The Internship Debutante

So I started working a law firm barely 5 days after exams, as a intern, making my friends wonder if I was just a little insane. The last 5 days were spent shopping for officewear, watching TV, reading up on IP law and generally making the most out of my short time.

Internship so far has been good (all one and a half days of it) – I was thrown a case-file after the obligatory round of introductions, and I have been consumed with research on that. I am getting real work, and that is the important thing, as compared to many interns in big firms who are the equivalent of briefcase carriers and coffee-fetchers. I don’t regret going into a small specialised firm – the lack of other interns to socialise with is actually fine, because it helps me concentrate on work.

Now I just need something to get rid of this perpetual sleepy-bleary-eyed thing that seems to be endemic once I settle into a cubicle of any sort, making me wonder if the chairs are impregnated with a skin-absorbent tranquiliser. I strongly fear I am taking after the path of Rachel, who drank 4 cups of green tea day during exams and internship (I keep re-steeping the same bag all day). I have finally discovered which of the shoes I bought is actually comfy and stylish (hint: not the stilletos), and I figured out I need to sit properly or my skirt is going to ride wayyyy up. I am missing my music – when I study, music is my perpetual companion, all day, every day, but the computer doesn’t have a headphone jack in the front. Not to mention its other defects, the least of which being that it is a Windows computer.

Whatever Boston Legal told you about legal practice, don’t believe a word of it. In real life, going to trial can take up to a year as the lawyers correspond in their lawyerly fashion back and forth, trying to get something out of opposing counsel. The case I am working on, the writ was taken out a year ago, and there still has not been a real hearing except one to strike out the action. In real life, the paperwork for certain trials can fill entire shelves, all meticulously numbered and indexed.

In any case, I am relatively happy here so far, and I intend to make  the best out of my 2 months here – and it will most definitely be made if I manage to attend an actual trial for one of the cases I work on. *crosses fingers*

Let’s just hope that I remain this bright-eyed two weeks down the line. Unlikely, but hoping never hurt anyone.

Mid-exam post

So I am blogging in the middle of my Comparative Legal Traditions 3-day take-home exam because it is 3am and I can’t sleep, and I can’t seem to focus on Talmudic law either.

Our paper this year sucks – and not in a SLS (omg-Beckmann-pulled-a-major-joke-on-us) way, or a Legal Theory (omg-Ramraj-killed-us-all) way, but more in a stare-at-the-paper-and-roll-our-eyes way.

Having got that out of the way, it is time to whine about the fact that WRATH OF THE LICH KING has been released! And I can’t play, not until after my last paper.  I had accepted the cruel fact that WLK was going to be released during exam time, but on the same time and date as my first paper? I had to send N to collect the game for me.

It is times like that I think the universe is playing a cosmic joke on me.

So while I figure out why Islamic law seems to say you need 4 witnesses for rape, people are already levelling up and hitting level 72 – my guildmates being involved in a race to the 80 in order to get first kill on the server.

Sorry, even I ain’t that ambitious. Everyone knows a horde guild gets first kill on a PVP server. it is one of the constants of life, like needing a loud mouthy black woman around the hospital to get any job done, or knowing the PAP will always win the elections.

Here’s to hoping I finally get to sleep and we all discover what in the world Hindu law says about evidence and rape in our extremely sketchy readings.

Quotable Quotes: Ode to Gray

Yesterday was the last lecture by Kevin Gray – to our credit, we sent him off with a resounding 2-min long applause, which stopped short of being a standing ovation.

I actually do consider myself immensely lucky to have been taught by one of the most profilic land law academics alive today. It really helped that he was really funny and oh-so-freaking-adorable, as Rachel will testify. So I am feeling just a tiny wee bit sad that we won’t be having him anymore for property law (he was a positive springwell of quotable quotes and funny sayings, including the now-famous “go forth and multiply” which I use liberally) but all good things must come to an end.

This is the best ever quote by him, so far, delivered with his trademark deadpan tone and British accent.

“Of course, we know who are the most lethal people in property law, and it is your own family members. Land law is really a law of family pathology.”

Freedom (from) Contract

I am freed from contract, the bane of my life! Whee!!

Once criminal law is done on Thursday, I’ll be free for 3 months. So, my friends, if there are any bombs you want to drop on me, anything particular onerous, or if any one wants to declare their undying love for me (yeah right), do it AFTER May 8th, okay?

Who is allowed to speak?

‘LAWYERS, because of their training and education and their involvement, often tend to have views on civil liberties, politics and civil society.And I think they should take part in civil society in their individual capacities.

