First Annual Professionalism Week

Professionalism Week was one of those events where you end up relieved it's done :)

Last year, Emily Sheets (then Treasurer of the ABA Law Student Division at Regent, and now President) came to me with the idea of doing an etiquette dinner for law students. While the university does one for all the students, it is not attended much by law students, unless it is a mandatory event for some student organization. (Let's face it: law students like things that easily fit into their schedules, and the less convenient something is, the less likely we are to attend.) Well, we were unfortunately unable to do that event last year.

Then, when we were in New York for the ABA conference, I talked to some other SBA presidents about the lack of programming at law schools regarding professionalism. An idea started emerging-- to work with our Career Services office and try to put on a full week of events regarding professionalism, centered around the etiquette dinner. When I spoke to one of the deans about it at the beginning of the school year, he was very supportive and only had one request: that we put the week around the same time as the mandatory 1L professionalism orientation during February.

After making the contacts with Career Services and the administration, I pretty much stopped working on it (SBA has had a lot going on!!), but Emily and I would meet occasionally, brainstorming events. Honestly, I was very frustrated when she cancelled the lunch (as I built everything around that lunch) because a speaker backed out and she didn't think there was enough time to get another one, but everything worked out well... and hopefully next year they will be able to add the luncheon into the schedule!

The events this week included:
Monday— Courtroom Decorum with Judge Humphreys (food provided by PAD.)

Wednesday—a panel with Commonwealth Attorneys and Public Defenders on Professionalism in their field. (Lunch provided by PILAR.)

Thursday—three Attorneys with the law firm of Pender and Coward speaking on Professionalism in the Firm Environment. (Lunch provided by the ABA.)

Students who attended any session received a "Passport to Professionalism" and once they attended two sessions were entered to win a $1500 BarBri scholarship or a free 6-day course from Kaplan PMBR. Also, we have away PMBR study aids to a lucky 1L and 2L. This incentive to attend worked well: we had approximately 80 students participate in the Professionalism Week!

I sincerely hope that next year, the SBA is able to more fully develop Professionalism Week to have events each day, and continue to educate Regent Law students on maintaining professionalism in different work environments!

Give a Little Love...

Today SBA set out to impact a lot of lives with the simplest of methods: making Valentine's Day Cards!

Back when I was in high school, my mom came up with this idea to have her junior high students make Valentine's Day cards and take them to a local retirement home, to let those there know that someone was thinking of them on a day that many had lost their loved ones. From that first year, the idea grew and my high school pitched in and helped making the cards so that more retirement centers could have the cards. Well, eventually her class stopped making the cards, and I'd all but forgotten this idea (since I did it about 10 years ago).

And then... planning out community service ideas for the year, I thought of all the Valentine's Day supplies that were still in our home, and made a phone call to my mom, asking that she send me all the hearts that we'd never used. She went above and beyond: sending the cards sorted by size and color, and adding a cupid cut-out.

To get the Valentines started, I made about 30 so that people could simply stop by and sign them. For the record, this is no easy task, as the cards my mom taught me to make are pop-up inside, giving a 3D effect to the cards! Anyhow, the card-making was a great success!! By the time we were done with the table day, students made 90 cards!! This meant we had not only enough to go to one of the retirement centers, but also to the Samaritan House, a shelter for battered women... all of whom could use a little love.

The fact that so many students came to make--or sign--cards touched me because I saw how much students at Regent are wiling to give, even if it's just a Valentine to someone they don't know. One student wrote in her card: "I don't know if this is a wonderful day for you, or a hard day, but either way please know that you are thought of and prayed for on Valentine's Day."

So even if you can't take the time to make Valentines for those around you, do something kind for another... give a little love.

What to do when you don't have power...

So I now know that surviving a 9.5 hour-long power outage is a twelve step process.

All the necessary items are: a computer (preferably with 5 hours of battery power), an Mp3 player or battery radio, 2 flashlights, about 10 batteries, and a camera.

Step one: Sleep. The power will probably be out for only a few minutes anyhow.

