Graduation and Study for the Bar

I graduated.  It was stressful to manage the family politics, but in this event, everyone came together and didn't cause WW III or another Cold War.  Keep in mind, my guests were from North Korea, Japan, Russia, Denmark, the USA, and Taiwan and South Korea.  No Germans that represented.  :(

The combination could've made for a difficult political situation, but in this case people behaved, especially my family.  That was certainly a relief.

Graduation for me was just eh and blah, except for the fact that I have very caring and loving people in my life that came to celebrate it with me.  It was more for them than it was for me.  The funniest part of it all was that people had brought in alcohol inside the room where we prepared for graduation ceremony.  It was early in the afternoon, and I thought to myself, why didn't I think of that.  Why is there a hint of negativity in all of it?

Well, because graduation marks an end, right?  Well, not for 95%+ of law graduates of 2012 across the country and me.  After just one week of rest, we have to start studying for the BAR - which is perhaps the final of all finals.

I only had one week off between my last year of school and the bar. and then the studying started.  It's the final of all finals, as it spans 3 days, and covers 12 subjects of law, which if one took each of those subjects consecutively as classes, it would take two years to complete.  The BAR is divided into 3 parts: the multiple choice (one full day), 6 essays and a performance examination (2 days).

Studying goes something like this.  8-10 hours a day, everyday for 6 weeks.  Half a day on Saturdays.  Then in the last month, 12 hours everyday (no more breaks.)  =(  As the Koreans say, "Starting is half the battle."  I definitely was not enjoying the self-discipline to re-start classes I had to refresh from three years ago.  I kept reminding myself , why didn't you use your week to take a holiday in Cancun?  No point in crying over spilled milk.  I didn't have the miles to afford to travel this time, and I decided to spend my free time with my family and friends just hanging out.

So - do I have any wisdom or magical advice about going through a marathon like this?  It's nothing you don't already know.  I'll state my principles nonetheless.  Work hard, stay focused, and success comes in the day-to-day small activities.  Do them well.  And during times that require endurance, remember: happiness is surely overrated.

My Life In Review

The last few days have closed certain chapters in my life.  I know - that sounds dramatic, but it's true.  For instance, I finished my last school examination of my life.  That's it!  No more.  And heck yeah!  That's about 8-9 years of post high school, and I think I estimated I've taken over 100 school exams if not more during that period.  I do not, ever, repeat: ever, need another school exam in my life.  If this all sounds melodramatic, it's not - at least not if you've been through a good law school.  I've had 15 written exams and 3 clinical exams in my law school tenure.  Each exam is anywhere from 3-6 hours.  Even though I have to revise a 20-25 page paper, I can tell you it really felt like a burden lifted off of my chest and shoulders.  I might go back to school but not for a certificate or degree.  If anything, I'd like to get some of my foreign language skills more proficient.

Another chapter is next month I'll have to say good bye to my 20's.  I'm going to be hitting the age of 30 soon.  With that, brings some harsh realities.  Here's one: people are dying around me.  And since the baby boomers are a bigger population than my Y generation, my generation will see more people die than I think our subsequent generation.  Isn't that a morbid thought?  You're probably wondering why I bring this up.

Well - my neighbor, who I've known since I was two years old passed away.  Before you feel sad for me or him, we weren't that close.  So - no sympathy really needed - although I suppose a human being dying is a sad thing.  It was surreal though.  I got a call from my mother while I was studying for that final final, and she said, "I have sad news."  My heart dropped.  I thought it was my 15-year-old cat Luke who had passed away.  He does have skin cancer.  She just said, "The neighbor passed away.  I can't believe it.  I talked to him the moment before he died.  He was mowing the lawn, and I said, 'Hi.'  Then he had a heart attack and died.'"

I'm writing about this because I made some observations about that neighbor.  In general, he was a nice guy.  I didn't know that much about him.  I went inside his house once because his daughter, who was a classmate, invited me over once.  Other than that, I noticed that in his last year of life he entered into retirement.

He was 65 when he died.  I can say I genuinely saw him enjoy life.  He was the happiest I ever saw him in retirement.  He bought a Mercedes convertible and drove it with the top down.  He was gardening more - evidenced by the fact he mowed the lawn before he died.  He also spent a lot more time with his grandchildren; he was practically raising them.  And then, he croaked.

I thought to myself, isn't that cruelly ironic that he worked a job he didn't particularly love for 30 years only to retire, fantastically enjoy one year of life, and then die.  I remember having dinner with my father once and telling him I wanted to retire at 30.  At the time, I must have been 25, and it looks like that future I envisioned ain't happening.  But he said, "That's way too early to retire!"

