And also people who want to graduate

3L #1: I need to go to class.
3L #2: Class is for wimps and 2Ls.

The sky will fall?

Prof: So the Buddhists would say, like, ‘If our temple is too short,…’ I don’t really know enough about Buddhism to finish that sentence.

Another softball

Prof: Who is better organized: Angry neighbors whose property values are affected, or anarchists who take poor people into their homes?

No excuse for getting this one wrong.

Prof: As a city council member, would you vote for it?
Student: …
Prof: Or do you hate poor people?
Student: I would vote for it.

Maybe in Heaven

Matching question on the test: Used in plumbing.

Excluding the correct answer, the second most chosen answer: Diamonds

Never got the hang of Thursdays...

Prof: Justice Kennedy doesn’t use adverbs. He doesn’t believe in footnotes. And he says thing like “putting Hobbsian sticks in Lockean bundles.” Student, what does that mean?

Student: Uhh…

Prohibition = racist!

Prof: And maybe Kansas thought that by passing a prohibition law they could stop the Irish from moving to Kansas.

Is this a game?

Prof: What happens to people who drink too much?
Student: They get drunk.

First Amendment Pride

Prof: South Bend is home to the Kitty Kat Lounge. Kitty Kat Lounge is the site of the first Supreme Court case that found that nude dancing is speech. It is NOT a high end establishment.

Softball

Prof: Boston has a place called the “combat zone.” The “combat zone” is the only place where all manner of adult businesses are allowed. Student, would you think the “combat zone” is an orderly area, or a disorderly area?

Was somebody trying to be funny?

I am trying to set up my computer to print to a different printer in the office.

I knew I should have stayed home today....

Complete these steps before configuring your
printer(s).

• Print these instructions.

Exams

Things to do when your exam is done;

~ write a suicide note then wind your scarf around your neck as if to kill yourself
~ write in very tiny writing, several times, "i hate exams i hate exams i hate exams" on the exam paper, then fall asleep on said paper
~ play rock, paper, scissors. against yourself.
~ write out the lyrics to several of "The Sound of Music" songs on your exam
~ pick up a cardboard box and draw smiley faces all over it


Special thanks to the students of Seoul Christian School for their conrtibutions to this list.

Not enough explosions.

Prof: You can destroy feudalism with trusts if you want. The crusades and the plague did that pretty well too. But nobody makes movies about trusts. I don’t know why.

Not-so-sacred trusts

Prof: And this [part of trust law] has a whole different history completely apart from saving souls and dissing Benedictines.

Editor's note: Trust law is the Benedictines' fault! Really! Ask me about it sometime. Crazy monks...

Trial procedure explained.

Prof: There are two definitions for trusts, but I only had room for one on the board, and it’s the one I don’t like. It’s the one courts use when they want to mystify people, especially in jury instructions. The jury instruction is mostly a tool for mystification.

I never watch it.

Prof: I don’t know if you’d ever seen Dirty Sexy Money [TV show]. If you haven’t, don’t—it’s a waste of time… It’s on Wednesdays at 10, I think.

Is there a movie about you, too?

Prof: Sometimes I feel like Forrest Gump. ... One day I was [somewhere in NC] and George Steinbrenner was out there, and needed directions or something. And he said, 'I'm George Steinbrenner.' And I thought, 'Yes, but how is that going to help you find the [expletive] ballpark?'

New source of tax law?

Prof: What is a 'treasure trove' under Regulation 1.61-14?
Student: Is it kind of like Scrooge McDuck?
Prof: Well, yes, but you have to follow the cartoon closely.

It's true. Look it up.

[At professor's house]

Prof, to his young daughter, very seriously: Don't name your children Wayne. People named Wayne are more likely to go to jail.

Daughter: Why, Daddy?

Prof, earnestly: Science.

They said it more accurately represented our future jobs.

[regarding the new law school building being built]

Student 1: They said it's going to have showers!

Student 2: Wow. That's both awesome and depressing at the same time.

Expectations

"When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor."

From a poster on despair.com.

That explains a lot.

Prof (re: stumbling across an interesting program while channel surfing): It was about the cocaine trade in Washington, D.C. ... and one guy said, 'At the start it was attorneys and professional people using this stuff.' And I thought to myself, 'Yeah, and it showed up in Revenue Ruling 88-111!'

Puppy Love

This cuted me out. It's kinda the reverse of the dog/cat interaction at my house.

Free speech with a vengeance

From two friends in a class taught by a prof who has been featured here before:

"This might be an opportunity - with so many people gone - to talk about them. Share some gossip or something."

