FLAPJACKS: Whatcha reading?
ME: An essay by Catherine MacKinnon.
FLAPJACKS: Who’s she?
ME: Radical feminist legal scholar.
FLAPJACKS: How radical is “radical”?
ME: She supported Andrea Dworkin’s assertion that all heterosexual sex can be defined as rape.
FLAPJACKS: That is pretty radical.
ME: Yeah.
FLAPJACKS: Wait, was Andrea Dorkin -
ME: Dworkin.
FLAPJACKS: Oh. Was she married?
ME: I’m sure I don’t know.
FLAPJACKS: Sec. (pause) Okay, she was married.
ME: All right.
FLAPJACKS: Do you think she referred to her husband as a rapist?
ME: That would be on my long list of “things I don’t want to even speculate about.”
FLAPJACKS: Because that would make for some really awkward pillow talk.
ME: Please stop.
FLAPJACKS: I mean, he’d be all “I love you, baby,” and she’d be all “this is raping, you raper.”
ME: I am trying to read this, you know.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they got off on it.
ME: See me flipping pages here?
FLAPJACKS: Man, academics have weird-ass sex lives.
ME: You know, when you came over, you said it was only because you wanted to borrow my wok.
FLAPJACKS: I’ve got it right here.
ME: And now?
FLAPJACKS: We’re bonding.
ME: I see.
FLAPJACKS: Why are you reading that thing, anyway?
ME: Writing a research paper on how a given Canadian court decision about how pornography should be treated under obscenity laws.
FLAPJACKS: And how should it be handled?
ME: Liberally, with minimum censorship.
FLAPJACKS: …there’s no real opportunity for me to make a dirty joke there.
ME: Imagine that.
FLAPJACKS: Say, while I’m here, can I borrow some peppers and onions and chicken?
ME: So what you’re saying is that in addition to borrowing my wok to make a stir-fry, you also want to borrow all the ingredients for a stir-fry.
FLAPJACKS: Well, I’ve already got oil.
ME: Good to see you’ve thought this out.
FLAPJACKS: Exactly. I said to myself, “what can I make with this bottle of canola oil?” And I said, “hey, a stir-fry!” Now all I need is the stir-fry stuff. And you’ve got that. So I come over here.
ME: Exquisitely planned, I must admit.
FLAPJACKS: While I’m here, can I use your stove?

Does anybody have a good site for information about potential oceanic methane sequestration technologies? Google-fu is failing me, and I’m looking at it as a potential topic for a law school research paper (specifically implementation of same on a global level and interactions with the law-of-the-sea treaties).

Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister for the Canadian federal government, came to visit Osgoode Hall yesterday (it turns out my law school is his alma mater, which I did not previously know). I went, because if you have the chance to ask questions of who is (not officially, but for all intents and purposes) the second-most important person in your government, it’s well worth the time, especially if you care about public policy.

Quick impressions: he is funny, quick-witted, and with a genuinely folksy air to his demeanour. It is quite easy to understand how he got elected to public office; despite my personal distaste for his politics, he’s very simply likable, and like most Canadian politicians carries with him the wholehearted belief that even if you happen to believe completely the opposite of what he does that meaningful dialogue is still possible. (Stephen Harper, who has a very jerkish public persona, is one of the few notable exceptions to this rule.) After his introductory speech, the first question he got was a rambling tirade from a crim law student who was very angry about Canada’s recent refusal to attempt to extradite criminals being held elsewhere in anticipation of the death penalty (a reversal of longtime standing policy), and although Flaherty, as the Finance Minister, has no actual duties as regards international criminal law, diplomatic sanctioning or justice matters, he still answered the question as respectfully as possible.

However, he’s still a politician. My question to him was this:

Mr. Flaherty, in the 2008 budget, you introduced new federal budget measures to get more E85 fuel stations in Canada – however, given the recent study from the University of Minnesota showing that most form of ethanol manufactured from standard commercial crops contribute more carbon emissions to the atmosphere via their harvest than they remove when used as a replacement for gasoline, would you favour government investment in advanced cellulosic ethanol research, considering that cellulosic ethanol is the only form of ethanol that actually might reduce overall C02 emissions, and cancellation of agricultural subsidies for other production of ethanol?

