I'm appealing. Attorneys: ultimate facts/ law v. equity in practice...

In My Humble Opinion
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Not Alice: There are no proceeds. We are upside down. I don’t want the house because of the value, I want the house because it is my home. I would pay the same renting as I can with roommates here. I love my home.

Astro: Clerical bullshit caused a delay - which has its up and its downsides. The reporters have to deliver the transcripts by early July. I have to file my brief within 30 (up to 45 if I want to push it) days after that. I think I’d like to get it done sooner, not sure if it’s possible.

I have filed two motions and they were both granted, so I’m glad for that. The second was granted without even giving the other side a chance to respond, which was very nice.

I will be keeping the Dope abreast of major developments. (Especially if I win… )

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Incidentally, the original reason I opened this thread was because of the appeal and because I was waiting for the judge to cough up what is called a “Statement of Decision”…I like to think of it as the law’s version of “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” - essentially a request of the judge to…explain herself. What did she find that the evidence revealed about the actual facts?

It was a stunning document that revealed that her entire thought process was to regurgitate what the Plaintiff’s attorney said. Which generally did NOT actually match the testimony of his client.

But, based on my objections, she had cut the original judgment in half.

This is the easiest way to explain it:

Plaintiff: “The sky is blue.”
Defendant: “The sky is dark blue.”

Plaintiff’s attorney speaking directly to the court in argument, status conferences, hearings and in filed documents: “This court has heard my client state that the sky is lime green with pink polka dots.”
Judge’s Statement of Decision: "This court finds that the sky is green with pink polka dots, therefore Stoid owes Plaintiff $10,000.

Stoid Objects: “The evidence from the plaintiff was that the sky is blue. Plaintiff’s attorney said the sky was green with pink polka dots, and an attorney’s statements are not evidence. Here’s a couple of pages from the transcript showing the Plaintiff saying: “The Sky is blue.” so obviously the defendant can’t owe $10,000 because of the sky being lime green with pink polka dots.”

Final judgment and Decision: “This Court finds that the sky is not only green with pink polka dots, it’s also lined with orange stripes. So not only does the court rescind the items it lowered after the first set of objections, this court will more than quadruple the judgment, based on all these other findings it just made up (none of which were damages of any sort. Just insane interpretations of reality.) So choke on that.”

Somebody really doesn’t like being questioned. That’s for sure.

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Sorry you lost. I know you put tons of hours of blood, sweat and tears into fighting this so that must have been an incredibly difficult thing to hear.

Hope you can put this all behind you and move on.

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She didn’t lost the appeal. She’s in the middle of it. She was describing how she lost the original case.

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Thank you, PunditLisa, that’s very kind of you to say.

In all the most important ways, I have put it behind me. While I’m still VERY committed to pursuing the appeal and doing all I can to UNdo what has been done, for both practical and much more lofty reasons, in my heart I’m fine. I’m more than fine, I’m excellent.

This process, starting with the personal disintegration of the relationship, has been absolutely the most agonizing of my life. There have been a couple of moments along the way when suicide made perfect sense to me- not because I was in any way considering it, but because I was so devastated and in such despair, that I thought to myself: “If this is what clinical depression feels like, and people suffering with it can’t find a way out…I can completely appreciate suicide as a choice.” (One of my oldest friends committed suicide right before the first trial, so I think about that alot. A few months before that, my mother died, and in between the dog I loved most in my life, who was only five, died suddenly and agonizingly. My father has been bedridden, my other dog died… the hits just keep on coming!)

But I’m long past such feelings and now I embrace the extraordinary way this experience has enriched me, honestly. I wouldn’t have chosen this path to get where I am, but I absolutely would choose where I am, every single time. (Personally, not materially.) I’m in a better place than I have ever been in my life, I like myself better, I’m happier, I’m more connected.

Life’s wacky. :smiley:

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And on the “why I am grateful for this miserable nightmare” list, there’s a very good chance I’m going to end up in law school down the line. My second attorney bugs me about it all the time, he’s absolutely convinced and determined that I will end up at his alma mater, USC, with a scholarship. It’s a lovely thought… I don’t tell him I’d rather go to UCLA.

But alot depends on what I can test out of. I have a 4.0 from junior college a billion years ago, but there’s some big gaps between me and a bachelor’s, and if I do go to law school, I’d really like to go to a GOOD law school, and a good law school demands a bachelor’s. But I’m old. Very old. Way too old to get revved up at the idea of 4 or 5 or 6 years of school. I could go for the cheapass law schools that don’t demand a bachelor’s, but since I AM so goddamn old, I would want to have a degree from a really good law school to help compensate.

But who knows. I have a lot to do between now and any of that. (I like to imagine nailing my appeal and having it published -entirely possible since the issues at stake are kinda first impression- and tucking that into my application to law school. How cool would that be?) And the way I feel now, if I don’t get some indication that the law is really not some horrible crapshoot completely at the mercy of judicial ego and whim, I don’t know if I could stomach being part of it. I need to have some direct experience of the law functioning the way it’s supposed to first. Because on paper, it’s a wonderful thing.

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You may want to investigate a Canadian law school. Some of them (though not all) will allow somebody with an incomplete bachelor’s degree to apply–though you have to have extremely good grades in the bachelor’s courses that you did take, and a stellar LSAT. I don’t know which, if any, of your JC credits could count, but you can always ask. In addition, some Canadian schools have a special category for “mature” applicants. The definition of “mature” varies from school to school, but essentially, it’s a way to allow your life experience to take the place of things that would be demanded of younger applicants. For example, grades that might not get you in at age 25 might get you in as a mature applicant at age 35, if your life experience otherwise demonstrates that you will succeed.