"We're not going to talk about those cases, but I wanted you to know they're out there, because they're really funny. . . None of them are actually about beets, but I just enjoy saying it."

I want to live in this town.

Prof: And how much was the house appraised for?

Student: I think it was $29,000, which seems low for Welsley.

Prof: Yeah! You can’t buy a manhole cover in Welsley for $29,000! Apparently this is a town in which mansions can be appraised completely independently from their value.

The economics of 8AM classes

Prof: And by the way, if you’re only going to pay attention for 40 seconds this class, in the interest of allocation of a scarce good, you should listen to this…

Mood lighting?

[Power goes off in classroom]

Prof: It's an austerity program on the part of the university to save money. ... Creates more ambiance having it this way, anyway.

That's how they pay attorneys?

Prof: Sometimes I do make more sense than attorneys, but that isn't saying a whole heck of a lot, since typically they don't want to make sense. Because if they do, they don't get paid.

All in a day's work....

From class today:

Prof (preparing to read part of a tax treatise aloud): This is sort of like Bible reading or something. ... It doesn't have quite the same morals or influence that the Bible has, but if you're in the partnership [tax] area it does have a . . . lot of influence.

Prof: There are several things you shouldn't do in life. Don't be the tax matters partner. It's right up there with signing payroll tax forms.

Prof: I've graded enough papers to know that--I hate to say it--I really could teach my cats better than I could teach some of these students.

Prof [brings up an especially difficult area of partnership tax]: I could assign that for the final project. I don't know if I have the courage to do that. I don't want to go home at night and find that my house is gone, my cats have disappeared....

Prof: I think, at least by my standards, I’m fairly good-natured, and I’m not vindictive, which is more than I can say for many of my colleagues. … It’s not just here, it’s [other schools]. They go around in capes and robes and stuff, and berets, and they seem to think this exempts them from having to behave well toward other human beings. … It’s a problem in the academic world. … You can quote me on it, not that anybody would care anyway.
[Prof went on to say that most of his fellow-profs are very nice people. I think these comments were directed more toward academia in general.]

Prof: When I was younger, there was a requirement, which I sort of didn’t mind, that you [as a faculty member] had to attend graduation. … And it’s [expletive] hot out there, and somebody drones on for like 20 minutes, and then they have to hand out the diplomas or whatever. … They made the business school march in last. … So we marched up to the podium, and there wasn’t any room for us, so we just marched up to the back of the podium, and out the back door, and disappeared. And I haven’t been back since.

Prof (realizing that class time is ebbing away): Gosh, I've gone on and on, almost like a Mark Twain monologue or something.

In fact, don't look like you're awake, either.

A professor of mine began class today with the following comic strip:




He followed it up with: "Here's a clue. If you do this in accounting class, don't smile. Nobody ever smiles when they're taking notes."

why all my legal docs have one-syllable words

Prof: I didn’t have room to write “testamentary” [on the board], and its spelling is often elusive anyway, so I just wrote “will.”

Tax planning?

Student: So if you got married in the middle of the year--
Prof: If you're married at the end of the year, you're treated as having been married the whole year.
Student: Oh, good. I'd been wondering about that.

It's never too late to start....

60-something professor: I always kind of assume that everyone is a blogger besides me.

But otherwise, it was a very safe car.

Prof: This Volvo had a problem with the accelerator and the transmission that . . . once you got going, there was no way to stop the car, without putting it in neutral. And it was an automatic transmission. And this was of some concern to me, as I was driving through New Jersey.

It's on the internet.

Prof: Indiana is the only state that has legislated that pi shall be 3. They didn’t like all the confusion that the .1415… stuff caused. It’s true. Well, I’ve never verified it, but it’s truthy, and I’ve read it often.

Can I have some?

Student, after taking a sip from his coffee: [gives an answer the prof likes]

Prof: Yeah! What are you drinking? That must be a truth-soup!

Where's the beach?

Student: This is a tough one.

Prof: You haven’t seen tough yet. This is like, Cleveland, and the Rockies lie ahead.

The Sierra Club = Ents?

Prof: Family members tend to show up [to court] and look saintly—“Yeah, I love my grandmother more than the Red Sox. I even went to visit her once—it was great!” Institutional beneficiaries can’t “show up” so well. Like the Sierra Club—what are they going to do, come in with a bunch of trees?

So that's why it's so hot in here.

