by making sure that students "spread their studies out." What is the harm in not spreading them out? There may be very good reasons why a student would want to overload one semester in order to have a lighter one another. (For me, it was because I'd only get 12 units if I did a study abroad program and I needed to make sure I'd be able to pick up the extra class at some point, and ideally one that would ensure I could complete my concentration if I wanted.) Or to even overload both semesters just because there's so much to learn, and that's what many of us came to law school to do.

Additionally, it's also not apparent why the ABA needs to be able to regulate when students take their classes. I can see legitimacy in ABA standardization of law school curricula when it comes to ensuring that law students graduate properly equipped for their new professions. But it's hard to see how micromanaging students' schedules has any significant benefit on the practice. And these regulations constrain even those law students who have no intention of practicing after graduation, which makes the ABA's imposition over their educational autonomy even more unjustified.

Given that it's not the ABA that we write our tuition checks to, it doesn't seem like the ABA has any business in regulating our personal intellectual development so specifically. Particularly because we had no voice in making this rule. Now, students in general were surely able to comment, as were the law schools (I've heard that mine protested the change), but the students who might have known about the proposed change in time to comment were not the students who were going to be affected by it. In fact, I'm not even a student who will be too affected by it either because I was lucky (and proactive) enough to be able to do my 18 unit semester before the change kicked in. But any student coming up behind me who has any similar needs will not have the flexibility required to get the full benefit of their education. If I'd had to face the 17 unit ceiling last year, I would not have been able to take one of the 5 classes I got to learn so much from. I wonder which piece of knowledge the ABA would prefer I not have?

Surely this can't be the result the ABA wants. Surely it can't think that there's some benefit to lawyering if students are limited in their learning. And surely it has no business imposing this arbitrary and pointless rule on thousands and thousands of students, effectively restricting each one's intellectual development.

This rule should therefore be revoked.

The only concern I have with my post - which doesn't change my thesis but might topically undermine my argument - is that I've had to presume it's the 304(e) rule that caused BUSL's unit max to drop. The school has said it was because of the new ABA rule, but it never said which rule. So in poking around the ABA site I guessed it was this one.

In the BU Law Tower, the 13th floor contains the admissions office, the career development office, and the financial aid office. How to get into law school, how to get out, and how to not starve while there... All these hugely critical departments, and all on the 13th floor.

Not that there's any obvious ominous connections to one's destiny, of course...

Tulane students in the northeast who are obviously unable to return for their studies can enroll at BU. There was a news bulletin that the school will absorb the undergrads, and my law school will take on 15 law students as well.

Edit: So is UC Berkeley. I think the efforts for these schools to do it are being coordinated through the Association of American Universities. But I am agog at the sidebar on the UC Berkeley news page, "If you know someone who needs to be rescued..." Damn.

Edit 9/6: More.

For my job this summer I got one of the PIP grants ($4000 for 400 hours of work). The PIP organization required that we send an email to our dean thanking her for supporting this problem.

This exercise sort of reminds me of the parental admonitions, "Thank your grandma for her birthday card!" which, though an appropriate instruction, always seemed to leave the resulting thank you note a little hollow and insincere, since it was written under external pressure and not one's own internal sense of gratitude...

But I actually did want to publicly commend the school, and the dean, for the efforts they've put in to enhancing institutional support for public interest lawyering. So she hasn't gotten my email yet (it will be relayed to her by the PIP project), but when she does it will say this:

Dear Dean O'Rourke,

Thank you for your initiative in supporting students' public interest activities. This appreciation extends not only to the PIP grants but also the other forms of support you've championed as well, such as the enhancement of the loan forgiveness program. Your efforts help make BUSL stand out as an institution willing to develop lawyers able to achieve more than just an extensive tally of billable hours. And we, as students, as well as a school and a society, benefit greatly by it.

Sincerely,
Cathy Gellis

The writing style may suffer from the circumstances, but the sentiment is sincere.

I hope this event does not turn out to be the train wreck I anticipate, but based on the way it was advertised there's no reason to believe it will be otherwise.

The advertisement (which I didn't even see until about an hour ago, when I was looking through my email for something else):

"On Friday, September 16 at 2 p.m. in the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Hall, I will host the first Coffee and Conversation for the 2005/2006 academic year. I have selected the topic of peer-to-peer file sharing to be discussed at this event. This topic is of concern to University students and I hope to facilitate a discussion between experts and advocates. Dean Garfield will join this discussion. Mr. Garfield is Vice President and Director, Legal Affairs, Worldwide Anti-Piracy at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Prior to joining the MPAA, Mr. Garfield was Vice President of Legal Affairs at the Recording Industry of America Association.

The Coffee and Conversation event will also include producer, and DJ, Cheap Cologne. He has produced and recorded tracks with The Lordz of Brooklyn featuring Busta Rhymes, Atmosphere, DJ Quest, The Shapeshifters, Pigeon John, Braille, DJ T-Rock, Slim Kid Tre (Pharcyde). Cheap Cologne will also provide a brief performance during the program."

The email I just sent back, cc'd to the BUSL copyright faculty in case they can show up...

"Dear [Dean of Students],

I am concerned that the Coffee and Conversation you have scheduled for today will not be a fair and balanced discussion of the file-sharing issue. Your listed speakers include a musician, of indeterminate qualifications or position, and a powerful legal representative of an organization with a particularly slanted view on what the law currently is on this matter, and also on what it believes it should be. Certainly the MPAA is entitled to its opinions, but it, along with the RIAA with whom your speaker also worked, frequently represents as absolute fact what it merely wishes the law to be. Furthermore, the MPAA's willingness to speak at universities should not be taken as a favor to the school; it has been quite candid about the "education" campaigns it wants to sponsor at universities across the country. But do not be fooled by this "education" -- it is as educational as a panel filled with only Republicans or only Democrats would be. Though they don't track typical party lines, its positions are no less political than tax cuts or foreign policy would be.

What it advocates, and has advocated, is a fundamental shift in the balance between how users have traditionally been able to enjoy creative works for decades, even centuries, in the United States, and the ability of copyright owners to control that usage. Even if the MPAA's position were most correct and should ultimately win the day, it still should be fully vetted since the implications on society are enormous. And I put to you that these implications are not at all benign, and led to their logical conclusion will stifle the future development of knowledge and culture -- the very things it would seem the university is dedicated to promoting.

Before you dismiss my comments as hyperbolic, I will add that these issues were the singularly most-compelling issue that motivated me to go to law school, and thereby join the BU community. There are few issues I care about more strongly or believe warrant more credible and balanced attention than this.

However I will not be able to personally attend to provide balance to this event because I am currently doing my semester abroad. Still, I do wish that there had been more than two days' notice, and that the notice had not been buried deep in another email. For an issue as important than this interested parties within the BU community should have had - yet did not have - an opportunity to prepare a response that this event appears to so desperately need.

Please note my objections.

