Some Local Civil War History

I was down at Lakewood Park for a 5K race known as the Lakewood Ambulance Chase a few weeks ago. The race benefits Lakewood Hospital, which is a sister hospital to Fairview Hospital where I was treated (both are part of the Cleveland Clinic System).

If you’re wondering why I ran this race …. Surely you didn’t think a lawyer could pass up the chance to run behind a Ghostbuster style ambulance for 3.11 miles?!? You have to admit, the mental image of an attorney chasing after an ambulance is a good one.

Anyway.

I was killing time after the race while waiting for the awards ceremony and decided to walk down to Lake Erie. I’ve been to Lakewood Park only once before (for another 5K race) and had never explored it. Anyway, I found a little bit of local Civil War history: a brick paver plaque marking the location of an Underground Railroad Station that was located here near the mouth of the Rocky River. It was placed relatively recently in 2006.

It was the type of historical monument / memorial that would be easy to miss and I imagine most people walk past it on their way down to the breakwall and never notice it, so I thought I’d share a little bit of local Civil War related history. Ohio played a pretty significant role in helping freed slaves reach freedom through the Underground Railroad.

(Oh and for those who care, I did get a trophy for my ambulance chasing prowess.)

By the way my stomach seems to be doing better. Knock on wood. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

understanding history

Harry Smeltzer has a website and blog about Civil War history in general, and the battle of Manassas in particular, called Bull Runnings. The topic of whether history should be presented in narrative format is popular right now and Harry has a good post today about that topic. In the post Harry asks whether “web projects, perhaps, [can] be something more than alternatives to traditional print narratives: can they somehow be more illustrative of the fragmented, chaotic nature of events, military or otherwise, and so provide a better understanding of what happened than traditional narrative?”

I think web projects can be. But even the best web project cannot address the problem of conveying what it was really like to be there.

A web project can go further than the traditional narrative history book in that a web project has at least the potential to be multimedia which in turn appeals to multiple senses; there is also the opportunity to build large archives and collections of different types of descriptions to create a more complete picture of a topic. For example, a website on a battle can include narrative descriptions of the fighting, maps of troop movements, maps depicting topography, photographs of the battlefield past and present. There can be paintings or depictions of art in other form. It can include descriptions from women, old men, children, fighting men, and generals — all each conveying a different part of the experience. Music from the period, the sounds of battle, could also be included. Books cannot convey sound and most are limited in what they can present in the way of photographs and maps. A good website can gather all of these things in one place. Furthermore, there’s more opportunity in a web project to have different authors.

(Not to say books should be replaced by websites. But I do think the electronic medium has a lot of potential to create a more complete version of history.)

But no multimedia presentation and no book no matter how detailed can convey what it was really like. Historians, like it or not, are constrained in part by the medium — the English language can only go so far in it’s descriptiveness. The brain can only absorb and process so much at any given time.

Part of the problem is history is the craft of describing human life and affairs, and life is in and of itself a sensory experience. Words can try to describe things we sense — what a man’s face looks like, what a battlefield smelled like, what a Whitworth projectile heading overhead sounded like, how the ground rises and falls — but unless you experience those things for yourself, you really don’t understand. Further complicating matters is the fact that people perceive things differently. Sure, there is usually a common thread, but reality is different for each of us. Asked to describe the same exact event, we’ll all come up with slightly different ways to do so, maybe even widely divergent ways. How we will describe the event in part is based upon our own past experiences, but probably also has something to do simply with the fact that we’re all biologically wired somewhat differently.

Take the example of chemo for cancer treatment. Most of you out there have not ever experienced first-hand what it is like to do chemo. I can tell you that no matter how much you try to understand what it is like to undergo chemo, you cannot understand unless you’ve been through it yourself. I can try to convey to you what it is like, but my reality and your reality are different. Think of trying to describe to someone who has never heard one what a saxophone sounds like — you have points of reference to use to try and describe it, but until you have experienced it yourself, you cannot say you really know or understand.

I think that is what the chaos of battle is like. We can try to understand it, but really never cannot because we have not experienced it the same way they experienced it. Historians try to describe it, but can only go so far.

The more ways you can sense history — touch it, experience it for yourself — I think the closer you can get. But you never are going to know what it actually was like to be there, unless you were there. Even then, you cannot ever have the full picture.

