summer of bar review

The thing about law school graduation is that it's rather anti-climactic. Sure you feel a great sense of pride when you walk across the stage after three long years of discipline and sacrifice to be handed the most expensive piece of paper you'll ever own. But the feeling of accomplishment is fleeting, because you know that you aren't really done with this arduous process until you pass the bar exam. And this knowledge hangs over you like a menacing storm cloud through each champagne toast and every celebratory meal with family and friends.

So I'm now the proud holder of a Juris Doctor degree from a regionally renown law school, but I'm not a lawyer yet. No, the bar exam still stands between me and the practice of law. The bar exam varies state by state, since the Supreme Court of each state has plenary power over who may practice law in their jurisdiction. Most states these days utilize a standardized test of common law principles called the MultiState Bar Exam (MBE), and then throw some essay and/or performance questions specific to that jurisdiction to drag the ordeal out for an extra day. But not Louisiana; Louisiana is special.

Because of Louisiana's unique history, being a relative late-comer to the nascent United States and all, the civilian tradition of Spanish and French law permeate and distinguish the law of Louisiana from that of her 49 sister states. And so the Louisiana bar exam is unlike that of any other American state. For starters, the exam is the longest of all the states, with 21.5 hours of testing over a three day period. Also, it's mostly all essay questions, with a sprinkling of short-answer and multiple choice questions thrown in for good measure.

I'll be sitting for the Louisiana bar exam in July. So my life for the next two months will pretty much consist of nothing but learning Louisiana law. I'm taking the de rigueur Bar Review Course, which lends structure and guidance to my studies, with lectures six days out of the week for the next six weeks. After the course term ends, I'll have three weeks to continue to study the materials on my own, according to their schedule but without the lectures. (I'll be sitting for the Mississippi bar exam in February 2013, which means I'll be doing this all over again come the first of the new year.)

The first week of Bar Review was overwhelming. The second week wasn't quite so bad, but only yesterday did I come to the realization that this feat of memorization is indeed possible. Prior to this realization, I had been actively banishing fears of failure from my mind, but I lacked a firm conviction that I could indeed conquer this material and formulate a sufficient command of the law that I will be able to demonstrate my minimal competence to the bar examiners. (Thankfully, the bar exam tests for minimal competence, not maximum mastery, as is the case with law school exams.)

So I'm now genuinely confident in my ability to do this thing. And that feels good. Despite knowing how incredibly tedious the next several weeks will be, and how hard I'll have to work, I'm sure that I can do it. I just have to accept that the contours of Louisiana law will necessarily permeate my every waking thought, and I will become a living, breathing encyclopedia of legal knowledge. So it goes that, with this update complete, I must return to making of flashcards on the classification of property and the dismemberments of ownership.

of practice, perfection, and patience

Twice since arriving at Tulane I've been told that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to "master" a skill. Apparently, that works out to about five years....

If that's true, I've already mastered the practice of law. I mean, sure I wasn't Licensed By The State, but I know from living in a law office day in and day out for five years what it takes to be a good lawyer. I've been there and done that every step of the way along with those who were duly licensed, with the exception of the Official Courtroom Proceedings...

I'm loving law school because it's school - challenging and rewarding - but I miss the actual practice of law. This is actually encouraging, however, because it has me totally convinced that I'm on the right path. If I find myself eager to find a law office job and again do Real Legal Work, then most certainly law school was, in spite of all the doubt and worry and difficulty of the past few weeks and months, really and truly a Good Idea.

For the time being, however, it's back to the books. School has been demanding lately (as if that's anything new), and the sorry part is that it's going to get much, much worse before it gets any better. For the past two weeks we were busy and distracted with the stress of practice exams. Although they were only practice and not for any kind of grade, to benefit from it one had to put forth something resembling the effort and time required to prepare for a Real Law School Exam. This week brought our first Real Research Writing Project Deadline, as well as the first session of a Career Development mini-course.

And all the while I'm still reading cases and learning doctrines, because practice makes perfect.

But what I miss is the day-to-day practice of law in the Real World. I'm caught up in the Ivory Tower in a way that I've never actually before been. (It used to be, in my previous scholastic endeavors, that my law office wage-earning work kept me firmly tethered to the Real World, but now I find myself steeped in the academy in a way that borders on suffocation.) What I'm doing now - right now - doesn't matter to anyone. No one is depending on me to do something with a piece of paper that will have a lasting, meaningful impact on someone's life course. I'm just reading cases long decided, and analyzing and writing about hypothetical legal problems. All the while there's Real Legal Problems happening, out there in the Real World, but they are wholly disconnected from my current endeavors.

So I'll continue diligently working, in eager anticipation of the day when the Law School Hazing is over and I can start taking baby-steps into the Real World as a Real Lawyer...

why torts?

The new machines [of the Industrial Revolution] had a marvelous, unprecedented capacity for smashing the human body.

– Lawrence Friedman, 2005
A History of American Law

I simply love this quote. There's something spectacular about the words "marvelous, unprecedented capacity for smashing the human body" that really speaks to me.

AND, perhaps more importantly, they helped me to understand the purpose of the law of torts. In a complex society such as we now live in (thanks to the machinery made possible by the industrial revolution) unintended injuries are unavoidable. The costs of these injuries can either be left to lie where they fall, caught in a well-weaved social welfare net, or distributed in some other way.

