Cheaper than a DUI

I love the cabs in Charlottesville, specifically the ones with the slogans on the back.  While some are more or less clever, I've noticed a number of them (or the same one, repeatedly) with "Cheaper than a DUI."  While this is certainly true in a nominal sense, the economist wonders whether this is necessarily true.  Assuming a cab fare X and a DUI fine Y, we must discount the fine by the probability p of being caught and convicted.  Thus, the cab is only cheaper than a DUI if X < pY. Of course, this is not the whole story, as there are other costs associated with a DUI than are captured in the fine (reputation, jail time).  Also, penalties are usually greater for repeat offenders.  Okay, cabbie, you've convinced me.  Carry on.  Oh, and can we stop by Christian's first?

On Deadlines and Hemlines

Douglas Adams is known for saying, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." I'm fond of deadlines for a different reason; namely, I work much more productively when the work is due in five minutes.

In thinking about this, though, I am curious as to the source of my newfound productivity. The initially somewhat satisfying explanation is the rising pressure makes the assignment rise in importance, allowing it to take priority over otherwise more interesting distractions. As a pleasure (or utility) maximizing individual, this makes sense. When a project doesn't become due for two months, the present value to me of having it completed is very small. This must due to a discount factor, some combination of uncertainty (I'll have plenty of opportunities to do the work between now and then) and the time value of leisure. When I fail a class or lose a job if the memo isn't on someone's desk in two hours, the utility gained from completing is more immediate, tangible, and certain, and therefore higher.

However, an alternative explanation presents itself, one that I propose with some shame. Rather than the actual quality of my work increasing as the deadline draws near, it is possible, perhaps even likely that it is only the perceived quality of my work that increases. That is, once it becomes clear that I will suffer great loss if I do not do the work, the standards for the work I turn in drop dramatically. Good Work gives way to Good Enough Work and I feel better for simply having turned something in.

I become more uncomfortable (personally, not empirically) with this explanation when I investigate parallels in relationships. Anecdotally, I've noticed that as people approach a "good" time to get married or engaged (the end of college, the end of law school, the end of fertility), they tend to find themselves in marriageable relationships. Is this is a function of heightened cognitive/emotional ability - a better sense of what one is looking for in a relationship - or a relaxing of standards as a deadline approaches? I'll leave that question for the reader.

Well, so I was right about my frequency in updates corresponding directly to amount-of-other-stuff-I-should-be-doing. I can't promise that will change over the summer, but I hope to at least bring back some interesting work stories from time to time. Such as the guy I met today who owns half the town. Nifty, eh? Also, check the box to your left for more frequent updates than will likely appear in the main content.

How I studied Landlord/Tenant relations

I should have posted this a while ago but I was too busy procrastinating studying that I forgot. Lo siento. Allow me now to present my Property review course: The Landlord.
Even the singing BarBri lady can't touch that.

Omnibus Mitchell Post

Mitchell: “Love is just a social construct to cover up some rather unseemly biological processes.”

---

Mitchell: “You call ME to the stand, an unimpeachable witness!”
Class: *Hearty Laughter*
Mitchell: “That was not supposed to prompt hearty laughter.”

---

Mitchell: "[When choosing a car] You can either choose the Yugo, with its tin foil sides or the Lexus, which, if someone looks at you the wrong way, encompasses you in sweet, loving foam...did I just say loving foam? I think I meant life-saving foam. Loving foam...I’d pay a lot for that."

This is to supplement my previous omnibus post of other professors' amusing comments, with the same disclaimer and apology if some of the material has previously found its way into the Law Weekly.

Voice Identification: FRE 901(b)(5)

A week or two into the semester:

Prof. Mitchell: “Mr. Graves, have you heard my voice before?”
Graves: “No.”
*Pause*
Graves: “I tune out during class.”

The Hornbook Cartel

Sometimes I wonder if certain professors don't have contracts with hornbook publishers such that the professor promises to to absolutely incomprehensible in return for a slice of the profits from study guide sales. Not to name names, but having seen every member of my Property class toting an average of two different hornbooks (plus the casebook), I start to wonder how I can get in on that racket.

An Open Letter - Barnes and Noble Man

Dear Barnes and Noble Man,

I hope you were not offended when Celia and I didn't exhibit zeal to continue conversation with you. We didn't want to be rude, but you did interrupt us in the middle of reviewing for our Con Law exam. Courtesy aside, the point you were wanting to make, we had already made more succinctly about 10 minutes prior to your interjection, and more completely several weeks ago in class. While ordinarily we might have been happy to engage you in a discussion on your skepticism of the political process, we were two law students trying to stay on the healthy side of the exam preparation/psychotic episode line. Trust me, it's better for all involved.

As a side comment, I could not help but notice the "Ask me about Barack" pin you were wearing. It coordinated well with the "O" pin you had affixed to your "Obama 2008" commemorative T-shirt. While your attention to the current national political climate are your apparent desire to engage in related discussion are both commendable, the point I wish to make about your button is that you seem to have either misunderstood what it says or intended to grab a different button. The button you thought you were wearing probably says "Ask me about Barack or I will force my way into your private conversation in order to engage you on a topic about which you are likely sick of hearing and that just may cause you to leap through the store's glass window-front and into mercifully oncoming traffic in order to get away." I might be paraphrasing.

Yours,

-Nathan

An old thought in a new place.

How do you warn a blind person of danger visible to the sighted? What about combination headset/RFID tag that broadcasts in a short radius the presence of someone for whom visual cues are ineffective? We then install RFID receivers and audio transmitters in key locations: when they detect (via RFID) the presence of a blind person, they transmit the appropriate warning over radio or some other appropriate frequency. The individual's headset picks up the signal and relays the cue aurally. Perhaps there could also be some triangulation and proximity possibilities as well. (Stereo headphones?)

