Columbia Class of 2006 Blog

Law school grading myths

An article on common misconceptions with regards to law school grades. Since we're all going to care about this soon, I suppose. (From JD2B).

Blue Laws

I see Anthony noticed blue laws on his other blog. Blue laws are nothing new for me. I live in the blue law capital of America, Bergen County, NJ. NJ leaves blue laws up to individual counties and they have been retained only in Bergen. Virtually nothing aside from food can be sold in the county on Sunday, and unlike in other places a different day cannot be substituted. One municipality goes farther to prohibit any business from being conducted at all, including regular office work. I still do not know how these laws pass constituitonal muster, though it seems that they no longer have much to do with religion and more to do with traffic. In regard to Anthony's point about liquor sales in NY, they changed the law last year to allow liquor stores to pick the day they close, on the assumption that more alcohol would be sold on Sunday, which would bring in greater tax revenues. Not sure why they did not just scrap the laws altogether.

To highlight, or not to highlight?

It's been over five years since I was a student, and I have to admit that getting into the swing of taking notes is taking me a while. At the moment, I'm reviewing the cases, jotting down brief answers to exercises (or doing them in my head), and then transfering cases and notes to my outline after the classes (and some review).

Which leaves me with highlighting passages in the book. Since I spend most of my time summarising the passages in the case, I don't really highlight them, and I never got into the habit while an undergrad. But everyone around me seems a highlighter addict.

Anyone have advice on to highlight or not, and what it's usefulness is? I think I'll have a better idea what's effective once I've taken the first set of exams, but then again by then it's too late...

Even more on books

I just ordered my first book, used from a seller on Amazon, so we will see how long it takes to show up. The guy claimed it was like new, so hopefully it is worth the 69.99 he charged me for it.

Speaking of books...

As some of you might have noticed over at my other blog, this blog supports integration with Amazon.com, due to a wonderful Moveabletype/Amazon plugin. Anything purchased through these links puts some money into my Amazon ID account, since I'm an 'associate.' As I explained, this was basically an excuse for me to learn some SOAP and XML before moving to New York and learning about 'how to worry about keeping my SOAP in the showers and where the XML the bloodly lights went.'

It works just as well on this blog, though, and if you guys wanted me to do so, I could put up a page through which we could order all our coursebooks for September through Amazon. Orders over $50 get free (if slow) shipping, and we have time if we order soon. I'd be happy to put 100% of the 'associate' money towards us authors splitting a few beers.

Oh, yeah, and also of note: I've been in town how long, and Avi and I haven't gotten together. That's got to say something about the size of this year's law school class...

Legal Methods book

For those of you who did not get the Legal Methods books for Strauss and Greenawalt, I posted the first few pages here

BLACKOUT

Wow, my first week living in New York City and we have a very historic New York event- a citywide (well, multicitywide) blackout! I’ll have good memories of this one, it doesn’t seem like there was much of the lawlessness that occurred during that 70s blackout, and it probably wasn’t caused by terrorism (although that was the first reaction of many people when we first heard just how many cities were also without power - i mean, how can one event cause so much damage?) Walking down Broadway during the early hours of the outage was pretty cool. I’ve been impressed with the character of the people here, maybe one of the few good things to come from 911. Oh, and the candlelight parties on the stoops outside 115th St and the surrounding Columbia area were fun, plus we could actually see the stars from Morningside Park. Too bad all our orientation events got cancelled. I’m afraid to ride my elevator though… any stories from someone that was stuck in a lift or subway car?

Schedules

Seems like our class schedules are now available on Lawnet. Just click on the Class schedule link.

Ikea: The Last Place on Earth I'll Go Again

So today I decide that, heck, I need a set of bookshelves and a rug, so I'll go to Ikea, buy a whole lot of things that I just didn't bother to bring with me (glasses, desk lamps, etc.), and get the whole lot shipped back to the dormitory. Since it's a flat fee of $99 shipping, I might as well. Besides, a local friend of mine offered to split the shipping cost if we moved her stuff too. We hopped on the free bus from the Port Authority and headed into darkest New Jersey.