Thank you,
Cathy Gellis
BUSL 2006"

This is the downside to going abroad. I can't believe stuff like this is happening right under where my nose used to be! The best I can do is complain as loudly as I can and hope for the best, since at this point I have no ability to organize anything better.

The Boston Globe ran an article with the sub-headline, "BU law school will double size of its program for loan forgiveness." Of course, the original loan forgiveness program was pretty tiny. Doubling tiny still results in tiny...

But I don't mean to mock the school's efforts. In fact, I wish to commend it and encourage it to continue providing support in this area. I think it will. In the last year or so the new administration has been incredibly responsive to the expressed concerns of students that certain legal jobs would be financially out of reach for us, but for the help of the school. So the school (and the alumni) has stepped up as a result.

But as the article and Dean O'Rourke herself said, there's still room for improvement in developing a more robust loan forgiveness program. So I look forward to the hopefully not-far-off future day(s) when the Globe will once more be able to write that BUSL has doubled its program's size again.

Yesterday the new class of "1Ls" started. They aren't called 1Ls, and in fact, because law school is an undergraduate course of study it might be better to call them "freshmen." In Germany they tend to label the class year based on when they started. For instance, while I call myself "Class of 2006" because that's when I graduate, they would call me "Class of 2003" because that's when I started.

The general course of study seems to be three years, each year consisting of three trimesters. They are also expected to do internships. One occurs between the first and second year, and I think they do another one as well. Then there's a fourth year, which seems to be designed for review and preparation for the first state exam. They take it during the beginning of the 5th year, which seems to involve a few take-home research papers and then an exam they sit for. After that they do two years of apprenticeship, where they rotate through positions with firms, judges, government, etc., and then they take another exam, which this time gauges their clinical skills. Once they pass the second exam, they can then practice law however they want, including by becoming judges. (Although apparently the more prestigious judicial positions may be more grade-dependant than others.) There seems to be some criticism that it takes so long to become lawyers, and there may be some momentum to perhaps reduce the length of the apprenticeship, but I have not heard anyone raise the objection that by devoting the entire undergraduate experience to the study of law that educational breadth may be compromised.

On the other hand, at a public university it may not be so much, as there are other courses that students may be available to take. However at Bucerius the other courses seem to be limited to language study (as opposed to math, science, history, etc.). Still, the Bucerius curriculum requires that students study abroad for the fall term of their third year at one of Bucerius's 72 partner law schools around the world. That's why there's such a developed program for the incoming students that come to Germany in exchange. We are welcome to take courses with the rest of the school, but because of the language barrier they offer us our own curriculum program of 12 courses to choose from. These courses are all ABA-approved for 2 units of credit each. Some home universities, like mine, only give 12 units of pass credit for courses taken. Others transfer the courses entirely, with the letter grades, and compute them into students' GPAs. There are also various non-credit lectures and extracurricular programs and activities that all Bucerius students are able to attend.

One thing that stands out about Bucerius in contrast with American law schools is exams. For one, exam grades can be appealed. Also, if an exam is not passed it can be taken again. This seems to be the case for a relatively large number of students, about 20%. Apparently they also used to be able to take it a third time, but this policy led to some students not bothering to sit for some exams the first time, and so the school changed it. But if they still don't pass, they don't get credit. And if they ultimately don't pass I think three courses then they can get kicked out. (I don't think the foreign students can retake their exams, however.)

The school building is well-landscaped and appointed. It sits next to a big botanical park and incorporates the ambient green in its large grassy inner yard. On nice days students can sit on Adirondack chairs on the lawn to study, and eat their meals on the outside patio. The school has a cafeteria, which offers cheap and sometimes tolerable food for lunch and dinner. (It does German food and potatoes really well, Asian food not so well.) There are commercial areas not too far away (towards Gaensemarkt in one direction, Dammtor Station in another, and the university in yet another) but not really conveniently close enough to run out for lunch so most people stay at school. Then inside the building, which was redone maybe 7 years ago or so, the classrooms are modernly furnished, with computers and sophisticated AV equipment. (However, I would prefer they trade the most advanced overhead projector for working white board markers...) The school, however, seems a little tight for holding the entire student body, which became particularly apparent yesterday when throngs of lost 1Ls clogged the halls. But it's also open 24/7 to accommodate students' study and Internet needs (there's wireless everywhere) and in the end feels like a comfortable place to live for the time one needs to spend here.

At Bucerius, like at BU, we have lockers. Mine is in the basement, which isn't too bad because we enter through the basement. At BU they're in the basement too, but it's hard to say anything complimentary about that situation since the lockerroom is in a pretty irredeemably dreary location.

The lockers at Bucerius however are pretty nice: new, lockable with keys, and with mail slots at the bottom. I use mine a lot (for a change!) and have gotten used to finding it there on the bottom row in the middle of the clump of lockers to the right of the stairs.

Only today it wasn't there!

I went to where my locker usually is, where it's been every day since the semester started, but somebody else's locker was right where mine should have been.

For a moment I contemplated my sanity. Am I wrong? Is my locker really not here? Has my locker perhaps never been here? And in any case, if it's not here, then where is it? I do have a locker, right?

I scanned the labels on the lockers. None bore my name. I tried my key nonetheless, yet the door didn't open.

How does one lose a locker?

Well, you lose it when the school, somewhere between 11pm at night and 11am the next morning, decides to move them.

Fortunately, the panic confusion soon faded, and I noted that the labels on the lockers still ran in alphabetical order. Tracing them back I was then able to find my locker there at the end of the clump. The key opened it, and inside everything inside was just as I'd left it. Just not quite WHERE I'd left it...

But such things may be part of the intellectual rigor provided by Bucerius. Smart students should be able to solve these kinds of problems, I guess. This must be how the school keeps the student body on its toes...

Yet with good results, apparently. The school is all abuzz these days because the results of the first class of students to graduate from Bucerius and take the state exam are in, and the students seem to have done quite well. This is a big deal for Bucerius, because it's a huge, unprecedented, and risky experiment to have a private law school in Germany. It's the first of its kind, and a lot was riding on those results, to see if the school could provide the same quality of education (or even better) than the state schools. So far so good, it seems. The administration seems quite proud of what they've accomplished.

And apparently celebrated by rearranging the furniture.

It must seem weird, me talking about adding and dropping classes at this late date in the semester. So I'll take a moment to explain the alchemy that is the course scheduling at Bucerius...

The international program offers 12 courses for the session (which I'll call the "semester," since it reasonably tracks to my regular BUSL semester). They are all worth 2 ABA credits and meet something like 12 times each, for 2 hours (well, a bit less with a break in the middle). They are scheduled thusly: 4 run for the first half of the semester, 4 for the second half, and 4 run the whole time. In theory this means that the half-semester ones meet twice a week, while the others meet once.

In reality this isn't quite what happens. Due to the scheduling of professors, facilities, and miscellaneous holidays and such that force the schedule to be rearranged, we can have some classes three times a week and some might go 10 days before meeting again. Also, although some classes tend to track to the same dates and times every week, some are completely irregular.