Prof (who is also a priest): None of these [technical] problems will happen when we get the new [law school] building. Until then we have to suffer... From a Catholic perspective, this is taking time off purgatory, so it's not without merit.

Tight Spaces

From my coworker who grew up in the back country of Kentucky:

"...there won't enough room in there to cuss a cat without gettin' hair in yer mouth."

Aren't we optimistic today.

Prof: This [completed contract method] will still be around in fifteen years or so when you're out of public accounting, unless we've screwed up the economy so bad that we're run by the Soviets or something.

Of course we haven't.

Prof: Has anyone done [this part of the homework problem]? I didn't think so. Good, let's skip it.

He can say this because he's tenured.

Tax prof: I'm scared, I really am, that the Democrats will get back in. ... As it is now, there are only a handful of people left who have even the foggiest notion, and then there will be nobody. ... It used to be that they would just drink ... but now with all these high-powered drugs, who knows what they'll do.

That would probably be cheaper, too.

Prof: Some [real estate agents] are really good, and some of them, you may as well get your local beauty shop operator or bartender to help you out.

Extra-textual commentary that makes class worth it

Prof: [After explaining that the will in question was in North Carolina] This will leaves a tract of land to [woman], who apparently was wronged. Notice that it is witnessed by her two brothers, who, under the Second Amendment, are armed and dangerous.

Quantifiably speaking

Prof: It’s almost always more profitable to be the lawyer for the executor than the lawyer for the will. Because money money money money is better than money.

Three cheers for the free market!

Class: [Animated discussion re: Tyco, and whether there is such a thing as "excessive" CEO compensation--arguments touched on the distinction between bad business decisions and "excessive" compensation and on the idea that, presumably, CEOs are paid at whatever rate the market sets]
Prof: [Asks whether we think the punishment of the former Tyco execs was appropriate]
Student: [Says that he thinks the punishment was a bit excessive]
Prof: How do you know that's excessive?
Student: The market didn't set that penalty!

How did he keep his job?

Prof: I had several people that I supervised [in a previous career] that I really questioned whether my boss was sober when he hired them. And since he died of alcoholism ... in the office, I might add....

Guess we'd better pray harder.

Student 1: So what do you do in that [complicated accounting] situation?
Prof: I have no idea. You pray you never see it.
Student 2: There's a homework problem [with that situation].
Prof: Really? ... I assigned that?

Say what?

Direct quotation from toilet paper packaging: Soft Sheets That Last & Last!

I'm wondering exactly how long one needs those "soft sheets" of TP to last.... are we talking rinsing and reusing here?

Would that be protected as free speech?

Prof (walking to dry-erase board to try to draw what he told us afterwards was supposed to be the Nike "swoosh"): I try this every year, and sometimes it comes out obscene, so that's not what I mean.

How not to conduct your espionage activities

Prof (re: Ames v. Commissioner): Every time he met with the Soviet diplomat, he made a large cash deposit to his bank account. So the CIA put two and two together....

Statutory Interpretation of the Day

We’re slogging through another provision of the Uniform Probate Code today, and I wanted to share some of the joy. My favorite section so far: UPC 2-603(b)(4)

If the will creates an alternative devise with respect to a devise for which a substitute gift is created by paragraph (1) or (2), the substitute gift is superseded by the alternative devise only if an expressly designated devisee of the alternative devise is entitled to take under the will.

If your response to that is not “eh?” You are a much smarter person than I am. I diagrammed the sentence and have concluded that it doesn’t mean anything.

However you like to party...

Prof: I had to fast for 12 hours, with for a hypoglycemic is very much like being drunk. Well, without the buzz. And the hangover. But there other ways to get the hangover, one of which is Penn State.

[This was the Monday morning after Notre Dame football was humiliated by Penn State.]

I zoned out and missed the rest of the story....

Prof (re: checking of an audit client's inventory by incompetent auditors): And we never figured out what the property was like 'cause they kept taking pictures of the wing of the plane. But that's kind of a major digression....

Shameless plea for help

Help a grad student! Take my short and simple online survey. Do it today! Tell all your friends.

Thank you, and have a good day.

(Becca--I just fixed the link for you. ~mbr)
Thanks, Mel! You're great. I think it was the weird quotation marks from Word that Blogger can't handle.)
UPDATE: The survey is fixed too. We got our SurveyMonkey guy to do his magic.

Awwww!

Addicted to lolcats? Check out Cute Overload (now on the right).

Putting it bluntly

Guest speaker: [An incentive] doesn't have to be financial. You can incentivize people by appealing to their egos. You can be a bank and give 'em a title.

