Surprise! Law school students on Twitter have a lot to say about the law and law school. The Blawgirl compiles some of her favorites from the past 24 hours or so.
Turns out Twitter can be useful beyond finding out where the @kogibbq trucks are. It could also help train twits to condense their thoughts and use the skill to succeed in a law school torts exam.
Many law school students are taking their finals this week. For 1Ls, their last final of the year marks the end of the most grueling year of their lives to date. For 2Ls, it means just one more year until they break free. And for 3Ls, well:
[@e_fink, @soydelmar, @countertopdance]
Sometimes all it takes to stay close to your desk and in front of your computer to get your work done is the promise of future academic success. Other times – like when MerDer are getting ready to walk down the aisle – you wish that someone would physically chain you down to one spot just so you can hammer out that last bit of work.
Wish no more! With the Study Ball, you don’t need another party to subject you to the torture of forced labor because you can do it yourself for the low, low price of $115!
The 21-lb. Study Ball is basically a “prison-style” ball, chain and manacle made of steel that is rigged to a timer, according to Curiosite.com. The timer unlocks the device after the specified amount of time, which is indicated on a digital display. For safety, a tiny safety key is included so that the manacle can be unlocked at any time.
According to the site, which sells “unusual gifts for unusual people”, the product is:
“especially recommended for desperate parents whose children won’t study, people preparing for civil service exams who have trouble concentrating, and for all sorts of students in general. It’s also recommended for freelance workers: web designers, computer programmers, bloggers, architects, translators, and anyone else who spends long hours sitting in front of the computer.”
The amusing gadget is the product of Spanish designer Emilio Alarcon, who thought up the idea after speaking with a friend. “The project was born of a conversation I had with a friend who was studying for a civil service exam … He said: I haven’t left the house in a week, this is like being in jail,” said Alarcon.
Sounds like The Boyfriend’s description of studying for law school.
(Gizmodo via Curiosite via FayerWayer via Newlaunches)
In The Shark Attack, the Blawgirl brings you a list of links to blog posts published at The Shark, a blawg written by and for law students.
Not all of Chapman thrilled to see you. Last week, I was pretty thrilled to discover The Daily Chapman, a satirical blog about Chapman University, but I was even more thrilled to see to see that they had written a piece about law school visiting professor and torture memo writer John Yoo’s tortuous law school class. Yoo ought to check out the piece at The Shark, which also has a link to the article. Yoo may find it funny and Yoo-seful. OK. I’m done.
Want to learn some yoga? Go to law school. Law school seems the least likely place to get your “Ohm” on. But the Roger Williams University School of Law is trying to change that. The associate dean of students at the law school instituted a class that teaches students meditation and relaxation techniques that future lawyers can use before going into the courtroom. It also supposedly teaches them how not to be soulless, hope-eating zombies with their clients and fellow lawyers.
Wait, can a disbarred attorney work for a law school? The Yoo saga saw more developments this week after the Office of Professional Responsibility within the Justice Department indicated that it is unlikely that former Bush administration legal advisers would face criminal prosecution. It did, however, leave open the possibility of a potential disbarment for Yoo, and impeachment for his former boss Jay S. Bybee, who is now a federal appeals court judge.
I normally tend to ignore the law school-related stuff that comes on postcards. More often than not, they are solicitations for summer programs that claim to give gunners you a head start or are offers for law student loan programs.
A postcard I received yesterday from Access Group, a non-profit student loan provider, was pretty standard as it didn’t deviate from this pattern. What was extraordinary, however, was the amount of customization that went into it.
The front of the postcard shows a newspaper clipping with the headline “Ines nominated to Supreme Court” and with the subhed “(My hometown) resident has been appointed”. What you can’t see from the photo I posted along with this story is the lede paragraph of the fake article.
“AP, (My hometown) – The President nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Julieanne Ines for the Supreme Court last night. He introduced his choice for the nation’s 112th justice in a primetime East Room ceremony broadcast live on national television after a dramatic day of shifting speculation that captivated Washington. The President hailed Ines as an impressive legal figure who would interpret the Constitution and laws rather than legislate from the bench. ‘Julieanne Ines’s entire professional life has been’ entire professional life has been devoted to the cause of justice and has been widely admired for intellect, sound judgment and personal decency.’ ”
I know that it’s just a rather creative use of mail merge, but the ad got my attention.
In The Shark Attack, the Blawgirl brings you a list of links to blog posts published at The Shark, a blawg written by and for law students.
