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The Concord Advocate

Volume II, Number 2. Spring 2005.

A publication of the Concord Law School Student Bar Association. Copyright © 2005. This publication may not be reproduced by any means without permission.

URL: www.concordSBA.org

Editor-in-Chief: Roy Aranda

Editorial Assistant, Layout Designer and Production Editor: Brian Moquin Copy Editors: June Nemeth Marie Trombley

Area Editors: Steve Boster Michael Keeling Heather Mores Marsha Spellman Jim Tyson Faculty Advisor: Dean Martha Siegel Contributors to this Issue: Keith Altman Roy Aranda Rick Beauchamp Dean Colchagoff Bob Currie Sarah Farmer Earll Stephen Flynn Jim Gallagher Robert G. Gillum Ellie Julian Michael Justen Michael Keeling Betty Lewis Eunice Marsh Mary E.. Mitchell Ross E. Mitchell, J.D. Susan Monk Heather Mores Richard Narad June Nemeth Joan Oswald Denise M. Scherer-Wagner Donna Skibbe Mari Tomiyama Jim Tyson

In This Issue:

From the Editor’s Desk Roy Aranda, 2b04

The SBA at Work Farewell Message from the President Bob Currie, 4L

Administration and Faculty Corner New Elective Courses in the Works Dean Colchagoff

Graduation Dates Set Vice President Donna Skibbe

Student Life Reaching for the Brass Ring Collected and Edited by Heather Mores, 2a05

Pictures from the February 2005 Graduation Submitted by Sarah Farmer Earll

Catch and Release — Why I Chose Concord Law School Michael Keeling, soon to be 2L

Student Profile: Departing SBA President Bob Currie Bob Currie, 4L

What Can an EJD Degree Do For You? Denise M. Scherer-Wagner, 3a05

How I Found Concord Betty Lewis, CU25

I Married the Matrix Mary E. Mitchell with Epilog by Ross E. Mitchell, J.D.

Serendipity at Mid-Module: A Casebook Opens a Door to the Past Jim Tyson, EJD 3L (rising)

Competent to Testify Keith Altman, 2a05

The Cuckold v. The Other Robert G. Gillum

What Do You Really Want to Be When You Grow Up? Lessons Learned By a Spouse Who Has Been Through It All Again, and Again, and Again. Joan Oswald

Study Aids and Tips Ten-Step Finals Preparation Checklist for 1L Jim Gallagher, 2L

FYLSX-Related BBRPG: The Past, The Present, The Future Rick Beauchamp, soon to be 2L

Preparing for the FYLSX Stephen Flynn, 2L

Preparing for the FYLSX -- The Mount Everest of Correspondence Law School Jim Gallagher, 2L

Get in Shape for the FYLSX Susan Monk, CU24

Law Humor Still Crazy After All These Years? Rick Narad, 2b04

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Assistant Editor:

Previous Article Index Next Article

The views expressed by the contributors are not endorsed by The Concord Advocate. However, editorial policy is to encourage the promulgation of thoughts, views, opinions, and ideas that stimulate and promote further discussion and research. We are guided by the words of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, “The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow. It must have the principle of growth,” and 19th Century French Playwright Jean Giraudoux, “There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of law. No artist ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.” Caveat emptor...

From the Editor’s Desk

Roy Aranda, 2b04

The new Editorial Board of The Concord Advocate is proud to present the Spring 2005 issue. Many students contributed and we thank you for your efforts.

Congratulations are due to the JD and EJD students who graduated in February 2005. You represent the elite and are an inspiration to those who are behind and hope to follow your lead.

Welcome aboard CU27 JD and EJD! We wish you the best of luck as you undertake your studies at Concord. There is a tremendous amount of support offered by faculty, administration, and your peers; all you have to do is ask and avail yourself of the many resources.

SBA President Bob Currie provides a farewell message in this edition. He has been a fine leader and will be missed, although we expect that he’ll remain quite active as an alumnus. Best of luck to Bob and the former SBA President, Duane Hurt, and all others who will be taking the CBX in July. We know you will do us proud! Bob also is profiled in this issue. Imagine going from a high-speed freight train locomotive engineer in 1972 to a JD graduate on July 30, 2005. You’ve seen the picture of Bob with Associate Supreme Court Justice Scalia, no? Now you can see another side of Bob (photo inside).

The SBA announces the 2005-2006 election for the offices of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. All eligible students are encouraged to vote and will receive a

ballot in their e-mail sent by Zoomerang on or about May 9th

and will have until 5 p.m. Pacific Time on May 14th. Candidates’ statements are available for review on Concord Law School’s homepage and in the SBA Files Section.

The SBA also announces that the revised Bylaws have been adopted by an overwhelming majority of voters.

In this issue, Dean Colchagoff talks about new elective courses at Concord Law School, and Vice President Donna Skibbe provides information about the July 2005 graduation.

The FYLSX and CBX final filing deadlines are fast approaching: June FYLSX: May 16th. July California Bar Exam: June 15th.

Concord has four official student organizations. Information is provided in the last section of this issue. The Concord University Chapter of the American Constitution Society seeks new members to carry the vision of the founders. Towards this end, I have created a new site: CU American Constitution Society.

Students who are interested can join by sending an e-mail with their name and class to: [email protected]

The reigns will be passed on to students who are interested in serving as moderators, and it is hoped that a new slate of officers will be elected in the near future. The group already has established Bylaws. Students can obtain information about other Concord groups in prior issues of The Concord Advocate.

On behalf of The Concord Advocate and the SBA, best wishes to students facing finals and taking the June FYLSX and July CBX. There are many informative articles in this issue regarding study tips and preparing for the FYLSX. Once again, good luck to all of you!

Students interested in contributing an article or in finding out more about The Concord Advocate, please do not hesitate to send an e-mail to [email protected].

SBA Officer Candidates

President Sarah Farmer Earll Brian Moquin Joy Nonnweiler

Vice President Roy Aranda David Marx

EJD President Jim Tyson

Secretary June Phillips-Nemeth Samanthea Totten-Perry

Treasurer David Dempsay Evan Drexl

Join The Concord Law School Student Bar Association!

As students at Concord, we have a voice! The Concord Student Bar Association was formed in 2003 to serve as the official student body government at Concord University. Classes in both the JD and EJD programs have a senator who represents class members at the monthly SBA online meetings. All Concord students are encouraged to join the SBA. Together we can help each other and work to improve Concord University for everyone.

Join the SBA by sending a blank e-mail to [email protected] . Please visit our website at www.concordSBA.org.

Copyright ©2005 Concord Law School Student Bar Association. All Rights Reserved.

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The SBA At Work

Farewell Message from the President

Bob Currie, 4L

My term as president of the SBA, as well as my four years of law school, is coming to an end in May. I have enjoyed the experiences immensely. Concord has changed considerably since the day I first logged onto my home page. The student body has swelled to almost 2,000 students. We come from every state in the U.S. as well as many foreign countries. When I began, the first graduating class had not yet taken the bar exam. We all waited in anticipation of the results, and we rejoiced in the success of our graduates. Concord students had proven themselves on the most difficult bar exam in the U.S., if not the most difficult in the world.

We had proven to our detractors, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that we could successfully compete with bricks and mortar institutions on the bar exam. At this time, we were an unorganized group of students who met in online chat rooms to study, and formed Yahoo groups in order to interact with each other. A small group of us realized that we needed to take the student body to the next level, so we formed the Concord Law School Student Bar Association. This was a rather lengthy process, as it was difficult to write procedures for a virtual organization. We studied many different SBA groups, and integrated and adapted bylaws from over a dozen bricks and mortar student bar associations. One obstacle to overcome was the Concord policy that EJD students could not be officers of student groups. We insisted that EJD students not only be allowed to participate in the SBA, but that they are allowed to be officers.

We have been an active, approved organization for two years now. We continue to evolve, as evidenced by our first set of bylaws revisions. We not only have been accepted by Concord and Kaplan administration, we have been touted as one of the successes of the online mode of legal education. Justice Ginsburg said that an online law school would never work because the students couldn’t interact with their professors and fellow law students. Not only do we interact with each other, we are supportive in a way that is just not seen in bricks and mortar law schools. We received further recognition when Justice Scalia agreed to address the student body at the invitation of then-SBA President Duane Hurt.

As I look toward logging off as president, I offer my suggestions for the future. First, we need to continue our partnership with Concord administration. We have developed mutual understanding and cooperation over the past two years to the point that we are basically in a joint venture with administration to seek the recognition we need in order to be exempt from taking the FYLSE and for our students to be able to take the bar exam in other states.

Second, we, as individual students, need to establish ties with our local legal communities. I recommend that each student attend local bar meetings, get to know local attorneys, and that students volunteer in some capacity in the legal community. I also highly recommend the LEEP program for 4L students. I now have the experience and confidence to represent a client after my LEEP experience. I know my way around a courtroom. I know how to do discovery. I know how to file pleas and I have written legal briefs that were used in actual cases. I know the local rules of the courts. This type of exposure to the legal system will build your confidence in yourself and in the legal communities’ confidence in Concord students.

Finally I suggest that more special interest student groups be formed. This will increase student interactions (the kind that Justice Ginsburg said we don’t get in an online education). Students can use these groups to hone their lawyering skills. The only opinions that matter in courts of law are legal opinions. You must be able to back up your opinions with legal precedent, or say why new precedent should be set. Freely discussing ideas and developing arguments can develop these skills.

With that, I bid my fellow students and professors farewell. I will remain active in the alumni association, because I believe in our cause and I enjoy the friendships I have made in the past four years.

Outgoing SBA Officers

President: Bob Currie, 4L EJD President: Audrey Bryant, 3L Vice President: Linda Schaefer, 4L Secretary: Sarah Farmer Earll, 3L Treasurer: Dan Gannon, 3L

SBA-Related Websites

SBA Home Page: www.concordSBA.org

To join the SBA, send a blank e-mail to this address: [email protected]

Archives of The Concord Advocate:

www.lawprism.com/concord/advocate/

List of Concord-related Yahoo! Groups: www.lawprism.com/concord/groups/


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Administration and Faculty Corner

New Elective Courses in the Works

Dean Colchagoff

Many exciting new courses will be rolled out in the coming years at Concord Law School. Thanks to a new curriculum initiative at the direction of Dean Currier and with the help of the Student Bar Association survey of student preferences, Concord will be creating as many as six to ten new elective courses each year to give students more educational choices.

Starting in Summer 2005, upper division students will be able to chose from two new Concord electives: Contract Drafting and Conflicts of Laws.