Age isn’t a barrier, by the way. The oldest graduate in my law school class was 55 years old. I myself was in my 40s when I started. At least two of my classmates had to do a bachelor’s degee first; they were each in their late 30s or early 40s when they started on their bachelor’s and they went straight into law.

Best of all, from your point of view, is that a number of Canadian law schools are moving towards a joint LL.B/J.D. degree in partnership with American law schools. For example, the University of Alberta has recently entered into such a partnership with the University of Colorado. What this means is that you begin your law school at U of A and end up with a J.D. from U of Colorado that would be recognized in the United States. (Of course, you also get an LL.B. from U of A, which in itself is very well regarded in Canada.) I don’t know if any Canadian schools have partnered with UCLA, but from what I do hear, the American schools that do have Canadian partnerships are quality schools.

If law interests you as much as it seems to, it certainly can’t hurt to investigate as many options as possible, and if your route takes you through Canada, that shouldn’t be a problem. Both Canada and the US share a common law tradition, the common-law law schools in both countries follow the Langdellian system, and if you end up with a J.D. that allows you to practice in the USA and comes from a good American school, then you’re all set. Something to consider, anyway.

Just remember to “note up” cases at your Canadian school and “shepardize” them at your US school. :smiley:

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Are there any non-common-law law schools in the United States or Canada?

There was a lot of talk about the Socratic method in my law school, but I never heard mention of the Langdellian system.

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The Langdellian system is the division of courses into Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, etc. and teaching the courses by focusing on cases and using the Socratic Method. Basically the whole structure of law school.

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I have tried to avoid using lingo that I’m very familiar with already, such as “shepardize”, because non-lawyers are reading, non-US/California lawyers are reading, and because I’ve gotten so much goddamn grief already that I figure whipping out my lingo would be attacked as a weak attempt to appear knowledgeable without underlying substance.

That said, I’m a shepardizin’ fool. When I’m at the library… it’s too expensive piecemeal and not available free at all anywhere I’ve found.

I had the use of my lawyer-neighbor’s Lexis account…and I strained it to the breaking point so we had to stop all that. Once I’m deep in the appeal I’ve considered getting one of those one-monthers… still steep, but I would squeeze every last drop from it. (Apparently when I was using my friend’s account, if she didn’t have her discount my single-month use would have run to nearly $20,000… what can I say, I like to follow up on every possible detail, I don’t want ANY surprises.)

Aside from Shepards, the other things you can only get if you are at the library or paying on some level are Deerings (annotated codes - for the non- lawyers, it’s every single law on the books listed with cases that have been decided in relation to those laws. It’s a pretty fantastic resource, though I’m glad it’s my natural inclination to actually read the whole case than just grab the Deering’s note, because a couple of times the Deering’s note was not really accurate; it assumed things that weren’t really there in the case. Unfortunately, it was things I wanted to be true…boohoo.) and the practice guides. BUT…marvelously enough, you can pull the chapters out whole and email them to yourself, which is incredibly great. I have whole slabs of the Matthew Bender Forms of Pleading and Practice, Real estate Litigation Guide, an evidence guide…all on my computer in PDF and searchable. It’s fantastic.

It’s very nice to have the freebie Lexis available, but the limitations of it can make me a little crazy at times, like the lack of shepards and the fact that you can’t link directly to anything, there’s no headnotes… lots of nice details missing. But it definitely gets the job done, for which I’m very grateful.

One of the reasons I feel very confident about what I’ve been doing is that I always end up having WAY more in-depth knowledge than my adversary or the judge. I enter the fray girded for battle, ready to bat down all the arguments against my position because I knew exactly what they were; the legal basis, the cases, the peculiarities that made them applicable, and how to distinguish them from my situation.

But so far, the other side/the court has completely missed the on-point issues they could have (and should have) used, and have generally fallen back on some starined version of “because!” or some completely unrelated issue. (The receiver is particularly clueless and his reaches have been pretty sad, actually.) This tells me that if nothing else, I am a much more obsessive researcher than they are. I’ve thought about making a little side cash selling my services as a researcher. I dig it. Although… the law is the original hyper-linked discipline and one can drown a little following all the links.

Still… cool stuff.

And thanks for all the information about Canadian law schools. I can’t really see myself going that route, if I were to leave Southern California to go to school, it would never be to go to Canada, no offense. I’m just a weather pussy.

But the age thing is interesting. I’m 51 this month, I think if i ever do manage to pursue the law it won’t be any sooner than fall 2010, when I’ll be 52 already. I’d like to have my JD by 55.

There’s a very highly rated law school here in LA with an accelerated program, and I already talked to them last year about what it would take. There’s a couple of ways I might finagle the bachelor’s, then I might do that. I think I could handle it. And if I could manage to hang on to my 4.0 (and slam-dunk the appeal…I do love that idea on so many levels…although I can’t fall too much in love with myself if I do, because Judge Thing has been so completely nuts…excuse me, the Court has abused its discretion so persistently and egregiously that it has made it awfully easy to appeal) there are some very good scholarships available.

All very exciting. But first I need to do what’s in front of me today, and that’s some very serious stuff.

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Canada has a few civil law schools, since the province of Quebec uses civil law. But the majority of Canadian schools are common-law schools.

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You’re quite welcome! IMHO, you shouldn’t worry about the weather–as a law student, you’ll be far too busy studying to go outside. :smiley:

But again, don’t let your age stop you. It sure didn’t stop my 55-year-old classmate. Or me, for that matter. Good luck!