Dear Readers (Old & New),
I have reposted what I believe represent be the very best of two-and-a-half years worth of posts from my old blog. I do this as a public service for law students everywhere who would rather read my random rants than their casebooks, for lawyers who want to bill a few minutes spent reading about fictious torts as "research," and for anyone else who can appreciate intelligent toilet humor.
The posts have been sorted by category, and many of them have been revised for style and content. Although I have retired the blog and do not anticipate posting anything further here, I am hard at work at finishing my upcoming book, provisionally titled Kick Law School in the Nuts, which will have plenty of new material. No release date has been set, but I would guess that it will come out some time in 2008, depending on how long the editorial process takes. In addition, feel free to check out my more philosophical blog, which I will continue to update (albeit infrequently).
Finally, some porn site snapped up my old URL for a month after I deleted the blog. So if you ended up with random beaver-shots on your screen during class, blame them. Or blame society - whatever floats your boat.
Fuck it,
Legally Intoxicated
Court of Appeals Releases Opinion in Chuck Norris Case
FOR THE THIRTEENTH CIRCUIT
---------------------------------------------------
Chuck NORRIS,
Petitioner,
v.
Bill BRASKY,
Respondent
---------------------------------------------------
Before INTOXICATED, J.
I. Background
The parties in this case are well known to the court. Chuck Norris, a master of all forms of killing that have ever existed, constantly renews the sun’s power with every blink. The defendant, Bill Brasky, is a man who once turned down the Papacy because he did not like the idea of playing second-fiddle to God.
The matter before this court arises out of a petition for a writ of domination in the district court below. In his petition, Norris alleges that “[he is] the Lord Chuck Norris, who led [Brasky] out of Egypt,” and seeks injunctive relief compelling Brasky to bow before him.
In response to this petition, Brasky, appearing specially, moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, based on the fact that the law does not apply to him. The district court denied this motion after Norris performed a roundhouse kick at the hearing, sending a young law clerk’s head flying at five times the speed of light.
After the district court assumed jurisdiction over the case (and replaced the decapitated clerk), Brasky answered the petition, asserting several affirmative defenses. First, Brasky claims, his defecation smells like a grassy meadow in the springtime, and that several major fragrance companies are vying for the rights to his stool. Second, that he was the one responsible for letting the dogs out. Third, that he orchestrated the bloodiest revolt in children’s television history, leading the Doozers to violently overthrow their cruel Fraggle masters,1 and that he still uses Gobo’s head as a makeshift athletic support.
------------------------------------------------------
1 These events were depicted in an unaired episode of
Fraggle Rock entitled “Sic Semper Tyrranis.”
------------------------------------------------------
The district court reviewed Brasky’s accomplishments and found them to be most remarkable. After finding that the evidence was insufficient to declare that Norris’s testicles were substantially larger as a matter of law, the court toasted to the respondent and denied Norris’s petition. Norris appealed this denial, and, in a show of magnanimity, gouged out and ate only one of the judge’s eyes. Shortly thereafter, Brasky filed a cross-appeal on the question of jurisdiction. The issues presently before this court are as follows:
(1) Whether 69 U.S.C. § 481, which generally prevents any court from taking personal jurisdiction over Brasky, applies to a petition filed by Chuck Norris?
(2) Whether, as a matter of law, Chuck Norris has substantially bigger balls than Bill Brasky?
For the reasons stated below, we reverse the decision of the district court, grant Norris the relief sought, and offer our children as burnt offerings unto Him.
Discussion
A. The Brasky Act
Jurisdiction is the threshold question in any case. Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475, 502-03 (1903). This is because without jurisdiction we are powerless to hear the action in the first place, and so we cannot render judgment for either party. Id. If a reviewing court finds that the lower court was without jurisdiction, we must direct it to vacate its judgment and dismiss the action. Id.
We are aware that Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has granted Bill Brasky a general exemption from the laws of this nation, commonly known as the “Brasky Act.” 69 U.S.C. § 481, et seq. (Brasky authorized to “do whatever the fuck he feels like”). This has been interpreted to preclude courts from exercising personal jurisdiction over Brasky if he does not wish to defend the action. E.g., I.P. Freeley, Inc. v. Brasky, 297 F. Supp. 3d 892 (E. D. Ak. 2001). Based on the plain language of § 481 and its subsequent interpretations, this would appear to conclusively dispose of the matter. However, Norris argues that this general exemption should be interpreted in light of the of the Brasky Act’s legislative history. Specifically, Norris argues that Congress did not intend § 481 to apply to excuse Brasky from responding to actions filed by his betters.
While we will not use extrinsic aids such as legislative history to override the plain language of a statute, we may use it to inform our interpretation of ambiguous statutory language. See U.S. v. Awadallah, 349 F.3d 42 (2nd Cir. 2003). A statute is ambiguous if it can reasonably bear two different interpretations. See Lamie v. U.S. Trustee, 540 U.S. 526, 536 (2004). The courts have consistently held that anything Chuck Norris does is reasonable. See, e.g., In re Anonymous Ninja Henchmen, 238 S.W.3d 83 (Tex. 1993) (Norris incapable of using “excessive” force in performing his duties as Texas Ranger). This implies that any interpretation Norris advances must also be reasonable. Hence, we are faced with the task of ascertaining whether Congress’s choice of the words “whatever the fuck” include avoiding a petition by a fellow ubermensch. We conclude that it does not.
The floor debates surrounding the passage of the Brasky Act make for relatively lively reading. Most of the remarks immediately preceding the unanimous vote involve relaying feats Brasky had performed in ages past. For example, Senator Specter stated that he had once seen Brasky perform Don Giovanni at the Sydney Opera House, and was so moved that he could not stop crying for six-and-a-half years. 115 Cong. Rec. at 60287. Similarly, Senator Clinton claimed that she would “gladly be willing to kill a man” for the opportunity to “give [Brasky] a blumpy.”2 Id. at 60311. Finally, and perhaps most telling, Senator John McCain offered to pay Brasky ten million dollars if he would do him the honor of impregnating his wife, so that he could raise the fruit of Brasky’s loins. Id. at 61499-01.
