Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Jun 6, 2011 in
The 3L Life As a 1L, there was the miraculously timed fire alarm when I was late for CivPro.
As a 2L, there was the random phone call from an expatriate in Mexico asking me for legal advice.
Now as a 3L, there was… a kitteh trapped in an engine 
A few weeks ago I started jogging with a classmate to recover from exam-induced sedentariness. And with my Intellectual Property class stretching into the wee hours of the night Mondays / Tuesdays / Thursdays, that meant running on the illuminated gym track next to NCCU Law instead of the nature trail by my apartment.
We’re walking back to our cars afterwards and I notice I’m parked next to Co-Counsel. I also hear a very loud and very distressed-sounding “meow” coming from the front of her car — sufficiently loud and sufficiently distressed-sounding that, rather than a cat, I suspect one of my classmates is crouching behind the passenger side trying to play a prank of some kind 
I look around the vehicle and don’t see anyone behind it. I look inside and don’t see anything moving. I look under and don’t see any thing at all.
Then I hear another meow.
Even though I’m a dog person and generally despise cats, I’m a big ol’ softie when it comes to animals in general so I was determined to figure out where this thing was at and make sure it wasn’t hurt.
Pretty sure kittehs don't come standard
Our security staff rolls up (as I’m on the ground looking like I’m about to boost someone else’s car) and I calmly explain there’s a cat somewhere. The officer gets out of his vehicle, looks at me like I’m crazy and need to be hauled in to jail… then hears a meow too.
Given the shape of this part of the lot, neither of us can get a good enough vantage point to figure out where the sound is coming from. So the officer leaves to go get a stronger flashlight while I tell Co-Counsel there’s a cat in her car somewhere.
Then I kneel down by the passenger wheel, start looking around the wheel well with my keychain flashlight, and notice I can see inside the engine compartment itself… where I discover an orange-and-white striped cat looking absolutely pitiful 
Co-Counsel and Luca come down and Co-Counsel pops the hood, at which point we realize it’s a baby kitten that has somehow climbed so far into the engine compartment that it couldn’t get back out. There were too many cables and hoses to lift the kitten out from the top, but after some gentle nudging backwards it was able to move again and climbed down out of the car.
It ran across the parking lot so fast after it was free we didn’t even realize it was out of the car until we heard the same meow from 100 paces away. And the trio of us became kitteh-savers for the day 
So that’s how my Monday went down 
I actually had a bona fide law entry ready to go for tonight, but it’ll have to be saved until later this week — have a great night y’all! 
Tags: 3L, Co-Counsel, Competence FTW, IP, Luca, Serendipity
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Mar 12, 2011 in
The 2L Life Hey everybody!
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here at law:/dev/null, largely due to spending Spring Break this past week trying to get caught up on life post-trial team season. I’m still not there yet, but I figured if I waited to post until I was caught up on classwork I wouldn’t have any readers left
So what’s been going on over the past week and a half here in Legal Eagle territory? Here’s a bulleted rundown:
- Wednesday (03/02/11): Finally had my nuked Gmail restored… in its entirety I have to admit I was both surprised and impressed, and I’ll concede I was wrong in my entry predicting the worst. After making sure all of my mail was restored / downloaded / backed up / etc, I stayed up until 2am-ish to make sure I was fully packed and my trial team binder was ready for the AAJ competition I was brought in on.
- Thursday (03/03/11): Skipped classes to head to the airport, then flew down to Atlanta GA for the AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Competition regionals. The first round wasn’t until Friday night, so I spent the day with the team checking out the city. We had lunch at the Underground‘s Georgia Peach Restaurant & Lounge — some of the best barbecue I’ve had outside of North Carolina, and their peach-blended tea was delicious too.
- Friday (03/04/11): The 2L team’s first round in the AAJ STAC was against the 3Ls from WFU Law. There were some initial jitters when we found out I had already met the presiding judge — the coach of the GSU Law team Christie and I dismantled at the TYLA NTC — but since we didn’t really know how to go about asking for a recusal (and didn’t even know if doing so would even be appropriate given AAJ’s chronic shortage of judges) we just went ahead and did our thing. EIC and M&M were counsel for the defense on that case and turned in a top-notch performance. It provided a big confidence boost to Tinkerbell and I heading into the Saturday rounds.
