Broke but Experienced

The usual race for summer employment for law students begins when first semester grades are given.  That means a lot of my classmates have had their summer plans in place for months.  Although magazines and newspapers do offer summer internships, their timelines are way different from legal ones.  Most of my friends had employment figured out months ago, and I was still crossing my fingers over Spring Break.

But the finger-crossing paid off.  I found out today that I'll be interning with The New Republic in Washington, DC for the summer.  The internship is unpaid, but if we write something they print we'll get paid like freelancers (so not much, but something).  I'll still be broke after this summer, but I'll be a broke person with some great experiences.  Woo-hoo!

From the shaking hands of a caffeine-addled 2L...

Last night was pretty much an all nighter.  Does it still count as an all nighter if you got 3 hours of sleep?  I say it does, because I was back at school at 2 am to finish up the draft for my Health Care Liability Seminar paper.  It's due at noon, but at this point (10:45 am), I think I'm done.

One of my pet peeves is writing just to write, just to fill space so the paper is as long as the professor wanted it to be.  Although this professor didn't set a certain page limit or minimum, my paper is shorter than I expected it to be.  But after going over it a dozen times fixing little things, I think it turned out just fine.  I'm jealous of people who can take complicated concepts and explain them in very few words, so I hope that's what this paper turned out to be.

More likely, though, I'll get a list of things I need to discuss in it for the final paper and presentation.  Which is fine...that's why they call it a "draft."

Sometimes, shortcuts are not okay.

This is a screenshot of the law school's online store.  It features my friend Reid, who I assure you is not a woman, but who is apparently modeling a woman's fleece.  

Whoever put the website together used the same picture for the men's fleece as the women's, so I'm sure they did it to save time/effort.  But sometimes SHORTCUTS ARE NOT OKAY.  

*ADDED: If you click on the picture so you can get a better look, you'll see that "fleece" is spelled as "fllece."  To that, I give the same response (minus the caps, because I'm tired): Sometimes, shortcuts are not okay.

Pop Quiz

Pop quiz: How many people actually live in Washington, DC?  

I lost a bet last night because I thought the population was over 1 million.  Although the DC metro area has more than 5 million residents, the District itself only has around 500,000 residents.  If you include the Baltimore metro area, there are more than 8 million people.

Bonus fact: NYC has a little over 8 million people.  

Is that what you expected?

Distraction

This is my little sister, Grace, with John Parker Wilson, who was the starting quarterback of Alabama's football team this past year.  

Such pretty hair, on both of them, huh?  JP's hair might be shinier than mine.  

Interesting Article

Dahlia Lithwick on judicial bias and impartiality. [Slate]

Setbacks

Well, we're not allowed to take bags or computers into the room to watch, which will limit my coverage of the arguments.  I can take in a notebook and pen, so I'll record some observations old-school style.

Also, because the Court is hearing only civil cases today, my professor "the Judge" doesn't think letting us hear the arguments is important enough to cancel (or even allow excused absences from) his Criminal Procedure class today, even though most of us have never seen a state Supreme Court case before.  So I'll be getting there late in the first case, if there's a seat left.  

The Alabama Supreme Court is Coming!

The Alabama Supreme Court is hearing arguments on two cases at the law school today.  The first case is Ex Parte DBI, Inc., and is about whether DBI, a seatbelt supplier to Kia, has sufficient contacts for the Alabama courts to have jurisdiction over it in a case about the malfunctioning of a seatbelt.

The second case, Riley v. The Joint Fiscal Committee, is about whether the legislature has the authority to protect certain agencies from proration if state resources are not enough to fund all state appropriations.  

To me, the first case is the more interesting of the two, but unfortunately I have an 8:30 class which will cause me to miss some of it.  The law school told us that we could come in and out all day, but I'm still not sure there will even be a seat left if I come late.  I'll do my best though, and I'll cover it on the blog if I can get in.  

If you're interested, here's the Alabama Supreme Court's website.

I've never seen a big case argued in person before, so this is kind of exciting to me.  I know, I'm a huge dork.  But I'm a huge dork who's going to see a state Supreme Court case argued today!

Well Played

Prof. Marsh is not afraid to call people out for saying something stupid.  He's my Contracts professor, and the other day he said something hilarious to a student:

Student: "Well, you might be able to make the argument that..."

Prof. Marsh: "You MIGHT be able to?  I don't care what you MIGHT be able to do.  Ha, I MIGHT be Elvis."

Prof. Marsh: 10 points

Student: 0 points.  

There's Always Next Year

I just got back from the most frustrating basketball game.  

First, the good stuff.  Alabama played our rivals Auburn tonight at home, and at halftime, Nick Saban was there to accept the Iron Bowl trophy.  At halftime, they made Auburn's class president sing the Alabama fight song from beginning to end.  Then the announcer came on and said, "In case you need a refresher, Alabama beat Auburn 36 to ..." and never gave Auburn's score.  That was kinda funny.  

But, despite being ahead for most of the game, we lost it in the end.  And the main thing that lost it for us was FREE THROWS.  I'd be surprised if we hit 30% of our free throws.  That's something that is easy to fix, and we lost to our rivals because of it.  

There's always next year, right?

Here's a picture of Nick Saban accepting the Iron Bowl trophy.