my class beginning to redeem itself...

okay. so not everyone in my class is a jerk. there are actually some pretty nice folks who don't have 'attitude'.

case in point: we have these crazy weekly legal research assignments. Last week, I got full points for mine, so there are a couple of people who were minimally impressed.

This week, one student (who is a rather cool philosophy major from Princeton) came to ask for some advice on our statute research project.

So I helped him out. big time. we had a crazy question about a Louisiana statute involving immunity from liability for allowing recreational use of one's undeveloped land. (the 'client' owns a swamp and wants to let people 4-wheel around for fun.)

one of the questions asked whether it made a difference if he charges an admission or use fee. The text of the statute says no, but then there is a case note citing a case saying that the purpose of the statute was to provide immunity for people who allow use of their land without charging.

I advised him that he should base his argument on the text of the statute, rather than the annotation. I hope he picks up a couple of points here.

But it makes me want to read the case, just to be sure the charging of the fee wasn't at issue, and to be sure that the case didn't "read out" the text of the statute saying that charging a use fee is permittable.

I think he was grateful.

at any rate, it was nice to help out, and nice that some people can look to me as a resource, rather than a threat.

I'm going to keep chipping away at the rest of them, Mr. Ringleader-of-the-hate-crew excepted.