Posted by T. Greg Doucette on May 25, 2014 in
Randomness I never got around to doing an update of my first-ever visit to Chicago last summer, but I was there (really!), so it finally got shaded in on the map of TDot’s Travels.
While pulling up the map in Photoshop, I also noticed that for several years now Alabama remained the only state in the Southeast I still hadn’t visited.
Alabama is covered! Next: the Ohio River Valley
Well I’ve now driven across it twice this weekend — so it gets shaded too! 
One of é›…é›…’s friends from optometry school was getting married in New Orleans this weekend, and after just flying to Memphis two weeks ago for her graduation I was/am too poor to afford another plane ticket so soon.
So we’re currently driving back from New Orleans after driving down there two days ago, and stopped here in Auburn at a Firehouse Subs for lunch 
The downside of course is that we’ll have both been stuck in the car for roughly 26 hours over a 72-hour period — the equivalent of three whole workdays 
— but it provided a low-cost chance to go back to New Orleans, catch up with one of my closest friends and political allies from undergrad (currently a 2L at Tulane), see the southern edge of Mississippi, and travel through Auburn / Montgomery / Mobile in Alabama 
We’ve gotta get back on the road so that’s it for now, I’m off to resume enjoying this sub and gearing up to drive the next leg of the trip to/through Atlanta. Y’all have a great rest of the Memorial Day weekend!
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From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:
Tags: é›…é›…, NC State, NCSU Student Senate, TDot's Travels, Tulane Law
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Aug 30, 2013 in
The After-3L Life Hey y’all
At least a couple folks felt “punk’d” by my last entry, where I mentioned there’d be more “tomorrow” (as in June 21st) and then disappeared for two months.
I had an actual defense this time though! I did have a plan for a “tomorrow” post, but life decided to intervene, put me in an eminently crabby mood, and I figured y’all wouldn’t want to read me ranting and raving about any of it until I had a chance to reflect 
Quite a bit has happened over the past two months:
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More W’s: The law practice has been proceeding apace, with court appearances on a fairly regular basis and -0- new losses. In particular I thoroughly obliterated opposing counsel and saved a woman’s home from a wrongful foreclosure out in Wilson County back in June. For more details, see the second-from-last entry in this list.
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The Chicago trip itself: We’ve all heard the word “clusterf*ck”. Well my Chicago trip was like a cluster*ck club, with several slices of awesome sandwiched between two pieces of near-unmitigated disaster — including yet another run-in with the TSA. I did get to catch up with several old classmates though, including one of my best friends from my UNCASG days during my layover in Atlanta, so overall it was a pretty great experience. I’ve got some notes and will (hopefully) work on an entry about it at some point down the road.
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Church: A few weeks back I went to a Sunday service for the first time since 1999. Back over the summer I had a conversation with a former classmate who was studying for the bar and struggling with the daily grind of studying. Somehow the topic shifted to the more general issue of doing things we need but don’t necessarily like, which in turn shifted to a question asking when had been the last time I set foot into a church. So I agreed that I’d join him after he got past the bar exam, and that’s where I went the first Sunday after the exam.
My odometer, as I sat in the parking lot of the first church I attended in 14 years (08/04/13)
It must have been a day when folks were concerned for my soul, because as I was walking out the door that morning I got an email from a client inviting me to join her family at church too.
Then a few minutes later, while I was sitting in the church parking lot waiting on my classmate and texting away on my phone, I looked up and saw my odometer had tripped over to exactly 170,000 miles. Which is also the first time I’ve ever noticed when it flipped over in the 11 years that I’ve had the car. 
I’m not saying it’s a burning bush or anything, but it was definitely an odd coincidence. So I went to my client’s church the week after, then went to one of the churches near NCCU the week after that. I still haven’t figured out where my church “home” is going to be yet, or even if I’m going to find one at all, but I’m thinking of making it a regular part of my weekly routine again.