(For example, can you figure out when this course meets?)

"Dates, Times and Locations: Mondays, 11.15 – 1.15, Sept. 5, 12, 14.00 – 16.00, Oct. 31, Tuesdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Sept. 13, 11.15 – 13.15, Nov.1, 14.00 – 16.00, Sept. 6, 16.15 – 18.15, Oct. 11, Wednesdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Sept. 7, 14, Oct. 12, and Thursdays, 9.00 – 11.00, Oct. 13, 18.30 – 20.30, Sept. 22."

(They keep a personalized online schedule on the Internet so we can always tell where we're supposed to show up, but it does get a little confusing. So far I haven't shown up for a class that wasn't happening, or not shown up for one that way, but I did once or twice show up expecting one subject and getting taught another.)

Compounding this is that some of the courses are pegged to the German students' trimester, like the International Commercial Transactions course. Their trimester started this week, so that class started then too. The moot court course did as well.

Anyway, so if it seems like classes are starting and stopping all the time, they are.

It's different from BU in that there I usually take 4 unit classes (classes that meet twice a week for 2 hour sessions, but that run the whole time). It gives students a chance to get more in depth in any one subject. But the shorter classes are nice too, because they give us a chance to be exposed to lots of different things. Ultimately since I'm not likely to master anything in one semester no matter how many sessions the class meets, this may be a better deal – at least at this stage of my education.

The other day some German students were discussing how Bucerius really needs to build a "napping room," perhaps with an LCD screen that should easily show new nappers which beds were available. In case of high demand, they could also be put on a timing mechanism, kind of like the showers in train stations. (I used one once in Copenhagen: you get 30 minutes for your shower, and when the time's up, the door is going to open whether you're ready or not...)

One student then suggested that perhaps Clifford Chance could sponsor the "napping room." After all, other rooms in the school had been sponsored by leading law firms, like Linklaters and White and Case. But Clifford Chance does not (yet) have a room of its own, and the students thought this might provide the perfect sponsorship opportunity.

"Do you have napping rooms at your schools in the US?" the students asked me.

"Yeah, but we call them libraries."

Quite an exciting night for sports last night. Two of the international students, one from Texas and one from OU, decided to watch the game over the Internet in the student lounge. Unfortunately it was for some reason blocked out, so they were unable to watch it live (for that they paid 20 bucks?). Instead they killed time by watching some previous baseball playoff games until 11pm or so when they'd be able to watch the completed game archived.

Meanwhile, the German students were gathered in a lecture room to watch Germany play Turkey in soccer. I decided to join them. It was more exciting than Americans might suspect – at least in a room full of people.* Germany however didn't, in my estimation (and as represented by the final score), play particularly well. But people had fun. Everyone brought beer – even me. But that was totally fine, because the head of the school was also there watching with us and didn't object. There was also a pool to guess the final score, and despite it being 1-0 Turkey for most of the game, a flurry of goals in the last 5 minutes turned it to a 2-1 Turkish victory. And the head of the school won the pool...

I then contemplated staying at school all night to watch the Cal-UCLA football match-up, but it was difficult to tell if I'd be able to watch it televised over the Internet so instead I went home. The game wouldn't even start until 1:30am, and it didn't seem worth staying up if there was a strong possibility I wouldn't get to see it.

* There was also some additional, um, excitement... At some point a Turkish player sustained an injury. I suppose it was a groin injury, because as the cameras showed the trainers treating him, it also showed them taking off his shorts in full view of the cameras! In my opinion the European football "wardrobe malfunctions" are much more interesting than the American ones...

Edit: Oh, and Friday had its own athletics excitement, when the school organized an American (touch) football game. Of course, a 20-on-20 match, comprised of many people who had never even seen a football before, went about as well as you might expect...

This week the German 2Ls were all aflutter, putting together their rankings for which law school they'd like to attend next year for their semester abroad. At Bucerius everyone does a semester abroad – it's part of the curriculum, and part of Bucerius's mission to generate globally-aware lawyers.

A few weeks ago they held an open house where the international students studying here could describe their schools, but the 2L's choices weren't just limited to those. There are many, many partner schools around the world for them to choose from.

Not everyone was interested in going to America, and I think that's a good thing. There's more to the world than just the US (though Americans so often forget...). Several were interested in French-speaking schools to hone their language skills, and another of my friends is particularly interested in Asia. In addition to China and Singapore, apparently there's even a school in Bangalore they can attend. (One other reason to go to a non-US school now: many of them would consider pursuing an American LLM at some point, so a non-US school now would broaden their experience.)

What may be a little unfortunate about the selection process, but apparently was what the students themselves requested, is that the system for being assigned your spot is based on class ranking. Which is unfortunate, because it makes students competitive in a way they otherwise wouldn't really need to be. My impression is that grades do matter to some extent in Germany, but to a much lesser degree than in the US. Especially first-year grades. But the students apparently elected to have their choices considered in class rank order, rather than by lottery. I gather it gave them a sense that they could control their destiny, but I wonder to what extent that's actually true.

In any case, students could rank up to 15 schools, and even many of those interested in non-US schools still needed to put some on their lists. (Then, as I understand it, the top ranked student would be assigned his first choice school, then the second-ranked would get his top choice – or if unavailable, his second choice, etc.) I pitched Boston University quite enthusiastically to anyone who would listen (even those just trying to be polite) and particularly to my friends (who also may have been humoring me). But it was sort of funny – during the open house I talked about how great the education is. And people paled: "Um, I was kind of hoping to take it a little easier during my semester abroad. Do people at BU... um, do they ever have fun?" So I had to rethink my pitch...

Which is not to say that the German students are lazy... They DO work very hard for many, many years here. Three years of school, followed by at least a year of exam prep – including Saturday morning practice tests. To want to take things a little easier for one semester would not be unreasonable.

Still, I encouraged them to think about what they could gain from their American educations. Some were particularly interested in the reputation of the schools and wondered how it would be regarded when listed on their C.V.'s. For better or for worse, I showed them the US News and World Report rankings. But I said that there were certain considerations that should trump those numbers:

a) They shouldn't live somewhere they wouldn't want to live. Most of these students are used to cosmopolitan environments. They needed to understand which ones were in locations that could offer them. Although admittedly this is a bit tough to do speculatively. A school like Boston College is easily accessible to Boston, but it's not actually IN Boston. Would the students care about something like this? Perhaps. Would they be able to know where the schools really were? Perhaps not, or at least not without a lot more research than I think they were able to do in the time available. So as best I could, I filled students in on where these schools really are. I do feel their impressions may be skewed by my biases of where I like to live, but I tried to suppress my own preferences and try to match schools up to what I could figure out theirs to be.

b) If there was something they were particularly interested in – like, say, IP law – they should consider a lower-ranked school for the chance to experience classes taught by those esteemed professors.

c) If there is something about a school's particular place or associated opportunities that interested the student it would also overcome a lower ranking. For my Asia-focused friend, for instance, I recommended he list Santa Clara University. It may be third tier, but there is a strong Asian community nearby he can potentially network with. More so than, I would suspect, some of the higher-ranked Midwestern schools.

d) The other aspect I encouraged them to consider (though here, too, I think they lacked the necessary information to do so) was the program available to them at any of these schools. A highly-ranked school that just dumped the students into classes with no support would likely not be a good choice. It is best to choose a school (like I know BU is) that takes its foreign program VERY seriously. Then there are questions about the curriculum available to them. Could they take any courses they wanted? Is there a prescribed program? And which would the student prefer?

e) Sadly, cost is a consideration. It costs a lot more to live in Boston, New York, or DC than Iowa, and that might be a factor in many students' decisions.

