Some teachers you just don't argue with...

Student: That's true, but--
Professor: I know that's true; I just said it.

Culture in the Deep South

Professor (quoting her son, who had gone to college in Mississippi): "He said, 'You know one thing I like about this school? They have a rule about cleaning game in the dorm, and they really need it.' Some guy had gotten a wild turkey and was in the bathroom..."

More executive fun

Professor (on impeaching judges for getting reversed too often): Your “high crimes and misdemeanors” is being stupid.

Professor (Regarding the executive pardon): It’s kind of like having an appendix or something—this vestige left over from monarchy.

Lost innocence

Two key things to take from this case: First, if your contract crashes and burns you go into restitution to sort things out. Second, professional wrestling is not real. If you know those two things you’ll be fine.

No fooling the prof

Student: [explains an eminent domain problem in her community (a major U.S. city)]

Professor: Yeah, they called me about that… I told them they were going to lose.

read the signals

[Professor shows a slide of a typical residential “urban sprawl”]

Professor: Is this terrifying, or is this something we should be proud of?

Student: [commences to explain why the residential community model is a good one while the professor immediately goes into a sneezing fit]

Student: Do you really hate it that much?

We are academia

Professor (walking in a good 10 minutes after we finished Teacher Evaluations): I’m a little late because no one came to get me… I’m not an independent thinker, you know.

Is it that obvious?

Student: *sneeze*

Professor: God bless you. *pause* You look like you should go home and get some sleep.

Exam time

Professor: (after explaining that the exam will be all essay) Are there any questions?

Student 1: Care to negotiate?

Professor: No. I mean, what would you like?

Student 2: Fill in the blank with a word bank.

Bribing kids?

Professor: [Tells us about paying her kids not to watch TV.]

Student: How much would you pay us to not watch TV?

Professor: Brad, you've obviously mistaken me for someone who cares how much TV you watch.

All in the family

Professor (as we approach discussion of Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc.): I know you’ve been waiting for this all year, so I’m going to call on Mr. Gasperini for this case.

Student (with the unfortunate last name of Gasperini): I’m afraid I’m going to have to recuse myself for this for conflict of interest.

Just for fun

Great quotes here. :-)

I'm going to herbal remedies.

Professor (after telling us how narrow our field of knowledge will be in a few years): That shouldn't scare you. What should fill you with horror is that your friends in medical school are in the same situation… Think of them as knowing as much about medicine as you know about law.

In a positive light

Professor (re: Nixon): He’s not the most principled person in the world. I don’t mean that as an insult; he’s just more… pragmatic.

Legalese

Professor: Watch for words like “it’s constitutionally based” and has “constitutional dimensions.” That’s code for “It’s not really in the Constitution.”

Professor: One of the tools they have is this subpoena duces tecum, which is Latin for “gimme all the documents you have” or “come to our offices and eat our doughnuts and bring the documents so we can look at them.”

Where does that go in my outline?

Professor: John Robinson lived in a purple house. I don’t know if you knew. But it’s a very tasteful purple.

Legal Realism in Covenants

Professor: Most of these deed restriction problems get worked out, although not so much legally because most of it gets worked out through nasty letters.

Birth Control...

Unfortunately, since I'm not presently a student, I have no recent professor quotations to publish on this blog. But we can't let Becca do all the work here, so I've pulled out some old material.

A professor of mine who is a former Roman Catholic describes the reaction of her college's Catholic Club to the pope's proclamation that Catholic women should not use birth control:

[We wrote] an article with the suggestion that all the Catholic women bring their birth control pills to church to give to the nuns to string together to use as rosary beads. The bishop stopped our newspaper.

For the love of learning...

Professor: How many of you would come to a review session after the final exam?
Student: Will you be there?
Professor: Aww. I expect an apple up here after class, too.

ConLaw for Dummies

Professor (re: Bowsher v. Synar): The rule established here for Constitutionality is “This seems okay.”

You seem to hear this a lot

Professor: No, I don’t think that’s a dumb question at all, and of course the answer is “it depends.”

Actual jury instruction given by a judge

Now, I have nothing to do with the fact that there may be some ambiguity in [UCC section] 2-306. If there is ambiguity, well, that is too bad. This is the law that the legislature has adopted. With due respect to all these great judges that [Defendant's counsel] has cited and these great academic lawyers he has called to my attention, well, good, they have a lot of time to mull over these problems.

Tricks to help you out

Professor: (in response to a student) Sure, and you can always get out of the problem by changing the hypothetical.

Judicial Writing 101

Professor: I want every one of you to promise me that if you are ever on the Supreme Court you will never write something so pretentious and banal as Kennedy’s “A nation cannot plunder its own treasury without putting its Constitution and its survival in peril.”

Congressional Intent

Professor: This should have been titled the Guess What We’re Thinking About Act.

[Can I put that on my final? --ed.]

Just to be clear

Student: I haven’t studied this case that closely, but…

Prof: Which case have you not studied that closely?

Student: All of them

Get Glasses.

Prof: Who’s on call and looks not quite awake? Ms. Student, you look not quite awake.

Student: I’m not on call. I’m just sitting in the front row.