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Moral Monday defense: From my “This Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time” files, I agreed to take on the defense of 20 folks arrested as part of civil disobedience in North Carolina’s Moral Monday protests led by the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. While I agree with all of about 0% of what the protestors are protesting about, I thought the arrests were egregiously over the top and reflected the very worst of government abuses.
And frankly I have a long-standing distaste and dislike of government, even if my “side” is in power. Especially when it comes to protests.
So I signed up to be part of the group of volunteer attorneys, and when asked “Can you take 20?” I replied with “sure”… without really thinking about the logistical implications of expanding my client base by 25% overnight without a commensurate increase in revenue or staff
A judicious use of technology picked up during my computer science years has helped me stay on top of things so far, but it will be interesting to see how it turns out when I’m trying to juggle 20 different trials on different days in October / November / December while still serving my pre-existing clients.
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NC SPICE is official: 14 months after submitting the Form 1023 application, the IRS finally sent me a letter granting 501(c)(3) status to the North Carolina Small Practice Incubator and Collaboration Environment I have to figure out how to recover from the momentum lost by the year+ delay, but it feels damn good having all that work actually result in something.
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Joined Class of 2016/17 Orientation: Way back in the halcyon days of 2009, back when law:/dev/null was in its infancy and people were still struggling to figure out what the blog’s name even meant, I mentioned in Part 3 of the Orientation Retrospective that we had a reception with the Day+Evening Programs and local alumni followed by a session on professionalism.
Well now that I’m one of those local alumni I got invited to participate I knew the event was going to be fun anyway (there are few things I enjoy more than going back to the school and talking with the students), and it got even more fun when I discovered several of my friends from N.C. State are now part of the Legal Eagle family.
But then it got downright surreal. One of the 1Ls came up to me and goes “You’re T.! My wife is gonna get such a kick out of me meeting you, we read your blog over the summer before I came here!” And then a young lady came up to tell me how she appreciated the entries from 1L year. Then two more came up to say hi and that they had read every entry here. And so on it went for the rest of the night, even until just before everyone had left when a guy walked up and shook my hand, saying “I just wanted to say ‘thank you’.”
You want to turn me from a borderline-arrogant litigator par excellence to a near-blubbering bundle of emotion, just let me find out something I did actually helped someone else. Had to wipe away a tear or two when I got back to the car… but only after struggling to fit my now-even-more-overinflated ego inside
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“I have to renew already??”: With 1L Orientation happening, that means I’ve actually been a player in this lawyer game for almost a year now — meaning it’s time to renew (and pay more for) my legal malpractice insurance
I’ve gotta pull some statistics together for the renewal app declaring what practices areas accounted for what percentage of my law firm’s income. It should make for an interesting look back, so I’ll post a pie chart or something when I hit the one year mark.
Collating 28 exhibits took forever…
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New mega-suit filed: Speaking of practice areas, it’s no secret that I love litigation regardless of topic.
And after saving a lady’s home from downright crooked mortgage practices, on her behalf I spent the better part of two months gathering info, doing research, interviewing folks, and typing up what is by far the biggest lawsuit I’ve ever played a role in drafting/filing. 
If you’re interested in reading the details, check out this PDF hosted on the TGD Law website: Hayes v. Self-Help Credit Union et al.
I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out!
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2013 Bar results released: And this past Thursday the NC Board of Law Examiners mailed out the results for the July 2013 bar exam. Just like last year, some very close friends didn’t quite make it. But several of my mentees are now officially lawyers, and I’m told by folks who know that NCCU Law‘s overall pass rate went up this go-round — putting us ahead of both (far more expensive) Charlotte Law and Elon Law.
I’ll have a new post up rehashing some of this entry to help walk the folks who passed through the process of getting sworn in and such
I realize this entry has gotten well past verbose, so I’ll wrap it up here. *THANK YOU* as always for reading and have a great night y’all!