I did suggest to several students that if they did study in the US, even if they could take any courses they wanted from the catalog, that they consider taking, if possible, some of the first year courses like in Torts and Contract – something so that they can really learn the doctrinal bases for much of American law.

There's a lot of screaming and yelling in the halls today; the 2Ls just found out (or are finding out) where they are going for their semesters abroad. And many seem to be quite happy about it...

I'm happy because word has it four will be going to BU. And at least one of them is a friend of mine.

Today I had my first session of an Alternative Dispute Resolution course. Unlike the other courses that meet in 2-hour blocks, this one ran pretty much all day and will meet for two more full days in a few weeks. I really like the instructor � he's a mediating practitioner who also can teach. And the class is interesting: about 10 people (half the class) are German. The others are international students, but only 4 of them or so are Americans. There's also students from Turkey, Sweden, Holland, Singapore, China, Australia, Canada...

Meanwhile, last night I gave a presentation on the INCOTERMS FOB designation for my International Commercial Transactions class. Oddly enough, I *think* it was the first powerpoint presentation I've ever had to give. I'm not sure how, but somehow I managed to avoid having to do one during my earlier career. (I attended several, but I wasn't responsible for producing them.) I'm happy to say that I produced a non-boring one. In fact, several classmates commended me for its non-boringness. The content was pretty well organized, and it was also liberally decorated with my own custom illustrations. You'd be amazed how well I can get stick figures to emote...

The other academic things I've been meaning to blog about I'll squeeze in here. One is that the German students here do something called "Studium General." The school puts on various presentations and such, often on Wednesday afternoons, bringing in all sorts of speakers and putting on programs of other topics. They are all optional (and they are all open to the international students, although most are in German) but over the course of the three years of study they are obligated to attend forty of them in order to graduate. It seems like an interesting way to provide diversity in their legal education.

And the one last thing to note is the particular way Germans applaud their professors. In the US, at the end of class we all just get up to leave. We save our applause for the last day of the course, but then usually clap. Whereas in Germany, students always applaud after every class by rapping their knuckles on the desks. This happens every time, without fail, after every course - even the seminars. It seems to be partly a way to show appreciation, and partly a way for everyone to indicate class is over. I've gotten used to it by now - so used to it that I may be inclined to do it when I go back to the US... But it was sort of surprising the first time I heard it. One of these quaint German traditions I guess... But kind of a nice one, I think.

At a party at school Friday night a student lost a 50 euro note from her pocket. This weekend she put out an email asking if anyone may have found it.

Today someone returned it to her.

Nice place, Bucerius.

I'm realizing in talking to other international students that not all of them know what they'll be taking next semester. "Yeah, I didn't get all the classes I wanted; I'll have to figure it out during Add/drop," is a surprisingly common refrain.

Whereas I know exactly what courses I'll be taking*, when they meet, and when I'll be done with them.

I used to think BU was silly for making us sign up for all our courses for the whole year in the summer before. But on retrospect, I'm grateful. We're not completely locked into anything, of course, but it still allows us more certainty than having to scramble around in the fall would. It's the best of both worlds, actually: flexibility and predictability.

* I'm now 98% decided that I will take Criminal Procedure instead of Trial Advocacy. It will certainly be much harder, and it will mean that I'll have FOUR EXAMS(!) at the end of the semester, but I think it will be better in the long run for the breadth of my education.

No, really, I'm serious. The Germans are REALLY into having their fairs. In addition to all the Christmas markets, they also have the Hamburg Dom going on. It's a gigantic fair, complete with lights and rides, that they set up a couple times a year. Last night, on my way home from an errand (at, um, WalMart... sorry), since it was practically next door, I stopped off for a waffle. A nice, fresh, warm waffle with powdered sugar.

It's good to get things like waffles into my diet, I think. Since I take most of my meals at the school cafeteria I end up pretty much subsisting on little more than cucumbers and potatoes (and the occasional schnitzel, which they do make well) due to the often mysterious and/or unappetizing quality of the other offerings. They do TRY, the cafeteria ladies are very nice, and it's generally cheaper to eat lunch at school here than at BU, but good intentions sadly don't always convert into good food.

This is not a complaint! This is a post of appreciation for the efforts the school has made to "sweeten" the law school experience. On Valentine's Day they offered free cookies and hot chocolate (with marshmallows). Then today, for "Student Appreciation Day," they had free donut holes in the lobby, and offices all over the school offered lots of candy.

My only wish is that they perhaps could have spread out the yummyness throughout the semester. It's quite a bit of sugar to enjoy in such a small period of time... In fact it might make me a tad bit concerned that there could be some sinister plan afoot to bake us into pies, as is the typical fate of people plied with tasty treats, were it not for the fact that the school also offers free yoga. Plus the built-in stairmaster afforded by a 17-story building...

Yesterday and today the military has been at school recruiting for JAG (military lawyers). The school is not happy about having them here because the school does not allow employers that discriminate to recruit on campus. But because this particular employer happens to be connected to the federal government, thanks to the Solomon Amendment the school has no choice but to let them come.

In response, the school gay and lesbian student group gave out buttons that people could wear in protest with the message, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Recruit." Many did. They also gave out fliers, including one that listed "Countries that Allow Gay Men and Lesbians to Serve Openly in their Armed Forces":

Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK

It also listed "Countries that Forbid Gay Men and Lesbians from Serving in the Military":

Iran, Iraq, Libya, United States

I guess if you're not with us, you're against us. I mean, if you're against us, you're with us…

The flyer also pointed out that U.S. Soldiers already service with openly gay soldiers through our NATO allies.

The situation is shameful, and I couldn't help but notice the particularly bitter irony that the military picked the day that celebrates love to be the day they barged onto campus to refuse to hire people who did.

Because my moot court partner is on Law Review, I've had the occasion, during the course of our preparation, to enter and spend some time in the Law Review office.

It is, I'm not exaggerating, at least five times the size of my journal's office. It has a kitchen (whereas ours only has a microwave), separate offices for note and article editors (hell, ours is just one room without any offices at all - though we do sort of have a foyer, which is where we keep the microwave...), and a living room area where I couldn't help but notice a videogame system. Their computer lab area also seems to have dedicated, en suite Wexis printers, whereas we just have one printer in our office that we can't seem to keep operational. (Who knew you had to keep these things plugged in?)

