Week One, Part 6 - Rudy!

I find the Hammes Bookstore on the south quad, next to the Knights of Columbus building. An elderly man at the doorway says no backpacks allowed. Students seem unperturbed by the rule and toss their Timberline bags – hundreds of them – up against the cream-colored brick.

Inside, the bookstore buzzes with conversation and cash registers. Each aisle is packed with undergrads, and I’m bumped or jostled every few steps. There are only 10,000 students at Notre Dame, and it feels like most of them are right here.

The movie “Rudy” is playing on a dozen TV’s suspended at strategic points from the ceiling. I can’t hear the dialogue, though, because “U-93, today’s best music” drowns it out.

My mother is the bookstore manager at Pillsbury College, my alma mater, so I’m sympathetic to the hectic nature of a first week. Still, I’m impatient. The other law students bought their books last weekend. So while they’re briefing Pennoyer v. Neff, I’m stuck in Aisle Three.

It’s soon apparent that a better name for the bookstore would be the Notre Dame Clothing & Souvenir Shoppe. The entire first floor is rack after rack of sweatshirts, neckties, umbrellas, and, of course, footballs – leather, rubber, and Nerf. There’s even garbage cans and soap dishes, all with the Notre Dame logo. I don’t see textbooks anywhere. Those, I’m told, are on the second floor.

I make my way up a narrow staircase. In the book rows, students are shoulder to shoulder, like a goal line defense. The lines to the cash registers at the far wall extended all the way across the room. I run off tackle to the legal section.

All told, my bookstore visit sucks up three hours. Half the time to find my books, the rest to stand in line. I spend $287 on texts and $3 on a diskette holder, blue with a gold monogram on the cover.

Near the exit I stop and catch a bit of “Rudy.” The groundskeeper, Fortune, is telling the walk-on, “You’re five foot nothing, 100 and nothing, with barely a speck of athletic talent. Yet for two years you hung with the best football team in the land. And what are you going to get? You’re going to get a degree from the University of Notre Dame! Now that’s worth it’s weight in gold.”

Yeah! I turn and walk out into the sunshine. Like Rudy, I had little chance of getting into Notre Dame. No alumni connections. No Ivy League degree. No letters of recommendation from famous people. Yet here I am, hoping to hang with the best.

* * *

Week One, Part 5 - Crim: Healthy Uncertainty

For Criminal Procedure, I’m back in Room 121, this time 15 minutes early. The teacher walks in at 2:00 p.m. and makes his way down the steps to the podium. Unlike Bauer, he’s not wearing a suit coat, but favors blue slacks and a short-sleeve shirt. His hair is gray and his glasses tinted.

“Hello. I’m Professor Dutile, D-U-T-I-L-E. It’s a name that’s often misspelled and usually mispronounced.” That’s all we get for a personal introduction.

“Criminal procedure is a fast-moving area of the law. You should not miss any classes.” He holds up a brown text with gold lettering. “We will be focusing on the principal cases. By that we mean ones with an excerpt of the decision.”

Dutile says that during our discussions we will sometimes disagree. “I don't want any minority views laughed at or any rigid orthodoxy. We must diffuse the law student’s quest for certainty. Recognize that law is an art. We're always to some extent practicing, because law is always changing. Thus, certainty is inversely proportional to enlightenment.”

Hmmm. I wonder if Dutile will take that same view come final exams.

“Suppose you hear somebody cough. You say she has a cold. But if a doctor hears it, he'll want to know more. As more enlightened, he’s less likely to be certain. There’s an uncertainly about the law that’s healthy.”

Dutile tells us that we will brief cases in advance of each class. He writes the word “Facts” on the board. “Don't write down all the facts. Focus on the ones that make the discussion relevant.”