Tags: ABA-YLD, Bar Exam, Charlotte Law, Elon Law, Moral Mondays, NC SPICE, NC State, NCCU Law, Orientation, Post-L, Solo Practice, TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Mar 25, 2012 in
Fail “I must be, like, a malfunction magnet.
Because your sh*t keeps malfuntioning around me.”
Some of you might recognize the quote. I got to live it earlier today
After NC State‘s 3-point loss to Kansas on Friday night and some sleep + work + exploration yesterday, é›…é›… and I did some final roaming around of St. Louis before I headed home to Durham (I’m currently writing this from the massive Hartfield-Jackson Airport in ATL waiting for my connecting flight). I like checking out national monuments so I wanted to visit the Gateway Arch. And when I found out you can go inside to the top, naturally I wanted to do that too.
The experience got old after the first 2 hours… 
If you’ve never visited the Arch, basically there are tiny orb-shaped trams that travel to the top every 10 minutes. You buy a ticket, climb down some stairs, enter the tram and take a roughly 4-minute ride to the top. You then get out, climb up some stairs, and walk into the archway itself where there are small angular windows you can peer out of to get a view of the neighboring area.
Panorama view from the west-facing side of the Gateway Arch
The view is cool — I took plenty of pictures for future panorama-making — but it’s also brief (and cramped). Most of the folks who take a tram up take the next tram down 10 minutes later, after jostling and pushing past each other for the length of the archway. Check out this blog entry from Quirky Travel Guy for a run-down of the experience.
And that jostle+push+ride-down-10-minutes-later was our plan. We made our way to the other side, “signed in” for the next tram ride down, directed to go down the stairs to our specific pod number, and waited…
…and waited…
…and waited…
…and waited…
…and waited some more.
After well over an hour went by, an announcement was made that the ground control folks downstairs had decided they wouldn’t be running any trams on either side of the Arch with no explanation as to why
We were all told to come back up the stairs to what was now an even more-crowded Archway with about 120 people stuffed into it. Then instructed by the Park Ranger to go to the other side of the Arch for the next tram on that side (which would have made us last in line and heading down 2-3 trams later). As we start jostling in that direction and people are clearly getting irate, we’re then told to turn around and go back to the side we were originally on. And told to “sign in” again. And sent back down the stairs for the next tram.
Two hours in the Arch, but another state crossed off the list!
Where we waited for another 45 minutes
Luckily I’m not claustrophobic, but standing awkwardly in a cramped stairwell for over two hours isn’t exactly what I envision doing when I think about visiting national monuments. Eventually a tram finally showed up, é›…é›… and I got back onto solid ground, and I decided I won’t be re-visiting the Gateway Arch any time soon
But at least I got to check off another state on my “Have to Visit All 50 Before I Die” list?
That’s it for tonight, about to board the flight for Durham. Have a great night y’all!
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From the law:/dev/null “Excellence in Government” archives:
Tags: #fml, 3L, é›…é›…, Leviathan Attacks, NCSU Wolfpack, TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Mar 24, 2012 in
The 3L Life I miss blogging regularly y’all
Sorry I’ve been gone for another half a month, there’s just been SO MUCH going on. Talking with folks at Sallie Mae and working out a solution to the situation I mentioned a few weeks ago. My last Spring Break (ever!) that was almost entirely devoted to creating a business plan for NC SPICE. My alma mater making it to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006, then advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for only the 2nd time since 1986.
The list goes on, and it’s long. And I’m somehow still somewhat afloat academically!
The view from the cheap seats at the Sweet Sixteen
With things going reasonably well — and not knowing for sure if/when NC State will advance in the NCAA Tournament again — I cashed in every single reward point I had on my American Express and booked a flight out to Missouri for the Sweet Sixteen. I got here on Friday just before heading to the game with é›…é›… (which we lost ) and then spent today (1) catching up on sleep, (2) grading moot court briefs for the 2Ls trying out for next year’s team, and (3) exploring parts of St. Louis starting with the City Museum.
