Quotable Professors

I thought I'd share some quotable statements that I jotted down this week from my professors...

"The definition of a lawyer is a person who sees five things where everyone else sees only one." - Torts professor, on the ability of lawyers to break up complex ideas into individual elements

“This isn't the Hoboken School of law, thankfully. Hoboken School of Law is a fabulous law school, but it’s in New Jersey.” - Civil Procedure professor, referencing a running joke about the fictitious Hoboken School of Law

“We live in a messy, dependent, qualified world that requires messy, dependent, qualified sentences.” - Legal Research and Writing professor, in a rather lucid moment

Neat!

So, I made a video greeting to share with my family, because I think it'll make them happy... especially my mom. It's my first real attempt at making a video and posting it on YouTube, so forgive the rudimentary nature of my editing. Although I really made the video for my family, not for my blog, I thought I'd post it here as well:

The Scoop

"The universe... invites exploration as is meant to facilitate the interpersonal experience of a loving God.... In such a view of the universe, both teacher and student are always involved in an adventure of rigorous investigation and professional exactitude. But because of the inherently religious quality of all reality, such study must always be done with a profound and awesome respect and a reverential drive for excellence....

"Jesuit education, then, can never settle for a strong intellectual dimension without an equally strong moral dimension incarnated in specific human and religious values.... Information will never suffice in itself, but becomes an element in the process of personal formation and transformation which is central to Jesuit education."

- George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J., The Jesuit University Today: An Introduction to the Ignatian Vision in Higher Education

This is a quote from an article that we discussed this evening in the Catholic Forum (Georgetown Law's Catholic student organization). Having never attended a school with a Jesuit tradition, and having attended public school all but 6th grade, I want to learn more about what it means to participate in a Jesuit education. This quote interested me in particular because of the emphasis upon a close relationship between human and religious studies. I appreciated the sentiment that studies must be done in earnest, because our education affects us in more than a purely intellectual way.

The question of the role of Ignatian spirituality in a legal education, then, becomes all the more complex in light of moral relativism, which comes in direct opposition to the catholic--that is, universal--moral law grounded in our common humanity. I do not presume to have answers, let alone fully formed opinions, on these issues (yet?), but I will continue to ponder as I experience my own contentious legal education in the Jesuit tradition.

I just noticed that the Jesuit motto "ad majorem Dei gloriam" (translation: "for the greater glory of God") can be found in part in the St. Thomas More prayer (see sidebar) that is the inspiration for the title of this blog: "for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice." When I was on the main Georgetown campus in Gaston Hall for the university's President's Reception, I noticed that this phrase was engraved into the wall, adding the phrase "inque hominum salutem," which would make the full Georgetown version of the motto "for the greater glory of God and the salvation of humanity." Intriguing resonance.

On the lighter side... I bought a really nice ice cream scoop! It's hefty, which makes it easy to scoop, and it has a neon green handle. I'm kind of into the color green right now... although it's always been in my top three (blue, green, and purple), I thought purple was my favorite color. And yet, I keep gravitating toward green (e.g., pea coat, bedspread, wireless mouse, laptop case, dish towels, and now ice cream scoop). I needed the ice cream scoop because I'd recently rediscovered my love for rainbow sherbet--a delightful swirl of orange, pineapple, and raspberry sherbet. It was my favorite flavor at 31 Flavors growing up, and I don't know why I forgot about it for so long. (It also has substantially less fat and cholesterol than ice cream, which I suppose is a neat bonus, although it has no direct bearing on my consumption.) The Safeway version even has little chunks of pineapple in it. What a treat!

Apartment Tour

I just posted photos of the rest of my apartment, completing my tour as promised. Check out the Facebook album:

Studies... Biblical and Legal

I went to a meeting for the Catholic Forum yesterday evening, the Catholic student organization for the law school. Their philosophy is to cater to the desires of the students attending, such that the group differs year by year depending on what people want to do. I am definitely going to be involved, and am excited by the group's potential, especially in the formation of some sort of weekly small group Bible study. For the past few years, I had been attending two to three Bible studies each week between ADX and Newman, so the adjustment to absolutely no spiritual accountability other than Mass thus far has been a bit jarring. I can already see that there is a real danger in letting the workload interfere with my desire to grow in my relationship with Christ. I am glad that the Catholic Forum is explicitly interested in helping students to understand the melding of spirituality and the law, and to take advantage of our unique position at a Jesuit university.