A lawyer once said, "Legal drafting is legal thinking made visible." The drafter’s work makes explicit the parties’ understanding of the deal, but also fills the “gaps” sometimes left in contract negotiations and anticipates problems that might arise in the future. Contract Drafting uses contract drafting 1) to exemplify the principles of contract law, 2) to illustrate those principles in a planning context rather than a litigation context, and 3) to develop the legal skills of reading, writing, and analysis. Through a series of readings and drafting exercises, students in this course will learn to analyze and draft contracts that accomplish the particular needs and objectives of your client. Contract Drafting was designed and will be taught by a new member of Concord’s academic team, Visiting Professor Scott Burnham.

Conflicts of Laws will examine the problems that arise in choosing the law to be applied to transactions, relationships, or occurrences having contacts with more than one state in the United States or with the United States and a foreign nation. The course begins with the problem of enforcing non-forum and foreign judgments in U.S. courts. Enforcement of judgments logically leads next to the consideration of U.S. Constitutional constraints on the choice of substantive and procedural law that courts use in rendering a judgment. Finally, the course focuses on the various approaches, theories, and rules that courts have developed to guide them in choosing the law to be applied to interstate and international transactions, relationships, occurrences, and litigation. Conflicts was designed and will be taught by Professor Jeff Van Detta, who also teaches Commercial Law and Contracts, Torts and Criminal Law courses at Concord.

In addition to the new courses offered in-house, Concord JD students may enroll in three courses taught through New York Law School: Mental Disability Law, The Americans with Disabilities Act and International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law. Concord continues to work to offer you additional collaborative courses like these in the future.

Other new electives in the works for the future include Bankruptcy, Environmental Law, Legal History, Real Estate Transactions, Immigration Law, Advanced Reasoning and Legal Writing, and Independent Study. Look for announcements that these courses are available in the coming year.

Looking for Family Law or Business Organizations? In 2006 Concord plans to revise Community Property and Corporations to add these topics. The new courses will have wider coverage not only in response to student interest but also in anticipation of proposed changes to the scope of the California Bar Exam.

If you have thoughts about other courses you’d like to see at Concord, please feel free to send your suggestions in an administrative email to the attention of the Associate Dean.


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Administration and Faculty Corner

Graduation Dates Set

Vice President Donna Skibbe

Students who are looking ahead to that all important event – graduation day at Concord -can make plans based on the dates of the California Bar Exam. Beginning this year, the graduation ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on the Saturday after the February and July bar exams. The Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) is always the last Wednesday of February and July. The California Essay Exam and Performance Test are administered on the Tuesday before and the Thursday after the MBE. So mark your calendars now for your big day – participating in the graduation ceremony is a great goal to set!

The venue for the 2005 graduation ceremonies is the Skirball Cultural Center (www.skirball.org) in the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a lovely setting for a special event. The February ceremony went off without a hitch. The day was marked by a thoughtful speech given by Gerald M. Rosberg, the Vice President for Planning and Development at The Washington Post Company. Mr. Rosberg, a lawyer who has used his legal education in a variety of jobs, proved to be a great role model for the Concord graduate.

Preliminary planning information for the July 30th ceremony has been sent to J.D. students finishing their

term next month and E.J.D. students who anticipate completing degree requirements by June 30th. If you have questions or would like additional information on the graduation ceremonies or planning for them, please feel free to contact Donna Skibbe, [email protected].


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Student Life

Reaching for the Brass Ring

Collected and Edited by Heather Mores, 2a05

I live in California, and my dream would be to be able to afford to do legal services for the poor. If I can swing that financially there will be plenty of free clinics who would take me with a CA State License. It’s not about the money, as I make pretty good money now. It’s about following a dream and planning now to look for my opportunities to achieve it. For me it’s not about “going to law school,” but rather it is a stepping stone that is not too expensive to a long-term goal I’ve had for some time now.

One thing I’ve learned is that law school doesn’t teach you how to be a good attorney; it just teaches you the theory. The best attorneys are always out there doing their own research and teaching themselves what is new, or networking with more experienced legal specialists to really know what’s going on. So I’ll just have to figure out where I can land that dream job down the road.

—Eunice Marsh, 1L

I am employed by the United State Department of Commerce, National Marine fisheries Service, Southeast Regional Office, St. Petersburg, Florida. Currently, I am a records manager, but have held the positions of a fishery administrator and economist over my 30 year career. I hold a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Economics. My interest in law was latent for many years. It began when I entered the federal civil service as an auditor with the US General Accountability Office, but the idea of becoming an attorney did not really develop until recently. Beginning in 1998, I prepared 10 administrative records for submission to federal district courts in response to challenges to marine conservation rules developed to rebuild over-fished marine resources in the Gulf of Mexico and off the south Atlantic coastal states and Caribbean Sea. We won nine of those ten cases. Since 2000, I have involved with preparing six more administrative records and over 400 requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act. I discovered Concord Law School through the Internet, applied and Concord accepted me. After earning my JD degree I hope to become an attorney with the Federal Government and work in the area of environmental law. Given my situation, Concord is best for me. It enables me to work and study at the same time.

—Michael Justen, CU25

I am a rehabilitation counselor and work with adults with disabilities. The work I do as a rehab counselor entails assisting my client in obtaining and maintaining meaningful employment by providing job seeking skills, training and working with employers, job development and job carving. I also provide counseling to my clients on various issues: adjusting and coping with disability, self-esteem, returning to work and job related issues. I am also their social worker and assist them in areas such at SSI/SSDI, providing information and referrals for services with other agencies, dealing with housing and transportation issues, etc.

I plan on combining my knowledge and experience in the disability community and my law degree to protect and advance the rights, dignity, equality, self-determination, and expressed choices of people with disabilities; both on an individual and systematic level. I foresee being a private attorney specializing in disability issues, or ideally working as an attorney for Michigan Protection and Advocacy Services.

Some areas of interest to me are:

Americans with Disabilities Act – educating employers and communities, advancing individual rights, litigation;

Social Security – education , reform, SSI & SSDI hearings and litigation;

IDEA;

Alternatives to guardianship, durable power of attorney, medical durable power of attorney, etc.;

Abuse/neglect issues;

Accessible and inclusive communities, including accessible housing;

Accessing and receiving employment services from State agencies;

Community Mental Health services;

Assistive technology, evaluations, devises and services;

Reasonable accommodations at the work site;

Segregation of students with disabilities related to federal and state academic accountability laws.

I could go on! I have to dream big as “time is of the essence.”

—June Nemeth, 2a05

My name is Eleanor Julian, but I prefer Ellie. I live in Massachusetts and my reason for law school is quite simple. I am a divorced childless mom who is seeking to protect and serve other childless parents and one parent children. In MA, the tendency to give kids away to their fathers is increasing. Quite often it is not who would make the best parent but rather who has the most money to keep things in court. The kids get lost in the system and parents who should be doing the parenting are not able to practice their skills on some very needy children. I hope to make a real difference in the Commonwealth including updating divorce laws, children's rights, and enabling the wronged (often better) parent to do what is best for their children.

—Ellie Julian, CU27

I majored in political science and have a Master’s Degree in Customs Administration. My grandfather was a successful lawyer and professor in Japan and was my idol. At first I thought that it was too late for me to go back to school, but because of my profession as a California mortgage broker which requires a lot of knowledge in substantive law, I was very motivated to enroll. When I complete my studies, I’d like to be a

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real estate lawyer.

Why attend Concord? With my stressful job, Concord is the best and suits my needs. I am glad that I enrolled in Concord and am proud to be a student at such a fine school where everyone is so helpful.

—Mari Tomiyama, CU26


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Student Life

Pictures from the February 2005 Graduation

Submitted by Sarah Farmer Earll

The Concord Faculty Power Table

SBA Ushers: Vern Gates, Sarah Farmer Earll and Eddie Young

(Not Pictured: Deb Burgess and David Dempsay)

Desiree Navarro, JD with Husband Rick Duane Hurt, JD with Wife Sandi

Duane Hurt, JD, Eddie Schuller, JD and Guests Judge Reva Goetz congtratulates Larry David, JD, after swearing

him in as a member of the California State Bar.

Joel Gaub Conner, JD, Kaplan Award Recipient Masafumi Iwami, JD, Sue Lane Award Recipient

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Know the names of this cute couple? Tell us and we’ll put

them here. Stephen John Hughes, EJD


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Student Life

Catch and Release — Why I Chose Concord Law School Michael Keeling, soon to be 2L

The catch in this ‘catch and release’ did not occur in the calm of a mountain stream but rather during a morning commute. While driving down McDowell Road to the research laboratory I peered through the rearview mirror to confirm that McDowell was truly an east-west road – since it was the morning of March

21st 1978, the spring equinox. As I confirmed that a vehicle traveling parallel with McDowell was indeed aligned with the sun’s rays that morning – I also viewed a rainbow effect emanating from the edge of my de-laminating Missouri Miners decal, an insignia of my alma mater.

A research engineer at the time, I was focused on harnessing solar energy for useful purposes. I spent many days studying the optical effects of solar cells and reflected how my simple experiment during a morning commute looked vaguely like solar cells under a test lamp – often offering its viewer a rainbow of colors when properly orientated.

I keep mentally superimposing the two images as the day progressed – finally thinking how the solar cell (a large crystal disc of silicon optimized to convert sunlight to electrical energy) could be encapsulated within the windshield. Bingo – this might work!

We engineers had been searching for a low cost means of protecting solar cells from the environment while exposing them directly to the sun’s rays – for we wanted both to generate as much electricity per cell as possible while simultaneously preserving the cell’s life regardless of where on the earth’s surface the cells might be deployed.

Windshields cover a reasonably large area, allow sunlight to penetrate through them for years and years, are inexpensive to manufacture – but sometimes are easy to break. That was enough to convince me that an embodiment was appropriate. My next step was determining how to implant three or four inch diameter silicon discs into a windshield.

I discovered the basics of ‘gluing two sheets of glass together’ by drawing on the work of other researchers, including some Southern Methodist University classmates in the early seventies whom had migrated to Detroit. After several experiments my solar windshield had morphed into a tempered plane that could withstand high velocity ice balls and simulated lightning strikes (not to mention successive alternative dunking in boiling water and ice water). Now twenty-five years later it still is the solar cell encapsulation of choice for an industry that has experienced the gyrations of our nation’s energy policy and economic cycles.

The irony is, of my six patents within the solar energy field, I never patented this one. I call it my ‘catch and release’ episode. Catch in that it was inspired by ‘catching the sun’ and release in that the concept, once perfected and released to the industry at large, had the potential of profoundly improving a young solar energy industry that may someday serve us all very well.

And so goes life – a series of catch and release episodes from my times growing up on a ranch in western Kansas, to following family members into research laboratories, to applying that research for human benefit, and now to the policy elements that tie it all together. I see my life as these episodes, each with periods of growth and distinct turning points. Each builds on the next. Each provides a personal growth engine, as well as the means to give back to family and the larger community.

