The Horror

A man punches his ex-wife's abdomen repeatedly to bash the life out of the a baby in utero. Ford Motor Company is labeled by a professor as a "good corporate citizen" for performing a cost-benefit analysis comparing probable burn deaths in manufacturing the Ford Pinto to the cost of adding a safety device to prevent accidents. A woman sues a man who committed adultery to have a relationship with her because he broke a promise to care for her after having cheated on his own wife.

How does this affect me as a Christian? Is law school taking its toll on spirituality?

I am not afraid of losing my faith in humanity, as one of peers said he is. I have, by definition, lost my faith in humanity. What I have lost finitely, I have gained infinitely. In refusing faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings, I have gained faith in the ultimate and exclusive goodness of God.

And I am mindful that the law of man and law of God are two separate things. The human law is only an attempt to appropriate divine law. It sometimes succeeds at this appropriation and usually fails. This is fine with me. It is simultaneously troubling, for I am a stranger and pilgrim in this land. As G.K. Chesterton said, I am "astonished, yet at home."

As a law school graduate and friend put it the other day, the study of law is a study of the failure of grace.

Socratize Me

I remember reading a Louisiana Bar Association pamphlet during law school orientation. Meant to, in theory, assuage any concerns an incoming 1L student might have, the pamphlet actually scared me silly. It referred to something known as the “Socratic Method,” which, the pamphlet promised, would become something I would develop a perverse enjoyment for, if I believe that what doesn’t kill me can make me stronger [italics meant to be a paraphrase]. How encouraging.

My fellow 1Ls agree that Prof. Crimlaw’s teaching method most resembles what we had understood to be the Socratic Method. I had been dreading getting “called on” by Prof. Crimlaw for this reason. Well, it happened today. And he didn’t even call me by my correct name, at first.

What ensued, though, was much better than what I had expected and more invigorating than I could have foreseen. With every proceeding question he asked, I found myself digging into the textbook, perusing my case brief, scraping the bottom of my mind to formulate something with which to answer him. It was an experience that caused my senses to be aroused to a heightened state, much like what I imagine Peter Parker experienced in Spiderman: the high school hallway scene where in one millisecond, he can perceive drops of sweat and buzzing flies, every minute detail around him. It amounted to a conversation between student and professor across the classroom, with an air of shouting match.

Call me Will Smith’s character in The Pursuit of Happyness, but this is a part of my life. And this part of my life, today, was called “pleasant surprise.” I seem to have had a positive experience with Socrates on the front-end of law school (whew!). Yet I am trying to not be self-deceived. As fellow classmate One Elle said, “Before the semester is over, all of us will fall flat on our face [in oral responses in class].” Mr. Elle has attended law school previously, unlike most of us, so I’ll take his word for it.

I Wiki-searched Socrates to figure out what the Socratic method is: “[A] series of questions are posed to help a person or group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge. The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions .” ”Socrates,” Wikipedia. Of course, as my dad, an attorney who is “proof that there is life after law school” reminds me, one shouldn’t worry about professors’ fascination with Socratization. After all, Dad reminds me, “You know what they did to Socrates? They made him drink poison!”

But enough of that. I have some studying to do. And this is the part of my life I call … “outlining.”

More on that, later. As well as study groups.
P.S. Pardon the movie reference earlier. But that was a great movie my wife and I watched this weekend past. If I were to cry during a movie, The Pursuit of Happyness would be near the top of my list.

The Rules

Rule #5: Do not write down everything the professor says.
Rule #6: Schedule one day on the weekend to avert your eyes from anything law-related.
Rule #7: Don't wear brightly colored shirts (e.g. yellow and pink) if you do not want to get called on.
Rule #8: Treat the experience as a full-time job with plenty of mandatory overtime, without monetary compensation.

Dear diary,
This was a rough week. In law school, you get do not have canceled classes. You have rescheduled classes. The many classes we missed during Hurricane Gustav week - we have to make all them up. And several of those occurred this past week. By the week-end, there is no desire to read left in me. Raised in a video-games-dull-the-brain household, I never before would have thought until now that buying an xBox is a legitimate business expense, related to maintaining sanity. I am glad I know where the feet of Jesus are, at His throne. Without Him, I would have lost my peace of mind this past week, and possibly even a piece of my mind. Still, the law is such a rewarding pursuit and fascinating love.
Oh and another thing. If my laptop computer would join Facebook, I would add him as a friend because he's a constant companion these days.

