Bar/Bri and the Texas Bar Exam

I'll admit that I originally considered not taking a bar exam prep course at all, opting instead to do self-study and prepare myself by using study guides.

Two problems with this idea: 1) The bar exam is graded on a curve of sorts, so I would be immediately at a disadvantage by not having the exact same instruction as the vast majority of people taking the bar in July. 2) I'm not the most motivated person in the world when it comes to studying for something, so I couldn't rely on myself to study completely on my own without having some semblance of structure.

So I opted for Bar/Bri, and one week into it I have to admit that this prep course may very well be worth it. It covers pretty much every little detail that could possibly be tested on the bar exam and gives some great perspectives on how to get the most points out of the essay questions.

My only gripe so far is that whoever planned the location for this course should never be allowed to plan anything beyong a pizza order from this point forward. We're located at the Arabia Shrine on North Braeswood, which has quite a bit of parking, but it is clearly insufficient for the number of students enrolled in Bar/Bri. The actual ballroom used for the class isn't much better, with people relegated to sitting anywhere they can find a spot, even in the lobby outside of the ballroom (thank God for the speaker system piping the lecture out there). Honestly, the obvious problems with this venue just had breach of contract written all over it when I first showed up to the course.

Enough bitching about the little problems with Bar/Bri. Everyone seems to have learned to cope with it, and it turns out that that trouble is worth the breadth and depth of knowledge the lecturers are able to impart.

Nuclear Option Averted - Senate Compromises

CNN is currently reporting that seven Democrats and seven Republicans have brokered a deal wherein the option to filibuster will remain.

It looks like Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination is going to move forward to an up-or-down vote before the entire Senate, presumably tomorrow on the basis of Sen. John Cornyn's (D-TX) motion for cloture.

I'm glad that some sort of compromise has been reached in this situation. I simply can't foresee the drastic change in the judicial landscape that would happen over the years as the normal politic cycle produces Democratic majorities in the Senate, followed again by Republican majorities, just as we have seen over the last 150+ years.

Bobby L. Warren, Jr., J.D.

Wow, three years really do fly by quickly when you're suffering through a course of study that really hasn't changed much in the last 150 years.

Law school: Done. Bar Prep Course: On deck. Bar Exam: Looming. Am I scared? Not really.

In 24 hours, I'll be walking a stage in Hofheinz Pavilion at the University of Houston and picking up a piece of paper that will eventually be a Doctorate of Jurisprudence.

In about 28 hours, I'll be drinking a beer, eating some BBQ and partying with friends. That's the part I'm really looking forward to. Graduation is merely a prelude to the real celebration.

Limbaugh: Senate Compromise Nothing More Than "Punting"

Courtesy of the Drudge Report, I found this article on Rush Limbaugh's website providing some insightful detail about a possible compromise regarding judicial nominations before the Senate:

It would involve having a half dozen members of each party sign a memo of understanding that would bind all of them to certain actions on judicial nominations. The six Republicans would agree to block Majority Leader Bill Frist's plan to invoke the nuclear option and to give up trying to seek confirmation of three of the seven federal appeals court nominees who were filibustered in the last Congress. For their part the six Democrats would pledge to allow votes on the other four nominees, and vote to cut off filibusters on all other judicial nominees named by President Bush for the next year and a half, except in 'extreme circumstances,'

Really, this seems to be a rather reasonable approach, given current circumstances. Republicans get to push through a large chunk of judicial nominees while the Democrats can claim to have fought off the "nuclear option" of eliminating the filibuster from judicial nominations.

Instead, Limbaugh paints this as simply "punting":

I'm told that Specter is ready to go for this. These guys on our side, folks, I just don't understand it. They are so afraid of upsetting long-standing Senate tradition. I'm having trouble keeping up with this. "Long-standing Senate tradition" is what the Democrats have violated. The filibustering of judges is unconstitutional. It undermines the president and the Senate's constitutional powers. And why? Because a small minority of leftist senators refuse to abide by the election results. That's all this is -- and our guys on the Republican side, at least some of them, apparently, don't care to fight that out. I think this is going to be a litmus test, folks. You talk about litmus tests? We want the Senate to defend the Constitution.

Oh, come on now Rush, stop popping pills for one second and come to your senses about this. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that mandates that a simple majority of any legislative body should be able to make all decisions. Super-majority threshholds (decisions usually requiring something more than 50% + 1) are common in many procedural aspects of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and nearly any other democratically elected legislative body. The only mention of judicial nominations in the constitution is in Article II where the President may nominate "with the advice and consent of the Senate ... judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law". Funny, I don't see that part about only requiring a majority of the Senate to get the "advice and consent" part.

