Wednesday, June 29, 2005

work and things

Well today was a fustrating day at work. If you want to relate, try doing this: Prove that you are not your father to a stranger without using your Social Security Number, date of birth, name, or drivers liscense. NOT FUN. I had a guy at work who's dad was in an accident. I needed to prove to underwritting it wasn't him. First the underwritter told me that you cannot go of DL# because it changes if you loose it (a lie). Then she said I would not show the different middle initial because it could be a typo. Finally she told me date of birth didn't matter because it wasn't relevant. We didn't have the social security number. She just wouldn't listen when I said "you have the right person at fault, but that isn't our client." She kept insisting on me proving somebody else was at fault.

Anyway, on a side note I REALLY want to go back to my job at school. For more info on my work history and academic accomplishments, or if you just want to see my online resume click here.

NBA draft was tonight (yawn). The only interesting thing was that Head got drafted at the end of the first round. Other than that no suprises (except for Danny Granger freefalling for no good reason).

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Prep-tests, entertainment, and my econ essay

Well I got my econ essay critiques today. First off I was told my paper was solid, and then a few format changes were suggested. I was also told to title the sections. I can only assume this means Hedonic Damages or Discount Rate. Overall I thought her critique was very fair, though I did not understand her claim that the discount rate cannot be set because people have different risk preferences. Am I wrong or does the court system not care? I mean, so we award different damages for totaling somebodies car based on the vehicle owner's risk preference? No. It seems to me the court has its own risk preference, though I cannot decide if it is risk neutral (which i think it is, constant marginal utility of money) or risk adverse (increasing marginal utility of money). I'll post the full essay here when I complete it.
Went bowling today. Averaged a 150, high score a 163. I'm starting to enjoy bowling for the mindless nerd sport that it is. I don't take myself very seriously, but I have a lot of fun. A good way to pass the time I guess.

Finished a practice test. 168 (89/101). My section breakdown is as follows:
RC: 25/27, Games: 20/24, LR1: 24/26, LR2: 20/24. I didn't get to one question in games (an easy one) and didn't have time to think one all the way through and had to guess between two answers. Oh well, such is the LSAT. As for the others, time was not a factor. I had 3 or the 4 I got wrong on LR2 as answers I was "also considering" (aka second choice) but that doesn't score points. I really hope I can score at my practice score average or higher, but I am not holding my breath. My LSAT could be the difference between Northwestern, Notre Dame, Illinois, or Kent.

No pressure there right?

I don't really have any deep legal thoughts tonight, other than I finally found the Pepsi Harrier Jet court case where a guy bought a bunch of pepsi points and demanded Pepsi give him a Harrier Jet. The case is Leonard v. Pepsico and is a good example of people who cannot take a joke. I think it was clear from the commercial that the offer was not serious. I do not understand why this guy thought he could get specific performance. I find it particularly entertaining that the Plaintiff demanded the court "explain why the commercial is funny." I wish I could find the actual text, but I just do not care enough to look for it, I have the basic gist.

The only thing I am Still curious about is if the guy got the money back for the Pepsi Points he purchased (at a discounted rate) in order to buy the jet. He spend $700,000 and the case does not stipulate anywhere that he should have his money refunded. This is an interesting side not that I am curious about.
Thats all for tonight.

Supreme Court Comments

Well I originally planned to talk about some stuff in my life, however this is my blog, and it has a strong legal focus, so I am going to talk about the Supreme Court rulings that were handed down today instead. Before I do so, I want you to remember I am a voting Republican, so my comments (though not all orientated to that side) come from that slant.

Let’s start with the most controversial decision, the rulings regarding the 10 commandments in public places. This ruling is pretty close to what I thought should happen. Let’s look at the two extremes first. Allowing the 10 commandments in public places in any context is wrong. With all due respect to Justice Scalia who feels anything monotheistic is ok, it is fairly easy to understand that there is no separation of Church and State if any symbol can be used at any time. ONLY posting the ten commandments is promoting a religion. Don’t believe me? Ask a conservative Christian what they would think if the Koran was enshrined in every courthouse. They would have several objections. The only difference is the religion it promotes.