---------------------------------------------------------
2 We take judicial notice that this is both sick and wrong.
---------------------------------------------------------
Despite all of this hullaballoo, any mention of Chuck Norris is conspicuously absent from these debates. Had Congress intended to authorize Brasky to engage in such activities as weighty as speaking to Norris before spoken to, surely the subject would have come up. Further, it would be absurd to attribute to Congress an intent to allow Brasky to fornicate with Norris’s virgin daughter with impunity using language as broad as “whatever the fuck he feels like.” Rather, this debate shows that Congress intended to afford Brasky something akin to sovereign status, but only with respect to lesser mortals.
We therefore hold that 69 U.S.C. § 481, known as the “Brasky Act” does not permit Bill Brasky to escape jurisdiction on an action initiated by Chuck Norris, and affirm the lower court’s ruling regarding personal jurisdiction. We must now turn to the merits of the petition, and determine whether Norris was, in fact, entitled to a writ of domination.
B. Writ of Domination
At common law, a party could seek a writ of domination to have judicially determined “whether [he] has the biggest goddamn balls in the courtroom.” Wallace v. Longshanks, 103 Scot. Rep. 208 (1314) (“[T]hey may take our lives, but they’ll never take our FREEDOM”). Because of the writ’s extraordinary nature, we only issue a writ of domination upon substantial and incontrovertible evidence that the party seeking the writ is “so much more of a man” that he makes his adversary “seem like a little girl wetting herself in comparison.” Bauer v. Wayne, 91 Gthm. App. 281, 296 (2005). In Bauer, for example, the petitioner, an agent for the Counter-Terrorist Unit (CTU) sought the writ as against a purely local vigilante with a penchant for the theatrical. The Gotham Court of Appeals declined to issue a writ of domination, reasoning that:
Even though it is clear that, by thwarting the imminent detonation of a nuclear weapon on United States soil, Bauer has saved more total lives than Wayne, we cannot say that he has larger testicles as a matter of law. For example, whereas Bauer is known simply by his birth name, Wayne (in addition to his trade name) is commonly referred to as “the Dark Knight,” an intimidating appellation that strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies. Further, it is at least arguable whether standard terrorists, even those of the caliber faced by Bauer at the CTU, pose a substantially more difficult threat to overcome than a supervillain. Finally, although it is certainly impressive that Bauer accomplishes so much with only standard weapons, we cannot discount the sheer “coolness,” in a legal sense, of the many devices employed by Wayne in his crime-fighting pursuits.Id. at 299-301.
In light of this, we must examine the relative merits of the parties’ claims to badassmotherfuckerhood. We begin by noting that the respondent’s accomplishments are quite impressive. However, we are unable to accept that they are, as a matter of law, sufficient defenses to Norris’s petition. First, it was foretold by hieroglyphics written on the bronze tablets sitting astride the doors of time and space that Chuck Norris shall appear in every generation, born of a technical virgin and sired by a lightning bolt. It is his destiny alone to subdue his enemies with fists and feet made of pure energy, and nunchucks crafted from the very bones of the world. The god of fire, Hephaestus himself, forged a magnificent suit of titanium armor for Norris, decorated with scenes from Walker, Texas Ranger; Norris, however, disintegrated it with a single thunderous fart that toppled mountain ranges hundreds of miles away, simply because he knew his skin was stronger than any metal.
To gaze upon Chuck Norris for even a single moment is to know the answer to the eternal question “why?” He is the One and the Many, the Beginning and the End, the Cock and the Balls. Chuck Norris keeps the planets in their orbits by yelling at them. Instead of urinals, Norris pisses into black holes that he creates by punching through the fabric of the space-time continuum. Every morning, he sits at his breakfast table and pours whiskey into a bowl full of raw meat, scrap metal, and the cure for cancer; he calls it “cereal.” Norris has already slept with every attractive woman who has ever lived and ever will live. Twice.
While it may be true that Bill Brasky ended the Cold War by training an entire flock of bald eagles to set off fireworks that spelled out “U.S.A.” over the Kremlin, we find that this simply cannot compare to Chuck Norris’s single-handed victory in the First Punic War - Norris traveled back in time with a bazooka, but decided at the last minute to take on the entire Carthaginian army with nothing but a donut he made out of Play-Doh. Indeed, Norris grew this very courthouse by planting a strand of hair plucked from his majestic beard. We are satisfied by substantial and incontrovertible evidence that Norris “so much more of a man” that he makes Brasky “seem like a little girl wetting herself in comparison.”
The decision of the district court is fucking REVERSED, and a writ of domination shall be issued. Bill Brasky is hereby commanded to bow before Chuck Norris, the One True God.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
The Jurisprudence of Chuck Norris
- It is impossible to sue Chuck Norris for battery because whatever force he uses is always reasonable.
- Chuck Norris can recite ERISA from memory, word for word, but he never does it because ERISA is fucking boring.
- Congress once considered amending the Federal Rules of Evidence to make anything offered by Chuck Norris automatically admissible.
- Chuck Norris invented the common law.
- Chuck Norris does not need consideration to enforce his contracts.
- When the law of negligence first developed, liability turned on what Chuck Norris would do. The standard for conduct was later lowered to the “ordinary and reasonably prudent man.”
- Chuck Norris used to own Blackacre, but burnt it down for the insurance.
- Originally, the idea of separation of powers was a reference to the fact that Chuck Norris has two different fists.
- Chuck Norris has unlimited peremptory strikes, which he exercises by melting prospective jurors with his mind.
- Justice is blind because Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked her in the face.