That most recent turning point for me is Concord. The very idea of preparing for my next ‘catch and release’ episode I find exciting – and it has only just begun. The union of policy and technology in our larger society is of great interest to me.


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Student Life

Student Profile: Departing SBA President Bob Currie Bob Currie, 4L

I worked as a high-speed freight train locomotive engineer, running trains between Houston and New Orleans, from 1972-1990, when I took early retirement. During the two years prior to my retirement, I went to college during the day, and worked on the railroad from 3:30 pm to 3:30 am, 7 days a week. I still managed to finish a four-year BS degree in Medical Technology in 3.5 years. I worked for a couple of years as a bench medical technologist, performing a variety of laboratory tests, and then became a lab manager, moving away from the bench to manage a small hospital laboratory. I moved to a position as lab manager of a larger hospital lab, and got my MBA in Health Care Management by driving 200 miles round trip to Houston every weekend for three years.

After working as a lab manager for six years, I moved away from the Gulf Coast to Central Texas when my wife's company offered her a promotion and transfer. I took a position overseeing donor blood collection, processing, testing, and transfusion for a large regional hospital blood center. I have been there for four years now. I had just decided to get my law degree from Concord when I took my new position. My wife and I have three grown sons and two grandchildren. We have been married 34 years. My wife was very understanding of the time I committed to studying law. She served me many a meal at the computer while I discussed torts, criminal law, and other subjects in live chats.

At the end of my second year, after finishing module 30 but before final exams, my colon perforated and I had to have an emergency colon resection. Concord allowed me to postpone my final exams by six weeks. I had another surgery five months later to hook my colon back together. So, 3L was a rough one for me. I was able to get through it with the encouragement of my friends at Concord and the understanding of Concord administration and my professors. All I have left to do is finish the capstone course, and I will join the growing ranks of Concord alumni. It has been a tough four years, but I didn't do it alone, and that is what made it tolerable.

Here I am fueling my engine while 250 passengers eat and shop on our mid-trip layover. I was engineer this day, the next day I was conductor. My weekend train trips are what helped me keep my drive to finish law school.


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Student Life

What Can an EJD Degree Do For You? Denise M. Scherer-Wagner, 3a05

What can I do with an EJD degree? What is it anyway? I am sure many of you are asking yourselves just this question. What can I do with an EJD degree, what sort of job should I look for? Is it just another line item on my resume to make me look better? As noted in the last edition of The Concord Advocate, the EJD degree is a program in and of itself, and not just intended for one who “couldn’t make it” in the regular JD program. There could be many reasons why you choose to obtain the EJD degree, but as important, there are many ways you can utilize this degree.

I am a commercial real estate paralegal. Yes, that is quite a mouthful. I always intended to get a law degree. When I went back to school in my early 30's with a law degree as my goal, my counselor talked me into the college’s paralegal program to assure that I really wanted to pursue a legal career. In my first class, Paralegalism, I fell in love. I fell in love with the law. I wrapped my arms around it, embracing it. I found my home, my niche. As generally occurs, life happened when I had made other plans, and continuing my education when I graduated from college to earn my law degree was put on hold. But I had that paralegal degree which permitted me to pursue my career and my love. Twenty years later, I am still in love with the law, and I am finally realizing my dream of a law degree. I intend to continue working as a paralegal, using this advanced degree to enhance my background and my future.

Through my career I have found another love: teaching paralegals. I started getting some teaching experience by chairing a Study Group with my local paralegal association. The Study Group was put on once a year as an intensive study period for paralegals preparing to take the national certification exam (often compared to a mini-bar exam as it is a fourteen hour exam over two days). I started teaching two courses, then added a third. My experience with the Study Group and involvement in the paralegal profession in Palm Beach County led to my being asked to be a guest lecturer at paralegal seminars. As noted, my specialization is real estate, and that is what I teach. My education at Concord has given me a greater understanding of real property law and has contributed greatly to what I do, in my work and in my teaching. Once I complete this degree I will be qualified to teach in paralegal programs in the local universities.

But many are still asking, what can I do with this degree? Think out of the box - this is what I tell paralegals when they wonder where they should work, how they should use their education. One thing I learned when I obtained a college degree as a paralegal, the legal profession is one of the hardest to break into without experience. If you want to pursue a career utilizing your EJD degree, don’t feel your only option is to work in a law firm. In my twenty-plus year career, I have only worked four of those twenty years in law firms. Most of my career has been with major corporations. I have done portfolio management in conduit and securitized lending, using my real property law skills in closing the loans, knowing what was required, reviewing environmental reports, etc. I have also been a “Senior Acquisitions Associate” performing due diligence for institutional investors. In this position I used my legal skills in reviewing contracts, title documents and surveys. I also know of a position where a Fortune 100 company is looking for a leasing administrator. In this position you would handle all the leasing for this major company throughout the country, utilizing your knowledge of contracts and real property—for that is what a lease is, a contract. Contract administration is another consideration. Many major corporations have someone just to enter into and handle tracking their major contracts, and having a legal background is a plus in such a position. There are many ways you can utilize your EJD degree, even if it is just for your own personal satisfaction, it is worth the ride. Enjoy it!

Editor’s note: Denise is a Certified Legal Assistant/Paralegal/Real Estate Specialist.


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Student Life

How I Found Concord Betty Lewis, CU25

There was an intervening circumstance that was superseding and, in turn, caused me to become a student at Concord Law School. Here is my story.

My name is Betty Lewis. I reside in an upper middle class suburban village, namely, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Glen Ellyn is located in the western suburb of the city of Chicago. Over the years, I have enjoyed living in both the rapid paced urban environment of the city of Chicago, as well as living in the “formerly white-picketed fence” serene suburban communities of Chicago.

While employed in the corporate structure of Metropolitan Chicago, I moved from the “trenches” to the board room. I was employed as a Manager at the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry and at NBC – WMAQ-TV. In addition, as a politician, I campaigned and either won or lost races for committeewoman, county board and Illinois State senate seats. As a working parent, I have deeply loved and “boxed the ears” of three sons who are now making their contributions in business, industry and education as financial planners, corporate executives and teachers. However, there has been an unfulfilled desire in my heart. That is to be a lawyer. Could I? That dream was beginning to fade.

It seems worthwhile to now share my contention that continuing education is especially vital for those in the “autumn years of life.” That is because our laws are continuously renewed. Every ten years, old laws are tossed out and new ones established. Technology is advancing far beyond our expectations. Thus, to have the “quality of life” in a changed world there is a need for those in the “autumn years of life” to continue to learn.

On a regular spring day in 2004, after returning home from a Kaplan Test Preparation Center located nearby, I sat down at my computer to retrieve my mail. I was in the process of preparing to take the LSAT for admissions to Northern Illinois University College of Law. My application and other required documents had already been sent to the admission office. Because I had attended Northern Law School in 1985, the admission office staff and the facility knew me quite well. We had discussed my returning on a readmission basis. There was no pressing family obligation to prevent my attending law school this time. I was gearing up to complete what I considered unfinished business at Northern. As I checked my e-mail, one piece of mail was from Jo of Northern’s admissions office. Jo was encouraging me to get my LSAT score in so my file could be completed and sent to the Admissions Committee for September, 2004. Then, I began to browse the internet, searching anything that read “law” but looking for nothing in particular. There it was. I was looking at a Concord University Law School questionnaire. What was this? Legal training is being done by internet? How interesting it appeared. I filled out the questionnaire. To my surprise, I received a phone call from a very impressive person representing Concord who asked me a number of personal questions. I casually answered her questions with little expectations. There was a test. I took that test and scored 100%. Then, a line of communication developed between Concord and me. My interest increased. Concord appeared to be a perfect fit and I chose to attend Concord University Law School. Therefore, attending Concord was an intervening circumstance that superseded attending Northern Illinois University College of Law. However, this intervening circumstance was not a conscious choice; it was God’s answer to my prayer. He promised to give me the desires of my heart. Concord is truly a blessing.


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Student Life

I Married the Matrix Mary E. Mitchell

Editor’s note: This article was written about Ross Mitchell, former owner and moderator of the ConcordLawSchool and ConcordLawStudents Yahoo groups and JD graduate (2004), by his wife Mary. Ross passed the July 2004 California Bar Examination and is a licensed attorney. In retrospect, now that it’s all over, he fondly remembers what it was like to be a student at Concord Law School at the beginning, and Mary was gracious enough to grant permission to print her story about life with the Matrix…err I mean Ross…

My husband Ross is a student in the first online law school in history. This means that he spends many hours in front of a computer smiling, grunting, and gesticulating. He is inexpressibly happy. One sees it in the glazed look in his eyes and the flush in his cheeks. He studies fat books. He mutters beneath his breath. There are highlighter pens in every room in our house, and in the car, too. If I pull back the shower curtain to take a shower, there it is, in the soap dish: A highlighter pen.

My husband is 48 years old and he hasn’t been in school since 1969. He is a successful self-employed systems consultant. He is used to spending his life in front of a computer in his small office upstairs. His personal computer has been the Other Woman for all the years we have been married. Now, she offers my husband the Concord University Online School of Law. Ross is intrigued. He has always been interested in the law. If he studies hard enough and works diligently, he can sit in his same office swivel chair and become a lawyer. Ross enthusiastically enrolls. Now, here is how the rest of us are coping with his home schooling.

Week One: I pass by Ross’s office with a basket of laundry and am alarmed by a booming voice coming through the open door. There is a talking head on his computer screen, a man in a suit gesturing in eerie, choppy movements, moving like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. “Welcome!” the man says. His mouth opens a millisecond after the word. His head jerks suddenly to one side, as if someone has pulled his plug. I drop the laundry basket, startled. My husband is beaming. He turns, smiling, and proudly introduces the frightening presence.

“My professor,” he says. “Contract Law.”

“Why is he moving like that?”

“Streaming video,” he explains. “You shouldn’t make the picture this big.”

Although I am still shaking, I try to make light of things with a little joke. “He’s like a Robo Prof,” I say. My husband doesn’t hear me. He’s taking notes.

Week Two: Ross says online college offers lifelong learning to anyone with a working mind and a working computer. Here is what I’m learning: We must hide from Ross after he has attended an online class with his professor, or after he gets a quiz back. My daughter Melissa and I listen for the voices to stop while he is “in a class” on his computer, and then we try to make ourselves scarce. I fold laundry in the deepest recesses of the basement. Melissa does extra credit assignments she never dreamed she’d do inside her locked bedroom. It doesn’t matter. He comes searching. He comes knocking. He finds us. He stands in the laundry room waving a paper and his cheeks are flushed again. He is breathing quickly. “I had a very good argument with my professor,” he says. “I explained to him that the Trespass to Land and Battery discussions failed to address whether the defendants acted VOLUNTARILY, and do you know what he said?”