But the law society, as an organisation, should not. Can it really express the will of all its members, which is what it would be purporting to do in politics, and throw its weight behind one or another organisation?

We’ve always looked at politics and expression of those views as something that should be done within the framework of political parties. If you want to do that, join a political party. Don’t use a civil or civic or professional organisation as a cover for engaging in politics.’

On whether there is room for the law profession to play a more active role in civic society

‘I think our libel laws work very well. Under the American system, as long as you come into public life, you’re fair game and anyone can say anything about you, whether or not it’s true. I don’t believe that to be the right system because I feel that if you want to encourage good people to come into public service, then their reputation and integrity must also be protected.

I did hold these views even then, when I represented IHT when it was sued. I was already a government MP. But I’ve taken an oath to defend my clients. The fact that they’ve published an article which proved to be defamatory doesn’t mean they’re not entitled to defence as best as the defence can be put up.

On whether Singapore leaders resort too hastily to suing for libel. Mr Shanmugam had acted both for and against Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in libel cases. In 1995, he represented the International Herald Tribune

I am a nerd so I subscribe to legal news on the Singapore Law Watch… when this came in my reader, I really wasn’t sure what to think about it. This was a stub of a feature article ST did on Shanmugam when he got his “promotion”.

I try, you know. I try very hard not to get riled up about local politics, because I know it ain’t good for my blood pressure, and I try not to blog about it. But certain things really just rub me the wrong way.

Cursing Kelman to Eternal Damnation

Legal theory is over. Yes, yes, I am indeed alive, and no brain has not turned into mush.

Wrote complete and utter crap, waaaaay under the word limit, scattered footnotes here and there to make it all look prettier. I am quite happy with passing, really, and so are many people, given the number of people who’ve been joining the Facebook group “We got screwed over by legal theory”. Except, of course, for the few geniuses who are always speaking up in class about what Dworkin and Hart are really saying, whoever cares about you?

Damn you, Kelman. Could you not at least mention Mill or his harm principle in passing, in your 84-page essay on what most people consider common sense? Would have made my life five times easier. Take your cue from MacKinnon, would ya?

3 hours is just too freaking short. I want my 24-hour take-home exam back.

No prizes for guessing I am not going to take Advanced Jurisprudence.

I Heart Hart. Not

Not dead, just been doing legal theory for the past few days, for the glorious exam today. Hart and Fuller and Dworkin and Kelman and every other legal philosopher worth mentioning, wading through pages of unintelligible text, and finding out to my horror this morning that I’ve been wasting time with the wrong Dworkin text and that’s why it wasn’t making sense at all.

I Heart Hart. Not.

Law, Morality and Religion

My nervous system suffered a big shock yesterday – it turns out my darling sweetie honey baby pie Zixian is a Natural Law Theorist. (To those who don’t under legalspeak, that means she believes there law and morality are inseparable, and that there is a higher, divinely ordained law). Me? I am firmly in the camp of Legal Positivism (law and morality are separate), or rather Critical Legal Theory (law is indeterminate). Really, how do I go on after this.. *heart breaks into a million pieces* Okay, not really.

Quotable Quotes Update

English men are never impotent.

— Stanley Yeo, in response to the House of Lords ruling in Bedder v DPP

Broken Hearts and Time-Travelling Case-theories

Yes, I know, this blog is starting to look like No Man’s Land. You know the excuse even before I say it. Zixian has been bugging me to blog as well, because you know, I am apparently so much freer than her and I need to entertain her.

My heart is currently broken. The L Word Season 5 just ended, and Lost is taking a four-week break, while they catch up the on time lost during the Writer’s Guild strike. It is not so much watching the shows, by themselves, but also listening the podcasts and the reviews/recaps of each episode, that I’ve kinda built into my working schedule. *sobs* No more Kelka, no more We’re Getting Nowhere, no more Jay and Jack, no more Transmission, for a while. Yes, I’m obsessed with Lost. So sue me.

No idea what is going on in Lost, but hey, all the back-and-forth-ness, and the time-travelling, and the complex timeline cannot be worse than my time-travelling case-theory for LAWR, part of which is the status of Chinese customary marriages in 1972. I still cannot figure out whether a case decided in 1982 about a “marriage” performed in 1957 can be used (Yeah, I know, worse than Lost) and all I want to say is, “screw you Carol, couldn’t you just freaking register your liberal hippie marriage” instead of talking about the sanctity of marriage in front of a panel of judges who I am sure include the distinguished family lawyer Prof Leong who has consistently held opposite views to my (assigned) stand in her publications. *facepalm*

Screw Er Gek Cheng and the test for intention.

At least the nightmare will be over on Monday.