Tomorrow I’m planning to head over to the Gateway Arch, and might swing by a casino if time permits just to say I saw one
That’s it for tonight’s entry because it’s already late and I’ve still got more work to do. Just wanted to say I miss y’all and I miss following the blawgosphere, talking on Twitter, and all that intellectual stuff — hoping to pick up again some time soon!
Have a great rest of the weekend!
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From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:
Tags: 3L, é›…é›…, Moot Court, NC SPICE, NCSU Wolfpack, SBA, TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 26, 2012 in
The 3L Life Hello from Reagan Washington National Airport!
Yes, I’m posting from the airport while waiting for a flight home
Life the past week has been crazy and taken its toll. Backtracking to the previous law:/dev/null entry, the TYLA quarterfinals at Memphis Law last week came to an ignominious end. The UGA team went in on Shutterbug with some thoroughly bizarre objections during our case in chief, and the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge actually sustained them  And since I’m a smidge overprotective of people, I was pissed they hounded her and was determined to get our evidence in come hell or high water — which I eventually did on cross-examination of their expert witness, but only after giving the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge five (5!) separate rules allowing it in and still having to go through three separate sets of questions the (bankruptcy lawyer) judge felt I needed to ask as foundation.
Soooo I lost points for my demeanor…
Bear in mind this was the same (bankruptcy lawyer) judge who decided to publicly berate Shutterbug for questioning the Defendant about a prior DUI… after the Defense opened the door on direct examination. Needless to say we lost that round, and EIC was less-than-pleased with me. But at least NCCU Law set the stage for an even better performance next year!
The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out with 雅雅, then afterwards I joined the team for drinks and relaxation. What happens in Memphis stays in Memphis of course; I’ll just say I had a blast and didn’t fall asleep until 4am
Group photo of NCCU Law's Howard Moot Court Teams: Me, Diane Carter '13, Nnenna Olu '13, and Kelvin Jacobs '13
Once we were back in NC my focus shifted to moot court and the competition at Howard Law this weekend in Washington DC. Enduring two weeks of averaging 4.5 hours of sleep a night finally caught up to me, and by the time we got into Washington this past Thursday I had come down with a full-fledged cold. I was chugging Theraflu like it was Kool-Aid and popping Halls cough drops like Skittles. That in turn affected my oral argument performance, which I thought was utterly disastrous despite my coach and El Presidente (who’s getting his LLM at American Law) both insisting it went well. I’m proud one of our two teams made it to the quarter-finals there, my team just wasn’t one of them and I feel responsible for it 
The highlight to the trip was getting a chance to catch up with two friends from my NC State days. On Friday I got food and a drink with Shirley, someone I first met all the way back in 2005 when I came back to NC State and became the Treasurer of my Hall Council. I’ve always been guaranteed to have an abnormally insightful discussion with that one, and Friday was no different. Then Saturday I joined a former SG colleague Mr. QC for a couple hours to learn about all the big-time stuff he’s doing in the nation’s capital. He’s currently with a federal agency and actively dabbling in city politics, and I fully expect him to be running something major by the time I’ve gotten my law license.
Cool+random mural on the side of a DC building Shirley and I passed, with Presidents going back to Eisenhower
It was truly awesome talking with them both, and really helped put me in a better mental frame of mind after my competition  I can’t tell you how truly blessed I feel having crossed paths with all these really amazing folks. It gives me the cliché warm fuzzies inside…
Which brings me to today, sitting here about to board a flight back to the Bull City. I’m way behind on academic work — and made the mistake of signing up for 3 separate classes that have weekly assignments, so my grades are pretty much shot for the semester already — but fortunately will not be traveling anymore until after the bar exam, so I can go back to a somewhat normal life. Obviously I’m ready to be home and get things back the way they should be!
And, God willing, including a few more blog entries too
That’s it from me, about to go board — have a great day y’all, and a great week ahead!