I unfold a pillowcase, shake it out violently in front of me, refold it again when he doesn’t go away. Then there it comes, a full explanation of what his professor told him, complete with phrases like “separate element of the tort” and “voluntary act” and “intent requirement.” “He wrote back to me right away,” my husband says. “Do you know how long students have to wait at Harvard Law School to get a professor to answer their questions?” I do not know how long it takes, but Ross’s new knowledge is just another example of lifelong learning. Ross chatters on for ten more minutes about Legal Writing and Voluntary Acts, and I am suddenly resentful of Melissa, all locked away in the safety of her bedroom with her extra credit assignments. She’s been getting better grades since her father has gone back to school. The whole family is getting smarter because of online college.

Week Three: “Honey, you need a peer group to talk to,” I tell Ross gently, as we are lying in bed.

“I have a peer group,” he says. Then he sprints from bed and into his office and returns with a downloaded list of his online classmates, complete with color photos and short biographies of each. There they are: Tatiana with her blonde hair and beautiful cheekbones. Fred, the air traffic controller. Jackie in England. Eliezer, the Boston detective. His fellow law students are anesthesiologists and grandmas and financial planners. They are getting to know each other well through their discussion groups and online study groups. The grandmother, he tells me, is growing discouraged with the workload and is thinking of dropping out. “We’ve all sent her cards and encouraging e-mails,” he tells me.

“That’s sweet,” I say, as he pulls the blankets up around us once more. I stroke his cheek softly with my hand.

He smiles a little apologetically. “Not now, dear,” he says. “I have a tort quiz.”

Week Six: Ross is still walking on air. There is a new serious line creasing his forehead vertically between his eyebrows. “This is a lot of work,” he tells us at breakfast and dinner. The evidence is everywhere. Huge chunky textbooks left open on couches and beds, that glassy look returned to Ross’s eyes. The dreamy smile. Here is a man who hated every moment he spent in a real live classroom. He’s as happy as a clam in his virtual one. Last night, when we were lying in bed reading, he turned to me and asked, “Do you know the definition of involuntary manslaughter?”

Week Seven: I’m beginning to see why Ross is so happy in his virtual classroom. He can really spread out in

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his own office. In front of his computer, on his nice oak desk, are the following items: A Five Star spiral bound notebook, a can of Diet Coke, six highlighter pens, some dental floss, our daughter’s French test (94% Tres Bien!), a paper towel with homey slogans on one side (Make New Friends But Keep The Old!), and indecipherable computer code scribbled on the blank side. “What’s this?” I ask. He glances up from a criminal law textbook to look at it. “Oh, it’s just a problem with one of my systems. The night guy called and reported it.”

“And? Are you going to fix it?”

He looks up again, distracted. “It’s fixed. No offense,” he says, “but I’m trying to study.”

I leave him in his office, his school things surrounding him all shiny and new — his notebooks, his texts, his multi-colored markers. His professional life has been reduced to notes on paper towels, but I must say, he’s never gotten his work done faster.

Week Eight: Ross skips out of his office as happy as a boy. “I’ve started an online bulletin board,” he tells me. “The other students like it.” He looks so young, so proud, so amazed with himself, that I almost give him a juice box to bring back to his room.

Week Nine: Melissa is angry with Ross because he chased her around the house with his latest quiz, forcing her to listen to his arguments about the questions he got wrong. “The first one was just a careless mistake,” he confided to her, “even you could have gotten it right.” This, of course, was the perfectly wrong thing to say to a teenager, and she has let him know it, but at least they are communicating. Our problem with Ross seems to be that he either ignores us or he talks us to death. It’s not that he doesn’t have his chat room and his peer group to talk to; it’s just that they don’t seem to be enough. Lord knows he spends enough time with them. Perhaps this is a problem with online law school. No beers at the university pub after class. Sometimes it seems he has an entire imaginary life somewhere inside his computer screen. We rented a movie recently called The Matrix, which is beginning to remind me of my husband’s online school life. The plot of the film was way too complex, but the gist of it was that you had these people who screwed their heads into all sorts of complex machinery attached to the headrests of their spaceship lounge chairs. Once their heads were screwed in, they began to lead very rich, dangerous, exciting lives elsewhere. Their bodies lay still as slugs in the spaceship chairs. All the action was somewhere else.

This is the feeling I sometimes get, passing by Ross’s office when his Robo Prof is on the screen, or he is listening to an audio lecture, or he is chatting away in his chat room. But then I think: Here he is at home with us. He still takes out the garbage. I can walk in his office and hug him any time I want. I married The Matrix, I think, but, boy, is he happy.

Copyright © 2000 Mary E. Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.

Mary E. Mitchell’s essays have been published in national magazines and newspapers, including Family Circle, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe. She lives with her family in Newton, Massachusetts.

Epilog Ross E. Mitchell, J.D.

It's been almost five years since Kaplan asked my wife to write the “Matrix” article, which totally exaggerated my personality and conduct during my first year of law school. Well, maybe not totally, but substantially. Well, maybe not substantially, but a little. OK, OK, it's me, but I never took a highlighter into the shower.

I graduated last July, then took and passed the California bar exam, so now I'm a lawyer in California. The only problem is that I live in Massachusetts. I'm like the Wicked Witch of the West in Munchkinland: I have no power here. Actually, the challenge of getting permission to take the Massachusetts bar exam is one that I am just beginning to take up. It will require a waiver, a rule change, a new statute or a court decision, but I'm optimistic that, in time, our Concord degrees will be accepted in more and more states, mine included. As for practicing law, I don’t plan to hang out a shingle, but I do hope to engage in project work that only a lawyer is permitted to do. What that will be remains to be seen.

Melissa, who would hide out doing extra credit assignments to avoid my rants, is now a "pre-law scholar" in her sophomore year at Marquette University. As part of this program she has been provisionally accepted into Marquette's law school, should she choose to go there after graduation. Who says parents don’t have any influence on their kids?

Mary, through osmosis, now approaches family disagreements more like a lawyer. Her favorite retort to my questioning is “This isn’t a deposition, you know!” Then there’s something about my accusing her of “assuming facts not in evidence” that gets her goat; I can’t figure out quite what it is. But, all in all, I think she’s finding me easier to live with than when I spent all of my time thinking about or speaking about the law. Now it’s just most of my time, and I still put out the garbage.

I started Concord as a “lover of the law.” I left it equally enamored with it yet more realistic about its limitations. Most important, I have become less “conclusory” in my thinking and opinions about most things. While I loved every minute of my time at Concord, I spent many hours amazed at the amount of work we were expected to complete, especially in the now-infamous Legal Analysis & Writing course. The Yahoo groups I started with just seven members, ConcordLawStudents and ConcordLawSchool, have grown to over 400 members each and were the first of the over 40 school-related groups that now exist.I’m pleased by that. And I’m pleased for and grateful to the many brilliant, interesting, wise and wonderful friends I’ve made on this journey into the legal profession.


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Student Life

Serendipity at Mid-Module: A Casebook Opens a Door to the Past Jim Tyson, EJD 3L (rising)

It’s late on a chill autumn evening, as I pore over Federal income tax timing principles. Compared to the Byzantine Internal Revenue Code sections and Treasury Regulations, the casebook narrative is light reading. Nevertheless, there’s a lot to get through. I turn up the gas fire a bit and soldier on. Another hour passes.

Suddenly, I pause. There was something about the page I had just read. I skim back through the narrative, and there I see again what had triggered this almost unconscious recognition, as I skip back through a list of citations: “In support of such result, petitioner relies on … Urban A. Lavery, 5 T.C. 1283 (1945), affd. (C.A.7, 1946) 158 F.2d 859; …”.

In a flash of recognition I realize that there almost certainly couldn’t have been more than one Urban A. Lavery, and that this citation must be to a case that my grandfather had been involved in. This realization led me to a mini-odyssey of discovery of the life and times of a man of whom I had only vague childhood memories.

I knew from my mother that her father had been a lawyer. I remembered one story she liked to tell about her undergraduate days at Northwestern University, where she was taking a course in Constitutional Law. She arrived late one morning, to the irritation of her crusty, Professor Kingsfield-like instructor, who pointedly asked her if she might have any particular insights on the case being discussed. The case the class was discussing was one that had recently been decided in the U.S. Supreme Court, on an equal protection challenge to an Illinois congressional districting plan, and as it happened, it was a case that her father had argued, before such notables as Justices Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas.

Urban Augustine Lavery was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania in 1885. He was the son of a second- generation Irish immigrant, whose own father had come to America from Belfast in 1840. As an undergraduate, Urban Lavery played varsity football at the University of Pennsylvania; in 1906, his team played the first “intersectional” game with the University of Michigan, defeating them 17 – 0. He earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1910, and was admitted to the Illinois bar the same year.

He practiced law in Chicago, and became a partner in a Chicago firm before interrupting his legal career, to serve as a First Lieutenant in the First Gas Regiment of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. He was severely wounded by a shell fragment at Fleville, France in the Argonne in 1918, and he later wrote several articles for the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Register recounting his war experiences.

After the war, he resumed an active involvement in civic and community affairs. He served as a legislative draftsman during the Illinois Constitutional Convention that took place from 1919 – 1921, and served on the Chicago Board of Education, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, the Cook County Board, the National Recovery Act (NRA) Compliance Board, and as counsel to the City of Chicago. He was the author of the Illinois Revenue Act of 1939, the Illinois Election Statutes of 1944, and other enacted laws.

He was a prolific contributor to the Illinois Law Review, as well as the American Bar Association Journal. One of his interests was in promoting clear and simple legal writing—he wrote a three-part series for the Journal entitled “The Language of the Law: Defects in the Written Style of Lawyers, Some Illustrations, the Reasons Therefor, and Certain Suggestions as to Improvement” in 1921 and 1922. Another interest was in the growing problem of “the finding of the law.” He noted that the volume of local and federal case decisions was growing at a compound rate, and that some new approach to managing this flood of legal findings must be found, lest the very foundations of common law become eroded by the sheer difficulty involved in researching prior cases. As late as the early 1950s, this was still a subject of great interest to him. He frequently hypothesized the development of some kind of automated method for indexing and referencing decisions, effectively foreseeing the development of online legal research services, such as WestLaw.

At various times, he served as the editor-in-chief for West Publishing Company, as the managing editor of the ABA Journal, and as a professor of constitutional law at Loyola University Law School. In 1952, he published Federal Administrative Law, Its Practice and Application, a survey of the development of Administrative Law from the 1930s, through the passage of the Federal Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, and the years following.

He continued to practice law throughout his career, and in addition to the redistricting case cited above, was known for having successfully argued the so-called “Children’s Case” (Daily v. Parker, 152 F. 2d 174, 1945), that established that a federal court could recognize and enforce a cause of action by children against a woman who caused their father to leave them.

