From the Mouths of 1Ls: More Six-Word Stories

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a challenge to write six-word stories about law school or the law.  That post inspired many creative six-word stories, which you can read in the comments to that post.  The post and its idea were picked up by other blogs, including the Wall Street Journal law blog, the Wall Street Journal print edition on Monday, September 23, 2013, Above the Law, TaxProf blog, and the ABA Law News Now.

Below are some of the six-word stories submitted by my first-year legal analysis, writing & research students. I hope you’ll add your own in the comments.

New analysis, old logic, law school.

Adam Vanderwerff

 

Wish I knew contracts like Kingsfield.

Alexa Callahan

 

This isn’t quite like Legally Blonde.

Alexa Callahan

 

Helen Palsgraf shouldn’t have stood there.

Kelly Pingel

 

Student focused. Eckstein prepared. Challenge accepted.

Josh Lurie

 

Where I became a caffeine junkie.

Brycen Breazeale

 

Come to our meeting, free food!

Larry Whitley

 

Law school: life experience, life changing.

Jordan Feest

 

Yes, overwhelming; yet, so extremely rewarding.

Ian Kalis

 

Challenging and new; focus, get through.

Kyle Thelen

 

Shaping legal landscapes from grass clippings.

Molly Madonia

 

Coffee read read read read coffee.

Rex Hupy

 

The law is a fickle beast.

Jordana Rostant-Nunes

 

I’m having 1L of a ride.

Trace Hummel

 

Law—compromise of mind and heart.

Jessica Jurevis

 

More you learn. Less you know.

Cassie Van Gompel

 

Legal education: a complete mental metamorphosis.

Asma Kadri

 

Who is this magical reasonable person?

John Woodson

 

School was easy. Then things changed.

Craig Dietrich

 

 

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Google Calls in the Cavalry in the Street View Case

satellite-antennae-618125-mI do intend to get back to my four-part series on whether Google’s collection of information from residential Wi-Fi networks violated the Wiretap Act. That issue is being litigated in the Northern District of California in a consolidated class action of home wireless network users, and the earlier posts in my series examined the plaintiffs’, Google’s, and the district court’s arguments on this issue. See Part I; Part II. Since I wrote the first two posts, the Ninth Circuit weighed in, affirming the district court’s denial of Google’s motion to dismiss, allowing the plaintiffs to proceed with their complaint.

Since that post, there’s been another development: Google has filed a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc. And they’ve brought in a bigger gun to do so — noted Supreme Court advocate Seth Waxman — indicating perhaps how far they intend to take this. Google has two basic arguments for why a rehearing should be granted. First, Google attacks what I called the panel’s “radio means radio” interpretation of the term “radio communications” — “radio communications” means “stuff you listen to on a radio” — is unworkable. Second, Google argues that the panel should never have reached the issue of whether wi-fi communications are “readily accessible to the general public” under an ordinary-language approach to that term, because that question involves disputed issues of fact. In the rest of this post I’ll review these two arguments.

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Two Americas

The federal government is now shutdown. What happens next is anyone’s guess, especially since we hit the debt ceiling in two weeks and still have to pass an actual budget to fund the government. To get out of the current stalemate, one compromise that has been floated is for Congress to pass a continuing resolution – funding the government until November – along with the “Vitter amendment.” The Vitter Amendment would prohibit Congress from exempting itself from Obamacare. So what is the controversy over Congress and its staffers having to purchase healthcare on the exchanges? What are the issues with Congress exempting itself from Obamacare? And what does it say about our legislature?

In 2009, during the peak of the legislative debate over healthcare reform, Senator Chuck Grassley (R) inserted an amendment in Obamacare that required all members of Congress and their staffers to purchase health insurance on the newly-created health insurance exchanges. Of course, members of Congress wouldn’t be alone in doing this. Starting today, millions of Americans are utilizing the exchanges.

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