Hooked on Mnemonics

Remember when the time when your biggest academic challenge was memorizing the order of the planets in the solar system?

Nowadays, I am trying to cram a billion rules--common law, majority, minority, California, commercial codes, model rules--into my head for the biggest closed-book test ever. Even if we are not supposed to know it all, we are supposed to know (memorize) a lot.

So it is back to using memorization devices from the days of elementary school. I am not a big flashcard person, but I do like mnemonic phrases. They stick. Just think of all the facts you still remember from K-12 even though it is no longer applicable in your life. Here were the ones I remembered off the top of my head:

King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup
Taxonomy: Kingdom, Phyllum, Class, Order, Family, Genus Species

My Very Education Mother Just Served Us . . . (I acutally forgot what the last two were but it all got screwed up anyway with planets changing order and taking away planetary status)
Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (RIP)

BEAD Gum Candy Fruit
Order of Flats: BEADGCF

Every Good Boy Does Fine
Each Line on the Treble Clef: EGBDF

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Order of Operations: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

As for the bar exam, the only that I always remember is "Armadillos from Texas Play Rap, Eating Tacos," which hits all the major areas of contracts: applicable law, formation, terms, performance, remedies, excuses for non-performance, third parties. Thank you Epstein.

Let's Get Ethical

Once in my Higher Ed. Law class, an attorney came in to talk about NCAA law. He pointed out all the funny prohibitions, such as forbidding universities from taking prospective athletes out to strip clubs. He noted that these rules are only in there because it has happened.

Sometimes I do find learning about laws interesting because of what it says about society or the specific community that the laws are regulating. Behind every law is policy. Moreover, what laws a jurisdiction emphasizes (or more relevant to my life: tests on the bar exam) seem to reflect values or remedying past incidents.

For a little case study, let's take California. The only subject that is guaranteed to be tested on the essay portion of our bar exam is professional responsibility (aka legal ethics). This is notwithstanding the fact that we are all required to take ethics in law school, we all had to take a multiple choice ethics exam, and California requires the highest score on said exam in the country.

So what does this say about California? Either we really, really like ethics or the public does not trust us and we have to keep proving ourselves to them. It is the latter. See, we have good ole Califorian Nixon to thank. They did not add the mandatory ethical requirement to the bar until Watergate.

Additionally, through studying for the bar, I have also learned the differences between California and the national model rules (ABA). Let's see what these rules say about us:

• ABA states attorney fees must be reasonable; CA says that they can't be unconscionable. Meaning: whatever the difference is between reasonable and unconscionable, we can charge it.
  
• ABA says that you cannot take contingency fees for domestic relations cases; CA says you can take contingency fees in divorce unless it encourages breakup of marriage. Meaning: everyone thinks we're the land of divorce, now at least the lawyers can get paid.
  
• ABA says you can't literary obtain rights to a client's case until after it ends; CA allows it during the case. One word: Hollywood.
• ABA requires lawyers to report other lawyer's ethical violations; CA only requires people to report their own ethical violations. Clearly we have a lot of faith in the honors system.
• ABA states that there is a conflict of interest when your family is on the opposing side; CA adds that there is also a conflict when you are opposing someone you're intimate with.
• ABA prohibits consensual sex with clients unless the relationship was preexisting; CA felt the need to elaborate that a lawyer cannot demand or coerce a client to have sex and must withdraw if the sexual relations renders the lawyer incompetent. Sad there needed to be an explanation.
  

So interesting, we require more ethical hoops to jump through, but our rules seem more relaxed and fiscally self-serving than the national model. And apparently we have more promiscuous lawyers. Oh California.

Checking In and Signing Out (kind of)

Never fear. I am still alive, even if I feel brain dead after doing a 3-hour simulated test over the weekend and a 6-hour simulated test yesterday. That's a total of 300 multiple choice questions. I have never been a big fan of multiple choice, and 6 hours of it is exhausting.

Add on top of that learning and writing 5 essays about dividing spouse's marital property and well . . . there is a reason why I did not want to blog over the weekend. Luckily I did get to take a break, including lounging by the pool on the Fourth and watching the fireworks on a rooftop downtown.

Anyway, I wish I could write insightful blogs about Palin resigning, MJ's memorial that cost LA millions, Obama's healthcare plan, MTV's filming of the Real World in DC, and the other billion current events that all seem to happen while I am in class, but it's post July 4, which means I am going into bar review lockdown. I am still not at the "freak out" or "hit the wall" state, but there is still much studying to be done.

Just did not want people to worry if my posts become more infrequent and I am online even less. In addition to the fact I should be studying more, I really just do not want to bore you all because all I am (or should) be doing is studying.