Urban A. Lavery passed away in August 1959, leaving his wife, Grace Donahue Lavery, three married daughters, and a gaggle of grandchildren, including one little boy who many years later would be following

Urban A. Lavery, ca. 1940. Author’s mother on left.

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quietly in his footsteps.

Although my family has kept some of his books and papers, much of what I have learned about my grandfather has been through the incredible reach and scope of Internet search engines. Access to the online services that Concord provides for its students has been invaluable. WestLaw, of course, provides a comprehensive and easily-searched database of Supreme Court, Federal and State cases, fulfilling my grandfather’s vision of a modern solution to the problem of “the finding of the law.” HeinOnline has electronic facsimile copies of many of his articles. Through HeinOnline, I was able to note his amusing use of Shakespeare in introducing his series on the Language of the Law:

“When Shakespeare made Hamlet say to the grave-digger:

Why may not this be the skull of a lawyer? Where now be his quiddities, his quillets, His cases, his tenures, and his tricks?

he was paying the profession a real compliment; and a compliment none the less because it was intended as a slur . . . [f]or the ability of the lawyer to confuse others by the use of words has long been the subject of proverbs.”

I took up the study of law for a number of reasons. I expected to gain some understanding and appreciation of legal reasoning and argument, of common and statutory law. What I never expected is that along the way I would stumble upon a link to my own family history that would lead me on this little journey of exploration.

And the case that I stumbled upon in my Federal Taxation casebook that led me this way? A minor one, practically a footnote, which decided that a check delivered to a cash basis taxpayer on December 30, is income in the year of delivery. It was just enough to catch the eye of a weary student late on an autumn evening, and lead him to learn of some of the remarkable accomplishments of his own grandfather.

__________ 1 Freeland, James J., et al. Fundamentals of Federal Income Taxation. 12th ed. New York: Foundation Press, 2002, p. 591. 2 Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 66 S. Ct. 1198, 90 L. Ed. 1432 (1946).

3 Lavery, Urban A., “The Language of the Law: Defects in the Written Style of Lawyers, Some Illustrations, the Reasons Therefor, and Certain Suggestions as to Improvement”, 7 American Bar Association Journal 277, 1921.


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Student Life

Competent to Testify Keith Altman, 2a05

“The court finds this witness competent to testify.”

These are the magic words that all expert witnesses look for when testifying for the first time. They signify that an important milestone has been reached. In general, the rules of evidence do not allow a fact witness to express opinions. They may only testify as to facts of which they have personal knowledge. An exception is made in the case of experts who are allowed to express opinions. In order to testify as an expert, the expert must be qualified by the court and these qualifications can be based upon such things as training and experience.

Recently, I had the opportunity to testify in one of the biggest criminal trials in South Carolina history; South Carolina v. Pittman. In 2001 at the age of 12, Christopher Pittman murdered his grandparents with a .410 shotgun. After first blaming the murders on an unidentified individual, he later confessed to the crimes.

If this were all that there was to the story, there would not have been much of a trial. Shortly before the murders, Christopher had been prescribed the anti-depressants Paxil and then Zoloft. There has been much in the news over the last year concerning these drugs known as SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and their potential to cause suicide and other violent behavior. In 2004, a black box warning was added for these very same effects in children such as Christopher.

Because of the potential that a pharmaceutical may have contributed to the murders, the defense attorney, Andy Vickery, contacted me to see if I could help with the defense. One of my specialties is the analysis of pharmaceutical adverse event data. I possess the entire FDA adverse event database for drugs and consult regularly on its contents. Andy asked me to see what information there was in the database with respect to Zoloft. This formed the crux of my proposed testimony.

While I have been deposed on many occasions in the past and my work has been an integral part of the opinions of several experts, I had never testified in a trial before. While this is stressful enough, the trial had caught the interest of CourtTV, which chose to televise the entire trial. Therefore, not only was this to be my first trial testimony, assuming I was qualified by the court, but it was to be televised live. Needless to say there was a little pressure.

On Super Bowl Sunday, February 6, 2005, I flew down to Charleston to help prepare for my testimony. As a good Concord student should, I brought my books with me and read on the plane. Even in the midst of a huge trial, there is always some down time and Pittman was no exception. Most of America shuts down for the Super Bowl. I spent the afternoon and evening with the defense team, some of the other experts, as well as the television crew for CBS’ 48 Hours. While we enjoyed the game, there was still a sense of nervousness in the air.

I spent Monday morning preparing my exhibits for my testimony and then headed over to the courthouse. After having seen the proceedings on television the week before, it was very strange to be in the very same court room live. It was almost as if I knew the place and the people before I even got there. But nothing really prepared me for sitting next to Chris’ family and listening to the testimony of his sister. At that point it stopped being just another trial that we all hear about. It really hit me that we were talking about a real person and a real family.

On Monday and Tuesday, I had lunch with the defense team as well as Chris and his family. Chris is very tall for a 15 year old boy. He also was extremely quiet and reserved. Sitting there with him, I almost didn’t know what to say. It was clear he understood the gravity of the situation. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking. At one point, it was just the two of us in the conference room. So we talked about a favorite subject of mine – food. Sandwiches and wraps had been brought in and Chris was enjoying them. But at every minute, I was afraid that something I said would put him more on edge than he already was. This lead to a great deal of silence.

On Tuesday, after lunch, my time had come. Earlier that morning, I had set up a cable so that I could hook up to the court’s presentation system with my laptop while I sat at the witness stand. In the few years since the court had been wired for audio-visual presentations, I was the first witness to need to use a laptop from the stand. This created some amusement for the court staff while we tried to figure out the most efficient way to do this.

After taking the stand, both sides proceeded to voir dire me for almost an hour. This was both sides’ opportunity to examine my qualifications so that the court could determine whether I was competent to testify. What was unusual about this was that it was done in the presence of the jury. The prosecution attacked me very aggressively in an attempt to discredit the value of the information with which I work. While I felt comfortable defending my methods and methodology, I still feared that the judge would not be convinced. And then the point came where I was tendered to the Judge and my heart was racing. This was the moment when everything comes to a head. When the judge looked over to me and said the words:

“I find this witness competent to testify...”

And so I am now an official expert witness qualified in court.


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Family Corner

The Cuckold v. The Other Robert G. Gillum

Now that more than twenty months have passed since my partner first enrolled in Concord, I think I’ve got a sense of what life will be like for the coming two and a half years, and I wonder how many others are living some variation of the following theme.

As the support partner of a Concord law student you sometimes feel as if you’re being cuckolded. Law school is now your loved one’s harsh and demanding live-in paramour. Every plan, every movie, even dinner together all depends on the whims of Concord--hereafter referred to as the other (man, woman, computer, pick your own other). The promise of a richer and more rewarding life is powerful (whatever your idea of riches and rewards may be), and this is part of the reason you accede to the demands and say, “That’s okay, dear. I understand how important this is. I am proud of you and will help in any way I can.” But still it seems that any plans for quality time together depend entirely on the other.

The first year is perhaps the harshest adjustment in your relationship as the one you love and share support with becomes almost a ghost in the house, engrossed in live chats or recorded lectures, studying casebooks, fretting over upcoming exams, and occasionally grabbing a few hours of sleep. If your partner also has a job then you are all too often the odd one out. As the year progresses you become used to brief hugs while passing in the hallway, bumping into each other in the bathroom, the strange noises that emerge from the den, and waking up at five A.M. to an alarm clock not your own when you’d really prefer to sleep until nine, but it’s all okay because the one you love has embarked on an intense course of study, and in the process, your lives together transform…and then, like an illegitimate child, comes the Baby Bar.

Everything you’ve become accustomed to is suddenly turned upside down by the demands of the other that you’ve accepted and even embraced. The door to the den is constantly closed, but discernible pacing can be heard from within. The most familiar phrase you hear is “Not now, I’m writing an essay, the BB is coming up, you know.” The final month of the first year seems like an eternity of wondering, will we ever have a normal life again? And then comes the review weekend. Now, instead of merely being cuckolded, you are truly a “Concord widow.” Your partner is out of your life for at least four days; the quiet in the house is deafening and the emptiness unbearable. You repeatedly pray to whatever gods you have to give your partner the courage and strength to get through this, and then (if you should happen to live near a testing location) on the Monday before the exam your partner reappears, exhausted, hungry, disheveled, and tugging on your heartstrings for all the sympathy you have. Looking every bit like a lost and exhausted puppy, this newly returned waif looks up at you and says, “We’re not supposed to study today. Bracci said we should rest, but I’m really, really nervous about the test tomorrow. Is it okay if I spend most of the day reviewing my rule statements and MCQ’s? We could maybe go out to dinner, Jack in the Box be OK?” You smile and silently chomp at the bit. You might even remember a few curses to hurl at the third party to your relationship, and you think to yourself, “What the hell is this?” If Bracci said to take the day off then TAKE THE DAY OFF! You feel frozen in the moment, unable to move, think, or speak. But you don’t want to upset your partner right before this first state administered exam, and so, in a voice that threatens to crack and give away your true feelings, you say, “Of course dear, whatever you think you need to do. I know how important this is.” And, of course, it is very important. The next day you wait while your partner sits for the Baby Bar, and you wonder what the prevailing mood will be this evening.

Year two starts with the pending exam results hanging over both of your heads. The test scores won’t be released for weeks and yet the other calls your partner onward, like the winds on Bali Ha’i, “Come to me... come to me.” So your partner logs on, signs up, orders the 2L books and the second year begins. Maybe there was a little break of some kind between the Baby Bar and year two, but it’s just a blur of “I’m too tired to fix/do/plan anything. Can’t it wait? I’ll have another break in a few months.” As you try to diplomatically assert a little force you realize one glaring truth: every conversation has now become a chance for your partner to practice “legalese.” Each discussion becomes a protracted debate that strays further and further from the original point. You learn that your partner has become a virtuoso at constantly sidestepping the real issue, and you come to realize that you are just never right. This is obviously part and parcel of the journey toward becoming a lawyer, so you grin and bear it.

Spring cleaning gets postponed indefinitely, the weeds in the yard are a little higher, one of the cars still sounds like a tractor when it starts up, and you’ve started talking to yourself and to the pets. Listening to Muzak while on hold with the bank is often the height of your entertainment for the week. You’re taking care of almost all of the household business by yourself, and life settles once again into the now familiar routine of the last year.

