You Want Rankings? We'll Give You Rankings

 Hey everyone! Rankings!  We know you love them and here at N&B we are all about the things that you love.

Top Party Place: Kip's
Top Trial Team Organization: BOA (They are knocking everyone's sox off)
Top Party Dean: Dean Edley - He knows you were nervous when Boalt slipped last year.  He took care of business.
Top Whiners:  The Big H.  Number 3?  That's not why your father paid for prep school.
Top Way to Complain: Barrister's was sweet, shut up already.
Top Law School: Boalt Hall, 2012.  Screw the official numbers.  We know we fucking rock.

So, that's the wrap up.

If I May...

While we continue to mourn the loss of Polly, I wanted to briefly interject to pass along some uplifting news regarding the Boalt community, namely the appointment of my classmate Sonia G. as the executive director of the California Bar Foundation (the non-profit that you can donate to when filling out your bar payment forms).  The broader mission of the Bar Foundation is to increase access to justice, but as it relates to law students, the Bar Foundation offers scholarships for students from underrepresented communities as well as those who'd like to work in the public interest sector.  No doubt, Sonia will continue with the Bar Foundation's mission full steam ahead. 

1Ls Assassinate Each Other

That 1L just got served. Literally. Sort of.

In a feat of awesome nerdiness, the 1Ls have organized a game of assassin. Except, instead of squirting each other with water or tagging each other, they're serving each other.

The jurisdiction? "The District Court of Some Place."

The case? Pee Wee Herman v. "The Target." (I'm not sure when Pee Wee got so litigious).

More proof of the old adage that awesome law school classes arrive every other year.

The New Addition is Awesome

I've been meaning to congratulate all of us (especially the administration that made it happen) for the new, improved Boalt. The new Zeb rocks, the courtyards rock, the ease of getting from one side of the building to the other rocks. The library reading rooms are awesome (fun thing to try: put your face right against the class above any of your friends and watch them freak out). I would take pictures, but I'm too lazy.

Pretty much everything is awesome, except one thing: No Zeb 90s slow jams. Where is my Mariah? My TLC? My Counting Crows?

The lack of music is leading silly 1Ls into thinking it's a quiet study zone. It's not. It's Zeb, the place for meetings, friends and those sweet 90s jams some of you are too young to remember.

Advice for 1Ls

After thinking long and hard about what advice to give the 1Ls, I decided I'd just show them a typical Monday night if you're doing Boalt the right way.

Don't stress. Have fun. Come dance.

(Special thanks to Haas guest stars)

The Administration Gets it Right: Boalt Won't See Further Fee Increases this Year

Dean Edl*y just sent an email to the student body stating that we'll all be getting roughly $1100 in scholarship money to offset the 9.6% increase agreed on by the UC Regents last week.

Edl*y wrote that the increase came too late and that the school would be able to absorb the rise for this year. He also predicts that UC tuition will continue to rise over the years as the state continues to defund the system.

Here's the full text of the letter:

Dear Students:
I am sure that many of you have heard about the recent fee increase approved by the Regents last week. At their meeting on Thursday, the Regents voted to increase system-wide fees for all students, including professional students, by $1,068 for the coming year. The Regents concluded, and I agree, that the budget deal struck in Sacramento left the UC system with no alternative. The state's retreat from higher education continues what has become a sad trend in recent years, not just here in California, but across the nation.

This state's retreat has been most acute at the professional schools. Bitter though this pill is for us to swallow, it does have one benefit: although we have less remaining state subsidy, we will have more financial flexibility, and more autonomy than do other academic units within the U.C. system.

I am choosing to exercise this autonomy in the coming year to effectively reverse this last minute fee increase for all three of our JD classes, including our new admits. Each JD student will receive an immediate, automatic scholarship in the amount of $1,068. The tuition increase is just too much, and it came too late. I am optimistic that the added costs to the law school of providing this financial aid can be offset by increased alumni donations as the economy recovers, and by continuing efforts to hold down less-than-essential expenses.

