Go USA (via UCLA)

Today I took my ethics exam at UCLA in the same exact room where I took so many courses, including a class with Michael Dukakis, and had LSAT classes. In addition to experiencing all the nostalgia of being back on campus, there was a sense of pride that was duly fitting for today, the first day of the Beijing Olympics.

/Commence UCLA gloating/ See, in addition to having stellar academics, we have the most national championships out of any university and are an Olympian-producing machine. Here are some interesting factoids:

• This year UCLA is sending 33 athletes and 5 coaches to the Olympics.
• UCLA has medaled in every single Olympic games in which it has participated.
• In 2004, UCLA sent 57 athletes and coaches to Athens to represent the US and 13 more to represent other countries. That's the most athletes out of any university.
  
• In 2004, UCLA brought back 19 medals. If UCLA were a country, it would have placed 14th overall in the medal count.
• Americans brought Westwood's infamous Diddy Riese cookies all the way to Beijing.
  
• Michelle Kwan, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Gail Devers, and Reggie Miller are just some of the Olympians from UCLA. (full list here)
  

I LOVE watching the Olympics and you can obviously tell I have a great deal of love for my alma mater. Put it together and I am very excited for the games to begin.

Ethics Shmethics

Tomorrow, thousands of law students and I will be taking the ethics exam. I think the fact that we have to take an ethics course and test only perpetuates the stereotype that those in the field are inherently unethical.

Moreover, I feel like the more I study the less ethical I become. I did well on my first practice test, declined on my second and third, and fortunately rebounded a little on the fourth. I think my problem is that I am trying to remember all these weird exceptions instead of doing what a normal, ethical person would naturally do.

But I guess I have learned some valuable tidbits. For example . . .

If you get arrested for soliciting sexual acts from an undercover police
officer who you thought was a prostite, you are probably not subject to
discipline by the bar because your criminal conduct does not show dishonesty,
untrustworthiness, or unfitness to practice law.

You cannot begin to have sexual relations after someone becomes your
client, but you can represent someone with whom you have already had sexual
relations with.

Posturing and puffery (my new favorite word) are allowed during negotiations; lying about material facts or
law is not.

I wonder what this says about my future profession. Now if only all professions had to learn ethics and take a test.

Picture borrowed from limitededition68.wordpress.com

AC: Just Like You and Me

I first saw and fell in love with Anderson Cooper when he hosted the ABC reality show the Mole in 2001. The Mole is like a James Bond meets Carmen San Diego meets the Amazing Race reality show; I would like to say it is one of higher class, quality reality shows. That is not to say that I do not watch trashy reality tv. I do, but apparently so does Anderson Cooper:


I have never seen Living Lohan, but I love Anderson's impressions and his embrace of mindless reality shows. I will no longer be embarassed to admit that I watch Top Model, Super Sweet 16, Search for the Next Pussycat Doll, or the Real Housewives of OC/NY/Atlanta.

Watching bad tv does not make you a bad person.

President Paris?

I have never cared for Paris Hilton. Between her DUIs (you are rich, get a driver), to her distasteful Carl's Jr. ad (I boycotted the place afterwards), to her dumb and dumber shtick on The Simple Life (I hate people who profit off of stupidity). While she was probably raised this way by her seemingly crazy mom and her ability to gain so much publicity and money based on very little talent is actually impressive, she is still annoying.

That is why it pains me so much to admit that this counter-ad actually made me laugh out loud:

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

In case you were wondering what Paris is responding to:



I like it when celebrities do not take themselves seriously (note to self: post Anderson Cooper's video tomorrow) and she provided some comedic relief in a very long election cycle. And I think the funniest thing about the whole situation is that McCain spent $1.4 million to run the ad 4,000 times (USA Today) while Paris posted this online and it has been viewed over 1 million times in the past eight hours.

This may just prove McCain's point about celebrity obsessed culture, but the co-mingling of politics and the cult of celebrity is a bipartisan issue (See Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan) (See also Sylvester Stallone & Tom Selleck endorsing McCain).

Lawyer Lessons

For the first Monday in over two months, I was able to sleep in past 7:30am and not have to drive to work. I am glad I finally get a little break--even if I still have to take an ethics test on Friday and do a bunch of other things before class starts.

Before thinking about all that though, I have reflected back on what I have learned at my job, which overall was a very positive experience. Without going into specifics (client confidentiality), here were some lessons I learned about lawyering in the "real world":

Confusion: The difference between a lawyer and a law student working at a summer job is that a lawyer accepts confusion and the fact that they do not know something, and works through it. Conversely law students worry about not learning something from school and question whether they picked the right field. I remember how confused I was on my first day of work when I got a really tough assignment; it turns out I knew just as much about the subject as the assigning lawyer did but I intially was overwhelmed by the confusion (I would lie if quitting after the first day did not pass through my head). Lawyers work through it . . . or assign it to the summer law clerk or new associate.

Support Staff: Legal assistants/paralegals/secretaries are amazing people who have a tremendous amount of patience. They keep lawyer organized, perform a great deal of research themselves, deal with difficult clients, and help new or soon-to-be lawyers like me. Another interesting observation was that assistants' personality eerily matched the lawyers they worked with. I could have easily put the pairs together in my office.

The Work: Legal work is really interesting and can be very fulfilling. Sometimes it is just as "sexy" and cool as it seems on television; other times people think what you do is really boring but you still think it's cool. Fighting for a client is especially rewarding.

Opposing Counsel: Sometimes you are up against lawyers who are morons like the ones I was up against last week. It can be very frustrating when you put in so much work into a case and the other side has not or is not acting rationally. Conversely, there are also some really good lawyers that you can be up against, but you are both working in the best interest of all. Fortunately, it seems like in Santa Barbara, you encounter more of the later because it is hard to want to screw over fellow lawyers in a tight-nit community.

Billing: Keeping track of your work to the tenth of an hour is not fun but you get used to it pretty quickly. See previous post for more.

Morale: Even though I did not get wined and dined like summer associates at big firms, the office does do things for its lawyers and that makes a big difference. The little things made me happy and more productive; whether it was having an infinite supply of green tea in the kitchen area, a receptionist always there to cheerfully greet me, Monday morning fruit or breakfast burrito Friday, or having a family friendly office where lawyers could bring in their babies for everyone to ogle.

Only in the US of A

Since I last posted I have been busy moving out of Santa Barbara, finishing up work at the firm (which I'll post about later), returning to San Clemente, editing papers on the beach, and showing my second cousins from France around Southern California.

The last has been the most fun. While showing them what life is like in California/USA, I am also getting to experience my favorite parts about my home state before I return to DC. I have also realized how unique CA and the United States are from everywhere else. Here is just some of the things that they have gotten to see and experience (with and without me) that they don't get back in France:

• Feeling an earthquake.
• Lounging on the beach and watching the hardworking lifeguards in action (apparently they don't do anything in France)
  
• Seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger's name on my diploma. One of my second cousin's is a huge Arnold fan and wants Arnold to adopt him.
  
• Tasting Pink Berry-esque frozen yogurt and fruit. They loved the self serve machine, being able to pick out as many toppings as they wanted, and paying by the ounce. They hope it comes to Paris.
• Observing the weirdos at Venice Beach.
  
• Going to Costco, seeing how huge it was, sampling products, and finding everything there ("they have tvs, food, everything!").
  
• Eating, and loving peanut butter. Some other American favorites that they are bringing back with them include oreos, girl scout cookies, Ritz crackers, and craisins.
• Seeing really big cars.
• Visiting Little Saigon, which is about 20x bigger than any other Vietnamese community outside Vietnam.
• Las Vegas. 'Nuff said.