Facebook groups. Go. Join. Gripe. Law students are the least likely of all the students in the world to complain about anything. Now that I’ve made your heads implode and have possibly awakened the anti-Christ from the improbability of that last statement, I urge you, law students and prospective law students alike, to check out the groups listed in the post. If you want a picture of law school different than those displayed in the glossy, Abercrombie and Fitch-ed law school catalogs, the discussions in these groups are real eye-openers. There’s sex, doomed relationships, alcoholism … basically anything you’d find in any daytime soap opera worth its salt. It would make for very entertaining reading if it wasn’t something to be feared.
Fark on law school. If you thought that law students in all their sainted, high-achieving splendor were immune from stupidity, I would like to have what you’re having. Seriously, though. I was rather surprised by how many times the term “law student” and “law school” came up in my Fark search for the worst of the worst law school students to make Fark headlines. Follow the link and see who made it to the No. 1 spot.
Photo: Richard Ling / Flickr
In The Shark Attack, the Blawgirl brings you a list of links to blog posts published at The Shark, a blawg written by and for law students.
Has the hysteria hit you yet? Stay calm amidst the ranking craze. Students and bloggers peed themselves Sunday and Monday when U.S. News and World Report law school rankings were leaked (see what I did there?).
Torture memo debate at Chapman turns up the dialogue rather than the drama. Chapman University School of Law visiting professor and former Bush administration legal adviser John Yoo debated professors at the Orange County, Calif., law school about Presidential Power and Success in Times of Crisis. Shoe tossing was upsettingly absent from this debate.
Berkeley professor spends years developing alternative to LSAT. LSAT, shmel-sat. A team of Berkeley professors, with the blessing of the Law School Admissions Council, researched a test that is supposed to more accurately test whether a student will make a better lawyer.
Photo: Richard Ling / Flickr
The rankings are out. And, no, I’m not talking about the U.S. News and World Report law school rankings due out this week that were leaked this past weekend.
Nope. I’m talking about Playboy’s rankings for the top party schools of 2009 (link NSFW).
Playboy has named the University of Miami its top party school for 2009, with the school garnering the top “bikini index score” and beating out schools like the University of Texas-Austin and San Diego State University for the top spot. According to Playboy, the study took a scientific approach (link NSFW) to the ten best by “developing algorithms to equally weigh all of the things that are crucial to the college experience.”
Playboy took measure of the Bikini index, campus life, sports, brains and sex. It’s not my cuppa tea, but if you want to go to a school that’s known for its parties, here’s the list with all 25 schools. (NSFW)
And here’s the top 10. If the university has a law school, I’ve given you a link to the law school web site:
- University of Miami – School of Law web site
- University of Texas (Austin) – School of Law web site
- San Diego State University
- University of Florida – Levin College of Law
- University of Arizona – Rogers College of Law
- University of Wisconsin (Madison) – Law school
- University of Georgia – School of Law
- Louisiana State University – School of Law
- University of Iowa – College of Law
- West Virginia University
Photo: Elin B / Flickr
I was expecting it. People on law school boards were saying that only about 100 applicants out of more than 2,000 were getting offers to attend. I turned in my application a little later in the cycle. I didn’t receive anything in the mail inviting me to Admitted Students’ Day. No follow-up emails. No calls. No fat envelopes. No quirky musical montage. Things were not looking up.
Still, I was a little disappointed when I received that skinny envelope from the fledgling U.C. Irvine School of Law last week. I did not get the golden ticket, the free law school education that was promised to any member of the school’s inagural class. I would not get to be an anteater. Twas a sad day in Julie-ville.
Then, yesterday I read on The Shark blawg that Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s grand expedition into the law school yonder had turned away 2,740 other students who were hoping to hitch their wagon to the new California law school. And I realized that it may have been a sad day in many other people’s villes as well.
In the spirit of reject solidarity, I offer you, the other 2,740 of my brothers and sisters in reject-dom, this.
Despite the fact that we’re not going to be going to their totally awesome school (which they themselves acknowledge is totally awesome and is almost as awesome as Harvard and Yale), we can make our peace with the fact that we will not be endowed with awesomeness. How can we accomplish this awesome feat, you ask? By learning how totally not-that-awesome U.C. Irvine’s mascot, the anteater, is:
Random Anteater Facts
- The name anteater usually refers to the Giant Anteater but is also applied to the aardvark, the numbat, the echidna, and the pangolin. Together with the sloths, these animals comprise the order Pilosa. All these animals are known to eat ants and termites.
