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What can 70 Law Students do for Free Speech and at what cost?

June 23, 2005

Although they will never show it to people outside their inner circle, law students are a highly oppressed group of students.  If it’s not the 200 or so pages they have to trudge through on a daily basis, it’s their professors’ unreasonable expectation that they’ve memorized it all and are ready for a serious round of cross-examination-type questions on the reading material.  It’s little wonder that perhaps a law student’s most prized asset is study time — deprive him of that and you’ll regret it.  People have learned this the hard way. Law students will deprive themselves of sleep, nourishment, TV time, and just about anything just to get their work done.  I’ve known people who’ve ended relationships because they were too “time-intensive”  or that he/she is not “strategically located” (i.e., lives/works/studies too far away) . . . from the library. 

Of course this was all lost to me when I asked about 70 of my students to help out on a small project relating to the so-called GloriaGate Tapes.  It seems to me that noone had attempted to de-construct the tapes into the individual conversations recorded.  I believe this is necessary if we’re to have a reasonably intelligent conversation about them.  So, together with another law professor (whom I’ll not name for RA 4200 purposes), we devised a plan to have law students scour through the PCIJ transcript (perhaps improve on it), separate the conversations and extract data from the tapes.  A work plan was devised that would make it easy to split the work into as many students who wanted to help out.

As fate would have it, my students volunteered.  I thought they were motivated solely by their desire to see Free Speech in action.  I forgot they were law students.  Within the first 30 seconds of my spiel explaining what had to be done, the question was asked, “Sir, if we do this, can we skip your class tomorrow?”  It was a little puzzling because if they divided the tasks efficiently, it would take no less than 30 minutes to finish what I was asking them to do whereas they would probably take 2 hours to study for my class.  It didn’t seem like a fair trade. 

I was pressed for time; so I agreed but only on one condition, that they submit the data in the correct format by 6 a.m. the next day.  That would give them about 18 hours to work (if they didn’t sleep). 

Needless to say, they didn’t meet the deadline and the inevitable “substantial compliance” argument was raised since they did, after all, submit it by 10 a.m. AND the delays were through no fault of their own (some of the CDs containing the MP3 files were blank — or so they claimed).  A law professor knows to expect these arguments from budding lawyers — it’s one they’ll use for the rest of their natural lives.

I’ve just finished some minor editing of what they made and I think it’s good work. Strike that — great work.  Hopefully, by the weekend, we’ll have launched a website (or blog) with all 150 recorded conversations uploaded.  We hope that this can serve as a common resource that bloggers can use as they spin their theories in any way they want.  We also hope that we can get a clearer understanding of what Gary and his friends were up to.  The site won’t have a particular stand although we’ll try to track the discussions as they happen in other places.  I feel it’s important to do this not only because we’re placing ourselves at risk but because we’re doing this to encourage free speech.

So, to my students (who should not be named), I thank you for giving up one study session on Negotiable Instruments to promote and uphold the Bill of Rights.  It’s more than a fair trade.  Enjoy the short vacation.  You deserve it. 

Posted by disini at 7:13 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

You should compile the best tracks into an album — Gloria's Greatest Hits.

Posted by Mike at June 24, 2005, 1:15 am

People have learned this the hard way. Law students will deprive themselves of sleep, nourishment, TV time, and just about anything just to get their work done. I've known people who've ended relationships because they were too "time-intensive" or that he/she is not "strategically located" (i.e., lives/works/studies too far away) . . . from the library.

I let go of my lawyer boyfriend after being with him for lalmost 7 years. Yup, I was with him when he was still hurdling those years that would eventually make him an ATTY (his 4 years in law school which includes his mock bar) and eventually those gruelling review months that would eventually put the period in his ATTY. It wasn't easy being a girlfriend to a person who would move heaven and earth in order to be a lawyer, only to let go when he was already one. It wasn't just once that it crossed my mind that he was unfailrly selfish and self absorbed. He was never there for me but I was there for him. Always. He would assign to me some parts of his review books or even the whole of it, would ask me to read it well orally and record it and he gets the tapes and listen to them on his walkman when he isn't reading or during his "rest periods." I had tonsilitis because of that. Well, he passed the bar, and I guess that's the most important thing. I may have lost the relationship, but not the person.

Posted by jg at June 25, 2005, 5:57 pm

wow! being with a lawyer or a doctor must be very challenging for a gf, and must be boring, too (joke joke). i wonder how a gf of a lawyer or doctor could experience romance. but then, i maybe wrong. maybe a lawyer or a doctor is better in some facet.

hello, JJ! your blog is really DENSE for an average person like me. but i love the thoughts. you still can manage to elicit warm thoughts despite the scholarly expression.

Posted by bing at June 26, 2005, 2:29 pm

sir,

in fairness to my classmates. i don't think the 30 minute estimate for 10 conversations is fair. i remember doing the following:

1. finding the start of my 10 conversations among the 3 or 4 large mp3's.

2. matching the sound file with the transcript (some people were very serious about correcting and translating)

3. playing the parts (30 seconds up to a minute each) once or twice to get the info (i.e. time stamp, metadata) just right.

4. error checking and correction (admittedly, some people missed this one)

5. actual data entry

i had my own 10 conversations and it took me 3 hours. most of the work was done in 4-5.

the output was wonderful. i was able to splice 84 conversations in 4 hours because i wasn't cutting blindly.

Posted by emer at June 26, 2005, 6:26 pm

[1] This gives me an idea. We should do the same for your iBlog question.

:)

Posted by JJ Disini at June 27, 2005, 8:22 am

"It seems to me you're at peace with your decision and that you're still friends. I guess that's important, too."

It was a very painful decison but I had to do it. " And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Hey, it's great to have stumbled upon this treasure-tove of legalese posts. It is really very informative for a non-lawyer and common individual like me. Somehow, it reminds me of the One Who Went Away (or should I say, the One I Let Go?). Keep blogging and keep us legally informed. Be well.

P.S.
how/what will I type on the address bar if I need to go to your site directly? I mean, when I do just that, I am directed to the page where i need to log-in. Most of the time, I use links to access your posts. Sowee, not very tech-ie me.. tnx

Posted by jg at June 27, 2005, 11:02 am

that they submit the data in the correct format by 6 a.m. the next day. That would give them about 18 hours to work (if they didn't sleep).

it took us HOURS to do the transcript. it took me almost an hour to NUMBER the conversations on the PCIJ transcript just so that my block mates would have an easier time finding which conversations they were assigned to. some of us ended up transcribing 5 or more conversations because the cds our friends were given weren't working [and because we loved them and didnt want to let you down [naks ang drama] the people with working copies volunteered to do their parts.] we even got our bisaya apartment mates or block mates to actually check the bisaya conversations. at some point during the evening some of us were saying "kung nag-aral ako for nego - tapos na ako by now"

Posted by rich at June 27, 2005, 7:46 pm

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