Similarly, outlawing them completely would be wrong. Like it or not Judeo-Christian morality (as well and many other influences) has an effect on our legal system and our concepts of right and wrong. In that light, to say “this important symbol cannot EVER be shown in a government owned building” would be to pretend a major influence on our legal system does not exist.

Furthermore, the goal of separation is to prevent the government from influencing people about religion in any way. Certainly it can not be claimed that the presence of the ten commandments among several other symbols cannot be construed to promote religion any more than a city having a Christmas Tree or giving people the day off or work for Christmas.

This leaves us with some middle ground. Instead of inventing a new standard the justices applied an existing standard (strict scrutiny) in a new area. If the document is clearly not intended for its religious purpose, but rather to show some history, cultural importance, or legal importance, it is allowed. Otherwise, it is not legal. While the line may be blurry in some cases, this standard is the correct place to start from.

I don’t really have much to say about the share-ware case. I think that decision was obvious.
I am VERY glad the courts found that corporations have a right to benefit from proper planning. I think the FCC regulation on telephone companies is ridiculous (you invested huge amounts of money to become very successful, now that you know people want telephones you have to sell to anybody that wants to compete against you.) Let’s think about this from an economic standpoint. You are a cable company. You spend money to develop and implement something not knowing if it will succeed. It becomes VERY popular. You make money. Now, another company that did not have to take any risk until they knew there was a market can come along and say “hey you are making more than economic profits, I am going to compete and you have to sell to me so I do not need to invest as much as you did to start.” This would discourage innovation and risk taking and as a result progress. The FCC dropped the ball when they regulated telephone companies, it is good to see the courts are not making the same mistake about cable internet. Hopefully now they will continue on the correct track and find the same thing when DSL questions come before them.

The only other major case deals with journalists, confidential sources, and grand jury investigations. I think the court should have simply said “Brazenburg v. Hayes stands.”
That’s all I have about the court cases. Tomorrow I will post more about my life and things going on.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Thoughts on Waiting

Bofore I start todays article I want to send a shout out to a good friend of mine from home. His name is Mike and he is one of the smartest people I know. He too has decided to do a blog discussion his journey to med school. If you are at all interested at medical school, or just want another perspective on life in general (especially the life of a Duke student), take a look at his site! I have no doubt it will be filled will all sorta of interesting stories and good med school info.
So today I was searching around on the internet for one simple reason. To watch people freak out about the LSAT. You have no idea how much fun this is (mainly because it will be me in February). The thing I find most entertaining is the quantity of predictions about when the scores will come out and people searching for any little factor that would lead them to believe their score will be out early. I will certainly be one of these people. I bet I will be even more nervous about receiving acceptences\rejections. This whole process really should be sponsored by Tums.

Anyway, watching people struggle to wait made me realize something: I spent the first half of college worried about law school, and will probebally spend the second half doing the exact same thing. That isn't good. When I am not thinking about fraternity stuff my thoughts always turn to law school. I can only imagine I will look back some day and say "wow stupid you really wasted that time." Oh well, thats my nature. Mabye I'm OCD... or just dedicated. Anyway, waiting sucks because it keeps us from enjoying what is going on now.

I plan to take a practice LSAT tomorrow, so I will probebally have an undate on that. In the mean time it is back to watching people freak out about gettign their real LSAT scores back (insert evil laugh here).

On a side thought, I am trying to coordinate the all Greek Philanthropy this year. Thats what I get for running for IFC cabinet. I never realized how hard it is to get a community service gig in a college town! Literally nobody wants free help!

Saturday, June 25, 2005

practice makes imperfect

An odd thing happened to me today. I was working through a practice LSAT (part of one) and I started having time trouble. I can typically get through LR without any time trouble, (usually about three minutes to spare) but today it was a time crunch and I ended up having to guess blindly on two questions. Then, I didn't finish the games section (one left unanswered). It was very odd and disheartening. I thought I had gotten over my time trouble. I haven't taken a test in a few weeks, I wonder if that was a factor at all. Oh well, back to practice making sure I stay on time.

