STILL ALIVE
Being excessively fond of simplification (as a result of having to deal with too many complexities in the course of work), I might like to say that the practice of law as imagined by the mass media is along the lines of, “SCREW THE RULES, I HAVE MONEY!” to which the response should be, “SCREW THE MONEY, WE HAVE RULES!”*
(incidentally, the Seto Kaiba icon I’m using has two names, firstly, OBJECTION!; and secondly, “Seto Kaiba: Domino City’s Ultimate Drama Queen”).
If I stay awake for four more hours (as of 8am), I will have been awake for 48 hours on five hours of sleep. Such are the necessities of exam season, of which I can safely say this of my revision: I am so dead I wonder why I bothered being born. When you’ve been awake for as long as I have (and been studying) the smallest things start seeming incredibly funny to you (apparently this also happens if you’ve been staying in the office past midnight). I was reading my Wills and Probate Manual when I started laughing at this paragraph (and naturally decided to inflict it upon all of you):
Probate and Administration concerns matters taking place after death. That does not mean it is deadly dull. It can give rise to very stimulating, very challenging situations. You will realise this once you are in practice. When a person dies, he leaves behind property^. How the legal personal representatives look after the deceased’s property is what probate and administration is all about.”
I believe that bolded part right there is the very heart of the paragraph. It is probably the effect of too many statutes and not enough sleep, but I find it hilarious that the whole reason we are expected to find that Probate is exciting is that dead people leave property behind. There was also this wonderful line that stated, in effect, "Please take thorough instructions from your client, because dead people can't instruct you." [original quote: "Once the testator is dead, he cannot say what the document is."]
The golden thread that runs through the web of the Criminal Law is said to be the principle that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty. If that is so, I’d like to think that the golden thread that runs through the web of the law as a whole is faith in justice. When all’s said and done, isn’t justice simply doing the right thing+?
Rather than think of law as a web (which always brings to my mind the image of Justice as a giant spider spinning that web and waiting for the unwary to walk into it), I’d like to think of law as a vast puzzle, with its individual principles and cases and truths all but individual, separate pieces of that great puzzle. It is not so much a puzzle that will never be completed, but rather a puzzle whose face and shape never stops changing, through time and through the different people whose hands it passes through, who shape and change the law in ways which they may not even begin to imagine. Maybe the reason the law looks different to everyone (is it selfish? unjust? kind? Wedded to practicality?) Is it is that we’re all holding on to different pieces of the puzzle, or we’ve not found the ones that would help us make sense of the whole.
All my rambling is starting to make me think of the phrase in vino veritas - in wine, there is truth (ie. get someone drunk enough, and they’ll start confessing. Don’t see why, really - wouldn’t alcohol as easily remove someone’s inhibitions from telling the truth as it would their inhibitions from lying?). I’d like to believe in lex veritas - in law, there is truth.
*too much YGO Abridged, I know, I know.
^ emphasis all utterly and entirely mine, my apologies to the eminent authors of our Manuals.
+ Naturally it is not and never all that simple, but it is half-past eight in the morning and the last meal I had was some thirteen hours ago. At these times you learn to appreciate the simple virtues of K I S S: Keep It Simple, Solicitor.
ETA WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE in our Family Law questions? Every paper has a question in which a divorcing couple is clearly named and patterned after famous couples: we've had Scarlett and Rhett, Tom and Nicole... Oh, I bet this year, it's going to be BRITNEY AND KEVIN.
ETA: or Brad and Angelina! With all their four children! Adopted, natural, etc. And their IMMENSE ASSETS!
Okay, writing this has made me that much more awake and able to go on a little bit more! Thanks a billion to faoiltiamatani and my lovely friend H for being such wonderful companions through this LONG AND ENDLESS NIGHT. ♥!
(incidentally, the Seto Kaiba icon I’m using has two names, firstly, OBJECTION!; and secondly, “Seto Kaiba: Domino City’s Ultimate Drama Queen”).
If I stay awake for four more hours (as of 8am), I will have been awake for 48 hours on five hours of sleep. Such are the necessities of exam season, of which I can safely say this of my revision: I am so dead I wonder why I bothered being born. When you’ve been awake for as long as I have (and been studying) the smallest things start seeming incredibly funny to you (apparently this also happens if you’ve been staying in the office past midnight). I was reading my Wills and Probate Manual when I started laughing at this paragraph (and naturally decided to inflict it upon all of you):
Probate and Administration concerns matters taking place after death. That does not mean it is deadly dull. It can give rise to very stimulating, very challenging situations. You will realise this once you are in practice. When a person dies, he leaves behind property^. How the legal personal representatives look after the deceased’s property is what probate and administration is all about.”
I believe that bolded part right there is the very heart of the paragraph. It is probably the effect of too many statutes and not enough sleep, but I find it hilarious that the whole reason we are expected to find that Probate is exciting is that dead people leave property behind. There was also this wonderful line that stated, in effect, "Please take thorough instructions from your client, because dead people can't instruct you." [original quote: "Once the testator is dead, he cannot say what the document is."]
The golden thread that runs through the web of the Criminal Law is said to be the principle that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty. If that is so, I’d like to think that the golden thread that runs through the web of the law as a whole is faith in justice. When all’s said and done, isn’t justice simply doing the right thing+?
Rather than think of law as a web (which always brings to my mind the image of Justice as a giant spider spinning that web and waiting for the unwary to walk into it), I’d like to think of law as a vast puzzle, with its individual principles and cases and truths all but individual, separate pieces of that great puzzle. It is not so much a puzzle that will never be completed, but rather a puzzle whose face and shape never stops changing, through time and through the different people whose hands it passes through, who shape and change the law in ways which they may not even begin to imagine. Maybe the reason the law looks different to everyone (is it selfish? unjust? kind? Wedded to practicality?) Is it is that we’re all holding on to different pieces of the puzzle, or we’ve not found the ones that would help us make sense of the whole.
All my rambling is starting to make me think of the phrase in vino veritas - in wine, there is truth (ie. get someone drunk enough, and they’ll start confessing. Don’t see why, really - wouldn’t alcohol as easily remove someone’s inhibitions from telling the truth as it would their inhibitions from lying?). I’d like to believe in lex veritas - in law, there is truth.
*too much YGO Abridged, I know, I know.
^ emphasis all utterly and entirely mine, my apologies to the eminent authors of our Manuals.
+ Naturally it is not and never all that simple, but it is half-past eight in the morning and the last meal I had was some thirteen hours ago. At these times you learn to appreciate the simple virtues of K I S S: Keep It Simple, Solicitor.
ETA WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE in our Family Law questions? Every paper has a question in which a divorcing couple is clearly named and patterned after famous couples: we've had Scarlett and Rhett, Tom and Nicole... Oh, I bet this year, it's going to be BRITNEY AND KEVIN.
ETA: or Brad and Angelina! With all their four children! Adopted, natural, etc. And their IMMENSE ASSETS!
Okay, writing this has made me that much more awake and able to go on a little bit more! Thanks a billion to faoiltiamatani and my lovely friend H for being such wonderful companions through this LONG AND ENDLESS NIGHT. ♥!