Opening Social

Our first activity is going to be an opening social next Thursday, October 8th at 7PM. We'll start with a meet and greet at 7PM followed by getting to know you games and more information on our upcoming activities. We'll also setup 1L wives with "law-mas" to help with the first year. Feel free to invite any other law wives you know even if their husbands are going to a different school.

And of course there will be food. If your last last name starts with an A-M please bring an appetizer and N-Z please bring a dessert.

Please RSVP by email so that we know how many people to plan for. If you need a ride let us know, and we'll arrange rides.

GET FREE BOOKS FOR YOUR HUSBANDS!!!! PLEASE :)

Hey Ladies-

I am not techinically a member of JRCLSSA anymore, but I was hoping that maybe some of you (or maybe your husbands) would take some of MY husbands old law school books that we don't need or want. I just want them out of my house, so no charge, just please come get them! I will keep them until January 15th and then I will get rid of them, so act quickly, please. You can call me at 801-885-2257 or email me at catherinemgilbert@gmail.com

Thanks! Catherine Gilbert

Here they are:


Understanding Law School -- Lexis Nexis
Getting to Maybe - by Paul and tishal
Con Law - sullivan/gunther 14th ed.
Con Law- principles & policy, cases & materials- lexis nexis 6th ed.
Probs & materials in Secured Transactions-Whaley 7th ed.
Moynihan's Intro to the Law of Real Property- Kurtz 4th ed.
White Collar Crime: Satues, Rules & sentencing guidelines- Lexis/Strader/Jordan
White Collar Crime, Cases, Materials and Problems- Lexis/Strader./Jordan
Civ Pro- 4th ed. Examples & Explanations - Joseph Glankon
Mass Communication Law ( In a Nutshell) 2007
White Collar Crime (In a Nutshell)
CaseNote Legal Briefs- Business Organiztions- keyed to O'Kelley's & Thompsons Corporations
West Group-High Court Case Summaries-Property
2007 Selected Standards on Professional Responsibility
Corporations & Other Business Associations, Selected Statues, Rules & Forms- 2006
Law of Torts- 3rd edition, Glannon, examples & explanations
2006 Documents Supplement to International Business Transactions 9th ed.
Gilbert Law Summaries- Property
Selected Commercial Statues 2006, ed.
2005 Civil Procedure supplement
2007-2008 Ed. Federal Income Tax- CCH, Code & Regualtions
Casenote Legal Briefs- International Buisness Transactions, Keyed to Folsom/Gordon 8th ed.
Casenote Anti-trust Pitofsky, Goldschmid & Woods ( trade regulation)
2007 Secured Transactions- Revised Article 9

JRCLSSA Changes...

Dear Spouses,
Our President Rachel Watson (the beautiful woman on your left) wanted to wish a warm welcome to all the 1L spouses, and everyone else, welcome back to the school year. Much has changed since the last blog in April. I'm brand a brand new 1L spouse, but here on the blog instead of talking about sticker shock or traffic, or good books (unless you want juvenile fiction, I'm a teacher...) I'll be talking about the great activities and Survival Nights that help us law spouses, well, survive. Or better they help us, "Come what may and LOVE IT!"

Our Survival Night in October was a panel with 4 spouses from all walks of life, from working and going to school while your spouse is also working and going to school all the way to a stay-at-home mom with two children, we all took away good advice from the troopers who have earned the title of 3L (or even 4L) spouse. :)

Some gems of wisdom were,
- Find a hobby, something good to occupy your time.
- Your law student will get grumpy during finals, let him be grumpy.
- Remind your law student that there is more to life than law school.
- The first year really is the worst, things will get better.

Many thanks to Lindi, Andrea, Jennifer, and Christy!

Be sure to come to our next activity, "Surviving Life as a Law School Spouse; Cheap and Chic." I've heard what's planned and you don't want to miss it!

You Only Have To Ask Yourself One Thing

This month for our book list, I’ve decided to return to some old favorites. I’ve decided to talk about books that have characters who make some kind of moral decision. This could be a little difficult since the moral decision is sort of the apex of each novel and I hate giving away an ending, but I really love these books, so I’m going to talk about them anyway. The books are: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
Moby Dick was written in 1851. This is the story of the captain of a whaling ship who is obsessed with revenge. Moby Dick is a white whale who bit off the leg of the captain who has vowed to kill the whale. The book follows the ship through this crazy obsessed journey to find the whale. As the book goes on, one of the men on board the ship realize that this is an unhealthy obsession that could end up being the death of everyone on board. The moral decision is made by the first mate on board the ship, Starbuck (yes, that’s where the coffee place got it’s name), who has to make a decision that could either affect the life of one person on board the ship or the lives of everyone else on board. It’s a small scene in the book, but an important one.
A Tale of Two Cities was written in 1859. This is the story of the French Revolution and how it affected a small group of people, revolving around a young woman and her father. The young woman has a small group of admirers, one of whom she marries, though it is another admirer who has to make the moral decision. This character, Sydney Carton, is able to keep the young woman’s future husband from being hanged for treason at the beginning of the book and is subsequently a welcome visitor to the house after the marriage. He is a cynical amoral man who cares for nothing but the young woman, and his love for her causes him to make a decision that shows him to be of much more worth than he has shown throughout the rest of the novel. I can’t explain further about his decision without giving away the ending, but it does cause him to say “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done” which is one of the most famous quotes in literature. Sydney Carton is one of my favorite characters in literature and I’ve read the book over and over enjoying him and this great book.
Les Miserableswas written in 1862. It is the story of a man, Jean Valjean, who steals a loaf of bread to feed the family of his sister who are starving and ends up getting caught and going to jail for 19 years. When he gets out, he has become hardened and mean and immediately steals silver from a kindly old bishop who tells the police that he gave the Valjean the silver after he is caught. Valjean then has to decide if he is going to continue leading the life of a soulless convict or if he is going to change and become a better, kinder man. He decides the latter, though that decision is tried throughout the rest of the book. I have to admire a character who is so strong a moral character that he stands by his decisions though is costs him family, position, freedom, wealth and everything else that he holds dear.

