At some point in your third year of law school, you have to start shelling out big bucks for bar review courses (and the firms will either pay it for you up front or reimburse you later on, if you go that route). As of the time of this writing, there are two major professional bar review courses: PMBR and Barbri (and since they suck enough money out of law students, there's no need to link them here for more free advertising). Because BarBri may be broken up as a monopoly, who knows how this is going to play out next year. These past couple of years have been exciting for the bar testing world.
Last year, PMBR was sued and slapped with an injunction because they were found to have infringed on several of the MBE's copyrights (essentially they would send people in to take the MBE, each would strategically memorize five or six specific questions (e.g., #s 1-5, 6-10, etc.) and then either leave or figure out some way to carry away crib notes with the questions. This is how PMBR would run their course. The opinion, in all its hilarity, can be found here: National Conference of Bar Examiners v. Multistate Legal Studies, Inc..
Obviously because they had to change their format last year, and the bar examiners had to scrap years of questions (presumably), I am left to wonder whether the summer 2006 course was effective or not and whether it was worth the $800 or so to take one or both of their courses. I know people that did both and passed and failed the 2006 bar (with 2007 bar results to be determined), so my sample size is obviously worthless.
Despite this, I'm still going to take both PMBR courses. Even if the questions are wrong, the law will still generally be the same (I would hope). We shall see come July, I guess. Obviously my summer entries will be much more entertaining when I give my thoughts on how good or bad barbri and pmbr are.
And no, I don't work for PMBR. Or BarBri.
Other bloggers have also listed similar concerns:
PMBR Gets Nailed
PMBR Sucks (making me wish I hadn't already paid for this stupid thing)
Sunday, March 25, 2007
PMBR & the July 2007 bar
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Clerkship bonus jumps, who will follow?
All around the clerkship circuit, people are buzzing about the fact that S&C have upped their clerkship bonus to $50k (details as to what type of clerkship qualifies remains unknown). Regardless, it seems inevitable that the rest of the big firms will follow and up their ante from the $10-25k range to somewhere in the $35k ballpark. If the rest of the big law firms follow to $35k, that will at least be around $21k after taxes, so it's something, and it's not something to sniff at.
Someone pointed out on Above the Law, and I agree, that the giant clerkship bonus, while great for the clerks, is even better for 1Ls who are going to be applying to these firms in the next few months. A fair question to ask is whether and to what extent they expect/desire their associates to clerk. And when it does come out that Firm SC pays $50k, Firm Sk pays $35k, and Firm X pays $10 or $15k, I would naturally wonder where the incentive would be to first give up $100k+ in salary for the grunt work of a clerkship for a year and then go to Firm X for a $10 or $15k pittance in exchange for the insider knowledge the clerk now possesses. Obviously some firms do value the experience more than others, and this will undoubtedly have a ripple effect across the board.
So, if Firms X don't want to lose 1Ls to these more generous firms, they will have to match these amounts or at least put themselves in striking distance. (Which is great for those who will become the greedy associates they may have never thought they would be). I could take a holier-than-thou stance on this whole thing and say that any bonus is a great bonus, and there is not much difference once you're past $100k (or $20 to $35 or $35 to $50), but that would not be entirely true. I'll take a doubling of my clerkship salary anyday. I look at it as either a new car or a fat check to the student loan corporation.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Drugs that erase memories? Now there's a medicinal solution to all problems
I saw this article on Drudge this morning: Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories! Recalling that this was the centerpiece of a Boston Legal episode a few weeks ago, I figured what the heck and I would read it.
The ABC article reports that this magic pill can effectively block out traumatic memories, which it purports would be good for those with post-traumatic stress disorder. Assuming that the drug does everything it says it does, then it may be a good medicinal therapy to a problem that involves both drugs and professional therapy to cope with. The Boston Legal episode basically took this idea out a few steps and applied it to a teenager who had been raped or assaulted and whose father wanted to use the drug to help her purge the memory. Setting aside all the legal foul-ups that accompanied this episode, their point was somewhat valid, which is why I am taking five minutes to chime in on it.
While I agree that this type of erasing has some potential (and perhaps great potential), I think it also has a severe potential for abuse. And further, as that Boston Legal episode teaches (or as evidenced by movies such as Total Recall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Blade Runner or books like Animal Farm), the experiences that created these memories (traumatic or otherwise) help shape us into who we are. Now there are plenty of memories I (like many others I'm sure) wouldn't mind forgetting about. And in time, maybe they become unimportant enough to do so. But sometimes bad things happen and what we learn from it helps to prevent the situation from happening again. Some mind eraser pill takes that ability away.
Obviously the treating physician would be in the best position to make this determination, and it would have to be a case-by-case decision. I would hope that anyone considering this miracle drug would have obtained this professional perspective in order to make an informed decision. And as pointed out in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you would also have to make sure that everybody whose memory is not erased knows not to talk to you about the event with you in order to (as the article puts it) keep the "genie in the bottle." Just things to consider.
