July 5, 2007

Maybe I Need a Better Pick-Up Line

by Armen

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is the feeling I get when I have some sort of a creative idea and then realize that someone else has thought of it long before me. I think I've even blogged about it here, but I'm not sure. The latest rejection comes from two Levinsions. At Balkinization, Sandy Levinson begins a post with:

As readers may recall, I'm a big fan of Daryl Levinson's argument that the Madisonian system of separation of powers cannot withstand the reality of party politics. Or, as he and his co-author Rick Pildes put it in a subsequent Harvard Law Review article, "Separation of Parties, Not Powers." So we have ever more data points to test the thesis.

Crap. I had the same idea this spring when I was reading on the Federal Convention for a paper on Gouverneur Morris. I'm not saying that I thought I was the first to come up with the idea. But I definitely considered a paper suggesting that the Constitutional design just did not contemplate partisan politics. Anyway, now I learn there's an entire thesis out there.

I'll get my big break soon enough. I'm still the first to think of writing a Simpsons and the Law Book. In fact, I practice issue-spotting for the bar by making marginal notes about Simpsons references. Tort negligence question = Homer getting a trampoline, Monorail, any Nick Riviera episode, etc. Elements of Larceny? Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment (1st Amendment issues here too for bonus points). Lionel Hutz is a goldmine for professional responsibility. So there, I think I have a unique contribution to law that no one has yet considered. Back to studying community property using Homer vs. Patty and Selma (Homer blows all their savings on Jack-o-Lanterns predicting that the price increase would continue through October and peak in January).

July 5, 2007 7:18 PM | TrackBack
Comments

One of last year's NY bar exam teachers told people to remember refreshed recollection by something to do with Homer and beer, so I'm not sure that using the Simpsons as a bar exam study aid is original to you either.

Posted by: PG at July 5, 2007 9:22 PM

That just about sums up my bar studying.

Posted by: Armen at July 6, 2007 2:52 AM
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