Welcome friends, to what feels like week fifty of finals season here at law school. The good news is that it’s more than halfway over, so I’m finally on the downside to three solid weeks of Christmas cookies, spiked eggnog and crafty tricks to lure handsome men under the mistletoe. The bad news is that I’ve probably gained ten pounds thanks to consuming a truly impressive volume of Twinkies and have enough caffeine in my system to legitimately call poison control. But other than that, everything’s peachy.
Sometime in the future, after a much needed decompression, I will be sure to write a piece about the exam experience. In the mean time, I thought that some of you might want an idea of what a law school exam looks like. So what follows is my version of a law school torts exam (no worries if you have no idea what a tort is, I didn’t either until September). Basically, for this sort of exam the professor gives you a situation that is meant to illustrate a number of the legal issues studied, and you go to town pointing them all out. Most professors even try to make them pretty funny (some of them succeed). Add in a word or time limit, and things can get craaaaaaaaazy.
Anyhow, I can’t lie, they’re actually pretty awesome. I won’t say they are quite as fun as the LSAT, but not too far off either. So, enjoy my version, and look forward to taking a real one in about a year from now:
MSS – Tort Style
Disclaimer: this is not in any way meant to be a study aid for a law school class. I’m nothing more than a 1L with a blog and procrastination issues, so no doubt even the most untalented of professors could do a better job.
It’s late 1993 and two of the least talented ladies’ men on the block, Trent Teti and Matt Riley, decide to start their own company — PimpPrint Prep, Inc (PPP). Part of their services are to include taped lessons explaining the finer parts of lady hunting, which will be released exclusively as a VHS compilation entitled “PimpPrint: The Movie”. They enlist Jodi Triplett, owner of the wildly successful JT Films Inc., to film, edit and distribute said movies. Ms. Triplett, understandably, expresses serious misgivings about both the theme and content of the lessons, but Teti and Riley inexplicably insist on the movies being produced according to their original specifications. Sadly, the movies are a tragic failure, selling exactly three copies—one each to Teti and Riley’s parents, and one more to a young man located in San Francisco named Colin Elzie.
The video remains unwatched by Elzie for a number of months, until one day, while sitting on his couch, eating Cheeze-its and waiting to die, he suddenly remembers it and decides to see what he’s missed. Much to his dismay, the VHS cassette never makes it into the player, as Elzie notices a huge crack in the plastic casing, with ribbons of the “tape” portion spilling out. Heartbroken, Elzie sits back down on the couch, begins to sob audibly and opens another pack of Cheeze-its.
After devouring the imitation cheesy goodness, he adds the empty wrapper to the hundreds that surround his couch and opens another. Briefly his eyes settle on the back of the bag and he notices a warning, which reads *WARNING: IF YOU EAT ENOUGH OF THIS SH*T, IT WILL CERTAINLY KILL YOU*. Underneath, and in much smaller letters, it continues *and f’ with your sperm count*. Alas, the defective video has put him in such a severe state of emotional turmoil Elzie is unable to comprehend the warning, and instead it makes him eat a few more bags.
Soon after, his girlfriend returns home from her real job, and expresses her annoyance at once again finding him sitting on the couch and sobbing (with orange fingers) by throwing the nearest object she can grab. That object happens to be a PimpPrint Book (included complementary with the video) that outlines the first four pimp lessons, and has a delightful picture of an unsightly fungus native only to Southern California on the cover. She misses Elzie by a good three feet, although he is unsure if it was intentionally or because of bad aim. Either way, when the book hits the wall it explodes into hundreds of loose pages, some of which drift out the window and cause numerous traffic accidents on the busy street below.
Luckily, seeing the book careening toward his face, frightened Elzie thoroughly, and afterwards he cleaned up his act. In fact, he never even thought about these “dark times” again until roughly 2016, when he and his girlfriend (who inexplicably stuck around despite his continual blog barbs and love for Cheeze-its) tried to procreate, and discovered that Elzie was entirely impotent.
Please identify all the possibly ways these poor unfortunate souls could sue each other, how each will defend themselves, who’s going to be the champion, and what sweet rewards they should receive.
Go.
