A Day in the Life

Thurgood Marshall as Solicitor General

The Black Law Students Association has been presenting a series of talks in honor of the 40th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall's appointment to the Supreme Court. The speaker's list has been impressive, and the third entry into the series is no exception. Drew Days III, former U.S. Solicitor General (under President Clinton) and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (under President Carter), delivered the third address in the series on April 5, 2007. Professor Days spoke about Justice Marshall's career as a Solicitor General of the United States. Listen to the talk here.

Spring Break with the Japan Law Society

As we've mentioned before, our students do a wide variety of things during Spring Break. One of the more law-related is a trip taken by the Japan Law Society to, you guessed it, Japan. Here's Sean Leonard '08 to tell you all about it.

"Did you know that the University of Chicago Law School is one of the best schools to learn about Japanese law and culture? As President of the Japan Law Society this year, I would like to tell you about one of the Society's major events.

"Last month, sixteen student delegates traveled to Japan on the Japan Law Society Spring Break Trip to Japan 2007, which we hold every two years. Trip participants visited key legal, financial, and political
institutions in Japan, along with healthy doses of Japanese culture. Governmental sites included the Ministry of Justice, Fuchū Prison, the Supreme Court of Japan, Tokyo District Court, and the Bank of Japan. The visit to Fuchū Prison offered a rare glimpse into the Japanese criminal justice system that few international legal practitioners get to see. Two of the largest law firms in Japan, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu and Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, were kind enough to host us. Our visits to these Japanese firms and to the international firm Paul Hastings permitted us to learn about the details of domestic and international legal practice in Japan.

"On the cultural side, we ate fresh sushi at Tsukiji Fish Market and toured the University of Tokyo. On the weekends and holidays, trip participants traveled to diverse locations throughout Japan including
Kyoto and Hakone.

"The trip planning is spearheaded by our 2L and 3L board members, along with the generous time and energy of active Japanese alumni of the Law School who help arrange the trip. Our alumni liaisons provide us with insiders' views on law and policymaking in Japan.

"If you are interested in reading more, take a look at our full itinerary, including pictures."

ACS Moot Court

Just this past weekend, the Law School and the American Constitution Society co-hosted one of two regional competitions in the Second Annual Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law. The topic addressed open questions of law at the intersection of the freedom of the press, national security, and federal criminal law. About twenty-five teams from around the country participated, and the winning team is advancing to the national competition in Washington, D.C., in July. It will face the winner of the other regional competition, which was held at UCLA earlier in March. We're very proud of 1Ls Gretchen Helfrich and James Burnham who advanced to the quarter finals.

How FDR Paved the Way to Brown v. The Board of Education

The Black Law Students Association is the Law School's chapter of a very active national organization. BLSA is very active at the Law School, planning many academic and social events. This year, BLSA is sponsoring a series of lectures commemorating Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court. The second in this series took place a few weeks ago, when Kevin McMahon of Trinity College discussed “How FDR Paved the Way to Brown v. The Board of Education.” Professor McMahon, author of Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race, puts forth evidence that through his appointments to key judgeships and through the retooling of the Justice Department, President Franklin Roosevelt intentionally constructed the legal framework that made the outlawing of segregation possible. Listen to the talk here. (If you would like to follow along with Prof. McMahon’s PowerPoint presentation, you may download them here: Download kevin_mcmahon_power_point_slides.ppt)

The Law School Musical

Our law students are a very well-rounded bunch. They come to us with skills, expertise, and prior experience that sometimes blows our minds. Once a year, they showcase certain of these talents in the annual Law School Musical. Every February, a large group of students performs an original two-act musical - they write the book from scratch (although it often parodies an exisiting movie or musical plot) and the songs have new lyrics and familiar tunes. The Musical has been around since the 1980s, and most of its alumni have gone on to great legal careers (and not a single one into a career in the legitimate theater). Students do every aspect of it - they make up the ten piece pit band, they do all the tech, set design, and set construction, they write it, direct it, choreograph it, and perform it.

This year's show (put on this past weekend) was entitled "The Musical: Cultural Learnings of University of Chicago for the Make Benefit Glorious Lives of Law Students." As you might imagine, something of a Borat parody ensued. The plot, however, is never the point - gentle mockery of the school, the professors, the students, and the staff is. Those who attended were treated to a student playing Dean Levmore (dressed as the Pope), a student playing Judge Posner (characterized as a Mafia don), and students doing fine imitations of about half the faculty, including Professors Sunstein, Helmholz, and Conyers. Song parodies included a version of "SexyBack" about the Socratic Method (seriously) and a finale to the tune of "Don't Stop Believin'." We've included a few photos below to give you an idea, but really - they don't do the show justice.