Guest speaker: Dunkin' Donuts is gonna blow the doors off everybody. ... Krispy Kreme's coffee? BLEAH! It's yucky, right?

Guest speaker: Apple is the best brand extension company in the universe. [Lists examples: iPod, iPod Nano, iPod with video, etc.] ... These guys [Krispy Kreme]? Hot donut! Eighty years later? Hot donut!

Guest speaker: There are so many people out there willing to pay incredible multiples for junk. And you've got junk. So ... put the lipstick on the pig.

Can I go home now?

Student: [asks a question that complicates the discussion]
Prof: Well, we’re in purgatory. Let’s descend into hell.

Is it too late to drop?

Prof, re: review session: I’ll do problems on the board, and you can check them off for the exam—“Good, he can’t do that one; it won’t be on the test.” But “he” is a sick person, so you never know.

unless they're video games

Prof: There are some people who don’t attach emotional value to specific objects in wills—they’re called males.

...in which case we don't care.

[back story: Lapse is when the beneficiary of a will dies before the testator does, and the will didn’t say what to do if that happens.]
Prof: There is never a lapse problem that isn’t the result of bad drafting. Or nuclear war.

Only more expensive

Prof: Now we’ll complicate this a little bit. It’s like when the dentist says this will hurt just a little bit.

When examples go bad

Student: [points out something about a case he’s being grilled on]

Prof: Oh… Yeah… That ruins my theory. Um. I’m going to have a theory about that on Friday. It’ll be good, but you’ll all know that it’s a rationalization… Well for now let’s ignore that, because that makes me look bad.

Romans 12:19?

Prof: At one school where I used to teach, the students would continually talk while you were trying to teach. ... But there was an angel up there, and one of the students got in an auto accident and had to have his jaw wired shut. He didn't say another word the rest of the semester. That was the right thing for God to do.

Step 1: Admit you have a problem.

Prof: Where are my happy Phillies fans? ... Where are my unhappy Mets fans?
Student (apparently from NY): You really had to start off class like that?
Prof: Think of it as a support group. ... Did you have a feeling you wanted to share?

But you would travel all the time anyway.

Prof: [Tells class approximately how much a senior manager in a public accounting firm earns annually]
Student: Is that what they make? Cool.
Prof: Well, it would be more if you lived in Manhattan, but you wouldn't be able to keep any of it. You could live in a loft with eight other people.

Hope you weren't counting on that for your retirement.

Prof: I use (my Social Security) to finance my daughter's education. ... I don't know how anyone could live off it. My daughter lives off it. Of course, I've been paying in since the dawn of time.

Let me guess your political affiliation....

Prof (re: Obama's plan to impose FICA tax on all earned income rather than just the first $95k): Yeah, you're gonna have five trillion dollars! And the rest of us are gonna be walking around in our underwear because that's all we can afford to buy! Mr. Obama may have gone to Harvard, but he apparently walked in the wrong gate or something.

(Disclaimer: I'm not familiar at all with Obama's plan--all I know of it comes from our 2-minute discussion in class today. I apologize if this post misrepresents it or him at all.)

And we most likely forgot to read it.

Prof (beginning class on a recent Monday morning): To be honest, I can't remember exactly what I assigned last Friday.

Do we get to try them out?

I don't think this is a mis-translation. I'm pretty sure I have heard of "restroom tours" here in Korea where they take you on a tour of different toilets.

Well, when you put it like that...

A note from my Federal Income Tax case book, regarding the case of a company that tried to deduct payments to a Christian Science minister who served as a "consultant" to the company founder/chairman of the board:

The court notes that Rev. Halverstadt did not provide specific answers to business questions. In fact, Christian Science ministers are not supposed to give direct advice....
Have you ever been in a situation in which you paid substantial sums to discuss things with someone who asked many questions and rarely provided answers? How much tuition are you paying now? Mr. Amend didn't get concrete answers; neither do you. How dumb was he? How dumb are you?

But the light is so pretty...

Prof: [in the middle of expounding on the advantages of different inventory methods] …and we’re all watching this fly that’s buzzing around.

Student: [mesmerized] It’s really big.

Fun with idioms

Prof: That was a red herring… The idea of a red fish being dragged along a trail always grosses me out.

Primary sources

Prof: Let’s just assume that the life expectancy for a woman in the United States is 78 years and 10 months… because that’s what Parade said last week. Why ever go beyond Parade, I mean, really?

