The Jeffersonian

On April 23, students, and for the first time, faculty (a special thank you to Dean Jeff Joseph), volunteered their Saturday morning at Father Joe’s Village to help support the ‘Easter Special Meal.’  Father Joe himself said a prayer, which began a wonderful meal.  This was a great opportunity to help those in need, while everyone walked away knowing they had made a difference in the lives of many, in just a few hours.  From 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., volunteers and Father Joe’s staff served over 1,000 meals.

The Student Bar Association would like to thank everyone who was able to come out and support the homeless and Father Joe’s Village.  We would also like to encourage others, including students, professors, deans, and staff to volunteer their time for a great cause at future events.  Father Joe’s is just a few blocks from campus and the community is always in need.

The annual Thomas Jefferson Law Review (TJLR) Writing Competition could be your ticket on to law review.  Membership on law review is known as one of the most prestigious activities one can engage in while in law school.  Membership on law review will also greatly improve your writing ability and legal analysis and may very well be the path to a prominent internship, clerkship, or career.  All of the benefits of membership on law review are too numerous to list.

TJLR automatically invites students onto law review who have either ranked in the top five percent of their class after the first semester or in the top fifteen percent after their second semester of studies.  If you don't fall into one of those categories after your first year, don't fret.  The writing competition could be your answer. 

Students in the top fifty percent of their class, but outside of the top fifteen percent of their class, will receive invitations to participate in the writing competition.  Writing competition entries will be judged and used to determine who will be invited to join TJLR.  All entries will be judged anonymously.  Students participating will receive a private identification number from student services prior to the start of the competition. 

The writing competition will take place in mid to late July and contestants will be allowed nine days to complete the competition.  The competition consists of two portions, a problem and an editing assignment.   The problem will consist of an area of unsettled law in which you must argue, using a closed universe of sources, either one side or the other, or for a solution to the issue.  The editing assignment will check competitor's attention to detail and require editing of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and footnotes.  Complete rules and details will be released this summer as the competition draws near. 

Those that are invited onto TJLR will begin as Staff Associates.  Staff Associates will spend the Fall semester writing Notes.  The Note writing process is a mandatory requirement of TJLR membership and Staff Associates that successfully complete the Note writing process will be invited onto law review as full members of the editorial board.  In order to successfully complete a Note, Staff Associates must satisfy a number of requirements, including word count, number of footnotes, content, and style.  Ultimately, however, the Note must be determined to be of “publishable quality,” as the top several notes will be published in TJLR.   

Students that are interested in joining TJLR should seriously consider participating in the writing competition.  Law review is a great way to increase the strength of your resume and will certainly improve your writing skills.  Many prominent attorneys, judges, and politicians in this country were members of their schools law reviews; wouldn’t you like to follow in their footsteps? 

Invitations to participate in the writing competition will be sent out this July to students who qualify. If you have any other questions about the writing competition or TJLR, please feel free to contact either one of the incoming Chief Notes Editors: Cory Lacy at lacycr@tjsl.edu or James Wolken at wolkenja@tjsl.edu.   

When the students of Thomas Jefferson School of Law elected me as Student Bar Association President, I remember feeling a great sense of joy in my heart, and a great weight on my shoulders.  Now, as the days of this Administration come to an end, I can look back, happy and satisfied.  As an organization, we represented students and brought issues, concerns, and ideas to the forefront and fought for our colleagues.  I kept to the principles that define me, principles that revolve around strong character, ethics, and treating our fellow colleagues, faculty, staff, and the community according to the Golden Rule.  

The Student Bar Association was able to move forward and we gained respect, influence, and effectuated change.  We were able to build upon a great student newspaper and in all of the committees and departments within the Student Bar Association.  Moreover, Student Organizations held great events, communicated wonderfully, and continued the teamwork needed with the Student Bar Association and the Administration. We were able to keep under budget and fundraise money for the students and next year's administration.  We gave back to the students and offered discounts and access to things and events that may have been unthinkable in the past.  We also planned a historic Barristers Ball 2011 at The Westgate Hotel.  This Barristers Ball included District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, Public Defender Henry Coker, and TJSL Trustee Randy Grossman presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Dean Rudy Hasl for his service and commitment to Thomas Jefferson School of Law and Law Schools across the country. 