Then one evening your partner bolts out of the study and anxiously asks, “Did I get anything in the mail today?” You say, “Nothing today,” while wondering what could be so important. Suddenly, like a bad dream from your childhood, it comes back to you….the results of the Baby Bar are due. Your mind starts racing, what if…the result is not good? To those of you who’s partners passed on the first time around I say, “Congratulations to both of you,” and to those who’ve watched with sweaty palms and a prayer on the lips as their own law student partner opened the envelope and realized that you both will have to go through it again, I say, “I’ve been through that, too.” By now the other has taken your loved one deep into year two, which won’t count for much (as far as the CalBar is concerned) if there isn’t a successful outcome on one of the next two tries at the Baby Bar, and as time goes on you see that look of desperation return. All you can say is, “I know you can do it this time!” and resign yourself to granting even more quiet study time than before. The other has won out again, but still you smile, knowing how important it is. When the review weekend comes around for the second time you are a seasoned pro. You know what to say. The car is gassed up. You help your partner prepare and pack (literally and figuratively) for the time away, and you’ve also prepared a survival pack for your time alone at home. The refrigerator is full of your favorite foods, you’ve just helped inflate the Blockbuster earnings per share with your movie rentals, and you settle back to get through the weekend as best you can.

The cycle repeats, the Monday before the test comes…but this time your partner says, “Maybe I should take Bracci’s advice and not study all day today.” Your partner does seem to stay further away from the books this time (at least while you’re looking), and so for the first time in months the two of you have a nice dinner

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out somewhere together. You sit around that evening and catch up on the family news, maybe play cards, or perhaps just share a quiet moment together.

Tuesday morning comes, and you find your loved one long gone (you didn’t even wake up this time) and by Thursday life is back to its previous state of affairs, the other being the affair once again. You realize that this will be the way of things for the next two and a half years at least.

I have found these first two years, in some ironic way, have solidified our relationship, the old adage concerning absence and fonder hearts comes to mind, but it’s much more than that. I have felt many times like I did when my own children were small, needing more and more independence and yet there I was ready to pick them up when they fell. So what if the holiday decorations still haven’t been put in the shed? So what if your partner audaciously presumes to edit the article you’re supposed to be writing? Our student partners need us and rely on us to be there, to understand that the harsh mistress is not really a mistress at all, and that as much as our partners may enjoy legal education (at least some aspects of it) they also are looking forward to the finality (and new beginning) of graduation and passing the Bar. Instead of a paramour on the side, perhaps our partners’ legal education is more like an impassioned old auntie who needs an intense amount of time and attention, but who in the end leaves you her estate in the hope that you can do more with it than she did. So I continue to endure the increasing demands of law school, the sleepless nights, the dinners alone as live chats waft in from another room, and the ceaseless debates, and I tell my student partner how proud I am, and I await (in an odd mix of anticipation and dread) the final days, the bar exam, and graduation.

Robert Glenn Gillum is an entertainer living in Los Angeles with his partner David Dempsay, 2L.


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Family Corner

What Do You Really Want to Be When You Grow Up? Lessons Learned By a Spouse Who Has Been Through It All Again, and Again, and Again. Joan Oswald

I remember nearly 30 years ago when Richard, then an enthusiastic graduate student, first presented me with his letter of acceptance to medical school. In the midst of our newfound excitement, we now had to take pause and hurriedly rearrange all of our plans in order to move to Chicago for the start of professional school. We got married and began our new life in the Windy City a few weeks later.

In the analog world, I quickly found myself a gross anatomy lab and book widow. Somewhere in the midst of our spare bedroom, I knew I had a spouse by the characteristic smell of formalin-impregnated clothing and the primal grunts for “brain food.” As a critical care nurse, I found myself amazed at the sheer quantities of food four starving medical students can consume during crunch time for examinations. The first two years of basic sciences quickly went by; and, he started his clinical years. I found myself thinking that once his rotations assumed some sense of regularity, I would be able to spend more quality time with him. Boy was I ever wrong.

In the midst of my illogical assumption that there was life after basic sciences, I found myself discussing “quality time” and academic widowhood with the wife an older surgeon. Her advice was short and sweet. She said that you could always tell the seasoned spouses amongst the professional students and staff; they were the ones who were always found with a bag of “goodies” which invariably included an ample supply of junk food to quickly and efficiently placate the starving spouse, a trashy novel to bide time, and a change of clothes just in case there was a change in the call schedule and we had an opportunity to see the town and act like newlyweds. I initially laughed at this simple advice until I looked around us and found a sea of spouses with said emergency supplies. First lesson learned in my quest to understand the elusive and starving professional student: go primal early. Maslow was right in his hierarchy of needs theory.

Following another three years of clinical rotations and residency, we both took a deep breath and asked ourselves what we wanted to do now that we were “grown up.” Richard once again decided that you could never know enough. He entered another year of post-graduate training in aerospace medicine; and, we found ourselves on our way to Hawaii. After only a few months of being grown up, Richard found himself bored with his newfound freedom as an adult. So, in between wars and deployments to Southeast Asia, he started graduate school “just for fun.” This new period of rediscovered youth would find him back in the classroom for the next several years. Lesson two learned in my quest to understand graduate students: they never grow up; there is always something new to learn.

During that time, his quest for knowledge and enthusiasm started to rub off on me. I started working on yet another graduate degree with him (purportedly his last). Dating had taken on a whole new meaning. “Honey, let’s go to the library... you have a babysitter for the kids right?” “We can go out for dinner afterwards or maybe catch a flick.” Several hours later, tote bag in hand with sustenance, textbooks (trashy novel buried underneath for those times when my academic fun meter was pegged), and a change of clothes (now for when the kids put food and chocolate skid marks on my clothes rather than for a night on the town) we drove by the theater on our way to the babysitter and promised to catch that flick when that pending term paper or exam was a matter of history. Lesson three learned in my quest to understand graduate students: always get it in writing (I should have known that this would be prophetic by this point in his career).

Our family grew in size and complexity; and, his responsibilities with the Navy actually distracted him for several years after graduate school. “Mommy and Daddy” school with four teenagers, and a few more wars proved to tame the academic beast in him for a short while. Lesson four: while the world hates despots and wars, they have their merits for the professional school widow; it is the only way to get them out of the classroom and into the workforce.

Two years ago, I was looking for a way to balance motherhood, career, and professional growth. I wanted to pursue something “different.” I felt that it was now time; it was my turn to rediscover my youth. Concord was kind enough to send me several bulletins. The moment I handed Richard the CLS bulletin I realized my monumental mistake. Saddam had capitulated, there were no more wars to distract him, and he was “bored” once again. Lesson five for professional school widows: professional students (and sailors) are high “mentation” maintenance creatures; find creative ways to distract them and above all keep them away from “.edu” websites.

He was accepted into the CLS program shortly thereafter. I subsequently resigned myself to four more years of academic widowhood. However, I have found that law school date nights are much different. I no longer have to wait for him outside a classroom or hospital; and, can even talk to him during his lectures (something we used to call kibitzing but now refer to as a “side bar”). I have replaced the “goodie bag” with a refrigerator full of health foods to combat the maladies of middle age. I still read my nursing publications (and the occasional trashy novel) while he is engrossed in his virtual studies. And, with the hours he keeps trying to assimilate this new logic form and language, the only clothes we need to change into are reserved solely for sleeping (which I might add we have done very little of since the start of this new endeavor. Talk about loss of consortium!!!) Lesson six: when your spouse identifies themselves as a “professional student” realize that they may really mean it; they really are a “professional” student.

Enjoy the journey folks. It’s the price you and your spouse pay for excellence; and, I guarantee (he recommends that I strike that but quickly adds the disclaimer that it is only a personal recommendation and not legal advice), promise (no, he says to strike that too), assure you (I think that this assurance is finally litigation-safe as his nose is buried back in the books. But, where the heck is the good Professor Moye he always quotes to “side bar” with on such matters) that it is worth every bit of the time and effort you both put into the process.

Editor’s note: Joan Oswald is a Critical Care RN who resides in Virginia with her spouse Richard (2b04) and their four daughters.


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Study Aids and Tips

Ten-Step Finals Preparation Checklist for 1L Jim Gallagher, 2L

1. Make sure you complete all quizzes and essays a week before your finals so that you can drop your lowest grade in each subject (can finally get rid of that K quiz 1 grade...)

2. Complete your rules statements for each subject. The best method is to write them yourself, then check what you've done against a commercial source or swap with another student. If you have CEO mod 7 available, do the rule statement work and submit them so you can get your graded results before the finals (so that you can use your best possible rule statements)

3. Have a quick, simple memorizable outline for the order to address an essay (e.g., K = what law? Merchants? formation (LACC), defenses, performance, breach, remedies, third party stuff). This helps you focus on the issues and their order.

4. Build a couple templates for the obvious topics. Templates are highly recommended as a way to get started under the pressure of test taking. Write your template a few times both typed and handwritten. Writing by hand helps you format the page for outlines.

5. Re-read all your graded Concord quizzes. Recommend printing them out and going through them deliberately.Highlight the correct answer explanations.Highlight the rule statements in a different color.

6. Take one day and do a practice exam. No notes. The goal here is to get the feel for the exam and the timing. See where you must take a potty break. Use three essays from the CalBar FYLSX past questions files so that you can use their model answers later. Write them one morning in three hours - timed. Stop writing after 3 hours. Don't look at the answers. Take a break, have lunch, then take a 100 question MCQ exam in three hours - preferably of MCQs you haven’t used before (PLI or Finz are both good sources).Stop at three hours. Have dinner. Estimate how well you think you did -- don't cut this step, its an important self evaluation. Now grade your essays and MCQs. Did you do as well or better than you thought? Only you need to know.

7. Ensure you have printer paper available, good toner/ink supply, and a fax machine handy (just in case).

8. Set up your finals essay template. All 3 of your finals essays must be uploaded as one file. This is egg-sucking 101 for some; but here's a good methodology: Create a file on your hard drive called "1L Finals". You want this file as close to the C: root as possible, so you don't need to search for it. The "1L" part will keep it near the top of your folders. Now, create a template for your essay. Use the "view headers/footers" function to open a header window. Insert your student number, 1L finals, the page number-space-"of"-number of pages. Close the header and footer window. Set up your paragraph formatting and your outline numbering. Save this file in your "1L Finals" folder as your IL finals upload file.

9. If CEO mod 7 is available to you, do the rule statements exercises so you have a chance to get the graded results back. Yes, I already said this. Yes, it’s that important to enter finals with good rule statements memorized (besides, I'm pedantic).

10. Work on the aspects of your self-exam that were the weakest. Study rules until they are automatic. If your family doesn't know the rules for all the intentional torts, you aren't singing loud enough in the shower...

Don't leave it to luck; but if you need it... Good luck!


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FYLSX-Related

Certe, Toto, sentio nos in Kansate non iam adesse.

BBRPG: The Past, The Present, The Future Rick Beauchamp, soon to be 2L

Greetings, fellow Concordians!