You may be wondering what, if anything, this portends for the future of fees here at UC broadly and at Berkeley Law School in particular. Unfortunately, it is likely that tuition at the University of California will continue to increase in the coming years. However, I am confident that total fees at Berkeley Law will not need to increase any faster than they do at other top-tier law schools in the years ahead. By our calculations—and murky disclosures make comparisons tricky—our tuition next year (net of the new automatic scholarship referenced above) will be comparable to those at the Universities of Michigan and Virginia and below those of many of our private competitors.

Obviously, I cannot make any guarantees about future tuition levels. What I can guarantee you is that Berkeley Law will remain a financially-competitive, intellectually-luminous, professionally cutting-edge, culturally-superior, and all around fabulous law school community in the decades to come. Count on it.

Maybe this was an easy decision, but it was still the right one.

More Evidence of a Shift in the Political Tide?

Yesterday, President Obama nominated Michael Walter Fitzgerald (Boalt '85) to be a District Judge at the C.D. Cal.  He would be the first openly gay judge at the C.D. Cal.  This comes on the heels of the smooth confirmation of Judge Oetken to the S.D.N.Y., which some have remarked as being remarkably unremarkable.  As I've said before, there's still a lot of progress left to be done, but the issue of gay rights does not appear to be the lightning rod of firestorm for the far right it once was. 

More importantly, I'm hearing through the rumor mill (I haven't had any direct dealings with him or his firm) that Michael is a great lawyer.  So three cheers on the nomination of a Boaltie to the federal bench and here's to a smooth confirmation process. 

A Message From the Past

I want to remind everyone exactly what Boalt is all about. Luckily, I found this film in the archives. Enjoy!

From The Hall*um Negotiation Competition

Happy Spring Break everyone. In honor of it, I'd like to show you what happened during the first round of the Hall*um Negotiation Competition. Thanks to Am*r and W*att for providing the link.

Japan: What You Can Do To Help

As the crisis in Japan continues to worsen, there are several ways you can help:

American Red Cross (Can specify money goes to Japan):
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main

Japanese Red Cross, Unicef, Save the Children:
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Boalt students organized by APALSA were able to raise $807 from a bake sale yesterday and the continued support from the Boalt community is something that I am sure is appreciated.

Additionally, I would consider taking a moment to reflect on the ongoing actions of the brave individuals who are likely performing a suicide mission in order to try and keep the damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant from melting down completely.

Blake's and Beckett's Close in the Same Week, Please Don't Let Kip's Be Next

That's right. Both Beckett's and Blake's closed this week. They likely both went out of business because Boalt students boycotted both establishments due to their bad service and poor atmosphere. That and both were way too big to barely sell any food and be half full on the weekends.

So, what now? Well, it's clear that we really only have one choice: Every Bar Review from here on out is at Kip's. We cannot let the best-carpeted karaoke dance floor in the Western Hemisphere close and I think it's the responsibility of everyone to support a bar where the seating consists of picnic tables from my middle school.

Also, it's a great alternative to the Down Low. Just sayin'.

Love,
James

Soccer Isn't Going Anywhere or Why It's Too Bad Every American Couldn't Experience Today's Triumph

The soccer landscape has changed in the United States. Those of us who have been life-long fans have noticed this change. For better or worse, some people will continue to trash talk about the world's most popular sport and it's sad that these people fail to appreciate exactly how big this moment was for the United States in the world's most popular sports tournament.

But today, the rest of us, novice and hardcore fans and everyone in between, witnessed the biggest moment in recent US sports history. Donovan's goal is arguably the best single moment (as opposed to best result) in US soccer history. Ever. Period. And you know what? I, and millions of other American fans here and abroad had the luck and privilege to witness it. Today I saw a goal I will remember for the rest of my life. This is a moment I wish I could share with everyone. I shared it with many of you, but for some reason there are still Americans that actively dislike a sport that matters so much to many of us and certainly to the rest of the world.

