Law Students

Fall Recruiting, Butts & Noalts Style

Posted on August 20, 2009
The posters here are getting long in the tooth and gray in the bead. (Seriously -- check out Toney's goatee.) Shoot me an email if you'd like to contribute to Nuts & Boalts. We'll start with a guest spot, and take it from there.

The Dean to the Left is the One in the Right

Posted on August 20, 2009
Via email to the good people at "Boalt Hall":To Boalt Hall students, staff and faculty:Associate Dean Bob Berring has already written to you concerning the disruptions on the first day of classes, Monday August 17th, by a group of approximately 70 people protesting the presence of Professor John Yoo on our faculty...

Prop 8 Goes to Washington

Posted on August 19, 2009
NY Times is reporting that Ted Olson, apparently a Boalt alum, is pursuing a federal challenge to Proposition 8 before the Supreme Court. He has won 44 of his 55 cases before the Court, including Bush v. Gore. That's right, he's a conservative. Olson's politics and pedigree alone make this newsworthy, but the arguments he's pursuing, while not exactly earth-shattering, also provide a unique Federal spin on the issue: In Mr...

Overheard Today Outside Boalt Hall:

Posted on August 19, 2009
"If I were a Butts & Noalts commentator I'd write about the plastic bookmarks in the yellow planners. Mine was stuck right in the Honor Code section. I wonder if everyone's was?. . . I mean, 'Nuts & Boalts.'"

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The Hammer is Still Falling

Posted on August 18, 2009
It's also rising (with OCI) in hopes of a whack at the class of 2010. Anyway. Three things today:First, commenters on Dan's thread below have been asking for "a new thread on this." I'm not certain I understand what was wrong with the old thread but at any rate, here it is...

Big Brother is Watching

Posted on August 17, 2009
I was rather disturbed to come into the building this afternoon and notice the bright yellow signs plastered across the hallways. The school has always been rather strict about where signs may be posted. But a notice that all persons entering the building are subject to search? My guess is that this is related to the Yoo prank...

How Are You Paying for School?

Posted on August 10, 2009
I received an email, requesting insight from the N&B community:"Sweet Jesus! Tuition & Fees this year total nearly $36k. I scoped out my "offer letter", only to find $20.5k in federally subsidized & unsubsidized loans. The money I made this summer will cover my rent for the year, plus a little food here and there...

Warmup: OCIP 2009

Posted on August 07, 2009
OCIP bidding is upon us. Rising 2L's can find a list of previous threads by entering "OCIP" in the search field above (the OCIP/Employment label seems not to be working properly lately). Be sure not to miss Disco Stu's pearls of wisdom from 2005. Chances are, any question left unanswered by those resources is irrelevant...

Toto, We're Not in Berkeley Anymore

Posted on August 04, 2009
This might be old news, but I just caught this LAT report that the three Americans captured by Iran after straying across the border are all Berkeley grads. My thoughts and prayers are with them, and hopefully they'll be out of harm's way in the near future, but...

Why Didn't I Think of That?

Posted on August 03, 2009
This is a pretty frivolous lawsuit, but that shouldn't stop the mind from pondering the what ifs. What if this happened after the upcoming OCIP / Offer season? Maybe a class action from the Class of '11? I think the mere possibility is fodder for great humor...

The Bar Exam Is Dead, Long Live The Open Bar!

Posted on July 30, 2009
Huzzah! Comments may follow. Not mine though, I'm going to go have a beer.

The Hammer Falls

Posted on July 30, 2009
Well folks, it's almost over. The giant questionmark hanging over the Summer Classes of 2009 is about to transform into an exclamation point. I was discussing the prospects of getting an offer with a friend today, and we agreed that there is no result that will not shock us...

What Really Matters

Posted on July 27, 2009
As the comments on the Bar thread are starting to reflect, the best part about being done is going back to summer TV. In my experience there are two types of summer TV viewers: those who watch the reality crap that the networks put on (e.g. shows where The Hoff is a judge!!!) and those who latch on to the high quality cable shows that begin their season when the network season ends (Rescue Me, Entourage, Dexter, etc...

July 2009 Bar Exam Thread

Posted on July 26, 2009
We've now filled up a couple different threads worth of comments. So here's the one that takes us through this wonderful week.Piggy-backing off a comment finishing the last thread:So, can we start talking about Day-Of considerations?- what's going in your plastic bag?- two pillows? no pillows?- secret food strategies?- what are you going to do with a 90-120 minute lunch?- apres-test drinks on Tuesday?

It's Time to Talk About the John Y*o "Prank"

Posted on July 23, 2009
Many of you have probably seen the video of a "prank" an Australian comedy show pulled on Professor Y*o in a Boalt classroom. I'm not going to link it here, but it was on abovethelaw recently, and I'm sure you can google it. Knock yourself out. Obviously, how you feel about this video is inextricably tied to the way you feel about the whole "academic freedom vs...

