Kemah, Kemah

As a newcomer of Houston, I asked to my classmates which place would be good for my short trips during winter break. One of them recommended Kemah, a beach city adjacent to Houston. I got the visitor information from www.kemah.net

Kemah is a small and attractive place for half-day sightseeing.

I enjoyed nice views of Gulf of Maxico.

Museum of Fine Arts in Houston

Houston, as one of big cities in U.S.A., has a lot of advantages. One of them is to have many attractions like Museum of Fine Arts(MFA).

I've been to MFA today. One good news is that the admission is free on every Thursday.

The photo above is not taken in MFA. I took it in a sculpture garden in front of MFA.

It was so amazing to see the valuables from Aztec, Maya, Inca civilizations. I strongly recommend it to you.

Law school ranking article from Posner

Click here!

It's quite fun that Richard Posner published a paper about Law school ranking. Surely, his law & economics viewpoints would be the basis of this article.

I didn't read it and will not read it, but it's funny.

Writing Tip - Parallelism

- Legal writing center provides `Writing Tip of Week` article, once in a week. This is one of my favorite e-mails in UHLC.


October 16, 2006
Writing Tip of the Week
Parallelism

1. Items in a series should be in parallel form to make a sentence easy to follow. Parallelism is achieved by joining words with similar words: nouns with nouns, adjectives with adjectives, adverbs with adverbs, prepositions (or prepositional phrases) with prepositions, and so forth.

The defense argued that the evidence was inconclusive, prejudicial, and irrelevant. (adjectives)

The defendant claims that on the day of the murder he was at home alone washing his car, mowing his lawn, and bathing his dog. (gerund phrases)

The witness told the police officer that the car rolled down the hill, over the lawn, and into the swimming pool. (prepositional phrases)

2. Use Parallel Structure With Coordinating Conjunctions. In general, use the same grammatical structure on both sides of any of the coordinating conjunctions—and, but, or, nor, so, yet.

Nonparallel Louise spent three years in Houston going to law school and clerked for a tax firm.
Parallel Louise spent three years in Houston going to law school and clerking for a tax firm.

3. Use Parallel Structure With Correlative Conjunctions. Use the same structure after both parts of a correlative conjunction—either . . . or, both . . . and, neither . . . nor, not . . . but, not only . . . but also, just as . . . so, whether . . . or.

Nonparallel I told my father that my intentions were either to study law or learning tenor saxophone.
Parallel I told my father that my intentions were either to study law or to learn to play tenor saxophone.

Nonparallel The purpose of the rule is to ensure that actual notice is provided either by personal or constructive service.
Parallel The purpose of the rule is to ensure that actual notice is provided either by personal or by constructive service. Or
Parallel The purpose of the rule is to ensure that actual notice is provided by either personal or constructive service.

Adapted from: St. Martin’s Handbook-- Lunsford and Connors
The Legal Writing Handbook-- Oates, Enquist, and Kunsch
Prepared by James Wright and Chris Dunn

"Pencil Case" episode

Twe weeks ago, I left or dropped my pencil case somewhere in school building. I was so disappointed about it, because I carried my MP3 player in the pencil case. The MP3 player is a necessity for my survival in law school, because I record the lectures from professors who permitted me to do recording. Also, my MP3 player cannot be easily bought in Houson. I sent e-mails to all of my classmates, and they really sympathized with me.

But, after several days, I found my pencil case in Lost&Found office of law library. Below is the e-mail I sent to my classmates.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note) Sorry to mess up your mail box. If you don’t know or have any interest in my pencil case, just ignore this mail. ^_^



First of all, I really appreciate people who were concerned about my pencil case. Some of you might wonder why I was obsessed with a cheap pencil case.

I have carried a thumb-sized, multi functional, 1G bytes, MP3 player in the pencil case. Because it’s hard for me to keep track of lectures in classes, I record them using my MP3.

As I mentioned to some of you, I gave up finding the pencil case and MP3 player and bought new ones. But, MP3 players I bought from Circuit City and Best Buy were not as satisfactory as the one I used. So, I returned them and ordered the same model to Amazon.com. It was scheduled to arrive in my house at 1 o’clock.



Today, around noon, I was in a hurry to go home to get the ordered package from UPS guy. While I went to my car, I saw a gold-colored tumbler dropped on the ground of the parking lot. Well, the tumbler didn’t look expensive. I was busy. I didn’t start to rescue the tumbler and I had my autonomy not to pick up that tumbler, so there was no `special relationship` between me and the tumbler. I didn’t have any duty… ^^ But, suddenly, the tumbler reminded me of my adorable pencil case. (Well, the tumbler might whisper to me, “save me, save me. Don’t leave me here in hot ground.”) I lost the same kind of stuff a few days ago. The owner might have the same feelings that I got.



So, I took the tumbler on the ground and went to the library. I met the assistant who was in charge of Lost & Found. I already met him three times these days. I said “I got this one on the ground of parking lot. The owner might come here to get it back.” The assistant just nodded and didn’t promptly move to the inside room for Lost & Found. In the moment I turned my back and headed for the parking lot again, I just recalled my pencil case again. I gave it up, but, I wanted to check it one more time. I talked to the assistant, “You’ll go to Lost & Found room, right? Would you please check my pencil case again? It’s made of fabric and blue-colored, as you know.” Carrying the tumbler, he slowly moved to the inside room. After a few seconds, he came back. My pencil case was in his hand!!! Thank god.



