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Things a law student should have

2008-03-17 23:17:10

Here is my list of law student must-haves. Not really sure how this came to mind, but it seems like an interesting idea. Feel free to email me with your own additions and I may do a follow-up.

Technology:
Laptop: I just bought a MacBook a little while ago. It’s amazing! I highly recommend it to anyone. The learning curve is very short, and the interface and usability kick the pants off of Vista.
Laser printer: I still have my old ink jet printer, but last December’s exam period was the last straw. I spent three days printing cases, summaries, notes, and readings for four exams. And I mean three
FULL days printing. Get a laser printer - it’s worth it.
Cell Phone / PDA: If you’re in Canada, chances are you can’t get your hands on an iPhone just yet. However, get a PDA like the BlackBerry or the Motorolla Q, and you’ll be amazed at hour organized you’ll be. Be very weary of the phone company data plans and prices. At the very least, have a cell phone.

Clothes:
For everyday: Get some jeans and hoodies - they’re comfy, and great when you don’t feel like getting all dolled-up for your 8:00 am Bankruptcy class.
For days where you have presentations: Forget the hoody and the jeans, and go for something a bit more upstream. Gentlemen, that means a button-down shirt, maybe a sweater, and a pair of slacks. Ladies, you can get away with a little more than the boys, but keep the cut conservative.
For the “I’m trying to get a job” days: Gentlemen, suits. Never underestimate how confident you’ll feel in a nice suit. Remember that old saying, “the suit makes the man.” Ladies, skirts knee length, with matching jacket.

Accessories:
Watch: Yes you need one. And it better not be a Timex Ironman. 
Leather document holder: Useful for carrying presentation notes, resumes, and other stuff you may need to carry around from time to time.
School bag: Forget the “cool-looking” messenger bag. Your laptop needs some padding. Get a school bag that has the laptop slot, and lots of extra pockets to put all the cords, phone, iPod, etc... And make sure it’s big enough to fit legal-size course packs!

Furniture:
Bookshelves: I already have to tall bookshelves full of books. And I need at least another two for my notes, binders, and this year’s books. Get some bookshelves. Trust me.
Desk: You’re going to need some room to do your writing, and if you have a spare room in the apartment away from the TV, it’s perfect for a desk. Make sure it’s big enough to hold a computer (like your
laptop), and several open books. You need a workspace that’s not cramped.
Desk Chair: Don’t be stingy! Get a decent desk chair, that’s comfortable. You’re going to be sitting in it a lot, so don’t bother with the fold-away aluminium and cardboard, and start taking a good look at chairs with good back support, a swivel, adjustable height, etc... And sit in it before you buy. Lean back in it - if you feel like you’re going to tip over, don’t buy it. You need something stable too.
Desk lamp: Ok. This one’s not technically furniture, but you can’t read in the dark.

School Supplies:
Folders, tabbed dividers, and lot’s of printer paper: When I organize my class notes at the end of every semester, I like to make binders for each class. Print out your notes, case summaries, and readings,
and organize them according to the class syllabus. When you get to the exam, you’ll know exactly where everything is! And you’ll also be surprised at how putting together a course binder for an exam can be a
great review exercise. Make sure to include a table of contents, (and index if you can at the back), and number your pages!

Well, I think that’s a good start. I’d love to hear what others would include in this list.

 

Some critiques about legal education

2008-01-28 11:06:02

Law students need to have one thing on their minds when it comes to school, and one thing only: learning. The problem is the emphasis placed on grades. Now, McGill tries to mitigate this by imposing a policy of almost universal B-range grades for the vast majority of students. In other words, you go to McGill, you get a B+, B, or B-, you graduate, and get a good job. Nevertheless, there are always a few who reach the elusive A- level, and always a handful who fall below into the C-range (or worse!).

The ridiculous stress that students place themselves under in order to differentiate their B or B+ from someone else's B or B+ is mind-boggling, and counter-productive. Presumably everyone who is accepted into McGill's law faculty has a good head on their shoulders and something to offer. But my feeling is that the variety of backgrounds and experiences of McGill's students juxtaposed against an archaic compartmentalized class structure and archaic grading scheme is nothing more than a disservice to all (students, professors and future employers alike).

For me, learning happens in the classroom, and my grades are generally a reflection of the learning environment. If the professor is unable to motivate the class and stimulate discussion, my learning suffers. If the class has too many students (and the tuition freeze is certainly a contributing factor here on both the professor and facilities fronts), my learning suffers. If the room itself is designed for "talk-to" learning as opposed to "talk-with," my learning, again, suffers.