Yes, yes, I saw Justice Scalia. Now who wants to touch me? I said, WHO WANTS TO FUCKING TOUCH ME?!?!?!?
What a fucking rush. And I’m not just talking about the blow that Big Tony (what the honorable Justice told me to call him) and I did off that 18-year-old stripper’s ass. No, I’m talking about just being in the man’s presence – I mean, he took out an entire fucking biker gang by himself, with nothing but a pool cue.
After the Federalist Society conference, the Dirty One, X, and I asked Scalia if we could buy him a beer. We never expected him to actually say yes (or “Fuckin’ A” for that matter). We were just sitting there at some dive bar in Milwaukee discussing the implications of Kelo and Supreme Court hazing rituals for new associate Justices. As it turns out, everybody gets hazed, not just Souter, and you wouldn’t believe some of the shit the Taney Court pulled – I’ve been sworn to secrecy on the details, but I can tell y’all it involved George Washington’s wooden teeth, a horse, and a broomstick.
But I digress. Anyway, we were all just sitting there shooting the shit, when this HUGE motherfucker with a bunch of fucking tattoos (including one that had “Earl Warren” inside a heart) walked up to our table, spit in Scalia’s mug, and said that textualism is for pussies. I thought this was going to be some serious shit, but this didn’t rattle Big Tony one bit. No, Big Tony just looked this asshole straight in the eye, said “This is what I think of your ‘living constitution’,” and drank the whole fucking thing, spit and all, and then started staring this crazy fucking biker down. What a fucking badass – Scalia makes Chuck Norris look like a 3-year-old girl with down syndrome and a bad case of hemrrhoids.
Now, I would have been impressed if that had been all, but it wasn’t – not by a long shot. Apparently, Scalia had not actually swallowed the spat-in beer, because he stood up and spit the whole fucking thing in this biker’s Substantive Due Process-loving face. Unfortunately, while the stare-down had been going on like stare decisis, the rest of this asshole’s gang started making their way over to our table, and these guys looked tough. One had a fucking nightstick sticking out of his back pocket, and another was fingering a length of chain – they both looked like they meant business.
But the Honorable Justice would have none of it. Just as these assholes looked like they were about to start wailing on him (and us) like they were complying with a legal duty to beat the shit out of us, Scalia – moving with a speed that belies his age and girth – jumped over the bikers like a fucking Olympic hurdler. He grabbed a fucking pool cue off the wall, snapped it in half over his knee, and started whipping the pieces around like he was Bruce fucking Lee. I mean, I knew he was a grandmaster with statutory text, but that’s fucking nothing next to what the man can do with a couple of pieces of wood – he had the bastards laid out cold in under ten seconds.
The best part was when, standing over their unconscious bodies, he turned to us and said:
"You like fundamental rights? How you like them fundamental rights?"
The man isn’t just a man – he’s a fucking legend, a warrior-poet. Now, I know what you’re thinking: B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. And ok, maybe I exaggerated a little bit. Maybe Scalia didn’t “actually” tell us to call him “Big Tony.” And maybe he didn’t “actually” take out three hostile Warren Court-loving bikers with a pool cue. And maybe I didn’t “actually” do a line of coke off a stripper’s ass with one of the nation’s leading jurists. But I did shake his hand after he spoke at the Federalist Society conference. So fuck off – Congress isn’t regulating poetic license under its Commerce Clause powers. Yet.
Actually, the conference was fucking awesome. And I realize that this is incredibly nerdy, but I was just fucking starstruck by being in Scalia’s presence, along with like four U.S. Solicitor Generals. The highlight, of course, happened after Scalia spoke and was taking questions – X, after having been talking the talk, fucking stood up and walked the walk:
X: As a law student, I’d just like to thank you for writing all those great dissents. [audience laughs] Anyway, I have a two-part question. First, what do you think is the future of the Court’s Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence? And second, have you ever seen the show “Harvey Birdman, Attorney-at-Law”?
Scalia: Harvey Birdman?
X: Yeah, they featured you on it. You were rapping with Donald Rumsfeld.
Scalia: Well, I don’t remember appearing on any show rapping. I hope they got someone good to play me.
X: It’s a cartoon. You should get one of your clerks to TiVo it.
Awesome.
I'm going to clerk for that man. He doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to clerk for him. Or alternatively, at least I'm going to head out to the bars. Fuck it.
People I Want to Punch in the Face #2: Most Posters on Xoxohth
Every once in a while, I see that someone [found my old blog] through a post on AutoAdmit/Xoxohth – you know, “The Most Prestigious Haven for Insecure Douchebags in the World” – and I’ll read a couple of threads. And of course, each time I do, I can’t help but think that “he needed killin’” should really be an affirmative defense to murder.
Now, don’t get me wrong – the idea of a forum for current and prospective students to discuss admissions and other shit is a great idea, and there are plenty of legitimate posters on there. Taken as a whole, however, the threads on that particular site have exceeded any reasonable quota on douchebaggery by a factor of infinity billion.
I’ll ignore for a minute that a quarter of the posts are written in the style of a prepubescent girl IMing a balding pedophile (“OMG r u trying out 4 law review LOL”). I’ll ignore all the posts about sexual topics that seem to be written by people who couldn’t get laid in an Amsterdam whorehouse on free sample day. I’ll even ignore the frequent use of the word “pwned,” easily the computer geek equivalent of collar-popping. But Jesus tittyfucking Christ, I’d sooner cut off my dick with bandsaw, glue it to my forehead, and use it to do Rosie O’Donnell up the ass, than take any advice whatsoever from that site.