Sox lost again today. I cannot believe we tied the season series with the Cubs. Things looked so good, Garland pitched well, the team just refused to hit. Oh well, such is baseball.
Nothing else going on really, just the dog days of summer. One other thing. I just found out my fraternity lots its web address, so now we are in a rush to get an address and get a site up, hopefully things will work out or we will have lots of wasted promotions.

Affirmative action, racism, other things

So something has been bothering me a lot recently. I have been reading on several messege boards and affirmative action has come up a lot, and for good reason. This is a controversial issue with fair points to be made on both sides and educated people capable of making logical arguments for either point. Despire all of this however it appreas that there are two arguments that any discussion of affirmative action seem to fall into and both of which lack logic and bother me deeply. Here is the one that bothers me the least. "Affirmative action is unfair because it gives people a bonus for the color of their skin and nothing else." I believe this to be true some of the time and I honestly feel the motives cited in the Supreme Court cases recently is not always working at law schools. When the Supreme Court says it should be considered as one of many facts if it demonstrates a unique background that will contribute to the learning environment, I do NOT think this means "if you are underrepresented you get to go to a school at least one and probebally two levels above what you could normally get into no questions asked" as it sometimes works out to. Specifically, I have seen SEVERAL URM's with 162 lsats and average gpa's that have gotten into University of Chicago. One or two I could understand, but five or six? That far under the median? That said, I think people that view it as simply "you get in for being a minority" are missing a big point. Often times this is a way to compensate people for overcomming disadvantages (economic or social) that made their path harder. Also, there have been some studies that have demonstrated discrimination in the application process (though probebally not intentional) so some program is a good offset to that.
On the flip side I AM SICK of hearing "you are just a racist" whenever anybody opposes affirmative action. Believe it or not you can oppose affirmative action and not be racist, in fact, only if you oppose it because you do not want to see minorities succeed are you a racist. This is similar to a problem I have with Jessie Jackson and similar leaders in general, they try to claim if you disagree with them you are racist. On a related tangent, I have to share this quote I found today from a 1L at Georgetown.

"How can you say affirmative action is not fair? To say that is to say that the years of suffering black people suffered is meaningless. To say that is to claim that in a word that pushes blacks down a push up is discrimination. Most importantly, to say that is to say that the work that started with MLK was in vain. You people are probebally the same people that ruined Jessie Jacksons life and reputation for an innocent mistake. You people make me sick. It is one thing to be ignorant and argue against a policy that has tried to restore fairness to an unjust system. It is far worse to tear down a great leader, a figure to look up to, and a strong force in the black community simply because he was getting ahead. Cheating on his wife is not a big enough problem to ruin his life."

Ok, read that slowly, the errors are numerous. This is what I am talking about by the way. A Georgetown 1L with a 159 LSAT score, that has no logical ability. Ignoring the fact that she reduces all affirmative action to African Americans though Hipanics are an even more under represented group there are several flaws. Lets look, she starts by claiming affirmative action supporters are racist (an attack on the person not the argument they offered up). After that she tries to create three strawmen in a row (claiming it is denying MLK, claiming it is X claiming it is Y, without showing that it does any of those things). She then launches into an off topic rant about people bashing Jessie Jackson. I will be honest, I cannot stand the man. He is a poor leader and a racist. She is angry because of the way people treated him for cheating on his wife. He is a minister! He cheated on his wife! We should look down on him, and we certainly should view him and his church through lenses that understand what he has done. Also, if you fight enough silly battles (ie defending a pro athlete for committing an assult the player did not deny on the grounds that "the game is racist" or saying seven kids that started a brawl at a high school football game and were expelled should not be expelled because it "is unfair to the black community" ) you start to become a joke. This is neither here nor there, but it is certainly a quote I found oddly stupid from a Georgetown student.

