Hodgepodge

–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 Janet Rae Montgomery, Stanford Law School, Date of event: 1976

At Stanford, the law school was on the semester system, while the rest of the university ran on a quarter system. That meant that our finals periods did not coincide with those of the undergraduates.

MemLib, the undergraduate library, was always loud, but during finals it was a madhouse. Many undergraduates seeking peace in which to study were invading our law library. We had barely enough cubicles in the library to satisfy the law student demand, and the undergrads were messing up our study cubicles—moving our books and notes, etc.

Those cubicles were, after all, our “offices” on the school premises, so we complained and a student “guard” was placed at the entrance to the library. No undergraduates were to be allowed into the library unless they were studying a law-related subject.

One day the guard on duty was a 2L. A very attractive and skimpily dressed undergraduate padded barefoot into the library and started to breeze right by him.

“Wait a minute,” the guard said. “Are you an undergraduate?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well, undergraduates are not allowed in the law library.”

“What?! But I have a big exam tomorrow and this is the only quiet place I can find.”

“Sorry, but I can’t let you in.”

Pouting, and also trying to flirt with the guy, she asked, “Isn’t there some way you can bend the rules?”

He looked over to where three woman law students were watching the exchange, and decided he had better disappoint her.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t let you in unless you’re here to study law.”

She brightened. “Oh, I’ve come to study the law of gravity.”

She got in.

–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 George Carder, University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law, Date of event: March 2003

The week before last (two days before Spring Break) I was talking with my mother by cell phone as I was driving to class. I told her that I was on my way to Con Law. I said that I am working very hard on Con Law because it does not come easy to me.

She reassured me as only a mother can when she said, “Don’t worry, Honey. Today, you will know as much about the topic as anyone in your class.”

I responded, “Thank you, Mother. Today’s topic is ‘Obscenity and Pornography.'”

–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 Jeremy Zeitlin, Columbia Law School, Date of event: 1984

Here’s a law school moment I’ll never forget: Columbia University, 1984 … It was a lecture conducted by some hot-shot VIP who refused to answer any questions following his hour-long rant on the politics of malpractice suits.

A woman in the back says, “Please sir, just answer my one, two-part question please?” So, thinking he was being very clever, the speaker says, “Okay, give me the second question first.”

A few chuckles followed, at which point the fast-thinking woman said, “If so, when?” Naturally, the place fell apart and she received an ovation.

–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 Carol Light, American University School of Law, Date of event: early 1970s

I went to night law school at American University in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s. Our class was full of interesting people with demanding full-time jobs, so it’s not surprising that one of the, er, challenges, was literally staying awake in class. One night (and I’ve blessedly forgotten which class, which professor, and which student), one poor young man lost the battle, fell both asleep and off his chair onto the floor. The fall woke him, of course.

The professor, not missing a beat, said “Well, Mr. X, are we keeping you up?”

“Just barely,” the student replied, with alacrity and admirable accuracy.

–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.