meh

It has come to my attention that I haven’t posted anything in a while. You asked for it, so here goes.

responses to comments

Josiah: a valid point on your not posting. That’s the pot calling the kettle a lazy bum. Or something like that. Commie.

RHM: you should be happy that I’m not aiding and abetting your slacking. With my help, you’ll soon become a true Stakhonovite.

Particleman: you’re absolutely right: you aren’t paying me the dollar. As noticed to you by electronic mail, I have assigned the right to collect your debt to Robert “Gardale the Gator” Hatley. You owe him the dollar (and he promised never to take my seat.

You are claiming that I don’t owe you the dollar because you gave me helpful directions to work. First of all, you I did not ask for said directions, you conferred the alleged benefit by your own volition. That makes you an officious intermeddler and you cannot set off the value of the advice from the debt. Furthermore, By leaving early and not accidentally getting on 90 (don’t ask how), I’m managing an efficient commute without abandoning the venerable 610.

Stevo: you must offer your ADR services to Gardale; it’s his account receivable now. On the subject, I hate ADR people. What is the point of going to law school only to use your degree to professionally ask “can’t we all just get along?” You’re going to law school to learn rules of law and how to make a logical argument in support of your interpretation of that rule, or at least to interpret the rule of law to advise others in their actions. ADR people are like child-psychologists (don’t get me started on those) with JDs; I’m surprised they don’t try to get the parties to release their aggressions by hitting each other with foam bats. If any of you want to be ADR people after graduation, please spare me the time and give yourself a wedgie.


grades

I don’t think I’ll post about grades until I get them all. Even then I doubt I will.


work

I “work” for two attorneys. One of them is a nice guy, but a crappy delegator; as such, he doesn’t give me much to do. The other lawyer is in charge of the Phen-Fen pretrial stuff and doesn’t do much case-specific stuff. The upside about not doing case-specific is that I don’t have to do deposition summaries; the down-side is that I work exclusivally on the only thing common to all of the pre-trial claims: discovery issues. I’ve already written more memoranda than I’d care to remember about each and every Federal Rule of Civil Procedure that mentions, implies or causes one to reminisce about the work “deposition.”

While blazing through the ever-so-interesting FRCP and the also intriguing cases interpreting the same, I check my grades. Constantly. At first I averaged (and I’m not joking, you can ask Andrew “runs like a girl” Pearce) a refresh of the grade checking site every 90-120 seconds. After the incident with Kelso (don’t get me started on that guy), I’ve lost some enthusiasm and only check every five minutes or so.

Last week, the attorney who doesn’t assign me much gave me a fair amount to research by the next day (I can’t give away work-product information, but it involved me reading over 600 pages that day). I managed to finish at about 9:30 that night after a 13 hour shift. When I left, all of the normal people from the firm were gone and only the cleaning crew was left. As I came into the lobby, they were sitting on the couches talking to each other, but looked like they were going to crap their pants when someone opened the door. After five seconds of stunned silence, they saw that I’m only twelve years old and continued talking. When I went to the time-clock room to clock out, I found that the door was locked; the clock is in the supply room and there’s a history of the cleaning crew stealing anything that isn’t bolted to the wall. I didn’t clock out, so, when I arrived the next day, I saw that I pulled a 23 hour shift.

The other day, neither attorney assigned me anything, so I went wandering around looking for a lawyer to annoy. Just my luck, I ran into Mr. Fleming (an important guy at Fleming & Associates). He asked me what I was working on, so I ratted out my attorneys, saying that neither were at work yet and I was doing nothing. I not sure which would have smarting: having my direct supervisor mad at me or the guy whose name is on the letterhead. I finally found someone to give me work, and managed to work the rest of the day on a response to a summary judgment motion. I turned it in the next day and planned on asking my regular attorneys for work; the new guy, however, took the response to check it and handed me another to work on. It’s now been almost a week since I did any work for my assigned attorneys. I hope they don’t get too mad.

Now that I’m out of academia and in the real world, I’m not fond of what I’m seeing. People are writing with poorly structured sentences, misusing emphasis and, most disconcerting of all, completely disregarding the bluebook. Not only does one of the guys at the firm mess up virtually every single citation he does, he “corrected” my proper citations. I’m sorry, but a direct quote doesn’t need a “see” before it, the regional reporter goes before the state reporter and a short citation requires the word “at” before the pin-point citation. Seriously people, it’s not that difficult.

movies

The new Star Wars wasn’t anywhere near as good as I’d hoped. I could probably write for several hours on the subject, especially the anti-Bush line (which doesn’t logically fit with the plot, as Obi-Wan’s “the dark side is always bad, whatever the motive for it’s use” mentality is inarguably and absolute). Pretty much everyday the wife and I watch either Team America: World Police or Napoleon Dynamite.


everything else

Greenspan said we have enough oil to last my lifetime, so I can cancel the Oregon Compound (I'll still by the dozen or so assault rifles however). Shelby just peed on the my shirt. I’m sick. That’s pretty much it.