But beyond that, the lack of emphasis on participation is also appalling. You'll be hard-pressed to find a professor who doesn't encourage class participation. And you'll be equally hard-pressed to find a professor who adequately remunerates those students who do participate in class for their own benefit, and the benefit of others. There are one or two exceptions to this at McGill, but that's about it.

What would I like to see?

It's simple. In terms of grading: High Pass, Pass, Fail. And in terms of numbers, there should be 1 or 2 students per grade who finish with a High Pass, hardly anyone should EVER fail, and the rest should fall under Pass.

In terms of class structure: Bring those student-teacher ratios down!!! The best learning happens in seminar-style classrooms of no more than 15 or so students. Force students to come prepared, and let them take control of the material. Professors should facilitate classroom discussion and treatment of course material, but no more. They should let students tease out the principles they need to learn on their own.

I know, it's a pipe-dream, but I'll say this. When I was in grade 12 at Lower Canada College, I did more school work, found it more satisfying, and retained a hell of a lot more than I ever have in six years of university education. And I think it's sad Canadian university education teaches to the lowest common denominator in the classrooms, and has ceased to challenge the bright young minds that fill the seats.

 

The Personality of the Corporation

2007-12-15 12:26:02

I've been following Conrad Black's case in Chicago since the beginning. The long and the short of is that Conrad Black was accused - and subsequently found guilty - of fleecing shareholders of money they were due by diverting revenues which should have gone to Hollinger International into his own pockets through "non-compete" payments.

What's a non-compete payment?

Simple. It's a payment one company pays to another, generally in a sale and purchase of a particular asset - like a newspaper. Essentially, if I buy a newspaper, that's all I'm buying. I am not buying a promise from the people who started it that they will not turn around and use their expertise to start a rival paper that could put me out of business, and make my investment worthless. What the non-compete payments do is assure the buyer that the seller will not "compete" in the same market for a certain period of time.

Ok, sounds reasonable - so what's the problem?

The issue is a matter of who the non-competes should go to. Should the payments go to the seller company, or should the payments go to the seller company's directors? Well, that's a matter for the buyer, now isn't it? It's up to the buyer to decide to whom the payments should go to because the buyer is best positioned to determine who is the greatest risk. That's simple.

What has happened in this case is that the buyer's decision-making has become the locus of a case concerning the taking of corporate opportunities by corporate directors and officers. In point of fact, Canadian legislation deals with this as a civil wrong, and the company is the only entity  - or its shareholders through the oppression remedy- which can file suit against those directors. However, the US system managed to muddle a civil proceeding with criminal wrongs of wire fraud and mail fraud.

Conrad Black and his associates were found to have taken corporate opportunities in the form of these non-compete payments, and by conspiring to ensure that these payments were made to themselves and not Hollinger International, they were found guilty of wire and mail fraud.

Why I think Conrad Black will win on appeal

Basically, evidence was overlooked. The admissions by the board of one of the companies which made non-compete payments to Mr. Black, was that they saw that the non-compete payments were going to Mr. Black on several occasions, and that they thought this was fine. Some of the board members "skimmed" the paperwork, and thus failed in fulfilling their duty of care toward their own companies, but that's a separate case. Point is, the buying companies knew that the non-competes were going to Mr. Black and his associates, and they were fine with this.

Why? Quite plainly, the risk of competition did not come from Hollinger International, it came from Conrad Black himself. He was the one with the know-how from which the buyers wanted non-compete insurance. If Lord Black had sold-off his interest in Hollinger International, and the non-compete payments were paid to that company instead of him, then Mr. Black was free to go in and compete against whomever he had sold newspapers to. The buyers knew that Hollinger was nothing without Lord Black, and so the non-competes rightfully went to him.

And as a result, Mr. Black could not possibly have been taking a corporate opportunity, and thus could never have prevented shareholders from realizing earnings on their shares, because Hollinger International was never even considered to be a threat by the boards of the buying companies. Always, it was Conrad Black.

So seeing as how those boards meant for the payments to go to Lord Black and his associates, how could they have defrauded those buying companies and the shareholders? They could not have, and this is why I think the fraud findings will be overturned.

Obstruction of Justice

This is the tricky one. Conrad Black was under orders not to remove anything from the premises of his Toronto offices while the investigations were underway. Then he removed several boxes of personal belongings - which were on video - was subsequently found to have obstructed justice.

Mr. Black's appeals lawyer made a very interesting point last week: where's the proof of intent to obstruct? All the US government had against Mr. Black was a video showing him removing boxes. What the US attorneys did not do is prove intent to obstruct justice, which should be sufficient to overturn the finding on this matter as well.

