Res Ipsa Jocular: Volume 7, Number 7: April 1997

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SEND IN THE CLONES

by Gene Ome

Just five weeks after rocking the scientific world with his announcement of the successful cloning of a mammal, Dr. Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland, admitted that his research team had "warmed up" for its experiments on Dolly the Sheep by cloning several I.U. School of Law faculty members. Wilmut doggedly defended his actions, claiming "it was all Roger Dworkin's idea." "Professor Dworkin approached me last year while he was in England with tissue samples from several law professors. He muttered something about the ultimate test case in the area of law and biomedical advances, and then threatened me by saying 'You know, what happened to Mrs. Palsgraff could be contagious.'"

According to Dr. Wilmut, field-testing of the Law School clones "proved utterly disastrous." "We made the horrible mistake of introducing Terry Bethel's clone to the real Professor Bethel in a lecture setting. They immediately began trading good-natured barbs, but their exchange soon disintegrated into vicious insults and violent character assassination, and finally, the police had to be summoned to break up the fight. We had hoped to provide Dan Conkle with the ultimate golfing partner, and we had essentially the same results-- they ended up arguing over how to hold the club and intricate hand gestures. Professor Tanford tried to use his clone for target practice, and Bob Heidt is suing his clone for assault and battery following an altercation over who gets to drive the Porsche!" There was one bright spot in the Law School cloning fiasco, Wilmut said. "At least Lynn Henderson and her clone have come to an agreement over who gets to go outside and have a cigarette or go on leave." When asked about Professor Fred Cate's clones, Wilmut became hysterical. "Cate must've gotten wind of Dworkin's nefarious plot!" Wilmut shrieked. "He substituted tissue from his troop of trained monkeys! Can you imagine our shock and horror when all of our Fred Cate clones turned out to be chimps?! It was like something out of The Fly!!!"

News of the I.U. cloning experiment soon reached the White House, and at an impromptu press conference, President Bill Clinton remarked, "You say they're cloning law professors? Well, I don't think there's a problem with that, because I only wanted to stop cloning experiments on human beings."

Late-breaking Development: Professors Boshkoff and Markell and their clones filed bankruptcy proceedings yesterday on behalf of the Law School after the various faculty clones banded together and demanded that they receive the same salaries as their originals. "Salaries?!" a beleaguered Dean Alfred Aman moaned. "Good grief-- I can't even find office space for them!"

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THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY: CHAOS REIGNS SUPREME IN LAW SCHOOL RATINGS GAME

by Sue Doenym

I.U. Law School administrative officials have spent the last month on a wild emotional roller coaster ride as U.S. News & World Report issued successive sets of corrections to their now infamous annual ratings of U.S. law schools. An atmosphere of gloom and frustration over the initial ratings suddenly turned to joy and celebration two weeks ago with the publication of yet a second revision of the ratings, in which U.S. News announced I.U. had shot into first place in the nation. "Several overlooked categories were completely re- evaluated," explained a jubilant Dean Alfred Aman. "The U.S. News statisticians somehow failed to calculate extracurricular student activities in the Library conference rooms and how often faculty members lecture while wearing witch hats. And, thanks to Joe Hoffmann, Frank Motley, and Ken Dau-Schmidt, we scored extremely well in the area of faculty members with orthopaedic injuries! The key to beating out Harvard and Yale, however, was the all-important bow tie category, so I think the school owes this Number 1 spot to Craig Bradley!"

The effects of the revised rankings were immediate and astounding. Associate Dean Kelly Townes and Career Services Director Kathleen Austin found that every major law firm in the country was beating down their door trying to snag students from the top law school in the country, and many faculty members were besieged by offers of endowed chairs and deanships at schools all over the world.

Just as Professor John Scanlan was packing his bags and preparing to replace Bud Selig as Commissioner of Major League Baseball, though, U.S. News & World Report turned the tables on I.U. and released yet a third set of ratings last week. A pale and shaken Dean Aman announced to an incredulous meeting of the Law School community that I.U. had gone from Number 1 to Number 358. "I am baffled beyond words," Aman confessed. "There aren't even three hundred law schools in the country!" When pressed for details, Aman replied that U.S. News decided to also consider the roadworthiness of faculty automobiles, at which point Professor Bill Hicks suddenly left the room. This reporter, not satisfied that one obscure category could so precipitously drop the law school's ranking, contacted U.S. News & World Report and discovered that another key statistic was the real culprit: the entertainment value of April Fool's publications. Upon learning that I.U. had scored a whopping negative 2,569 points in this category, the entire staff of Res Ipsa Jocular immediately went into hiding.

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FROM THE VENERABLE ARCHIVES OF THE LAW LIBRARY

[One of the Law Library Archives' most prized possessions is the personal diary of David McDonald, the first professor at the I.U. School of Law. The following extracts reveal how much and how little has changed over the course of the years.]

October 1, 1842

Went back to straight lecturing after every one of my 1st year students answered "Not prepared" this morning. This Socratic method thing is for the birds and has absolutely no future whatsoever.

November 11th, 1848

What is with the law students of today? This afternoon in mock trial arguments one particularly insolent tool told me he was relying on overturned appellate decisions because Shepard's wouldn't be invented for another 50 years. Where are they getting this rubbish?

March 21st, 1852

That does it--I'm returning to private practice. Somebody let a squirrel in the Library last night and the infernal creature devoured an entire set of the Supreme Court Reports! My only solace is that in 150 years, my successors won't have to trouble themselves over this type of tomschornhorstfoolery!