So now that I have bashed both sides of affirmative action, I will offer my view. I think aid to those from underprivlidged backgrounds is in order, however I do not think being a minority makes you underprivildged. A poor white kid deserves more of a boost than a rich black kid. It is economic circumstance, not race that handicaps applicants to the point of needing help. Remove race and name from applications. Identify people by their LSDAS number only. Have LSDAS create some system for analyzing and grouping people into certain "underprivlidged" groups. This would take into account the type of schools you recieved when younger, family income, family worth, exc. This way, children who have excelled in poor circumstances would be rewarded. The result would be much the same, except URM's that grew up in the same situation and middle class non-urm's would no longer receive benefits while deserving people under the poverty line that are not URM's would.

In looking at this it is important to remember: everybody is looking for their own advantage this is why they take an attack on a system that helps them as a personal attack and why they take a system that hurts them as oppressive. This is an emotional issue, I just wish that didn't stop educated discussion.

Friday, June 24, 2005

bowling, law schools, life, and other randomness

So I went bowling tonight because I was bored and it is cheap. Before I continue you must know two things about me. First, I am a horrible bowler. Second, last week, by some fluke of god, I bowled a 247. So I went out tonight and started off like the scrub I am, and showhow in the middle I bowled a 200! Odd. I am definately buying two lotto tickets tomorrow. That was about the extend of my day. Work, run, look at people on facebook that a buddy of mind told me to see if I knew (for rush), then bowl, then sleep. Nothing too exciting.

I have been thinking a lot about law schools and I have come up with two questions. First, who in their right mind would go to Cooley to become a lawyer. Ok, so people who can ONLY go to class on the weekends might find it usefull, but other than that? Where does this percentege (however small) of full time students come from. Please tell me that people are not really fooled by their made up rankings and their BS about their reputation and can see that the school simply takes the bottom of the barrell, puts them into a bowl, mixes them around, then lets half of them out with the degrees and kicks half of them out 30K (or more) poorer. The same with Roger Williams. It really seems like they are taking advantage of peoples hopes of going to law school to create a better life for themselves. ABA WHY ARE THEY ACCREDITED!!! As a side note, go to google, type in Cooley Law school and fraud... several things come up.
My second law school thought is more universal. Why is it that people in Tier 3 or Tier 4 law schools are convinced they have equal job opportunites as others? Ok, I understand that it doesn't doom you, but it certainly closes some doors. I do not mind people saying "i can work my way up" but I had somebody tell me point blank online today that there is no difference in job opportunities out of college for law schools grads from northwestern compared to Loyola.

First, Northwestern grads can get hired outside of Chicago. Second, big firms will take 50% or more of Northwestern's class. They will NOT go this deep into Loyola's class. If there is really no difference why the big salary disparity, even amount people only in private practice. It is just silly. Stop trying to brainwash yourselves, understand where you are and how hard you need to work. I do not know where I am goign to school, but I can promise that if I end up at say... Kent, I will not run around telling people I'm just like a Northwestern grad or that my job prospects are just as bright (unless of course I am editor of Law review). End rant for now.
I am not sure what I am doing for the rest of the week, other than I really need to take a business law test online. Hopefully I will get that done tomorrow. I REALLY REALLY need a haircut, so that is gettign done tomorrow also. Mabye now I won't look like a shaggy dog.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Case Viewbook

So today I sat down to take another practice LSAT but I just could not get excited to do it. I hope this feeling does not persist.

Anyway, a more important note: I got Case Western's view book in the mail about a week ago. It is top notch, you can really tell how proud they are of their law school program and how important graduate programs are to the school. I picked up the book and looked at it... it was amazing. It was informative, the pictures actually showed things I cared about, and they even included pull outs of things I care about such as entertanment in the area. I just wish they included more information about housing. Oh well. But anyway, I sent a note to case complimenting them on their book (I figure by the time I begin to apply I will be so furious at admissions I might as well let them know that I appreciate a job well done now. Feel free to make fun of me.

No tennis tonight... again, oh well (I didn't even like tennis until about a week ago, now its my prefered form of exercise).

