This year's dinner-dance was last evening, March 24, 2007, at the Carnelian Room, on the 52nd floof of the BoA building in San Francisco's Financial District, and I've got the photos to prove it. Click on the images to enlarge.
I saw many dear friends. You'd be surprised at how fond the professors are of the students, and in many cases, vice versa. We're rooting for you to win.
Candy Race & Leland Lee.
Candy is now interning with the Alameda D.A.'s Office where she appears in criminal court to handle preliminary hearings and motions to suppress evidence. That's how I got started.
Leland is a regular on the Saturday morning Bridge-Walks. He's also a hearing officer with the California Department of Motor Vehicles in license suspension and revocation cases. Imagine prosecuting your own case, ruling on objections, and then getting to decide in favor of your own client. That's Leland. I call him a walking violation of Separation of Powers AND Due Process of Law. But he still keeps doing it.
Good ol' Leland. I taught him to dance, on a Bridge-Walk, before the previous gala, where I had Esther drag him onto the dance floor, he was so timid. Tonight, you couldn't drag him OFF the dance floor. Maybe that's because he was dancin' with Candy.
I dunno 'bout these things.
As for the Bridge-Walks, we meet a few minutes before 8:00 a.m. at the parking lot of the St. Francis Yacht Club at the foot of the Marina Green next to the Presidio entrance. The walk is along the promenade to Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge and back. We talk about everything under the sun during the 70 minute round trip, a bit longer if we stop to smell the flowers, admire the birds in the marsh, or the ships on the bay.
Usually there's some news item of Conlaw significance that we can chew on. It's not a test. It's walking and chatting. We've kept the walks going for almost three years with students, friends, and family members. We're a walking seminar and gabfest.
It would be very nice indeed if you'd grab a friend and join, or just show up. If you're a few minutes late, you can catch up or meet us after the turnaround under the bridge. How else are we going to get to know each other?
We call it a Bridge-Walk because we walk to and from the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, not over it. We tried that once a few years ago and walked to Marin, but it was exhausting. So now we take it easy. Sometimes we go up to The Grove, on Chestnut, a few minutes away, for coffee.
Yuliya Magomedov.
Yuliya is amazing. She took the Conlaw class four years after arriving from St. Petersburg, Russia. Can you imagine taking a class in Russian Conlaw four years after arriving in St. Petersburg? I can't.
Dean Jane O'Hara Gamp.
Marie Sheridan and I had a nice time chatting with Jane's husband, Greg, this evening. They've raised five kids. He piloted huge airplanes, years ago, for Uncle Sam.
Linda Martin and Sabrina Panetta, who is a 2L as well and SBA Historian.
Dare I mention that when I was a 2L, there were three women in a section of 100? Things have improved, as you can see. Of course, we've had a feminist revolution in the meantime. Today women and other folks are treated more like people. 'Twasn't always the case. There may be a ways to go...
Recognizing and favoring these facts of life is often called, pejoratively, 'liberal,' making one wonder where the conservatives were when it was happening. Blocking the road?
Sandy Oxley.
Sandy used to be shy. But not after standing before our class discussing cases.
Now he's Vice-President of the Class of 2007.
Nancy Sandoval, distinguished San Francisco attorney Marty Bassi, and the irrepresible Yuliya Magomedov, who in addition to all the other claims on her time, has recently become the mother of a son, Timur, a great name from the steppes.
Congratulations, Yuliya!
Retiring after five years as Dean of San Francisco Law School, Joseph Russoniello.
Joe and I sat next to each other at NYU Law School, and worked together in the San Francisco District Attorneys Office.
"Congratulations, Joe," I wrote, on his appointment as dean, "find something for me to teach."
That's how I became a Conlawprof in 2002 and was pleased to receive the Student Bar Association "Professor of the Year" award in 2005.
It's amazing what you can do when you try.
So, try! You're better than you think you are.