Then today, when I was there before our practice argument, I overheard a discussion evaluating the relative legal merits of the lawsuits that have been threatened against James Frey for his "memoir." Compare that with the conversation we then heard in my journal's office after our argument, a conversation which included some serious contemplation on how the fields of poppies could grow so well in the Land of Oz, what with it obviously being impossible for it to rain there in order not to melt all the witches.

In our favor, however, is the fact that the Law Review office is in a sub-terrainean, windowless basement not even connected to the law school building proper, whereas ours is on the fifth floor with a gorgeous view of the Boston skyline.*

I'm sure that evens everything out...

* (Of course, so does most of the building.)

Last night was the annual Public Interest Project auction, an event to raise money to fund students' unpaid public interest work in the summer. I'd done PIP my 1L and 2L years, and last summer was paid through one of the grants.

As is typical, the auction has two main parts: a silent auction during the first two hours, where people bid on packages of donated items and gift certificates, and a live auction. The live auction includes bigger-ticket items like vacation home rentals (this year also included memorabilia from Boston Legal and Family Guy) as well as unique things donated by faculty. Sometimes it's an opportunity to have a particular dining experience with you, a faculty member, and some number of your friends; sometimes it's the opportunity for your 1L section to play basketball against the professors. This year one of the professors also donated an original painting: a banana with a smiley face, entitled "Despair."

This year they also had blackjack during the silent auction, with various faculty serving as dealers. Granted some had more experience than others… but because the chips could only be converted into raffle tickets it wasn't too stressful to walk some of the newbies through the ins and outs of the rules of 21…

The crowd overall seemed larger this year than I remember from others. It particularly seemed to have more alumni, but maybe that's because I could recognize more of them since many were last year's 3Ls. It was interesting to see how nicely they all cleaned up, now that they aren't haggard students anymore…

Oddly enough, given that I have no money, I probably spent one of the larger chunks of money at the auction: $1100. But in theory it's a good deal. Bar/Bri had donated several certificates for discounted courses. The way it worked out, the money still due Bar/Bri + the $1100 should amount to less than what I would have paid for the bar review course outright, by at least a tad. And in any case, even if it's just a very small tad at least PIP gets the money. That's 1/4 of a student's grant right there.

Posted 3/25.

So it would seem BU is positioned in the new US News rankings, assuming the item linked here is legit.

That would constitute a slight tumble, since we were #20 last year, but it's probably not too bad given that there were some methodological adjustments that were expected to give us some difficulty. I would nonetheless expect BU to continue its general upward rise over the next few years, particularly to the extent that the rankings include a measure of general esteem for the school. It was interesting how when we suddenly turned up at #20 no one really seemed to find it all that shocking. For that reason, I suspect we'll be back.

(Of course, please note that these rankings are still tremendously methodologically suspect, to say nothing of completely worthless. But as long as they exist, we can have some fun peripherally acknowledging them, especially when it seems to be in our interest to do so. As far as I can tell hypocrisy isn't one of the categories measured anyway...)

Edit 3/31: OK, we really are #22.

After our last dean left, Professor O'Rourke became Dean ad interim. The ad interim suffix almost because a joke, because she immediately filled the role fully and perfectly. From the get-go there were tangible changes for the better. Some obvious (like fixes to the building), some behind the scenes that made the school run smoother, and many that made life at law school be - to the extent that it's ever possible to be - enjoyable. Moreover she quickly gained a reputation with students, faculty, staff and alumni for being accessible and responsive - qualities every institution needs from its dean.

But the ad interim appendage isn't a joke, and neither the school nor she can indefinitely maintain this status quo. We need a dean who can be dean without the suffix, someone who can make a commitment to the school, and vice versa, for the long haul. And so a nationwide search for a permanent dean was (eventually) launched.

It has been explained to me that a nationwide search is necessary in order to have credibility. Apparently BU has been criticized for having promoted too often from within, and the institution loses esteem when it looks so insular. Also, internal candidates who may eventually get the job look better when they are chosen out of a pool of qualified candidates. OK, fine. However, none of this changes the fact that Dean O'Rourke herself is the perfect candidate for the job.

One of the other reasons it might be good to get an external candidate is that in filling the opening with someone having a distinguished reputation it can provide the school with an immediate shot in the arm in terms of its own reputation. But consider: Dean O'Rourke is so well-regarded that she's currently being sought after by at least two other law schools for their dean positions. If she can shore up their reputations, surely keeping her should also up ours - just as losing her would certainly diminish it.

But worse than that, losing her to another school would mean losing her as our dean (to say nothing of losing her as a professor). Who could possibly be a substitute? Now, maybe in five or ten years from now the institution's needs might evolve to something beyond her expertise. But right now what the school needs, she can offer. Not just in terms of specific talents like budget management, but in terms of community building.

BUSL is emerging from a rough patch. It managed to crawl up in the rankings over the years, but then with the messes involving the both the BU president and BUSL's previous dean (and the related building fund controversy), it seemed to teeter a bit. Dean O'Rourke was able to stop the slide, address many of the concerns that had been long ignored, and overall greatly succeed in strengthening the institution not just as a school, but as a community, pulling together students, faculty, staff and alumni and making us all feel good about the place. BUSL isn't a place that people want to grab their degrees and run away from. It's a place we can feel proud to be connected to.

This is what BUSL needs right now, to continue along on this path she's blazed. And who better than her to continue it? It would come at no sacrifice: no loss of reputation, no compromising of credential. Her academic reputation is stellar, as both a scholar and a teacher. But more than that, we know that she cares about this school. We've seen it already; what the school needs now, more than anything else, is to keep seeing it some more. What else could we be possibly holding out for that we think we might get from some other dean?

It's really hard to imagine how someone else could do a better job than she has. Because it seems that the best thing any dean could do for the school is to let her run it.

Edit 4/29: The students signed a petition to thank Dean O'Rourke for her service to the school. Given that a typical class is around 270, and that there are over 280 signatures, this means that a third of the JD students in the entire school were inclined to sign.

Congratulations to the Bucerius team for getting second place best claimant's brief in Hong Kong!

Hmm... Seems like every moot court team I get involved with has a second place brief...

A couple times a semester the student bar association sponsors an open mike night at school. It's sort of an ad hoc talent show, where lots of students (and some staff) sing or perform poetry. It's a fun way to hang out, and there's usually some snacks to go along with it.

Tonight was a lot of fun in particular, because the turnout was huge. The student organizing it had advertised that he had $206.33 left in the semester's budget to blow on food, and nearly that many people turned out to see how he would… OK, maybe not quite that many. But normally Coffee House ends up a fairly quiet affair, while tonight it was packed.