Not too long ago I found myself in attendance at an ABA accredited brick and mortar law school. I had high aspirations for a legal career. I expected a quality legal education for the tuition dollars I was spending. I was dismayed, however, at what the traditional brick and mortar law school experience entailed. The academic culture I encountered was not what I had expected. What I did expect was student camaraderie, participation in mutually beneficial study groups, and, most importantly, I expected to find students helping other students understand the legal theories we were all charged with learning.

I now find myself at Concord Law School finishing the legal studies I started in 1998. I was apprehensive when I decided to register at Concord, to say the least. I was unsure about what to expect. What I hoped for was to find a different culture than what I had experienced during my previous legal studies. I hoped for a collaborative, supportive student body, one that would not hesitate to provide to other students the guidance and resources needed to succeed.

Four months into my first year studies at Concord, while preparing to take the October 2004 FYLSX , I came across a student group called the Baby Bar Resource and Prep Group (“BBRPG”) founded by Concord student Dr. Roy Aranda. I found what I had hoped to find; a group of students reaching out to help other students learn the law, while simultaneously studying for the Bay Bar.

BBRPG: The Past. BBRPG started out as a handful of students who were preparing to take the October, 2004 administration of the FYLSX. With a relatively informal infrastructure, this group of dedicated students met on-line every Saturday to analyze multiple choice questions. On Sundays the group met on-line to issue spot and outline essay fact patterns. Exchanges between the members of this group were truly uninhibited and geared genuinely toward making clear the theories of law that were covered during first year legal studies and tested on the FYLSX. During the last days before traveling to Los Angeles in preparation for Professor Bracci’s review weekend, BBRPG held a marathon session, meeting every day, often twice a day, for eleven days. After meeting in Los Angeles, and following Professor Bracci’s review sessions, BBRPG members met after hours to continue their review of the pertinent material. In the mornings, before Professor Bracci’s scheduled review sessions, BBRPG members met for breakfast, and after the sessions for drinks and dinner. On Tuesday night, following the FYLSX exam, over twenty students gathered for a dinner celebration to enjoy each others company and to unwind from the pressures of the exam experience. Many friendships were made, and discussions of BBRPG’s future ensued.

BBRPG: The Present. BBRPG has grown from a handful of students at its inception to about 240 members today. There was little delay following the October, 2004 administration of the FYLSX before BBRPG regrouped and began planning BBRPG’s future and for the next FYLSX administration. Formal organizational meetings commenced in mid-January, 2005. A Steering Committee was formed. Moderators volunteered and were appointed to posts which were determined essential to furthering BBRPG’s established goals. A formal study session calendar was drafted and adopted enabling members to plan and study for upcoming study sessions. Study session content was developed and posted for BBRPG members to analyze in preparation for upcoming study sessions. A filing system was created where a variety of study aids and resources are posted by topic category for easy member access. Subcommittees were formed to discuss and work out plans to record and archive study session discussions so members not able to attend a study session would have access to the critical analysis of legal theories performed by fellow students. Study sessions have been recorded and are archived for use by BBRPG members. Topic-specific materials were researched and recommended to BBRPG members for use in deconstructing multiple choice questions and outlining and organizing responses to essay fact patterns. BBRPG members who had taken but not successfully passed previous FYLSX administrations posted their essay responses to the BBRPG files section for use by other BBRPG members as a means of comparison; a lesson in what not to do. A BBRPG logo was designed by Brian Moquin, 3a05, and adopted by the steering committee to represent the BBRPG’s theme: students helping students pass the FYLSX.

BBRPG has scheduled three live workshops in preparation for the June 2005 administration of the FYLSX. The Workshops will be held on Saturday, June 25, Sunday, June 26, and Monday, June 27. The Saturday and Sunday sessions will begin shortly after Professor Bracci concludes his FYLSX review sessions (approximately 5:30 p.m.). The Monday workshop will start at approximately 8:30 a.m. All three of the workshops will be held at the Crowne Hotel in Los Angeles. BBRPG is developing and will make available to all BBRPG Workshop participants a Workbook consisting of approximately 100 pages and containing condensed outlines; concise rule statements by topic (Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Law), multiple choice questions and answers; essays with model answers, and a summary of stress management-visualization techniques.

Plans have been made for BBPRG to host a dinner reception directly following the June, 2005 FYLSX so BBRPG members can socialize, solidify friendships, and discuss future goals and academic aspirations.

BBRPG: The Future. BBRPG has set a precedent. No other Concord Law School student organization exists that provides necessary support or resources comparable to what BBRPG provides. Student response to BBPRG’s theme is unrivaled. The BBRPG steering committee has responded to the needs of students looking for resources and structured study sessions by deciding to become a formally recognized Concord Law School student organization and has taken the necessary next steps towards becoming formally recognized by submitting to Concord Law School Administration the required Constitution and By-laws. BBRPG is also in the process of establishing itself as a California nonprofit corporation. This will allow BBRPG to raise funds to better serve the needs of fellow Concordians who are preparing to overcome the most important hurdle in their legal studies career: taking and passing the California Bar mandated First Year

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Law Student’s Examination.

My thanks go to the many Concord law students involved with BBRPG who have worked tirelessly towards helping their fellow students prepare for the FYLSX, and for reviving my confidence that in law school a collaborative, supportive, noncompetitive culture can exist among fellow students. I’ve previously commented that I was proud to be able to assist BBRPG in its development of a program that fosters student preparation for the FYLSX. I continue to be proud. My role as a BBRPG steering committee member and as session coordinator has been, and continues to be, a personally and professionally rewarding experience.

See you in the next study session!

Editor’s note: Rick Beauchamp, M.B.A., REB, is a BBRPG Steering Committee Member and Session Coordinator.


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FYLSX-Related


Preparing for the FYLSX Stephen Flynn, 2L

I am a 2L (on leave because of an extremely burdensome work assignment involving much travel).

My formal education is in Engineering (with much Mathematics), and I minored in Philosophy (and always have loved logic), yet the law is much more about experience than about (mere) logic. The great Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote: "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy avowed or unconscious, even with the prejudices which judges share with their follow-men, have had a great deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics." I find that I have to frequently remind myself of the truths penned by Holmes.

For me (and for many others) an FYLSX study group (and the Baby Bar Resource & Prep Group (BBRPG), founded and shepherded by Roy Aranda, is the shining example of this) is vital for self-improvement for three reasons:

To bring new ideas to the FYLSX-preparatory challenges we face; To act as a sounding board; To hold us accountable in our preparation (we have an MCQ-oriented chat session every Saturday

morning and an essay-oriented chat session every Sunday morning).

(I also recommend the SBA FYLSX Yahoo Group at CLS_SBA_FYLSX)

Running an effective study group requires time and preparation, and Roy and his mentees have selflessly devoted many hours to BBRPG. The BBRPG participants are very friendly, and we exhort each other to legal truths and to keep up the hard work of preparing for the FYLSX. Also, there have been times that fellow BBRPGers have (politely) disabused me of an errant way of thinking on a point of law. We also ease our preparatory burdens by sharing them. There have even been Relaxation & Visualization Workshops!

In writing an incomplete synopsis of my journey that is my preparing for the FYLSX (and a big part of that is my active participation in BBRPG), I modify the words of Cardozo: “The FYLSX-preparatory student, bewildered in a maze of legal rules, precedents, and FYLSX-specific rules of thumb, feels the thrill of a new apocalypse in the flash of a revealed insight. Flashes there are like this in his earlier manner as in his latest, yet the flashes grow more frequent, the thunder peals more resonant, with the movement of the weeks and BBRPG chats and posts, culminating in the Bracci FYLSX Review Weekend.”


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FYLSX-Related


Preparing for the FYLSX -- The Mount Everest of Correspondence Law School Jim Gallagher, 2L

It is said that conquering Mount Everest makes one a true mountain climber. If so, then conquering the First Year Law Student Examination (FYLSX) makes one a true law student. It is the bottleneck through which we must pass on our correspondence law trek. Not only is the exam tough, but Concord Law School students must prepare while performing responsibilities that equal or exceed law school in importance: families that struggle to understand an all-consuming passion; jobs that often entail far more than the mythical “40-hour workweek”; and a balancing of priorities to find the time to enjoy mental respite from eating in front of the computer with Guzman, Levine and Moye for dinner companions. Our preparation for the FYLSX goes far beyond the exam; it includes skill development critical to our success in law school and as practicing attorneys. What follows is all “in my humble opinion” (IMHO); and I do mean humble – I’m no authority and won’t be even after I tentatively open that anticipated and feared envelope in mid August and hopefully find a “pass”. This is just my plan for first-time success. I recommend open-minded assessment of multiple opinions/methods to find one that suits you.

Calendar: IMHO, a calendar is a must to plan our success and worthy of the little time needed to build. Buy a cheap calendar, and first note important non-law dates (because we need to work around our anniversary, birthdays, work suspensions and planned trips); then block the dates from the Thursday prior to the FYLSX administration date through the Wednesday after the exam. The Concord Essay Outreach (CEO) program includes a schedule for each class that guides appropriate preparation activities leading up to the exam. Transferring the CEO preparation timetable to the calendar reveals conflicts. The CEO plan dovetails nicely with the PLI materials sent to all students courtesy of Concord. PLI includes alternative 4-week and 8-week prep schedules. I chose the 8-week schedule and transferred it to the calendar by backing it off from the next-to-last Tuesday in June.

Essays: Tim Tyler, Ph.D., J.D., noted author of the “Nailing the Bar” series, says “. . . for most Bar applicants, the essay segment is the critical area which either causes them to pass or fail, and where a little improvement produces the most benefit” (Tyler, “Nailing the Bar: A guide to Essays”, pg 2).

SOS; CF; CEO: IMHO, these are the front-line preparation tools. Regardless of why you put off participation in these programs during 1L, it is not too late to at least do CEO. They provide a stepping stone approach to writing good essays in a format the graders are expecting. The tools within the programs focus your attention on timing, on rule statement preparation, and upon format. At a minimum, if we have not completed CEO, we are not serious about passing the FYLSX. True, it can and has been done; but it’s an extreme gamble.

Rules – there is no substitute for knowing the rules cold. Write them, say them, record them to play back in the car, like a sing-along – whatever it takes. CEO Mod 7 forced my development of rules; and a real person critiqued my rule statements. I wish I’d found time for CEO sooner.

Templates – A template is a packet of “instant essay Jell-O”. A pre-planned sequence of applicable rules covering a given topic that we can write out rapidly and “just add facts – viola; instant essay!” Templates apply for many critical aspects of each area of law. Everyone needs a homicide-murder-malice-degrees of murder-mitigation-HOP-manslaughter-attempt template that can be recited while asleep. Point blank, somebody is going to die on the FYLSX; and based on the history, its about 99% certain that the actor will have accomplices, co-felons, and/or conspirators. The web site http://www.barnonereview.com/exam%20template.htm is a great starting point to develop personal criminal templates. For Torts, my templates include negligence, strict liability (all four causes of action areas for products), and defamation. Contracts templates are a valid tool for a number of K issues: the intro to a K essay always begins with the same salient points (what law applies, are the parties merchants, etc), formation, PER, SOF, UCC formation, acceptance, 2-207, consideration, conditions, and breach are all great opportunities to create K templates.