Dutile steps to the side of the podium. He opens his left palm and pretends to hold a pencil in his right hand. “On January 1, Ethel Jones robs a 7-11.” Dutile makes writing motions. “She’s driving a blue Ford Pinto. At the Ohio border, she stops for an ice cream cone.” That makes us laugh, but Dutile’s expression is deadpan. “At her trial she is denied a jury.” He puts away his air pen. “The crucial facts are that Ethel is charged with armed robbery and that she’s not given a jury.”

Next Dutile writes down “Issue.” He crosses his arms and walks up the steps to the third row. Leaning back, he rests against the wall. “Why is this thing in court? Does the U.S. Constitution require a jury in a trial for armed robbery? If the defendant had used a toy gun, is it still armed robbery? State the issue as succinctly as you can without omitting any of the problem.”

Dutile ambles back to the board. “Resolution.” He faces us. “In relation to the issue, this is the answer.” Dutile drops the “r” so it comes out “an-suh.” He’s got to be from the east coast.

“Reasoning” is the fourth element of a brief. “A jury trial seems like a swell idea, so let's have one.” We laugh and Dutile waits for quiet. “Sometimes it might be more technical than this.”

I begin to feel comfortable with the idea of reading a case.

“Remember,” Dutile says, “It’s a brief, not a long.”

We talk about the importance of criminal procedure. “Perhaps you have friends who vilify lawyers, who say we get people off on technicalities,” Dutile says. “Ultimately, I submit, it’s process that protects you and me. It works as a tremendous buffer between sovereign and subject. In much of the world, that’s not the case.”

By now Dutile has wandered to the other side of the amphitheater, about twenty feet from the podium. He explains proof beyond a reasonable doubt. “The founders of the Constitution made the judgment that it's better to err on the side of the defendant than with the government. You can think ‘if I had to put money on it, I'd bet the defendant did it.’ But that still isn’t proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's why we say ‘not guilty’ instead of ‘innocent.’”

Dutile ends with a little bit about basic court structure. I’m trying to type it all down. Others around me are more cavalier. They write at a leisurely pace or not at all, tilting their heads at inquisitive angles.

It’s 2:50 p.m. and students start to shift in their chairs. We’re as bad as undergrads.

“In conclusion,” he says, “let me add that we’re not going to look at the trial going on in Los Angeles as a paradigm of the process.”

We laugh as Dutile shuts his manilla folder. Tattered pages from a legal pad stick out the top. It’s not his first time to teach this material, I think. But that’s all right. I’ve always been partial to crusty profs.

* * *

Week One, Part 4 - Cooperation

Students stream past me as I shutdown my laptop. There seems to be an equal number of males and females. Maybe it’s due to the hot summer, but all the guys wear their hair short. I don’t see any ponytails, dreadlocks, or beards. Nothing tinted. And most students look to be only a year or two out of undergrad. At 32, I feel like a grandpa.

I walk down the hallway and sit at a conference table outside Career Services. Not wanting to be late again, I fish out my schedule. In addition to the substantive classes that Professor Bauer mentioned, there are three others: Legal Writing, Research, and Ethics. It adds up to 16 hours. My only other class today is Criminal Procedure at 2:00 p.m.

A student in a wheelchair rolls up parallel to the table. With the sweep of his hand, he pushes the green chairs aside. Then he pops a mini-wheelie and pivots 90 degrees so he’s facing the table.

“John Edgar,” he says. His hands are large and meaty, stained the color of the tread on his wheelchair. He’s wearing a black polo shirt that bulges at the shoulders and arms. In contrast, his legs are skinny and secured to the chrome supports by a bungee cord.

I ask where he’s from.

“Twenty minutes over the border, Edwardsburg, Michigan. How ‘bout you?”

“I grew up in southern Minnesota and moved to South Bend about a year ago.”

“So now you’re a Bender.”

“I guess. Sounds strange though.”

He asks if I applied anywhere else for law school.

“Nope, just here.”

“Notre Dame or bust,” he says.

“Well, not quite. I took one class in the MFA program at Western Michigan, but will be dropping out.”

