university of minnesota | Dennis Jansen

March 7th, 2010

Progress

There’s a new player on the University of Minnesota East Bank skyline:
UMN Science Teaching Center

Fall construction pictures are here and here. The demolition pictures of the prior building are here.

I expected an uglier building than this, and I am still not sold on a sleek new building so close to the UMN mall. I guess this is called progress.

February 18th, 2010

I spent the majority of yesterday popping pseudoephedrine pills¹ at Wilde Roast while finishing the final draft of my Moot Court brief. I felt really sick, but this “awful” had to be finished. If Webster’s dictionary had an illustration for the word “tedious” it would look like this:

Wilde Roast Cafe

I think the hypo for the moot court brief is boring and the procedural posture is awkward: an interlocutory appeal of a denial to suppress a subpoena.

Um.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I have completed four oral arguments on this brief, and my last one is this coming week. Although my brief could be better utilized as a weapon to beat skinny-pants-wearers, I am so overjoyed to finish with Moot Court.

I spent some time this week watching real court proceedings in Anoka, which are vastly more interesting than things in the State of Moot.

Watching real lawyers argue also gives me a new appreciation for how important oral arguments are and how easy Moot Court is. If a lawyer can – with a straight face – ask a judge for leniency for a defendant who had a 2.9 BAC when he terrorized his wife with a gun, then I can slap on a tie, waltz in front of my legal writing professors, and advocate for some make-believe Moot Court clients.

Unlike the raging husband, the Moot Court clients aren’t standing next to me. There’s no sobbing wife, angry mother, or threat of jail time. The lack of stakes makes Moot Court feel like a very charmed exercise. And yes, I just said that.

¹Tylenol Severe Congestion. But I’ll let you know when I start using illicit drugs.

February 8th, 2010

MLS: Hanson Hall Starbucks

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The law school building contains brilliant people, but has the aesthetic appeal of a leaky basement. This is why so many of us sneak over to the business school, which has windows and a full-service Starbucks. Behold:

Hanson Hall Starbucks

Usually the view is great, but today’s snowstorm makes the usual view of Downtown Minneapolis a little hard to see…

Hanson Hall Starbucks

Downtown is still there, somewhere, sort of... but the snowed-out view is still preferable to the dungeon law school building.

Hanson Hall Starbucks

Note: “My legal space” is a law school version of Kristy/Kootoyoo.com’s “My Creative Space” post series. The purpose of “My Legal Space” is to make law students more conscious about where they choose to study.

February 5th, 2010

Another robbery near the towers

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Since the University is obligated by law¹ to send an email about every robbery that happens near² the towers, another crime alert graced our inboxes today:

On Friday, February 5 at approximately 12:30 a.m., a 19-year-old male who is not affiliated with the University of Minnesota was the victim of a robbery. The robbery occurred off-campus, but very close to the University’s West Bank campus.

The victim was near the intersection of Cedar Avenue South and Third Street South when five males exited a dark colored SUV and approached him. One of the suspects implied he had a gun, and the suspects threatened the victim and demanded valuables. After the victim handed over his wallet and cell phone, the suspects got back into the SUV and fled southbound on Cedar Avenue. The victim was not injured and was able to confirm that the SUV had a Minnesota license plate; however, he was not able to obtain the plate’s characters.

The five suspects are all described as black males between the ages of 18 and 21 who reportedly spoke with Somali accents. It should be noted that the suspect descriptions do not match the descriptions of the suspects involved in the robberies and shooting on and near campus on January 25.

As alluded to in the crime alert, other campus amusements include botched crime sprees with random shootings, biking gropers, shooting threats, riots, and of course, ominous young black men in dark clothes!

¹ “This Crime Alert is sent in compliance with the federal Clery Act which requires universities to alert the campus community of crimes that may pose an ongoing threat to students and employees. For updates on any developments in this case, please visit the Crime Alerts page on the UMPD website.”
² To be fair, this is even closer to the law school than it is to Riverside Plaza.

January 27th, 2010

Moot confusion

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Today was our first and only moot court meeting of the semester. The attorney-instructor whisked through this semester’s requirements, circulated some sign-up sheets, and then asked if we had any questions.

Jill looked around, and then said,

Jill: “I have absolutely no idea what is going on.”

After a collective nervous laugh, the attorney-instructor re-explained how the course works:

Moot court is a February-only class this semester.
We have to revise our appellate brief and do three oral arguments, including an off-brief argument.
The course is over on February 22nd.

Basically, we have an oral argument each week except for the week our brief is due. And we are on a curve, with 9 students with no objective way to evaluate our performance.