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LEXIS & WESTLAW POLICY CHANGES SPARK UTTER CHAOS!

by Rita Rumormonger

At least two dozen law students were rushed to Bloomington Hospital suffering from cash-flow deficiency following announcements yesterday that both LEXIS and WESTLAW will begin charging $100 an hour for all educational usage of their respective systems. The Library's Permanent Learning Center was destroyed by enraged 2d and 3d years when the two companies also stated they were making the new fee retroactive for the last 24 months. A WESTLAW executive who, for obvious reasons, wished to remain anonymous, said "Our company changed hands last year and has decided to go public. We do have certain costs to absorb." When asked how West could possibly get away with such practices, the executive quipped, "All students sign a contract when they get their passwords. They should've read the fine print, but, uhhhh, that's not something they learn in Contracts, is it? Heh-heh-heh."

Law School reaction to this astounding development was fast and furious. Dean of Students Len Fromm was instructed to create 620 new scholarships to cover student LEXIS and WESTLAW usage with currently available funds. Fromm's reaction, according to unreliable sources was "Uh-oh."

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HOW TO SUCCEED IN LAW SCHOOL WITHOUT EVEN TRYING

by Ima Slacker

If your law school career is going anything like mine did, you've probably got a huge knot on your forehead from banging it against the wall trying to figure out how to get an edge over your fellow students and nail down that elusive B minus. After weeks of late-night discussion on this topic, my staff of crack researchers and I were finally kicked out of Nicks and told not to come back until we could pay our tab. Searching for some fast and painless way to raise a few bucks (holy moley--since when did they start charging three beans a pop for shots of Wild Turkey?!), we hit upon a nutshell that would describe time-proven techniques to raise your GPA at I.U. just enough to take the bar in most states.

Since the book is still in press, here's a few quick hints to see you through this semester:

1. What's Good For The Goose Is Sauce For The Gander. In other words, follow every example set by your professor. If, for instance, your teacher tosses out pancakes whenever someone correctly answers a hypothetical, throw some baked goods his way to get him on your side. A word of caution, though-- hurling a day-old Howie's Everyseed bagel at your professor should only be an option when you're losing an argument.

2. Nothing Says Something Like Latin. Can't spot the issue on that Contracts exam? Hey, no problemo! Instead of filling up a dozen bluebooks with your lame attempt to hide the fact you don't know what you're talking about, simply write "Offer and acceptance is the sine qua non of any contract. Res ipsa loquitur." See? Isn't that easy? You say David Williams has completely stumped you with a Con Law question? Take a deep breath, pick up your pen and write, "Procedural due process is the sine qua non in this instance. Res ipsa loquitur." Not only have you stated an irrefutable universal truth-- you've spared the professor hours of pouring over your undecipherable ravings! Remember: brevity is the soul of an A star!

3. When In Doubt, Brown-nose. Let's face some facts about human nature, boys and girls: you're going to be a lawyer and your job necessarily involves making people feel good about themselves--no matter what. Do you honestly think that big corporate client is going to pay your bill if you can't tell him how happy you are his company is killing off spotted owls? Worse yet, what if you're a public defender? Not only do you have to convince a jury your client's the salt of the earth--you have to treat the guy as if he's your best friend in spite of the fact he ran his ex-wife through a Veg-O-Matic, otherwise who do you think he's going to come looking for if he ever gets paroled? The same principle applies to law professors. So when Professor Shreve asks you a particularly thorny Civil Procedure question, compare that in personam jurisdiction hypo to the Boston Red Sox' chances of winning the pennant! He'll love it! (Okay ... he'll love it unless you mention Bill Buckner ...)

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WORKING WITH TROWELS

Assistant Dean Angela Lieurance said that she will be unveiling a new Capital Campaign initiative next week, "a revolutionary new program designed to involve the entire Law School community in our fundraising mission." Thanks to the help of Systems Coordinator Kris Skjervold, Lieurance reported that faculty members, students and staff will soon be able to purchase Hoosier Lotto and Powerball tickets directly from their computers, and that Skjervold had programmed all Law School printers to produce lottery tickets. "The School will get ten cents on every lottery ticket," Lieurance said, adding, "I hear Lotto will be worth over two million next Saturday-- that would almost cover someone's student loans!"

Library Director Colleen Pauwels abruptly withdrew her proposal for a new course on The Law of Industrial Espionage last week. Although Prof. Pauwels refused to give any reasons for abandoning her plans for what many had said would be a popular course with wannabe finks and stool pigeons, one member of the Building Committee who asked to remain anonymous (named Kim Bunge) told this reporter Pauwels' decision "probably had something to do with being escorted from the Fashion Mall by a security guard while trying to take pictures of the floor."

Professor Emeritus Harry Pratter held a press conference during Spring Break and categorically denied rumors that he was helping longtime friend and I.U. Men's Basketball Coach Bob Knight in efforts to obtain a temporary restraining order against the entire state of Indiana following the Hoosiers' somewhat disappointing performance in the NCAA Tournament. When asked about additional rumors concerning Knight's attempts to secure the services of Dr. Jack Kevorkian as the team's new "motivational guru," Pratter replied "No comment."

As sales of his debut album reached double figures at downtown Bloomington music stores, Reference Librarian Keith Buckley announced he is going on indefinite leave for a North American tour. "The tour starts as soon as I can find a new bass player and drummer," Buckley said yesterday. "Several members of my band got busted for arms smuggling and I'm their lawyer, so, errrr, ummmmm, unless Tom Schornhorst can come up with a miracle on appeal, they'll be out of action for around 45 years." So far, the only date on Buckley's calendar is the grand opening of a new Walmart in Fiddlehead, Iowa.

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Index to Issues of Res Ipsa Loquitur