Now, the government will claim that Mr. Black was clearly intending to obstruct justice because he removed those boxes with the knowledge that the was not to remove anything from the offices which pertained to the investigation.

But the question is whether or not this is sufficient grounds upon which to prove intent. It's a tight one, but I think Mr. Black's lawyers should be able to cause considerable damage to the government's assertions.

As for the ostrich instruction - that's a last ditch effort if all else fails. Given the district he finds himself in, Mr. Black is less likely to be able to overturn that ruling. But I don't think he'll need it if he can prove the other points I mentioned.

 

Bali

2007-12-15 00:35:23

Ok, so the whole world is pretty much blaming the US, Japan and - GASP! - Canada, for not only holding back negotiations on a post-Kyoto accord, but changing the base year from 1990 to 2000.

What do I think the problem is? Really, it's a matter of marketing.

The people who have been screaming bloody-murder about all these metling ice caps and extreme weather were supposed to be having (40 cm coming to Montreal in two days!), have not sold the concept. Let's think about it. What have they claimed?

• Disaster is imminent.
• We're approaching the "tipping point."
• The world will suffer irreparable harm.

Ok, fine. But it's one thing to point out the problem - it's another thing to come up with a solution. So the question is whether Kyoto was that solution.

No. Kyoto was signed in 1997 - well before any of the fear-mongering really started to pick up. Al Gore only put together his Inconvenient Truth some 9 years later.

The purposes behind Kyoto was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but what does that mean? Does that mean impose limits on industry? Does it mean create a carbon credit trading exchange? Does it mean alloting x-amount of pollution per company? Per country? Per person?

Personally, I'm not convinced any of those measures would work because the are all restriction-based, as opposed to innovation-based. And what we need today more than ever, is innovation in science and technology. Simply put, the best way to curb greenhouse gas emissions is to research and develop the technologies that make our engines more efficient, our smoke stacks less black, etc...

Canada, Japan and the US are right to ask developing countries to sign on the whatever accord emerges as Kyoto's successor. The way the international community has been modeling these treaties, i.e., restricting pollution by restricting production, means that the world's top polluters MUST sign on for the treaties to have any effect or impact.

On the other hand, if governments commit to funding business and other organizations which are focused on the research and development of more efficient, cleaner, and greener technologies, they just might be able to make a noticeable impact by 2020.

Oh yeah, forget 1990 levels by 2012. That's a pipe dream. The world will never be able to reach that kind of reduction in emissions without investing in the technologies first, and making those techonologies available to the world's largest polluters, second.

Kyoto maybe could have worked if all of the signatories ratified the accord, and implemented it way back in 1998. But they didn't. They doddled - some signatories didn't ratify, other ratified it but shelved it, and only a few countries made an earnest effort. Hardly a way to bring about global change!

And one final thing, this "holier than though" attitude the Europeans have been showing, isn't making earning them any favours. It's irrating, and it isn't productive in any context - let alone in the context of international treaty making.

 

Done!

2007-12-12 15:32:52

I'm done! I'm done! I am done!

Exams are over!

Today's exam was tricky. I spent yesterday morning writing my tax exam, got home, ate lunch, and then got started reviewing my summary for business associations (today's exam). I went over my case notes, and threw it all together along with some legislation and doctrine notes into an 85 page summary.

Then, from about 5:30 PM until - no joke - 12:30 AM, I was printing everything off. I ran out of black ink, went through a second cartridge of black ink, and then got started printing my cases and articles in blue. When the blue started to run out, I switched to red. All in all, my summary, along with the full texts of the cases and articles filled two 3-inch binders.

Now the key to a successful exam is organization. So I made sure it was all categorized by topic, and then began reviewing this morning at 7:00 am. That's 2.5 hours before the exam started. In that time, I had breakfast, drove myself to school, and read through my 85 page summary.

The exam was reasonable -  just hope the teacher liked my reasoning. The questions were pretty straightforward: one on the consistency of the application of legal personality throughout the common and civil law, the second was on the debate between stakeholder and shareholder theories of corporate law, and the third was on shareholder rights and remedies against directors.

I won't give my opinions just yet for reasons of confidentiality prior to the exam being marked, but I'll hopefully remember to give my "reasoned legal opinions" sometime in January.

Until then, I'M ON VACATION! (well sort of, still have some websites to build)

 

Taking a break from exams

2007-12-10 17:57:21

It's Monday, late afternoon.