Although I had a major “wtf” moment while sitting in the class, the requirements don’t seem so awful now. Revising a moot court brief is not as terrible as writing it, and the oral arguments aren’t burdensome if I properly schedule the arguments.

The trick to moot court (and anything in law school really) is to do the work instead of procrastinating or bitching about it. We’ll see how I do.

January 26th, 2010

Perfume and hobos

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I am sitting in the e-commons¹ between my international and corporate tax classes. I am halfway through the reading for my real estate seminar when this girl walks in and sits at my table.

She’s wearing a lime green Aéropostale jumpsuit with uggs, and is soaked (SOAKED!) in perfume. People around us look up. Some cough. I stifle a wretch.

My first impulse was to jump up and scream, “HARK! SHE’S TRYING TO KILL US ALL! MUSTARD GAS ATTACK! MUSTARD GAS ATTACK! BOO HAK-HAK-HAK!!” and then run out of the room with my arms flailing, …but that never goes well so I just sat there and tried to not vomit.

Later, as I walked to class, I realized that Rainbow Brite’s perfume was so strong that I now smelled like it. I was unamused.

Before I could get too hysterical about the involuntary perfuming, I ran into Sideshow Bob, the resident crazy-homeless person in the Westbank skyway. Bob sits around the skyway and heckles people or reads scripture. It is hard to focus on an involuntary perfuming when a toothless man is shouting the good-word in the hallway.

Sideshow Bob was still looming around the skyway’s convenience store when I returned later in the afternoon. But this time he found a chair and started chanting in Spanish. Si, si!

I think the key to school etiquette is not being distracting. I don’t want to be nasally assaulted by your cologne, harassed by your screaming of scripture, interrupted by your library phone calls, or bored by your in-class tangents. And this applies to the random homeless people, scantily clad undergrads, and yes, even law students.

¹ The e-commons (essentials market commons) is a dimly lit cafeteria space in the westbank skyway. It is essentially a bunch of tables in a basement room where people study between classes.

January 19th, 2010

Family Law: Day 1

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Professor W returns. I had her for Wills & Trusts last summer, and now I am in a 100-person Family Law course with her. I didn’t take Family Law for the blog fodder, seriously…but…

The old “is the used book okay?” question:

Professor W: “People ask me the difference between the 4th edition of the book and the old one. And I don’t know how to answer that. How much is the new book?”
Jill: “$150!”
Professor W: “Good god! And how much is the old book?”
Jack: “I got it for $10.”
Professor W: “Wow…that’s a difference…well, what would you spend the extra money on?”
Jack: “Well, when I bought the used book for Wills & Trusts, I used the extra money to go to a Packers game, and I thought that was a good investment!”
Professor W: “That doesn’t sound appealing to me at all! Good thing we are different. And you might be dead tomorrow. You might not have a chance to spend that money. Buy the new book”

About love and marriage:

Professor W: “It’s because of this western notion that we make lifetime commitments for “love,” which is really dumb. There are so many better reasons to marry than love that are more binding. Why do you think so many of your friends are divorcing? It’s because they entered into this thing with unrealistic expectations!”

Professor W:”Another problem is that we live too long. It might be alright to marry for love if your life expectancy is 37, but if you live to 100 – my god – that’s a long time to be with one person. How dull!”

November 21st, 2009

Why I rock pink

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I don’t understand the point of these University of Minnesota crime alerts. The theme seems to be: “Young-ish black men wearing dark clothes mugged someone. Watchout.”

I’m sure the police are frustrated when the only description they get is “I dunno. It was a black dude. Youngish… dark clothes.” – but passing that unhelpful description on to the student body probably sends one message: “If you see a young black male: be very afraid!”

This is why I rock pink.

Here’s today’s crime alert:

On Thursday, November 19 at approximately 6:30 p.m., a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student was the victim of an armed robbery near Marcy Park, off campus in the Dinkytown neighborhood.

The victim was at the intersection of 7th Street SE and 11th Avenue SE when he was approached by two males. One of the suspects pointed a silver handgun at the victim and ordered him to the ground. While the victim was on the ground, the suspects took his backpack and ran south-bound from 7th Avenue SE in between 10th and 11th Avenue SE. The victim was not injured.

The first suspect is described as a black male between 20 and 30 years of age, approximately six feet, two inches tall with a medium build. The suspect was wearing a baggy black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and black baggy jeans. The suspect held the sliver handgun in his left hand.

The second suspect is described as a black male between 20 and 30 years of age, approximately five feet, eight inches tall with a medium build. The suspect wore glasses and had short black curly hair, and was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.

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