Incidentally, take a look around you, at your classmates. These are going to be your best friends in the law, down the road. When you have a question, who are you going to call if my phone is busy? Your classmates. They know how capable you really are. You're going to help each other out. Don't ever lose touch with them. It's okay to call me with a question. I'll be your classmate. Better yet if you show up on a Bridge-Walk.
Julie Batz, Student Bar Association President, 2006-2007.
Julie is dynamite!
Guess who.
Esther Hwang and Candy Race.
Makes me want to don my Zorro outfit and rescue damsels in masks...
Miriam dela Cruz, the quiet one...
...until she hit the dance floor!
Mark Kostic.
Mark served as a police officer in Fremont, and is now a private investigator working for an attorney in the East Bay, checking things out and making court appearances in criminal law matters. I hear he's looking for the Maltese Falcon, missing lo these many months. I doubt they'll find it in the East Bay, but you never know.
Mark did some good work for me when I had a felony matter over there recently. I was so glad I didn't run into Candy Race in court. Gladder still that I was able to persuade the DA to dismiss the case after a two year tug of war. Persistence pays off.
That's what I do when not teaching. I practice Hall of Justice Law, representing people who have legal problems because of psychological problems, not necessarily theirs, but that's another story.
When other people go nuts, particularly public officials like police and magistrates, innocent people suffer.
See the Salem, 1692, False Witchcraft Practice Outbreak, as well as the False Child Sexual Molestation Outbreak of the 1980s, not to be confused with the true one. The problem is telling the difference.
The solution is a competent investigation, meaning one conducted with integrity. See the references on this site, in the form of several articles by yours truly, listed in the lower left margin, or Google the site.
Carl T., First Year Class Representative, when not climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or chasing bad guys with San Francisco's Finest.
Abe Gupta, SBA Professor of the Year, in Legal Writing and Research.
You can see he puts his heart into it.
Joe and Moira Russoniello, friends for decades.
Terry Abts, Second Year Class Representative.
Helen Karr, '94, Alumna of the Year, for her distinguished efforts on behalf of the elderly with the San Francisco District Attorneys Office.
Dean Russoniello and I are both alums of that office. We like to see it performing honorably and well.
Matt Clark (3L Rep), Mary Mackley (2L Rep), Carl T., & my pal, Nancy Sandoval, Class Rep, '07.
Nancy is Class Representative of the Fourth Year Class graduating in May, 2007.
In addition to work and evening classes, the fourth-year students are putting in additional time studying for the always challenging, but always passable, August California Bar Exam. Remember, you're better than you think you are, you've worked hard for four years, and have read the same cases as all of the other students taking the exam. You should do well.
Julie Batz, who won awards in Moot Court competition for excellent brief and outstanding argument.
Carl T., Mary Mackley, Matt Clark, Tanya Morad, Terry Abts, Julie Batz, Linda Martin, & Sabrina Panetta are the distinguished student leaders and award recipients. It's nice to be recognized and appreciated when you do well. So much of what an attorney does is known only to the attorney and a few of those nearby. In Hollywood, they give each other Academy Awards. In law practice, we give each other brick-bats.
Enjoy the awards while you can.
Dean Russoniello receives a plaque for the wall, denoting his service to SFLS as dean. He remains on the Board of Directors and we hope he'll serve for a long time to come. Dean Jane Gamp succeeds him, and we wish her well.
Dean Gamp has invited me to teach again this summer. If enough students sign up for my Freedom of the Mind Elective in May & June, aka the First Amendment, we'll proceed. The reviews were good last year, I'm told. Five evenings, three hours per.
Be brave, take a chance, sign up. What do you have to lose? You might learn something. In fact, you can't help but learn something, despite my best efforts. Ask around. Read the blog. It's Conlaw in plain English. I figure that if I can explain it to my wife and kids, I can explain it to you. That's what lawyers do. We translate legalese into plain English for jurors, and judges. If, perchance, the judge knows how to read, of course, we can save a lot of time by putting our points in writing.
After the awards come the rewards...the dancing. I recognize Myriam De La Cruz.
Yuliya Magomedov and Mark Kostic.