I replied back, "So you want me to retire when my body is old and useless.  I won't be able to be as healthy.  I'll be unattractive.  What will I do with my time then?  I can't even travel."

He said, "You have a good point."

That is exactly the point I'm making about the neighbor.  He retired when he was not in good health - and for what - to enjoy one year of it and croak.  The whole concept of retirement got to me - and bothered me.  It made me put my life back into perspective.

In contrast, I have a 15 year old cat, Luke, who is fighting skin cancer.  I think he's doing a mighty fantastic job of fighting the good fight.  Maybe because even though he's an animal, I think he knows he has a purpose.  His age in human years probably translates to about 65-70 as well.  If he spoke English, I'm also certain, he'd say he's had 15 happy years if he died today.  I know, our family fostered that happiness for him.  Of course he never had to work or worry about life's stresses, but still, it has to be quite an accomplishment to say that he lived a life of being loved and reciprocating it for 15 years.  He still has more years to go; I'm sure.

That takes me back to my life in review.  I'm back in a transitional period.  I'm graduating law school soon.  And in some odd way, I feel like it's deja vu.  This is the third time I've been in this place.  The first time was the moment before I left America to go to New Zealand.  I  wondered then, what am I going to do with my life?  The second time was when I left New Zealand.  I asked what am I going to with my life.  Now, I'm at the same mental state with graduating law school.  What am I going to do with my life?

Now - if you've ever been caught in these cycles or circles, like I have, it's good to remind yourself you're not trapped in some infinite loop.  It's more like a spiral with added depth and dimension.  I never had all the answers to make the decision to this question, but I feel like I've picked up more pieces of the puzzle every time I'm confronted with this question.

Only this time, I look at what happened with my neighbor and what's happened with Luke.  I then tell myself, remember, you only live once.  That's a good starting place.  You live bound by time, and you live life one moment at a time.  Time moves the same for you as it does for everyone.  What will you do with it?  And for God sake, whatever you do as a living, make sure you enjoy it.  Don't put in thirty miserable years defining yourself by what you make and take, but put those years into defining yourself by what you create and give.

Those principles don't leave me with any concrete future plans, though I think I have some sketched out path ahead.  If you have any advice, I'm open to it.  Until then, I have one last paper to revise.  Overall, I'm happy that I'm reframing my life back into perspective.  It's really shown me that a lot of the petty things we care about, such as status, accolades, keeping up with Jones', and taking everything so damn seriously is seriously not worth a damn.

Fighting the Police as a Law Student

It was my last semester as a law student at UCLA Law School.  Late on a Monday night, I received a phone call from the Captain of one of the LAPD’s Division.  He told me he had read my legal memorandum many times, concluded that the officer pulled over the client without probable cause and then he released her vehicle, waived the impound fees, and told me he would change the station’s impound hearing policy.

When I applied to law school, in my personal statement I wrote that I wanted to attend law school to give a voice to those who otherwise do not have access to legal representation.  The Captain’s call confirmed or me that I had made the right choice to change my life course and pursue a career in law.

This case came to me because I am enrolled in a client-counseling clinic at UCLA Law School.  In these clinics, we get hands-on legal training with real life cases.

In my most recent case, I advocated for a Mexican woman whose car had been impounded for 30-days because she does not have a California driver’s license.  On the day her car was seized, she was driving to court with her two year-old child to get a restraining order.  Her ex-boyfriend and father of her children had attempted to kill all of them in a mass suicide.  With all of them in his car, he crashed it into the center divider of the freeway.  Somehow, even though the car was totaled, everyone survived.

On her way to court to get the restraining order, a Patrol Officer ran her license plate in his database and discovered that a previous owner of the car, named Nicholas, had a current arrest warrant for not showing up to traffic court.  Even though she did not commit any traffic offenses, he still stopped her.

After the Officer pulled her over, he clearly saw that the driver was a woman with a child.  He asked for her driver license.  Because she did not have one, she gave him her Mexican Identification.  He cited her for driving without a license, had her car towed, and placed a mandatory thirty-day hold on it.

The impound fees for a 30-day impound typically run close to $2,000, and often outstrip the value of the car.  If the car’s owner does not pay the impound fees, the tow yard can destroy the driver’s credit by sending it to collections.