Step two: After you wake up an hour later and realize the power is still out, ghetto-rig some lighting with a mirror and one of the flashlights and try to read with the other (although you'll probably give up reading in a few minutes).

Step three: Call someone. You might need to hear something other than the sound of your one breathing.

Step four: Play old-time radio shows or music on your computer. DO NOT play videos or do anything that will require the screen to stay on. This enables much more battery power. Going on three hours with no power, it looks like you're going to need it.

Step five: Go someplace that has a generator to get warm.

Step six: Make finger-puppets on the ceiling (again)... what amused you for five minutes before could now last about an hour.

Step seven: Find your camera, and grab a flashlight and discover how to make things glow in your apartment. Find random things, like a Sprite bottle and make it look florescent, a ribbon streaming across the darkness, and your laundry room probably has very odd-shaped things too that look cool with shadows. Perhaps attempt a self-portrait...

Step eight: Look for trap doors and hidden places in your apartment. If you happen to discover attic access, DON'T open the door. It is apparently very cold and doesn't help with the warmth factor.

Step nine: Avoid looking at your fire alarms in case you have a fear of fire-- you don't want to notice there is no light on and that means they may not be working!

Step ten: Try to sleep some more (with your boots on-- not to hit the door running or anything, but they help you keep warm). If you can't sleep, just listen to some more music.

Step eleven: Turn off all the appliances and lights you know are "on" so you won't be awakened by the power surge when power finally comes back on.

Step twelve: Succumb to the darkness and just REST!

With Thanksgiving....

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."-- Psalm 100:4

This past week, SBA hosted its annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the Homeless.  This tradition is one of my favorite events done by SBA! While I didn't realize it until August when talking to other SBA presidents, this event is actually done by several law schools around the country, and I think it is great that Student Bar Associations take the time to share and help local communities!

This year I was exceedingly worried about how our event would go, and as a result I could truly see the hand of God working for the dinner to come together. Usually the school has a faculty event in early November, and we schedule the dinner for the same day so the school will not charge us for the set- up and rental of tables and chairs. Waiting for the school to set the lunch date, we waited an extra couple of weeks, which meant all the arrangements started two weeks later than in the past. 

Our Community Service Committee worked quickly: local shelters had to be contacted, buses arranged, drivers found, food donated, and volunteers needed to sign up as well.  All those details were managed with Mykell Messman and Aaron Casavant at the head (and with a lot of prayer!), but everyone forgot about decorations and music until I realized it the morning before the event. So, Monday morning I was sitting in class sweating bullets and praying I'd figure out who would be entertaining--since I didn't want to play the piano for two hours-- and how the atrium would be decorated.

Thankfully, Regent students are very generous with both their time and energy! I contacted Amanda Freeman to play the piano for 45 minutes, and then Donny Anderson to play the guitar for 45 minutes after her. Both of them accepted!  Donny actually ended up getting together a group with another student, Chris Baker, and two friends of Chris. This was amazing as the guests at the dinner repeatedly complimented the music!

Tuesday morning, I was more calm; I had the musicians arranged, and I'd made decorations the night before to save SBA money. Students started storing food in the kitchen in Robertson Hall, and others were excited about coming to serve as volunteers. The wonderful thing about this dinner, and I remember noticing it my 1L year, is that students truly care about the community and love to do something reminds us that law school is not the most important thing in the world, but that people are more important. For example, when we were worried about not having enough food a week before the event, one of my senate members (Amber Morris) stepped up and made her first turkey ever so we'd be sure to have enough!

The last hour before the dinner, everything seemed to fall in place with students bringing freshly prepared food, volunteers coming in, and the buses even running on time and not being stuck in traffic. God truly does bless those who turn their worries over to Him!

I think that my favorite moment was the opening of the dinner. The guests had all gotten into the room and volunteers were beginning to serve with excitement in their eyes as they greeted. Some were in line for drinks and others were in line for food. Mykell went to welcome the guests, and started to pray, and I saw men pull their hats off and pray along. Sharing our food, our blessings, and our gifts really does show the love of God every year... I thank God that SBA has the resources to share and to pull the students together each year to volunteer with this event! 