I am excited about the things the next Administration has in store.  The current Student Bar Association made a great team, while the next SBA is set to move forward, with grace, strength, and a strong quality of leadership.  The Inaugural National Sports Negotiation Competition in the Fall of 2011 is going to add a great value to the school's reputation and recognition, which I personally look forward to seeing through to the end.    We built upon a strong reputation in the local and broader legal community with Bar Representatives.  Our community outreach Committee continued its strong relationship with Father Joe's Villages and the San Diego Community.  We continued our public relations and online development with the students, Student Organizations, Communications, the Web Design team, and the community.   We grew a great athletic intramural program, ran a great and clean election with many candidates and a large turnout, and helped to facilitate changes to the graduation program that will be seen by students and their guests for years to come. With that, I would like to offer the seven (7) things that are a “must” in law school and throughout life: 1. Professionalism: it began before you started law school, but you must learn it and master it before you leave law school.  This applies to email communication, Facebook, what you wear and where you wear it. 2. Networking: this is how you will meet new people, grow in life and knowledge, and earn a job.  Network with 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls, the bar associations, faculty, staff, and local attorneys.  Networking = be friendly, be genuine, be consistent.  3. Get involved: with the Student Bar Association, Student Organizations, Student Leadership and Community Service.  4. "If you sign up, show up."  Be reliable, be on-time, be there.  5. Use the resources available: Faculty, Career Services, Student Services, Financial Aid, Communications, and all staff.

6. Professional Development: sign up for, try out, and work hard with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Society (ADRS), Mock Trial, Moot Court Honor Society, Law Review and other Student Organizations that sponsor academic competitions. 7. Balance: enjoy and have fun as time goes by fast.  If you think law school is difficult, be prepared:  preparing for, taking, and passing the bar exam and finding a job is that much harder.  Do not be worried, applying the above will prepare you. In closing, as graduation approaches, and with the bar exam on the horizon, I can honestly say that the three years I have spent with you in law school have been the best three years of my life.  The Administration believed in the mission and gave us an opportunity, and I promised to give back and make Thomas Jefferson School of Law a better place by the time I left.  I know that as I walk across the graduation stage into my legal career, a legacy has been left and it was our family, teamwork, and support that made that happen.  God bless you, God speed, and thank you.  It has been a pleasure. 

On March 31, 2011 the Criminal Law Society had a panel on prosecutorial misconduct.  The speaker was Mr. Dan Medwed, Professor at the University of Utah.  Professor Medwed now teaches Criminal Law and Evidence at the law school.  In the past, Professor Medwed was a Public Defender in New York City, has done criminal appeals, was involved in the Innocence Project at Brooklyn Law School, and is currently working on publishing a book. As a future criminal defense attorney, I always find it compelling to involve myself in any area of criminal law, including the “other side” of criminal law.  So, it really peaks my interest when I can sit in on something focusing on prosecutorial misconduct, those perceived as the Gods of criminal law and the most perfect and upmost attorneys in the criminal law system.  Professor Medwed’s presentation fittingly was entitled “Prosecutors Gone Bad.”  All through law school everyone is constantly reminding us of ethics and professional responsibility, and I remember Dean Kransberger on the first day of orientation saying that we had peoples’ lives in our hands.  Prosecutors are ministers of justice.  They have two obligations: 1) to enforce justice; and 2) to be the zealous advocate.  They represent all of us, they represent us when someone kills, rapes, steals, and kidnaps.  They represent us when someone hits you with a lead pipe in the face with intent to kill, beats up a gay person or a black person motivated by hate, sexually assaults a child, kills your Grandmother, robs a bank with a gun, and steals your car.  It is the criminal defense attorneys that get the bad rap (“How could you defend someone you know is guilty?”).  Prosecutors make society a better place by enforcing justice and being the zealous advocate. The panel gave us a stark reality and a different look at Prosecutors.  In the end, justice was not enforced and the only zealous advocates were the innocent convicted criminals rotting in prison.  There were stories about three Prosecutors; one where a Prosecutor did not disclose evidence that could exonerate the suspect in custody, one where the Prosecutor refused to run a post-conviction DNA test (that exonerated the inmate) in a rape case, and another rape case that DNA proved innocence in an inmate but the Prosecutor opted to keep fighting the appeal.  In all of these cases, there were innocent people that were sent to prison for crimes they did not commit.  In all of these cases, the Prosecutor played a very large role.  Although Prosecutors represent us, they also represent an amount of pressure that is imposed upon them that leads them to conduct themselves in a manner that does not further justice.  From these cases, it appears that many DA’s offices are focused on winning and lose sight of what they are there to do.  Everyone, including Prosecutors, should be held to the same ethical standards of the criminal justice system.  Regardless of pressure, anyone practicing law should be focused on the client.  In the case of criminal law, that client may go to prison for a very long time if the Prosecutor succumbs to the pressure of securing a conviction, no matter how it is done. In conclusion, Professor Medwed proposed possible penalties on attorneys who knowingly prosecute people that are innocent or interfere with the appeals process for unknown reasons outside of justice.  I agree with Professor Medwed in that in the cases such as these, where there was clear prosecutorial misconduct, there should be no immunity.  Perhaps when I graduate in 2013, this reform will have materialized.    

By Kevin Kampschror