- Saturday (03/05/11): And with that confidence in-hand, we torched the next two teams we faced on Saturday Tinkerbell and I were counsel for the Plaintiff for both rounds, and we first went up against 2Ls from I’m-not-entirely-sure-where. The results could be summed up like this: Tinkerbell was so devastating on cross-examination, their lead counsel blurted “DAMN!” in exasperation when yet another one of his objections was (properly) overruled I also got to deliver my first “split” closing, which went over well with the jury both in its execution and content.
NCCU Law's 2L and 3L AAJ Trial Teams
We followed that beatdown with a match against the 2Ls from WFU Law, in what was hands-down the toughest match we had. Their cross-examination was sharp, and it seemed like every evidentiary ruling made by the judge was going in their direction whether it was warranted or not. Tinkerbell finally shook them off their game during her cross-examination of the Defendant, who started fabricating facts under the pressure. I was sufficiently heated at that point that I was out for blood when it came time for closing arguments, and proceeded to beat the Defense over the head with their own inconsistencies. It was all very satisfying 
Afterwards we headed to a post-competition reception, then went back to the hotel and played spades at its downstairs bar until last call.
- Sunday (03/06/11): We found out our 2L team came in 7th place overall and only the Top 4 would advance to the semis, so Sunday got spent checking out the Centennial Olympic Park, the Georgia Aquarium, and then packing up to head back to the Bull City. Before leaving the hotel we also ran into MDG… which was vaguely reminiscent of a 1L nightmare I used to have where I tried to hide from my teachers but they always seemed to find me no matter where I went.
- Monday & Tuesday (03/07-08/11): Both of these days get lumped together because they were both spent knocking out life necessities — several loads of laundry, apartment cleaning, turning in travel-related paperwork, and so on.
- Wednesday (03/09/11): Had a business lunch with the Pickle Princess, who I hadn’t seen since the April festivities celebrating the end of my second term as UNCASG President. After catching up on how our respective lives had progressed over the past year, I gave a tour of my alma mater to a quartet of her students who were participating in a FFA competition we were hosting. Turns out one of them even wants to go to law school eventually If I ever get sick of the whole “being a lawyer” thing, I think I’d really love being a booster for N.C. State and for NCCU Law
- Thursday & Friday (03/10-11/11): These two get lumped together too, since they were basically split between watching the opening games of the ACC tournament and trying to catch up on all the mounds of schoolwork that amassed themselves between focusing on TYLA, focusing on SBA, and focusing on AAJ.
Which brings us to today: catching up on law school work, catching up with law school friends, and catching up on the law school blog
God willing I’ll be able to resume my somewhat-normal life now that I’ll have some free hours again, which in turn should (hopefully) mean more work around the blawgosphere — keep your fingers crossed!
And until then, have a great night y’all!
Tags: 2L, AAJ, Christie, Co-Counsel, EIC, Emory Law, Georgia State Law, G[F]ail, Haunted by Law School, Legal Eagles FTW, M&M, Madame Prosecutor, MDG, Mercer Law, NC State, NCCU Law, SBA, TDot's Travels, The Pickle Princess, Tinkerbell, Trial Team, TYLA, UNCASG, WFU Law
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 18, 2011 in
The 2L Life Well that certainly didn’t go as planned 
First round of the TYLA regionals ran from 6pm-9pm tonight. I wasn’t prepared last night but thought I was where I needed to be by today. Co-Counsel and I represented NCCU Law, facing off as the Prosecution against a pair of 3Ls from Emory Law on Defense. And there’s just no other way for me to describe it…
…they completely kicked our ass
Evidence we expected them to oppose, they let in without objection. Stuff we just knew was coming in, they managed to get excluded. My normally-10-minute cross-examination of the Defendant was pared down to 5min because of all the evidence that didn’t come in
The only thing keeping it out of “unmitigated disaster” territory — just in merely “disaster” range — was that my opening statement was on-point and Co-Counsel’s closing was flawless. But beyond that I was totally thrown off my game and the two of us got beaten like rented mules.