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From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:
Tags: 3L, American Law, EIC, El Presidente, é›…é›…, Howard Law, Memphis Law, Moot Court, Mr. QC, NC State, NCCU Law, SG, Shirley, Shutterbug, TDot's Travels, Trial Team, TYLA
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 5, 2012 in
The 3L Life I’m back
EIC and I missed the Super Bowl, our 2nd flight back was spent right behind a smelly drunk, and we didn’t touch down in RDU until just now minutes before midnight — but it’s been a great trip, and even more great being back in North Carolina
Heading to pick up my luggage, drop off EIC, take out Samson, then head to bed and pray I don’t oversleep and miss Moot Court practice tomorrow morning
Have a great week y’all!
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From the law:/dev/null 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting-related archives:
Tags: 3L, ABA, ABA Midyear Meeting 2012, EIC, Gotta Be NC, Moot Court, Samson, TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 4, 2012 in
The 3L Life You guys!
I talked to Antonin Scalia! Â Â
Well, “talked to” as in “asked a question that he answered” — but that’s close enough for this 3L
I was hoping to snap a better shot, but right as I took this they announced no pictures or recording devices were allowed... :|
Today was Day 2 for EIC and I at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting 2012. Neither of us found any other law students in the morning (again), so we hit two different CLEs and then headed to an afternoon Q&A session where Justice Scalia was the featured guest.
We got there über-early, so we got prime seats on the 3rd row along the center aisle. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen a Supreme Court Justice live in-person so I wanted a decent view
Regardless of one’s opinion on his opinions, Scalia was/is hilarious and had the audience laughing on a fairly regular basis — even more impressive when you consider that these were law-oriented jokes and not your typical comedy fare. He had a number of anecdotes interwoven into his substantive commentary to keep things interesting.
After talking for not-quite-an-hour on the state of the courts, how the Supreme Court works, his past opinions and such, the floor was opened for audience questions. So I decided to raise my hand and got to be one of the five questions he answered.
It was a pretty snazzy experience
A Pat O'Brien's Hurricane: highly recommended for a reason
Once the Scalia talk wrapped it was dinner time, so we headed over to Pat O’Brien’s for food and drinks. Their Cajun Shephard’s Pie was great, incredibly delicious. We each also tried one of their Hurricanes (at the request of, literally, almost a dozen friends) and now understand why they were so highly recommended.
After that we hit Cafe du Monde again for more beignets, explored the French Market area, did a smidge of souvenir shopping and headed back to the hotel.
I feel lame for being back in the room by 8pm on a Saturday night in New Orleans, but I’m doggone tiredÂ
Hope all of you have an amazing weekend! I’m getting up early again tomorrow so I can start packing up for the trip home. It’s been a great time in NOLA but I’m looking forward to being back in the Bull City
Have a good night!
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From the law:/dev/null 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting-related archives:
Tags: 3L, ABA, ABA Midyear Meeting 2012, EIC, Mmmm delicious..., TDot's Travels, The Supremes
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 3, 2012 in
The 3L Life This is a lot different from the ABA’s annual shindig…
First, neither EIC nor I have found a single law student here 
 From the agenda it looks like the only thing the Law Student Division has going on is the National Negotiation Competition — so we stopped by to see who we could see, and didn’t see a soul. A huge disappointment in my opinion, and a highlight of why it’s difficult increasing participation in the ABA-LSD.
There are also fewer attorneys here overall, which means fewer CLEs and more meetings for the leadership of the ABA’s multitude of Divisions, Sections, Committees, and so on. It looks like that’s the purpose for why the midyear meetings were created in the first place; it’s just difficult for a law student to break the ice when you walk in a room and you’re not part of the “in” crowd on that committee.
