I read John Grisham's book, The Associate, this week. I enjoyed the story (notwithstanding my expectation of a different ending).
In a brief part of the book, the main character (a recent Yale law grad) is preparing for the bar exam. This sentence caught my eye:
"During three years of law school, they had dreaded the day they would be forced to revisit the murky world of federal taxation or the tedium of the Uniform Commercial Code, but the day was at hand." (pages 124-25)
Federal taxation "murky"?
The UCC "tedious"?
BLASPHEMY!!!
OK, tax and UCC folks, is it time for a Grisham boycott? Paul Caron, are you with me?
Oh, Tim – don't be so upset. Lesser lawyers like Grisham don't understand the true marvels of the UCC. You can't expect too much from them. I mean, they can only write blockbuster novels. When was the last time Grisham wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review??
Does the book have anything to say about the Erie doctrine?
More to the point, what is federal taxation law doing on a state bar exam?
Yeah, I had the same thought. Is federal taxation tested on the New York bar exam? Or is there a hole in Mr. Grisham's research?
What? No mention of the Rule against Perpetuities?
All I remember about the RAP is (1) the number 21 is rather important (as in blackjack, yes?), and (2) it played an important role in the movie Body Heat.
Three recent law school grads are waiting to take the NY bar exam. One is from Brooklyn Law, one is from Harvard and the third is from Yale.
The Harvard student comes up to the Brooklyn student and asks him to explain the NY rule on comparative negligence.
The Yale student overhears the conversation and asks, what's a tort?
Federal Income Tax was on the Pennsylvania bar exam when I took it (a little over 10 years ago). Don't know about NY.
There was no tax on the New York bar exam back when I took it, what, five years ago now. And nobody I know who has taken it since has said anything about the possibility of tax. Too bad, that.
The key work in that sentence is "revisit"–it assumes the Yale grad actually took such practical, bar-tested courses in law school, as opposed to a seminar on "The Rule of Law on 'Survivor'".