John says he did his undergrad at Western. As for law school, he applied to ND, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

“Wisconsin was my sure thing,” he says. “Got wait-listed at Michigan. I’ve been told that if I’d hung on, I would have gotten in. A top-ten school was kind of appealing.”

“Naah, you don’t want to go there,” I say. “The U of M gave us The Unabomber.”

He smiles. “And do we blame O.J. on USC ?”

“Absolutely!” I say. “If you like Notre Dame football, it makes perfect sense.”

He throws back his head and laughs. “You know, one of the nicest guys I ever met went to Michigan. Three years later he’s an absolute jerk. Struts around like he’s F. Lee Bailey.”

“Too bad.”

“Plus I’ve heard that Michigan is cut-throat, people stealing notes and tearing pages out of library books.”

“I guess here is the opposite.”

“No, kidding!” John says. “It all about cooperation. This morning some girl asked me if I wanted a Blakey Bible.”

“What’s that?”

“A student outline for Blakey’s class in Criminal Procedure. He’s the dude they always interview about the racketeering statute.”

“Wow. So did you take it?”

“Nope, told her I had Dutile. But she says, ‘Here, have one anyway.’”

“Might help,” I say.

“Doubt it, but I’ll put a copy in your box.” We make small talk for another ten minutes.

“Hey, I’ll see you in Crim this afternoon,” I say. “Need to go move my car. I’m in one-hour parking.”

“Yeah, I gotta shove off too.” John rolls backward from the table and pops another wheelie as he spins his chair toward the hallway.

“Don’t worry about getting a ticket this morning,” he calls over his shoulder. ”But I’ve heard that after the first day, the bike cops are Nazis.”

I laugh. “Sounds like they need a lesson in cooperation.”

* * *

Week One, Part 3 - CivPro: Dissecting Cases

I search for Room 121, feeling like the freshman I’ve become. The classroom is at the end of the first hallway. It’s big enough to have separate entrances about forty feet apart. I pick the one on the right and pull open a heavy door.

Before me is an amphitheater with eight rows of permanent desks. At ground zero stands a bearded man in a three-piece suit. Professor Bauer, I presume.

There are at least 75 students in the room and they’re crammed into the front six rows. The back two are empty, though, and I slip into the corner seat.

“Excuse me!” Bauer calls out, “I’ve notified everyone here that the back two rows are off limits.” All heads swivel around to check out their blushing classmate.

“Sorry,” I mutter. Bauer ignores me as I fumble with my papers and computer bag.

“In your first year of law school you will take five substantive courses,” he says. “Four of them begin this semester. Civil Procedure, Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Procedure. Property starts this spring.”

I see an empty spot in the front row, but no way am I marching down there! Instead I move one row forward, closer but still in no-man’s land. I doubt Bauer will embarrass me again, unless he’s a Kingsfield, the caustic prof from “The Paper Chase.”

“There’s a great divide between criminal and civil law,” Bauer says. “This class focuses on the latter.”

He strokes his beard. It’s light brown, flecked with gray and red, the same color as his suit. Bauer talks and dresses with preciseness.

“Two-thirds of the semester we’ll talk about personal and subject matter jurisdiction. Then we’ll discuss the Erie doctrine, the division of power between federal and state courts to decide laws.”

I pull my laptop out of its case and start taking notes.

“You’ll need a casebook and the green paperback on Federal Rules. Pick up the handouts for this course from my secretary. There’s no charge.” He pauses for effect. “It’s like when you buy a car, and they throw in the floor mats.”

We all laugh. The class seems good-humored and eager to please.

Bauer says his office is in the original part of law school, built in 1929. Back then an average class was 40 students. In the late 60's, enrollment increased. This fall there will be about 150 in the first-year class.

“Feel free to stop by and ask about class or career issues. At Notre Dame we have an open door policy.”

I’m starting to feel comfortable., and my face has returned to its normal color.

