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T.C. Williams Law School Students: Welcome to my ONLY professional page on the website.
I do hope you will take the time to look at the hilarious cartoons and the book reviews. After all we are not only lawyers or lawstudents, we are also human beings with other interests than law!!!!
So enjoy the ride and if you want to send some papers that you wrote, with a little text attached for each paper or article then, it's okay. My only liberty will be the fonts design for the titles, I won't change anything else, I won't proof read or anything of the sort since I don't have the time to do that!!!!
Other people visiting this particular section, hope you will enjoy it!
For papers, articles that you would like me to post, email me here. Do not use email addresses on the rest of the site.
I wondered if I was going to put my first year tries as a future lawyer. First of all, you have to realize that I was coming from France and my English style was good for a French person but poor for an American. I did horribly this year and I have to say that like most first years, I hated that class. I had the best of fun with the people in my section and we all had the same opinion: we had one grade at the beginning and we were stuck with it! This happens every year for some reason. I decided to put them after all to show you the progress I made in my writing skills. One of my friends, when he read my paper on first amendment was shocked to see such a difference. I have no idea how my writing skills improved so much. The first document is a memorandum about a conflict of interest between our client (Engels) and an attorney (Cooperman). The second is a brief on a motion to quash, meaning that Cooperman was trying to get some documents from the State bar that it accumulated during the investigation against her. I represented the State bar. Of course, all this is fictional.
Appellate brief that I wrote and argued in front of Justice Lacy at T.C Williams School of law
This is not the best place to put it, and the editing is pretty bad, I have to admit. But I hope you will take the time to read it. It is a simulated case, it is not based on real facts. Though you can find cases very similar in different states. At the time we all wrote our briefs, there was no decision in the 4th Circuit of which Virginia is part. I have to brag about it as I got an A-. At first, I thought I had a D, and all my friends agreed that the letter looked like a D! Anyway, I was very proud of myself, considering that our section was taught by Justice Lacy, member of the Supreme Court of Virginia. On the day we were scheduled to argue, the fourth circuit released a decision concerning a similar case, I am proud to say that my side was entirely right. But it was also pure luck, as Justice Lacy decided who would be appellee and appellant. I also wanted to put it here because without Justice Lacy and her encouragement, I would not have been able to write it, so afraid I was to write in a language which was not my mother tongue and especially after getting grades so bad the year before. In a way, this is to thank her. And show her how proud am I to have had the luck to be taught by her.
At the school, I found myself drawn by First Amendment. I was hearing so much stuff and as a French person, I was, sometimes, shocked beyond belief to see and hear people say the most outrageous things against certain minorities or classes of people. Among those, Blacks and Jews principally. I decided to do a comparison between France and the US, firmly believing than our way was better than the US way. By the end, I convinced myself that it was probably better to let people say and write whatever they want to say. Now, I'm back in France. And, the latest I heard about censorship (because by protecting certain individuals, you must censor) was two people charged with provocation to racial hatred because they distributed a pamphlet based on a famous French song (take a little kid by the hand) which chorus was "take an Arab and throw him/her under the train." The other event was a photographic book depicting the life of Jesus Christ in modern times. The cover was forbidden to be exhibited in three bookstores because it represented a female crucified in the same position as Jesus Christ. Of course, I could have mentioned someone that everyone thinks about but he doesn't even deserve mentioning!
I, now, firmly, believe than any kind of prior or posterior restraint is bad.
There is not a lot to say about it. I had Family law and our professor made it optional for us to do a separation agreement. It could not harm our final grade. So most of us did it. I have to say that I did not think I would enjoy such a class. Family law has a bad connotation, especially in France, and I frankly became depressed with all the stories I heard while in Law school in France concerning lawyers specialized in divorce. However, family law is far from all being about divorce.
I enjoyed the class, because the professor was excellent and he taught me to like this area of law. And of course, he was and still is hilarious!
Incorporation.
When I studied Corporations, our professor gave us an assignment to do a draft of legal papers to create a firm, partnership, corporation etc... We were assigned to groups of 8 people. Did one draft, each of us decided which part we would research and write our own version of it and then give it to someone who put it all together. Then we met with the other group assigned the same subject and decided which version was better. We had a final draft made combining both versions. Thus, this is the work of 16 persons! I only did part of the directors section in the by-laws as we used a combination of mine and the other group's. There are two documents, the first one is the certificate of incorporation and the second one is the by-laws. I think if I remember that we had to apply NY business law.
And after lawschool, comes the bar exam, how dreadful of them to put us through that!