Also, while I have mentioned a few students above, once again I would also like to thank all of SBA for helping make the event a success, and the numerous students who greeted, served food, made the food, engaged in conversations, "waited tables," helped with entertainment or completed any number of random assignments delegated by SBA representatives. You were a truly a blessing!  As you may know, the theme verses for SBA this year are Phil. 2:3-4: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." Thank you for helping us in looking out for the interests of others and making the annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the Homeless a success!

Pleasant Grove Oral Arguments-Class Transcript Review

I just got out of what was likely my final Supreme Court class with Jay Sekulow where we first commented on our impressions of the Supreme Court and what took place, and then went over the transcript from the oral argument (***Please note, all excerpts provided below are “Official—Subject to Final Review.”***).

Looking at the transcript, it is clear that Dr. Sekulow did not have to argue in a defensive manner against the Establishment Clause right away, but was rather arguing in the affirmative, agreeing with the stance of Chief Justice Roberts. Still, the focus remained on the Establishment Clause case until Justice Scalia made a joke about the cut-off time for monuments, and Chief Justice Roberts redirected the questioning to government vs. private speech.

One thing that noted to our class and that can be seen throughout the transcript, Dr. Sekulow was able to use the answer to one justice’s question and turn it to address the previous concern of another justice. For example, at one point Justice Stevens asked a question, and while answering it, Dr. Sekulow returned to a point made by Justice Kennedy regarding speech selection cases. With a great deal of research on how different justices have stood in different government speech and selection cases, he was able to tailor answers to concerns individual justices may have. Additionally, Dr. Sekulow used a conversational tone, with a high level of formality toward the justices.

Looking at the transcript, I was also able to see where I previously thought Daryl Joseffer, Deputy Solicitor General, had repeated himself: it was the statement that “[t]he Free Speech Clause on its own force does not prevent the Government from speaking freely.” However, I think it was more the idea and not the statement itself that was repeated. I think he also had a great point when he stated, “And in fact, there are thousands of privately donated monuments and sculptures in public parks across the country, and I suspect a great many of then don’t have some formal disclaimer on them saying ‘I am the United States and I approve this message.’ That’s not the way Government speech has ever been thought to work.”

When Pamela Harris, on behalf of Summum, first began, she only stated four (short) sentences before Justice Scalia began his questions on whether the park was a public forum for all things. Justice Kennedy picked up the line of questioning, indicating a difference between temporary speech and permanent monuments. Chief Justice Roberts then used the Statute of Liberty hypothetical, questioning whether a Statue of Liberty then meant a Statute of Despotism had to be allowed. (As a side note, this was HUGE for us to hear! There were probably over 1000 hours of research involved in knowing the history of the Statue of Liberty and its acceptance by the United States, and trips to New York City to look over the Statue of Liberty…)
When Ms. Harris agreed with Justice Souter that “[the] claim would disappear if this town in Utah had passed an ordinance saying we adopt the Ten Commandments Monument,” he stated that the Court was “engaging in kind of a – almost a silly exercise in formality.”

My favorite part of the transcript is actually an argument that Dr. Sekulow brought up in some moot courts, and he joked that after the case that Justice Scalia ‘stole his line’ when pointing out that in every case involving the Ten Commandments, the opposing counsel has argued that the government IS the speaker, but suddenly now the Ten Commandments monument here is not government speech. Justice Scalia stated, “You will say just the opposite when you come back here to challenge the ten Commandments monument on – on Establishment Clause grounds. You will say something like this: Anybody who comes into this park and seeing this monument owned by the Government, on Government land, will think that the Government is endorsing this message. That’s what you will say now.” Her response: “Um—” (To her credit, I think she would have continued the response, but Justice Scalia kept questioning.)

