The Fool's Gold-en Rule

As most of you know, I am in my third and final year of law school. It has, for the most part, been a rich and stimulating experience with (mostly) smart and respectable people. Sometimes things happen, though, that make me embarassed to be part of this profession and afraid for the future of law and lawyerdom.

In several of my classes throughout these three years, professors have taken time to instruct us how to not be assholes when we become attorneys. Examples include:

• "If someone shows up 5 minutes late to a deposition, you don't need to report it to the judge, reschedule, and charge your opponent for costs. We've all been 5 minutes late."
• "When negotiating with prosecutors, don't accuse them of personally detesting the Constitution. They are just doing their jobs and most of them are perfectly lovely people. "
• In drafting interrogatories, don't use unnecessarily obtuse language or complex sentence structure. Think of interrogatories YOU have to answer and how you would like them to be worded. "

To me, these all seems to be variations of "treat others the way you would like to be treated" a/k/a The Golden Rule. Didn't we learn this in pre-school? Or at HOME as toddlers? Sure, a friendly reminder will do now and again, but I find it sad that law professors know they need to devote substantial time to reminding professional students and soon-to-be officers of the courts of this country to treat each other with basic human decency and respect.

I realize that this post may invite a plethora of lawyer jokes, but remember who our administrator is. The lawerly-inclined on this forum would never make jokes about your chosen profession. We learned the Golden Rule at about the same time we learned to brush our teeth, despite what my law school professors would have you think.

a thermos and nalgene crowd

I arrived at a potluck this week with two liter bottles of soda and yellow plastic cups. Coke and Sprite. I considered purchasing diet (that would've been my choice) but figured more people like regular. I wasn't the only one to bring soda to this gathering of documentary students. But the other person purchased Moxie (a local cola) and rasberry ginger ale. Not a single person drank my offering. And it's not like there was beer or anything. I left with both bottles unopened. I just took a couple of swigs from the neon green bottle and thought I'd write to all of you. Do you not drink soda? Am I living in the past? Do your social groups drink it? I'm just curious.

How did you spend your Thursday nights in 1990?

This is it, folks. Finally. If you don't already know, I am thrilled to be the first to tell you that the 1st season of 90210 is being released on DVD on November 7th, 2006. We have waited years and years. I cannot account for the timing but for that Aaron Spelling no longer around (RIP) to object to its release due to his embarassment that his dear Tori played the ditzy virgin. But, it matters not.

What counts is that just in time for the season in which no person in their right mind would go outside for more than 5 minutes because of sub-zero temperatures and massive snow drifts, we have some old friends to catch up with. I have already pre-ordered my copy and I encourage you do the same.

Also, if I don't return phonecalls between November 7th and 2007, you'll understand why. Dylan McKay and I will be cuddled up by the fire, reliving those Thursday nights from so many years ago.