Flaherty answered the question by saying he was firmly in favour of greater funding for cellulosic ethanol research, but that doesn’t answer the real question embedded in it – and I know full well he knew what the question was, and it’s this:

Mr. Flaherty, we spend three-quarters of a billion dollars annually on subsidies for corn and grain ethanol production – industries that are not profitable without both government subsidy and government mandated use. Now that we know fairly conclusively that corn and grain ethanol don’t work in the way that we need them to work, as they are both energy-inefficient and actively harmful to the environment, how about we spend that money on absolutely anything else that might actually be useful in some way? I understand that just about all of that money goes to Alberta and rural Saskatchewan, which is your party’s electoral base, but come on.

But I didn’t ask that. Mostly because his visit was organized by the Conservative students’ society here at Osgoode, and a few of the members (including the current executive) are friends of mine, and despite the fact that I obviously have political disagreements with them in many areas, they’re principled individuals, and the sort of person I want on the other side of the aisle, and I didn’t want to make them look bad.

But it was tempting to follow up.

Oh, and I didn’t ask him about Bill C-10 (the tax bill throwing on potential removal of tax credits for films containing “offensive” content), because that bill is so offensive to me and many people that I know working in the industry that I would have ended up shouting.

ME: So I need some new opponents for Scrabulous. Who wants to fall before me?
SARAH (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): Ooh, me!
MIKE (ANOTHER LAW STUDENT): You might want to qualify that.
SARAH: …at Scrabulous.
MIKE: Much better.
(A pause.)
SARAH: Hah, “dispose.” Seven-letter start!
ME: Big deal, you managed a seven-letter word with three vowels, an S and a blank tile. Next up: baby brags about successfully breastfeeding.
MIKE: I don’t know if I approve of Scrabble smack talk.
SARAH: What’s wrong with it?
MIKE: It’s a game where you’re allowed to play two-letter words. You can’t play two-letter words in Boggle, you know.
SARAH: Oh, god, are you going to go on about Boggle again?
MIKE: Boggle is to Scrabble as quantum physics is to arithmetic.
SARAH: You just like Boggle because you get to shake the container.
MIKE: You just like Scrabble because you can play it during class when you’re bored.
ME: Fair point.
MIKE: How do you even pass the courses, anyway?
ME: Natural brilliance.

There is a case, universally known to all law school students, called Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball, which is a case that absolutely every introductory contracts teacher uses for two reasons:

1.) It’s a good example of a case that shows how to distinguish an offer from an invitation to treat, and also sets the precedent for formation of a unilateral contract.

2.) It is called Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball. It is about a small ball that smoked, which you were supposed to stick up your nose as a medical aid against the flu. Indeed, a reasonable Web fascimile of the original advertisement (with an animated GIF and everything!) can be found here. You quickly understand why this is such a popular teaching case – it has a silly name and the invention is downright stupid. (In fact, the Carbolic Smoke Ball would have probably increased your chances of getting sick.)

So when I found out that there was an online store named after the infamous Carbolic Smoke Ball, I was enthused! Surely there would be tons of nifty lawyer-themed crap on there than I would want to own!

Sadly, this is not the case. The crap at carbolicsmokeball.com is not fun crap. It is, at best, mediocre crap. A surfeit of standard lame catchphrases (of the “I can only please one person per day and today is not your day” variety), a few vanity items for the lawyer’s office, and… yeah, that’s more or less it.

There is no “Lawyers Do It In The Standard Befitting A Reasonable Person” T-shirt. There is no “I Drank A Ginger Beer With A Snail In It And All I Got Was A Legal Precedent For Punishing Negligent Behaviour” beer cozy. There is no “What You Know About Tax” musical keychain.

There is not even a replica Carbolic Smoke Ball, for crissake! The site is named Carbolic Smoke Ball and there is no Carbolic Smoke Ball!

Honestly, there has to be a way to get the name away from these people and make a decent law-themed-crap-for-sale site. It would make dozens of dollars. Maybe even ten dozens.

In the first year of law school – at least, at Osgoode Hall, where I go – you get exactly one course option in first year to go along with the usual slate of tort law, contract law, criminal law, property law, public and constitutional law, ethics, and legal process and writing. Because these are small-group seminar classes, you’re expected to rank your top five preferences in case of overflow.

Mine were:

1.) Legal Challenges In Intellectual Property
2.) Tax Law As A Reflection Of Social Policy
3.) Globalization And The Law
4.) Legal Realities Of Urbanization
5.) “something that will help me in case I need to determine the legal status of a superintelligent gorilla.”

I have my reasons.

So now that I’ve officially started law school, I’m expected to start thinking about what sort of legal philosophy I’m going to support.

This is really remarkably easy.

This one.