I got a lesson from this episode – “Heaven helps those who help others.”



Did anyone drop a gold-colored tumbler on the ground, today? It’s in the library. ^_^



Dae-Gunn.

Web Broadcast - Townhall meeting with Dean

Click here!

The interim dean, Mr. Nimmer, had the chance to get the candid talk with UHLC members.

Free Lunch weeks

In the beginning of law school life here, there are lots of event you can have 'free' lunch. The meetings held by various kinds of student associations, Student Bar Association, Corporate&Tax, Hispanic, Muslim, Asian, provide free lunch. (Most meeting are held during lunch hour.)

It was quite a good chance to know the various interests of our students. The representative students present the yearly plan for their associations at the meeting.

If you have any special interest around the law, you can fulfill it with other affiliates here.

1L life started

Well, it's a little nervous start for me. As the only foreign student, I mean a student who just moved from a foreign country (Korea), it's not easy to listen to English all day. ^_^ My classes in this semester are Torts, Civil Procedure, Contracts, and Legal Analysis. I guess most of law schools provide the same subjects for 1L. None of them are easy to me.

I'll do my best to survive, anyway.

Law Preview Link

Law Preview Link here!

Intro of Legal Writing (Cornell LS)

Click here!

Another good link from Cornell.

Lanking : Intellectual Property. 2007

2007 yr. US News and World Report
Lanking : Intellectual Property

1. U.C. Berkeley
2. Standford
3. George Washington
4. Santa Clara
5. U. of Houston
6. Cardozo-Yeshiva Univ.
7. Duke
Franklin Pierce
9. IIT-Kent
10. Columbia Univ.

Academic Legal Writing

http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/writing/

I just ordered this book. This would be a good book for me to learn LW in advance.

Advice on IP law career

I got this site from

http://www.techlawgeek.com/tlg/blog/2005/04/if-you-know-you-want-to-be-patent.html

IP news site - IP Law 360

http://ip.law360.com/


Critical IP news can be found in this web site.

US News Rankings 2006

Click here !

Updated U.S.News ranking 2006.


IPR 2006 ranking

1. U.C. Berkeley
2. Stanford Univ. (CA)
3. George Washington Univ. (DC)
4. Univ. of Houston
5. Cardozo-Yeshiva Univ. (NY)
6. Fraklin Pierce Law Center (NH)
7. Columbia Univ. (NY)
8. Duke Univ. (NC)
New York Univ.
10. Boston Univ.

Recommended Reading Materials for Admitted Law school student

From Univ. of Houston, Law Center

We highly recommend two books:
- Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study by Karl N. Llewellyn- a classic essay on the law and law school
- A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr- the story of a recent environmental lawsuit

Also recommended are:
Non-fiction
- The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit against the Coal Company--and Won by Gerald M. Stern
- Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States by Sister Helen Prejean
- Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan M. Dershowitz

Law School Advice
- Academic Legal Writing by Eugene Volokh
- Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class by Shana Connell Noyes, Henry S. Noyes
- Bridging the Gap between College and Law School: Strategies for Success by Ruta Stropus, Charlotte D. Taylor, Rita Stropus, Ruta K. Stropus
- Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams by Richard Michael Fischl, Jeremy Paul, and Jeremy R. Paul
- Law School Without Fear: Strategies for Success by Helene S. S. Shapo, Marshall S. Shapo, Marshall Shapo, Helene Shapo

Legal Theory
- Ages of American Law by Grant Gilmore
- Economic Analysis of Law by Richard A. A. Posner
- The Nature of the Judicial Process by Benjamin N. Cardozo

IP source from FPLC's blog

Here are a few links to other Pierce Blogs you may find interesting:

For all you techies and copyright fans: http://www.ipnewsblog.com/

A lot of random (but helpful) information can be found at: http://www.library.piercelaw.edu/blogs/FPLClibrary.cfm

...and yet more IP news can be found at: http://danyell.com/aggregator/sources/20

Looks like I'll have to encourage our Social Justice Institute to hop on the blog bandwagon....Happy reading!

Vault - Law school information

If you're looking for the info about Law school, Vault would be a good source.

http://www.vault.com/search/searchresult.jsp?keyword=law+school

[info] What's "Motion in limine" ?

A request submitted to the court before trial in an attempt to exclude evidence from the proceedings. A motion in limine is usually made by a party when simply the mention of the evidence would prejudice the jury against that party, even if the judge later instructed the jury to disregard the evidence. For example, if a defendant in a criminal trial were questioned and confessed to the crime without having been read his Miranda rights, his lawyer would file a motion in limine to keep evidence of the confession out of the trial.

IP law schools ranking of 2005

1. UC Berkeley
2. George Washington
3. Stanford
4. Duke
5. NYU
6. Cardozo
7. Franklin Pierce
8. Columbia
9. Depaul
U of Houston


From U.S. News and World Report