Dr. Sekulow, in his rebuttal, pointed out that “governments don’t adopt monuments; they adopt resolutions that accept monuments. That’s the way it worked here; that’s the way it works in most municipalities.” His conclusion (on Pinette like he wanted!) was: “..reliance on Pinette is misplaced because as this Court said, Pinette is an Establishment Clause case, and the reliance here by the Respondent has been on the Free Speech Clause. We think the Tenth Circuit is wrong, both under the Government speech analysis and under the forum approach, and for that reason should be vacated.”

Either yesterday or today, the Justices voted on the opinion, but we do not know when the opinion will come out, other than it has to be prior to July. As a small aside, I was correct thinking that an opinion was read at the beginning of the session on Wednesday, and this case was only argued in October! So, who really knows when the decision could come out! It may be soon… but then again, it could be quite some time.

Pleasant Grove Oral Arguments at the Supreme Court

Today I had one of the greatest experiences--if not the greatest-- of my law school career: I went to hear oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States on the case Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. This summer when I was given the opportunity to work at the American Center for Law and Justice and do research on monuments throughout the country, I don't think I really comprehended what preparation for a Supreme Court argument entails.  However, even though I stopped working for the ACLJ once school started, I have been enrolled in a class that has been following Dr. Sekulow's preparation for oral arguments.

A couple of weeks ago, our class (about 30 students, I think) gave Dr. Sekulow a moot court session where for two hours we asked him questions about the facts, legal analysis, and hypotheticals. He had previously done a 6 hour moot court with a different group. Having traveled and done moot courts in different areas, he engaged in two more moot court sessions at Regent, where he not only practiced his answers, but also the etiquette of the court: yielding to a justice who is speaking, knowing which justice to address and answer first when multiple are talking at once, asking permission to continue answers, etc.

Yesterday, those of us in the class (plus a few others) went up on a bus to D.C., stayed the night in a hotel a few blocks from the Supreme Court, and then (when our bus failed to show up) walked to the Supreme Court at 5 am to stand in line for tickets to get in and hear the oral arguments. Not only students in the class were there, but also students who clerked (like me) this summer for the ACLJ. For four hours, we endured the biting cold of the fall morning and stood outside in line, as bundled up as possible. Then... they started letting us in, but a horrible thing happened-- not everyone in our class got in to the building. Apparently there more more seats reserved than anticipated, and also some people who were connected to Regent in some way (such as graduates or spouses) showed up and were before students in line. Also, there were a few people not connected to the school interspersed with the students.

I was looking back at some of my friends wondering what they were going to do, and when I was seated in the courtroom (and this says a lot for his character to me), Dr. Sekulow asked if all the students got in, because he was actually thinking about his students and not just his argument. When I responded "no, sir" he was upset and tried to figure out what happened; the simple fact was that there were too many people!  

At 10 am I was slightly puzzled that the justices had not yet appeared. I was told the Supreme Court was very prompt, so I looked back and forth at the two large courthouse clocks (the room is amazing, by the way, with large friezes around the room of historical law givers and a ceiling that reminded me of Rome). At 10:02, the police officers indicated that we should rise just as the Chief Justice walked into the courthouse. It was time for the fun to begin. :)

In all honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened for the first 7 minutes or so.  I'm pretty sure that an opinion was read by the Court for a case, but I don't know what the case was about and I was somewhat shaking-- both from trying to get warm and nerves. Then, another really cool thing happened: we got to see people being admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court. After a few others, Dr. Sekulow made a motion that the court accept Regent professors Darius Davenport, Scott Pryor, and Lynn Kohm into the bar, as well as others. Then, all those admitted were sworn in.