Mr. Clayton!

In law school, "we don't like you enough to call you by your first names," one professor tells us.

That's why this same professor shouted out those two words that were my dread and every other Section One 1L's sigh of relief:

"MISTER CLAYTON!"

That's right, my first time being "called on," as we say in law school. Prof. Torts, thankfully. Torts, my favorite subject. Not sarcastically; truly my favorite subject. I got to have a chat about Herrin v. Sutherland and Compuserve v. Cyber Promotions. Thankfully, a positive first experience.

In the midst of today's novel experiences, I must relate to cyberworld a new rule I have learned this week from (thankfully) not my own, but other students' experiences:

Rule #4: Don't tamper with the professor's hypothetical or you may be subjected to great wrath. i.e., play the professor's game. If he/she says the facts of a "hypo" are such and such and asks you what the result is, don't ask a counter-question adding additional facts. A professor's hypothetical is his/her intellectual property. And while it might not be legally protected, you may want to obtain legal protection before tampering with it.

Whyyouwannakillmeh?

Although I loved The Dark Knight, I can't help but wonder, with many other critics, why Bruce Wayne had to destroy his voice by talking in such guttural tones. Please enjoy the following hilarious video on this subject matter: "What's Up With the Dark Knight's Voice?"

Staff of the Gods...Broken

One week since I have last blogged, Hurricane Gustav has come and gone. It has been said that Hurricane Katrina devastated southeastern Louisiana, Hurricane Rita desolated southwestern louisiana, and Hurricane Gustav went and claimed the area between the Katrina and Rita. That is a fairly accurate description in my mind, which means that the center went near my own city, Baton Rouge. And the sights around Baton Rouge are disconcerting. Still, Gustav (which means "Staff of the Gods") was much less fierce upon landfall that had originally been predicted. Even in the midst of such natural destruction, the mercy of God is revealed.

Amanda and I got to experience the surprising joy of "contraflow" on I-55 North to Memphis, Tennessee. In other words, both sides of the interstate highway were directed north. It was a bit shocking and confusing to see traffic on the other side of the highway moving in the same direction as me.

We were with my immediate family and grandparents in Memphis for several days. Other than a somewhat threatening conversation with a drunk-as-a-skunk bum in downtown Memphis, the visit was agreeable enough. It was certainly a blessing to be able to escape Baton Rouge while the storm came through with its wrath...

We returned to find our apartment unscathed (alleluia!). But we found Baton Rouge experiencing something I doubt it has experienced before. Several days after the storm, much of the city was still without power; no stores were open; lines for gas were (in some places I heard) measured in fractions of miles; traffic was in gridlock; power lines, trees and debris were strewn everywhere; and the city was under an eight o'clock curfew. On Saturday, Amanda and I went to volunteer with the Red Cross. We were given telephones and told to answer the deluge of calls incoming to the Baton Rouge Red Cross. We did this for 6 1/2 hours and heard many heartbreaking stories and did what we could. In spite of all this, our state received Divine mercy; it could have been much worse.

I am reminded of a massive cyclone that struck southeast Asia in Spring 2008, earlier this year. The nation of Myanmar lost over 80,000 people. Can we begin to fathom this, Americans? Westerners? Surely, the few that have perished in Hurricane Gustav...this is a tragedy. But let us remember that it is not nearly as catastrophic as what occurred in southeast Asia a few months ago: eighty-thousand souls perished. I worry that our country has no real mental grasp of the true meaning of suffering.

I also wish to admonish Christians reading this to thank the Son of God that you profess to serve. God taught my wife and I a lesson through all of this. On Saturday night, still without power, we had nothing to do in a dark apartment. But I knew that God is still worthy of honor, and my wife and I lit candles and began to kneel and thank God for all His blessings. Just as I was beginning to finally surrender my desperate want for electricity and begin to become enveloped in praise, Amanda started thanking God for the luxury of electricity. Seconds later, we heard a boom that I thought was a gunshot. I realized it was a transformer, for the lights suddenly flickered on.

Attitude of gratitude, folks. We may not have electricity, but some people have trees in their homes...or in their bones, in the worst of circumstances.