The Oath

June 23, 2007

I, NSR, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Mexico . . .

I'm going to try and throw an entry in here that puts together some of the missing pieces of time over the past 4 weeks.

I wrote about the hike up the mountain on Memorial Day weekend, but what about the rest of the time?

I know a garden got planted somewhere in the middle of all that, but four weeks have gone by, where is the accounting?

Accounting, you want accounting?

First there is school, ten weeks of summer school, of which five have already blurred by. This is working actually, the acceleration and the big push to finish. The blur is good, because I've got a big paper to write in order to graduate and that's going to take a good deal of concentration.

Soon

I'll start on that soon.

I will maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers; . . .
I'm also working with clients back in Michigan. I flew back there as soon as school was out and I'm only about one-fourth of the way through all the paperwork that needs to be completed to get everyone's money invested.

I should have worked faster, since the yo-yo of money has just about run out and is laying on the floor.

But it's the schooling that is taking up giant chunks of time but I confess that although I'm there for 34 hours Monday - Thursday, I'm quite happy to have my three day weekends that I arranged for this term.

It helps to know that there is a nice break at the end of each week.

I'm also batching it, and have been for most of the month. Mrs. is in Africa and won't be back till July 3. That's a story for another day.

I will comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct adopted by the New Mexico Supreme Court. . . .

And if there is anything that's gotten to me in my law school career, it's the Rules of Professional Conduct, taught in my "ethics" class that I take every Tuesday and Thursday from 5pm to 7pm.

There are times when the discussion makes my blood boil.

"If you know your client is about to commit an act that is going to lead to certain death or great bodily harm... you MAY reveal information that would break the rule of confidentiality."

Oh

how

nice.

Confidentiality uber alles!

I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land. . .
So here's the deal.

I swore that oath... and more, because for my other 6 hours of summer classes, I get to be the student lawyer, in the Law School Clinic.

You got it.

I go to court, I write motions, I file motions, I meet with clients, I get to play lawyer, not on TV, but in real life, with real live clients.

I'm doing an adoption, a will revision, a landlord tenant dispute and working on forming a non-profit charitable organization.

There were a couple of photos I wanted to post for this entry, but I gave up on them because they were taking too much time. I'll throw in a quickie from today but I wanted to finish this entry before midnight my time so it would still be June 23 when I finished writing.

And the importance of June 23?

Well, I went back into my diary from 2 summers ago and found out that it was on June 23 of 2005 that I got the call that my case had been reviewed and I could go to this particular law school.

Not even two years, and I'm already the student lawyer.

It's amazing to me, because I remember that day, floating in the pool, remote phone on the deck, just in case someone called.

Today, I laid on my waverunner, floating here.