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[keg411]

I consider myself a very, very good writer and I did well in both LRW and my doctrinal classes

PDaddy?

.

I'm just countering all of the "I'm a good writer and I suck at LRW" statements or that there is some type of inverse correlation between how you do in LRW and how you do in all of your other courses.

[romothesavior]

I'm just countering all of the "I'm a good writer and I suck at LRW" statements or that there is some type of inverse correlation between how you do in LRW and how you do in all of your other courses.

One anecdote does not make a statistic, but you're probably right.

I feel like I am a good writer. I think it is one of my real strengths. Maybe I'm not the best legal writer at this point, but I have a really hard time believing I am in the bottom half of my class for it. Yet somehow, I haven't broken median on one single assignment in legal practice. I had top of the class grades in my doctrinal classes last semester, which is what makes it so frustrating that I'm below average at legal writing.

I make some stupid mistakes like a grammatical mistake here or there or a heading improperly labeled, but my professor always tells me in office hours that she doesn't take off much for little things like that. She says what is hurting me is substantive, not grammatical or structural, but I just don't get what she's looking for. I know I get the material and I'm arguing the same cases and points as everyone else. It is just a tight curve because we're all writing about the same things, we're all using the same basic format, and we're all progressing at roughly the same pace. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Our open brief is like 2.5x more important to our grade than our closed brief, so I can still end up with a good second semester. I nailed the research presentation for it, so now I hope I can finish strong with the writing portion. I really want to be able to say to employers, "Legal writing was a challenge and an adjustment, but I really got the hang of it second semester" and not have to downplay two sub-median legal practice grades.

[JCougar]

I know I am a good writer, but I got below median in LP last semester as well. You're not alone, Romo. Our professor isn't very specific with what he wants and how to do better, as well. Our professor thinks the textbook is stupid and takes off points if you use it, but there's really no alternative model.

In other news, I got my ConLaw midterm paper back yesterday, and I got an "A". So it must just be legal writing.

[JCougar]

In other news:

WHY DO ALL THE PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC COUGHS/HICCUPS ALWAYS DECIDE TO HANG OUT IN THE READING ROOM OF THE LIBRARY FOR 6 HOURS STRAIGHT.

Good lord...if you have a medical problem that makes you repeatedly make noise for hours straight, why would you chose a gigantic, cavernous, echoey room full of people reading dry material from 2,000 page books to hang out in for the entire night. Also, these same people seem to only be hanging out here to watch YOUTUBE VIDEOS. They're NOT EVEN STUDYING.

I'm trying to do my CivPro outline and you chronic hiccup youtube-watching people are making me want to stab you. (not really stab you, I just said that for dramatic effect...nobody get all worried that I'm going to go crazy or anything)

[BarbellDreams]

Got same grade on Bench memo as ORM. Thought I worked twice as hard and went to office hours often. Oh well, I can only assume that my Appellate brief will be the same grade and I will need to make up for the B+ in HelLWR somewhere else.

[snowpeach06]

At this point in my motion writing process, I'll be thrilled to keep my b+. Today I did the math of what happens if I get a b, b-, c+, c, ect. It's not lookin' good.

[dakatz]

I am SO glad to have HelLRW behind me for good. Last grade is in, so no one can take that away from me. I still have a pass/fail negotiation assignment, but its a relief knowing that there are no more LRW grades.

[keg411]

My Oral Argument is tomorrow morning. Then I'm going to the bar, drinking and watching the Yanks .

[snowpeach06]

I'm told that Microsoft Word for mac has a passive voice checker. Anyone who can tell me where to find it/how to use it wins my love and affection forever and ever and ever.

[goosey]

i hate K's. a lot.

like so much that I actually think I like con law more than K's

[JetstoRJC]

I'm told that Microsoft Word for mac has a passive voice checker. Anyone who can tell me where to find it/how to use it wins my love and affection forever and ever and ever.

Google search leads me to this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2273684_change- ... check.html

Don't know how well this works, but you just made my life so much easier for my brief.

[snowpeach06]

I'm told that Microsoft Word for mac has a passive voice checker. Anyone who can tell me where to find it/how to use it wins my love and affection forever and ever and ever.

Google search leads me to this: http://www.ehow.com/how_2273684_change- ... check.html

Don't know how well this works, but you just made my life so much easier for my brief.

Yeah, I found that on google too, but it didn't work for macs. Eventually though, one of my friends led me to the passive voice checker, and yeah, it made the next 12 hours of my life considerably easier. My brief is due at 8:50 tomorrow morning. So this is gonna be a fun night.

[snowpeach06]

Ugh, you guys know how you have to end a paper with respectfully, yada yada yada? Our limit is 12 pages, and mine is the only thing on the 13th. I'm so torn as to if my teacher will take off points for something stupid like that.

[beach_terror]

Ugh, you guys know how you have to end a paper with respectfully, yada yada yada? Our limit is 12 pages, and mine is the only thing on the 13th. I'm so torn as to if my teacher will take off points for something stupid like that.

Toss it in the footer if you can. If not, it probably won't matter.

[snowpeach06]

Hope not. I think at this point i'm going to attempt to catch some z's and wake up at like 6 to finish my editing. This paper sucks, but with page limits, time limits, ect... it's not gonna get much better.

[romothesavior]

Reading lines like these almost makes working on my brief tolerable:

Storie called Duncan an “asshole.” Duncan responded by calling Storie a “fucking asshole” and threatened to haul his “fucking shrimp ass in[to] court.”