And the performers went all out. Normally it's small performances, perhaps with self-accompaniment on a guitar. But tonight there were bands with drums and guitars and keyboards and such. As well as some fine a capella performances too…

The leadership torch has been passed to a new crop of current 1Ls. I'm glad. It's a good group that should continue to exist, but it's always touch and go trying to get a new one up and running because it's so much work. During my 1L year some 1L classmates had started it, and then I and some then-1Ls took it over the next year. During the course of the year we did two really popular events: the career panel, and the faculty course-selection panel. The group held them again this year, and they were just as popular. So that's good, because the new leaders now have two "just add water," events, and as long as they do them next year the group should easily be able to continue. Hopefully though they'll be able to do more than that, as it's a useful student group to help focus a lot of student interest in the area.

...Her loss of suffix, that is. Our Dean ad interim has now been named our official dean, as she should have been. Many people at BU are quite happy about this turn of events, and presumably she is one of them...

Even though I'm soon graduating, I still care about this. One reason is because she's done great work to build the BUSL community beyond its walls, particularly in keeping the alumni better connected. As a soon-to-be alum, this is important to me. Too much was invested here to have the cord simply cut on Sunday. I look forward to being part of a broader network of people proud of their connection, which she has helped to foster.

At graduation it was announced, and last week we got an email confirming, that Professor Caruso won the law school's Melton Award for excellence in teaching.

My friends from my first year section were pleased to hear this. We had her for contracts (and then later many of us had her for EU law) and we'd once nominated her for the award ourselves.

What we wrote, so you can get some idea why she deserved it:

We, the undersigned, enthusiastically nominate Professor Daniela Caruso for the Michael Melton Award in Excellence in Teaching.

In Professor Caruso is the fortunate convergence of a wonderful teacher and a wonderful human being, with both qualities richly benefiting her students.

Thoroughly knowledgeable in the area she teaches, she strives to convey to her students comprehensive understanding of all the relevant issues and viewpoints entailed, with a classroom demeanor that is thoughtful, nuanced, and appropriately humorous. She takes genuine concern in the progress and engagement of all her students, as is frequently evidenced both in class and out.

She is available and generous with her support, encouragement, and expertise. It is obvious how committed she is to the learning and success of her students.

For the above reasons, and many others not articulated here, we believe she is well deserving of the honor and acknowledgement of this award.

Clearly others were of the same opinion.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Today's BarBri class, I mean. The high was that we finished up the section on New York Practice. This is the closest I've come in law school to "how to sue people" material. It was basically about how the civil law process works in New York State, and, along with the New York distinctions material from last week's Criminal Procedure section, was one of what I like to call the "Law and Order" courses. (Meaning "courses that I tell myself I am studying for when I watch 'Law and Order'"…)

(Which reminds me - has there ever been a Law and Order where the legal complication plot point deals with transactional immunity stemming from testimony given before a grand jury? None comes to mind, which seems sort of surprising. Seems like it could be an interesting area to explore.)

Anyway, the professor doing the lecture, Professor Alexander, was quite palatable to listen to. Like the first professor we had who did criminal law, he taught us at a good pace, making sure we could take down the important things, and he generally made a lot of boring material go down relatively easily. Then, after he was done, he serenaded us by singing a song about the New York CPLR (the source of the law we'd just learned), accompanied by banjo. It was very entertaining.

Then a real life human being from BarBri came into our class to give us a personal pep talk. This is significant, not just because the pep talk helps a lot, but because most of our instruction is by video, so it's nice to get the more personal attention from time to time.

Then it was on to begin a section on NY essay writing. And this is where the low began. The whole thing was an enormous waste of time. I mean, yeah, there were a couple of good things in it - maybe some real diamonds in the rough - but there was an awful lot of rough (and very few diamonds). Annoyingly the lecture didn't really conform to the outline we were given, but that was the least of the problems. The bigger problems were that the lecturer was almost entirely humorless - in fact he came off as mean! - and managed to achieve the apparent paradox of being all of boring, terrifying, and condescending. Even if he'd been a good lecturer the material could have still better been covered with a 15-20 minute talk coupled with a few outlines. Instead he droned on and on, dropping on us all sorts of terms that we haven't gotten anywhere near yet - which was intimidating yet also completely pointless. Plus it was of little constructive use for him to have meticulously listed them twice. Or so thoroughly. There was one point where he was trying to list different legal statuses, not just as the status itself but also its opposite. I'm not sure, however, that we needed each one spelled out so specifically. I mean, for most of them we could probably tell that the opposite was the exact same word but prefixed by "non"… And I also don't think he needed to tell us that legal rights/duties/liabilities/duties might also vary depending on whether the party in question is alive or dead. I think if at this point in our legal education we could not infer that, there's not going to be a whole lot that BarBri can do for us to help us pass this test…

Anyway, while it was very nice for the guy to give us his home phone number so we could call to ask questions, the rest of the presentation was so dismal it pretty much undid all the warm fuzzy feelings that the banjo guy had left us with.

Our BarBri lecturer today was from Brooklyn, and it showed. But at least she has personality, especially since her subject matter is so awful. It's property law. For non-legal readers, you must be wondering what's so bad about that. After all, you can do interesting thing with property, like build houses, parking lots, amusement parks, etc.

The problem is that property law isn't about building interesting things - it's about sorting out the Byzantine language imparted to us by William the Bastard when he conquered England. Now, granted much of our law in general comes from England. But we've had a lot of time to mush it into our own much more convenient, practical, and straightforward form. Not so property law. Property law bears all the hallmarks of the kind of law you'd get from a country that thought base 12 was a good system to use for its money. In other words, it's a cryptic mess.

Fortunately it is somewhat familiar for most of us, since property is a typical first year law course. However, it's only the American JD students who will have taken it. The interesting thing about New York is that it's one of the few (maybe the only?) jurisdictions that lets foreign law students sit for its bar after doing a one year LLM program (usually in "American law") at an American law school. My BarBri course is therefore full of students like that: there's a cluster of French students, several Japanese, today I sat next to a girl from Israel…

For them, much of the material we'll learn this summer will be new. Plus most of them have to contend with the language barrier to some extent. Even for those whose English is quite good, they are still being overwhelmed with lots of arcane and esoteric vocabulary (yesterday I counseled a Japanese friend not to get too worked up about words like "interpleader," assuring him that most Americans don't know it either), and can't quite scribble English as rapidly as the occasion may warrant. I have noticed, however, that most of them have different notes than the rest of us. While the American JDs usually take full notes or fill in the blanks of our handouts, many of the foreign students seem to have complete versions of the lecture notes at their disposal and follow-up along with the lecture by reading it.

Meanwhile, today's lecture did give some credence to the "alive and dead" instruction of yesterday. Basically, because there can be huge effects on who owns property depending on who is alive or dead at certain pivotal times, it will be hugely important on the exam not to skip over that detail. Still, I stand by my earlier assertion that this advice could have been imparted in a much more… useful form.

We got our practice essays back. I got a 5 (out of 10). From what I hear, that's a decent score. I think you can pass the bar with 5's on your essays. As I get more familiar with the material I might be able to do a little bit better, but I think I did pretty well on format. For these essays IRAC is very important. Maybe even more important than in law school. I think I used to struggle with it a little, but my time in Germany really helped develop that skill.