This Really Happened

For the book list this month, I’m going to go a little out of my comfort zone and talk about nonfiction. I haven’t done a lot of reading in this area, but I know that many people enjoy reading in this genre. I was almost at a loss as to what to do when I remembered a book that some of we law school wives read the first year our husbands were in law school. This put me in mind of a few others that I had read and I believe that I have a few books that will work. They are Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts, Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie, and Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof and Stephen Jay Gould.
Founding Mothers is a collection of letters from the wives of the men who had a hand in forming our country. It’s a very interesting perspective of the time of the revolution as it’s written by women who saw things first hand and it shows what sort of influence women had over the forming of our country through their husbands. These were remarkable women who lived during a most interesting period of history.
Nicholas and Alexandra is a biography written about Romanovs, the last royal family of Russia. It a comprehensive look at Nicholas’ childhood including a background look at his father and expectations of his own rule, his marriage and family life and finally the end of his rule and his life during the Russian Revolution. It’s actually a pretty interesting look at how social responsibilities, perceptions of the public and the illness of a child seemed to be a large part of the downfall of the family. Rasputin, an infamous real life villain is, of course, looked at in the book. I have to admit that I first picked up this book because I loved the cartoon Anastasia. What actually happened to the family was not romantic as the movie would have you believe, but it was still quite interesting.
Eight Men Out was written about the 1919 Black Socks Scandal. That was the year that eight men from the Chicago White Socks threw the World Series. The book explains what happened including the trials of the ball players, and also talks about their possible motivation. It goes into the details of the money the players made and what they were offered to throw the games and who orchestrated the deal and what happened to the ball players after the trial. After reading this book, I found myself sympathizing with the ball players, feeling that they had been badly treated and that if people beside the ball players had been less greedy, there would have been no need for them to throw it. Not that I condone cheating, but there is a strong argument for their side.

Bar Application Woes

I’m sure that most of you have heard by now that the application to take the Bar Exam is a beast. My husband is a third year law student who is getting everything ready to graduate and take the Bar, and not too long ago we discovered some interesting things about the Bar application that may be helpful to other law students who are not going to school in Utah. In order to take the Bar Exam in Utah, a background check needs to be done through the FBI for the application. This can take up to 20 weeks, depending on how busy the FBI is. The application is due the first of March if the student wants to take the Bar in July, so students should look at the application well in advance if they want to get everything taken care of in time. My own husband looked at the application a month and a half early and panicked when he found out about the background check. Luckily he contacted the people at the FBI and found that they were processing them much quicker than 20 weeks at that time. It still took him three weeks to get it back and that was after he did everything he could to get it expedited. So, yes, my husband is okay to take the Bar now, but I wanted to send out a notice to students who will be sending in applications in the future. Please, spouses, have your law students look at the Bar application well in advance. Not all states demand a background check, some just require a set of finger prints so that they can run the background check themselves, and some don’t require anything like that, but some do, so be aware.

Something's Afoot

I’ve been debating with myself over whether or not I should do murder mysteries for the book list for a little while now. I don’t know if any of you out there mind a little violence in your books or mind a discussion of books that are not quite up to “classic” standards. However, I’m of the opinion that a little mind candy never hurt anyone and there are some reasons why it wouldn’t be bad to be better acquainted with the author Agatha Christie. Dame Agatha Christie wrote over 80 detective books and plays in her time and has been dubbed The Queen of Crime. More copies of her books have been sold than any other author with the exception of Shakespeare and the Bible. Her Belgian detective Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in the New York Times. Many of her books have been made into movies. And, for me, her books are quite entertaining with well constructed storylines and some have very shocking endings that probably should have been obvious. The three most entertaining and shocking books from Ms. Christie, for me, were The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, and And Then There Were None.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was written in 1926. This is a book that features her famous detective Hercule Poirot, a little Belgian who started out small and gained much notoriety later in his career and who had a somewhat bumbling sidekick, much like Sherlock Holmes. This case follows Poirot as he looks into the case of the death of a local wealthy gentleman. There are several suspects and missing men and misleading clues, all of which are common in murder mysteries. However, this was the most surprising murder mystery that I’ve ever read, and if I tell you why, it won’t be shocking any longer. Sorry.
The Murder on the Orient Express was written in 1934. This is another book that features Hercule Poirot. This particular case involves Poirot on the Orient Express, a train traveling through Europe. The train stops suddenly in the middle of the night in the mountains where no one could possibly have crept on without being noticed. One man is murdered and Poirot must discover who did it and why.
And Then There Were None was written in 1939. This book features ten people who receive letters inviting them to an island off the coast of England for a holiday. When they arrive, they hear a record read off their names and a dire sin that each has committed, saying that they have been brought to the island to pay for their sin. They notice a poem that reads:
Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were Eight.
Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.
And so on until there are no Indian boys left. Due to some unavoidable circumstances, the visitors are unable to leave the island, though they would like to when they start to die in correlation with the poem. I know, the poem isn’t very PC, but it was written long before political correctness was an issue. And, though it’s not as shocking as the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, it’s one of my favorites.
One last note. As I write up these blog posts, I do my best to not give away any secrets or plot endings. I hate it when people give away an ending for me, so I do my best not to give away an ending for anyone else and I hope that makes the book a more desirable read. If anyone would like to know more about a book or would like to have a nice long discussion about any of the books from the book list, I’m always here.