This would seem to be a much better system than Braille warnings that count on a person happening to put their hands in a particular spot. Indeed, the normal operation of Braille in public places seems to be based on the presumption of sight to be able to locate the contextual "hotspot."

Derek Leach from IT came to Contracts to explain the new online multiple-choice component of our exam but was unable to get the computer and projector to work.
Kraus to Derek: "How does it feel standing in front of the class with your pants down?"

What exams?/I'M GOING TO DIE!

Schroedinger would love my brain right now. Exams have induced a state of simultaneous stress/unstress. Until measured by the taking of the first exam, no one - including myself - can know whether my brain is alive or dead.

2 weeks.

The very first time

I suspect that everyone has nostalgia accompanying memories of their first _____: first date, first kiss, first start on the varsity squad. Every subsequent instance is unable to measure up to that initial thrill, even if it could somehow be measured and shown to be objectively better. Right now I wish I could relive the first time I put in contact lenses. After wearing glasses for years, I had thought that good vision was good vision, and the only switch would be not having the clunky frames on my face. But now even my peripheral vision crackled with a clarity that glasses could never have provided. I no longer had to look directly at the floor for it to be anything other than an eternally fuzzy carpet of varying hues. I sometimes get a glimpse of that experience if I go without contacts for a few days or a week, just long enough for my brain to forget. Maybe one day I'll find a special pair that will make me feel like it's the first time all over again. Some day.

I'm sorry, but...

There is an amusing farce acted out in any number of communities and social situations. Actually, there may be many, but the one I have in mind right now is the fiction that anyone is actually good at remembering other peoples' names. It is a nice social save to claim "I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names," and I admit to using it myself almost daily, it seems. With the number of people who claim this, though, it makes me wonder where all these hypothetical people are who must be good at remembering names. I, for one, cannot remember meeting anyone with this skill, and if I have, I probably have forgotten their name, anyways.

Nerdy Lawyer/Economist Joke

Kraus: "Thank God for repudiation. It's a public good for lawyers."

A Glib Cynic Poll

I am uncertain as to which kind of lawyer I'm more bothered by: activists (of any stripe) or personal injury. I'm also not sure if the "With whom would I least prefer to be seated at a dinner party?" test is the correct one to apply here. Thoughts?

Enter Procrastination, Stage Left

Procrastination, unfailing herald of Exam Season. As my spotty blog history might suggest, Exam Season is roughly coterminous with a desperate desire to do anything but study. Poor is the mind that cannot come up with something more interesting than outlining, and law school doesn't usually attract the mental slouches. Today, though I was able to come close to finishing a Con Law outline and to make inroads on one for Contracts II: Contract Harder, in the meantime I found myself researching the history of aircraft carriers. And no, I am not taking Admiralty.

This afternoon when preparing to heat up some Campbell's soup for lunch, I experienced a revolt of the stomach (or taste buds), demanding immediate cheap Chinese food. I obliged by making my way to Taiwan Garden on Ivy. Total hole in the wall (完全漏洞在墙壁里). The food was tasty and a good value but nothing to wax poetic on. The lunch special was $4.50 and included a lunch entree (Amazing Chicken; their words, not mine), fried rice, egg roll, and soft drink. The egg roll was actually quite good and the rice - well, it's hard to mess up rice - but the sauce on the Amazing Chicken didn't really grab me. B+ (on the law school curve)

Thoughts from my Notes

I'll update this as I make my way through typing up my notes (some of the faculty quotations made it into the Law Weekly, so apologies for any repeats):

• Whenever a professor says "Good question" she usually means the opposite.
• --
  
• Student: "There’s a difference between wine and pot."
  Mitchell: "Of course there is! One is legal and one should be legal!"
• --
• Goluboff: "It has been argued that polygamy is actually good for women...I could use another wife [around the house]."
• --
• Kitch: "So what kinds of animals did they leave off?"
• Student: "Amphibians."
• Kitch: "Oh yes. Dolphins!"
• --
• Student 1: [says something stupid in class]
• Student 2: "It's okay, it's Monday."
• The next day -
  
• Student 2: [says something stupid in class]
• Student 1: "It's okay, it's Tuesday."
• --
• Kraus: "What does the writing say?"
• Student: "It says what it says."
• Kraus: "That's keeping your truth-telling percentage up."
  
  

Law School Term of the Day - eleemosynary

eleemosynary
adj.

1. Of or for charity; charitable; as, "an eleemosynary institution."
2. Given in charity; having the nature of alms; as, "eleemosynary assistance."
3. Supported by or dependent on charity; as, "the eleemosynary poor."

"That an expert testifies for money does not necessarily cast doubt on the reliability of his testimony, as few experts appear in court merely as an eleemosynary gesture." Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 869 (1995).

Is it worrisome that rules of Contract seem to be drafted by individuals divorced from the actual bustle and clamor of transactional work, sequestered away in dark offices, every so often spilling treatises and Restatements from their nests? The student wonders what might be the perspective of someone who has to daily work by the light of this questionable lodestar.

Oh well. Back to Kraus's book.

Law School Term of the Day - nugatory

nugatory
adj.

1. Of little or no importance; trifling.
2. Having no force; invalid.

"To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone with which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances." McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 413 (1819).

Interesting Pro Bono Opportunity...

"Attention Students:

The Legal Education Project needs volunteers to teach lessons on bullying to middle school students. LEP is scheduled to teach on January 30th between 9:20am and 10:20am at Sutherland Middle School and needs at least two additional volunteers ASAP. Students will teach in teams of two and will be provided with a lesson plan. No teaching experience is required...."

That's good, because my bullying certification expired last year.