Since none of us are witnesses, we’re also limited by having to make sense of what we’re given by the historical record. The historical record has it’s problems. Go back to trying to describe the same event and coming up with different stories to describe it. We may sense it differently, but there is more to it than that. Our descriptions also may vary depending on what we’re trying to convey. Do we want sympathy? Do we want someone to believe us and not someone else? Is there something to be gained if our version of what happened is believed over another? This can impact what we emphasize when we tell our own version of what happened. It can lead us to consciously or unconsciously distort the record.

Historians, in the end, are a lot like attorneys, really. I think that’s the reason you find so many lawyers writing history or interested in history. As attorneys, we are given a set of facts — all filtered through the eyes of witnesses with different experiences who may have differing motivations for how they tell the story of what happened. They may all be telling the truth, or at least think they are telling the truth (though of course some will lie and the attorney will have to try and sort fact from fiction which is in and of itself sometimes impossible). An attorney takes these “facts” and then cobbles them together to create a story to be told in a brief, or to the judge, or to the jury. The attorney creates a story to explain reality. In the end, isn’t that really what a historian does — gather evidence and tell a story? Of course, we like to think that historians don’t have reason to give the story a certain “spin,” whereas the lawyer obviously tries to tell the story in a way that most benefits the client. But is there such a thing as a totally unbiased historian? I don’t think there is.

Just some thoughts bouncing in my head, as Harry put it. Although I don’t think there are any answers to some of these problems, I think that mulling over them and understanding that they exist is a good thing.

CLE

I spent the entire day at a CLE. CLE stands for continuing legal education (it also stands for Cleveland Hopkins airport). The topic was “How to Win Your First Civil Trial.”

(I am also WAY behind on answering email, so if you emailed me in the last few days, I am getting there.)

I’ve already won my first civil trial, but there were still some helpful things I learned which hopefully will aid me the next time I have a trial. It also made me realize how much I basically just fly by the seat of my pants. :) I am a fearless young lawyer (there’s just not THAT much for me to lose in small claims type trials and I seem to do better when I get aggressive).

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find this class was a good use of my money. I still haven’t changed my mind about the “Substance Abuse” provision, though. Ohio requires all lawyers to get an hour of CLE credit every two years of training about “Substance Abuse.” I think its frankly kind of an insulting requirement. I’ve never had alcohol in my life and, having experienced the ultimate poisioning and hangover in chemo, I never ever will touch the stuff. Plus, alcohol makes lymph nodes hurt if you have the Hodge. (That’s a classical Hodgkin’s Disease symptom that as far as I know is unique just to Hodgkin’s Disease.)

Jenny’s Somewhat Helpful, Tongue in Cheek Bar Exam Tips

I realize its approaching that wonderful time when law students start to panic about the bar exam.  In the interest of helping out poor law students (I am still young and green enough to remember BEING one of those poor law students) I offer these somewhat helpful, somewhat tongue in cheek tips for the bar exam. Caveat (that’s a nice lawyerly word to use on your exam by the way — makes you sound smart, see tip five), I’ve only taken one exam and I’ve only taken Ohio’s test AND I self-studied.

1.  Study the state distinctions in the rules.  At least for the July 2005 edition of the 2.5 day torture fest, the examiners loved testing where Ohio’s rules differed from the “Model” rules or the Federal rules (i.e. in Civil Procedure).  If you were up on those areas, you were golden on the essays.  I was not.  (I ruled the MBE — except for criminal law — which is how I think I passed)

2. PMBR makes CDs with taped lectures.  Put them on your ipod and listen to them even when you’re doing other things (like exercising).  They are excellent.  As I said, I rocked the MBE and I think that’s why I did.  Also I followed the advice in tip four below.

3.  Take the bar courses during law school.  It really helps.  I guess its a little late for that advice. Still, I didn’t take Criminal Procedure, Secured Transactions (that’s UCC Article IX ), or Estates / Wills and I passed. Mainly by following the advice in number five.

4.  The MBE is cruel — either you know it or you don’t, and they try and trick you, so even if you do know it, it looks like you don’t.  The MBE is black-letter law.  So if you’re good at memorizing, you’ll be good at the MBE.  I recommend learning what some of the rules are and then using the process of elimenating answers.  For example, although there might be just ONE question on the MBE about, say, the Rule Against Perpetuties, RAP kept cropping up time after time as a potential answer in the Real Property area.  You might be tempted to just not study or know RAP since its only one question, but knowing what RAP is (and don’t ask me what RAP is because the day after the bar exam I erased it from my memory and replaced it with Civil War stuff) makes it easy to knock it out  as an answer and it probably will appear more than once as a potential answer.  Also, do lots of practice questions … you’ll start to learn how the examiners try and trick you.  Treat each of the multiple choice questions as a true/false and you should do ok.  It worked for me (and c’mon, we all know I am not the brightest star in the sky).