Soccer haters can parrot the same reactionary anti-soccer garbage I've heard since 1990. That's ok, it's your right, but it won't stop the game from continuing to grow in the US. 2002 was a wake up call. In the middle of the night, a 3-2 win against Portugal, one of the best teams in the world, got people more interested as it was the first major win for the US in the modern era. In 2006, the country was poised to get behind the team, but instead watched three horrible games that ended our World Cup.

Finally, last summer, a year out from the 2010 World Cup, the excitement was building. When an improbable 3-0 win over Egypt sent the US into the Confederations Cup Semifinal against Spain, a team that was unbeaten in 35 games and was arguably the best team in the world at the time, people started paying attention. We won the game 2-0 and showed everyone back home that we were contenders. We could play with the best of them. People took notice. In the US's first game of this World Cup, the TV audiences for the England v. US game rivaled the NBA finals. ESPN finally woke up and has covered the World Cup as it's meant to be covered (aside from Lalas and Harkes being idiots). Every game is broadcast, dissected, analyzed by (mostly) first rate commentators, former players and current coaches.

I understand that some Americans don't understand soccer. That's ok. But, the failure to give it a chance, to try and understand why so many people around the world and in the US love it, is really unfortunate. There is just not the same kind of passion in US pro sport fans as there is in soccer fans the world over. I'm not sure why this is, but it certainly isn't because it's a dull sport or not "legit."

As for the canard that only children play soccer in the US- the state of our team today speaks to the reality of youth soccer in the US. You don't produce players like Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, etc. without a strong base of soccer players up through high school and college.

I hope some of you who may not have been interested in the past have started taking note. Watch some games with a friend who knows what's going on, read up a little on the sport and give yourself some time to adjust to the way it's played. I guarantee that if you give it a shot (like going to a bar on Saturday to watch the US play Ghana) you'll be hard-pressed not to get swept up in the beautiful game.

In the end, I don't expect to have convinced anyone who is a die hard hater (like Glenn Beck, for instance) that soccer is worthwhile. There will always be soccer haters in the US. It's just getting harder and harder to hear you over the buzz of the vuvuzelas and the cheer of the pro-US crowd after a day like today.

GL's Post-Hearing Roundup

GL's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is over.

Overall, I think it went well. I don't think some senators' atempts to focus on the welfare rights article were successful--partly because the passages they quoted consisted of complex academic language.

And GL was able to circumvent other "hot topic" issues like gun control or capital punishment by either stating that he had no opinion, or in fact that he agreed with the questioner's premise.

He was a little on the defensive in light of his prior comments during the Roberts/Alito confirmations, but he avoided falling into the trap of comparing their nominations with his own.

And of course he took a bit of a battering on the late submissions of documents issue. But I really can't see how that could really be used to justify Republican opposition.

The correct link to Jesse Choper's letter is here. (Thanks for the tip, anonymous!) I still am waiting for Whelan's response. I'm sure hill have some indignant mouth-frothing on the hearing posted soon.

--------

The White House has confirmed Goodwin's nomination here.

Prior N&B threads on Goodwin Liu shows a surprisingly wide range of view at Boalt. There are clearly a lot Boalties that worship at the Church of Goodwin. There are others that think that his constitutional law classes were overly biased in the ACS direction. (These last two sentences may not be unrelated.) I don't really know enough about GL to make any opinions. I thought his graduation speech last may was underwhelming. But he's been very helpful to me in the few situations in which I've interacted with him.

The logistical problem facing N&B on this topic is that, these days, the confirmation of judicial nominations can take years--if they happen at all. And the track record of speedy confirmations for Obama nominees is not good. Although the LA Times article suggests that GL has well-placed conservative supporters, he may be a controverial nomination (based on his ACS leadership and his opposition to the Alito SCOTUS nomination). And if we keep popping up with thread updates every few months, then we'll separate all the different comments.

