Extermination Fail

Prof: I’m sorry I’m late; my office has been overtaken by these huge ants. The construction on the quad must have unearthed them or something, and no one in the building has Raid, so I’ve been drowning them in 409.

Honest

Student: (on whether a lay witness can testify on whether a substance tasted like cocaine) If you put cocaine in your mouth it makes your mouth go numb.

Class: *pause* *think* *laugh*

Student: I saw it on Law and Order.

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?

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.

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!'

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."