Read more!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Another bluebook clarification: per se should be unitalicized
Continuing with my previous bluebook entries, this one is pretty quick. Would "per se" qualify as a commonly used Latin phrase such that it would not be italicized under Rule 7(b)?
I'm pretty sure I've seen it both ways, and courts/lawyers/students are all over the place. I would argue that "per se" should be added to the list of unitalized Latin phrases, particularly if "de jure" and "en banc" are on it. I think per se is equally as common as, if not more so than, both of those words.
Just my vote. I'm going to keep it unitalicized and hope it makes it to the "official" list in the next version. Thank goodness "i.e." finally did; (now if only I didn't have to point this out to those who love to see i.e. italicized, I would be one happy bluebooker).
Sunday, March 18, 2007
User generated content and its effect on the political hemisphere
I just saw this advertised on Drudge: 'Hillary 1984': Unauthorized Internet Ad for Obama Converts Apple Computer's '84 Super Bowl Spot into a Generational Howl against Clinton's Presidential Bid. See Hillary Ad here on YouTube (link may or may not still be active, but I'm sure it will quickly propagate throughout the internet).
As I previously given my perspective on Clinton's bid announcement, I will keep this focused on what I predict will be a growing trend over the next year and half, and that is user generated video. The potential of this has begun to be exploited (e.g., Doritos' Superbowl ads). I predict its growth will continue on its positive trend for at least for the next year and half before either an exponential acceleration or flatlining occurs.
The Clinton 1984 ad is clever, and probably a flagrant copyright violation (I would lean against finding this as a fair use without need for renumeration). It is presumably the first user generated video promoting a national candidate (for disclosure, it is a negative campaign ad ending with a link to Senator Obama's campaign website). With it, does this herald in a new era of the electorate advertising wars? That is, will ordinary techies now be using their best efforts to come up with clever ads in support (or to the detriment of) their candidate? User generated content in this arena certainly has better potential for humor than the swell of negative campaign ads that run from January to December of a given election year (and particularly in a national election year). See, e.g., the Jib-Jab Bush/Kerry cartoon from a couple of years ago (not quite the same user-generated content I am talking about, but it's along the same lines).
Obviously some legal eagle will complain about equal advertising time and probably raise some copyright issues. Setting these things aside, I continue to believe the ad agencies should be scared of user generated content and should be working to counter its probable effects on their various goals. And, as evidenced by the 8000 views in seven days of the video described here (aka, the power of the Internet), so should any national political candidate. At the very least, I predict there will be some great ads to be created and some outright lame ones (and probably patently offensive ones as well). Hopefully the users who come up with the best non-infringing ones end up copyrighting it, and some lazy advertiser decides to copy it so it create some legal work for me to do. Otherwise, I'm just looking for a cheap (and quick) laugh.
Law school girls
In college, two of my roommates concluded one night that you could use the phrase "girls are stupid" and that pretty much explains away any situation where a chick does something that a guy would find incredibly unbelievable. On this topic and its relation to law school, I have nothing to say except that it continues to work to explain any situation involving law school girls.
I think I need to follow my friends' advice seriously and not even try to date any law school girl. The type-A personality conflict is just too much, and with the bar finish line so close, I have better things to worry about than some stupid girl who I can't waste any more time over. Maybe by writing it down, I'll stick to it.
On a different note, I heard someone refer to someone's testimony as "testification" in court the other day. That was pretty funny and even the judge laughed.
Read more!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Wikipedia and the 5 Id. rule
Two bluebook entries to add to my previous list of two:
How to cite Wikipedia
How to cite R.H. Coase's Nature of the Firm
The first is an addendum to my Wikipedia entry. The second is a clarification of the 5 id. in a row rule (Rule 4.1).
Regarding Wikipedia (addendum):
Again, based on my last wikipedia entry, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to cite to wikipedia – it’s enough of a solid information source that it certainly has use at first instance. At the same time, I would temper citing to it for the problems described in a recent article. See Wikipedia to Seek Proof of Credentials (describing concerns about the prevalence of fraud on the Wikipedia site and what the company is planning to do about it). So, as with anything else one cites in his or her law review articles/notes/comments/etc., make sure you know what you are citing is saying what you know is right. Just my two cents.
Regarding the 5 Id. rule:
The bluebook needs to come up with a standard system for the number of id.'s you can use in a row. I've seen journals and law reviews and cases that seem to follow a 5 id. rule, those that follow a 3 id. rule, a 7, and in some cases, I've seen articles that use id. in excess of 20 times in a row. Now, for briefs, I don't know if you necessarily need this rule because of the page constraints and as long as you are in compliance with rule 4.1, I wouldn't think the judge (or his or her clerks) would care. For law review articles, however, I think the id. rule needs to be honed in a bit.
