Law Students

And Proud We Are of All of Them

Posted on March 08, 2010
Oscar open-thread.  My quick thoughts:  Happy that Jeff Bridges won.  Happy that Hurt Locker dominated, especially with Bigelow's history-making win.  I'm glad the Academy learned from the travesty that was the Best Picture Oscar for Titanic (up against LA Confidential, Good Will Hunting, As Good As It Gets, and The Full Monty), and snubbed Avatar...

A Crazed Ideologue By Any Other Name

Posted on March 05, 2010
Yesterday, a lone gunman (John Patrick Bedell), attacked and injured two Pentagon security force officers--and himself died of gunshot wounds.  Turns out, he "worshipped private property rights" and other screeds typically found in the pantheon of anti-government right wing agenda items that seem to rise to the surface during Democratic administrations...

Liveblogging the Triva Bowl: FINAL ROUND!

Posted on March 04, 2010
You are about to embark on a tale of hardship, redemption, and triumph. Although the journey is long and difficult, with lots of ego-stroking from yours truly, the payoff will probably be worth the cost. Plus, if you're here, it's not like you have anything better to do...

Fake Mark Yudof Resignation Site a Sign of Things to Come

Posted on March 02, 2010
I was sent this fake Mark Yudof resignation by another Boalt student who was momentarily taken in by the hoax.The hoax becomes clear, however, when the letter verges on the surreal stating:It is clear to me now that we must all do our part to avoid social death...

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Goodwin Liu '12!

Posted on February 24, 2010
DE's congratulatory press release is below. I'm not sure if the nomination has just occurred and not yet been reported; otherwise, we may have jumped the gun a little bit.--------The LA Times is reporting that GL will be nominated to an open seat on the Ninth Circuit today...

Berkeley Law Students Applaud DOJ Report Findings, Torture Memo Lawyers Engaged in Misconduct: Urge Congress, State Bar and University to Investigate

Posted on February 23, 2010
[Update]: The Yoo situation seems all but settled as Congress is looking in to whether or not to hold hearings. The analysis below strikes me as a step in the right direction.______________________________From the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture:The final report of the Justice Department?s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) released Friday found that former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo engaged in ?intentional professional misconduct? and that Yoo's colleague, former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Bybee, engaged in ?reckless disregard of his professional obligations? in their rendering of legal justifications for the Bush Administration?s torture policy...

Agent Hol-land to the Rescue

Posted on February 23, 2010
This instructional video, on how to navigate Boalt Hall now that the main corridor has been blocked off, is something I really could have used during my 1L year. It would have prevented an entire generation of Berkeley Law attorneys from knowing me as "that guy who got 60 admits lost on a tour of Boalt Hall on Admitted Students Day...

Olympic Hockey FAQ

Posted on February 22, 2010
1.  I'm seeing a lot of headlines about USA winning like the final game against Canada.  What happened?The men's U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated Canada 5-3 in the final game of the preliminary round of play.  The Olympics began with three groups of four teams each...

Good Luck to You Februarians

Posted on February 22, 2010
To those of you taking the California bar this week (or any bar, for that matter), we wish you all the best.Feel free to complain here.

A Major Victory for JY

Posted on February 19, 2010
After four years, the report on JY and JB by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has finally been released. As Patrick noted, we already had a post on a Newsweek report that the DOJ was not planning on referring JY and JB to their respective bar associations for professional misconduct...

Channeling the Other Christopher

Posted on February 18, 2010
Co-blogger L'Alex just sent me DE's e-mail about the closure of the East-West passage in front of 121-124.  I was so lazy, I used to take the shuttle DOWN to Telegraph for a 'potle run.  I can't imagine going through the library to get to the other side...

The 2010 Douchey Dick Award

Posted on February 18, 2010
[This is a fairly heavily revised version of my first post because, as someone so cleverly points out in the comments, the original post conflated bananas with mammals. Loosely speaking.]The award goes to Leslie Brodie, of your @berkeley inbox fame. The award comes after Brodie reported one of our finest to the California Bar for reasons that are ...

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Laugh at 'Em

Posted on February 17, 2010
The next best thing to solving a problem is to find some humor in it. Campus budget protesters to date have somehow managed to do neither. That's why I'd like to give a great big shiny gold star for UCMeP, a student group whose mission is to protest tuition hikes through satire...

Toe Pick

Posted on February 16, 2010
Alright, I realize this may generate a lot of angry comments, Booo-urnses, rotten tomatoes, or immediate clicks to the HuffPo link in your bookmark, but I need to get this off my chest.First, I may be slightly biased about the sport of figure skating because I think the greatest figure skating move around is two hockey players holding each other suggestively and spinning around the ice while bashing each others' brains out...

Dr. Thompson Reuters or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love WestlawNext

Posted on February 12, 2010
After over six months of not considering the law whatsoever during my deferral period, I had forgotten what it was like digging through irrelevant case after irrelevant case on Westlaw or, (*cough*) Lexis. (Like I ever use Lexis.) Now that I'm finally working again and reconnecting with my inner-researcher, it pains me that, in a post-Google world, legal research is still so tedious, especially considering how much money is pumped into Westlaw and Lexis...

