Favorite Law School Activities: Equestrian Team

My most useful and enjoyable extracurricular activity in law school had absolutely nothing to do with law school or the law, which was why it was both useful and enjoyable.  Let me explain.

When I started law school, I had moved to a new city and state, and I did not know anyone other than my classmates.  My high-school and college friends were several states away, as was my family.  Because everyone I knew was a law student, law school became all-consuming, and it was easy to miss what was going on in the “real world.”

A few months into my first year, I noticed a flyer inviting people to participate in the university’s equestrian team.  I had been riding since I was four years old, so the team seemed like a good fit for me.  I joined the team and became the only law student — the only member who was not an undergraduate, actually.  The team practiced one night a week, and those practices were important to me for a number of reasons. 

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Products Liability Moot Court Team Wins Best Petitioner Brief and Advances to Semifinals

Please join me in congratulating Jon Fritz and Dale Johnson, who represented Marquette at the August A. Rendigs, Jr. National Products Liability Moot Court Competition this weekend.  Jon and Dale not only advanced to the semi-final round of the competition, they also received an award for writing the best brief on behalf of the petitioner.

Jon, Dale, and I would like to thank the many people who helped the team prepare for the competition.   Specifically, we would like to thank Marquette lawyers Jane Appleby and Sean Finnigan, 3L Maura Battersby, and Professors Rebecca Blemberg, Patricia Bradford, Rick Esenberg, Melissa Greipp, Nadelle Grossman, Lisa Hatlen, Jill Hayford, Jack Kircher, Julie Norton, Chad Oldfather, Elana Olson, and Andrea Schneider for their help in judging the practice arguments.

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Long Live the Apostrophe

One of the punctuation marks that causes students the most confusion is the apostrophe. I see plural nouns with apostrophes and possessive nouns without them, and sometimes I just see random apostrophes thrown into any old word that includes an “s.”  I see “it’s” and “its'” when the writer really intends to use “its.”  My students’ current writing assignment involves plaintiffs named Vincent and Cheryl Simms.  In reading students’ drafts, I have seen “Mr. Simms injury,” “Mr. Simm’s injury,” “Mr. Simms’ injury,” and “Mr. Simms’s injury.”  (Just in case any of you are reading this post, I prefer Simms’, though I would also accept Simms’s.)  Some students have simply given up and written “the injury suffered by Mr. Simms.”  I don’t mean to criticize my current students; I have noticed the same issues over the past several years, and my students, past or present, are not alone.

The city council in Birmingham, England, has banned the use of apostrophes in its street signs.  Evidently, the council members grew tired of using their meetings to debate whether various street names should include apostrophes.  One council member was quoted by MSNBC as follows:  “Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed.”  He continued, “More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don’t want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it.”  You can read more about the council’s decision here.

Not everyone has thrown in the towel, however. 

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