Dean Levmore and Borat share a moment.

 

The Oompa Loompas (standing in for the workers doing the Library renovation) have their moment in the spotlight.

One big production number...

...and the aforementioned "Don't Stop Believin'" finale.

Meet the American Constitution Society

In our continuing series of posts introducing you to our wide variety of student groups, we today present a post by 3L Christine Graham talking about the American Constitution Society:

"Are you a liberal student interested in Chicago? Don’t worry—you’re in good company. Chicago has one of the largest student chapters of the American Constitution Society (“ACS”), a national legal organization. In general, ACS promotes a progressive vision of law that protects people’s civil and individual rights, advances equality, and ensures access to the courts. The progressive view finds support in the United States Constitution, which protects individual rights and advances equality through the Bill of Rights and the subsequent Constitutional amendments. Normatively, the progressive view embodies the notion that the law should protect individuals who are unrepresented by other divisions of government.

Structurally, ACS has three main goals: to strengthen the intellectual underpinnings for progressive law and policy; to promote the progressive view of law among the legal community; and to build a network of progressive judges, academics, lawyers, and students.

Our chapter tries to meet these goals in several ways. Most visibly, we arrange on-campus lunch events that discuss or debate progressive ideas of the law. This year, we’ve hosted:

• Judge Abner Mikva to speak on habeus corpus rights of individuals held by the United States government
• Guantanamo litigator Gary Issac and Human Rights expert Susan Gzesh to discuss the detention policies at Guantanamo Bay
• Nicole Ozer, ACLU Civil Liberties and Technology Policy Director
• Kent Greenfield and Gordon Smith to debate a progressive vision of corporate law
• Co-sponsored with the Federalist Society, Judge Richard Posner and Professor Brian Leiter to debate Pragmatic Adjudication (watch it here)

In addition, we involve our student members through our regular Mikva dinners, which are small, informal dinners with faculty members and ACS students. During an average year, we host nine to twelve of these dinners, and dinner conversation topics range from presidential candidates to Superbowl contenders. This year, we are organizing and hosting the semi-finals of the National ACS Moot Court competition. Find out more here. www.acslaw.org and our website, http://acs.uchicago.edu/."

The CLF Auction

Wednesday was the CLF Auction – a longstanding tradition here at the University of Chicago Law School. CLF is the Chicago Law Foundation, a student group that raises money to provide grants to students interested in working in the public interest during their 2L summer. Every year, CLF runs the auction – which includes both a silent auction and a real live gavel-swinging, bidding-war-inducing live auction. In my day, Professor Epstein was the auctioneer, but these days Professor Baird does the honors. What gets auctioned off? You name it. We have donors who give amazing things like spa treatments at the Peninsula followed by dinner at Charlie Trotter's (wow), bottles of wine, tickets to various sporting events (good year for that, Bears being the NFC champs and all – and may I just say Go Bears!), Supreme Court Justice bobblehead dolls, and much, much more. But some of the most amazing and amusing offerings are the “experience” packages offered by professors and staff – home cooked gourmet meals accompanied by wonderful wines in professors’ homes, trips to Chicago music venues with professors as guides, weekend trips to vacation homes, professorial poker nights, meals out, trips to Wrigley and U.S. Cellular (Comiskey) Field, and many more fun ways for students to get to know professors and administrators outside the classroom, with the auction proceeds going to benefit the public interest. Of course, the students aren’t to be outdone, so they offered auction items as well – portraits done by accomplished student artists, baked goods, designated driver services for Bar Review, babysitting, dance lessons, lessons in how to express yourself (shall we say) colorfully in many languages by the LLM students, wingman service for evenings out. (Ah, that last one, I’m always amazed at how talented our students are, and how willing to give for the common good.) But seriously – this is a student-organized, student-run, student-supported event, and it is always a great success. My favorite item this year? We have a student who uses an assistance dog – you know, one with a big sign on his back that says “Do Not Pet” – who she offered up for an uninterrupted 10 minutes of petting to the lucky highest bidder. Whoever said money can’t buy love never paid to pet a yellow lab.