The threads are more obsessed with “prestige” than flies are obsessed with shit. I swear, if I looked hard enough I could probably find a thread discussing the most prestigious special ed program to eat crayons in. But it’s all fucking meaningless. Basically, you can divide the posts into two categories: (1) debating (and I use that term very loosely) which NYC sweatshop they think will finally help them find the social acceptance they can’t get among their peers, and (2) talking shit about “TTTs” (“Third-Tier Toilets,” defined as any school below the top 14, or something equally stupid). In other words, it’s like a fucking convention of 1L gunners bragging about who has the smallest penis outlining all their classes before orientation.
Basing your life around “prestige” – in other words, what other people think of you – is probably the surest path to putting a 12-gauge in your mouth before you’re forty I can think of. Ultimately, it’s no different than spending your life trying to impress the “in-crowd,” and fuck that shit – to thine own self be true. If what you want to do happens to be “prestigious,” fucking go for it. If not, who gives a flying fuck, as long as you’re happy. In the end, all that matters is getting your genes into the next generation anyway.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes violence is the answer. Especially when it’s directed towards raging douches who argue over shit like whether it’s more prestigious to lick ass or fondle balls. And to anyone from that site who disagrees with me, or tries to start a flame war here, I’ll give you my response in advance:
Fuck you. No, seriously – fuck you.
That’s all.
Why I'm an Equal Opportunity Offender
I had the following conversation with Slutz following her argument with Justin Timberlake in the comment section [of my old blog]:
Slutz: "It's guys like him that perpetuate the glass ceiling."
Me: "Yeah, but I like the glass ceiling. The hot secretary on the floor above me never wears panties."
Slutz: "Wow. That's all I can say to that. Wow."
Of course, she made fun of Jews during dinner, which balanced out my misogyny. And really, that's what it's all about. Fuck political correctness, life is much more enjoyable when you can good-naturedly rip on your friends' ethnicity / gender / sexuality / religion / politics and whatever else the fuck makes for good humor.
You know what true diversity and tolerance is? It's not this bullshit environment where everyone has to walk on fucking eggshells lest someone be [gasp] offended. It's about not being a fucking retard* about things.
I'll give you a model of racial fucking harmony: During the 2L recruiting season, I was doing some interviews in Dallas, where one of my oldest friends, Pinche, happened to be going to med school. Since I was crashing at his apartment anyway, I decided to stay a couple of extra days and hang out with Pinche.
One evening, after discovering that we had run out of beer, we headed out to Fiesta - a Mexican grocery store that will sell you some crazy shit. For example, it's where the pledge class below me picked up what they need for a prank that involved placing a fucking pig's head in each and every bathroom stall in the frat house. Anyway, since Pinche happens to be Chinese**, I made a crack that we should pick up some dog while we were there. Rather than getting offended, however, he just responded that (since I'm Jewish), I'd probably be too cheap to pay for my half.
That's what it's fucking all about - not just being cool enough with someone's "differences" that those differences don't fucking matter - but also being cool enough with them to give (and take) shit for those differences like you would for anything else. Ripping on Pinche's ethnicity was as normal as giving him shit about the time (back in high school) when he got so wasted in Mexico that he started getting into arguments with inanimate objects...
Ah, memories.
Fuck it. And fuck political correctness.
* - And yes, I said "retard." Fucking deal with it.
** - Half-Chinese, half-Mexican to be exact.
Another Reason I Hate the Homeless
Flipping through my old photo album, I was reminded of a very shitty story. And by “shitty,” I mean involving feces – the feces of an insane, homeless man.
It was the summer after my senior year at Texas, and I was living in a giant, yellow house with eight of my friends. Several of the residents at the Yellow House, however, were new. You see, during the school year, I lived with seven of my frat brothers and my best friend from home. Most of these idiots graduated; I, however, decided to take an extra year to write my thesis and take fun classes like Roman History and Elvish (yes, I’m a big ole nerd).
Anyway, a lot of the guys left Austin shortly after graduation and, since our lease went through August, sublet their rooms. Two of the rooms were sublet to old friends of mine from El Paso, people I had known since elementary school, who I’ll call “Yel” and “Gerbil.” Yel is a peace, love, and flower power hippie; Gerbil is a Marxist, blame-everything-on-colonialism-and-hegemony, leftist. Despite our totally opposite politics, I’ve known them forever, so it was a good time. After the LSAT was over and done, I had nothing to do that summer but sit on the front porch, sip bourbon, smoke hookah, and read Kierkegaard. So I did precisely that.
Now, the Yellow House is located in the middle of West Campus, which is the big student residential area to the immediate west of the UT campus. It’s full of fraternity and sorority houses, run-down apartment complexes, and Bosnian war-zone style houses rented at Manhattan prices. It’s a wonderful drunken, college playground. Unfortunately, it has something of a bum problem. And they weren’t just any old bums – they were fucking nuts. I mean that literally – full-blown, unmedicated, delusional schizophrenics.
Usually, we’d just ignore the bums – we’d leave them to their dumpster-diving, and maybe shoo them away with a broom if they got too close to our house. Gerbil, who also spent a great deal of the summer sitting on the front porch, would occasionally give one of the bums a glass of bourbon. I objected because, as I predicted, he kept coming back for more booze. It’s the reason you don’t feed wild animals. But, despite my objections, Gerbil, not wanting to be “classist,” kept giving him booze.
Anyway, the crazy homeless guy began to take greater liberty with our house. For example, we would come home to find him sitting on our porch, uninvited. As if this wasn’t bad enough, one morning I caught him pissing on the side of our house.
Enough was enough.
I thought I could put an end to this unpleasantness by going outside and waving my sword at him. No, not the one in my pants – a katana that I picked up a while back. When I confronted him, the bum claimed that he had been given permission to pee there. I asked him who had given him permission and he told me that “the Visitors” said he could. Of course! The Visitors – why didn’t I realize that straight off the bat? However, when I asked him why the Visitors had not painted him green to show that he had permission to urinate on my property, he began to get suspicious, asking whether George Bush sent me. I told him that, yes, George Bush sent me to chop off his willy with my katana if he didn’t get the hell off my property.