So I propose keeping this as a kind of enduring GL Confirmation thread. I'll try to keep it updated as appropriate, and will bump it whenever there are any new developments. I also may change the title as appropriate, but will keep the comments. Of course, other posters can start their own threads. (After all, I'm sure there will be plenty of press releases coming out soon...)

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Laugh at 'Em

The next best thing to solving a problem is to find some humor in it. Campus budget protesters to date have somehow managed to do neither. That's why I'd like to give a great big shiny gold star for UCMeP, a student group whose mission is to protest tuition hikes through satire. SF Gate article here.

I'd write a longer post, but I'm off to support our "hardest working public servants" by joining the Adopt a Regent campaign. Tra-laa!

Good! Win!

Update 01/21/2010: A non-password protected version of the article is here.

Update 01/22/2010: You can find Volokh Conspiracy discussion of the issue here.

________________________

The Daily Journal is reporting (behind password protection) that Obama is "poised to nominate" Professor Liu to the 9th Cir:

Jan. 20, 2010: Three Californians Up for Federal Bench (Daily Journal) "The Obama administration is poised to nominate three Northern Californians to the federal bench, sources have told the Daily Journal. The nominations could come as soon as today, when the U.S. Senate reconvenes. Goodwin H. Liu, a UC Berkeley School of Law associate dean and constitutional scholar, is said to be an Obama pick for one of the two vacant seats on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals . . . .

Question of the day: what professor is next in line for collective student adoration?

Something is Awesome in the State of Denmark

From yesterday's Daily Journal (sub req'd) (PDF of story, h/t anon):

Two Berkeley Law students will push for more awareness of the human rights implications of climate change policy as they join the thousands of people gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate change summit . . . Second-yea law students Zoe Loftus-Farren, 25, and Caitrin McKiernan, 29, will present a paper at the conference tomorrow asking countries to think deeply about how they will handle such issues as the rights of populations relocated due to rising sea levels, biofuel production and its potential conflicts with food production, and dam construction, which may disrupt fishery-dependent communities.

Umm...cool!!!!  So those two have their holiday plans laid out.  And as is tradition, feel free to share your plans.  Cynical, post-exam rants most welcome.

What Really Matters

As the comments on the Bar thread are starting to reflect, the best part about being done is going back to summer TV. In my experience there are two types of summer TV viewers: those who watch the reality crap that the networks put on (e.g. shows where The Hoff is a judge!!!) and those who latch on to the high quality cable shows that begin their season when the network season ends (Rescue Me, Entourage, Dexter, etc.). Regardless of which camp you fall under, summer programming is definitely not as boring as it once was. But it does require a lot of scouting time. So, to ease the bar takers into their TV viewing habits, let this be an open thread to share thoughts on shows that people have scoped out for the summer.

Relatedly, I'm happy to see that HBO leads the networks by a wide margin in showing gay characters. Personally, I think the article makes a glaring oversight by not mentioning Omar from The Wire, who strikes me as one of the best protagonists in TV in general, let alone among the few gay characters.

Tip of the Hat

As a commenter int he thread below points out, Justice Ginsburg has hired a Boaltie for (presumably) OT 2011. So major congrats to GS. (And let's keep it at that level of specificity please).

Prodigal y Daughter

From the Volokh Conspiracy, via google alerts and an anonymous tipster:

Congratulations to Recent Boalt Hall [g]raduate Carolyn Zabrycki, whose student article (Toward a Definition of "Testimonial": How Autopsy Reports Do Not Embody the Qualities of a Testimonial Statement, 96 Cal. L. Rev. 1093 (2008)) was cited three times -- and seemingly significantly relied on -- by Justice Kennedy's dissent in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (pdf).

Congratulations, indeed!

Moran Leaves the Village

Leiter is reporting that our very own Prof. Moran is leaving for the new law school at UCI. She's a great scholar and a ummm quirky teacher. Clearly, she has an above average sense of humor and a quick-wit. At the same time, she still has the old-school, completely Socratic, closed-book finals mind-set. Shug better pick up the slack for the incoming 1Ls.