Hodgepodge

–From David Barman, Florida International University College of Law, Date of event: circa 2005

My son saw my first-year law school casebooks and picked up my Torts book. His first comment was: “Twelve hundred pages. That’s more than Harry Potter!”

Then he asked me, “What is Torts?” He’s a bright boy, but he is only nine. I asked him: “If you park your bike on the sidewalk, and a man hits your bike with a car, who did something wrong?” He said the man with the car. I asked why. My son answered “Because I’m allowed to put my bike on the sidewalk, but he isn’t allowed to drive on the sidewalk.” I said “Correct.”

Then I asked him: “Does the man in the car have to pay for the bike?” My son said yes. Then I said, “What if you get off your bike on the street and you leave it there just for a minute, and a man in a car hits it?” My son said, “It’s my fault.” I asked why, and he said,  “Because I shouldn’t have left it in the street.”

Then I asked him if the man in the car has to pay for the bike. My son answered, “No.” I asked him why and he repeated, “Because I shouldn’t have left it in the street.”

I told him good job, that’s what Torts is. He said, “Is that it?” I told him “Yes.” Then he looked real confused and said, “Then why does the book have twelve hundred pages?”

–From Michael Severe, Barry University School of Law, Date of event: 2010

During a summer class in Advanced Appellate Advocacy, the eleven us who were enrolled were sitting there listening to another riveting lecture on TREAC vs. IRAC when out of the blue one of our classmates thrust both his fists into the air, pumped them up and down like he just scored the winning touchdown in the Superbowl, and hollered “YES!” As you can imagine, the rest of us were slightly bewildered, the professor included. She looked at him and haltingly asked, “Is… there… a problem?” to which he responded “Oh sorry. I’m watching the World Cup and my team just scored.”

On one hand, I give the gentleman credit. There was not even an attempt to hide the truth, although, after his display, coming up with an explanation such as “I love this TREAC stuff!” would only have insulted our intellects.

After being kindly asked by the professor to leave, he demurred, and promised to be quiet. Rather than stage a scene, and disrupt class even further, our Professor went back to her lecture. I give her credit as I’m fairly sure you would have needed to peel me off the ceiling, if I’d been in her shoes. Not surprisingly, when grades were released, there were 10 As/B+s/Bs and … 1 F. No way to know the cause, but the soccer outburst couldn’t have helped.

–From Jim Pikl, Gonzaga University School of Law, Date of event: Fall 1982

When we arrived for the first day of Orientation, we got a talk from a third-year. He told us a story about when he was a first-year in which he asked a third-year student: “Can you tell me where the library is at?” The third year rudely and pompously answered: “We here at Gonzaga do not end sentences in prepositions.” So the first-year rephrased the question: “OK, can you tell where the library is at, a******?”

–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 Charles Hillestad, University of Michigan Law School, Date of event: circa 1972

Back in law school, I lived in the “LAWYERS CLUB,” a dorm reserved for law students in part of the Quadrangle comprising the University of Michigan law school buildings. One of my roommates decided he needed to cash in one of his bonds and contacted the stock brokerage company back east which handled his assets. He showed me the envelope containing the check when it arrived. It was addressed to him with just his name and the words, “LIARS CLUB, Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

The most startling part was not that the brokerage company managed to screw up the address, but the post office’s apparent opinion of the legal profession in deciding it still knew the right place to deliver it.

–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

I was just entering my third year and my son was only three weeks old. We attended class together. In a final desperate act, I plugged in a baby monitor behind the professors so my son and I could sit outside the class and listen to the lectures. It was on one of these days that Professor Deturbide, a truly gifted tax law professor, was gently easing us into the intricacies of the Canadian Income Tax Act. Professor Deturbide made a quip about marginal tax rates. Amazingly, and exactly on cue, my new born Aleks woke up, giggled and promptly went back to sleep.

Amazed but slighted disturbed that my son’s first real laugh was in response to tax humor, I went up on break and recounted the event to our Administrations officer. She responded with, “I imagine that they were probably the only two in a class of sixty who were laughing.”

With that, Professor Deturbide popped around the corner and announced, with a hint of indignation, that his marginal tax rate line just so happens to be one of his better jokes!