Friday, November 11, 2022
Other commitments are keeping me from accompanying the Buffalo State Bengals Moot Court team to Wooster today, but last night, for their final run-through three friends came in to judge, and the students really rose to the occasion. We have three teams this year. I think students are graduating, but if we can get the others to come back next fall we could really be building something. College moot court is a lot of work, and our Buffalo State students all have busy, complicated lives (like everyone else, I suppose). It's always exciting to watch as the concepts and the arguments fall into place for them. You can see the swagger develop- they come in thinking that this might be a thing they'd like to do, and finish with a solid grounding in the skill set of advocacy. My colleague, Professor Yaccobucci and I are at pains to avoid spoon feeding the students- we spend the first few weeks discussing the concepts and the cases contained in the closed universe of the problem, then work with them on structuring their arguments. For most of them this is really their first exposure to legal reasoning, and you can see the light go on when they realize how this all comes together.
This year's problem has a 4th Amendment warrantless search issue which involves surveylence by a high-powered, military grade drone, and an 8th Amendment question about sentencing minors. I was particularly impressed with the creative way each of our students incorporated their own backgrounds and perspectives into their arguments.
Tuesday, November 08, 2022
Number 33 at my polling place at 8:15 this morning.
Early voting, which is a good thing, has wrecked my data set. I've been tracking my number and the time of my vote since I started Outside Counsel.
Oh, and I suppose I should mention also that this has been a notably ugly election season.