Needless to say, he left. One of my housemates, Blackbelt, who was watching the spectacle from the kitchen thought that it would be funny to shoot him with one of his many BB guns as he left. I disagreed; I thought it would be hilarious. So Blackbelt, with sharpshooter-like aim, proceeded to nail this insane old bum several times in the butt as he ran down the street.
Anyway, that was the last of the bum I saw until a party we threw several weeks later. Now my house could throw some serious parties – our end of year bash, for example, went through several thousand jello shots within the first two hours and even had a moonbounce in the backyard. This party, however, was the first party we had thrown with my old friends from El Paso. The party dynamic was odd – Yel’s hippies invaded the house, passing around doobies like…well…doobies. Frat boys bonged beer outside and tried to hook up with sorority girls. As a host, I floated between these two very different worlds, both united by a common desire to get really fucked up.
Around midnight, I was outside talking to a hot little blonde girl, when Gerbil interrupted me. The goddamn hippies let the crazy old bum into our house, so I had to go kick him out. Great.
Kicking the dirty old bum out of the house was easy – and when I returned, I saw several people carrying a recliner out of the house. “What the fuck?!?!” I thought. When I inquired as to what the hell these people thought they were doing, I understood completely.
The bum had shat in the chair.
That’s right - this dirty, drunk, delusional, smelly transient had taken a dump in the armchair of my living room. Now do you understand why I harbor so much animosity towards the homeless?
POSTSCRIPT: We took the chair to the dumpster catty-corner from the house. The bum continued to live in the chair that he soiled. On July 4th, Blackbelt came home with a big ole bag of fireworks, so we decided to blow the chair up. God bless America.
Advice for 1Ls
As the summer draws to a close and the school year creeps closer and closer, I've had some time to reflect on that hazing ritual called "1L". Rather, I've had time to reflect, but I've mainly used that time to drink beer on the Terrace. Since I'm such a nice guy, I've assembled a few thoughts to try and assuage the fears of this incoming class:
1. Watch The Paper Chase. In fact, watch it over and over. You may even consider buying a transcript, an outline, and possibly even memorizing it. Not only is law school exactly as it is portrayed, but you will be tested on the movie come exams. In fact, if you don't cite to the movie at least three times on any given question, you've probably failed and will be condemned to spend the rest of your life clerking for Judge Judy.
2. Stress yourself out as much as you possibly can. There is a reason that the inscription over the door to any respectable law school reads "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter This Place." Because, after all, ulcers are the shit.
3. Beware the Socratic method. At some point in the semester (probably the first day), the professor will ask you a mind-bogglingly difficult legal question that even Chief Justice Rehnquist couldn't answer. After you get it wrong, (which of course you will,) the entire class will laugh at your utter incompetence and throw spitballs at you. The professor will call you names and ridicule you mercilessly. But don't worry - your torment will soon stop. Fortunately, the school is equipped with a trap door underneath every classroom seat which will open and you will fall into sweet, sweet oblivion and you'll wake up several days later in a bathtub full of ice and missing your kidneys.
4. Law school is exactly like high school. Make a bet with your friends to lose your virginity by prom. Try not to have sex with any baked goods, as this will come back to haunt you on the "Character and Fitness" portion of the Bar.
5. Sleep with your professors. Since the grading is anonymous, it may not help you get that A. But hey, it couldn't hurt either.
6. Tell everyone your LSAT score. In fact, post flyers around the atrium with it. People will be very impressed and you will make friends quickly. Actually, flyers may not be very effective. Use spray paint.
7. Take up smoking. If you're already a smoker, take up heroin. If you're already addicted to heroin, just freebase the UCC.
8. Finally, make sure that you say good-bye to your old friends and family. You're not going to see them or speak to them for the next year. In fact, you're not going to see anything outside the library for the next year. As we all know from books like One-L, Law school is a terrible experience and if you have any sort of social life, you will fail out. If you manage to have a social life and still pass your exams, you will still be expelled on principle... Or, you could always just chill the fuck out and enjoy yourself.
Hope that helps.
You don't know Jack (unless his last name is Daniels)
Back when I was on my high school wrestling team, all of the other schools would gather in a circle, chant, scream and otherwise psych themselves up. Not us. We would gather in a circle and quietly, though forcefully, count off, "one - two - three - Cougars."
This wasn't a matter of sportsmanship. Coach Mimms told us that he wanted us to be "quietly confident." He wanted us to focus on kicking ass, not the loudmouthed trash-talking that preceeded it. Victory, he said, was decided on the mat; nothing else mattered. Brag after you've won, not before.
Many law students could benefit from Coach Mimms' advice. No one cares whether you've read Corbin on Contracts, Law School Confidential, the entire Encyclopedia Brittannica, or Harry Potter and the Order of the Coif. Bragging about having read all of your textbooks over the summer doesn't make you any smarter; it just means that you wasted your summer. No one wants to hear about your time in the library unless it's a story about how you had sex underneath the Federal Supplements.
This goes double for 1L's: If you have to brag, at least wait until you have something to brag about, e.g., grades*. (Bragging about how much you drank at Bar Review, however, is perfectly acceptable.) Trying to psych out your classmates, especially this early in the year, is just pathetic. Don't pretend to be Learned fucking Hand after a week of law school.
* - In which case, you're just a jackass.
Blogger's Intent
[Posted after I actually started getting hits]
Wow. People are actually reading this blog - beyond the small group of people that I revealed its existence to. Of course, this also means that people may misunderstand some of what I say or do here. To this end, I present the following:
1. The blog began in order to get the blogger discount at tortfeasor.com, home of t-shirts that say "tortfeasor." I decided to continue blogging after it turned out to be a great way to get my brain-juices flowing. I am now mildly addicted.