On a "frat guy" note, summer has been going on long enough that I miss my house a little. I am having a good time relexing, but I can't wait to get back to campus and start rush.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Not to offend

I just got yelled at by a good friend of mine who's opinion I respect a lot for listing NIU in a category of schools that I called "not sure I would even go." I would first like to edit that comment. I would not attend any of those schools unless I was getting a large amount of money to attend. Nothing against these schools, two of them are actually top 100 schools, its just that the way I view that group is basically that I would not want to go into debt to attend law school there, this is not to say others shouldn't. If you really want to go to law school and thats where you can get in, or some special circumstance leads you there (you live in Dekalb, you can only go to night school in Chicago, you definately want to practice in WI, you are really into health law, exc) then by all means go for it, but for me, who doesn't know what kind of practice he wants but thinks he may want to get involved in some sort of politicals (and possibly add a MPP) these are just not the right schools. I an not a huge fan of any of the third or fourth tier schools, but that doens't mean they aren't right for somebody.

On a side note, schools are what they are, not everybody can be the best school, or the top ten, or the top half, exc. Unfortunately, in the practice of law these things see to matter when looking for clerkships and jobs.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Reaffirming my worries about Big Law

I ran across an interesting article on Big Law today while reading a favorite messegeboard of mine. For anybody interested in Big Law or who just wants to learn about the real workings of law firms I think it is a good read. It certainly made me realize what I am getting into. It seems long but the font is HUGE and the footnotes take up a lot of the pages (though the footnotes are worth a read in their own right). Take a few minutes, I think you may learn a couple things.

I had a copy of it on my old blog but I do not know how to upload it. It is by Patrick J. Schiltz and is called On being a Happy, Health, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, Unethical Profession.

On another note, my essay for ECN 111 is garbage, I am not looking forward to getting my critiques back. Work was rough today, I can't wait to get back to Kavanaugh where I belong! I may not learn as much as I hoped, but it certainly beats working at the Insurance company.
On a related note: PEOPLE, INSURANCE RATES ARE SET BY A CORPORATION LIKE TARGET, WE CANNOT NEGOTIATE THEM ANYBODY WHO SAYS THEY CAN IS EITHER A LIAR OR A CRIMINAL. You wouldn't go into target and haggle over the price, yet people seem to think insurance rates can be negotiated. We can lower your rate, but we are also lowering your coverage. People kill me, they think we can randomly change their rate if they threaten to leave. Any insurance agent who says they can do this is either lying to you or doing something illegal, there are NO exceptions.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Trip Recap

Well I am back from my trip and I learned two things.

First, South Bend is only two hours from my house. Thats closer than UIUC!!
Also, trying to write a research paper on vacation is harder than it seems.
I had a paper due on hedonic damages (as I already told most of you) and planned to write it on vacation. Well, everything anything fun came up, the paper got pushed back. Finally I wrote it at 5 AM and looking at it, the quality is..... missing.

So now I get to spend my Monday correcting a paper to turn it in on Tuesday.

On a totally seperate note, somebody threatened to sue the company I work for for not letting him pay less than the amount he owes on a bill. I work for an insurance company and we had his workmans comp insurance. He owed $150,000 and offered to pay $10,000. The full payment was due today. He said (quoting directly: If anythign happens to me I am going to sue you for not letting me pay), to which I said (stupidly) well you are welcome to pay, in fact, I encourage you to pay $150,000, and if you only want to pay $10,000 then you are welcome to do that too, however it will not prevent your insurance from canceling. So really, I in no way prevented him from paying, I just told him if he did not pay for services they would not be rendered. I really wanted to ask him what his cause of action was, but I probebally would have been fired.

Fun stuff. Later all.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Hedonic Damages

Well I just started my blog and already I am going to be missing a day. I will be gone till late Sunday in Michigan (mabye I will make it back in time to post).

We take this trip every year and stay in some half-houses with my aunts and uncles. It should be ok, except I have the joy of writting a paper for my summer economics class while we are there. I spent about an hour today printing off all the articles on calculating the value of life in court cases and hedonic damages that I could find. The more I read, the more I hate Stan Smith, this man gives academics a bad name, he has no appreciation for the social sciences and he does not want to study or learn anything, all he wants to do is peddle his belief in court for money.

