Sandra Day O'Connor

 

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Reagan nominee who was the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, and the first SCOTUS nominee to have televised confirmation hearings,  died today of complications of dementia. She was 93. 

O'Connor spent 25 years on the Court, from 1981 to 2006, and as a moderate conservative often played the role of the swing vote on SCOTUS. Even so she showed an ability to cross ideological lines if the ruling aligned with her legal beliefs: she authored Bush v Gore but upheld abortion in Planned Parenthood v Casey. 

She and Rehnquist are the only "legal" names that stand out from my childhood; not that I knew or cared about SCOTUS or what they were deciding, but because Rehnquist was a Milwaukee native and O'Connor an influential "first."

RIP 

So, Elle Was Better. Your Point?

YaYa: 

a conversation between my father and i:

me:  what your LSAT score 

him: I don't remember. 157? or 159

me: elle woods did better 

him: no sht she got into Harvard

LOL

Congrats

Delayed because of Covid and a few other hurdles but Dan received this news today: 

The Board of Bar Examiners has established that you have the requisite character and fitness needed to practice law in Wisconsin and has received certification of your legal competence from the Dean of your law school. You are therefore admitted to the Wisconsin Bar.

He was also sent a temporary certificate because the usual ceremony with all its pomp and circumstance in Madison has been cancelled. Congratulations babe! So proud! One more step...

- Lisa

On Finishing the Incredibly Long Bar Application

Dan made another huge step towards achieving his goals today and it was a hard one! So proud,

congratulations  - Lisa

A professor just wrote and offered me a research assistant position. I don't know what the job entails, but I know this - that's the last credit I need to graduate from this place.

The First Day of the Last Semester of Law School

Gawd I look awful.  But I look awful on the  first day of the last semester of law school, the (presumed) end to a long and difficult six year process.  So there's that.

On Kavanaugh

Assume,  for intellectual purposes, that Kavanaugh is completely innocent, and the accusation merely a  weaponization of the public's [rightful]  opposition to sexual assault.  How do you successfully defend yourself? By saying you're innocent? By trying to prove a negative? By somehow magically determining you were somewhere else (impossible, since neither time nor place nor even year is remembered by your accuser)? 

If there is no opportunity for defense, there is no adversarial process. 

If there is no adversarial process there can be no justice, and it's nothing more than a circus where most of the "jury" - the Democrats on the panel - have already rendered their verdict in the press. 

 It's wrong.  And if you don't think so, so are you.

Oh Boy

Normally,  Marquette Law slams you with reading and assignments that are due the very first day of class.  So as I start my final year tomorrow,  I was excited that two classes, per their class page,  had neither assignments nor textbooks to purchase (some classes rely on handouts or the web). And . . . then came the emails today from two profs saying the school was in error.  $400 of textbooks later,  I now have chapters of law text to wade through by tomorrow afternoon. Yay Marquette!

 Grades for fall were finally posted at 5pm today. I am pleased with the results.

I'm Bitter

The spring semester starts today. I'm so sick of law school I could vomit. I wish I had the funds to quit work,  go full time,  and finish this already.  But I don't.  So I will once again go sit among millennials who complain about the rigor of their largely parental-supported existence,  and bide my time.

The First Day of Classes

The first day of classes is done.  One of my classes is internet law,  where I spent 75 minutes listening to twenty-somethings bemoan the pre-internet age, as if civilization and relationships began with the web.  My ears nearly bled.

Sigh

Tomorrow my classes resume.  As was the case in grade school,  high school,  college,  and now law school,  I detest being in a classroom.  But I go, and I'm reasonably good at it.  So,  this evening,  dinner on my deck,  and a final farewell to summer.

A Lesson

Life lesson from #DatelineTV: the 911 operator is not your ally,  your confidant,  or a neutral party.  Anything you say, or don't say to her, and in what tone or lack thereof,  in what is surely the most panic stricken moment of your life, will be abused and twisted by a prosecutor more concerned with victory than justice.

I just finished a ten question, three and a half hour tax exam. I had never, in my life, dreaded a test more, but it wasn't quite as horrible as I feared. The curve may be helped by the fact that it was the last class for many graduates, and no less than four told me they did just enough to pass and no more. As for my own grade, I'll take what I get, as long as I pass. C's get degrees too.

 Spring semester of law school has begun.

The Semester is Done

The last final of the semester is now complete. It was brutal, despite the prior assurances from the Professor that it would be mild and comforting. Bah. I fall back on the old reliable: I'm never *the* dumbest person in the room, and The  Curve Shall Set Me Free.

A Beef

 I can't put into words how annoyed I am that one of my classes insists on us briefing cases when they are, at best, merely illustrative of the black letter law. This isn't Constitutional Law, where there's eloquence and historical importance. Who gives a bleep what the tax court wrote, when it's all solidified into cut and dry regulations a page later? Quit wasting my time, I have Words with Friends to play.

Parking at Marquette Sucks

Currently sitting in a parking spot four blocks from the law school debating if I want to make the hike on a hip that's acted up since Saturday. Thank you Marquette, for not only making a tiny parking garage that fills quickly, but for blocking off a heap of parking spots around the school so your window cleaners can entice even more birds to their bitter death.

Apparently, *not* a teachable moment

This morning's class did not go well. When two people stumbled answering questions, the Professor got angry and walked out of the room. I've never seen that before. Well, literally once before, in 1st Grade when Sr Virginia flipped a desk and was dragged from the room by Sr Kathleen.

My Thoughts

The American Bar Association has proposed withholding accreditation to any law school that has less than 75% of its graduates pass the bar exam within two years of graduation. The National Black Law Students Association has objected, expressing concerns it will negatively affect minority schools. In my opinion, the NBLSA stance only promotes the idea that minorities are incapable of doing the job unless given preferential treatment, which is insulting and ridiculous - and presumably not the organization's desired goal.

[in response to someone who commented that minority students attended simply to learn enough to defend their rights, not to work as attorneys] No one attends law school, at the cost it is, to simply know their rights. It's financial suicide. And the 75% pass rate applies ONLY to graduates that sit for the bar. In your scenario, the school wouldn't have an issue because those casual learners would not count toward the statistic. Law school is a trade school. A phenomenally expensive one, but a trade school. A school that fails more than a quarter of their graduates serves no one well, least of all the student mired in debt.

I think those are points are well said but merely rationales for the institutional failure. Arguing against the bar exam seems to occur, no surprise, only when the inability to conquer it threatens the livelihood of an academic institution. Even if it was the worst gateway possible, which I don't believe it is, it is THE gateway to the job, and you know that going in. Mandate part of a L3's curriculum be devoted to bar prep - one credit perhaps - and be done with it. And as near as I can tell from following tales of woe in The National Jurist over the last few years, there are schools that deserve to lose accreditation.