“For each substantive course, you will have a single three-hour exam at the end of the semester. There are no quizzes and no mid-terms.”

I check out my classmates. Everybody looks cool and calm. I imagine they’re thinking, I did great in college, great on the LSAT, and I’ll do great in CivPro too.

Bauer deflates us. “Law school exams are different from the ones you took as an undergrad. They require analysis rather than regurgitation.”

Bauer walks to the whiteboard and picks up a marker. “In first-year courses at most American law schools, you learn by studying cases. These are legal opinions written by the courts. Just as they dissect bodies in med school, you will brief cases. These will not be turned in or graded. Briefs are for you the student, not the teacher.”

On the board he writes:

• Facts
• Issue
• Holding
• Reasoning

“Now here’s what a brief might look like. Do the facts in chronological order. For the issue, figure out what the court had to decide in order to dispose of the matter. Our first case, Pennoyer v. Neff, will deal with personal jurisdiction. Put the issue in the form of a question. The holding is your answer. Finally, the reasoning is whatever principles the court applied. This is the most important part to draw out of the case.”

He stops and takes two steps forward until he’s directly in front of us.

“The point is to infer principles. You’re not legal plumbers! You must learn more than rules, because in practice you will come across situations you’ve never seen.”

I gulp.

“You’ll also be learning vocabulary, so pick up a legal dictionary. Black's or Ballentine’s. It's fair game for me to ask the definition of any word. There's no excuse for ‘I don't know.’”

It’s now 10:50. Students are closing their notebooks.

Bauer raises his voice a little. “No matter how brilliant I am, you might not understand it all. Get another perspective.” He tells us there are hornbooks on reserve in the library.

"Any questions about this class?”

No answer.

“About law school?”

Nothing.

“About the secret of life?"

We laugh, and he dismisses us.

* * *

Week One, Part 2 - All Signed Up

Monday dawns with a blue sky and not a cloud in sight, rare for South Bend. I’m wearing cuffed shorts, a button-down shirt, and loafers. The sun feels warm on my legs.

My mood matches the weather. After all, I’m about to enroll at one of the oldest and most selective law schools in America. The University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842 by the Congregation of the Holy Cross. In 1869, the Law School began accepting students.

The drive up to Notre Dame takes about twenty minutes. Today, amazingly enough, every one of the 15 or so stop lights I come to is green. It’s never happened before, or in more than a thousand trips since.

As I park my car, I wonder if it’s some kind of divine affirmation. I remember as an undergraduate studying the Old Testament book of I Samuel. Maybe the traffic signals are a modern-day Urim and Thummin, the colored stones God used to communicate with His chosen people.

I walk north along Notre Dame Avenue. Straight ahead through an archway of trees I can see the Golden Dome, the most famous building in American higher education. It shines like a sun in the center of its own universe.

I come to the law school, guardian of the main quadrangle. It’s magnificent: part castle, part church. The southwest corner is a massive tower topped by an ornate steeple and cross. Green ivy covers the lower half of the brick walls. The windows are large and pointed at the top. Claw-like swirls section the glass into smaller panes, and give the building a Gothic feel.

Thirty feet up on a niche stands a narrow statue of Sir Thomas More, patron saint of lawyers. His hands are clasped in front of him. He looks peaceful and serene, something I’m feeling less of with each step.

Under a lancet arch is the front double-door, at least ten feet high and made of wood. The left side of the door creaks open on foot-long hinges. A guy and girl walk out, both in their mid-twenties. She has on khaki shorts, hiking boots, and a polo shirt. He’s wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt. It reads: “Notre Dame law.”

“New York?” she says. Her hair is pulled straight back in a ponytail and she looks fit enough to run a marathon.

“Pays 90,” he says, “but it’s a sweatshop.”

I find the Office of Admissions and meet Anne Hamilton, its director. From the hallway I see that her desk and every other flat surface is piled high with hundreds of colored applicant files.