We did swing through several events though. This morning we sat in on a CLE discussing the trends in cybercrime heading into 2012. It was an interesting discussion, though one where I felt my inner computer scientist and political libertarian creeping out. For example, the CLE began with a discussion of Anonymous and LulzSec… labeled as terrorist organizations  I have a hard time accepting the notion that hacktivists are of the same mold as Al Qaeda or Los Zetas. A few minutes later a panelist with the Secret Service commented on the Jones SCOTUS decision and how GPS “tracked your phone number” so a vendor could text you when you were in the vicinity of their store — except GPS only tracks the GPS receiver in your phone, and any text messages you got based on that data would be the result of you sharing your phone number with a vendor a priori, and not because of some innate danger to GPS itself.
View of the Mississippi River from the hotel's 41st floor (Panorama via AutoStitch iPhone app)
Afterwards we stopped by a roundtable discussion on election laws going into the 2012 election cycle, where we happened to cross paths (again) with former NC Supreme Court Justice Henry Frye. The roundtable itself featured an at-length discussion of Voter ID laws in Louisiana, similar to those that were vetoed in North Carolina, and how the law was implemented. With North Carolina shaping up to be an electoral battleground next year it was an interesting conversation.
Following the election panel we headed over to a CLE on qui tam lawsuits, easily among the Top 3 most lively debates I’ve ever seen at a CLE. I confess to knowing almost nothing about qui tam suits beyond what I learned in Employment Discrimination last semester, or how many of them (if any)Â there are here in North Carolina, but I spoke with the panelists for a bit afterwards and if this turns out to be something our alumni do I’m hoping to bring them down to NCCU Law for a panel discussion some time in the future.
CLEs aside, New Orleans is very cool We took some time to go explore, eat some po’boys and other Louisana staples, shop a bit, and otherwise wander around. And we ate some beignets from Cafe du Monde that tasted delicious. The whole area is an interesting blend of really really really old mixed with the modern and tourist-y stuff. It also reminds me of Disney’s The Princess & the Frog (courtesy of EIC’s voice impressions) and a smidge of Q.T., who has a very Tiana-like persona.
Once the exploring was done I came back here to the hotel to crash and do some work. Things resume early tomorrow morning and frankly I need my beauty sleep too
If you haven’t been to New Orleans before, definitely add it to your life’s to-do list! From what I’ve seen so far it’s pretty amazing.
Until then, have a great night y’all!
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From the law:/dev/null 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting-related archives:
Tags: 3L, ABA, ABA Midyear Meeting 2012, ABA-LSD, EIC, Employment Discrimination, Mmmm delicious..., Q.T., TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Feb 2, 2012 in
The 3L Life Hi from the Big Easy y’all!
1 more state added to the list!
EIC and I are in town for the 2012 ABA Midyear Meeting, taking place here in New Orleans from February 1st through 7th.
Our arrival here today marks the first time in NCCU Law history our SBA has had someone present at all four Law Student in Division that happen during the year: the Circuit meeting in the Spring, the Annual Meeting in the Summer, the “Super Circuit” meeting in the Fall, and now this Midyear Meeting in the Winter
I’m totally exhausted from my 8am Negotiation class and 12pm test in NC Distinctions, so I’m heading to bed; more to come tomorrow. Have a great night!
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From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:
Tags: 3L, ABA Midyear Meeting 2012, EIC, NC Distinctions, Negotiation, SBA, TDot's Travels
Posted by T. Greg Doucette on Nov 23, 2011 in
The 3L Life Good evening folks!
The pre-finals quasi-vacation for Thanksgiving has finally arrived, and I’m packing up to head to Nan & Pops’ place in Virginia Beach with Samson — his first out-of-state trip
Sadly I’ll be bringing homework with me, plus eating the actual Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s place because of the late notice I provided indicating my attendance, but at least I won’t have to cook Thanksgiving dinner on my own like I did last year
law:/dev/null will be on hiatus until I get back to the Bull City. *THANK YOU* as always for letting me borrow your eyeballs for however-many-minutes of your day, and I hope you and your families have an amazing Thanksgiving! 
Tags: 3L, Nan & Pops, Samson, TDot's Travels
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