Esther Hwang, Chris Allard & Yuliya Magomedov.
On average, this is a beautiful couple.
On the right is Linda Martin, '09, SBA Treasurer.
This distinguished looking gentleman is Josh, the Master of the Front Office.
We're so glad to see him back on the dance floor after a serious illness.
This is Professor Jack F. Bonnano and wife Patti.
He's been teaching Wills, Trusts and Estates at SFLS since the Vietnam War, over thirty years.
Law professors like to dance, in case you didn't know.
Student of the Year awards were presented to Matt Clark, '08, and Mary Mackley, '09.
Help me put the right names under the right photos, please.
I'll be visiting my mother, 90, in Florida, next week, so additions and corrections may have to wait. I owe her a lot, in addition to the usual. She taught me to read. The other day she asked whether I recalled the first book she bought and read to me.
"You mean the one with the little pictures in place of the nouns?" I asked.
That was the one.
I was surprised that she could remember that far back.
She was surprised that I could.
Now you know why I suggest that Conlaw can be understood graphically. It's those little images in place of text.
The first real book(s) that I read on my own were Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Books." I love to read. I still love the pictures. If a book has no pictures, I figure that the author doesn't care about the likes of me. If I ever write a book, it's going to have lots of pictures. Like this blog piece.
A fitness instructor I worked with was studying for the Bar Exam. "I plan to spend the rest of the day doing the memory work," she said.
"The WHAT?" I asked. "What is that?"
She was trying to remember text, which is a little different than forming images of ideas in your mind, based on the situations out of which they grew, and the similar situations in which they will be applied, with variations.
There is no memory work in studying law. When you can picture the fight, that resulted in the case, and the opinion, you don't need to remember word-compositions, which is nearly impossible except for a few memorable lines, terms, or phrases.
I have a friend who is a VERY good lawyer. He was a lousy law student, he says.
"I spent all my time in class drawing pictures of the cases," he said.
What do you think he has in his mind, text or images?
Before studying law, he was a stage-set designer for the professional ballet. Drawing and painting were what he did. He thought graphically. He'd die before trying to memorize text, as in black letter law or outlines.
The person who wrote the black letter law, or the outline, probably understood the legal ideas pretty well, until he finished writing. Then s/he was just like you and I, no more able to remember the words we wrote than the next person. We have to rely on what made it into our skulls, and I can assure you it wasn't text. That's why you are advised to write your own outlines, and to put the images in your head into text form. After all, you DO have to use these ideas verbally, don't you?
When we become too lazy to describe the idea we're talking about in so many words, what do we do? We resort to saying, "it." "It" becomes the lazy-person's all-purpose, wild-card word for avoiding describing exactly what idea we're trying to discuss.
Nathan Flores, seated next to me at dinner, with shaved head, the new style, mentioned "it." We chatted about my having made a point of 'it' in class. He recalled the point long afterwards, when he saw the word being over-used to avoid describing the point.
"Did you know that Nathan has been voted to present the address at graduation?" I was asked by a classmate.
"I'm not a bit surprised," I replied, "Nathan's a lot smarter than he looks."
One evening in class I asked a question whose answer required putting together an idea from several cases we'd discussed hours before. Not only did you have to associate the right cases with the question, but you had to boil 'em down to get the answer. The class was stumped, to my chagrin. I didn't think the problem was impossible, just challenging. Suddenly a hand went up in the rear row, and Nathan provided the right answer, just nailing it. I've never let him forget it. He's better than he may realize.
That's the thing about law school. You find out how good you can be if given the chance. This must be why we stick to it, despite the misery and the foregone pleasures. We're lining ourselves up to do good in a world that values, but doesn't see enough of, what's truly good, which is our inspired effort.
Now I'm outta pictures.
Thanks for the nice time.
I loved seeing you.
I'll see you at the graduation in May.
You'll do fine on the bar exam.
Try to get some sleep, you'll do better.
When it's over, we'll have lunch, or maybe you'll join a Bridge-Walk so we keep in touch.
Much love,
rs
***