After all of this reading I have come to the conculsion that while I intended to argue nothing
more than a need for a unified set of rules and common law (instead of a state by state set of law) we need a national standard (insert the dissent of crim pro students here). It seems to me that something as valuable and inportant as "does the human life have value to the person loosing it" would be an issue that should not be as ambiguous as it currently is. Furthermore I will probebally argue that his idea of a case by case basis for selecting a discount rate is garbage. Economists are made into hypocrits by the fact that they have to please clients. This is a joke, if you have an economist that the jury likes you get 1%, if the defense has the better expert you end up with 4%, and the actual difference can end up HUGE. We need a standard like Canada has (except national, not local).

Anyways, back to my life, I am excited about the trip, I will probebally take an LSAT while we are there (I'll let you know how I do) and hopefully we will take a quick walk around U Mich while we are there.

My uncles friend from college will be stopping up and he lives in South Bend, we may go see his house. If we do I will be pulling hard for a few hours to walk around Notre Dame, hopefully that will happen, though a direct trip home with no South Bend stop wouldn't kill me either.

Friday, June 17, 2005

A Starting Point

So it makes sence that if I am going to write about law schools I should tell you what kind of law schools I am looking at.

Over the last six months I have tried to get my hands on as much free material as I could (and a little that isn't). After a lot of reading and talking to people I have assembeled the following "long list" of candidate schools. I think that baring an LSAT meltdown (not impossible) or an LSAT knockout (not likely) I will be choosing from among this list of schools come the fall of 2006.

U of Chicago, Northwestern, Georgetown, Duke, Penn, Columbia, Berkley, (I wish)

Michigan, Notre Dame (Not happening)

Vanderbilt, Minnesota (Still not likely)

Illinois, Iowa, George Washington, Wash U (stl) (mabye)

Wisconsin, indiana, (its possible)

American, Case Western (Getting warmer)

Kent, Loyola, Depaul (i hope not)

John Marshall, NIU, SIU, Drake, Marquette, SLU (I might not even bother going).

No disrespect to people from schools in that last group, but I just don't want to spend all that money to go to a lower end school. That said, some of those are still solid institutions, just not where I want to be.

Over the next two years I will be writting a lot about visits and applications and correspondence with many of the above schools, so wish me luck, and stay tuned.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Welcome to my blog

Hi all and welcome to my blog. As I was searching for a place to start, I decided the best way to being this journey is to tell you a little about me and my blog.
This blog is called frat boy goes legal because it is intended to be a tale of my journey from college fraternity man to law school student. I intend this to be a first hand account of my expierences researching schools, preparing applications, and applying to law school. I also intend this blog to include a lot of details of my college and fraternity life as I lead up to the all important Fall of 2006 in which I will apply. And the Fall of 2007 in which I will attend. For those of you using this blog as a way to gain insite into the law school application process, I hope this helps. For those of you looking to be entertained, I hope you are. I hope that once the details of my law school application experience become more frequent those of you who do not want to hear about it bear with me, and I hope that before that point those of you interested in my application process will merely be entertained by my tales of college life.
As for who I am as a person, I am 20 years old, from Bartlett, Illinois, a town an hour northwest of Chicago. I am from a middle class family and sadly (for application purposes) and a white male. I go to school at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, a private school of about 6,000 that is typically ranked in the top five in its class by USNews and World Report. I am an active member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and have served in a variety of leadership roles. The majority of this blog will probebally discuss school, law school applications, and my social life (which will largely deal with my fraternity). I will introduce friends as they come up in my writting.
As a student, I am a Economics and Political Science Major with a 3.78 GPA at the time I am starting this blog. I have not yet taken the LSAT or preped very hard, but I have taken a few practice tests and am averaging a little over 165 with scores ranging from 162 to 169.
That shoudl serve as a good background. To those of you who know me, I hope you find this interesting and hope you are not too bored with my discussion of law school and fraternity. To those of you who do not know me, I hope you are entertained and mabye even get an insight into the Law School application process. Who knows, mabye one day I will be sitting in the same classroom listening to the same lecture on the same cases.
As a side note, please do not correct my spelling or grammar, I know I cannot spell, you do not have to remind me.