The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, kinda:
“From out of the East a stranger came,
A law book in his hand, a man.
The kind of a man the west would need
To tame a troubled land;”
Typical Male by Tina Turner. It starts off:
“Tell me lawyer, what to do
I think I’m falling in love with you”
STOP!
A legal writing competition?
Where the prize for winning is… more legal writing?
Why does no one else see the irony in this?
Better you than me, Mr. Excellent.
I’ll Sue Ya by Weird Al Yankovic.
(Warning: YouTube link with sound)
Good luck with the write-on, man. Pro-tip: don’t leave anything you need lying around in the library where other competitors can get to it. Beastie Boys is my personal choice for red pen work, cut with a little Van Halen from the Roth era.
I’m glad someone else likes this song. I seem to be in a small minority. Many have been the times when it’s come on the radio and I’ve said, “Wait! I like this song!” when someone’s hand immediately reached for the tuner - inevitably leading to my being mocked. But I do like it, dammit.
It was written by Bruce Hornsby, which makes a lot of sense when you consider the overall feel of the song.
I learned it was written by Bruce Hornsby when Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs were on CMT Crossroads a few weeks back, and they sang End of the Innocence. I think Hornsby is a seriously underregarded songwriter, and was interested to learn that “End of the Innocence” was his.
The whole song isn’t about lawyers, but Mr. Bad Example by Warren Zevon contains the following: “Of course I went to law school, and took a law degree- counseled all my clients to plead insanity”.
Sidebar, please, counsel.
What the heck are you talking about?
Please explain to a poor befuddled northern colleague.
(And how do you get minions in law school? I never got no minions…grumble, grumble, grumble…)
I, a lawyer, once made the mistake of going to a Willie Nelson concert. A Governor General’s Award wining poet was visiting me, and insisted that Willie Nelson was a great poet, so off we went with a third friend to the concert.
Nelson was so drunk that he kept falling down on stage, and could not sing coherently, let alone convey the lyrics that had so motivated my poet friend.
The third friend that went with us was so motivated by Nelson’s deportment that he left the building, and unbeknownst to us, gave his ticket to a skid. Meanwhile, a person from further back moved up to my third friend’s now empty seat.
The skid entered the building with the ticket and tried to sit in the newly occupied seat. Penis ensued as a fight broke out between the skid and the seat poacher, which then grew as the seat poacher’s friends joined in to pummel the skid, and then other people in the section joined in to defend the skid.
During the brawl, my poet friend and I quietly slipped away, leaving Willie Nelson to his loyal fans, and the police rushing past us to quell the fight.
In revenge for having given his ticket to a skid, the next day I told my third friend’s insanely jealous wife that he had been making passes at a woman at the concert. He later told me that she beat the crap out of him for that, which was par for the course in his marriage. Unfortunately, when he told me this, it was several days later at the end of a kayak trip, when I was in the bed of a pickup truck underneath a load of kayaks, with him grabbing my arm with one hand, while holding onto a farmer’s electrified fence with the other, watching me scream (getting zapped himself was worth it for him to watch me get zapped). So I was not what you would call a singing lawyer – I was more of a yelping, screaming lawyer, who in a very roundabout way, found Willie Nelson to be not just motivating, but positively electrifying.
Style guide to legal citation.
I had a cat during law school, and he liked to keep me up at night, so I got him a cat. Given the pecking order I thus had two minions, and he had one minion.
Then I got a girlfriend, so the pecking order changed somewhat, such that she had three minions, my senior cat had two minions, and my junior cat had one minion.
Presently, I am bach’ing with one cat, and we are more or less on equal terms, however he has the neighbour’s German Shepard for his minion, while I have to clean the litter box.
Life is so unfair. Sniff.
Someone please sing me a Willie Nelson ballad.
Oh, I understand what the bluebook is, but they’re using it like a verb, and there seems to be some competition involved, and strategy to avoid being deked by colleagues in the library, and … well… I’m just confused.
I can not list all the songs written about Abraham Lincoln and the goodness he done.
Thought of one more: I’m Like A Lawyer With The Way I’m Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You) by Fall Out Boy. Yeah, the title’s long, but it cracks me up every time. The song’s okay, too.
In many law schools, one gets on law review in one of two ways: by grading on or by writing on. They’ll take the top X students in the class, or everyone with a grade point average above a certain level. Those are the people who “grade on” to law review. The other way is through a writing competition; hence, “to write on to law review.” It can be a “closed” problem – no research permitted – or an open problem, which would be annoying.
