How not to succeed in law school

April 28, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

Former UH Law Dean Nancy Rapoport (I need to stop calling her that because that title eerily resonates with ‘The artist formerly known as Prince’ in my mind) had a neat link to a law review article by James Gordon III about how not to succeed in law school. As a 28page distraction away from the law of the contracts it did its job and I consider it highly recommended reading for all those in the law, outside the law and those curious lookers-on.

What’s scary is simply how true it is despite its author’s disclaimers of the same.

How not to Succeed in Law School by James Gordon III

alternatively you can look it up in the April 1991 edition of the Yale Law Journal, 100 Yale L.J. 1679.

 

Posted in Admissions, Humor, Law, Law firms, Law school, Moot Court, Rankings, UH Law. 2 Comments »

Collectible Nation

April 21, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

For reasons I really shouldn’t bore you with, I found myself watching television at some ungodly hour of the night last night. In between paid ads for Ron Popeil’s latest kitchen wonder, dubious-research supported medication like ‘Extenze’ or land-lots for sale somewhere in Arkansas I chanced upon ShopAtHome TV and their collector’s knife sets for sale.

 Now I know we are a collectible nation: Beanie babies, Barbie Dolls, Comic books etc. but who needs a 129 piece knife set? I’m still slightly aghast at the fact that 7-11 believes its jumbo 54Oz. plastic cups are ‘collector’s items’ just because they’ve got a screen printed picture of different NASCAR drivers on them.

But back to the knife sets. So who exactly is buying knives en masse in the first place? I can see someone who is an avid hunter or outdoorsman picking up one, maybe two knives but do you need 128 of them? I was paying attention to the sales presenter and they were saying  “[G]et this 128 piece set, you’ll save now and be giving gifts for years”.  Who gives knives away as presents? And even if you do give them away as gifts, do you know 128 people that are lumbering around town saying “All I want for Christmas is a titanium-edged, faux-ivory handled Bowie knife?”

Posted in Media, Shopping Channel, TV. No Comments »

More Moot Court Madness

April 21, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

As of last week I am a member of both the Mock Trial Team at the University of Houston Law Center as well as the Moot Court Team. The MCs (my way of referring to the Moot Cour Clan) are a rather zany bunch with enough personality to make the study of law remarkably palatable. I had the good fortune of meeting most of them yesterday at our first meet-n-greet and I must say I’m quite chuffed at making the squad.

Proof positive that this bunch works hard and plays hard, I submit below, with permission, an e-mail from the Moot Court board, with the names redacted to protect the innoccent. Methinks I’m going to enjoy this Moot Court Madness….

_ _ _ _

Hi Everybody,

Next Monday and Tuesday from 12 - 1, the current Moot Court Board will interview any of you who would like to join the board for next year.

Perks of being on the Board are:

1.  Planning events around your own calendar

2.  Staffing your “friends” up to “volunteer”

3.  You get to hang with the rest of the Board…a lot.

4.  Have an integral role in keeping The University of Houston Advocacy Program ranked in the top 15 in the US News and World Report (Lord knows the Mock Trial Team needs us)

5.  You won’t have to deal with [Moot Court Board Member] or myself next year

6.  You will get to turn around many of the lasting problems created by [Aforementioned Moot Court Board Member] and myself

7.  Sounds great when you are trying to explain to family and friends why you are still in school

8.  Creates multiple opportunities to not pay attention in class when you reach the end of the internet

9.  Impress civilian women who don’t know what it is, but think it must be important

10.  Help to Keep the party going!

If you are still reading this (you probably should have stopped at around # 2) sign up on the Twen Board.  Interviews should last around 10 minutes.  Feel free to email me any questions.

Signed,

Moot Court Board President

P.S.:  Be prepared to answer some typical Con. Law and Contract hypos.  We only take the best!

P.S.S.:  I was kidding about the Con. Law and Contract hypos.

Posted in Humor, Law school, Moot Court, UH Law, University of Houston. No Comments »

Parlez-vous Legalese?

April 19, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

Dear Reader,

Not sure if you noticed but I posted all my humor columns from the University of Houston Law School newspaper, Legalese on the blog. You can find the link at the top right hand side of the blog or towards the bottom of the left hand column below ‘recent posts’ and ‘comments’.

Let me know what you think. I hope to continue in the same vein next year as a staff writer and I’ll keep you posted whenever I get to writing next. Actually, a certain dog-loving blogger amongst us will be one of my editors. Spare the corrections and spoil the writer I say!

Posted in Humor, Law school, Legalese, Media, UH Law, University of Houston. 1 Comment »

Overheard on MSNBC

April 19, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

Anchor to correspondent in Baghdad: “So what was the reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre over there?”

Correspondent: “Well it didn’t really get much coverage over here. We just had over 200 people die in different car bombings around the city in the past 24 hours”

Moral of the story: Life wherever it is being lost, is precious and the loss of one life over another because of geographical/national/religious etc. criteria is still someone that doesn’t get to see another day.

Posted in Life, Media, War. No Comments »

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life begins with your Contracts Text

April 12, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

Ana did a nice bit on why you should use supplemental materials  such as Examples and Explanations, hornbooks etc. While I’ve never used an Emmanuel’s or other commercial briefs I have derived great benefit from the Sum & Substance audio series (particularly for Torts and Civil Procedure) and I found the Law in a Flash -Flashcards to be a good study group exercise. If nothing else they remind you of what needs to be in a good exam answer. 

