#lang pollen

◊define-meta[page-title]{One month in}

◊define-meta[original-date]{2018-10-10}

◊define-meta[snippet]{My first month of law school.}

◊define-meta[featured-image-url]{assets/neo.gif}

◊video-player[#:src "assets/i_know_kung_fu.mp4" #:width "360px"]{"I know kung fu."}

One month into law school, and I feel a little like Neo after being

jacked into the information pipe. But, as you might remember from the

next scene, he was far from ready for the Matrix. That's the level

that we're learning things at right now---a basic literacy of broad

areas of law, so we will know how to understand new cases, what

questions to ask, and what arguments are valid. I also feel quite

unprepared to apply anything just yet. Maybe it will always feel like

this!

The most common question I'm asked is: "How has your first month

been?" I keep saying that it's been manageable. It's also been

stressful. It's also been really good.

I think the stress has more to do with the stress inherent in any

change rather than due to something specific to law school. This new

thing I'm doing is displacing some old things: no more ◊em{Overwatch}, no

more ◊em{Hearthstone}, less reading for pure leisure, no binge-watching

◊em{The Office}. It's also super engaging and stimulating. So, when I

wake up in the middle of the night, instead of falling right back to

sleep, my mind jumps to a topic we've been talking about in class or

to a reading I just completed. I also moved to a new apartment at the

beginning of October---another change and more work that I had to fit

everything else around.

The second-most common question I'm asked is (from people around me in

class): "What are you using to take your notes?"

I've been using ◊a[#:href "https://orgmode.org/"]{org-mode} to take

class notes and I like how that's been working. In case you haven't

heard of org-mode before, it's built in to a plain-text editor called

◊a[#:href "https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/"]{emacs} and it looks

like this:

◊fig[#:src "assets/org-mode-notes.png" #:width "450px"]{Some notes on one of the cases we read in tort law.}

Things I like about taking notes in org-mode:

◊ul{

◊li{The automatic indentation, lists, and collapsible sections}

◊li{Tags, although I'm barely using them right now}

◊li{Super simple markup for marking things italic or underlined or for making block quotations}

}

And, I've set up my org-mode system to automatically export the notes

to an html file that's saved to Google Drive. That lets me review all

of my notes on my phone on a nice-to-read web page.

◊fig[#:src "assets/class-notes-html.jpg" #:width "450px"]{What the

notes end up looking like when I browse them on my phone. The export

also includes a table-of-contents. Forgive the colour clash. It's just

a screenshot from my phone and I made the background of my notes

pinkish so I would feel better while reading them.}

The third-most frequent thing I'm asked is: "Why did you come to law

school? How are you going to use your computer science background?"

At the outset, I'm interested in civil liberties, public-interest law

generally, defendant rights, and copyright. I'm not sure whether I'll

use my computer science background (other than tangentially, like my

note-taking system, or factum-authoring tool), but there are some

topics where my interests seem to intersect. I've thought about some

of these more than others, but here are a few examples: copyright in

AI-generated art, protections against search and seizure of digital

and network evidence, anonymity and privacy rights in general,

algorithmic decision-making in law, and copyright/fair use of code,

APIs, and program outputs. These are not things that I'll get to think

a lot about in first year, but I'm enjoying the foundational topics

that we're focusing on in the meantime. They're certainly complex and

interesting enough.

◊sub-heading{Favourite things from each class}

◊ul{

◊li{◊b{Legal research and writing}: Getting access to really good

case-law research databases. WestlawNext 👍. Lexis Advance Quicklaw

👎. And ◊a[#:href "https://www.canlii.org/en/"]{CanLII} is actually a

pretty good free database.}

◊li{◊b{Public law}: Legislative research and statutory

interpretation. So fun to think about words and meaning.◊note{This

isn't a Canadian case, but it is a good example of the kinds of

questions that arise in statutory interpretation. ◊format-work[#:type

"legal-case-US" #:url

"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-7451_m64o.pdf" #:title

"Yates v United States" #:year "2014" #:citation "135 S Ct 1074"] Is a

fish a tangible object?}}

◊li{◊b{Contracts}: Thinking about the balance between formality,

giving effect to intent, and protection of weaker parties.}

◊li{◊b{Criminal law}: Causation. Someone did a thing. Later on, a bad

result happened. Is the person's action sufficiently connected with

the result to warrant punishment?}

◊li{◊b{Federalism}: That in determining whether the federal (or

provincial) government has the power to make a particular law, there

is a well defined series of questions that you need to work through,

yet in answering those questions, there's much room for legal realism (in the sense that that term is used ◊a[#:href "https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5995&context=journal_articles"]{here}).}