A long and rich tradition

Prof: One of the best professors I ever had couldn’t do arithmetic on a blackboard. In front of a hundred angry eyes he would just choke. I have carried on his legacy faithfully.

In case you had any illusions

Prof: I’m going to give you two different answers for this. One of them is going to be useful on an exam. The other one is going to be useful in real life. It is always important to keep those two things separate.

Trusts & Estates Lite

My mind was wondering in Trusts & Estates this morning and when it came back, the prof was saying:

Prof: Or they spend money on that skinny half-crap whatever it is they sell… Friends don’t let friends buy Starbucks.

Apparently I didn't miss too much?

Any other lessons?

[Class discussion of lessons that can be learned from "The Parable of the Sadhu"]

Student 1: Don't go hiking.
Student 2: Especially not naked.

Ah, tenure.

Student: Why is the speaker today mandatory?
Prof: [laughs]
Student: We put him on the spot.
Prof: [chuckles] I'm very rarely on the spot, because the university can do so little about me ... unless I run around naked or something. ... They're really better off just leaving me alone.

Partisan ancestors

Prof, explaining a table of consanguinity and the parantella system of inheritance: Everyone to the left beats everyone to the right. Remember that during elections.

We can't just let the auditors catch it?

[Class discussion on the proper accounting treatment of a hypothetical transaction. Someone suggests a not-quite-ethical solution.]
Student (criticizing the suggestion): But that's why we have auditors.
Prof: And ethics, and long-term vision....

Is long-windedness the only qualification?

Student (role-playing a CEO): Not to belabor the point--
Prof: You'd make a good CEO.

Glad you're retaining that knowledge.

Student: We just talked about this in another class, actually.
Prof: I hope the answer is the same.
Student: I don't remember.

Would you care to elaborate?

Prof (after we'd reviewed the fact that PBO stands for Projected Benefit Obligation): Does anyone remember what the PBO is?
Student: Isn't it, like, a projection?

(In defense of that student, s/he did elaborate on that point.)

How do you really feel about Puerto Rico?

Prof (re: tax complications): [U.S.] possessions are ... sort of like having a little bug in your house. ... Not a nice bug, like a cricket, but a semi-obnoxious bug.

Is that so?

Scene: High School Speech classroom. The students are playing Taboo. The word is "broom".

Samuel: Friend of mop.

Distant relation

Student: Couldn’t you just credit equipment or fixtures instead of expenses?

Prof: Is your name Worldcom?

Things to repeat on the Bar Exam

Prof: The will was drafted in Nebraska, which, as some of you are aware, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Texas.

Prof: And if that sounds like Greek to you, it would sound very different in Greek.

Prof: Marla dies with a $400,000 estate… Good for her. It’s always nice when people die with wealth.

Tastes Like Chicken?

Teacher: [Another teacher] thinks you boys are so cute!

Girl: What does she think about us?

Teacher: She thinks the girls are sweet.

Boy: What!?!?! Did she taste?

Or, Why Lawyer-types Shouldn't Hang Out

Another truism brought to you by xkcd.

Back to School!

Professor: The law school exam is inexplicable on pedagogical grounds, and on grounds of human decency.

Professor: This semester is compressed, like an accordion. I’ll tell you why someday, but only after several beers.

Professor: Your exam is on 10/10, so you all know that it’s on a Wednesday. 10/10 is of course not a Wednesday every year, because that would be stupid.

Professor, re: Midterm exam: These questions will have real answers, not like essays.

Free to a good home

Me: But she just got a new kitten. Who's going to keep her kitten when she moves?
Supervising attorney: I would, but my freezer is full.

but was she credible?

Intern describing opposing witness: She was ghastly.

I now fly Delta.

Northwest agent who will remain anonymous: Next time you want to get somewhere, try a different airline.

Too much information

Me, to pilot standing in a line to be rerouted: I don’t know if I can rent a car; I’m not old enough.

Pilot, taking a step back to look me up and down: I wish I wasn’t old enough to rent a car.

Not the first time this has happened

Joanna, calling hotel to send a shuttle to pick us up after I got stranded in Minneapolis due to a cancelled flight: We have an airline voucher.

Hotel clerk: You flew Northwest, didn’t you?

Patriotism at its finest

[Overheard at Mt. Rushmore as a large Air Force helicopter buzzed overhead]

Tourist to man in Air Force uniform: Is that your helicopter?

Air Force man: Well, sir, that helicopter belongs to the taxpayers, so technically it’s your helicopter.

I think I'll take the train

The plane in Spain gives passengers a pain...

Lookin' on the sunny side of life