–From Erik Reverón, Florida A&M College of Law, Date of event: Fall 2006

So what does one wear under the kilt? Sometimes the lack of humour in a law school environment surprises me. Taking it upon myself as the good 1L student that I am to liven up the atmosphere, I wore my kilt around the hallowed halls of the law school.

I’m called upon in Contracts, and I stand up and give a dutiful response regarding unconscionability with all sub-elements. Silence ensues.

My professor then asks me in a completely normal voice: “So what is worn under the kilt?”

Hilarity ensues, and I respond: “Everything is in good working order this morning when I checked, Sir.” It got me a laugh, but also earned me the unrelenting attention of the rest of my professors that day.

Now every Friday, they check to make sure I’m wearing my kilt for class!

–From Jennifer Simons, University of Houston Law Center, Date of event: Fall 2003

Here’s one of the funniest law school moments I’ve had so far. It happened at University of Houston Law Center in the Fall of 2003.

Professor Doug Moll is one of our best professors. He makes even the driest of subjects interesting, and the entire class pretty much hangs on every word.

“Sale” versus “service” under Article 2 under the UCC was the topic of the day and breast implants were the vehicle for discussing it. For at least thirty minutes, we discussed and debated whether breast implants were a good or a service. Every possible argument on each side had been made and exhausted, when Professor Moll finally asked if there were any questions before we moved on.

From the middle of the classroom, a hand emerged. When called upon, the student pressed his fingers together – like a steeple – and pressed them to the bottom of his chin. In that pompous I’m-really-going-to-stump-the-professor-with-this-question tone with which we’re all too familiar, he asked, “What about … breast implants?”

Apparently, he had been so enthralled in his own thoughts after the word “breast” had first been uttered a half hour earlier, he completely tuned out the next thirty minutes of discussion. Amazingly, no one laughed until class let out. But boy did we crack up then.

–From Heather Antonsen, Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law (Nova Scotia), Date of event: September 2002

Babies and law school made strange bedfellows. As I mentioned in the other story I submitted, my newborn son and I attended my third year of law school together. For the entire eight months, Aleks was breast-fed; hence, why we attended school together. One day, I was seated with Aleks on a bank of couches outside my tax class. Aleks was getting rather peckish but I was waiting for a rather stiff classmate of mine to move along so I could feed him. Unfazed by my comments about how hungry Aleks was, he continued to read his newspaper.

I finally gave up and discretely brought Aleks up to feed. Now before the public-feeding cries of protest fill the air, there was really no way to notice that Aleks was having his lunch… well, except for the sound effects. Within moments, my son was making “mmmmm” noises with the greatest of sincerity. I was mortified but for obvious reasons was unable to either move elsewhere nor did I have the heart to interrupt his lunch.

When Aleks’ compliments to the chef became rather loud, I tried to unlatch him so we could move. Not unpredictably, he let out a wail of despair. Without even looking up from his newspaper, my classmate said, “My sentiments exactly.”

–From David Barman, Florida International University College of Law, Date of event: Fall 2002

I was studying in the Law Library one night and the place was virtually deserted. A young attractive undergrad came over and said hi and asked what I was studying. “Contracts,” I replied.

“Oh! You’re a law student!?” She said all excited. I tried to be polite and just answered “yes.”

She tried several times to start a conversation and I tried as nicely as possible to get her to leave me to my study. She then asked “Do you have a girlfriend?” I said “No.”

She asked “Why not?”

Final answer: “Because my wife won’t let me have one!” With that she said “Bye,” and left.

–From Julie Enloe, Marquette University Law School, Date of event: 1992

Like myself, my best friend during law school was a non-traditional student. However, she was much older than me and quite proud of the fact that she was a card-carrying member of the AARP.

During evidence class, we got into a discussion of “the ideal witness.” The professor posed some hypothetical examples, including a police officer who, at 55, was near retirement, as opposed to his much younger and rather inexperienced partner.

One young man in the second row was quite disgusted by the notion of an older witness. Such a person, he opined, could be easily cast as incompetent. “After all,” he said, “he’s going to die soon!”

No one laughed harder than my friend, who remarked that it was nice to know that she would graduate with one foot already in the grave.

(By the way, my friend is still very much alive and runs her own law practice!)

–From Sylvia J. Feinman, Brooklyn Law School, Date of event: circa 1977.

We were in Domestic Relations class, focusing on annulment and the question of who can bring an action to annul a marriage. The problems became more and more esoteric. Who can bring an action to annul the marriage of a deceased person? Of an incompetent? Then one eager student went too far in his querying.

I closed my books decisively and said, “If I ever need to know who can bring an action to annul the marriage of a dead idiot, I’ll look it up.”

–From name withheld by request, Loyola University (Chicago) School of Law, Date of event: circa 1991

I went to night school at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law and graduated in 1991. In my last year of law school, I took the intensive week-long Trial Advocacy class. For one practice exercise, we had to be videotaped making an argument to have a piece of evidence admitted over an objection and we had to dress as if we were in court. Since we were all just law students without jobs, some people had to purchase suits specifically for the exercise.

A woman, whose name I can’t remember, got up to give her argument, and it was impossible not to notice that she still had the anti-theft, “inventory control” tag attached prominently to the side of her suit jacket. She was extremely embarrassed and obviously concerned that everyone watching was going to think that she had stolen her suit, so she spent several minutes at the beginning of her argument explaining that the tag had been left on by the store and she didn’t discover it until she got home after the store had closed, etc.

Then she went into her actual argument, which didn’t last nearly as long as the tag explanation.