I think the majority of states in which I have looked up to see if they even have a rule that addresses it keeps it to 5. That seems like a fair compromise between 3 and 7 and infinity. So, I would propose that the bluebook adopt a rule something along these lines as part of 4.1 or maybe separate it out into a subrule of 4.1:
"In law review footnotes, use 'id.' when citing the immediate preceding authority within the same footnote or within the immediately preceding footnote when the preceding footnote contains only one authority. The maximum number of times you should use 'id.' in a row is five before repeating the short cite of the authority. (see Rule 10.9). Note that the end of the period at the end of 'id.' is always italicized."
The bolded language would be new. You may also have to put something in about how this doesn't affect Rule 4.2, but I think that would be inherent and necessarily redundant.
As suggested by my new rule, amended Rule 4.1 would be entirely consistent with rule 10.9 for cases. Other schools tend to follow this scheme of my proposed rule; as such, the bluebook should be amended for consistency purposes. See, e.g., BU Law Review Suggestions, Law & Psychology Review, University of Wisconsin/State of Wisconsin (4 id. in a row rule). Cf. ALWD comparison (suggesting that the bluebook already has this rule in 10.9).
Now, to clarify, this is not a change to Rule 10.9; it is an augmentation to Rule 4.1. Let's see it happen.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Lost: Enter 77 quick review
I'll leave others to post more about tonight's Lost episode, Enter 77. I think this was the best episode in the past two seasons as far as advancing the storyline. The episode raised a couple of new questions, but for the most part continued to pit the Others against them, and clarified that Dharma and the Others (or the "Hostiles") are not one and the same. So cheers to the producers for finally having an episode much like those in the first season. Hopefully next week continues on that trend.
My one friend suggested that someone should put together a website to summarize the whole Lost story chronologically. I don't have time to do it, but at the series's conclusion, it probably would be neat to see.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
No more booing at Washington sporting events and free speech
I saw on tonight's PTI episode that the Washington's high school athletic association is investigating a ban on booing. See Officials Weigh Booing Ban at High School Games. Now, as most people would innately cry out, the first amendment precludes the state from imposing a restriction on free speech, and to a certain degree, they are right. And yet that is not necessarily the case. I haven't taken a course on First Amendment, and my knowledge is limited to what I've picked up in the Barbri review course, but I seem to recall it comes down to the O'Brien balancing test.
Assuming that the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is a state run organization (which I think is a fair assumption if it covers public high schools), no one validly complains about their controls over who can participate in athletics (e.g., GPA or age requirements). The booing ban would be a similar exercise of power. The restriction, presumably, would serve to ban booing (presumably a form of speech) from the stands in certain athletic contests. Whether this restriction is narrowly tailored enough remains to be seen and the state will obviously have to show that it is. I'm sure it can be worded carefully enough and if they are smart, it will be.
So, if the court finds that the restriction is narrowly tailored, it will next determine whether the booing ban serves an important or substantial interest. Here, I don't think there will be any problem finding one - it's a high school, with minor and impressionable kids, and all they will have to do is point out a few incidents that justify it and it should survive the court's intermediate scrutiny. Having been on both sides of the stands, I think booing is just part of the game but obviously there have been cases of parents going overboard. Plus, the booer is just a licensee to the game anyway, and the ticket has limited rights as it is. Maybe high school sports are huge in Washington (obviously they are elsewhere) so trying to curb unsportsmanlike conduct may be enough of an important interest to survive this step.
The last step would be to determine if there are ample alternatives for communication. Obviously you can still hold pep rallies and put up signs like "crush the cats" or something like that. If it's that bad, you can write an email to ESPN or your local newspaper and maybe they will pick up your story. The rule probably isn't preventing the coach from complaining to the ref either. I think it would fly.
So, on my brief and unresearched analysis, I think the restriction will be okay. But maybe under Washington's state constitution it wouldn't be, I don't know. It does seem that more restrictive impositions than this booing ban have been upheld as of late. Just ask that nut Cindy Sheehan about her "free speech zones." (note: I tried to find an unbiased article to support this comment but was unsuccessful).
Despite my finding that the restriction would be upheld, I just wonder how they will be able to enforce it. My guess is that the threat of it may be enough to deter "over-the-top" booing (which is probably what the ban is trying to get at) and if that makes the games a little bit more pleasant for the other fans, then it will serve its purpose. And if the ban is not upheld, the people pushing for it can sit on the other side and throw their taunts right back at them.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Heroes: Parasite quick review
I saw tonight's episode of Heroes, Parasite, just now and thought I would write a quick two minute review before I went to bed. Again, the show continues doing a good job of maintaining the timeline (e.g., Isaac paints his death, which Hiro will see (in the first episode), sparking the whole thing to begin with, and in doing so, avoids any time paradox issues, as discussed in the Collision and One Giant Leap entries). This implies that the bomb will go off, and perhaps "saving the world" is a bigger problem than the first bomb (sort of like a precursor to Jericho, to cross storylines). Not sure how they will resolve that one, but hopefully it's done this season.