We only found out once everything was purchased that the 'shipping' involved is $99 for furniture items only. Since it made no sense to pay that much for $150 worth of furniture, I waited in line for an hour to return both pieces of merchandise, than dragged a bundle of 'optional' things back to Columbia.

(Yes, before anyone mentions it, this was all pretty stupid and avoidable, although none of the signs I saw before the shipping desk mentioned the 'furniture items only' rule. I mention it here so that maybe some readers can learn from my mistakes.)

In the meantime, I came back here and ordered a very nice office desk and a set of bookshelves from Staples Online... which will give me free shipping, besides the items being on sale. So at least so far, I recommend them.

Columbia Network

SO I went down to Columbia to do the "Computer Based Training" to get a network logon. Nothing too difficult in going through the course, and nothing particularly special in Columbia's network that makes this really necessary. Law Network usernames are limited to six letters, first initial and first 5 letters of your last name (apparently, decent usernames are anathema to every Columbia department). I had some trouble getting my laptop to work on the network, which is a Novell Netware network. My wireless connection got a signal, but would not get connected to the network. I just gave up after half an hour of trying to make it work.

Rats

The New York Times reports today that New York City is terribly infested with rats. The article claims that the problem is actually getting worse, and that the city even had to shut down a firehouse because of rat infestation. Rats are often in the news in NYC, so it is hard to judge how much worse the problem is this year.

History Lesson on Columbia's 250th Birthday

The Voice is running a story on Columbia's history on the occasion of its 250th year. It details the university's changing relationship with the neighborhood and the city, expanding on Avi's Times story posted a few days ago.

This weekend's movies

Anyone read the reviews going around for the movies starting this weekend? Apparently, the only movie worse than American Wedding is Gigli. Is this possibly the worst two movies to appear at once?
Elvis Mitchell says that American wedding is almost a film, and that it compares negatively to the film that develops on ponds.
A.O Scott makes the claim that the dialogue between Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck is the lamest of any movie he has seen.
Apparently, these reviews are pretty much the consensus of everyone who has seen the movies. If you were going to see one, however, American Wedding is apparently an Oscar winner in comparison with Gigli.
Update: This Washington Post piece reports on the two positive reviews for Gigli that Sony could find for an ad. Also, I saw American Wedding, and it was trashy but funny, which makes it similar to the two American Pie films that preceeded it.

So, you see, my strategy is 'let's sue all our best customers...'

Well, here's the latest: digital gumshoes using 'matching technology' to find file swappers.

I'm really quite amused by the RIAA's activities here. The overall music spend of an individual will on average go up when they start using file-sharing software to trade music. So now the record companies are going to start suing folks who, by definition, are some of their best customers? And embitter a whole generation of music fans?

If this blog were to have a rule of 'full disclosure,' it would probably require me to say that I've never used file-sharing software in my life. (It's a security risk, in my opinion.) But at least in the case of music, my sympathy here is with the defendants. Yes, they're breaking the law, no doubt there, but hopefully this will serve as a prod for us to change the definitions of fair use.

Update: As reported at NTK (motto: "They stole our revolution. Now we're stealing it back"), the European Union is going to be passing the IP Enforcement Directive, and is using one of the more tacky methods of assuring passage, certain to become a classic of parliamentary methodology: put the bill up for a vote on September 11th.

Columbia expanding

Today's New York Times has an article describing Columbia's desire to expand the campus all the way up to 133rd street. Most interesting about this is that Columbia is actually trying to deal well with the surrounding communities. Apparently, this is new for Columbia.

Sic Transit Gloria Sun

Last I looked at Columbia's website, they suggested that we have both Word and Wordperfect, in order to placate those professors who might want to be a bit iconoclastic and reject the usefulness of Microsoft. I thought I might save a few coins by looking at Sun Microsystem's StarOffice, which incorporated most of Wordperfect's technology a while ago and was being given away for free in order to spite Redmond.