A Sort of Boalt Confirmation Hearing

Posted on July 22, 2009
Unless you're up to your eyeballs in the bar exam, you probably saw Mindi's email on behalf of BHSA soliciting applications for six student slots on the Faculty Appointments Committee.I'd encourage anyone who is interested to do it. And I encourage anyone who does it to find out from prospective candidates: "If hired, would you make the narrative portions of your teaching evaluations available to students?"----Slight Update: An anonymous commentator noted the recent email explaining that classes with fewer than 12 enrolled students will be cancelled, for budgetary reasons...

Day One, Question One

Posted on July 22, 2009
OAKLAND, California (CNN) ? Oakland?s bid to become the first U.S. city to tax proceeds on medical marijuana passed Tuesday by a landslide vote.About 80 percent of voters chose to impose the tax on Oakland?s medical marijuana facilities, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters...

"I'm Gunna Pass this Damn Thing" Thread - Part Deux

Posted on July 19, 2009
The comment count evidently got to be too much for Google's neglected Blogger to keep up.Feel free to keep it flowin' here, as we all strive for minimal competence.

Look Who's Come Crawling Back

Posted on July 16, 2009
When debating bar trip locations, we (the three of us in question) universally agreed to skip Paris because the lone francophone had already been, and the rest of us were not eager to put up with haughty, arrogant snobbery for using English. Actually, the reluctance of the French to embrace English as the new lingua franca (!) has bothered me for quite some time...

Legal Services Will Always be Recession Resistant

Posted on July 14, 2009
Here's the proof:On June 30, the California Court of Appeal held that a man who was burned by the huge bonfire that ends the Burning Man festival each year could not sue the festival organizers. Anthony Beninati admitted he had intentionally walked into the fire, and that he had previously known fire was hot...

Sotomayor Hearings Open Thread

Posted on July 13, 2009
Thoughts? So far I'm worried that this wise Latina will take away my guns and apply Norwegian tort law. [/sarcasm].

Kill the Ump!-ire Analogy

Posted on July 13, 2009
Apologies for bumping the thread below, but a thought I had in my law school days is relevant again with Sotomayor?s confirmation hearings. As I'm sure we all remember, Chief Justice Roberts compared the role of a judge to that of an umpire, saying that ?judges are like umpires...

Tip of the Hat

Posted on July 06, 2009
As a commenter int he thread below points out, Justice Ginsburg has hired a Boaltie for (presumably) OT 2011. So major congrats to GS. (And let's keep it at that level of specificity please).

BCS: Time to Drop the C

Posted on July 06, 2009
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee will hold a hearing tomorrow (Tuesday, July 7th) entitled "The Bowl Championship Series: Is it Fair and in Compliance with Antitrust Law?" It will be broadcast live on the interthigny here. Watch it, see what you think, and then call your senator's office...

Going OSCAR Wilde

Posted on July 05, 2009
Quick clerkship question here. For the last month I have been watching judges in OSCAR hire left and right, presumably from the host of graduates and alumni who are not constrained to the hiring plan. It's frustrating to watch the alumni peck away at my judge list, but then that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes...

Guess the crazy Alaskan's motivation

Posted on July 03, 2009
So, Palin resigning from her governorship has got to be one of the dumbest political moves ever, right? There has got to be something bigger underneath this news that has not been revealed yet.So, I thought we could play a little game. Whoever manages to correctly guess why Palin really left gets ...

UC-XI

Posted on July 01, 2009
HT to anonymous in the previous thread for linking to DE's op-ed in today's LA Times.The short version is that California ranks 49th among states whose high school graduates go on to college, and that a fully-fledged cyber-UC campus (read: low overhead --> low tuition) might be a way to track kids toward higher education, "not just in Barstow but in Bangor and Beijing...

Big changes in big law?

Posted on July 01, 2009
I don't check the Shark very often, but was prompted by a commenter in the thread below.TWO rather interesting tid-bits that work well together for a merged thread here:First, Orrick announces tomorrow that it officially drops lock-step salaries. Very interesting (albeit confusing) system they're announcing there...

Real World-Probate Challenge

Posted on June 29, 2009
For those of you looking for more essays to study for the bar:Michael Jackson apparently died intestate. You're the probate judge. Discuss.For those of you looking for a distraction:I must confess cracking a very wide grin at the news that MTV's director of programming is stepping down and that its ratings were down 20% last year...

Kent Work?

Posted on June 26, 2009
Convicted felon and I guess now former Judge Samuel Kent was the first sitting federal judge to be impeached by the House in something like 20 years.* Naturally I was excited for the upcoming Senate trial. But by resigning Kent is hoping to avoid a Senate conviction, which brings us to obscure constitutional question time...

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