I Left my Briefs at Home

The first year in law school, back when I went to a traditional school, it was a lock step system.

First, think about the old movie Paper Chase. For the most part, that’s how I learned to “think like a lawyer.” I had very little instruction in school about how to be a lawyer. That was left to the firms that employed me during the summers and part-time during the school years.

But, I got a world-class education in legal theory.

Back to that first year. Two semesters, mostly two doses of the same classes. Contracts I and II. Torts I and II. Property I and II. Elements of Law (thinking like a lawyer, my favorite class of all my years in school). Constitutional Law I and II (Con I was the Constitution itself, Con II was really Constitutional Criminal Procedure, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments). Legal Writing. Civil Procedure.

Law back then and maybe now was/is learned by the Socratic Method. Every day for every class you read opinions written by appellate courts. Some from Great Britain (especially early on in the year in Contracts, Torts and Property) and some from state and federal courts in the U.S.

Usually, you read a group of three related opinions for each class. When you read them you were expected to “brief” them. You wrote on legal pad the opinions’ facts, issues and holdings. Facts give rise to issues. Issues are resolved by applying settled law to the facts, giving rise to a holding – the law of the case presented.

As you learned how to do this odd method of learning, the professor would ask you open ended questions that would either trap you in a dead end of logic or allow you to triumph by moving the class to the point that the professor want to reach. But first, when you are a baby law student you might be called on to “present the case.”

Presenting the case meant reading your brief, facts, issue and holding. Doing so without follow on questions from the professor was a kick ass event – you had actually understood what the case was about.

As the year progressed, and you’d figured out this case reading thing, you didn’t write it all out on a piece of legal paper, you “book briefed.” People had different methods. I followed the traditional wax pencil method of highlighting the words in the casebook. Yellow wax highlighting for facts, green for the issue and blue for the holding.

But not in Contracts. Never in Contracts. For two semesters of my first year of law school, I each day wrote a paper brief for the three cases we were going to discuss in class.

My professor was, how to put it? Richard Hausler was an enigmatic performer. He died a year or so ago and up until that point had been a professor since the Fifties. When I took his instruction in the mid-Eighties he’d had thirty or so years of performing the same play of Contracts, Act I and II.

He always entered the lecture hall exactly at the stroke of the hour. He ended the class within the last minute of the hour, never before and never after. He timed our time together to reach where he wanted us to go within that minute – he always did it.

When he entered, he carried the casebook (it contained all of the opinions) under his left arm. He strode to the podium, looked at us and then down onto the surface of the podium. It is at this last point that I finally reach the heart of the post.

On my first day of law school, in my first class, Professor Hausler strode to the podium. He did his shtick. Part of it was to tell us that if there was something we wanted to say privately, a question, a concern, a complaint, just leave a note on the podium. After he explained, quite briefly, the briefing process, he said that there would come a time that we’d forgotten to do our briefs. He said that he understood and that he would not call on us that day to present a case.

Through the year people left notes. It was a tradition that no one ever said what they wrote and he never read a note to us. But each class there were several notes. He read them and smiled and started to question us. I assume they were mostly jokes or witticism; but, I don’t know, again, no one ever told anyone what they wrote, tradition.

There came a day in the spring that I left home, drove to school and realized that I’d left my briefs at home. As God is my witness, I’d paper briefed the cases the night before and left them sitting on the desk. By this point, Contracts was the only class that I wrote them out. The other classes I book briefed (except Property II – that one I hated, I read and memorized the commercial outlines, another story).

To this day, I’m not sure why I did it. I’m not a ballsy kind of guy; but, by the middle of your second semester of law school, if you are doing well, you develop a swagger.

I wrote a note.

“Dear Professor Hausler,

On the first day of class last Fall you told us that there would come a day that we had not prepared our briefs. You went on to say that you understood, we only needed to tell you and you would not ask us to present a case that day. While my particular situation today does not fit squarely within your dispensation, I write anyway. I wrote out my briefs last night. Unfortunately this morning in my haste, I left home with them still sitting on my desk. I wrote my briefs, I just neglected to bring them to class. This seems to be a fact situation on the margin of the rule. I ask that you not ask me to present a case today.

Respectfully,

Dave.

No one had been asked to present a case for months. He entered the room, strode to the podium and read several notes, mine among them. He looked over the room and at a point looked at me with his typical smile. The class started.

Another bit of background, early in the year he would walk around the lecture hall asking a question of a student he happened upon. Some got the vapors as he approached. On this particular Spring day, he returned to his roaming. He srtode and stalked, carrying on a normal back and forth on the particular contract issues of the day.

As he wandered, he would continually quickly turn and look in my direction. Two, three and four times. Those around me started looking at me.

The hour wound to an end. With two minutes left and him having picked up his casebook and strode halfway to the door, he turned suddenly and looked at me across the room and near the back. “Mr. Dave, please present the case of X v. Y.”

Here’s the problem, the brief was really at home. Remember, I book briefed other classes, but I had an un-highlighted page before me.

I started to speak from my memory of my reading the night before (stupid me in my hubris, I’d not thought to actually read the case again that morning).

“Mr. Dave, please stand when you are presenting the case.” Even in the Fall, no one stood to recite – this was strictly Paper Chase stuff.

Every eye in the room was bouncing between him and me as I stood and presented the case, getting my first taste of legal talking without a safety net.

“Thank you Mr. Dave” he said as he, on the stroke of the hour, walked out of the room. My classmates looked at me. I smiled and walked out.

If anyone in the class is reading this, this is the first public confession of what happened that day. I suppose I’m breaking a tradition; but, enough time has passed that we are beyond any applicable statute of limitations.