Lisa A. Mazzie – Page 45 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

What Katie Holmes’ Split from Tom Cruise Can Teach Us

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:July 26, 2012
Post category:Family Law Legal Practice Popular Culture & Law Public

On June 28, actress Katie Holmes allegedly “blindsided” actor Tom Cruise, her husband of five-and-a-half years, by filing for divorce. Cruise was filming a new movie in Iceland when Holmes filed her divorce papers in New York, where she and their daughter Suri had been living.

What made this story even more dramatic was the incredibly calculated way in which Holmes is rumored to have plotted her departure and her filing. Most media (gossip) reports claim that weeks (if not months) prior to June 28, Holmes set the wheels in motion, using pay-as-you-go cell phones to contact attorneys, cutting off ties with joint friends, firing staff that Cruise had hired, and renting a new apartment in New York City in her name only, allegedly telling Cruise that the new apartment had certain features that allowed for more privacy, even as she allegedly was professing her love for Cruise during phone calls with him. (Stories can be found here, here, here, here, and here, undoubtedly among many other places.)

Why Holmes chose New York rather than California as the venue for her filing could be due to one, or both, of two possible reasons, as speculated by a number of legal sources, none of whom are connected with the Holmes-Cruise case. First, filings in California are public, while filings in New York are sealed (and Holmes purportedly petitioned for an anonymous caption). This would allow the couple privacy as they worked through the unraveling of their marriage. Second, it was widely speculated that custody of Holmes’ and Cruise’s daughter would be an issue. Holmes requested sole legal custody, a move many thought occurred because Holmes (raised a Catholic) wanted to remove the influence of Scientology (Cruise’s professed religion) from Suri’s life, and a New York court is more likely than a California court to grant sole custody where parents cannot agree on child rearing issues.

Holmes and Cruise settled their divorce in 11 days and though little has been officially released about the terms, most reports agree that Holmes with have primary custody of Suri in New York and Cruise will have liberal visitation rights. Thereafter, Holmes and Cruise released a joint statement professing their commitment to work together as parents for their daughter’s best interests.

So, what’s there left to talk about?

What I keep coming back to again and again was not that Holmes decided to end her marriage, but how she went about doing it.

More Bookspine Poetry

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:April 19, 2012
Post category:Public

Following Steve Nelson’s post on bookspine poetry and Professor Hylton’s bookspine poem of Professor Papke’s book titles, I offer my own bookspine poem, from books off my office bookshelf.

Haiku, Anyone?

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:April 10, 2012
Post category:Public

April is National Poetry Month. As Marquette University President Scott Pilarz, S.J., noted, poetry is “one of life’s pleasures – a gift to our spirits.” Poetry surely can speak to us and for us in beautiful ways.

You don’t have to be a “professional” to create poetry that’s fun to read. One of the guilty pleasures of many a legal writing professor is to craft haiku. Occasionally, the legal writing professors’ listserv lights up with people exchanging haiku on topics from serious to silly, on legal education, on law, and on life.

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry. There are certain specific qualities that make a poem a haiku, but among the legal writing professors the only quality is that the poem adhere to the 5/7/5 structure, a fitting requirement for professors who encourage precision and concision in writing. That is, the haiku contains three lines. The first line contains five syllables; the second, seven syllables; and the third, five syllables.

I’m sharing one my haikus, written a year or so ago at the tail end of a long conference period. I used only the magnetic words on my office filing cabinet, so I was a bit limited with my choices. Nonetheless, I suspect many in the law school community can relate, especially at this time of the year.

Wild thoughts wandering

From the morning through the night

I could use some sleep.

Celebrate National Poetry Month and share a haiku of your own. It’s good practice in writing concisely.