Trial Advocacy Final Trial

Tonight was the final trial for Judge Stephen Hillman's Trial Advocacy class at Loyola Law School. The trial was a civil trial, where the plaintiff sued his public defender for legal malpractice due to an alleged lack of due care during the plaintiff's criminal trial for assault with a deadly weapon. Representing the plaintiff were Jonathan Starre, Katherine Coman, Stacey Toyoaki, Swathi Narra, Roger Steinbeck, and Brian Varghese. Representing the defendant were Michael Storti, Bruce Chang, Carlos Chait, Lilian Mazian, Katharine Goodenow, and David Yang.

The trial, including recess and jury deliberation, ran almost 4 hours. The facts leaned slightly in the plaintiff's favor, and the verdict tended to reflect that. On the issue of actual innocence of the plaintiff when he was a criminal defendant, the jury was unanimous that he had been actually innocent. On the issue of the performance of the defendant as the plaintiff's defense counsel in the criminal trial, the jury split, 4-2 in favor of the plaintiff. The outcome showed that both teams performed capably.

Before the jury returned its verdict, the future attorneys, and Judge Hillman, posed for a picture taken by one of the LLS students who participated as a witness in tonight's trial.

Inter-APALSA Mixer II

As the semester wound down, and stressed out law students prepared for Thanksgiving, members of APALSA from Loyola Law school, UCLA, and USC got together at Barney's Beanery in Santa Monica for a little mixer.

Beijing Group Reunion II

This time we decided to have Korean BBQ. We went to Chung Kiwa in Koreatown, and this time we were joined by Rob and Eddie.

Upper Division Writing Requirement

The Stud has been spending several hours at the LLS Library lately, trying to get in the groove of writing a substantial draft for his Law of War class to satisfy his upper division writing requirement. (Loyola Law School requires that each student take a class that satisfies this requirement in order to graduate.)

This morning, the Stud, with faithful companion Aloha Princess, skipped Law of Sales to make one last stab at their papers before turning them in and speaking before the Law of War class about them. They managed to get this done. Aloha Princess was terrified she would be obviously nervous, but did a great job of presenting her paper. The Stud was a bit more scatter-brained in front of the class, but both managed to survive the experience.

The moral of the story is, if you're taking a class to satisfy your upper division writing requirement, get at least your outline done within a couple of weeks of turning in your paper topic, so you can get some feedback from your professor. Or, failing that, stock up on Red Bull.

Bar Review - Edison

The last bar review of the semester was held at Edison.

Hope you made it. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until next semester!

Tales of Career Hunting

This semester, the Stud was surprised to find himself with an offer for a callback interview at a large intellectual property firm. The callback was the result of a recommendation from the firm's California managing partner, whom the Stud had met during on-campus interviews (OCI). The Stud was quite surprised even to have obtained the OCI appointment to begin with, as he is not exactly in the top 10% of the Class of 2008. The callback was to be at the firm's New York City offices. It is an exciting office to be in, situated in the Second Circuit, a major player in the development of intellectual property law.

When the Stud called to make an appointment, the firm scheduled the interview for a month out, on Thursday, November 1, 2007. For the entire month of October, the Stud could scarcely think of anything else.

The attorneys who interviewed the Stud were a friendly group, and the Stud began to be really comfortable with the idea of moving to another state. On the flight back to California, the Stud started thinking of how to resolve a number of clerical and administrative issues in preparation for a possible move.

Alas, it was not to be. Yesterday afternoon, when the Stud returned home to change into a suit for the closing arguments exercise for Trial Advocacy, he saw a small envelope in the mail from the firm. He hoped it was simply a reimbursement check for cab fare, yet knew from the weight of the envelope that it could not be a check.

The rejection letter was dated Friday, November 2, 2007. This would seem to imply that the firm had already decided that it would not be extending an offer to the Stud even before he set foot in the office.

Fortunately, the last bar review is tonight. The Stud will drown his sorrows in alcohol among friends, and hope to be clear-headed enough to tackle the remainder of this semester.

The Lake Show

The Stud was fortunate to have gotten to go to a couple of Laker games at the Staples Center this week.

First up, on Sunday 4 November, it was the Utah Jazz visiting. The Stud tagged along with the Federalist Society at the last minute:

The Lakers won the contest, 119-109.

Then, on Tuesday 6 November, the Stud joined his fellow SBA Board Members when the Hornets visited.

After the game, Michelle Kwan joined the aspiring lawyers for a picture.

The Lakers lost 118-104.