2. The opinions reflected in this site are not those of the UW Law School. Often, they aren't even my own. I have a long history of deliberately (and often humorously) arguing for positions that offend people. Why? To paraphrase Nietzsche: in every age, people declare certain things too serious to laugh at, or too sacred to dispute; these are precisely the things that must be shot at with arrows of laughter. In other words, societal sacred cows make great hamburgers. Take what I say with a grain of salt and a shot of tequila.
3. I blog under a pseudonym to create a rebuttable presumption of anonymity. If you know me in real life, it will be obvious who I am.
4. I am not an alcoholic – The title “Law & Alcoholism” is meant to parody all the “Law & Whatever” movements. In other words, Alcoholism as an “-ism” ideology.
5. I write primarily for my personal amusement. If y'all are entertained, that makes me happy. Feel free to leave comments.
Gay Marriage and Evolutionary Theory
I’ve officially changed my position regarding gay marriage. I used to oppose gay marriage because it seemed to confer no reproductive advantage to the organisms, and believed that this sort of behavior ought to be discouraged. However, thinking about it last night, I’ve realized two things.
First, although homosexuality is maladaptive for the organism in a pure Darwinian sense (you don’t get your genes in the next generation by mating with another dude), gay marriage will not erode the basic biological underpinnings of regular marriage.
The institution of marriage has evolved because it generally serves our species reproductive interests. For the male, it normally guarantees exclusive mating rights with a particular female (or females in polygynous societies). This substantially raises the likelihood that he is the father of the female’s offspring. The male therefore can safely invest energy in the offspring, raising the likelihood that it will survive and successfully reproduce.
This arrangement benefits the female because it tends to guarantee a healthy supply of male parental investment in her offspring. Even in polygynous societies, a male will only be able to acquire as many wives as he is able to support.
Gay marriage will neither interfere with exclusive mating rights or guarantees of male parental investment – the real “family values.”
Second, not only will banning gay marriage will not discourage maladaptive behavior, I don’t want it to.
Let’s assume for a second that if gay marriage was banned, then gay men would go and marry women. This means I would have to compete with an influx of better-dressed men as I search for a mate. Girls already seem to have a strange infatuation with gay guys – why would I encourage them to compete against me in a zero-sum Darwinian game?
So by supporting gay marriage, I keep potential competitors out of the gene pool. The species as a whole may not benefit, but I will.
My Day in Court (Sort of)
Despite a total lack of hard work and preparation, I somehow made it to the second round of the Omar Megahed Oral Advocacy Tournament. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the quarterfinals. I've been ruminating on my performance, and I think I know where I went wrong. Here's a transcript of what may have been my biggest blunder:
Me: May it please the court. Your honors, there are two good reasons this court should refuse to enforce this exculpatory contract. First, Respondents cannot contract away their own negligence because their organization falls within the Tunkl public duty exception. Second, because I'm just a caveman. Now my first point...
The Court: Maybe I misheard you - did you just say you're a caveman?
Me: Yes your honor.
The Court: If indeed that was the case, shouldn't you have died a million years ago?
Me: Perhaps your honor, but I fell in some ice and some of your scientists found me and thawed me out.
The Court: Counsel, assuming that you are a caveman, how is that relevant to our decision?
Me: Well your honors, your world frightens and confuses me. When I get a call on my “cell phone,” I wonder how the voices come out of this magic box. Are there demons inside? I don't know, I'm just a caveman. My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But I do know this - Respondents cannot contract away their own negligence.
The Court: I see...
Funny thing is, when I argued for the respondent in the preliminary rounds, the judges thought my argument highly persuasive that if Chewbacca lives on Endor, the contract must be enforced.
If I Were an Appellate Judge...
A friend of mine recently pointed out that I end a great many of my posts with "fuck it." I think that this would make an excellent signature opinion. Sure Cardozo and Learned Hand may have been famous for their "brilliant prose" and "legendary judicial reasoning," but did they ever end an opinion with: "Fuck it, AFFIRMED."?
Opinions written in Limmerick or Haiku wouldn't be a bad idea either. Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. would go a little something like this:
Jumped on moving train
Guards help him and package falls
Man's package explodes
Plaintiff nearby, hurt
Conduct not wrongful to him
Not proximate cause
Or perhaps a Lettermanesque opinion, with the "Top 10 Reasons Appellant is Not Entitled to Relief."
Fuck it, Reversed....I mean, off to study.
Library Alarms
I was exiting the law library to work on my Legislation take-home exam over at Starbucks, free from the distractions of the internet. Everything was normal up until I walked through the gate. Suddenly, sirens blared and I was immediately surrounded by what must have been 50 agents from the FBI's special "Library Police Task Force." Protesting my innocence, I struggled valiantly, but they managed to subdue me through several tasers to my testicles and brought me to the law school's "interrogation room" at the point of an M-16. I didn't know the law school even had an interrogation room.
They demanded to know what rare and valuable books I was attempting to steal. Violating every international law against torture, they stretched me on the rack and forced me to listen to Christina Aguilera. But I wasn't going to break. I knew that I was innocent. I whipped out my official Junior Lawyer Badge, and insisted that I would file a § 1983 suit if they did not release me; eventually, they let me go.
Bullshit, you say? Well, maybe it's a bit of an exaggeration. So I wasn't actually "tortured." And yes, maybe no FBI agents actually "came." But I did set off the alarm. Apparently, the DVD's I rented from Blockbuster are incompatible with the law library's security system. Who knew?
Fuck it, back to my exam.
Missing an Issue (and Possibly a Kidney)
Fuck. Not five minutes after I left my Criminal Appeals exam did I realize that I had completely neglected to talk about sentence modification as a potential ground for post-conviction relief. Not that the fictional judge was likely to have granted it, as my fictional client had no fictional cards in his fictional hand, but fuck - I missed an issue.
