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Re: Michigan Bankruptcy Laws re: Correspondence Law Students
Posted by -- on 11/02/08

    On 11/02/08, Crap schools make crap lawyers wrote:
    > YOUR CURRENT "LAW SCHOOL" DOESNT PROVIDE ACCESS TO WESTLAW
    > OR NEXIS CUZ IT AINT REALLY A LAW SCHOOL.
    >
    > Its a self study mail order degree from a guy's spare
    > bedroom.

    That is the unfortunate part of a DL school program. Not only do they not offer Lexis
    or Westlaw access, they apparently don't require law library work to be done.

    When CP asked if anyone knew if the "Rittenhouse" case was still good law, I stupidly
    tried to do his work for him. My bad. The correct response to a student would be "Have
    you Shepardized the case?" If not, then go do that before you ask for somebody else to
    do your study work for you. The first lesson for a student to learn is not whether the
    case is still good law but what procedures a student should go through to obtain the
    information to make a determination if it is still good law. This is not just a
    meaningless academic exercise. If you submit a filing to a court and rely on superceded
    case law, you not only look like a dumb a$$ you also face possible Rule 11 sanctions.

    As a law student, not having access to research materials is not an excuse, it is an
    admission that you are not really seriously studying law. If you don't have access to
    basic research materials (like case law books and Shepard's books and current updates)
    you should not attempt the study of law. Text books just point you in the direction of
    where you must go to accomplish the learning process of law school; you MUST have access
    to law library material on a daily basis and USE IT!

    CP -- If I went to a law professor and asked if a case was good law, he/she would ask
    what I had found in my Shepard's research. If I said I had not done any - oh cr@p! I
    would look like an idiot and not be welcome to come back to his/her office again. If
    I said I had done the research and was unsure of how to interpret the holding of "so
    and so case" as it related to the original case on "such and such a point" and explained
    the dichotomy it presented, we could probably have a conversation about whether the
    superceding case was merely a cite to the original case or dicta or actually overturned
    the case.

    Anyway dude -- I think it would be in the spirit of education if you reported back as to
    whether your research and analysis of subsequent cases showed that "Rittenhouse" is still
    good law or not. Then if someone else disagreed with your analysis we could have an
    educational discussion.

     
     

 
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