Law School is...

For the past school year, this beauty of a desk has greeted me every morning at 8:30.

Saying "farewell for now" to my law school classmates today was the saddest thing and felt oddly similar to memories of high school graduation.

I was in a bittersweet funk for a better part of the first half of the day.

Coming to Law School has been one of the greatest decisions of my life thus far. I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it is to be HERE! The professors, the courses, my fellow 1Ls. I'm feeling really nostalgic about the whole thing right now and can't believe my first year is done! I haven't been the best about posting moments, but I thought I would kind of do a collective "catch-all" of how amazing my year has been. :)

Ms. Caruso for the plaintiff (the greatest trial partner I could have) and Ms. Flores for the plaintiff 

The building where I live; I mostly just sleep in my apartment

Dinner party upon dinner party with the greatest people

Being treated to a Chinese dinner by Laura who used her $50 chow mein eating contest gift card to spoil us

Fancy caravans to Salt Lake in the Toyota Sienna, complete with take home centerpieces

The view from our luncheon of one of the happiest places on earth!

Fulfilling our lifelong dream of making "#1 lawyer mugs" after watching this documentary based on a case we read in Torts.

Movie nights where we'd watch movies that were referenced in class. cough cough Minority Report, cough Princess Bride.
Finding my long lost sister and having mini panic attacks every time a professor said, "Ms. Flores"
When life gives you law school finals...

We saw the greatest things in Crim law.
AA's army. We have a special place in our heart for our Torts professor.
The greatest greasiest apple fritters known to mankind. 

Partying at the Barrister's Ball (aka Law School Prom) with some of the most wonderful people you will meet!

We had class shirts made. On the back are written the words, "not yet admitted to the bar." It's a bit of an inside joke with our class because during orientation, our Dean explained that after graduating that's what his "title" so to speak was.

Lauren Flores, not yet admitted to the Bar. :)

Guys, I'm officially a 2L!

Treat Yo Self 2015.

So remember these little invitations? I'm going to be honest, I had heard the phrase "treat yo self" but I didn't know where it came from. So I went about educating myself, and watched this clip of Parks & Rec. The show has been recommended to me many times, but I just can't afford to get addicted to a TV show right about now. 

Law School finals prep time is BRUTAL—we literally stay in the library from sun up to sun down—so we came together and thought we'd put together a 1/2 done with finals party. The evening after our Criminal law final a group of us drove up to Kathryn B's house in nearby American Fork and just relaxed for an evening. 

Last semester we heard about how a Professor rented a puppy for her law school class, thankfully Kathryn's family has a dog which fulfilled our puppy de-stressing needs.

Table 1. If you look closely, you can see these little bowls that we put conversation questions in. As law students, law school tends to creep into every conversation. We decided law school was a taboo subject and so if it was mentioned, you had to draw a question!

Table 2

Remember how I had mentioned the CREAC RSVPs? Well, these three had the top three CREACs. Naturally, we required a dramatic reading of their CREACs in order to be able to award the "4.0 prize."

For this picture, Kathryn's Mom said to show how we felt about finals. :)

Mike earned the 4.0 for his amazing RSVP CREAC. The prize? Well, one of our professors would give us a handout every class period with a "little nugget of wisdom." So we compiled them together & created, "Chicken Soup for the 1L Soul—what I learned at Yale, and Oxford, and Georgetown." We tried to get the copy signed, but our Professor was conveniently out of town for finals week. :) Well done, Mike!

RSVP.ASAP.CREAC.

Hosting and planning parties is one of my favorite pastimes. This is why pinterest is my social media outlet of choice. I love that little piece of internet haven. I haven't really had the time this year to throw a good party (law school does that to you), but with everyone departing their separate ways this summer, Laura, Kathryn B. and I decided we needed to have one last 'hurrah' before everyone skipped town to do big things and disperse to different parts of the world.

I was put in charge of invitations and thanks to these bad boys there is glitter everywhere in my apartment (sorry roommates!). A little funny story about these invites, as we were trying to figure out what to write on them as far as RSVPs go, we ended up with

RSVP ASAP yes or no for food assignment.

We thought, that needs one more acronym, why not throw in CREAC? This is where my inner nerd comes out. CREAC stands for Conclusion, Rule, Explanation, Application, Conclusion. It's the format for writing a legal memo. I threw in CREAC just as a funny addition. Imagine our surprise when we started getting RSVP emails like this:

Date: April 8, 2015 at 2:48:27 PM MDT

Subject: Rsvp

From: Cami S

C: Yes
R: If you get invited to an awesome party you will go.
E: There is an awesome party.
A: I will go.
C: What should I bring?

We thought, "that's adorable!" then we got this one.