None of that has anything at all to do with the post title of course The main point for tonight’s entry is a reminder of how surprisingly small the world can be sometimes.
After the competition was over, the guys and I went to a small restaurant on the same block as our hotel for some soul food. No sooner do I walk in the door of the restaurant than I hear my name being called from a few feet away. I turn to the right and see one of my college roommates from my N.C. State years
Now I’ve only been to Charlotte twice in the past year, and the last time I was in the downtown part of the city was over a decade ago with QuietStorm. And yet somehow, out of the 8,760 hours in a given year, on the one weekend I’m downtown, in a city of almost a million people, I ended up being at the same restaurant at the same time as one of my closest college friends.
It’s a small world out there folks! Keep that in mind when you’re interacting with your law school colleagues who you just might bump into in a random restaurant a few years from now — and remember, don’t burn your bridges 
Tags: 2L, Co-Counsel, Emory Law, NC State, NCCU Law, QuietStorm, Trial Team, TYLA
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Oct 3, 2010 in
Randomness Hey everybody!
If you’re one of the (few) people still visiting me here at law:/dev/null even after my extended absences, you know I never did get those entries posted that I mentioned last week.
And you also know that, given my track record, it’s not a surprise to anybody
Aside from fending off a horrible this-is-why-Fall-sucks weather-related illness, Saturday through Monday was filled with a bunch of meetings, football games, birthday festivities (both for Co-Counsel and Q.T.), then packing for a 5.5-day excursion to Memphis, Tennessee to visit 雅雅 for her White Coat Ceremony at the Southern College of Optometry.
That’s where I’ve been since Tuesday night Every time I thought about pulling up the laptop to finish editing the old entries, my body usually reminded me that I was dog-tired and would be better off going to bed at a reasonable hour. And so that’s pretty much what happened like clockwork — I went to bed at the same time while on vacation that I go to bed during a school week…
You may judge me now
So now it’s Sunday night, I’m penning this on the plane flight from Memphis to my layover in Atlanta, and I figured it’d probably be a good time to post something before the last handful of you decide to stop reading entirely
The trip itself was very cool. On the plus side: Tennessee has minimum speed limits; I saw all sorts of cool creatures at the Memphis Zoo; plus I got to walk alongside the mighty Mississippi River
On the not-so-plus side: Memphis drivers are roughly comparable to people on the New Jersey Turnpike in terms of insanity; and I can’t recall the last time I went 6 days without Bojangles’. But getting to hang out with 雅雅 and explore a different state made up for it
I've hit 8 states since moving out on my own at 17; still have a lot more exploring left!
I actually got to explore -3- different states — Memphis is sufficiently close to Mississippi and Arkansas that we swung through those as well. Many many many years ago I set a life goal of being in all 50 states before I die; I’ve still got a long way to go, but I did bump my total by 16% in one trip
Before I head off for the night, I also want to mention that it’s incredibly cool AirTran has wi-fi available during the flight! I’m guessing other carriers have wi-fi now too, but it just blows my mind to think how much air travel has advanced from the first flight at Kitty Hawk to now, where a law student of limited/nonexistent financial means can now travel across the country for just a tiny chunk of his financial aid refund — and remain digitally tethered to the ground in the process
Can you imagine how much cooler stuff is going to be in the next 100 years?? I hope we live that long (and are still competent to enjoy it!)
That’s it from me y’all. If any old entries get posted I’ll let you know, but given my track record just assume they’ve ended up in the digital abyss 
Have a great night everybody!!
Tags: 2L, Co-Counsel, 雅雅, NCSU Wolfpack, Q.T., TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Sep 24, 2010 in
Randomness Hey y’all!
Earlier today I got a message in my Facebook inbox from a reader wondering if I’d met an untimely demise, given the week-long absence of anything here at law:/dev/null.