5.  Even if you have no clue what you’re talking about on the essays, pretend you do.  Throw in all those cool terms you learned during bar review for the topic and hope you sound smart and the examiner figures even if you don’t know your stuff, you’ll be good at faking it. Hey, part of being a real world lawyer is sometimes faking it or, at least, adapting on the fly. So show them you KNOW how to be a real lawyer and maybe they’ll have pity on you.  Someone had pity on me.  Somehow I actually got points on the Will question and I was way, way, way out in left-field.  In fact I was so far out in left-field I wasn’t even in the same time zone as the examiner.

And one last tip … if you did decently in legal writing, I wouldn’t even bother studying for the Multi-State Performance Test (the MPT).  I didn’t spend one minute on it, and got two excellent scores.  I know no-one who did bad on it and no-one who failed because of the MPT.  So I think you might have to be particularly talented to blow the MPT. Seriously, if you did well in your legal writing classes or you have some clerking experience writing stuff, you should be fine.  (That said, don’t blame ME if you don’t study for the MPT and you don’t pass!)

NOW, I am going to go work on my website.

moms are cool that way

A rare law related post.

My mother came bounding up the stairs excitedly today to tell me she found a CLE program for me.  I was rather taken aback.  CLE stands for Continuing Legal Education, by the way.  Its sort of the bane of my existence because my employer doesn’t pay for mine and I’ve been trying to figure out how I am going to swing around $600 to get the 12 credits I need by the end of the year to keep my law license, what with the Hodge and all (not only doesn’t my employer help with getting credits, I also don’t work full-time right now).  But I digress.  Anyway, my mother found me a program called “Win Your First Civil Trial.”  Of course, I’ve already “won” a couple small claims civil trials (I do mainly landlord-tenant law).  But the CLE  program agenda actually looks good — dare I say useful even — and it’ll give me a chance to network with other lawyers.  My mother also, very graciously, is paying my way (money is very tight for me with the Hodge — can’t even afford to indulge my running shoe habit too often).

Moms can be very cool that way.

lawyer as historian

Reading again. And, no, this time not just drooling over the males in “Surfer Magazine.”

I picked up Gordon Rhea on the Wilderness today and started to carefully read it. I haven’t carefully read a Civil War book since I started law school. I have breezed through many history books during law school, but my careful reading for pleasure days were lost in a sea of poorly written and edited cases that I was forced to read until my eyes nearly bled.

One reason I chose Rhea — I also strongly considered Freeman’s “Lee’s Lieutenants” and I imagine that set will be next (I absoutely refuse to read an abridgement) — is because he’s a lawyer just like I now am.

I think lawyers bring an interesting set of skills to historical writing. To have even made it through law school and the bar exam, all lawyers have to be good readers and at least fairly decent writers. But beyond that, law school teaches us a different way of thinking. We refer to this as “learning to think like a lawyer.” Law school isn’t really about memorizing a body of law. Oh, sure, we do memorize the basic rules of the “black-letter” law in particular areas. But mostly, law school is learning to question, to think carefully and critically, to consider options, to research a problem thoroughly. The art of law is taking a legal problem, knowing where to look for the answer, finding what the law is, and then carefully applying the law to that particular problem. We learn to build arguments and argue our side zealously, but we also learn that you cannot ignore contrary evidence: you have to either distingush it or show how it does not apply to these particular set of facts. (In fact, as lawyers, we have an ethical obligation to disclose adverse authority.) We also learn when its simply not worth making an argument because we cannot win. With those skills in place, you can tackle any area of the law or any legal problem.

Anyway, that’s an interesting set of skills for a historical writer. Different from say, a journalist writing history.

I’d love to someday tackle the task of telling the story of A.P. Hill’s Light Division; I’d like to someday write a book. I have my website on Hill; if I had the time and inclination I’d rewrite the entire thing, foot-noting it and inevitably changing and reconsidering some of my conclusions and choice of words. Mostly created when I was an undergrad, it’d reflect someone who now thinks like a lawyer. I’m still kind of proud of the site even though I feel it deficient in many respects. But I’d like to make it better. Perhaps that’s a task I’ll try and at least start on since I don’t have a job and the hiring season is probably going to be dead until January now that the holidays are rolling.

