I ran a search today trying to find some cases stating that cities must maintain grassy areas near sidewalks. The exact language was “municipality responsible for maintaining grass along sidewalks and curbs.”
On the third page, the Second Degree Murder statute turned up. Never know where you’ll find something useful …
Today begins my last two weeks as a second-year law student. I’m ok with that.
… or someone is likely to find out who you are during random google searches about some obscure topic.
According to TIME magazine.
Thankfully, others recognized the fundamental stupidity of the piece.
I wonder what happened after Federal Judge Alex Kozinski ripped Eugene Volokh, when he was a rising 2L at UCLA, for writing a law review comment on an archaic property law rule. Volokh was interviewing for a clerkship with Kozinski, who had all but decided to hire him, until Volokh showed Kozinski his law review comment. Kozinski almost fell asleep and suggested that Volokh write on a different topic.
That story comes straight from the horse’s mouth, as the introduction to Academic Legal Writing. I searched Westlaw and found the better comment Volokh wrote: First Amendment and Workplace Harassment.
How did he get there? I’m wondering that as I scour Westlaw and the web for a good topic for my law review comment.
My steps so far: pick a general area I’m interested in. (Check.) Research a bunch of law review articles, court cases, and treatises to learn the basics of the law and its boundaries.
That’s where it gets tricky. What comes next? How do I sniff out the burgeoning development in the law, something that is on the horizon but so far unforeseen?
Essentially, I must become an expert on a field of the law and make a reasoned, insightful guess as to where it is heading. All in one semester.
Welcome to Law Review.
Panera Bread. Hastings. Lots of small coffee shops. Now, finally, Barnes and Noble offers free WiFi.
(Oh, and Girl made an A on her exam. I told her so.)
Every year, the biggest firms in the nation and in each region head out to law schools to do on-campus interviews for their summer programs. This year, a lot of major firms have backed out in the east; thankfully, here in Oklahoma, most of the big regional firms and many firms from Dallas are still looking to hire for next summer. (Interestingly, Cravath is coming to my school; I didn’t expect that.)
Usually, these interviews take place after the school year begins. The career services people decided to bump up the interview process this year, so we begin on August 14th. I had a lot of bad luck last year in OCI, when I was a 1L. This year, my class rank is exactly the same, but I’ve added some very important things to my resume that should make me an excellent candidate.
But there is a lingering doubt—last semester, after all, only 1 of the 7 big firms I applied to interviewed me. So I have very little confidence, despite the strength of my resume and (hopefully) my cover letter.
Girl is going through something similar. She made an A on her first Gross Anatomy test, but she is petrified she will do poorly on her second exam this afternoon. From the outside looking in, I don’t have much doubts that she will do well; she has the same feeling about me getting a good job. But on the inside, both of us are ridden with anxiety about our futures, and I’m left wondering when the nerves will settle.
I’m afraid it won’t be for a while. I spoke to one of my friends this morning, who clerked for a large firm this summer in OK. She is worrying that because of that brand name on her resume, other big firms will look past her as already taken. I told her I would love to have that brand name on my resume; but if I did, I would probably feel like she does anyway.
Life is about more than money, careers. But for girl and I, both are very important—yet I can’t help but think I need to accept things more stoically, both the good and the bad. Nothing in my life has left me hungry so far, so I will just keep plodding along, with the faith that everything will turn out in the end.
I hope I’m not telling myself a fairy tale.
The Justice Department sent a nastygram to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson this week. The letter warned the AG that if the state were to pass the English-only amendment, which would require all official actions of the state to be in English, the Feds might cut off certain funding to OK.
Sen. Inhofe and the state legislature said that the Feds were “overreaching” the proper limits of their power, with Inhofe going as far as saying that “It is entirely unacceptable for the federal government to try to strong-arm the state by threatening to remove federal funding.”
Of course he is wrong. The letter the DOJ sent didn’t specify which funds would be cut off, but if they bear any relation to civil rights, Congress will be plainly within its power to cut off funds. As the Supreme Court has said, there is “no constitutional flaw in a federal statute directing the Secretary of Transportation to withhold federal highway funds from States failing to adopt Congress’ choice of a minimum drinking age. Similar examples abound.” New York v. U.S., 505 U.S. 144, 167.
I think this amendment is ridiculous. Hopefully Oklahomans will not support it. But it is certainly within Congress’ power to threaten and cut off federal funds if the state enacts this.