When in doubt, I believe the only legal tidbits you desperately need to know in order to serve effectively as a dedicated lawyer are all evident in the career of Tenzil “Trust Me, I’m A Senator!” Kem – member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, defeater of Pulsar Stargrave, destroyer of the Miracle Machine, three-time winner of the Bismollian Mita-Yum Toxic Baking Championship, voted “5817th Most Sexy Humanoid” by Playfem magazine and, lest we forget, an actual honest to god lawyer person.And what is the Kem school of legal thought?

The law school guide says that a good guideline for study is two hours for every hour of class the day before you study.

This is great, except that on Tuesdays I have seven hours of class.

(Six on Mondays, so loading up over the weekend is going to be happening a lot, I guess…)

SCENE. A bar. With drinks. And law students entering the Osgoode Hall class of 2010.

PROSPECTIVE LAW STUDENT: God, I am so sick of being called an “untouchable.”
ME: Those Hindus and their castes. Wacky.
PROSPECTIVE: No, I mean the Friedman thing.
ME (who knows what he’s talking about, but is enjoying his Strongbow, so why not let him exposit): The Friedman thing?
PROSPECTIVE: There was this book or article or something Thomas Friedman wrote about how lawyers were “untouchable.” Because of globalization. Being a lawyer is a skilled profession, it doesn’t cross-migrate. This country may not need call centre people at some point because they’ll all live in India, but it’ll always need lawyers.
ME: Right. So?
PROSPECTIVE: So lawyers aren’t the only untouchables. So are skilled tradesmen. Plumbers are “untouchable” too, because you can’t outsource fixing your sink to Singapore.
ME: I still don’t get why you’re up in a bunch about this.
PROSPECTIVE: Because in all these speeches at the orientation things. You know?
ME: Nope.
PROSPECTIVE: They all talk about how going to law school is an investment, because now you’ll be “untouchable.” But if that’s what you care about, why not save sixty thousand dollars and just become a plumber instead?
OTHER PROSPECTIVE LAW STUDENT (who has been listening in): I think the money has something to do with it.
ME: I dunno. A good plumber can make high five figures, easy.
PROSPECTIVE: Right. If I said “fuck the law, I’m gonna fix leaky pipes” right now, I could go do my apprenticeship – during which I would be making money rather than paying it out – for three years, and there you go.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: Ah, but a lawyer can make so much more money.
PROSPECTIVE: Can, but very likely won’t. I mean, look around at the people here in this bar. Most of them aren’t going to be wearing fancy Italian suits and going “Denny Crane!” into the mirror in ten years’ time.
ME: Is that all their name?
PROSPECTIVE: Boston Legal?
ME: Oh, right. I’m older than you, so my TV reference for lawyering is The West Wing.
PROSPECTIVE: But my point is – I mean, you read those “so you’re going to law school” books, right? Only a tiny minority of lawyers practice high-hat corporate law and make an unholy shitload of money.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: But the possibility exists that you can. Whereas, if you’re a plumber, there’s no such thing as fancy corporate plumbing.
PROSPECTIVE: You buy a lot of lottery tickets? I’m just asking.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: Okay, say I accept your suggestion that lawyering isn’t that much more lucrative than plumbing is. Surely there’s also the benefit of prestige?
PROSPECTIVE: Meaning?
ME: I think he means that plumbers don’t generally get invited to fancy parties for charities and the like.
PROSPECTIVE: Quick quiz: would you rather go to a fancy dress ball or to a sports bar to eat chicken wings and drink beer?
ME: Now there’s a good point.
OTHER PROSPECTIVE: But lawyers get to change the system. Surely the attraction of altering and fixing law as you see fit -
PROSPECTIVE: Oh, come on. Firstly, your odds of becoming a judge are worse than your odds of becoming a rich corporate lawyer. And secondly, say you go into public policy. You’re not going to change anything. Liberals won’t let you because anything you might actually change could hurt the spotted owl or make gay people feel bad about themselves.
ME: In fairness, conservatives won’t let you because before they were elected they sold tires, so clearly nobody knows more about how the government should operate than they do.
PROSPECTIVE (waving his hands to concede the point): Exactly. So, again, I ask: why not be a plumber instead? Less stress, there’s still a lot of money in it, you get to work with your hands…
A pause as this is mulled over.
ME: I think we seriously have to consider how much we’re willing to pay to lessen the chance of coming into contact with poop as a part of our job.
Another pause.
PROSPECTIVE: Right, so are you guys gonna get a locker at Osgoode, or what?