Although I recognized that my client didn’t have a California driver’s license, she was in an exceptional situation, in which she was fearing for her life and the life of her children.   A 30-day impound was a disproportionate, unjust fit for driving without a license.  She is a single and poor mother, who would have to pay close to $2,000 or have her property sold at public auction.  With already having to support herself and her children, how would she ever pay this?

Furthermore, this was my third clinical case where I witnessed an officer violating our Right to Privacy guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.  My second year Constitutional Criminal Procedure class taught me that an officer can only conduct a traffic stop when he has reasonable suspicion that a crime is occurring at the time of the stop.  Otherwise, the temporary seizure violates the driver’s Right to Privacy.

This stop was a constitutional violation.  There were no facts to support that the officer believed the female driver was the previous owner named Nicholas.  It was pure speculation.

Even if he could make up some facts that he had more than a hunch, he should have abandoned his investigation the moment he saw that the driver was a woman.  The name on the warrant was for a Nicholas, clearly a male name.  There was no way my female-client could have been this Nicholas.

That brings me to my next point though: the mandatory thirty-day impound policy encourages racial profiling.  I requested an internal police impound hearing for release of the vehicle.  Yet, before I argued it, I consulted with my trial advocacy clinical professor.  His advice would help me exploit the officer’s racial bias during cross-examination.

At my hearing, I began my cross-examination of the officer.  The officer gave evasive answers, so that I wouldn’t lock him down regarding his problem with having no reasonable suspicion.  Yet, as I learned from the trial professor, evasive answers lead to inconsistent statements.  Get them on record and then exploit the biases and inconsistencies.

The first inconsistency exposed the officer’s political agenda of targeting the Mexican community.  The officer said he never inquired into where the driver was going or into the urgency of her situation because he spoke no Spanish.  Yet, he said that his law enforcement experience taught him that Nicholas could be a female name.  How could one know so much about Spanish names, when one did not speak Spanish? He would use any weak justification to pull over Latino drivers.

The second inconsistency showed that the officer what he believed about Mexican sovereign documents.  In my cross-examination, I asked him , “Why he didn’t abandon his search when he saw the name on the Mexican ID?”  He said, “The LAPD didn’t accept Mexican IDs as valid per its policy.”  I asked him where that was in the LAPD Policy.  It wasn’t in the policy.  I stressed that it was an acceptable form of ID for the Federal government.  Therefore, why wasn’t it valid for him? His only justification for believing that sovereign documents from Mexico were unreliable was that it came from Mexico.

Although it was clear I should have won that hearing, the Division detective adjudicated against me, refusing to release the vehicle even though the officer did not have probable cause for the seizure in the first place.  At that point, I informed my supervising civil rights attorney.  She asked me to write a legal memorandum to address the Division’s unlawful decision. Memorandums are objective briefs that outline the facts, the law, and then describe how the two link together.

To write that memorandum, I drew from everything I learned in my first year lawyering skills class, which focused on legal writing and research.  Together we proofread it and then sent it to the Chief of the LAPD, Charlie Beck.  They wrote back that they would investigate. The next business day, I received the call from the Captain, who reversed the adjudicator’s decision. It was good to know I helped out a nice mother, but, even more satisfying, that I was able to change an unlawful policy.

My colleagues from my previous career often ask me if I had made the right decision to go to law school.  My last case as a law student showed me I did.  That was my final assignment for that class.  The lady ended up changing her phone number; I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

Last Day of School

A lot of you have followed my blog since I left New Zealand.  Hasn't time gone by fast?  Today is the last day of my law school classes.  What that means is no more formal education!  That's it.  I have nine years of post high school education.  9 years!  That doesn't include when I started pre-school at 4.  Today was the last day of class in my entire life.

Also, the final class of my formal and professional education, was anticlimatic.  No fanfare.  No food.  Nothing special.  No powerful speech about being great human beings.  It was just a regular class.  I remember the last day of class from my 1L professors more.  It was all so much more dramatic then.

A lot of my classmates are ready to be done.  If I took their charted course, I would be too.  Many of them took the same type of classes that resemble 1L year, tax, business association, etc.  You can do that.  And if you do that for three years, it'll get boring real fast.  Hence the saying, 1L they scare you.  2L they work you.  3L they bore you.

1L scared me.  2L worked me.  3L worked me more.  This has been a strange year in general.  I think I really enjoyed it though because it was entrenched in practical experience.  I served the poor and won a lot of hearings.  I did three clinical classes, where I learned depositions, opening statements, closing statement, directing witnesses, cross-examining witnesses, interviews and negotiations.  There are a lot of skill sets there.