Anyway, I’ll leave it to the able Mr. Excellent to explain how it works at his school. But in short, it’s a writing competition, in which the winners are given the right to do more writing, as HSHP points out. In that sense, it’s like legal life: the reward for good work is more work.
To bluebook (verb): to conform the citations in the brief to the standards set by the Bluebook. Used to be a time when I could abbreviate any case title, accurately arrange a string cite that included state, federal, and unpublished cases; pending statutes; treatises; internet articles; and interviews; and select the appropriate signal (“no, I think this one calls for a cf. signal”) without breaking a sweat (or cracking open the bluebook).
But then I became a lawyer, and over time, I stopped having to bluebook my own briefs. I had minions to do my bluebooking. And so my mad bluebooking skillz got way rusty.
Having been a lawyer, Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, made good use of the profession in Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, Patience, Iolanthe, Utopia
Limited, and The Grand Duke.
For example, from Trial by Jury:
When I, good friends, was call’d to the bar
I’d an appetite fresh and hearty
But I was, as many young barristers are
An impecunious party
I’d a swallow-tail coat of a beautiful blue
And a brief which I bought of a booby
A couple of shirts, and a collar or two
And a ring that looked like a ruby
He’d a couple of shirts, and a collar or two
And a ring that look’d like a ruby
At Westminister Hall I danc’d a dance
Like a semi-despondent fury
For I tho’t I never should hit on a chance
Of addressing a British jury
But I soon got tired of third-class journeys
And dinners of bread and water
So I fell in love with a rich attorney’s
Elderly, ugly daughter
So he fell in love with a rich attorney’s
Elderly, ugly daughter
The rich attorney, he jump’d with joy
And replied to my fond professions
“You shall reap the reward of your pluck, my boy
At the Bailey and Middlesex Sessions
You’ll soon get used to her looks,” said he
“And a very nice girl you will find her
She may very well pass for forty-three
In the dusk, with a light behind her”
She has often been taken for forty three
In the dusk, with a light behind her
The rich attorney was good as his word
The briefs came trooping gaily
And every day my voice was heard
At the Sessions of ancient Bailey
All thieves, who could my fees afford
Relied on my orations
And many a burglar I’ve restored
To his friends and his relations
And many a burglar he’s restored
To his friends and his relations
At length I became as rich as the Gurneys
An incubus then I thought her
So I threw over that rich attorney’s
Elderly, ugly daughter
The rich attorney my character high
Tried vainly to disparage
And now, if you please, I’m ready to try
This breach of promise of marriage
And now, if you please, he’s ready to try
This breach of promise of marriage
For now I’m a judge
And a good judge, too
Yes, now I’m a judge
And a good judge, too
Though all my law be fudge
Yet I’ll never, never budge
And I’ll live and die a judge
And a good Judge too
Gilbert and Sullivan is way past copyright, I assume?
However, generally, we do NOT permit quoting of full lyrics here. Quote a line or two and then provide a link to the site that holds copyright.
“Trial by Jury” has been in the public domain since 1961, being fifty years following Gilbert’s death in 1911.
Gilbert and Sullivan experienced the early development (or lack thereof) of international copyright. There was copyright in England at the time, but the Berne Convention was not made until 1886, eight years after Gilbert wrote the lyrics to Trial by Jury, and even then the USA did not get on board until 1989.
John Kenrik notes that: “When Gilbert and Sullivan brought their company of Pinafore to New York, the casts of several unauthorized Pinafore’s brazenly turned out to welcome them in the harbor.”
The most significant effect of copyright expiring was that it was a major blow for the d’Oyly Carte Opera Company, which had held copyrights for most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and had been putting on Gilbert and Sullivan show since day one. They pulled through, and are still putting on the operettas.
Tom Paxton’s One Million Lawyers
Oh, a suffering world cries for mercy.
As far as the eye can see,
Lawyers around every bend in the road.
Lawyers in every tree.
Lawyers in restaurants.
Lawyers in clubs.
Lawyers behind every door.
Behind windows and potted plants,
Shade trees and shrubs.
Lawyers on pogo sticks.
Lawyers in politics.
In ten years we’re gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand.
Two lines?
“She may very well pass for forty-three
In the dusk, with a light behind her”
Politically incorrect, but timeless.