Tort Law functions as the third option. Since Capitalist America won't be having any of that social welfare stuff, but we still hold dear to ideals such as equity, Tort Law serves to distribute the costs of injuries more evenly among the members of society. (Caveat: My understanding of all this may yet change; for instance, I can't yet speak to intentional torts; it is, after all, only the 2nd week of class.)

Regard Maxine Hammontree, who was working in her bicycle shop one sunny afternoon when a car comes crashing into the wall, injuring her and damaging her shop. The driver, Tom Jenner, suffered an epileptic seizure and lost control of his car. Maxine files a tort action to gain access to Tom's insurance, and in doing so seeks to distribute the costs of her injury where it can better be absorbed.

Nevermind the outcome of the case or the finer points of law I've been analyzing for a week. It was the first case in Torts for a reason: it perfectly illustrates the need for the Law of Torts. Folks get hurt all the time for reasons that were out of their control. They incur medical bills, and sometimes they can't go back to work. They need help, and often there's not any available unless an action can be brought based on the law of torts.

I used to think tort law was a flimsy mechanism by which greedy lazy folks leeched off of large corporations. Now I see that tort law exists for a genuinely good reason, which makes me much more interested in the subject matter of this class.

of sex work and feminism

To be, or not to be a feminist? I've recently had to reconsider my position. This is no doubt because I've been consumed lately with the idea of sex work. From writing aresearch paper about prostitution in Mississippi to wrap up my last undergrad semester, to perusing pleasure reading since graduation about the Dancing Girls of Lahore and an escort in San Francisco, I've had many perspectives to consider.

FRAMING SEX WORK AS A FEMINIST ISSUE

I’m taking the position that sex work is, indeed, a feminist issue. While I realize that men, too, participate in sex work and that it affects those men’s lives in very real and profound ways, I’m convinced that male sex workers are a minority in the global sex trade, and that males’ lives have not historically been as shaped by their sexual value as have the lives of females. Males have historically been afforded more avenues of achieving success in any given society, while women, in the absence of other means of subsistence, are more often left to rely upon their sexuality as their sole agency for survival.

If anyone has any evidence to offer that might convince me that sex work should not be framed as a feminist issue, please do share.

THE OWNERSHIP OF FEMALE SEXUALITY

Historically, women’s sexuality was not their own; ownership of female sexuality reverted to a male relative or husband. Throughout history proper, some form of femme covert or another has existed, which consistently included a woman’s sexuality as a part and parcel of her legal identity. That is, the male with the most immediate interest in a woman’s procreative activity – which will not always be one man; that will change as a girl grows into a woman and her marital status changes through divorce or death – exerted the most direct influence over her life course.

This is, of course, an phenomenon which primarily affects upper class women. The sexuality of women of the lower rungs of society, those who have already been ascribed a deviant label by virtue of their poverty, is less valuable, freeing such women to flout the dominant society’s moral dictates, and take ownership of their own sexuality in order to exploit it economically as a means of survival.

THE COMMODIFICATION OF FEMALE SEXUALITY

Since the very earliest literate societies, women’s sexuality has been commodified by the dominant patriarchal society. This is a pattern that has had millenniums to become etched into human society, and which we have only recently begun to question. Women's exploitation via their participation in sex work is but one manifestation of a primordial control-mechanism of the patriarchy, but a telling one indeed.

It is because of the realization of this truth that I have lately been questioning my hesitancy to embrace the feminist label. Perhaps it is, after all, an ism with which I ought to associate myself.

thoughts on a new semester

So far, so good with the new semester. My 20th Century History class is going to prove quite interesting. We're embarking on a class research project into eugenics in Mississippi. Turns out that there's still a law on the books allowing for the sterilization of "defectives" in this Great State. We'll be looking into why it was passed and if it was implemented and anything else we can discover. I'm excited about this because I feel that I'm in a unique position to help research this issue from a legal perspective, seeing as how I work in a law office. . . Our findings are going to be posted online as a part of the History Department's website, so I'll post a link whenever that gets published to the www.

My greatest challenge this semester shall be, of course, my senior thesis paper. I feel confident about where I am; I spent a great deal of my free time over the break reading into the subject, and I've done a bit of writing, too. Alas, I cannot help but to fret that my paper will not be as good as it should be. The research seminar class in which I'll be writing this paper met for the first time tonight. Our assignment is to revise our research prospectus and present the new and improved version next week in class. Honestly I'm at a loss as to how to improve my prospectus. I have a few books to add to my bibliography, but other than that. . . it looks pretty good. I'll do some thinking over the weekend and perhaps try to revise my thesis statement in consideration of some of the things I've read recently. What else can I do?

I talked to our campus advisor for the history society Phi Alpha Theta about presenting a paper at the regional conference in February, and I'm seriously considering doing so. I've just got to convince myself to get over the (irrationally scary) thought of presenting my research to a group of strangers and peers so that I can avail myself of this excellent opportunity.

Tomorrow brings my first test, (in health class -- ugh!) to be taken after a 9 hour work day, and so I think sleep is a good idea at this time.