I didn't study very much this weekend. Quite frankly, I was a little disappointed in the amount of time I spent on my work, having started the weekend with eternal optimism about getting ahead in my reading. However, rather than dwelling upon it, I decided that I had set myself up for disappointment by not giving myself any sort of structure or parameters for my studies... I was lacking in tangible goals for my work. So, I sat down and wrote out an ideal weekly schedule that is helping me to better visualize how much studying I want to do on a daily basis, resplendent with time at the library, studying at home, trips to the gym, and--gasp--even breaks. I hope that this schedule will help me to achieve balance, rather than yo-yoing between studying for hours on end all week, and then being burnt out when the weekend comes. Thankfully, today has been very productive, thus far.

I've learned a couple of truths about the law, so far. For one thing, it is a faulty assumption that the law is based on logic. Oh, sad day. Speaking of sadness... another thing I've learned is that it does not matter how you feel about anything (e.g., "I feel like the judge's opinion is biased towards federalism"). No one cares how you feel. In a similar vein, lawyers (and, by extension, law students) must never accept a purported fact without proof, which results in lawyers being highly skeptical of all unsubstantiated claims. As you can see, I'm trying to take this to heart:



See? I don't look like I trust that book as far as I could throw it--which, incidentally, isn't very far, because that thing weighs a ton. In case you're wondering: I'm in the library.

Unrelenting

I have a fortune cookie fortune taped above my desk. It reads, "With perseverance, one can succeed in the most difficult tasks." I think this will prove to be apt advice for law school.

This week has been a lesson in vigilant time management. It would seem that the work is not so much incomprehensible as unrelenting. I can see that I have shed some of the naïveté that I possessed a mere four days ago, but there is still much to learn about law school. Above all else, I am still burning with excitement about being at Georgetown, bolstered by my similarly passionate classmates. Every time I catch sight of the Capitol, I cannot help but to stare in wonderment at my good fortune.

I am taking four classes this semester: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Legal Research and Writing, and Torts. Civ Pro and Con Law are with my entire section of 120 students, and LRW and Torts are in smaller subsections of 30. There is an emphasis on the Socratic method, which I expected, but I did not realize that this meant that when a person was called upon in class, they were put on the spot for the entire hour-and-a-half of the lecture. Again, unrelenting. I have yet to experience cold-calling, but I did volunteer a couple of times, which was exhilirating.

I did some research in the library today. It felt very official to have an actual reason to look up something in the U.S. Code. During orientation, the deans, professors, and upperclassmen kept emphasizing that our legal careers begin not when we graduate, but from the moment we enter law school. At first, I sort of dismissed the statement as a platitude, but the professionalism and legal analysis that I have seen this week is persuading me to the contrary.

I find myself here in D.C.,
A casebook rests on my knee.
I long to explore,
Yet, the reading's hardcore...
Perhaps, at week's end, I'll be free?

Vindication

So, here I am, reading State v. Mallett, 2003 WL 22901008 (Iowa App.) for my Legal Research and Writing course. Halfway through the case, I reach these paragraphs:

Mallett contends this instruction is inconsistent with Iowa Code section 715A.8(2), which provides:

[HN1] A person commits the offense of identity theft if the person with the intent to obtain a benefit fraudulently obtains identification information of another person and uses or attempts to use that information to obtain credit, property, or services without the authorization of that other person."

In her view, the district court erroneously determined that the term "fraudulently" modified the clause before it ("obtain a benefit") rather than the clause after it ("obtains identification information").

Oh, my goodness! This case went to the Iowa Court of Appeals on the basis of a misplaced modifier! Finally, vindication for my English degree.