- The tongue of the Giant Anteater is over 2 feet long. (via www.randomfacts.org)
- Giant anteaters walk with a slow shuffle on all four legs with their nose pointed to the ground. The anteater does not walk on its paws. Instead, with the claws curled up into the paws, it walks on its “fists.”
- Giant anteaters have no teeth but a specialized tongue that allows them to eat up to 30,000 ants and termites each day.
- An adult female giant anteater gives birth to a single baby (twins are rare) while in a standing position, propped up by her strong tail.
- The giant anteater’s main enemies are jaguars and pumas
- The giant anteater has been around for 25 million years (via www.sandiegozoo.org)
OK. Well, maybe they are kinda cool. And I have to admit that they can also be kinda cute. Here’s “Anteater eating a creamsicle”.
Here’s one called “Stewie walks on two legs”.
And I leave you with “Baby Anteaters”.
With cute, almost anything can be forgiven. Even a law school rejection. Sigh.
The Obama administration today released previously undisclosed memos regarding the use of torture by the Central Intelligence Agency, but has decided not to go forward with the prosecution of CIA interrogators who performed the acts described in the documents.
Attorney General Eric Holder, in a press release from the Department of Justice, stated that President Obama has stopped the use of the interrogation techniques described in the opinions. “We are disclosing these memos consistent with our commitment to the rule of law,” he stated.
From the press release:
“Holder also stressed that intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on authoritative legal advice from the Justice Department that their conduct was lawful, and conformed their conduct to that advice, would not face federal prosecutions for that conduct.”
Holder further states that the government would provide no-cost legal representation to any employee in any state or federal judicial or administrative proceeding brought against the employee based on such conduct, and would also indemnify any employee for any monetary judgment or penalty ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide representation in congressional investigations.
You can download the memos at the New York Times Web site. If you don’t want to download them on your own, you can read them at The Huffington Post, which is seemingly outsourcing the digging through them to its readership. And here’s a link to President Obama’s statement regarding the release of the memos.
Included in the documents is a memo published by the Office of Legal Counsel August 1, 2002 (under Jay Bybee and Chapman Law visiting professor John Yoo) which the New York Times had previously reported as “a legal authorization for a laundry list of proposed C.I.A. interrogation techniques.”
The memo discusses the case of Abu Zubaydah, described as one of the highest-ranking members of Al Qaeda and one of the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to the memo, Zubaydah is thought to be witholding vital information from interrogators, and because of the amount of “chatter” that was equivalent to that which preceded the Sept. 11 attacks, it was permissible to up the ante so to speak: to go from regular interrogation methods into the “increased pressure phase”.
And what does the increased pressure phase entail?
Ten techniques: the attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap (insult slap), cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box, and the waterboard.
Page two of the documents gives a rundown of what each technique involves. Ultimately, the memo writers conclude that none of the techniques used on Zubaydah would qualify as “torture”.
According to the Associated Press, former CIA Director Michael Hayden stated that the Obama administration is endangering the country by releasing the memos.
The release of the memos today should make Saturday’s scheduled National Lawyers Guild Teach-In On Torture at Chapman Law’s Kennedy Hall and next week’s debate regarding Presidential Power and Success in Time of Crisis – with Mr. Yoo, Dean John Eastman, Professor Katherine Darmer, and Professor Larry Rosenthal – all the more timely.
Photo: Joe Gratz / Flickr
Memos from the justice department that condoned the use of torture and that outline the methods used by the CIA in secret prisons overseas are scheduled to be released today by the Obama administration, according to The Caucus, a political blog of the New York Times.
The Times writes that among the memos expected to be released is one penned by former Bush legal advisers John Yoo and Jay Bybee that is “a legal authorization for a laundry list of proposed C.I.A. interrogation techniques.”
Yoo, who is a professor at the U.C. Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, is currently a visiting professor at the Chapman University School of Law.
It is unknown how much of the memos will be intact when they are released.
According to The Times, CIA Director Leon Panetta had pushed for weeks to have portions of the memos redacted because information contained in them could “pave the way for future disclosures of intelligence sources and methods, and would jeopardize the C.I.A.’s relationship with foreign intelligence services.”
The “most immediate concern of C.I.A. officials is that the revelations could give new momentum to a full-blown congressional investigation into covert activities under the Bush Administration,” The Times wrote.
The Spanish court was considering pursuing its own criminal investigation into six former Bush officials. The Times reported this morning, however, that Spain would not be opening an investigation of the Bush Six.
The Bush Six includes Yoo, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; Justice Department official Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.
Photo: mindgutter / Flickr
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