Practice - Try to write essays at least four times a week: Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. If you can’t write, then outline. I vastly prefer to write essays that have model answers. My response might not fully agree with the model, but I can see the flow of the model and the issues that it detected and discussed. Further, since we know that the model is an “80”, if the model didn’t discuss some point we made, we can assess whether or not our point was critical to success, or a time-wasted effort that negatively impacted ability to get to more salient issues.

Add critical review to essay practice - Get a study buddy; whether it is a group or a single person. I’ve used/abused friends in the Baby Bar Resource and Preparation Group (BBRPG). I learn at least as much if not more from reviewing the work of others. Others ideas offer additional ways of attacking an issue, wording rule statements, and different styles, techniques and conclusions. BBRPG moderators offer a series of essays that we write or outline and then discuss on Sunday mornings. I also exchange practice essays with a couple of fellow students for critique, with many of the same benefits, only private. In both methods I learn things that I couldn’t on my own (the same group meets for MCQ discussion, see below).

Commercial aids – I’m lean on commercial study aids. I used Tim Tyler’s “Nailing” series early at Concord (including “Nailing the Bar – A guide to Essays” ISBN 1-879563-49-5, www.americaslegalbookstore.com; 1-800-359-8010 $25), and gained a lot from it. Tyler’s rules were a good starting point to develop my own rules from. Many people swear by Tyler and FYLSX results indicate his approach works, but I write a more “IRAC” centered approach. My favorite commercial aid is the set of Gilberts Final’s Series for 1L tapes that I bought to listen to during deployment. I listen to them during the commute to/from work, and many of my rule statements are regurgitations from the tapes.

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs):

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Scoring - MCQ results are “scaled” based upon the Bar’s assessment of the difficulty of the exam. I want to achieve a scaled score of at least 300, which would be a scaled 75%. Under some previous scaling, a 75% scaled score could be about an 82% raw score. Given the potential for scaling, I’d like to be going into the exam with an average score of about 90% on practice MCQ tests. It might be a bit high, but attainable. Even so, an 85% average should still yield a comfortable margin for some scaling and some error, and will keep my confidence high enough that I won’t panic under pressure.

Timing - I’m trying to average about 1.7 minutes per question (mpq); about 1:42 each. That leaves ten extra minutes during the exam to 1) dash to the bathroom if I must; 2) recover if I get bogged down; or 3) still complete the exam if the questions are harder than what I’m used to. It is a personal goal, and an average below 1.8 mpq will finish in time. To achieve this goal I’m trying to take an MCQ quiz five times a week on Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday. I use the PLI test bank (and make extensive use of Brian Moquin’s “simulated exam” software); the Finz book test bank I bought for participation in BBRPG; the Concord MCQ’s I accumulated over the course of 1L; and the practice quizzes administered by the CLS_SBA_FYLSX group (the group’s mentors have passed the exam. They score quizzes and return the graded quiz, with answers and often helpful commentary, directly to the student via email. The group also has practice essays with model answers for self critique). I plan to take at least 1200 MCQ’s prior to the FYLSX, and after about 475 am already seeing fact patterns, red herrings, and “wrong on the law” answers repeated in MCQ’s from differing sources. I don’t expect to retain every MCQ, but hope that through familiarity I’ll speed recognition of issues and won’t make the same mistake twice.

Rules - There is no substitute for rules… did I say that? Where essays test your ability to apply general rules to a set of facts; the MCQ’s test our ability to apply rules precisely. The inter-relationship is that if you know the rules well enough to pass the MCQ portion with an 85% correct rate, you can probably recite those same rules on essays with ease.

MCQ Method – The BBRPG uses the Finz method. Under Finz, one reads the call of the question first, in order to determine what “role” the question asks us to assume. The potential responses are analyzed next. Often, responses are wrong on points of law and can be eliminated before even reading the full question. Even if not, reading the responses helps focus attention on the issues, so that when we next read the full question, the critical facts stand out better. I don’t use the Finz method exclusively, and in fact if the first glance at the MCQ reveals a relatively short set of facts, its often easier just to read the question and respond, reverting to Finz’ method if there is a “close tie” between potential responses.

Interaction - Each week the BBRPG group posts a set of MCQ’s for group review/discussion via Pal Talk every Saturday morning. The Finz method is not used exclusively. The sessions are an invaluable learning/reinforcement tool: various theories are discussed, different rational for choosing the response, and what clues come from within the question. Additionally, the group moderator, Dr. Roy Aranda, posts a daily MCQ of high degree of difficulty based upon obscure law, detailed interpretation, or hard to discriminate answer options. Board members post their best rationale for selecting a response and eliminating others. It’s a fun way to recognize challenging MCQ situations while exploring a detailed knowledge of underlying law. Students take turns researching difficult areas of law and posting research results. The group files include a number of study resources, organized by subject and type.

Pressure Reduction: To reduce pressure on my California trip, I already have room reservations (thanks to the BBRPG travel coordinator, Eunice Marsh). I’m registered for the exam and will certify my laptop as soon as possible. I have the requisite 3.5 inch floppy drive. As soon as I can get the software, I’ll start writing all my essays on the laptop I’ll take to the exam, with the software I’ll be using there. As soon as I know where I’ll be traveling from, I’ll make plane reservations. Several people have been kind enough to tell me about how the exam works, what the environment is like, and what to expect. I think early preparation and a well organized trip is crucial in reducing stress prior to the exam and in making the most of the Concord weekend review session.


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FYLSX-Related


Get in Shape for the FYLSX Susan Monk, CU24

Whether you’ll be using your laptop or lucky pen for the FYLSX, your body (in addition to your mind) needs to be in shape for exam day. The bad news is that test day will be very hard on your hands and arms and most people will experience some pain. The good news is that you can train your body for this day just like you’re training your mind for it.

Your body may be in a stressful or awkward position while taking the exam. Add the repetitive motion of writing or typing, and there is an increased chance of injury. Being in shape for the exam will help your body recover more quickly and prevent future injuries. While studying or taking exams at home, you have the ability to create an environment which minimizes the stress on your body. You won’t have this luxury at the FYLSX testing centers, so you’ll have to train your body to be able to adapt to an unfamiliar setting more easily.

Learn to listen to the signals your body sends you. Of course you can’t respond to all its messages during the exam, but proper training will help reduce your chances of injury and improve the communication and cooperation between your mind and body.

As you are already working several hours toward being able to do 4 essays and 100 MCQ’s, these stretches will only add a few minutes to your regular exercise or pre-study routine. They will increase your body’s flexibility.

Some basic rules to follow while stretching: Stretch until you feel a mild tension that relaxes as you hold the stretch. This should take between 10 and 20 seconds. If a stretch hurts, ease up on the intensity. Stop doing the stretch if you can’t do it without pain. Breathe slowly and deeply while you stretch. Consult your health care provider before beginning a stretching program, definitely if you have had any recent surgery, muscle or joint problems.

Stretches Neck Stretch: Sit or stand up straight with your shoulders relaxed and arms hanging at sides. Look straight ahead. Slowly tilt one ear to the shoulder. Repeat on the other side.

Shoulder Roll: Start in the same position as the neck stretch. Lift your shoulders up like you are shrugging, roll them towards the back and around to the starting position. Repeat 5 to 10 times then reverse direction.

Chest stretch: Stand in a doorway. Place your arms up in the shape of a goal post with your hands on the door frame. Lean through to stretch out the pectoral muscles on the chest.

Wrist stretch: Start in the same position as the neck stretch. Bend your elbows so that your forearms are parallel to the floor. Place your palms together so wrists are flexed (praying hands). Place backs of hands together to stretch the extensors.

Finger Fan: Start in the same position as neck stretch. Bend your elbows so that your forearms are parallel to the floor. Gently stretch your fingers out like a fan. Keep your wrists straight. Relax, and then bend your fingers at the knuckles. Stretch your fingers out again.

Lower body stretch: Lay on the floor with bent knees. Place your hands out at 90° from the body. Bring the left ankle up to the side of the right knee. Bring both legs over to the right until you feel a good stretch along the side of the hip, in the lower back, or along the ribcage. Keep the upper body flat on the floor. Repeat on other side.

Exam Day Do a few of these before you sit down and are waiting for the exam to start. During the exam, don’t forget about your body mechanics while under pressure. Insert a few seconds of stretching between essays or after doing 15 to 20 MCQ’s. Do the neck stretch, wrist and hand stretches as described above. While reading a question, do some shoulder rolls or shake out your hands. To help your shoulders, pull them back and down whenever you think about it.

After the Exam During the exam, your muscles may have become overly tense, so schedule a massage for after the exam, or within a couple of days. Continue doing these stretches on a regular basis. Ice your hands if necessary. Celebrate and enjoy a glass of wine or your beverage of choice.

For more stretches, please visit http://www.susanmonkrmt.com/stretch.html Contact me for more information at [email protected] or [email protected]

Wishing you all the best and I’ll see you at the review weekend.

Editor’s note: Susan Monk RMT, L.Est will be taking the FYLSX in June. She has owned and operated the body dynamic microspa providing therapeutic massage, skin care services, waxing, and spa body treatments in Houston, TX for seven years.

Bibliography Anderson, Bob. Stretching. Bolinas, CA: Shelter Publications, Inc. 2000. Calais-Germain, Blandine and Andrée Lamotte. Anatomy of Movement Exercises. Seattle, WA: Eastland Press. 1992. Greene, Lauriann. Save your Hands! Injury Prevention for Massage Therapists. Seattle, WA: Infinity Press. 1995.

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Law Humor

Still Crazy After All These Years? Rick Narad, 2b04

I met M'Naughten On the street last night I was so glad to see it

I just smiled And we talked about some old times And we drank ourselves some beers

Still crazy after all these years Oh, still crazy after all these years

I am the kind of man With a mind disease

So at the time of my crime I didn't know the nature and quality of my acts

Or that they were wrong

And I ain't no fool for voices That whisper in my ears

Still crazy after all these years Oh, still crazy after all these years

Four in the morning Tapped out, feeling Irresistible impulses That I can't control

I'll never worry Why should I?

I know it's all gonna fade

Now I sit by my window And I watch the cars go by I fear I'll do some damage

One fine day But I would not be convicted

By a jury of my peers Still crazy after all these years

Oh, still crazy Still crazy

Still crazy after all these years


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