Quotable Quotes

“Lots of people settle right before trial. Seeing the jury all ready to go will freak you out if you’re just playing a game of civil litigation chicken.”

Student: So what do you tell your client if he goes to trial and loses?                                                           Lawyer: Bummer, dude.

(during a client interview role play)                                                                                                             Lawyer: Do you think your using cocaine prevents you from taking care of your child?                                       Client: I mean…it’s a hell of a drug.

Transfer Student: “Is the mens rea of voluntary murder* very different from the mens rea of murder?”           Class: [stunned silence]

 

*There’s no such thing as “voluntary murder”. There is homicide (which assumes some level of premeditation; mens rea = guilty mind) and manslaughter (a killing that was accidental, or occurred with some kind of mitigating circumstance).

 

Quotable Quotes

“Let’s say I want to buy a diamond for my main squeeze and we orally negotiate a contract.” (If you don’t see why I wanted to giggle about this, you’re far more mature than I.)

“You get rewards from Westlaw and Lexis basically as a freebie so you get hooked and subscribe later. Think drug dealers. All they want is your money.” (The emphasis on this last phrase is what really ratcheted up the comedic value…anything to make legal research on a Friday afternoon more bearable!)

 

Awkward…

We’ve been going through civil rights cases in Con Law and it’s led to what I like to call “Racial Moments”. A lot of them. I’ll not rehash them here because frankly, some of them raised my blood pressure but here is one of the funnier ones spawned by our discussion of the Bakke case.

“Race is a flawed proxy for admissions because it doesn’t guarantee a different perspective. Clarence Thomas–oh, it hurts to say his name, but Clarence Thomas’s son is probably whiter than me!”

 

Why the Constitution is a legal fiction

According to one of my classmates, “It’s not like Benjamin Franklin landed on Plymouth Rock, hit it with a staff and freedom poured out.”

For some reason I was the only person who laughed out loud at this statement? Maybe it’s because it reminded me of one of my favorite Malcolm X quotables, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, that rock landed on us.” Of course, that reminded me of a scene from Robin Hood: Men in Tights where Ahchoo gives his own twist on that quote in a rousing speech to the Merry Men (video below).

Yeah, it’s dumb. But I take my humor any way I can get it!

 

Quotable Quotes

“Don’t ask questions. Just give in to it.” – My legal writing professor on CREAC (Are we writing or in a potential date rape situation? lol)

“On my tombstone I want written these words: Is he dead? Yes and not yes”- Prof. Favorite, following a lecture on figurative language in the Constitution

 

RPPs and Intoxication

While discussing a hypo in which the defendant, a novice drinker, allegedly raped his date:

Classmate 1: Well, even if they kept refilling his cup he could have put it down. No reasonable person would be getting intoxicated in a room full of people they don’t know.

Classmate 2: Are you serious? Didn’t you go to UGA?

Hilarious!

 

Out, damned spot!

Classmate: Did you have to wash the blood off your hands after grading our assignments this week?

Legal Research prof: No, I lick.

BWAHAHAHAHA! It’s the little things that get me through the day….

 

Love and the Law

Professor Contracts: When my wife and I were dating, she said we were committed. I said “No, we’re not!” She said, “Well look at all these things that look like commitment.” Contract law says that where the situation is open to interpretation that there is or is not a contract, the beginning of a performance constitutes acceptance.

Professor Crimlaw: When my wife asks me if I love her, I say “Yes and not yes” because she’s looking for a thing. There is no thing. Love is a choice that you choose to make every day. In law there isn’t a thing either–we choose a story to believe.

Alrighty then.

 

Enter the Matrix

So we’re doing problems in property on estates & future interests still. The answer to one question is the following is ‘A has a posessory life estate and B has a vested remainder in fee simple absolute. O has squatola.’

Before Prof. Property clicks on to the next slide somebody asks, “Is squatola a real word?”

See, this is what law school has done to us…we’ve read so much nonsense that we can’t separate the legal nonsense from the real nonsense. We have entered the Matrix. Somebody tell Neo to come save us!

 

I am the Prisoner of Azkaban

Me: I have to make everything at law school a joke, because it keeps the stress at bay. Y’know, kind of like Harry Potter and the dementors.

My sectionmate: No you did not just bring Harry Potter into law school.

Me: Oh yes I did. I am WINNING at life right now!