Lo and behold, I just discovered that Sun no longer gives the software away for free, even for download. How things change...

Nonfiction summer reading

OK! Here goes my first post....

In preparation for all the dry reading we're going to do in law school, I've stopped reading fiction and instead picked up some nonfiction over the last few months:

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich
For those interested in public policy maybe? Shows how the deck is stacked against the working poor, and it's fun to hear Ehrenreich's stories about her (undercover) experiences taking crappy low-paying jobs. I can relate.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
If you're addicted to fast food (I am) or interested in suing McDonalds (nah) it's a great read. I can't wait to read Schlosser's newest book: Refer Madness!

Game Over Press Start To Continue
by David Sheff
Amazing reporting documenting everything from the fall of Atari to the rise of Nintendo, a must read not only for video game nerds, but anyone that's interested in the behind the scenes business dealing and lawsuits you usually don't think about when you're playing Zelda.

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, The Battle of Brazil and The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood
Three books about the making of two great movies and one bad one, I'd only recommend these for film buffs.

Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community
by Robert D. Putnam
I wrote my personal statement about this book. Might be a good read if you're into nonprofits or community organizations.

Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the Second Nuclear Age by Paul J. Bracken
I wouldn't really recommend this book, it's pretty scary.

So there you have it, my nonfiction kick. Any comments from peope who've read any of these or want to add to my list??

Columbia Law School Is...

For my first blog entry, I'd like to reveal some scholarly research I did in hopes of easing my anxieties about our new institution (I've edited a bit for length and sense):

columbia law school is fortunate enough to be the home of 14 law journals
columbia law school is dedicated to the research and teaching of european law
columbia law school is devoted to training the next generation of human rights lawyers
columbia law school is a center for human rights workers and scholars from around the world
columbia law school is pioneering a new model of human rights education
columbia law school is stronger than it has ever been; dean david leebron explains how he will make it even stronger
columbia law school is the best place to do this
columbia law school is also a very distinguished ny law school that is known for a more innovative admissions policy
columbia law school is collaborating with simon and shuster to set standards for copyright protections
columbia law school is represented on the top
columbia law school is in the process of adding links to the wuerzburg university
columbia law school is extremely grateful to the reed foundation for their support in developing this site
columbia law school is a great site
columbia law school is researching military tribunals and is working to focus international attention on the conditions
columbia law school is one of the first law schools in the united states and a charter member of the american association of law schools
columbia law school is the primary academic sponsor
columbia law school is spearheading a national boycott of abercrombie this weekend by holding a drive to collect company products
columbia law school is among the oldest and most distinguished law schools in america
columbia law school is set apart from other schools in the us because in 1993 they started a mandatory pro bono scheme
columbia law school is hosting scholars and practitioners from multilateral institutions
columbia law school is published
columbia law school is a leading chinese legal scholar with a special interest in intellectual property law
columbia law school is hosting scholars
columbia law school is posted on www
columbia law school is extremely grateful
columbia law school is denied
columbia law school is now accepting applications for the henkin senior fellowship
columbia law school is devoted
columbia law school is credited with being the first law professor to do something about this by providing black letter rules
columbia law school is the first
columbia law school is hosting a day
columbia law school is not
columbia law school is proud
columbia law school is historically credited with the introduction of the socratic method into us legal education during the 1850s
columbia law school is a dog collar

Illegal Methods

I've now heard from three different 2Ls that we should ignore Legal Methods as an introductory class, or at least not stress over it. I've also heard from two of them that all 2Ls give this advice, and all 1Ls ignore it.

I'll probably belong to the ignoring it faction (who knows, I might find it interesting), but I wonder how long the 2L-advises/1L-ignores tradition has been going on. Who knows, maybe the Class of 2008 blog will link to our ponderings about it next year?