Since last week, I have submitted an essay in Common Law Property, wrote the exam for that class, and wrote the exam for the Law and Practice of International Trade this morning. Also today, I've been reviewing my Taxation class notes, and am going to be prepping for Business Associations later on tonight and tomorrow after the tax exam.

As the bags under my eyes are getting progressively darker and larger, I thought it might a good opportunity to reflect on the absolute madness I've put myself through by choosing courses with back-to-back-to-back-to-back exams.

Oh my. That's all I can say. Oh my. It's over Wednesday afternoon, but that's still two exams away.

And for anyone reading this who has been thinking about taking tax law but doesn't know what it's like, take your head, open a car door, place your head between the frame of the car and the door, and get a friend to slam the door on your head. That's what it feels like - at least that's what studying for tax law feels like.

Realistically, the exam should be straightforward if approached issue by issue. The problem is the sheer quanitity of tax "issues" that can come up are incredible. My summary for the class is almost as large as the book, and I've been going over the summary and stripping out rules, provisions and concepts to make a "quick reference sheet." That quick reference sheet is now a document of over 20 pages, and I still have to cover capital gains reserves, section e deductions, and income for tax purposes...

Oh yeah! One final thing, Conrad Black is going to win on appeal.

 

Oh Stephane...

2007-12-02 12:36:48

Time for some good'ole Canadian politics.

"Stephane Dion is ready for an election." Right.

"The Liberal lifeline to the Conservative minority government will be cut." Abstaining from confidence votes does not constitute a lifeline.

The duty of an opposition party in the British Parliamentary system is to oppose the government. Always. Her Majesty's Opposition has the obligation to play the role of the devil's advocate, poke holes in government propositions, and ensure transparency in the legislative process. The Liberals, so far, have been unable to do any of this.

Having been plagued by scandal, leadership problems, floor-crossings and resignations, I fear that the Liberals are rallying behind Stephane Dion because they know they're about to sacrifice their green scarf-wearing sheep to the Big Bad Blue Wolf of 24 Sussex Drive.

Dion is toast. He knows it. His party knows it. And Michael Ignatieff is sharpening his long knife. I don't like Stephane Dion as a candidate for Prime Minister - I don't think he has the charisma, nor the ability to adequately articulate his vision for the country. But I especially don't like Ignatieff. I don't trust him. His eyes are shifty. And I think he's an opportunist who cares more for his own personal achivements than anything else.

So, seeing as how the Liberals are going to be in opposition for a while, they had better learn how to play the role. Harper will most likely win a thin majority if an election is called, and he'll win it in Quebec. Stephane Dion will be ousted and will probably retire from politics. Ignatieff will run for the leadership again, and most likely win. But that means he'll be the leader of the opposition for 4 or 5 years before getting a shot at winning an election.

So it's time to embrace the role of the Official Opposition, and learn to strategically pin-point weaknesses and failures in government legislation.

Now I'm not one to give advice to a party I think is undeserving of it, but it's getting pretty sad. I like the Conservatives - I think they have a good team and an excellent leader in our Prime Minister. But that doesn't mean that the government should go on unchecked. Being in Opposition is not being in limbo. It carries with it duties and obligations to our democratic process and the Canadian people. It's time the Liberals did their job.

 

Feeling the squeeze...

2007-11-25 23:16:28

So the first draft of my legal methodology assignment is done. It's good... Actually, I'm pretty happy with it. All that's left are some final adjustments to the footnotes, and a final read through.

Once that's done, I've got to build the back-end to a website for one of my clients, prep the back-end of another website for another client, and then write a 3000-word essay for my Property Law class by week's end.

Oh, and I've got to get all my notes organized for exams.

Anyone else feeling like Florida's best at the Tropicana factory?

 

Tidying up the blog features

2007-11-17 19:39:09

So I've been frantically working this afternoon, trying to finalize this blog's features. It's a bit tricky working with all the database recordsets, looping through them with PHP, etc... But, I think I've finally arrived at a set of features I like:

• Blog Archives which will automatically populate by year and month, indicating how many entries fit within each parameter
• A "show nothing" feature for users who like to manipulate the URLs
• "Categories" which will automatically populate as well as I enter more posts
• A link for sending comments - I've decided to stop posting other people's comments on my blog -especially this one... This is more for security reasons than anything else.
• I've set up the feed syndication with feed burner
• And finally, each blog post has  bar showing the permanent link, as well as the selected categories

Not too bad.

Now, the site needs some more pizzazz - I know... And I'd love some ideas. But I think for now, this is a good start.

 

 

Lest we forget

2007-11-11 23:16:49

For Remembrance Day.