I have two choices at this point. First, I can start studying right now for my last final and do my damnedest to get the top grade in the class to try and make up for my idiocy. Alternatively, I can get mind-blowingly drunk, have anonymous sex with a strange girl who looks remarkably like a hot Margaret Thatcher, wake up in Panama, tied-up in a bathtub full of ice sans kidneys, stow away on a ship passing through the canal while unaware that it's actually a pirate vessel bound for Indonesia, and spend the rest of my days pillaging fat merchants and using my three semesters of law school to revolutionize efficiency in the white slave-trade.
Is there a happy medium between these two extremes? Absolutely not.
UPDATE: As it turns out, I did get the top grade in my other class. And more importantly, I still have both of my kidneys. Fucking sweet.
It's Finals Time
I can't believe how quickly this semester just flew by. Wasn't I just buying books yesterday? Well, yes - but that's besides the point. Luckily, I only have two finals. Of course, this is because I mainly took writing classes, which cumulated in a 72 hour paper-writing binge that ended yesterday afternoon.
Anyway, since law school thrives on the competitiveness of the curve, students face a dilemma: How do you honestly say "good luck" to your friends? You want your friends to do well... just not as well as you. So last December I came up with an honest form of well-wishing:
"May you fall just below me on the curve."
You want to be number one, but you hope that the recipient of your good wishes is number two. It's the most genuine way that one law student can express their goodwill towards another at exam time.
Now, I've heard other people saying it too, so I guess it caught on. (That, or like the Theory of General Relativity, I discovered it independently and just thought I was original.)
So fuck it, back to work, and may all y'all fall just below me on the curve.
The Time I Hit on Jenna Bush
My last post put me in a nostalgic mood for my days of undergrad glory, so I've decided to share two stories about my encounters with the Bush clan. Both of these stories share a setting - The Iron Cactus in Austin, TX. It's resturaunt/bar on Austin's legedndary 6th Street, serving some of Austin's best fajitas; it's also one of the top tequila bars in the country, boasting over 80 different kinds, from the cheap stuff that tastes like a mixture of paint thinner and burning, to the $35 a shot Herradura Seleccion Suprema.
Anyway, one evening a few months after Dubya was elected, some buddies and I were hanging out on the upstairs patio, sipping top-shelf margaritas. Needless to say, I was a bit intoxicated - not sloppy drunk, but definitely past the point of having "inhibitions" - and in walked none other than the President of the United States. Accompanying him was Colin Powell and several people I didn't recognize, which I am assuming were Secret Service agents. Even though he had been governor throughout my time in Austin, I had never seen him in real life before. They were there to dine on the Cactus's delicious fajitas; apparently the leader of the free world needs to eat too.
Assisted by liquid courage, I walked over to their table and introduced myself. Bush was very friendly and down to earth. I asked him if he would do me the honor of taking a shot of Porfidio with me (my favorite tequila), one frat guy to another. He politely declined because he "doesn't drink anymore." Quitter. However, we chatted briefly and he said to me:
"Son, let me ask you a question - as an American. I'm thinkin' about invadin' Iraq. I'm fixin' to kill 100,000 Iraqis and one blonde with big tits."
"What?" I replied, horrified. "Why would you want to kill a blonde with big tits?!?!"
So he turned to Colin Powell and said, "See Colin, I told you no one would care about 100,000 Iraqis."
Buh-dum-dum.
No this didn't actually “happen.” It's actually a joke I heard, but it works so much better as a first-person story, and since I'm from Texas, it's plausible right up until the end. The next story, however, is actually true.
It was graduation weekend at UT and two of my frat brothers that I hadn't seen in a while (since I stayed an extra year) happened to be in town, so we decided to go down to 6th Street and get drunk. After hitting up a couple of other bars, we decided to check out the Iron Cactus. I ran into a girl I knew, a tall, slender blonde who was in Theta. While I was talking with her, one of my frat brothers, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Holy shit - isn't that Jenna Bush?" pointing to a girl by the bar, guzzling beer like it was going out of style.
The girl I was talking to said that yeah, it was her - Jenna was one of her sorority sisters. Now Jenna is cute, don't get me wrong, but she definitely pales in comparison to most of the girls in her sorority, who are almost universally smoking hot. She was, however, the President's daughter, so I walked over to the bar and asked her if I could buy her a shot.
She said ok, and I ordered two shots of tequila - I don't remember what kind. However, before the bartender could pour them, a young-looking guy came over and said that they needed to leave. He was wearing normal bar-hopping clothes, but I noticed something strange in his ear - an earpiece.
I was getting cockblocked by that Secret Service. I'm hoping that either it was because she was too drunk and shouldn't be taking more shots, or that there was some matter of national security, and not that it was because I was me. But in any event, the result was the same.
My fucking tax dollars at work.
The Infamous Cowboy Hat Lawsuit
One Saturday night, a few weeks into the second semester of my 1L year, I called up a friend of mine to go out. She's a cute grad student and a fellow Texas Ex (the alumni association for UT) from El Paso. I don't remember where we started our little bar crawl, but we eventually made our way to Bullfeathers.
We had been there for a while, when all of a sudden some drunk, undergrad asshole grabbed the cowboy hat off my head. Now, I'm used to people taking my cowboy hat and putting it on - you don't see too many people wearing a Stetson in Madison. Normally, I don't really mind because it's usually an attractive*, often drunk, undergraduate girl attempting to flirt with me. This, however, was what the politically correct call a "Penised-American." But he didn’t just grab it – he actually started walking (or stumbling, rather) away with my hat.