So Linderman is played by Malcolm McDowell (or, in science fiction circles, as the villian in the Star Trek: Generations movie). We'll see how that works out, I haven't formed an opinion yet. The bigger surprise (sort of) is that Peter and Nathan's mother (and Claire's grandmother) is also connected to this whole thing. I wonder if there are two different mutant factions going on and whether Linderman has some sort of mutant counterpart. Again, I think this whole thing is sort of playing out like X-Men where Magneto (counterpart: Linderman) is trying to get the mutants to band together one way and To Be Determined character (with the Haitian under him now) is trying to get Peter and Hiro et al. to come together. We'll see if this plays out. I obviously dropped the ball last week with Simone having power (which she does not) and the jury is still out on who exactly stopped that bullet, Hiro or Ando. For now, it doesn't look like it was Ando.
And to perpetuate a rumor I heard somewhere (the link to which escapes me now, but maybe it was off of The Heroes Archive/Episode Listing site or Heroes TV fansite), the show's producers have two or three episodes that they are filmed, but will only be on the DVD to promote sales? I know a similar escapade was done for a fake pilot of My Name is Earl, but I wonder why NBC (or the copyright holders of either show) think that they would make more money off of the DVD sales/rentals than by an airing on national tv. Now, maybe the shows don't flow with the plot exactly for whatever reason. If that's the case, show them in the summer when you are starving for ratings. I'm sure you'd make more money in an hour than you would from a year of DVD sales. Or, in the case of the fake Earl pilot, show it on April Fools day or somewhere near it. Not that I question the business judgment exercised here, but I just wonder how it can really be that rational. Clearly both showings (on air and on DVD) would make more money than one (DVD). Is selling that many more DVDs really worth the trade-off?
No new Heroes until April 23... guess that means it's almost time for the greatest three weeks in college sports - March Madness!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Daylights savings Y2K7
I'm sure this will become more prevalent next week, but nobody should be surprised when something goofs up with their computer when the new daylights savings "spring forward" takes place next week. Call it a new Y2k problem - or as some have begun to call it, the Y2K7 problem. I was going to write about this a couple of days ago but was busy. Now someone else has slightly beat me to the punch of coining the phrase. Oh well. See, e.g., Earlier Date for Springing Forward May Lead to 'Mini Y2k.'
Regardless, I don't think there will be too much stuff that will goof up, except I foresee some problems with calendars and flight data being lost or misscheduled. Hopefully I will be wrong. At least with daylights savings time always on a Sunday, it shouldn't mess things up too much, and at most, it will only mess up for a couple of weeks until the rest of the computers come into focus with the new calendar. And if it's anything like the Y2K bug, it should only cause a few glitches.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Libby jurors want a definition of "reasonable doubt"
I haven't followed this Scooter Libby trial much at all, except that it looks like someone screwed up maybe by direction and regardless, the sordid tale of twist and deception began to unravel quite publicly as a result of this alleged screwup.
Anyway, the headline "Libby Jurors: Define 'Reasonable Doubt'" caught my eye. Particularly because the definition of reasonable doubt is pretty fluid, I just wanted to see if and how they could clarify an answer to this question. Not surprisingly, the article did not go into this at all.
The short answer to this question is that it will probably be something the jury will have to figure out by themselves. For you non-lawyer types, I will give you a couple of answers I have heard during closing arguments that seem to illustrate what exactly is "reasonable doubt."
For civil trials, the burden the plaintiff has to show is called "preponderance of the evidence." Put simply, this is essentially a 51% burden. For criminal trials, the burden is on the state to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which doesn't have a percentage, but we know it's something more than 51% and something less than 100% (absolute guilt). Using a football field to illustrate, you could argue that the civil burden means the plaintiff has to reach just beyond the 50 yard line, and reasonable doubt puts you somewhere in probable field goal range, but it doesn't mean you have to score a touchdown.
Another analogy I have heard is akin to putting a puzzle together. You don't have to put the entire puzzle together to know what it is, just most of it. If you can figure out what the puzzle is, then the state has met its burden of reasonable doubt.
Of course, these are just a couple of very general illustrations for a very abstract thing and may not necessarily be how you would hear it in the courtroom. If the jury is asking about reasonable doubt, then I'm guessing they must be close to field goal range, but not quite. Maybe a few more days of deliberation will determine if they think they can kick the field goal and win, or punt it off and let another jury worry about it.