Students Volunteer at Food Bank

Last week a group of law student volunteers joined the Dean of Students for a wonderful service opportunity.  The group spent the evening at the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) on Chicago’s west side.  The GCFD distributes more than 40 million pounds of food each year through a network of 600 local member agencies that include food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and the Chicago public schools.    Through these efforts over 500,000 people each year receive services from the GCFD.  33% of those served are children.  Volunteers from the law school spent most of the evening in an assembly line re-packaging food for a program called “Nourish for Knowledge” that provides supplemental food supplies to impoverished children and their families.  We all worked hard, but there was plenty of time for the students to chat with each other and with some of the other volunteers while we went about our work.  Together, we packaged over 1000 bags of food in just under three hours.  Our students commented that in addition to feeling great about the service that was provided, it was a great opportunity for 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls to get to know each other!   We all look forward to the next service event in the Spring Quarter.

Wine Mess

Wine Mess is a long-standing student-run tradition at the Law School, so I thought I'd let the students involved tell you about it. 2L Frank Busch, captain of Wine Mess this year, put it this way:

"It's only appropriate that this entry in 'A Day in the Life' is about the best time to be at the Law School. Specifically, Friday afternoons from 4-6. Any reasonably sane reader - and perhaps you - must be wondering why on earth a person would want to delay their weekend an extra two hours. The answer is simple: Wine Mess.

Wine Mess. A place where a constantly changing selection of premium beers - along with a full bar - are available. A time that transitions nicely into friday evening plans. A group of people just as interesting, smart, and social as you are.

It has been my pleasure to organize and run Wine Mess this year. Being behind the bar is an altogether different experience than attending was last year, however it is obvious that this year's 1L class is off to a great start. If nothing else, their enthusiasm for Friday afternoons makes the entire event the best time of the Law School's week."

And to second the 1L enthusiasm Frank references, 1L Carlos Soto wrote: "Every Friday afternoon, after our torts class with Prof. Epstein, we have Wine Mess, which is one of the coolest traditions at the Law School. It's an awesome way to relax after a week of class. There's almost always free food, be it ice cream or tacos. Even if you don't drink you won't feel out of place because the main purpose of Wine Mess is to talk and get to know each other better. Our class has been brought even closer together through Wine Mess because we play foosball and whiffleball right in the Green Lounge, even with professors, who are always in attendance. In fact, it's also a great opportunity to meet your professors in an informal setting. Every week, we get one or two different professors or faculty members giving us advice on everything from classes and jobs to sports and good restaurants around the area. Few things are as fun as Wine Mess; most 1Ls will tell you that they met their best friends there and that it's the perfect atmosphere to start off the weekend. If you are considering attending the Law School, I recommend that you visit us on a Friday afternoon so that you can check it out. I guarantee you will have a great time."

I swear I'm not making this up -- the students really are having fun here at the University of Chicago Law School (and I remember wine mess fondly from my time here -- we started many Fridays at wine mess, with various spouses/significant others/friends meeting us in the Green Lounge after work before we headed out for the night). Don't believe me? Take Carlos up on his offer -- come visit us on a Friday afternoon and see what it's all about.

Meet APALSA

The Law School is home to nearly 60 student organizations, all organized under a student government known as the Law Student Association (LSA). The groups range from identity groups (such as religious, ethnic, gender, or preference groups), legal interest groups, political groups, service groups, and, of course, groups that are just plain fun. These groups do a wide variety of things from arranging social events to bringing in speakers at lunch time, from planning symposia to hosting and performing in concerts and talent shows. They even put on a film festival, a full scale musical, and a charity auction each year! The LSA not only supports all these organizations but puts on its own events as well, including an annual Prom.

We're going to use this space to introduce you to some of our student organizations from time to time. Today's entry comes from 2L Cathy Yu:

"The Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) is a group that aims to bring Asian Pacific American students at the law school together. We're concerned with diversity, Asian Pacific American issues, and issues that concern law students in general. We hold social events within the law school community and with other law schools as well. We also bring in speakers for lunchtime events. So far this quarter we've had a very successful welcome BBQ for our new and existing members to meet each other. We've also had a speaker come in (U of C's APALSA's co-founder) to talk about his transactional practice in Japan and the US. Next week, we will have a law professor from China coming in to talk about human rights in China. And to start off next quarter, we will have a panel of attorneys from the law firm Goldberg Kohn coming in to talk about the transition from being a law student to a practicing attorney. We also plan to have a social event later this year with the APALSAs of the other Chicago area law schools. Please email Cathy Yu with any questions you have about APALSA, and we look forward to welcoming you to the University of Chicago!"