Let's face it folks, it's entirely up to the Senate, as an independant legislative body within the U.S. Congress, to determine how it gives its "advice and consent". It appears that they are close to coming to agreement on how to do so in this instance, which is certainly better than having any majority force it down the throats of a minority.

Two Down, One to Go.

First Amendment Law and Trusts & Wills are out of the way. Products Liability on deck and Secured Financing in the hole.

Here's the problem: Those last two exams are but 6 credit hours compared to the 80-something credits I already have. Law school has one of those mixed blessings known as the mandatory grade curve. Basically, to earn a grade outside of the B range, you have to do either really great or really badly. Going through the motions and avoiding looking like a booger-eating moron earn you the requisite B, B- or B+. B's are pretty much my specialty (I've earned a couple of A-'s and a couple of grades in the C-ish range, so they cancel each other out).

With that in mind, where is the motivation to care? If my GPA dips by 5 hundreths of a point, will it really concern anyone trying to hire me? No. Do I care enough about the subject matter of my two remaining exams to actually put forth more than the minimum effort? No.

So here I sit, with one exam tomorrow morning and my last exam on Wednesday, yet I have done very little studying for either exam. In fact, I'll be learning Secured Financing sometime between Noon tomorrow and 2pm on Wednesday.

And so, for now, I blog.

DeLay's Real Problem - breach of "Contract With America"

Jonathan Gurwitz of the San Antonio Express-News has an article in today's Houston Chronicle reviewing the troubles Tom DeLay's political moves and the possible problems they could present. Gurwitz argues that most of the problems DeLay has encountered in recent years will not be his downfall. Instead, each of these small problems lead to a much bigger problem:

DeLay's problem, instead, arises from a contract he signed in 1994 and which he posts on his congressional Web site among "the great documents of freedom."

The Contract With America committed a new Republican majority not only to bringing new policies to Washington but also to transforming the way Congress and its leaders work.

Its first sentence pledges to rebuild "the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives." It calls for respecting the values and sharing the faith of the American family, restoring accountability to Congress and ending its cycle of scandal and disgrace.

Cozying up to influence peddlers like Jack Abramoff, however, can't but destroy public bonds of trust. Few Americans will share the value of all-expenses-paid trips abroad or have great faith in $473,801 in payments to family members. Sharing in Washington's imperial excesses does nothing to restore accountability or end disgrace.

For anyone who truly believes in the Contract With America, "the Democrats have always done it" is not an excuse, it's an indictment. Republicans, with DeLay in the vanguard, promised a breath of fresh air in 1994. Ten years on, the House leadership has a familiar, musty smell. And that is DeLay's problem.

It has been some time since I've seen the Contract With America invoked. Perhaps it is time someone reminded Republicans of the promise they made in the early 90's. It may be hard for them to honestly say they have kept that promise.

Al Edwards' "Cheerleader Booty Bill"

Is there not already enough on the Texas Legislature's plate? It seems that Al Edwards now wants the House to consider whether there should be legal limits on "sexually suggestive" cheerleading in Texas public schools.

I think the real rationale can be found here:

In the meantime, Edwards has been doing the talk-show circuit, promoting his cheerleader bill on programs such as the "Today" show and "The O'Reilly Factor."

"I've carried this message everywhere that I can carry it," he told reporters. "We want to see something done."

Seems like Edwards is just fishing for a little publicity here and knew that something this ridiculous would be sure to find its way onto the news wires (and blogs, for that matter).

Casey: Death of Texas Campaign Finance Reform Sure to Ignite Perry/Hutchison Primary

Rick Casey has an excellent article available online, presumably for the Sunday edition of the Houston Chronicle, covering the impact of the death of a bill intended to bar "secret corporate money from being used in the last days of an election to attack one candidate or praise another."

Casey does a great job highlighting the campaign staff for both Perry and Hutchison and their ties to prior campaigns using tactics similar to what this bill would have banned. His guess is that the death of this bill means that these tactics will be in full bloom in the days running up to the GOP primaries.

I for one will be greatly interested in how that primary turns out. Of course, whoever comes out of that bloodbath will have former U.S. Representative Chris Bell and Kinky Friedman ("why the hell not?") to contend with.