Anyway, today was day 1 of Con Law. The lecturer was Prof. Chemerinsky. At first I was looking forward to it because he's very esteemed in the subject matter, and I'd heard he was an interesting lecturer. I wish I hadn't heard that - it just served to raise my hopes too high. And while he is indeed very knowledgeable and generally very organized as a lecturer, he managed to make a complete mess out of privileges and immunities, which is already very confusing. Fortunately his materials included a handy chart, and I *think* I can distill the essense of what I need to know from the chaos, but that section was not a high point of the day.

I'm back in Boston now, but a few days ago I was in New Jersey to take care of various errands (e.g., getting fingerprinted for the NJ bar). On the drive down I listened to three of the five PMBR CDs on property law. It was very dangerous - even though it was 4:30 in the afternoon, I nearly fell asleep at the wheel…

Since I couldn't be at my regular BarBri lectures in Boston I had to make them up in New York. I did part of one at the BarBri offices and the rest at Fordham. I kind of liked the change of pace, especially getting to study New York material in New York for a change. It gave it all much more relevancy. Plus it was nice to be able to join in the ambient conversations during the breaks fretting about the playing-status of Derek Jeter. The guys I was talking to about it gave me appropriate looks of sympathetic horror when I told them I'd just spent the last three years up in Boston…

One thing that is different about the New York lectures from the Boston one is that there are more of them, and at more times. It therefore seemed to be a fairly frequent occurrence that people who missed the beginning of one lecture would come to the beginning of the next one. I had to do that once, as I missed the beginning of the Thursday morning session and had to catch up with the 6pm one. (I also noticed that there were a lot more people wearing suits at the 6pm one than there ever were at any of the others.)

Meanwhile I came to appreciate the BUSL facility. The classrooms at the BarBri office are functional, but very crowded and otherwise uncharming. (Although the location was great - right at the north end of Times Square on 42nd street - a really easy walk over from the Port Authority and lots of subway lines.) Fordham also paled to BU. While the school had a couple of features BUSL doesn't have - namely, a lobby - the large lecture classrooms weren't nearly as nice. They were pretty sterile, and the seats were these hard plastic buckets that shook when other people sitting in the same row happened to move. Whereas BU's rooms have a much nicer aesthetic and more comfortable furniture. And a better view… (Well, at least from out the window. Fordham did have more TV screens, meaning that all the seats could see the screen, which isn't necessarily the case at BU.)

This post comes from the middle of a BarBri lecture. Normally I don't do this. I don't even turn on my computer so I can pay undivided attention (they usually give us handouts to fill our notes into, so except for the first two days there's been no need to use the computer anyway).

But we're in the middle of Day 2 of 3 on Contracts and it is BORING. Contracts are not boring - I like contracts law a lot - but the lecturer is going SOOOOOO SLOWLY that he's sucking the joy right out of it, along with our ability to pay attention. Everyone here is very fidgety...

I suppose it's better to stay and ride it out because I'm studying better by paying attention to the lectures than by reading, which I have no patience to do. But I am behind on synthesizing my notes, and part of me thinks it would be a better use of my time to be doing that instead.

All the bar reviewers - BarBri, PMBR, etc. - talk a lot about the mechanics of the test taking, emphasizing the number of questions, the frequency of topics tested, etc. The message that comes across, I think by design, is that one should not belabor actually trying to learn the material as much as maximize memorization resources. I guess given the sheer volume of material that tack may be necessary, but it does seem unfortunate that this massive educational opportunity isn't really supposed to be an educational opportunity...

On the other hand, an interesting possibility was raised when they were explaining how the exam score gets curved (like on the MBE). Apparently if too many people get a question wrong, they won't count the question and so everyone will end up with credit for that question in their scaled score. Theoretically, then, BarBri can game the system. In fact, it probably does game the system - even if not purposefully. Since so many people take the review course, if it doesn't cover a certain topic then lots of people may resultingly get that question wrong, perhaps in great enough numbers to void the question. So in a sense, BarBri by its very existence may well determine what you'll need to know for the bar.

Just a quick note from the thick of bar study, but I'd like to reiterate what I said before: the BarBri New York essay writing workshops are AWFUL.

The professor's demeanor is completely unpalatable. Nearly humorless, he basically barks at us for an hour each session. Even when he "assures" us he terrifies us. Meanwhile he keeps yelling at us emphasizing the point values and exam construction, but without enough guidance for how to actually put the essays together accordingly. In fact, what he's saying seems to contradict the organizational tips BarBri had earlier given us. I could figure out how to IRAC, but I can't figure out how to IRAC under his instructions. Instead his (latest) workshop is focusing on minute issue spotting. Not so much on how to do it, but on specific rules of law that are raised in the example essays. So, yeah, great, we'll need to know all these rules. And his advice to know them specifically is well-taken. But he's currently dissecting a tort essay and we haven't even done torts....

Basically this is a complete waste of time, and a shame, because it's not like we don't need any essay writing instruction. But this is completely useless and unpleasant to sit through. And it should be noted that, as a result, most people don't.

(On the upside, the evidence prof we just had for three days was good. But that's going to help me more to pass the MBE. For the NY essays, I'm still pretty much on my own.)

Along with the pages and pages and tomes and tomes of legal rules BarBri throws at us every day they also tend to give us lists of acronyms to use as mnemonics to memorize all these different nuances. For the most part I don't bother - most of them are a little forced ("COAH"?), and usually they're just something else to memorize. Plus it's generally easier to remember things contextually.

I have decided, however, that "bar" is nothing more than an acronym for "Big, Annoying Regurgitation."

Somehow it made me feel better to realize that.

"This subject has been tested 10 times in the last 45 exams. So you have a 1 in 4.5 chance of being tested on it this July."

Um... I'm not an expert, but I don't think probabilities work that way.

I spent the last two days back at the law school, running around taking care of errands and saying good-bye to various friends, faculty, and administration. BUSL really has great administrators and support staff. Law school is inherently taxing, but at least, thanks to them, it isn't needlessly so. As I read around the blogosphere I'm always hearing about these kafka-esque predicaments other law student bloggers are having to face at their schools, the kinds of things I've never had to face here. Here the administration is responsive, proactive, and dedicated to putting in systems that actually work for everyone. And, as a bonus, they are great people in their own right.

The one hiccup in finding faculty, however, was that they weren't where they used to be. Over the summer the law school renovated all the faculty suites. The result is that they all now have a clean, serene entrance area with fresh paint on the walls. The paint is red, to match the new website that will be fully launched soon, which itself matches the rest of the university's website and reddish color scheme. The law school used to be purple-themed, but it's now switching to red. Even the free BUSL pens in the registrar's office are now (as of this week) red too.

