Week Five, Part 6 - A is for Arbitrary

I sit in the library stacks at Notre Dame Law School toiling over my office memo for Legal Writing. It’s my analysis of a negligence lawsuit brought by a fictitious couple, the McGinley’s, whose seven-year-old son almost drowned in the neighbor’s hot tub.

Usually when I write, I work on a sentence until – click – it feels right. Then I fiddle with the next one. Soon I’m done with a paragraph. Before long, a page.

With legal writing, however, the words won’t fall in place. I’m uncomfortable with the vocab and the doctrines. Maybe Professor Phelps was right when she said that writing the office memo would be the hardest thing we did all year.

It takes me an hour to write my statement of the issue: “The court should not grant a movement for summary judgment because the Neisons' liability for the physical harm of Matthew McGinley is established under all five points of the Massachusetts standard of care owed by landowners to children.”

Is it a "movement" or a "motion"? I feel so ignorant.

The 2L sitting to my left introduces herself as Alexandra. She says, "Don't sweat the memo! Just get it done. Your grade in Legal Writing is determined by your final paper. Nothing else.”

I push my laptop aside. “Then I’m packin’ up.”

Alexandra laughs. "No, you have to finish the assignments. That guarantees you a C. Whether Phelps gives you an A or B is arbitrary.”

“Come on!”

“It’s true,” she says. “Last year one student who shall remain nameless – although I’ll tell you it was Dean Link’s nephew – copied his roommate’s final paper. The only change he made was put his own ID number at the top. Phelps never noticed! She gave the student who wrote the paper a B and the guy who copied it an A!”

I shake my head. It’s the nightmare of every writing teacher: your inconsistent grading exposed to the world.

“How’d Link’s nephew get caught?” I ask.

“When the roommate came back to his computer, he noticed that the ID number on his paper wasn’t the same. Link’s nephew forgot to change it back.”

I laugh. “A criminal genius.”

Alexandra says Link’s nephew got kicked out of Notre Dame. “But he's back this year – as a 1L.”

"What!" I groan. “Guess that answers the question of ‘What’s worse than the first year of law school?’ Repeating it!”

Alexandra says some students were upset that he was allowed back at all. “If it were you or me, the doors of Notre Dame would be shut tight.”

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