Dell Tech Support

I spent a long time on the phone with Dell's tech support, and while I spent quite a bit of time on hold and had to call three times, I am happy with the end result. Seriously. Two out of three of the techs were friendly, and while one was an idiot, I think two out of three for tech support is not bad. In the past I have dealt with Compaq and had amazing difficulty reaching them, and with Netgear, a company that not only makes absolute crap, but who also makes you pay to ship it back for a replacement. The Dell techs were professional, and willing to stay on the line as long as it took to sort out my problem. They were not the most knowledgeable, but they were very concerned with making sure my machine was in working order, and even asked me after ordering one replacement part if I needed anything else replaced. The only other blemish on their service is that at night I was on hold for a long time.

Norton Antivirus

Forthose of you who don't know, Columbia has a free version of Norton Antivirus available for download. This version does not need a subscription to get updates.

Spyware, Adware and other net hazards

In an attempt to get random popup ads from appearing on my father's computer, I spent a lot of today working with Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. It's one of many programs out there that scan your system for malicious or just invasive software that you can accidentally download.

Now that I've gotten through that, does anyone know some software that scans for the more- or less-common trojan horses out there? Since my computer is now connected to the net at all times, I'd like to protect it a bit better.

Switch to Apple? (Another geeky laptop-purchase post)

This is a solicitation for advice from the other geeks on this blog. After years of working in Windows (W2k for the last several years) and Unix variants -- building machines from components, installing dual-boot OSes, the whole nine yards -- I'm seriously thinking about trying out a Mac laptop for law school. There are several reasons I've avoided Macs until now, but four of these have recently disappeared:

• Price: Apple laptops are super-cheap this summer, only a bit more expensive than PC laptops.
• Stability: I hear great things about OS X and its FreeBSD back-end.
• Configurability: You can't tweak laptops much anyway, and OS X allows a lot more poking around and scripting than the old Mac OS, and maybe even more than Windows. Windows XP, which I find troublesome and unconfigurable, is pretty much the only option for laptops these days anyway: I don't want to pay Dell an extra $100 for Windows 2000, which they'll only install on a few models anyway, and I don't want to wipe out Dell's software and install 2000 myself.
• Lack of available software: I'm planning on using this laptop for basic stuff for law school -- email, web browsing, word processing -- so it would probably be for the best if I weren't tempted to install time-wasting toys on it anyway. Also, OS X has a PC emulator package you can buy if you really need to use some piece of PC software.

My reasons for buying a Mac would be:

• Supporting the company: I think it's important to have a competitive personal computing OS market, and Apple is one of Microsoft's few competitors. I also dislike the corporate culture of Microsoft and its attitude toward its customers. If Macs are truly a reasonable option even for gearheads like me, I'd like to be an evangelist for them and quell other developers' fears about "switching".
• Curiosity: I'll probably be buying machines and making recommendations to others for the next several years, and I'd like to know what the options are and have well-formed opinions about them. And I'm just personally curious about the interface and unix shell features in OS X.
• Versatility: I like the idea of having access to Unix command-line tools on my laptop without installing a dual-boot system and without having to reboot. With the PC emulator, a Mac can theoretically provide three OS options: Mac, PC, and Unix.

Opinions? I've heard pretty good things about OS X: mostly from designer types, but even from a few real geeks. I'm at the point whereI'm willing to go on down to the Apple store in SoHo and get the sales staff to convince me. My real reservations spring from Columbia's requirements: they tell us that most of their resources (networking, wireless) can work on Macs with a little tweaking, but they also say something about our exams being administered through some PC-only system. I don't want Columbia's requirements to be a three-year headache as a Mac user. Does anyone have more specific info? Advice? Email addresses for Columbia IT support or current students with Macs?

How does your prior experience color your impression of law school?

Does anyone else note that their prior experience gives them a distinct impression of the law school?

For instance, before applying to Columbia my last job was as project manager for a web agency. When I look at the 'Information Technology at Columbia Law School' packet and see them directing me to http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/info_tech/stud_sup/incomingstudent my immediate thought is: 'Wow. Someone needs to set up subdomains and virtual addresses.'