But for now, I’m just enjoying carefully reading Gordon Rhea, a lawyer-historian, with a slightly new set of eyes and a new way of thinking.

pass lists

Pass lists in states other than Ohio have been slowly posting to the internet. Its interesting to see who passed from people who took the bar exam in other states. Then again, it feels almost voyeuristic to be checking to see who passed and who didn’t pass.

I’m not sure about how I feel about this whole, let’s publish the public list thing. I can’t really argue with posting it after a period of time has passed — after all, who is an attorney in a particular state is a matter of public record. Nevertheless, I have to say that I really don’t like the way Ohio handles it. Ohio published the public list right off the bat — something most states didn’t seem to do. If your name was on the list, well congratulations. If not, well, um, you get to enjoy spending the last week of February back in Columbus. I think it would have been a bit, well, kinder, to code the list (i.e. do it by exam number, password protect it, something like that) for at least for 48 hours or so. If you didn’t pass, I think its a little nicer to be able to break the news to other people rather than for everyone all over the country who knew you were taking the bar to know you failed, maybe even before you could check yourself. But that’s just my opinion.

The bar exam is quickly becoming a distant memory. Oh, sure, of course I’ll be checking the pass lists again for the next couple times to see if my friends who graduate later pass. But that horrible, unrelenting stress and pressure … well, that’s now a distant memory for me.

If you want to give yourself an ulcer, take a bar exam.

sworn in

I was sworn-in today.

Oh, and do I have a race report for Murray Ridge. That was one for the ages. But more on that in a later post.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Sixty degrees, almost no clouds in the sky. I went down to Columbus with my parents for the new lawyer swearing-in cermony. My only worry going down was that there was no seat assignment card in my congratulations letter packet. This turned out to be no problem. They had a table in the front where they simply gave us our seat assignments if we didn’t have the card for some reason.

The Ohio Supreme Court holds the admission cermony in two sessions — the first, in the morning, is for law schools in southern Ohio; the second is for law schools in the northern half of the state. Its held across the street from the State House at the beautiful Ohio Theatre. They had a HUGE organ which was kind of cool too.

The event started promptly at two. Its actually an open session of the Ohio Supreme Court, though its not extremely formal or anything. There were a couple of speakers, then they issued the oath. After the oath was issued (and we officially became attorneys), they called each person up and handed them a large packet with their Certificate of Admission. I don’t know how they seated us, but I ended up in seat B116 which put me right at the front — second row, good seats. The only thing I didn’t like was you couldn’t sit with your friends or classmates. The cermony was over by 3:15.

The Certificate is really cool — its big and fancy and signed by the Court with a big gold seal of the state on it.

Only bad news is I have to pay a $300 registration fee. I am so broke its not funny. And now I need new running shoes too. Argh.