Rest assured I’m still alive and kicking, my immune system and I have just been working overtime to fight off some seasonal unpleasantness that hit me right around the same time last year. Treatment has included getting a full 8+ hours of sleep a night, but since my classes haven’t gotten pushed back that means going to bed earlier at night — which is typically when I’m writing the day’s entry here
I’ve got a sextet of posts on my desktop that I’ll hopefully get posted today. I can’t guarantee they’ll be any good, of course, but it’ll (hopefully) be better than a week-old post of me complaining about campus media
Thanks for checking up on me, and have a great day!
Tags: #fml, 1L, 2L, Co-Counsel
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Sep 18, 2010 in
The 2L Life Ugh.
That’s how I felt after today’s (9:00am) 2L Opening Statement Competition for the Trial Advocacy Board. This annual event is similar to the competition the T.A.B. used for determining who made the 1L Trial Team, and is held in tandem with the 3L Closing Argument Competition for figuring out which lucky folks get to represent NCCU Law for the law school’s official TYLA and AAJ teams.
The facts for the 2L competition were total garbage. It was an old TYLA civil case, as opposed to the criminal cases usually done in the past. It had a dead judge (the victim), his money-grubbing whore of a wife (the Plaintiff / my client ), an equally money-grubbing incompetent of a doctor (the Defendant), the list goes on.
Oh, and my client’s claim? She’s suing for wrongful death, since her husband died from taking nitrates and Viagra at the same time because the doctor spent a whopping 6 minutes with him when he sought medical help (just enough time to diagnose the judge… with a cold).
The Defendant’s defense? My client’s lawyer-boyfriend killed the judge by beating him over the head with a trophy Or in the alternative that the judge was contributorily negligent for taking nitrates and Viagra simultaneously.
Needless to say I’m not happy with a case I’m not convinced I could win if it were a real trial.
Then on top of it I let myself get sidetracked with other stuff (CLE, Constitution Day, poker night, etc) so I don’t actually write the opening until around 2am this morning. After we got the facts over a week ago.
Stupid of me, I know.
But I get it done and think it’s pretty good, so I’m happy-ish. Then I grab a reasonable amount of sleep under the circumstances and even eat a full breakfast before the competition, so all is right with the world.
Until I actually get to school
I’m the last competitor to go, and the 1.5ish hours spent waiting is just enough time for my nerves to go into full-blown panic mode. My hands are freezing. I’m sweating profusely. And I have a splitting headache.
Compounding the anxiety: the best of the best 2Ls are in this competition. There are my friends Top Gun and Luca, who both edged me out in the 1L Closing competition. There’s Co-Counsel, among the 4 people who beat me in the 1L opening competition. Most of the 1L trial team is here. Even Madame Prosecutor is making her first T.A.B. competition debut, as well as my friend EIC.
I pace the halls for about 20 minutes and manage to relax a bit, and when it’s actually my turn things go fairly well…
…until about 3 minutes in, when I completely forget one of those key bullet points I was supposed to bring up…
…and since it’s not vital to the opening, no one notices it was missing…
…including me.
The problem? About a minute later, one of the bullet points (that I remember) makes sense only if mentioned in reference to that earlier bullet point (that I forgot). So my eyes bulge out of my head around the 4-minute mark as it dawns on me that I forgot, and I completely screw up the flow of the ending to wedge it in, at which point I start talking a-mile-a-minute because I just know I’m going to end up losing points for running over the 5-minute time limit…
I talk so fast, in fact, that I finish right around 4:20. With a whole 40 seconds left on the clock
It was rough.
And I still have a headache.
After last year’s two performances, I was looking for some vindication this time around. We have to wait all the way until the end of March to find out where we finish so it’ll be awhile until I know if I got it, but at this point I’m just glad it’s over I’ll post the video for y’all as soon as we’re allowed to see them
Until then have a great night!
Tags: 2L, AAJ, Co-Counsel, EIC, Luca, Madame Prosecutor, Mary Wright 1L Closing Argument Competition, Michael Easley 2L Opening Statement Competition, NCCU Law, Top Gun, Trial Team, TYLA
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Sep 4, 2010 in
The 2L Life …the whole “not updating the blog on a timely basis” thing. I promise. I’ve just noticed that I tend to slack on the blog on the same days I slack on the schoolwork.