I caught up with him a few feet later and asked him to return my hat. He refused. So, despite having had quite a few shots of Jager, the Wisconsin defense of property statute was running through my head:
A person is privileged to threaten or intentionally use force against another for the purpose of preventing or terminating what the person reasonably believes to be an unlawful interference with the person's property. Only such degree of force or threat thereof may intentionally be used as the actor reasonably believes is necessary to prevent or terminate the interference.... Wis. Stats. 939.49(1).If I wanted to kick this guy's ass, I needed to make sure that I "reasonably believed" that force was necessary to "prevent or terminate the interference" with my hat. I asked for the hat again, a little more forcefully, and he started claiming that the hat was his. I tried to grab the hat out of his hands but, unfortunately, my motor skills were a bit off, and he jerked it away and started shoving me. Satisfied that force was reasonably necessary, I grabbed him by the throat and he did the same to me. We were maybe five seconds away from a brawl.
Now, this guy was about six or seven inches taller than me, but he was a skinny little motherfucker. What he thought he was doing by engaging me in combat I have no idea. Of course, the guy was drunk out of his mind, so that may have had something to do with it. I tensed my body and prepared to tackle him, when the bouncers interfered.
Luckily, I'm something of a regular at Bullfeathers, so the bouncers knew me. More importantly, they knew my hat. They humored the guy and asked whose hat it was and he claimed that it was his grandfather's hat, and that he had given it to him before he died. The fucking drunk actually conjured a note of genuine emotion in his voice. The bouncers, however, didn't buy it. However, as they tried to coax this sonofabitch into returning my hat, I was getting pissed. To make things worse, the asshole started crumpling up my Stetson while he was talking. I pointed this out to the bouncers and they took the hat out of his hands and gave it to me - a $90 Stetson, fucking deformed as all get-out.
I was livid. I asked the bouncers to detain him for a moment while I called the cops. Normally, I'm not a big fan of the police, but I was fucking glad to see them. Mainly, I just wanted a case number so I could get his name.
Watching this schmuck get arrested was pretty rewarding. He started crying like a little bitch when they cuffed him and threw him in the back of the squad car. I asked the officer what they were going to charge him with, and they said they wrote him a ticket for disorderly conduct. I was not satisfied. I told the officers that they should at least charge him with felony damage to property (Wis. Stats. 943.01). They disagreed.
Not to be dissuaded so easily, I stumbled home, whipped out my statute book and called the police station and proceeded to tell whoever answered the phone about everything that they could charge this hat-mangling jackass with. Whether or not they were amused, I couldn't tell. However, no felony charges were filed. The bastard got away with a civil forfeiture on a city ordinance. Fuck.
Anyway, I began to put together a lawsuit for civil battery and tresspass to chattel. Legally, I think I had a pretty good case, and there's some neat precedent in Wisconsin that would have allowed me to get some serious punitive damages (See Jacque v. Steenberg Homes, 209 Wis.2d 605). After all, this wasn't just about the hat. No - this went to the heart of property rights in general. The court needed to send a message to every drunk asshole who thinks that they can just take whatever they want, regardless of the consequences. This case would have gone to the essence of what makes America great - the right to exclusive control of your own property. Also, I really wanted some punitive damages.
I drafted a complaint and wrote a great closing argument. However, being the lazy guy that I am, though I talked about it a lot, I never filed it. Of course, I still have another year left under the statute of limitations....
POSTSCRIPT: I've tried to fix my hat and it's still wearable. It's damaged, but now it definitely has character and a story to go with it. And most importantly, girls still love it.
The law school rumor-mill got wind of the story and soon I heard a rumor that I was suing someone else in the law school. I dismissed it as ridiculous, and never really thought much about it. I mean, the guy was like 21. However, over the summer I ran into the law student who thought I was suing him. Apparently, he had taken my hat one evening outside of Qdoba, danced around in it, and thought that that was the basis of the suit. I don't even remember the incident. Eventually, we sorted the whole mess out when I asked him if he had been arrested.
Fuck it. I really need to do some actual "work."
* - Or, at least attractive at the time.
FUCK Minimum Wage
I have heard Madison described as "30 square miles surrounded by reality." It's a pretty fucking apt description. In Wisconsin's latest effort to emmulate the paradise that was Soviet Russia, the Milwaukee Council voted to follow Madison's lead and hike up minimum wages. They hope to push for a statewide minimum wage.
Great going, you assholes.
Let me give y'all some firsthand experience with the effects of minimum wage on the people it's purportedly designed to help. My dad used to own a jean factory in El Paso, where he was forced to pay his employees minimum wage. (I think at the time, it was like $4.25 an hour.) As soon as NAFTA came along, he was forced to compete with factories in Mexico that paid their employees $0.25 an hour, and let's just face it, that's not going to fucking happen.
Eventually, my dad, and every other garment manufacturer in El Paso was forced to shut down. Instead of making a "decent living wage" of $4.25 an hour, his employees made $0.00 an hour, because they didn't have a fucking job anymore. I'm sure they were thanking all that "progressive" minimum wage legislation when they were standing in the fucking unemployment line. I don’t know of many grocery stores that accept leftist ideology as legal tender to exchange for food.
Minimum wage is fine in theory. Of course, when the theory fundamentally conflicts with the realities of the marketplace, it's going to fall flat on it's face. Employers don't want to pay people more than their services are worth, and punching a button on a cash register at McDonalds, or standing behind a counter at a convenience store isn't worth a hell of a lot. Sure, that may be the only job some people are qualified for, but they shouldn't expect to be paid as if they have specialized skills.
Now I've gotten myself all worked up. I need a drink.
Fuck it.
Aliens (Not the Kind that Work at Walmart)
After watching War of the Worlds last night, I thought back to an old question I had about these types of "alien-invasion" scenarios: Why do we assume that if there is intelligent life out there, it's bound to be more advanced than us?
Fuck, it's just as likely that we're the smartest assholes out there. Where are all the movies about us invading some pathetic little civilization that's still stuck in the Stone Age? Good old-fashioned wars of conquest may have (temporarily) gone out of fashion on this planet, but what's to stop us from terrorizing us some E.T.'s? I want a little, green butler dammit.
Fuck it, time for lunch.