I’ve been using the Examples & Explanations series for Torts and now for Contracts and I think it’s helped particularly with the fundamentals. What I didn’t expect was assertions of extra-terrestrial life. Yes, you read that correctly. Here’s a quote from the opening remarks on the Objective Test and Common Law views of Offer and Acceptance from Examples & Explanations - Contracts by Brian A. Blum (3rd. ed)

” Mutual assent is the basis of contracts……In some galaxies beyond our solar system, beings have evolved to a point where they can communicate telepathically. Having not yet developed that faculty, we terrestrials can only make our contractual intentions known by communicating them”

Isn’t that just precious?

Guess Mr. Blum watched one too many Star Trek episodes in his time. I would say more but in theory I largely agree with Mr. Blum so I’ll be quiet. Enough blogging for now, I’ve got to go plan my summer trip to Roswell, New Mexico.

Posted in Law, Law school, UH Law, University of Houston. No Comments »

My name is Inigo Montoya. You didn’t let me in your law school. Prepare to die!

April 12, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

The ladies at the admissions office at the University of Houston Law Center are certainly a motley crew. They are generally harassed by the prospective masses only to be largely forgotten once we’re in. I happen to deal with them quite frequently because I’ve taken a vested interest in how my law school is run and I try and help them out as much as I can with regards to feedback about the admissions process, the look of the applications material etc. So I was generally quite pleased when they started writing a blog about the admissions process at the UH Law Center. If you haven’t read it and are a prospective student, you certainly should.

With them quoting Inigo Montoya and telling you why an e-mail address such as ‘SexyMama2006′ is virtual insanity they deserve a pat on the back for their efforts to demystify the admissions process. I think it’s a grand idea. Grand enough to warrant a link on my wall of shame i.e. my blog roll.

Posted in Admissions, Blogging, Communication, Houston, Law, Law school, UH Law, University of Houston. No Comments »

Shaw says so

April 5, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

After going through the mental ping-pong last night of deciding what class to take and whether it will ruin me forever (I can be dramatic on Wednesdays - what can I say?), I’ve settled on Administrative Law. Whether I get the class at all is an entirely different story and all will be revealed today at 3pm when I can log into the system and register.

Some sliver of hope came in courtesy of my dear friend MsSifr who quoted George Bernard Shaw this morning. I’m going to co-opt what she said he said.

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.”

I suddenly feel like channelling Mark Anthony in his eulogy for Caesar and say “And Brown Boy was an honourable man“

Posted in Life, Literature. No Comments »

The rock or the hard place?

April 4, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I’m burdened by my first law school course decision and frankly I don’t think I’ve got enough information. My choices are Administrative Law with Prof. Bush or Practice Skills with Prof. Marrus. While I’ve heard good things about the both of them my beef isn’t with who’ll be teaching it’s what they’ll be teaching. Should I go with a heavy substantive class like Administrative law that would be sandwiched into a 5 week course or should I get the benefit of Practice Skills and learn what it would take to actually work day to day in a firm. The way I framed that question the answer should be obvious but I’m not so sure.

What makes this not much of a decision, at all, is that according to the registration lottery, I shall be one of the last to register for my class. Therefore I might have my decision made for me. Forgive me law school alumni/class professor/future client/girlfriend that I will not have because I’m a library hobbit - for I do not know what I do.

P.S. Just discovered that http://barelylegalblog.blogspot.com and barelylegalblog dot com point to two very different things. The first one’s about law school. And the second one, which I went to thinking I was going to the first is quite different.  Let’s just say there not much legal about the second one. So don’t go there. And because I told you not to, you will. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m warning you now. There I said it. You’ve been given due notice.

Posted in Law, Law school, Life, UH Law. 2 Comments »

Grades of Glory

April 3, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

The newest crop of law school rankings have been out for a while and I’m quite surprised that I haven’t put my two cents in about the whole mess. Former UH Law Center Dean Nancy R. chimed in with a string of posts about the whole ranking madness and even put a spreadsheet together. Now when I pitched an awkward social analogy about rankings to Gilman he didn’t take to it but I offer it up here for you to decide.

I reckon law school rankings are like the Miss USA/Universe pageant. When your daughter/ sister/ girlfriend/ cousin/ neighbour/ local girl/ city girl/ state girl/ national girl wins everyone oohs and aahs about how great the Miss USA/World is, about how important it is to showcase local cultures so on and so forth ad nauseam. But when aforementioned young lady doesn’t win ( or some other lady wins who you don’t care about) you’ll say, ‘Oh what do those things mean anyway…their just an excuse for women to be degraded etc etc’.

I think rankings for schools are somewhat the same. I think it’s wonderful that U.S. News took the effort and initiative to quantify somethings about law school that are important such as Student/faculty ratios which I think are a wonderful metric to measure. But when you try and quantify the unquantifiable such as ‘reputation’ and put a disproportionate amount of weight to such criteria you will get a very skewed perception of what is reality.

So while I think that it is important for law schools and all schools for that matter to be concerned with metrics such as minority enrollment, tenured faculty, scholarships etc. there are some things that remain to be seen, felt and heard that no ranking will ever give you.

This was very much the topic of conversation in today’s Contracts Class with the ever-voluble Tony Chase. How do you deal with expressly subjective terms in contract you’re supposed to evaluate objectively? 

Here you see the need for the world to come to objective, quantifiable & determinate states on things that don’t necessarily lend themselves to such segregation. Now there’s something to think about.

Posted in Anthony Chase, Contracts, Law school, Rankings, UH Law, University of Houston. 1 Comment »
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