Finally, Chief Justice Roberts called the case, and Dr. Sekulow began his argument. He got through about 44 seconds before any questions started from the court, and I was surprised at how long he had to answer questions about the Establishment Clause (an estimated 5 minutes). He also quoted pages of text, which I was amazed at--once again-- that he could do just off the top of his head. What was almost comical was to hear how fast he talked in trying to get his point across, only to have the pace of the argument slowed substantially by a justice asking a question. Thinking about it now, I do laugh because he would be on a roll answering a question, and then Justice Ginsburg would cut in with a question that it seemed she would never finish because it took so long to ask. Also, Justice Souter (I think it was him) seemed to ask a ton of questions at one point on government speech, and I was definitely proud of how moot courts had gone at Regent as some of the questions he had were similar to those that came up, which meant I knew Dr. Sekulow had a prepared answer. It seemed that his argument went on for a very long time, and it turns out I was correct; while he had talked about possibly reserving 10 minutes for rebuttal, he only reserved two!!

The next person to present (for Pleasant Grove) did so on behalf of the government. He got through about 12 seconds, I think, before asking a question, and talked noticeably slower than Dr. Sekulow. Though I can't remember the certain phrase he used, he seemed to have a theme to his argument  because I remember noticing that he said the exact same sentence multiple times as answers to different questions. I couldn't tell if he was just trying to drive it home, or if he kept saying it because he was trying to justify it in different ways if the justices did not agree.

Finally came the attorney for Summum. She got out a whooping nine seconds of speech before her opening statement was cut off with a question. I honestly don't remember much of her argument because it did not make much sense to me, and apparently I was not alone in that as a justice commented that he did not understand what she was saying. I do remember her saying that she believed a city could only adopt a monument by doing so formally and in writing stipulating such. She also got many hypotheticals; Justice Scalia definitely asked her a ton of questions. The attorney backed herself into a corner and finally conceded that one of his examples would be government speech (although to keep her point, she shouldn't have agreed with him). 

In rebuttal, one of the things I noticed was a lack of an example which ran through all of our moot court sessions-- Fred Phelps and his church wanting to put up monuments.  However, Dr. Sekulow told us later that he did so on the spur of the moment, choosing instead to use that with a 9/11 monument such as the park has, under the current 10th Circuit ruling, a person would have to also be allowed to put up an Al Qaeda monument.  

Overall, hearing the oral arguments was an amazing experience. Then, at a reception at the ACLJ, I met the current mayor of Pleasant Grove City. Suddenly all my work from this summer and even in the class had a face to it; before it was just a city some place in Utah, even though I read the depositions of citizens and the mayor. Meeting the mayor somehow also gave me more of a sense of urgency regarding the case, because, as he said "it's [his] case, and all [he] can do is show up and watch and wait."

So now we all wait... The Supreme Court will release its decision sometime before the end of the term, and that's really all we know. The arguments were phenomenal, the experience was once-in-a-lifetime, and once again I feel blessed to be a part of Regent Law School.

For more information on the ACLJ and the Pleasant Grove case, please visit: http://www.aclj.org/news/read.aspx?ID=3101 

Going and Coming, Coming and Going

I have been up to a lot the last few weeks! Here are some of the highlights:

• I attended at Student Leadership Lunch with Virginia's Chief Justice Hassell and former Attorney General John Ashcroft speaking to us. I think the most important said regarding leadership is that you should ask two questions: (1) Am I called? (2) For what purpose am I called? 

• SBA raised about $125 for the American Diabetes Association.

• The class gift idea I proposed has gotten through it's first round of approval!

• I attended the "Halos and Heroes" fundraising event on Oct. 4th, which included a performance by the Charlie Daniels Band-- so I got to hear him play my favorite song ("Devil Went Down to Georgia" and check that off my list. As an added bonus, I got to meet Charlie Daniels!

• I met alumni, including a former SBA president, at a Regent Law Homecoming reception.

• On Thursday, my classmates and I had the opportunity to ask questions of Dr. Jay Sekulow in a moot court style in preparation for his argument before the Supreme Court. 

• Attended the Global Christian Lawyers Convocation in D.C.--where I ran into Regent alums I met at Homecoming, and an SBA President I met at the ABA conference in August, and became inspired to try and start a group for SBA presidents. I'm trying to figure that one out right now...

I think the list could go on, but those are some of the highlights!  The opportunities I have at Regent Law never cease to amaze me!