This past Tuesday, the day after the last post I managed to get online here at law:/dev/null, was spent helping to run what we called the SBA Student Stimulus Sale — a 9am-9pm event where all the NCCU Law paraphernalia sold by the Student Bar Association was discounted by 15% to raise money for student groups. The other SBA officers and I wanted to do some kind of promotional event close to when financial aid refunds went out, so folks would be more willing to part with their cash.
Let’s just say the plan was a success
But that success also meant skipping all of my classes for the day to run the SBA’s store, prompting Co-Counsel to complain about my priorities. Then the next day Prof ZombieLaw wasn’t feeling well and cancelled class, meaning I got the day off. Then on Thursday most of the NCCU campus endured a day-long power outage so all those classes were cancelled too. And of course I have no classes on Fridays, then today was the first real day of the college football season
So overall I’ve barely thought about law for almost a week now, and that meant barely doing anything with the blog aside from cleaning out the spam comments
It all comes at a price: in between games today I cleaned up the apartment a bit, so tomorrow and the Labor Day holiday can both be devoted to catching up on all the reading I’ve missed. Hopefully the academic work will remind to keep things updated here though
Hope all of you had a great week last week, and have an equally great holiday weekend ahead!
Tags: 2L, Co-Counsel, ConLaw, NCCU Law, Prof ZombieLaw, SBA
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Apr 26, 2010 in
TDot's Treats With the requisite “no offense intended” disclaimer to the ladies who happen to read law:/dev/null, my (limited) experience with female drivers suggests to me that they tend to look at traffic laws more like traffic suggestions.
Co-Counsel nearly gave me a heart attack back in January. Q.T. seems to have a new citation of some kind or another every time we talk. Even 雅雅, the safest of the bunch, was once on the telephone with me while driving… a fact I didn’t know, until I hear “OH MY GOD I JUST RAN THROUGH A STOP SIGN!” on the other end
So you can imagine my shock (shock!) when I was talking with the Pickle Princess early today and find out that she happened to get a speeding ticket… on the very day she has an attorney in a different county taking care of another speeding ticket on her behalf.
You may commence head-shaking at any time
Since she’ll be needing another attorney sooner than I’ll have my law license, I promised I’d put up my family recipe for a special brand of cookies in the hope she might be able to offer them as compensation. It also gave me an excuse to stop studying for tomorrow’s Property exam
Hope y’all enjoy
—===—
TDot’s Treats #3: Nan’s Peanut Blossoms
Difficulty: 4 of 5 (kinda tough)
One of my absolute favorite family traditions growing up was having the entire family gather at Nan’s each Christmas Eve for dinner and other festivities. Pretty much everyone in my family fights with everyone else all the time — imagine locking some Tea Party folks in a room with Obama-ites, the Goracle, and a handful of illegal immigrants — but the fact Nan would bake almost a dozen different types of cookies more than made up for it
This recipe is my personal favorite, and continues to be my favorite cookie to this day.
***
Ingredients:
- 1 & 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of peanut butter
- 1/2 cup of shortening
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/2 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 unbeaten egg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- A small bowl of sugar on the side (for coating)
- A bag of Hershey Kisses
***
Culinary Notes:
Any recipe that calls for more than 1 cup of flour calls for a mess. Make sure you’re comfortable with having to do some kitchen clean-up when it’s all over
***
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375º F.
Tonight's finished product. Had to eat 1 already...
In a glass or ceramic mixing bowl, cream together the peanut butter and the shortening. Gradually add in the sugar and the brown sugar, creaming all of that well. Then add in the egg and the vanilla and beat/cream well.
By the time this first phase is done, you should have a light brown, not-quite-gooey-looking lump of not-quite-dough.
Next you’ll want to gradually blend in your remaining dry ingredients (the flour, baking soda and salt) and mix well. By the time you get about 1 cup of the flour into it, the dough will probably be too thick to mix with egg beaters or a wooden spoon so I’d recommend just using your hands to mix in the rest.