I have to chuckle that the site basically says there's no instructions available right now, check back later. I've encountered that a lot with the information materials, particularly when they reference a web page.

None of these things would look odd to me if I'd not set up professional sites. They're common 'mistakes.' Similarly, when Martin Lloyd started an MBA at Said Business School, he was surprised at how their marketing worked (and didn't). Has anyone else found this to be true thus far with other aspects Columbia?

Those contemplating large purchases

Since law school might involve a lot of large purchases, like desks, phones, etc., I thought some students might be interested in Google's newest shopping service, Froogle.

In a nutshell, it searches webstores indexed by Google and gives you a listing of websites where you can buy that product, and at what price. It's great for comparison shopping if you know precisely the product you want. It's not perfect (Amazon is indexed poorly, for instance) but it does work.

First thoughts on the Columbia Law School introductory pack

It's taken me a while, but I've now read the entire welcome pack sent by student services. My copy of the student organisation directory has dog-ears all through it so I email questions to various societies over the course of next week.

Much of it looks fun: what, for instance, is the difference between De Vinimus and Grand Cru, which both seem to be wine-tasting societies? (Rivals, perhaps?) Several mentoring programs are on option, and they seem to work both ways: lots of groups provide advice for 1Ls, and other groups give them the chance to mentor New York children. This distracts from the fact that all the politically active societies, bar one, seem to have a decidedly liberal bent, but that's not a huge cause for worry.

Towards the end of summer is our time of expectation, but reading through this catalogue of enjoyable possibilities on a sunny weekend overlooking a Michigan lake can't get me past some trepidation: how much time, as 1L's, do we really have to do these things?

Right of First Publication for Recent Blockbuster Books

Both Hillary Clinton and J.K. Rowling have their lawyers up in arms about recent press scoops on their books before their official publications dates. Slate's Jack Shafer claims that they don't have a case, but his article underlines just how fuzzy the fair use doctrine is even in traditional book-publishing contexts like this. His article contains the statement "This subjective and maddeningly inconsistent terrain makes you glad you never studied law" -- I took it as a good sign that the whole discussion fascinated me and left me wanting more in-depth analysis of the legal issues. (Yes, I've been reading Slate and posting a lot today. I guess I'm in one of those moods.)

Buying a computer

Just another comment about buying a computer. I always check this site before making purchases: The Fatwallet.com Hot Deals forum. At this site people list all types of good deals they find, and often there are some excellent deals on computers, and a lot of other stuff.

Welcome two new authors

Please welcome two new authors, Russell Klein and William Nichols!

I should have an 'about the authors' page implemented this week. At least, that's the hope.

A Modest Proposal: Politics View Option

There's been a bit of discussion as to what the 'purpose' of this blog is, and whether we want to have political discussions within it. I have an idea about this I'd like to put forward.

First, however, I'd like to point out that I'm not editing this web log: any of the authors are free to post whatever they want, subject to the caveat that anything that starts getting me in trouble as a host will probably be deleted.

Secondly, I'd like to propose that I create a 'politics' and 'non-politics' version of this blog, such that people who want to read about how President Bush is whittling away our rights to hard-won veganism, or how the left-wing media is giving a walleye'd version of the truth to the gullible masses can talk to their heart's content, whilst giving an option to filter it out for those who want restaurant reviews, worries about exams, and other concerns. It wouldn't make life any more difficult for authors (it's the same blog with two views), but would allow those who didn't want politics to avoid it.

The rest of this post (click the link below) will explain how this would work. I've already implemented the technology for this: you can see what it would look like at The No Politics Index Page.

Book review: Looking Back at Law's Century

As part of my 'summer reading', I'm trying to find books about the law that are both enjoyable and informative. Nothing that's going to revolutionise the world, nothing that's going to get me ahead on our courses, but just things to get me thinking about law and being a lawyer.