The court could have said, "The two engaged in an exchange of profane insults" or something like that to keep it G-rated. But no, they had to say exactly what the profane insults were.

[YourCaptain]

i hate K's. a lot.

like so much that I actually think I like con law more than K's

Contracts was a great class. Nothing like having decent rules instead of flimsy guidelines in Conlaw.

[lawfuture10]

Nothing like watching the sunrise after pulling the all-nighter brief writing session. At this point, there is no way I'm writing anything useful / coherent.

Oh well, this will all be over 24 hours from now. Then I can move into exam mode (YES!).

[BarbellDreams]

i hate K's. a lot.

like so much that I actually think I like con law more than K's

Contracts was a great class. Nothing like having decent rules instead of flimsy guidelines in Conlaw.

+1.

K's was likely my favorite class. I will admit though that I an noticing more and more that this has a lot more to do with the professors and a lot less to do with the subject matter...unless its ConLaw.

[snowpeach06]

Scalia just compared homosexuals to murders in the Romer dissent. I swear, in 50 years people are going to look at everything he's written like we now look at Plessy. It's just discriminatory. He needs to retire - he just continually does things that genuinely horrify me. And I find myself like, seething when I'm done reading stuff that he's written.

[beach_terror]

Scalia just compared homosexuals to murders in the Romer dissent. I swear, in 50 years people are going to look at everything he's written like we now look at Plessy. It's just discriminatory. He needs to retire - he just continually does things that genuinely horrify me. And I find myself like, seething when I'm done reading stuff that he's written.

His point is often that moral disapproval of an certain action has led to the establishment of our criminal laws, and if a legislature (elected by the constituents) wants to criminalize something they can as long as it passes the standard of review. To be fair, he has a legitimate point. I didn't read Romer, but I read Bowers/Lawrence and some other one where he equates homosexual sex to bestiality.

"By trying to make the constitution do everything that needs doing from age to age, we shall have caused it to do nothing at all"

P.S. Not trying to start up a debate, I just find people don't take Scalia (and Thomas) seriously enough to bother trying to understand their point.

[snowpeach06]

Scalia just compared homosexuals to murders in the Romer dissent. I swear, in 50 years people are going to look at everything he's written like we now look at Plessy. It's just discriminatory. He needs to retire - he just continually does things that genuinely horrify me. And I find myself like, seething when I'm done reading stuff that he's written.

His point is often that moral disapproval of an certain action has led to the establishment of our criminal laws, and if a legislature (elected by the constituents) wants to criminalize something they can as long as it passes the standard of review. To be fair, he has a legitimate point. I didn't read Romer, but I read Bowers/Lawrence and some other one where he equates homosexual sex to bestiality.

"By trying to make the constitution do everything that needs doing from age to age, we shall have caused it to do nothing at all"

P.S. Not trying to start up a debate, I just find people don't take Scalia (and Thomas) seriously enough to bother trying to understand their point.

I won't let this get too far (as in this will be my last argumentative post, because this topic just makes me angry, and I would go on forever), but, the point is illegitimate in context. It's like saying 'well, we don't like black people, so, they can't marry white people, so, since we disprove, lets just make it illegal.' And if the majority wants to discriminate, what the hell, we should just violate the Constitution.

[BruceWayne]

...

[romothesavior]

Scalia just compared homosexuals to murders in the Romer dissent. I swear, in 50 years people are going to look at everything he's written like we now look at Plessy. It's just discriminatory. He needs to retire - he just continually does things that genuinely horrify me. And I find myself like, seething when I'm done reading stuff that he's written.

I won't let this get too far (as in this will be my last argumentative post, because this topic just makes me angry, and I would go on forever), but, the point is illegitimate in context. It's like saying 'well, we don't like black people, so, they can't marry white people, so, since we disprove, lets just make it illegal.' And if the majority wants to discriminate, what the hell, we should just violate the Constitution.

I think you need to go back and read the cases again if this is really how you're reading them. There are a lot of things I disagree with Scalia about (including this issue), but I would never put words in his mouth. The guy is pretty damn smart, and I think you should take what he is saying seriously when you are reading his opinions, even if you disagree.

[keg411]

I read all of this crap this weekend, since we're doing the cases Griswold, Roe and Casey (and a bunch of the cases related to the three) this week. Roe follows pretty naturally from Griswold and Eisenstadt which both talk to fundamental rights to privacy in the context of procreation. It's not like the decision came out of nowhere or there wasn't support in previous cases for that type of holding to logically follow. I don't love SDP, but there is certainly a fine legal/Constitutional framework for Roe, and the Stewart concurrence does a good job of explaining it.

In addition, since I'm personally not a fan of SDP (mostly because of the mess that Lochner made and there's an argument for a revival of Lochner under the "fundamental rights" version of SDP), Casey basically took Roe and treated it more like the sex discrimination cases under the EPC with the "undue burden" standard, which pretty much parallels "heightened scrutiny" anyway.

BTW, there's an extremely interesting background on Roe in The Brethren and the reasons why Blackmun wrote the majority opinion and how the Court worked during the entire period. Whether you agree or disagree with Roe, it's an enjoyable read.

And that's all I have to say on the subject because we have yet to discuss it in class, but it's an extremely sensitive issue for me, and a lot of what I read was just really disturbing.

ETA: This has no relation to Bowers/Lawrence/etc. but it does go to the point where Scalia is sometimes infuriating .