After everything is very thoroughly mixed, it should be a uniform color throughout. It should also be dry enough that the dough will crumble around the edges of the lump in the bowl, but still moist enough that if you mush it together in your hands and shape it into a ball it’ll hold its shape.
As you can probably guess, that’s what you’re going to do next
Take a chunk of the dough and roll it into a ball in your hands, so it’s roughly 1″ in diameter. Take the ball and roll it around in the bowl of sugar on the side so there’s a light sugar coating all around it. Then place on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake the cookies at 375º for 10 minutes. While the cookies are baking, unwrap 1 Hershey Kiss for each cookie you’ve got on the sheet.
At the 10 minute mark, take your cookies out of the oven and firmly push a Kiss into the middle of each cookie. The cookie dough ball should crack around the edges.
Put your cookies back in the oven to cook another 2-5 minutes, or until golden brown.
Once they’re done, remove them from the oven and let cool on a cookie rack. Clean up the mess in the kitchen and then reward yourself with one of your new sweet treats
***
Total Preparation Time: ~30 minutes
Total Cooking Time: ~30 minutes
Serving Size: ~24 cookies
Recommended Side Items: n/a
—===—
Have fun y’all And have a great night!
Past TDot’s Treats entries:
Tags: Co-Counsel, 雅雅, Mmmm delicious..., Q.T., The Pickle Princess
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Mar 3, 2010 in
The 1L Life The Property II midterm wrapped up this afternoon, so we’re 1 down and 4 to go
Not entirely sure how mine will turn out — it’s one of those situations where I either did exceptionally well or exceptionally not-so-well, depending on if I got a few foundational issues straight in my head or if I applied the wrong rule(s) throughout the multiples+essay. We’ll see.
Left for home after classes to escape the aura of stressed-out-ness that emanates from the law library this time of the semester, swinging by Bojangle’s to grab whatever meal comes in between lunch and dinner. Now spending the next 3ish hours studying CivPro before switching to Torts before bed.
It was in the middle of eating that I realized how badly my priorities get screwed up around exam time
I couldn’t tell you the last time I got up early enough to cook breakfast. Haven’t gone running in a week, despite the bundle of motivation that is reading idwsj. And when I invited Co-Counsel over to be my CivPro study partner, the invitation was promptly followed by me freaking out when I realized the level of disaster that was/is my apartment.
Thankfully she declined the invitation so that particular crisis was averted
Just 2 more days to go with CivPro+Torts tomorrow, then Ks+CrimLaw on Friday. I promised my apartment I’d clean it at some point soon thereafter.
Good luck to all my fellow 1Ls going through midterms alongside me! Remember: this time next week you’ll be able to enjoy the ever-so-slightly-less-frenetic pace that follows an exam
Tags: Co-Counsel
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 20, 2010 in
Wolfpack Athletics …but sports helps you forget them faster.
I had mostly forgotten yesterday’s drama by the time I woke up this morning to get ready for a trip down to Raleigh. The N.C State men’s basketball team took on Wake Forest, where the Wolfpack thoroughly mauled the Demon Deacons in a 68-54 victory that we led the entire game.
You can tell from the celebration this was the first win we'd had in awhile (photo by Raleigh News & Observer)
Yes, that’s the exact same N.C. State currently dead last in the ACC standings, and the exact same Wake Forest that was ranked #23 in the AP poll
The trip was a little interesting/odd this time because I invited Co-Counsel, a WFU alum, to join me back during the Kilpatrick-Stockton mock trial competition. Turns out her dad is an N.C. State guy like yours truly so I lined up tickets for her parents too. But with of the start-to-finish beating administered to the Deacs, she was in a thoroughly frosty mood pretty much the entire time — meaning I spent most of the game talking to Papa Co-Counsel
Of course her bitterness didn’t stop me from heaping on a good helping of trash talk during/after the game
Overall it was a fun way to spend a Saturday. Even when we lose, I love going back to N.C. State and catching up with the folks I left behind to head to Durham and the N.C. Central University School of Law.
Now I’ve just gotta catch up on studying since midterms are only 1.5 weeks away… 
Tags: 1L, Co-Counsel, NC State, NCSU Wolfpack
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