Technorati Tags: Juggling, Juggle, Law, Law School, Legal, Tricks

Share This

So this guy’s on trial for DUI today. The police officer says that he didn’t blow into the Blood Alcohol Test machine, that he only pretended to blow. Then the defendant took the stand and said, unsurprisingly, that he did blow.

Here’s what happened on cross-exam:

Assistant State Attorney: You say you blew into the machine?

Defendant: I blew so hard that my cheeks turned red…almost purple.

Assistant State Attorney: Were you carrying a pocket mirror?

Defendant: No…

Assistant State Attorney: So there was a mirror in the room?

Defendant: No, man; I didn’t SEE my cheeks turning color; I FELT them.

Assistant State Attorney: You felt your cheeks turning purple?

Defendant: Stop twisting my words around; I didn’t say my cheeks turned purple; I said they turned red and that they ALMOST turned purple.

Assistant State Attorney: Let’s move on…

Technorati Tags: DUI, Drunk Driving, State Attorney, Judge, Driving under the influence, MADD, Eyes, Breath, Breath Machine

Share This

I really should write a new blog entry…

Technorati Tags: Video, Card, Cards, Spring, Magic, Rick Lax, Lawyerboy

Share This

About one hour ago, I heard a defense attorney ask the funniest question ever. It dealt with the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test, a test used to determine whether somebody is under the influence of alcohol.

In the test, the police officer holds his pen 12 inches before a subject’s face and asks the subject to follow the tip of the pen with her eyes. If the subject’s pupils smoothly follow the trajectory of the pen, she’s clear. If her eyes demonstrate an “involuntary jerking,” she’s probably under the influence.

In the case today, the officer testified that the defendant was involuntarily jerking his eyes during the HGN test.

The defense attorney’s question: “Officer, how do you know the jerking was involuntary?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know my client wasn’t jerking his eyes on purpose?”

“Why would he do that?”

…

I left before the judge made his ruling.

Technorati Tags: DUI, Drunk Driving, State Attorney, Judge, Driving under the influence, MADD, Eyes

Share This

I was thrilled when LawSchoolBlogger.com reached the 10,000 hit mark last month. Then my friend pointed out that a silly video I wrote/acted in 5 years ago has had 50,000 hits (between youtube and google video). That put things in perspective.

Here’s the video:

Technorati Tags: Infomercial, Commercial, ad

Share This

Working as an extern at the Cook County State’s Attorney office isn’t all fun and games. I’d say fun and games (trials and motions) constitute 5% of my time; 95% of the work the Assistant State Attorneys have me doing is clerical in nature.

My typical morning:

-photocopy a case file

-pull up a defendant’s driving abstract

-photocopy another case file

-call the police officer check-in room to see whether officer Belding has shown up to court yet

-fill out a police officer notifier, telling officer Bliss when she has to show up to court next

-photocopy another case file

I realize this blog entry must be disillusioning for you, my readers. I promise my next entry will be filed with greed, sex, and revenge.

(You legal-minded readers will surely recognize that last sentence as an illusory promise, which, for you non-legal-minded readers, is pretty much what it sounds like.)

Technorati Tags: DUI, Intern, Extern, Law School, Summer Internship, Clerical, Summer Job

Share This

As many of you know, I wrote a book about my first year of law school called LAWYER BOY, which St. Martin’s Press is going to publish in the summer of ’08. I recently turned my manuscript over to my editor and moved on to the next step of the publishing process: convincing famous lawyers and writers to read the book and possibly write a blurb for its jacket.

Here are the four attorney/writer/humorists who have agreed to read through LAWYER BOY:

1) Lawyer/Actor/Writer/Game Show Host Ben Stein

If you never watched Win Ben Stein’s Money, you missed out big-time. I don’t get the Game Show Network, but I think they broadcast the show in syndication.

2) Entertainment Weekly/Esquire Editor/Writer A.J. Jacobs

The man read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. He’s got a new book coming out in October.

3) Lawyer/Writer/Professor/NPR Commentator Steven Lubet

He wrote the book comparing poker to the law about which I blogged last month.

4) Journalist/NPR Commentator Christopher Noxon

He wrote a fantastic book called Rejuvenile. Read it instead of your Civ Pro casebook.

Share This

Over the summer I’m working as a law clerk for the Cook County State’s Attorney office, traffic division. Here’s a brief recap of the most entertaining DUI case I’ve seen so far:

At 3:00 AM, a Cook County Police Officer on routine patrol came across a car that had crashed into the freeway median and totaled itself. T

he driver was alone and he was drunk; he failed all four of the field sobriety tests (the finger-to-nose test, the stand-on-one-leg test, etc…)…

… and he blew a .18.

The legal limit in the state of Illinois is .08.

This was his defense:

Yes, I was drinking. And yes, I did drive my car into the median. But I never drove drunk. See, I crashed my car into the median around 1:15 AM, when I was 100% sober. I called my friend and he picked me up and drove me over to his house. I was so pissed about my car that I did two shots of whisky and chugged six beers in forty minutes. Then I called a tow truck and my friend dropped me off back at my car to wait for the truck. My friend left me a minute before the police officer showed up and arrested me for drunk driving.

The State: “So why didn’t you tell that story to the officer who was arresting you?”

The Defendant: “Because I was too drunk and too pissed about my car to think clearly.”

The Judge: “Guilty.”

Technorati Tags: DUI, Drunk Driving, Drunk Driver, Summer Job, State’s Attorney, Lawyer, Law, Law School, Arrest, Accident, Drunk

Share This