Date: April 8, 2015 at 4:09:13 PM MDT

Subject: Re: RSVP for April 16th Finals Party

From: Zachary J

P.S. I will be sure to notify you if my plans change. I don't currently plan on dying on that day, but finals may change that :)

P.P.S. Did I need to tell you what food I'll bring? If it's up to me, I'll bring a fruit salad.

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Zachary J  wrote:

I will most likely attend. Social etiquette among colleagues strongly favors attendance of events put on by peers. This is especially strong when doom is impending, such as finals for law school. It is a strong inference compelling attendance, almost a presumption. However, if other considerations, such as previous engagements, sickness, or death, intervene, the invitee is usually not bound.

Here, since you are my colleague, and this is an event put on by colleagues, there is a presumption that I will attend. And since there are no intervening situations, as I am not sick, dying, or have other conflicting events for April 16th, I will most likely attend.

Yours truly,

& this one.

From: Tanner B

Subject: CREAC

Date: April 9, 2015 at 8:12:36 AM MDT

Tanner and his wife, Katelyn, should be able to attend the half-way finals party. During finals, hard-working students deserve food and festivity. Bean v. Cosmo, 17 B.YU 356-67 (2015). In Bean, the court held that two students were deserving of food and festivity where one was a first-year law student and the other a senior of her English major, both slaving away at the university. The court found that their hours of study, combined with a clear showing of sleep-deprivation, evidenced their hard work. Id. The court held that because of their work, they deserved food and festivity. Id. at 358. Thus, Tanner and Katelyn will be able to attend the half-way finals party, full of food and festivity.

Additionally, public policy concerns dictate that participants in festivities bring food to the occasion, as it makes for good public conscience and ends famine. Phineas v. Cosmo, 18 B.YU 23-76 (2013). Thus, it is likely that Tanner and Katelyn will bring food to the festivity if the court decides.

For these reasons, the court should accept this RSVPASAPCREAC. 

By this time we got the greatest idea and thought, "let's GRADE THEM! ON A CURVE!" The current 4.0 as it stands is this gem:

From: Michael S Date: Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 2:03 PMSubject: CREAC RSVP

              I will attend Treat Yo Self 2015. I attend any event that looks enjoyable to me, and this is nearly always satisfied if it will also be attended by individuals that I enjoy interacting with.
              The controlling precedent for both of these elements comes from the case of My Desire to Socialize v My Laziness. In this case the court held that "Any type of social gathering, barring previous commitments, may be attended if there are going to be people I enjoy interacting with there." My Desire to Socialize v My Laziness, 3 M.S.D.2d 25, 27 (2010). The court went on to clarify this rule in the later decision of Girl I Had the Hots For v Dislike of the Bachelor. The court held that in circumstances, such as a Bachelor viewing party, where the activity involved met a super lameness standard, then attendance was not dictated regardless of any enjoyable parties involved. Girl I Had the Hots For v Dislike of the Bachelor, 5 M.S.D.2d 34, 38 (2012). The court included a romantic relationship exception where attendance was mandated regardless of super lameness, but the present facts do not present a romantic relationship question so it is not necessary to address.
                Following the precedent set in Desire to Socialize, it seems almost guaranteed that I will attend. First, I have no previous engagements the time of Treat Yo Self 2015. Second the facts indicate that this event will potentially be attend by, but not limited to: Laura S., Kathryn B., Kathryn L., Brooke E., Tye C., Lauren Flores and Zack J.. All of these individuals have been interacted with before, and all interactions were quite enjoyable. The present situation is easily distinguished from Dislike of the Bachelor. In that case the activity involved was a viewing of the show the bachelor, and while the exact activities of Treat Yo Self 2015 are not currently clear, it is obvious by the presence of food and the attending parties listed above that a super lameness argument cannot be honestly presented, let alone met.
               Due to my lack of previous social commitments, the enjoyable nature of the attending parties, as well as the obvious enjoyableness of the activity itself, it is a practical certainty that I will attend Treat Yo Self 2015.
Signed 

Michael A. S., future Esq. (hopefully)
P.S. The things I do when I should be studying...
P.P.S. Cliffnotes of the above is I would love to come, let me know what you would like me to bring. 

This has turned into a full-throttle competition complete with a grand prize. We are the nerdiest and I love it!
I go to school with the greatest people.

Easter 2015.

I love it when Easter falls on general conference weekend because we get to celebrate Easter with our extended family in Utah. There's also something just extra special about being able to hear from modern day prophets, seers, and revelators on the day that we celebrate the triumph over death.

We had SO much food. There were plenty of leftovers and we all kind of groaned when a huge tres leches cake showed up twenty minutes after we had cleaned up.

It was also little Emma's birthday, so we had easter themed birthday cupcakes.

The older cousins were in charge of hiding easter eggs. It was the funniest thing, because my Uncle Job pretended he was our foreman as he stood on the deck, telling his "farm workers" where they should hide the eggs.

It was a good one!