Prof: WHY?

Student: So I can see.

Prof: Well, for that kind of eager attitude, I’m going to make an exception for you. Tell us the facts of this case.

Perspectives on Fame

Student: About that article you sent out by that one guy, I can’t remember his name…

Prof: *laughs* I’m going to tell the author you said that. It will puncture his ego, which would be good for him.

girlstuff

"A woman must hide her heart so deep in God that a man must seek God to find it."

Sorry for the sappy quote...ation, girls, but I saw it on a friend's facebook page and couldn't resist. I like it a lot.

What I Meant to Say...

*Professor just explained that we would have property on both of the last two days of class.*

Student: That’s awesome!

Prof: *confused look*

Student: well, at least it’s not Con Law.

[The Property professor is married to the Con Law professor. –ed.]

My favorite things...

I love the smell of new toys. You know what I mean--that fresh, plastic sort of aroma you get when you first take the toy out of its package. It reminds me of Christmas, and how I always loved getting a new game or doll when I was a kid.

Of course, I no longer get games and dolls for Christmas. But I've noticed that new electronic gadgets tend to have that same new-toy smell as Barbie accessories.

I got a new cell phone today. It smells great.

While we're being honest...

Professor: I heard one student say the other day “I don’t actually know any law”

Student: You’ve actually just gotten a sneak preview of my final.

[And I bet in that case she could offer a sneak preview of your grade. --ed.]

You mean that doesn't work?

Professor (talking about a case she had worked on as a clerk): The other side’s brief was gibberish. I mean it was like, Quasi…property… appurtenant… dominant… something… I win.

Forget the stress balls

I found this in a Marine publication that came in to work yesterday. Apparently the Marines have had a couple kids drown during their training exercises, so they've changed a bunch of processes and have a committee making recommendations on what else needs to change. So...the committee determined that one of the things that need to be done was to make the swim training a lower-stress environment. The solution? (I lie not.) Post signs reading, "This is a low-stress environment."

*roll eyes*

Maybe I should get some of those to put up at work.

Make like a Florida...

Professor: So when you're reading the next case, remember two things: first, count the votes. Second… um… I forgot what the second thing was… so count votes! Count them twice!

Benefit of the Doubt

Professor: Does anyone NOT know what the Writ of Habeas Corpus is? It’s okay if you don’t.

Class: *silence*

Professor: Okay, some people don’t. Who are we kidding? Lots of people don’t. *proceeds to explain it*

"Law" by Picasso

Professor: This is law, Baby--I mean, look at this thing! (after drawing an elaborate series of boxes and squiggly lines to illustrate a student’s point)

Dipolomacy in Property Policy

Professor: Mr. Student, should the governement provide public housing to drug dealers?

Student: Well, jail would qualify as public housing, wouldn't it?

Now I need some advice!

Does anybody know of a good book on the issue of abortion that's a reasonably easy read? (I.e., I could read it and write a good essay about the issue within about a week's time?)

Something that discusses how abortion relates to or affects American culture might be good.

More advice...

...from the aforementioned professor:

If you see a police car pull off the interstate, "Always wait till you're over the next hill before you floor it."

Piece of advice...

... from a particular Bible professor:

Don't slam on the brakes if you see a cop while you're speeding, "because that's a dead giveaway, [if] you go skidding sideways down the interstate past the squad car..."

Not Fair

ConLaw Prof: Where does Justice Black say the powers come from?

Student: You’ve got me. *looks at book*

ConLaw Prof: They’re not in there. He didn’t say.

Property, Monday

(After professor wrote next class's assignment on the board--50 pages)

Student: *blank stare*

Professor: What?

Student: That's a lot of reading.

Professor: *pause* Yeah.

Student: *blank stare*

Professor: Sorry.

Open letter to law school smokers

Dear Law School Smokers:

Please quit smoking. Short of that, please try to smoke wearing a heavy jacket that you remove before coming to class. Your classmates who sit beside you like you very much, but they get headaches when they have to sit next to you for 50 minutes at a time and inhale the leftovers.

Thank you,
A classmate concerned for your health and hers

Thunderstorms!

Not to steal your thunder (heh) or anything, Becca, but we had a nice storm here last night as well. Probably not nearly as good as yours, but I did enjoy falling asleep to the sound of thunder rumbling and rain beating on the house...

... and we have a tornado watch this morning, so I'm expecting another good storm any minute now!

Welcome to Another New Team Member!

Hello, Monica!

Aaahhh...

We're currently having the most deliciously bombastic thunderstorm here in South Bend! Just wanted to share the moment...

Oh, and if I thought it couldn't get any better, I just harvested the pork loin I stuck in my crock pot this morning and left on low all day. Unbelievable! Try it yourself--slice a few cloves of garlic, stab your pork randomly and stick the garlic slices in. Then put the pork in a ziploc bag with 8 oz. Italian dressing and leave it in the fridge for a day. Remove to crock pot and leave on low for 8-10 hours. Actually, I didn't let is marinate that long. I figured it could do that while it cooked. But let me tell you, this is amazing pork.

Welcome to our New Team Member!

Say hello to Becca!