Of course, it is a little sad to see the faculty suites look so sterile. Without the piles and piles of paper they used to have, it just doesn't have that lived-in look... And with all the renovation lots of faculty have also moved offices. Not all of them, but just enough to make me need to crawl the halls trying to find nearly everyone I was looking for.

There's been some other changes too, like with the locker rooms. It used to be that 1Ls and 2Ls had to share lockers (although I was fortunate in that my lockermate never bothered to use it, so I had it to myself). Now everyone gets their own. The downside: that the brand new lockers they installed seem to be too narrow to put a backpack into. On the upside, however, the basement where they all live is now bright and light and not the dank dark dungeon it used to be. (As a 3L I got a new locker. I went to find it once, and then never went back. It was just too scary down there. It wasn't that I was afraid of crime, per se. But monsters were definitely a concern...)

The most traumatic change in the law school, though, were the banners in the main lobby welcoming back 2 and 3Ls, as well as the Class of 2009!!! I remember when 2006 seemed so far in the future, yet now it seems quite reasonable. But 2009...

Posted 9/2, a few days after it was written.

The phone rang unexpectedly around 8am California time. "Hi, I'm from the law school CDO [Career Development Office] as the new person hired to do alumni counseling. I was calling to check in with you and find out how best our office can assist you in your job search." We talked for about 15 minutes while I gave her the overview of my plan, and we'll talk again on Monday to concoct a more specific strategy.

This is fabulous. It's a massive, scary project to jobhunt. It's so nice that I can get some support. (And thousands of bonus points to BU for not saying, "Sorry, if you didn't get your job through OCI [on campus interviewing] we can't help you," which I'm under the distinct impression many other schools' CDOs do.)

Last spring an envelope arrived in the mail from Bucerius. The international office had made all of the international students a yearbook to memorialize our time there. It was very well done - there were pictures of everyone, and below them sentences submitted by our peers describing how we'd remember them, along with articles and other photographs from throughout the semester. Near the end of our time there they had said they were going to do this, but I don't think we realized until we got it just how touching it would turn out to be.

Unfortunately we didn't get them until several months after we had departed, so we couldn't do what people in the US do with yearbooks: sign them. Or could we?

Since my return from Bucerius I've crossed paths with many students I've known from there, internationals and Germans. And each time I have them sign my book as a tangible reminder of this great community we're all a part of.

It's really surprisingly vast - there are Bucerius people everywhere! Including at the click fraud panel I went to a few weeks ago. There I was, minding my own business, when I was approached. "Weren't you at Bucerius last fall?" It turns out that the person making the inquiry was one of the second year students now doing his semester abroad in California, and he had recognized me. We didn't really know each other back then, but we fixed that by meeting for lunch in San Francisco yesterday.

He of course signed my yearbook, and I look forward to lots of other Bucerius people signing my yearbook. Each time I run into someone, be it half a world away from Hamburg or not, I'm increasingly glad I spent that time there.

In follow-up to my comments about the constitutional and contracts law lecturers, I relate an interesting conversation I had with someone at BarBri about the lecturers. Apparently the contracts lecturer whom I hated is extremely popular all over the country - except New York where his ratings were such that NY BarBri dropped him and got someone else (a guy whom I preferred, as at least I was willing to attend all his lectures...). Meanwhile, some of the New York profs are quite popular in New York, but untenable outside it.

I suppose to some degree there's something comforting about being taught law by someone with the accent corresponding to the area of law you're studying. Particularly for New York, where New York legal distinctions are important to know. That would at least explain why, say, Paula Franzese, a property law prof who practically oozes Brooklyn, is so popular there. We're wired to believe her. But it seems she's not popular outside of New York. Yet the contracts prof I didn't like had a thick Texas accent, and he apparently does not ruffle Californian feathers to nearly the same extent. Maybe it isn't an accent thing as much as it is general style. Perhaps Californians find the Texas guy kind of homey. (I found him condescending.) I guess they find the Brooklyn prof... mmm... a little much, although for me she reminds me of lots of people I knew growing up...

The BU Public Interest Project, who funded my work at Bay Area Legal Aid during my 2L summer, is growing impressively. In an email sent to PIP alums yesterday came news that they were able to fund a record 50 grantees for summer work - and every student who had applied.

Furthermore, 3Ls intending to go work in public interest are now eligible for bar study grants.

But what I thought was most interesting from the email was the description of the L-STAR program, a joint effort by public interest projects at several law schools. Standing for "Law Student Travel and Accommodation Reimbursement" the program is designed to encourage firms to donate to the public interest grant funds of the law schools what they otherwise would have reimbursed their interviewee for a taxi ride or hotel room, if the interviewee turns it down.

It strikes me as an interesting idea because there's so much largess endemic to Big Law. The big law firms are prepared to shell out cash to get the candidates they want, and the candidates are probably largely thrilled to be treated accordingly. So it seems like a good thing if before blithely spending money everyone involved stops to think whether that particular money might be better spent.

(I don't mean that interviewees have any sort of moral duty to foot the bill themselves, or to incur great inconvenience in traveling to their interviews. But if a bus will do instead of a taxi, or if there's a couch you can crash on instead of a business-class hotel room, it's nice that there's an incentive to make these concessions.)

Woo hoo! It seems that I'm a graduate from a top 20 school, if this new list is legit. I'd like to think that it was my awesome bar exam success that helped the school make its incredible climb, but it probably didn't, and anyway there's my slight unemployment problem dragging it back down... (Apparently the US News ranking system includes bar passage and graduate employment rates as factors in its rankings.) Besides, around the #20 mark the schools are differentiated by only handful of points (note all the ties), so any ranking of them is really pretty statistically suspect.

However, it's nice to see BU get the benefit of the standard deviation for a change, and it is a good thing for me that it's officially broken the Top 20. I do get asked, way out here in California, what kind of school I went to. Saying "top 25" has been pretty good as a response, but being able to say "top 20" is certainly better.

Edit: Hmmm... These leaked rankings are a little different, although BU is still top 20. So I guess we'll have to wait for the magazine to come out to find out how truly awesome we are...

Sunday's New York Times had an article about a study one of my professors, Michael Meurer, did on the economic soundness of companies pursuing patents, surmising that the costs of litigation negated the profits a patent's limited monopoly might afford. He and his colleague James Bessen plan to turn it into a book.

Personal note: I had done a bit of work as an research assistant for Prof. Meurer while he was preparing his data. Really only a very little bit (e.g., without me the study certainly would have turned out just fine...), but enough to know that he was working on this and be happy to see how it all turned out.

NPR has an interview with Boston University School of Law Mark Pettit, who regularly provides a spoonful of musical sugar to make the case law go down easier by singing student-provided lyrics to Top 40 melodies. Legal-related lyrics, that is. Lyrics that illustrate some case or concept much more entertainingly than a stuffy casebook or straight lecture ever could.

The interview describes him as a contracts professor, although he wasn't mine. I did have him for Evidence, however, and provided him with these lyrics. Unfortunately they didn't make the interview, but then again he does have quite a repertoire by now...