The Bluebook

Whenever you write scholarly, academic papers you always have to use citations using the proper format. There is MLA. APA. Chicago/Turabian (preferred by the BYU Poli-Sci department). Despite the existence of these great citation systems somewhere along the line, legal academics decided to come up with their own citation system. Basically a bunch of students at Columbia, Harvard, Yale and UPenn were bored one day and decided to come up with a bunch of rules.

So many rules with so many different distinctions for the most useless things. They also use small caps a lot. I got real friendly with this book during the writing of my law review note. I don't understand why we just can't use one of the other standard citation systems. Anyway, just another oddity of law school.

Take Home Finals

Law school finals are the worst thing in the world. First, in most classes it is your only grade. So everything is riding on that. Second, they throw everything and kitchen sink at you to figure out. My first final this year was a take home final. Most of the time take home exams are better because you typically have a longer period to take them and you can take them whenever and just submit them via the internet. They are also open note, so you don't have to worry about memorizing anything.

My final in Environmental Compliance and Enforcement only allowed two hours to take the exam. He wanted us to do 40 multiple choice and 20 + short answer. It was brutal, but the important thing is that it is over. Only one more final to go on Friday!

The Talk

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at its Sunday worship services members of the Church get to give talks. It's not just a pastor giving a sermon, but rather members of the congregation giving talks about various Gospel topics. It's just everyday men and women giving their insights about different topics. I really like it because everyone has unique insights about Gospel topics. Today, I had the opportunity to address my congregation. I was assigned to talk on one of the talks at the most recent General Conference. I gave mine on Elder Zwick's address entitled "What do you think?"

K-R-O-G-E-R

When I moved to Indy I really didn’t know anything about it. One of the most important questions when you move to a place is where you go grocery shopping. During undergrad I just went where my roommates were going since I didn’t have a car. If Owen was driving, I went to Smiths. If Mike, then Maceys. When I moved here I had a few options including Kroger and Marsh. I found out Kroger actually owns Smiths so I decided to go with that.

I really like Kroger for a few reasons.

1. 1.       You can use your smith’s card there so I never had to get a new card.
2. 2.       You earn points that get you discounts on gas. Given the expensive price of gas these days that really makes a difference.
3. 3.       Most of the time, when they have things on sale they are cheaper than Walmart.
4. 4.       They reward loyalty. Since I have shopped with them for so long, they now send me coupons in the mail that are very impressive, most of the time they include free coupons or five dollar off coupons. The mail coupons are also specifically tailored to me based on what I buy. They also have a free Friday digital coupon that you can use as well.

The most important reason though is because Kroger is willing to go to places that other low cost retailers aren’t. If you go to the rough parts of Indianapolis you will not find any Walmarts or Targets. Besides Kroger, you find a lot of Family Dollar and Dollar Generals. I think those stores are overpriced and take advantages of the poor people in the surrounding neighborhoods. Kroger is the only reasonable choice. They also give back to the community and hire people from there as well. That’s why I’m all about Kroger!

Mom Knows Best

I had every intention of posting this on my Mom’s birthday, but like a lot of times in law school, things didn’t turn out as planned. Being in law school everyone needs a support system. You really can’t do it alone. Whether it’s friends or family you need someone there for encouragement and moral support.

My parents have always supported me in everything that I’ve done. They have always encouraged me to do whatever I want and have always supported me in my educational pursuits. It’s always nice to be able to be able to talk to my Mom and ask her advice and stuff. She always been there for me and I appreciate it. Happy belated Birthday!

NPRMCC

Continuing our tour of the law school, on the second floor you will find the following plaque with my name on it.

I had the chance this school year to serve as the Chief Justices of the National Professional Responsibility Moot Court Competition. I also worked on the competition’s problem design. A “moot court” is where law students argue a fake case. Working on this competition was really a year-long process. It started last year around this time as we started coming up with ideas for this year’s problem. The key is to find a balanced issue that gives each side a fair shot at making a pretty strong argument. Once we got a solid idea for our problem, we began writing the problem. Basically, you are writing two court opinions that the teams participating will appeal to the fictitious Supreme Court. This was very tedious. But we got it finished by the November deadline. You can read the problem here. I worked on the 8.2 issue.

Besides the problem, as Chief Justice of the competition I worked on registration and other issues with the competition. You don’t realize how long it takes to plan something until you have to do it. Luckily I had an excellent board that helped me out a lot. We ended up having ten teams from law schools across the country participate.

The competition was in March just before spring break. Besides some last minute room changes, things went surprisingly smooth. Our banquet at the NCAA headquarters went really well. We held the final round at the actual Indiana Supreme Court which was a neat experience. I think we were all glad when it was over though.

Even though it was over, there were a lot of wrap-up items that needed to take place. I’m finally finished with it. It was a great way to represent the law school on a national stage. And gave me some great experience in the process.

Papers and More Papers

I’ve finished the last papers of my academic career. Normally in law school, you don’t have a lot of papers. The only grade in most classes is the final exam. It requires a lot of effort to make sure you are keeping up with your work. It also takes a lot of time to figure out what each individual professor is looking for. This semester though, I produced about sixty pages of written work. This has caused me to reflect down memory lane about some of the papers I have written in law school.

The first paper I wrote was for aviation law. It was a pretty straightforward assignment, so I chose a safe topic. A lot of times, you have these grandiose ideas about what you would like to write about, but that isn’t always your best bet. Professors typically don’t reward creativity. It was entitled “Aviation Accidents: Where do you bury the survivors.” The title was based on the joke about when a plane crashes on the U.S./Canada border and the punch line is where do you bury the survivors? This paper examined which courts should have jurisdiction over airplane accidents.

My second paper was my law review note, already discussed on this blog. My third paper was entitled “CYBER TERRORISM: THE THREAT A CYBER-ATTACK POSES TO THE GRID.” It basically examined the current vulnerabilities of the power grid and the likelihood of a cyber-attack on the grid. It’s pretty scary actually. There are some viruses like Stuxnet which basically go in undetected and can wreak a lot of havoc.

For Administrative Law we had a lot of mini-papers and still had a final exam. Even though the teacher was all about due process and notice, I still don’t know the weight she applied to each assignment or the final. One of the more fun assignments was actually taking part in the notice and comment procedures for new regulations that are being introduced. I commented on the Proposed Rule for National Cemeteries which was trying to change the definition of what is considered a demonstration. I probably really didn’t care because I think it’s probably a good thing that National Cemeteries limit what activities take place there, but I made a First Amendment free speech argument and did really well on the assignment. Turns out I was only one of a few people to comment on the rule. If you ever need something to do, go ahead and search for a regulation on Regulations.gov to comment on.

I also did a group project where we created an LLC operating agreement. That was pretty cool to do. This semester I had contract drafting where we drafted a Performance Agreement and a Drafting Agreement. I really enjoyed that class. I also wrote a paper for my Transportation Law class. I wrote it about the red and white reflective tape on the sides and back of tractor trailers. It was actually a fun paper. Just never thought I would be able to write a 20+ page paper about tape on trucks. I also had another paper about energy efficiency projects in the military. It’s been a lot of fun to write about these various topics, but I’m glad I don’t have to write anymore.