Happy Valentine's Day, Boalt

Posted on February 12, 2010
I know it's a few days early, but happy V-day. Here's a video from Oppenheimer's Civ Pro Class on Thursday to get you in the festive spirit.

Class of 2010 Class Campaign Community Service

Posted on February 11, 2010
D.A. asked me to post this in order to promote the event. This is something I can really get behind, and encourage you all to take part. - TDear 3Ls,Come join the Boalt Hall Graduating Class as we give back to the community. This year our Class is contributing to the great work of the Alameda County Food Bank...

Kill Bart, Kill Bart

Posted on February 09, 2010
First, if you missed it on TV last night, please take five minutes to watch this clip from Colbert.The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cSarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompterwww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorEconomyI have something of a soft-spot bordering on outright crush for the well-executed literary device...

One Path To Becoming an Apellate Lawyer

Posted on February 08, 2010
Rob banks. From the New York Times:Shon R. Hopwood was not a particularly sophisticated bank robber. ?We would walk into a bank with firearms, tell people to get down, take the money and run,? he said the other day, recalling five robberies in rural Nebraska in 1997 and 1998 that yielded some $200,000 and more than a decade in federal prison...

Should a Gay Judge Recuse Himself In Deciding the Constitutionality of Proposition 8?

Posted on February 08, 2010
A recent column in the San Fransisco Chronicle begins, "The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay...

Boalt Students Speak Out Against Yoo and Bybee Findings

Posted on February 04, 2010
This morning, the Berkeley Daily Planet published an op-ed written by the heads of Berkeley's chapter of the National Lawyers Guild discussing the recent findings by Obama's Justice Department on John Yoo and Jay Bybee.I found this section of the op-ed to be the most compelling, as it spells out further action that could be taken against Yoo and Bybee:Despite its revised conclusion, the OPR report, at least based on what has been leaked, still seems to provide considerable evidence to support investigations of professional misconduct...

"And in the Briefcase?" "Uh, uh, Papers, um, Just Papers, uh, You Know, uh, My Papers, Business Papers."

Posted on February 02, 2010
Update: Here are a series of high resolution images.Check this out, (via the WSJ Law Blog): the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that historians have just located a heretofore unknown draft of the United States Constitution. Apparently it has for years been preserved, unrecognized, in a historical archive...

How Should We Deal with JAG's Discriminatory Hiring Policies?

Posted on February 02, 2010
Army JAG recruiters are coming next Wednesday in order to fill summer slots for 1Ls and recruit 3Ls to serve as JAGs after they graduate from law school.Some student groups have suggested students who may or may not actually be interested in getting a job with JAG sign up for interviews and then tell the Army recruiters exactly how they feel about the US military's discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy...

Obama's DOJ Clears Yoo & Bybee

Posted on January 30, 2010
Newsweek reports that the DOJ is on the verge of releasing a finalized report of its investigation into Bush administration OLC attorneys who researched and reported on legal questions ranging from enhanced interrogation to wiretapping to all sorts of mundane topics about which I have no clue because, of course, they are not the subjects of constant and viscous attacks...

You've been hit by, you've been struck by... a shameless plug!

Posted on January 29, 2010
The Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law is hosting what should be a legendary benefit party tonight, open to all Boalt students and presumably any sketchy graduates who want to show up. The "Smooth Criminal" Benefit and Costume Party will be at 1345 Arch Street in Berkeley at 8:00...

The Only Thing Between Me and Your Throat is the Constitution

Posted on January 28, 2010
Above the Law is running this, too, but it is too startling to let go without a post. Those who watched the State of the Union tonight saw something remarkable -- something you wouldn't pick up on just by reading the transcript of Obama's words regarding Citizens United:It?s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office...

Unrelated Thoughts - Two of 'Em

Posted on January 27, 2010
My news feed is alive this morning with reports that Avatar has passed Titanic in terms of gross revenue (you'll have to find them yourself because I decline to dignify them with a link). Whoop-dee-freaking doo. Have we forgotten how inflation works? Properly adjusted, Avatar isn't even close to Titanic -- in fact, Avatar is not even in the top twenties...

iPad (and so will you)

Posted on January 27, 2010
At 10 AM this morning, Apple debuted its long rumored "tablet" mobile device, and with it, a limitless number of easy menstruation jokes. The consensus I'm hearing around Boalt today seems to be that it's underwhelming, primarily because it doesn't do anything you can't do with an iPhone or MacBook...

7th Circuit Upholds Prison Ban of D&D

Posted on January 26, 2010
The nerds can't catch a break:In an opinion issued on Monday, a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals hexed a lawsuit challenging a ban on the game of Dungeons & Dragons by the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin...

Yeah, There's an App For That

Posted on January 25, 2010
Perhaps because I've been griping lately about the expense of bar exam and bar prep courses, people have been sending me links like this one. The link, of course, describes the new $1,000 iPhone bar preparation application. (Other coverage here, ATL coverage here...

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