For this week's book (in between translating standards on Japanese food labeling laws) I've been reading Looking Back on Law's Century, edited by Austin Serat, Bryant Garth, and Robert A. Kagan. The main emphasis of the essays within stress the role of the legal profession in the change and continuity of American life over the last 100 years. So far I've read mostly the final essays, which focus on how the role of the lawyer has changed in the last 100 years, and more entertainingly, how the role of law professors has changed.

I'll try to post a more complete review later (or maybe I'll write a truly complete one, post it on Amazon, and link it--I can always use the $5 gift certificate), but if you're looking for something to read over the summer, you could do worse. I don't know if it's useful, but it's been enjoyable so far.

Blog Proposal: Rough Draft

Now that we're a few entries in, I'm beginning to form a set of opinions about what I'd like this blog to be. The strongest of these is negative: the last post alerted me to what I don't want it to be, namely a forum for debate on sensitive political, religious, moral, or aesthetic topics that don't bear directly on the experience of attending Columbia Law School. (Note to Avi: This is not a criticism of your entry, the motivation behind it, or its appropriateness. Since we haven't yet talked about what belongs here, it is as appropriate as any entry so far.)

The entries on computer purchases typify the ultimate unobjectionable, relevant, appropriate topic for discussion here, but I can imagine threads on:

• Columbia's administrative practices
• The personal and cultural experience of living in New York and attending Columbia
• Reviews of books on the law
• Pointers to essays on legal issues
• Discussion of legal news
• Announcements of resources for Columbia Law students (or for low-income New York residents in general)

According to that laundry list, the other entries to date would all fit: we have a piece on the cultural experience of living in New York, a pointer to a law essay, a pointer to a news story about law schools, and discussions of resources available to law students.

Comments? Please, please: comments. And to Anthony: thank you for setting this up.

New York Law School Acceptances

An article on New York law school acceptances this year. Just in case someone's not seen it already.

Also, a few bits of housekeeping:

NJ Devils

They might not be the New York area's favorite hockey team, but the Devils are certainly the best. As difficult as hockey is to follow on television through an interminable regular season, the playoffs are always fun to watch. It is probably the beards.

Buying a computer

For all interested, I bought myself a Dell Inspiron 600m, and I am quite happy with it. It is pretty light, and seems to be pretty well constructed. I like Dell's support, so this is generally pretty good machine. The only downside is that the speakers are not great, but sound is ok with headphones. It does not have a built in floppy drive, and I made the mistake of not getting the floppy drive, so I had to order it later, which cost about ten dollars more than it otherwise would have.

Question

Since this is now being used, can I ask: does anyone think we should change the name? Technically, this isn't the 'Columbia' blog--it's just one made up of Columbia students.

If anyone has a good name, feel free to put it here and we'll put it to a vote...

Law and the Built Environment

Thanks for setting this up, Anthony.

One of the things I'm interested in (and one of the reasons I'm excited to study in NYC) is law and the built environment, broadly considered (zoning, real estate, land use, affordable housing, environmental law, etc.). I did an M.Arch, and quickly realized that legal constraints were a large determining factor in what actually ended up being built, and how it ended up being occupied.

There's an interesting article in the NY Times online today, about lofts in SoHo/NoHo and the impact of regulations requiring artist certification to live there (the regulations are routinely ignored, and there's disagreement in the neighborhood about whether they should be enforced): http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/08/realestate/08COV.html

A word of advice to anyone considering buying a computer

Before you buy a computer for law school, I'd highly recommend that you check not only some review sites on the PC in question, but the support forums for the vendors.

I can say this because I didn't: I didn't check Dell's support forums before purchasing an Inspiron 8500 notebook. There's a lot of things I love about it, but apparently it's plagued with monitor problems, keyboard problems, and (least worrisome for me) faulty speakers. If I'd seen that, I might have chosen other options.

Just a word to the wise.

So far, so good

The Columbia Class of 2006 weblog is now in progress. We have five potential authors who have expressed an interest. If you would like to participate, please feel free to contact columbiablog@housevirgo.com and I'll try to set you up.