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Sunday, March 22, 2015

At Your Service

A short break from midterms to pen a quick note.

A few twists and turns to speak of:

The scholarship student of the Peoria County Bar Association is now the law clerk for Catholic Charities Legal Services, via the St. Thomas More Lawyers’ Guild.

I attended a Red Mass, and saw a Cardinal in the flesh for the first time; something of a magical thing amidst a most moving occasion.

A man of great kindness befriended me, and introduced me to a number of lobbyists, as I have some interest in lobbying myself.  I sat to dinner with a state legislator who is a walking encyclopedia of credit unions, and an expert in all manner of financial institutions.

I also met an Illinois Supreme Court Justice, who turned out to be the former place-kicker for the American football team, the Chicago Bears.  It was quite impressive as he spoke with frank and humble admiration of the late Walter Payton, the star running back for the Bears, who was, by any measure, a great leader, a man of uncommon goodness and character, as well as a talented and skilled athlete.  Ordinary men can be capable of extraordinary things— this I will surely remember.

I discovered that I have an intuitive knowledge of required structure in the shaping of law.  I am sure this will be put to use one day.

Should our Prairie Stars do well, which they most certainly will, by all rights, with yours truly as the “swing,” I should be arguing before U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor next March (I was the only one in class that recognized her from a photo; but, granted, this was a cross-listed class with a bunch of beef-headed criminal justice majors).  For those unfamiliar with moot court, the competitions are staged in teams of three; where one argues one side, another argues the other, while the “swing” argues both sides.  Of course, arguing both sides of an issue is something which comes quite natural to me.  I can’t imagine there would be any better at it.

At present, I have a hearing to prepare for, a continuing maintenance in dissolution action (“maintenance” is the new term for alimony, and “dissolution” is the new word for divorce), with new laws that went into effect at the first of the year; a petition to an appellate court that I’m working on, and hopefully in time to send the arguments section to our debate champion to spy out any soft spots; and four essays on 19th cent. American law— all due by Monday.  And then an essay on a topic I can’t quite recall at present to be due on Thursday.

Which is to say, I am quite busy for now.

For months now I have internally debated on whether to set up another site, leaving this to hang as a lantern extinguished.  Surely I will as time permits.

I sincerely hope that my faithful readers (all three of you!) make the move with me.  My world is enriched for your presence.  I will provide a link here when that time has come.


Though good laws do well, good men do better.
—— William Penn


I die the king’s good servant, and God’s first.
—— St. Thomas More


I will close with the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., for whose publication, available to the general public, I was prosecuted criminally; and exactly as I had printed it then.  If you wonder how a person can be prosecuted for posting the words of MLK, I will explain it to you as I have explained to more than seventy others, and no one has questioned this explanation yet:

I can tell you in four words why I was prosecuted for making publicly available the words of MLK:
1) Saint, 2) Louis, 3) County, 4) Missouri.

“[U]nenforceable obligations are beyond the reach of the laws of society.  They concern inner attitudes, genuine person-to-person relations, and expressions of compassion which law books cannot regulate and jails cannot rectify.  Such obligations are met by one’s commitment to an inner law, written on the heart.  Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love.”

---ML King, jr
Strength to Love
p. 37

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