I lectured in France.  I taught undergrads and wrote two pieces that are getting published.  I have two or three more that will hopefully be picked up for publication.  I won a number of hearings for the most prosecuted, persecuted, and invisible members of society.  I had a police policy changed in the LAPD.

So - lots done, lots of stress, lots of pain, and lots of fun.  My next post will be on my most recent police impound hearing.

All in all - the lesson are basic but have to be said

Don't stop learning.
Don't stop growing.
Don't be afraid.

The City of Demons

I wanted to see the City of Demons. Why do I keep calling it the City of Demons? For all you Bible scholars out there, do you see any word familiar in the City of Baalbek? Hint: First four letters.

The First and Second Kings describe a god called Baal, "false God." It was originally worshiped by the Phoenicians - who were also the people who did come up with the alphabet system.

From Bcharre, the road to Baalbek was closed. So, we had to make a complete loop down the mountain and come in from another road. A one hour journey turned into a five hour one.

The Phoenicians first dedicated the city to their God Baal. Then, came the Romans - who dedicated it to Zeus. Then came the Christians, who sanctified it to the Christ King. And then, the Muslims took it over, and made it a citadel when the crusaders came.

I really enjoyed exploring these ruins. I felt like a kid again in some ancient Legoland. This was the good part of not having tourists. There weren't people crawling around everywhere. It was just me and the ruins and the time to reflect on them.

It was so impressive to touch stone that was over 2,000 years old. Apparently, it took 100,000 slaves to build the place. Also, the Phoenicians apparently sacrificed people in this temple. That practice stopped when the Romans came, but temple prostitutes were always about.

The first picture shows me sitting on the alter of Jupiter. Now, it's the alter to the Ferrari god. =)

Next post: On Arab Culture Shock.

Byblos

I almost got killed in Lebanon. I was in the mountains of Lebanon when a bus driver honked his horn. I jumped left, avoiding the bus that nearly smashed me. He had plenty of room to swerve, but, no he wanted to run me over. The most dangerous thing in Lebanon has to be the traffic and not the terrorists.

Anyways, I really enjoyed my trip to Byblos. (Picture above). Lebanon was an important place in antiquity. Because it borders the Mediterranean Sea, it was often a prize for the ruling world power. Because of the sea and its regions, Lebanon was a gateway for Asia, Africa, and Europe.

So, it's no surprise that the Egyptians wanted this place. Alexander the Great did. And so did the Crusaders. But now - there are no tourists. It's like an empty ghost town by the sea. None the less, I loved exploring the Crusader Castle. I felt like a kid again.

In any event, tomorrow, I'm headed off to the City of Baalbak - the City of Demons.

Lebanon - No Tourists Here

Tripoli
I had the most amazing experience in Tripoli. Tripoli reminds me of what a Westerner would imagine the Middle East to be. Busy, hustling, bustling, noisy streets lined with people who serve Turkish coffees, baklava, and freshly squeezed blood orange juice.

One thing that disappointed me on this trip was the lack of Western tourists. Lebanon attracts people from all over the Arab nations. People from Iraq, Egypt, and Syria come here. Why? They love Lebanon because it's also an Arab nation where they can get drunk, gamble, and buy sex. And nobody judges them.

But why were all the Western tourists gone? In 2007 there was all out war in Tripoli against the Palestinians. Recently, there's been that Syria-thing. All this means - NO TOURISTS from anywhere except the Arab States.

Somehow, I found a Norwegian programmer to travel with temporarily. I also found a German, internationalist journalist for a famous newspaper. The three of us exchanged stories about the Middle East and what is happening here. The Syrians just entered the Lebanese borders. We hear stories of Arabs killing Arabs, Christians killing Arabs, Arabs killing Christians, and everyone killing everyone.

Now, let's go back to what this amazing experience was. I was in the hotel, sipping on Turkish coffee. The German had finished his shower. The Norwegian finished paying the bill. I said it was time for breakfast.

We entered a small restaurant. A Lebanese Semitic guy greeted us and said, "What do you guys want? Tell me. No one speaks English here but me." So, we told him. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was cheese and flat bread, and meat and flat bread, and cheese dumplings.

The three of us chatted. The Lebanese guy spoke with us as well. As he walked out he said, "Don't worry about the bill. I paid for it. Welcome to Lebanon." He walked out without a further word.

The three of us just looked at each other confused. I said, "That was too much." The other two agreed.