In her late 30's, Hamilton strikes me as rather nun-like. Her voice is quiet and soft. She wears little or no make-up. Straight hair combed to the side. Blouse to her neck. Skirt past the knees.

It takes me about an hour to fill out the registration form and other paperwork. Hamilton hands me my class schedule, insurance information, and a loan application. She also gives me a window decal: “NOTRE DAME” in tall letters and “Law” on a scroll beneath it.

Wow! I want to sprint back to my car and stick it on. Hey world, I got into Notre Dame!

“You better get to class,” Hamilton says, after I’m all signed up.

I look down at my schedule. Civil Procedure with “Bauer, Joseph” starts at 10:00 a.m. I glance at my watch. Already five minutes late!

I jump up. “Okay. Thanks for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” she says. “I’m sure that you’ll have a great career.”

I hustle down the hallway. Her comment is cryptic, I think. A great career of academic success? Great employment after I graduate? Let’s hope for both.

* * *

Week One, Part 1 - My Chance To Fly

On a rainy Saturday in mid-August, 1995, the University of Notre Dame shakes down the thunder.

It’s late afternoon and I’m settled on the couch, watching the movie "Hook." Nestled beside me are Stephanie and Lauren, my new daughters by marriage. We laugh as Peter Pan, now a hapless lawyer, tries to fly. Tinkerbell does her best to help: “Think happy thoughts.”

I should be downstairs at my desk, finalizing course outlines. This fall I’m scheduled to adjunct in English composition at three local colleges.

But I’ve earned a day off, I think. For the last ten weeks I’ve been commuting from South Bend to Kalamazoo where I’m a grad student at Western Michigan University. Summer session ended Friday with a 14-pager on W.B. Yeats.

The phone rings, loud and shrill. I’m quick to answer because my wife, Terri, is sleeping.

The caller says she’s from the admissions office at Notre Dame Law School. “Is this Mark Peter Tell...” She quits halfway through.

“Tuh-LOY-uhn,” I say.

The in-coming class has an opening. “Are you available?”

Like a cartoon character, I open my mouth, yet no sound comes out. It feels as if I’m trying to say both “yes” and “no.” I had applied to Notre Dame last April and made the wait list. When nothing came of it, though, I matriculated at Western and committed to other activities.

"Sir, are you still there?"

I manage a grunt.

Orientation was today, she says. Classes begin Monday.

"This Monday?!"

She asks me to give Notre Dame an answer by tomorrow.

I hang up and wander back to the couch. By now Peter Pan is gliding through the air of Neverland.

Terri walks into the family room, still a bit groggy. She asks who called, and I give her the good news.

"Kill the lawyers!" Lauren shouts, mimicking the Lost Boys.

“Two days to change our lives around," Terri says, hands on her hips. "It makes me so irritated!”

“Think happy thoughts,” I say, and imagine myself as one of Notre Dame’s chosen few.

Terri suggests that we go for a “walk-and-talk.” We discuss the issues. The pile of money for tuition. Three years of lost income. Will it strain our marriage? What about job prospects? Am I too old?

I call my employers and get their input.

At Western Michigan I’m a grad assistant to Lowell Rinker, the vice-president for finance. “Sounds like the brass ring,” he says. “Grab it."

The head of the writing program at Indiana University South Bend agrees. "Universities treat part-timers so poorly that anything you do to better your situation is justified."

My department chair at Purdue North Central says it’s up to me. "Don't worry about us. “We've scrambled before."

In the evening, friends of Terri’s from AT&T stop by. Both are “Domers” – Notre Dame grads.

“Great," they say. "Now you can get football tickets."

That clinches it!

I leave a voice mail with Associate Dean Walter Pratt. “Count me in,” I say.

Terri has followed me to the phone. “What are you thinking?!” she asks.

“Law school is my chance to fly.”

Terri gives me a hug. “Okay,” she says, “but don’t be expecting some kind of fairy tale.”

* * *

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