reflections on the bar exam

What can I say? I am extremely happy. I feel like I had a very large and angry monkey (kind of like the evil monkey on Family Guy) on my back that was very expensive to feed. That monkey has run off into the jungle and is gone now! I was so excited that my best law school friend passed too. It wouldn’t have been the same if we hadn’t both passed. Despite our success, though, my law school is apparently doing a very poor job of preparing us for the bar. We had the lowest pass rate — overall and first-time takers — of any Ohio law school. I’m sure they aren’t happy with the results of the exam.<br />
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A word on my prep for the bar, since I didn’t do Bar/Bri like most everyone else did. Here’s what I did, in case you’re curious and are thinking of going a different route too. I bought the Ohio Course from the <a href=http://www.barexam.com/>Study Group</a>. I felt the materials were adequate; however, I also didn’t feel that well prepared for the actual Ohio essay topics. The Study Group stuff did not make a big enough deal out of the Ohio law distinctions in each subject — the audio CDs were generic black-letter law, which was good for getting the basic law down, but it didn’t stress the Ohio distinctions and they tested heavily on that. I also felt it should have covered Crim Pro and there should have been CDs for the multi-state areas that stressed Ohio law distinctions seeing that those are essay topics here. <br />
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For the Multi-State, I used a computer program with sample multi-state questions from the Study Group. I did all the questions twice. To learn the multi-state subjects, I bought a pair of used (last year’s) PMBR books (the red and blue books) and I bought a set of audio CD lectures. I read repeatedly through the outline book, did half the blue book questions, and I listened through the audio CD lecture set twice. I must say that I would recommend PMBR because I felt very well-prepared for the MBE.<br />
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That was all I used. I didn’t take any classroom courses. I did nothing at all for the MPT — I didn’t even open the book the Study Group sent me. I felt fine on the MPT and the MBE — what worried me was the Ohio essays. So I’m not sure I would recommend the Study Group, despite my success.<br />
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As far as the time I put in, I basically studied from June 1 to the bar exam. Some days I studied probably only an hour or two, but most days I put in probably three to five hours a day (the time I spent increased the closer I got to the exam). That includes time listening to the lectures and doing questions. <br />
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I never did a simulated MBE; I didn’t write any essays. Smart? Probably not. Did it work? Yes. Why did it work? Don’t know, but I think I’ve basically figured out how I learn. I don’t NEED to sit with a group of people — in fact, that’s distracting. I work best by myself at my own pace. I graduated with honors from law school, so I know how to write an essay exam answer. I learn best by hearing something and then reading it in front of me, so that’s how I studied for the bar. <br />
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I think half the battle with the bar exam is understanding how YOU personally learn best and then working to maximize your strengths and weaknesses. For me, I felt that as long as I knew the law, everything else would fall into place. Like I said, I write pretty well and I never have time problems in finishing tests. So I focused most of my energy on learning the law. But, if you happen to be a poor essay writer or poor at time managment, then it probably would behoove you to do practice MBEs or to write practice essays. I think its important to spend your time on your weak areas (for example, for me Crim Law is a very weak area) and not waste your time and energy on stuff you are already good at.<br />
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Finally, would I recommend a home study course? Maybe. If you don’t need to go to class to motivate you and you can find a good study course, then I’d do it. You’ll save some $$ and you’ll save time (commuting for example). It lets you pace yourself (can be a good or bad thing, of course). You can always rewind the CD to listen to a track again; if you’re sick or life requires something, you can easily take a day off and make it up when it works for you. If you’re taking a bar exam in the near future, good luck. :)

I’m a JD

Assuming I passed all of my classes (an assumption I perhaps should not make after the Admin Law exam from Hell), I am now a JD. Should I feel different? I don’t feel different. But if I think about it, there are some differences. I’m more careful now and I always put on my seat belt. My vision is worse. I weigh less. I now read contracts (or at least scan them!) before affixing my John Hancock. I have a ton more debt — both credit card and student loan. I know what some fancy words like res ipsa loquitor (did I spell that right?) and res judicata mean, or at least I kind of know what they mean. I tend to think more critically about things and I don’t make as many assumptions. I have a huge collection of highlighters (and I mean HUGE). I got some cool free stuff (and I still have some loyalty points from Lexis to cash). I met some awesome people and some not so awesome people — all told, I think I gained some cool friends.

What else has changed? My grandfather died. My dad got cancer. My grandparents on my mother’s side reconciled with her so I “gained” some grandparents. Irwin the Angelfish passed on to the Big Fish Tank in the Sky. I learned I liked to cook. I decided to at least stay in Ohio for awhile and take the Ohio bar. My surfing improved, slightly. My running improved a lot. I battled an eating disorder. I lost touch with all of my college friends and the few I knew in high school. I did not get to read much about the Civil War or put much time into the website. I got closer to Significant Other. I made a bunch of trips to Gettysburg. I stayed sane … I think. I obtained a collection of impressive looking legal books. I learned to hate the bookstore. And to hate insurance companies — particularly those that prey on students — even more. Bought a suit. Then bought another. Learned how to interview.

What hasn’t changed? My hair. Still a runner’s ponytail and its still that odd auburn chesnut brown color its always been. Still dress pretty much the same. My musical tastes haven’t changed … though they have expanded. Still a Civil War buff. Still a surfer. Still a runner. Still love bird watching. Still have fish. Still like to follow horse racing. Still have not seen a Triple Crown winner in my life time. The Indians still stink. Cleveland still has not had a champion — in anything. Still don’t particularly like the law or the idea of being a lawyer.

Regrets? Not going to a better law school. Not working harder on my law review note … I wanted it published. Not getting better grades first year. Not finding a job with a law firm 2L summer and taking an “academic” job instead. Going to law school altogether, probably. If I had it to do over, I’d have become a high school history teacher and a track coach. But c’est la vie.

A JD. Me. No one would think it to look at me. I still look like I am in high school or at best early in my college career. I should feel different. But, I just feel like I’m a little bit older.