◊li{◊b{Property law}: Public property and how it relates to

homelessness and tent communities.◊note{◊format-work[#:type

"magazine/news" #:author-given "Cassidy" #:author-family "Gale"

#:publication "CanLII Connects" #:year "20 November 2014" #:url

"http://canliiconnects.org/en/summaries/31440" #:title "Summary of

*Victoria (City) v Adams*"]} ◊note{◊format-work[#:type "legal-case"

#:url

"https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcca/doc/2009/2009bcca563/2009bcca563.html"

#:title "Victoria (City) v Adams" #:citation "2009 BCCA 563"]}

◊note{This argument is still playing out in cities around North

America. See ◊format-work[#:type "legal-case-US" #:url

"http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/09/04/15-35845.pdf"

#:title "Martin v City of Boise" #:year "2018" #:citation "No

15-35845" #:jurisdiction "9th Cir"] This is almost the exact situation

as in ◊em{Victoria (City) v Adams}: there are more homeless people

than shelter spaces, but sleeping outdoors on public property is

illegal. Sleeping would be illegal for at least some of those without

private space. The challenge to the law was successful.} Also, the

economic analysis of law that is so prominent in property law today.}

◊li{◊b{Torts}: Implied consent to battery in sports settings. What

harms are really just part of the game?◊note{◊format-work[#:type

"magazine/news" #:author "Michael McCann" #:publication "Sports

Illustrated" #:date "6 May 2018" #:url

"https://www.si.com/nhl/2018/05/06/brad-marchand-licking-discipline-rulebook-legal"

#:title "A Look at the Possible Consequences of Brad Marchand's Tactic

of Licking Opponents"]}}

}

◊sub-heading{Some of my favourite readings brought to me by school so far}

◊ul{

◊li{◊format-work[#:type "article" #:url

"https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/file/coase-problem.pdf" #:author

"RH Coase" #:journal "Law and Economics" #:year "1960" #:volume "3"

#:first-page "1" #:title "The Problem of Social Cost"]}

◊li{◊format-work[#:type "article" #:author "Aaron Mills" #:journal

"McGill Law Journal" #:year "2016" #:volume "61" #:issue "4" #:title

"The Lifeworlds of Law: On Revitalizing Indigenous Orders Today"

#:first-page "847" #:url

"http://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/userfiles/other/41240-ARTICLE__5_EMBEDDED___Mills.pdf"]}

◊declare-work[#:type "legal-case-US" #:url

"https://casetext.com/case/edwards-v-sims-judge" #:title "Edwards v

Sims" #:year "1929" #:citation "232 Ky 791" #:jurisdiction "CA" #:id

"Edwards"]

◊li{The dissent here, which reads like something by

Lovecraft. ◊cite["Edwards" #:judge "Logan J, dissenting"]}

◊li{◊format-work[#:type "article" #:author "Jeremy Waldron" #:journal

"UCLA Law Review" #:year "1991" #:volume "39" #:pages "295--324"

#:title "Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom" #:url

"https://www.ru.nl/publish/pages/817133/waldron_1991.pdf"]}

}

◊sub-heading{What I'm looking forward to}

◊ul{

◊li{◊a[#:href

"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/mcsweeneys-and-eff-team-end-trust"]{◊em{McSweeney's

54}}: "a collection of essays and interviews focusing on issues related

to technology and privacy compiled with the help of the Electronic

Frontier Foundation."}

}

◊sub-heading{Miscellany}

◊ul{

◊li{One of the patents I worked on got issued! (◊a[#:href

"https://patents.google.com/patent/US9977955B2/en"]{US Patent

9,977,955}) This actually happened back in May, but I just found out

about it. I'm one of the inventors and I helped to draft the

specification.}

◊li{I joined Pro Bono Students Canada and will be spending a few hours

each week helping a Vancouver-based public-interest organization.}

◊li{I am still working on a ◊a[#:href

"https://github.com/sanchom/allard-writing-tools"]{factum-authoring

system}. As an author, you would use a slight variant of Markdown

(very close to plain text) and would need to create a bibliography

file. My program would then automate the citation layout, paragraph

notes, back-references, the table of authority, and all things related

to formatting. In case you're familiar with LaTeX and think it might

already do this, it doesn't. It needs to be coerced. The per-paragraph

notes for BC factums are not supported in LaTex and it is hard to get

BibTex or Biber to work with legal citations. This is my hobby

programming project right now.}

}