An Oral History of the IRAC War Part Two: Weapons of Brief Destruction

Kevin Schoenfeldt

Kevin Schoenfeldt (2L)

When we last heard from our fractious Legal Methods professors, Hugh English had gone rogue, taking a third of the class with him. Meanwhile, the always dignified Queen Gloria had reluctantly sided with Dean McCourt, but was beginning to have second thoughts when McCourt started to show signs of an unreasonable overreaction. This is where we pick up the story:

Queen Gloria: As I was saying, Dean just wouldn’t let it go. I tried and tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t hear it.

Dean McCourt: Take my class away from me, will you? That weaselly little skunk-faced rat thinks he can take my class away from me? I apologize, it still upsets me all these years later.

Hugh English: He was only upset because I took all the cool students and left him with all the dwee… uh, that is… the students who were, shall I say, more of a kind with Dean.

Queen Gloria: Hugh will tell you he took the cool students. I will tell you he took the students who laughed at his jokes the most and recognized his Simpsons references. Is that the same as cool? You tell me.

Hugh English: Anything you hear from the other two is just the result of their twisted game of broken telephone. Purple monkey dishwasher, am I right?

Dean McCourt: So I did what I had to do. The day the case brief assignment was due, I broke into Hugh’s office and stole all of his section’s papers and did the worst thing I could think of… gave them all LPs. What’s the big deal, those things are all basically unreadable anyway. I misspoke. What I mean to say is, we’re very proud of our students.

Queen Gloria: When Dean first told me his plan I thought, “Sure, invade his office, get the briefs and reunite the class again, you know, establish peace.” But then he was going to LP them all? They’re not even supposed to be graded! It was too much. I went to my good friend and colleague Daniel Dern for advice.

Daniel Dern: When Queen Gloria told me what was going on, it reminded me a lot of the case Ronald v Donald. I don’t know if you picked up on this detail, but it was something the application judge’s clerk’s friend said to the defence counsel’s brother during a recess at the hearing. Did you pick up what she was saying?

After staring at us for a few minutes in tense silence, he filled us in.

Daniel Dern: Well, and I find this argument really interesting, she basically said, “Some people are just big-time goofs and you’ve got to get away from them.” And that was my advice to Queen Gloria.

In the meantime, Hugh English was trying to get his students’ papers back.

Hugh English: I swallowed my pride and I asked, begged even, for Dean to let me have the papers back. He said no, but that he would review the grades. Review the grades? What’s the standard of review going to be, Unreasonableness? Or Complete and Utter Clown-ness?

Dean McCourt: I don’t think Hugh English understands what standard of review means.

Daniel Dern: Frankly, neither of them understands the standard of review. I do, but that’s neither here nor there.

While Hugh English and Dean McCourt were squabbling over the case briefs, Queen Gloria took action of her own.

Queen Gloria: Those two wouldn’t shut up. They were fighting in front of everyone. Hugh kept telling Dean to go cry to his daddy and Dean kept calling Hugh ‘pretty boy’ as if that would bother him. So, I calmly gathered a third of the class and actually taught them something.

Dean McCourt: It took us two hours to notice, but Queen Gloria was gone. I couldn’t believe she betrayed me like that.

Hugh English: I was certain Queen Gloria would be back on my side after Dean’s antics, but she just left. I couldn’t believe she betrayed me like that.

Queen Gloria: Listen, the three of us had started Legal Methods together for the noble purpose of teaching students how to take notes. As far as I’m concerned, those two not only betrayed me, but the students, the school, and the entire field of law. My thought was I would do what I could with a group of students until those two dufus babies would agree to sit down with me and work this out. You know that saying, “Careful what you wish for”? Well, be careful what you wish for.

End of Part Two

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