Congratulations to all the people who passed the bar. While it was a fun test to study for, waiting for the results was excruciating.
Many of you will be shocked to learn just how much the enthusiasm you bring as a young lawyer is going to help your clients.
And BTW, If you're up at night, pacing, thinking about what you're going to say at your hearing, or wracking your brain to think of a new legal angle on a hard problem, you're almost certainly already a good lawyer.
We are all only as good as our next fight.
As a brand new lawyer, the quickest way to improve is to regularly read cases in your field, whether you're working on those issues or not. Developing a sense of what "feels right" is going to quicken your issue spotting and make you faster on your feet.
The best way to prep for a hearing is to explain your argument to a patient layperson. Be able to explain your position, in plain English, in under a minute. Don't forget the lessons of moot court--road mapping is everything.
Most of all, try to remember all the things you're outraged by right now. We older lawyers get jaded. We forget sometimes how unfair it can all feel. Hold on to the injustices that stick with you, and bear them in mind. You might get a chance to fix one.
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I suspect that many men who marry women with children, like men who adopt or foster or mentor, want to experience the joy of loving and teaching and raising a child even if it is not their own genetic progeny.
That's a beautiful thing.
Like, as a father, I can't watch this man adopt a stepdaughter who he loved and cared for without tearing up. Any judge will tell you that their best court days are adoptions.
What is better about us than finding family?
As a son, it's hard to watch this man give adoption papers to his father without tearing up.
The Declaration of Independence, helpfully, lists the reasons why we left, including show trials for military officers who killed Americans, a failure to allow sufficient immigration, and the arbitrary refusal to pass necessary laws. No mention of "the god revealed in the Bible."
The Founders "strongly debated" what powers should be given to the civil government but "agreed unanimously on the unversality of absolute truth."
I'd LOVE to disagree about the universality of absolute truth, but I have no idea what that phrase means.
The Supreme Court of Arkansas ruled today that, although the winning Democratic candidate had been pardoned for the 40-year-old misdemeanor offense of selling mortgaged crops, he was still ineligible to hold office. His opponent wins by default. /1
The Arkansas Constitution forbids anyone who has been convicted of an infamous crime from holding office. And infamous is a pretty broad term, a bit like a "crime of moral turpitude" that covers virtually any form of dishonesty. /2
Here, because the misdemeanors involved converting the property of others to his own use, it qualifies, the Court held. /3
You know, the US only has two political parties and there were serious efforts from one of them not to certify votes from cities, to ask legislatures to appoint the wrong electors, and to ask courts to declare Trump the winner.
Were the efforts incompetent? Sure, but that didn't mean they were hopeless or that they won't be repeated. It's dumb to try to overthrow a government after a meeting in a Munich beer hall too.
But still corrosive.
And the public alarm was, in fact, necessary. Massive public pressure led to Wayne County certifying its vote. It led legiatures to quickly reject appointing the wrong electors.