Spanakopita, Ouzo and a Bouzouki

Yesterday, for the third time in my life, I attended a Greek food festival. My first time was at a Greek Orthodox church in Wilmington, North Carolina a few years ago. The other two have been here. Each fall, the Holy Mother of God Greek Orthodox Church in Tallahassee hosts the event. The crowds are enormous and the lines can be very long. It is worth the trip and the wait, though.

I also attended the festival in 2008 during my first year of law school, along with some of the new friends I made. Volunteers served most of the food from underneath tents set up outside the church, but the dessert pastries were inside the building. Along with a new friend, I stood in a line that wrapped around the church and then wove inside like a maze before we made it to the sweet stuff. After buying some cookies, my friend and I pushed open a door to exit the church. We almost knocked down an old man standing on the other side. In typical new 1L fashion, I began to recite to my friend why he would be subject to tort liability, and he in turn responded with the standard defenses.

That night in 2008, I ate Spanakopita, a Greek spinach pie, for the first time in my life. I remember how delicious it was. The dozens of dining tables under the tents were all occupied, so I sat down on a cinder block at the corner of a parking lot with my Spanakopita and a can of Pepsi. The weather was fantastic. I watched the crowd, looked up at the stars, tasted my food and drink, and noted that at that moment, I was very happy...

Yesterday, I went back to this same festival with many of my same friends from 2008. This time, we went at lunch because of the smaller crowds and the ability to get a table. Again, I had Spanakopita to eat. Again, it was delicious. My friends also convinced me to try a shot of Ouzo, a clear but fiery Greek liquor flavored with anise. I felt the drink go all the way down my esophagus and into my stomach. One shot was enough to make the guy sitting beside me feel the effects. I was okay after one drink, though I am sure another would have gone to my head a little.

We listened to a Greek band play traditional music. The string player was exceptionally good. During one song, he left the stage, leaped up on a table in front of us and began playing his guitar/banjo type instrument behind his head. The crowd applauded him with rhythmic clapping and shouts. A friend of mine who is also Greek explained that his instrument was called a bouzouki.

So, yesterday was a good day. I had a great meal and listened to my friends talk about things such as their comically bad haunted house tour in Monticello the night before. It was another happy moment from law school and Tallahassee.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn

Phonathon

Each year, the law school conducts a three week campaign to collect donations from our graduates. It is called the Alumni Fund Drive or "Phonathon." The money received goes to support various activities at the law school, from scholarships to bringing in guest speakers.

This year I am participating as a caller. "The Red Room," an ornate chamber in the law school rotunda, has been converted into a phone bank where I sit at tables with other law school students and place calls to our alumni all over the country.

It is fun, especially when I get a big donation. The job is very much like sales. To enjoy it and be good at it, I have to purge my mind of negative thoughts and focus on having a positive attitude. I make myself smile when I am on the phone, and I try to envision that the person I am talking with is right in front of me. Of course, these techniques do not always work, and the job gives me some practice in handling rejection- practice that can be quite mentally healthy if I use it the right way. The biggest challenge for me as a caller is actually getting the person I want to talk to on the line, as opposed to voicemail or a secretary saying he or she is not available. When I get the person, a little thrill goes through me as I know my chances for success just went way up.

This year, Phonathon is a little different in that the administrator from Alumni Affairs who usually runs it is out on maternity leave. One of the deans of the law school, Nancy Benavides, and another employee from Student Affairs, Sarah Lowe, have done superbly in transitioning from their normal duties to conduct this event. They are excellent at keeping the student callers motivated and the positive energy flowing. I have worked directly with Sarah in the past, during The Summer for Undergraduates Program. Her versatility and efficiency has always impressed me. Dean Benavides, too, has shown great skill in performing a type of job that may or may not come naturally to her.

Phonathon will continue for two more weeks. Hopefully, we can reach our donation goals. The cause certainly aids the school. Alumni who give help our school ranking in US News and World Report (the magazine uses the statistic of alumni who give as a gauge of satisfaction with their education). The Alumni Fund Drive also provides students with a chance to talk to our attorneys across Florida and the country. One student and friend of mine making calls with me got asked to send in his resume for a possible summer clerkship. Many good things can come from Phonathon, in addition to funds for the school.

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn

The Bar Prep Battles

Last year I became a student sales representative for Kaplan PMBR- in part to avoid paying the approximate $3000 in tuition for a commercial bar preparation class, and in part to practice the skills I began to learn as a salesman at a car dealership in Las Vegas. After earning enough sales for a free class last year, this year I was asked to become the head student rep at the school.

When I first came to law school, I did not believe in the necessity of a bar preparatory course. I thought one of the primary purposes of law school was to teach me what I needed to know to pass the bar exam. After one semester, though, I learned that this not a goal of law school- at least not the better law schools. The best law schools in the country teach you to think about the ideas behind the law and why law has developed as it has. The "black letter law,"- what the law actually says in a given state- is what the bar exam tests, however.

I once tried to compliment a professor by telling her that I appreciated how much black letter law she taught in her course. Unfortunately, she did not take that as a compliment. Teaching the black letter law is the easy part, she told me. I now understand that many professors consider it beneath them to teach black letter law.

The commercial bar prep course a student takes after graduation from law school is supposed to teach the black letter law. The theory is that if you are smart enough to be in law school, then you are smart enough to learn the black letter law in the two months in between graduation and the administration of the bar exam.

The faculty of Florida State Law even recommends an outside bar prep course- though not one company specifically.

In Florida, there are really only two choices for a bar prep company- Kaplan PMBR or Barbri. Both companies offer a course that begins shortly after graduation in mid May and runs into July right up to the administration of the bar exam.

My experience as head sales rep for Kaplan PMBR thus far has been enjoyable and interesting. Many of the students treat sales like a game, which is fine. But for the regular employees of the companies, this sales business is their livelihood. Kaplan PMBR is part of a conglomerate owned by the Washington Post, and Barbri is a subsidiary of the Thomson Reuters information company. The customer base (law school students) is a captive one. Almost all of the students will eventually realize that they need a bar prep course. The competition for the enrollments of these students has been amusingly intense at times this semester.

It is fun. Trying to close a sale is a nice distraction from legal research, and the atmosphere of selling brings back some fond memories of Las Vegas for me. Law school selling is nothing like the sharks tank of a dealership where I worked out in the desert, though. The salesmen I met out in Vegas were some of the most colorful characters I have ever encountered. Perhaps in a future entry I will describe some of them.

Hopefully, the bar prep battles at Florida State Law bring good results for the students. Competition keeps the price from spiraling way up, though the courses are expensive enough as it is. The competition between Kaplan PMBR and Barbri also insures that the companies will do their best to offer a quality product that gets results.

The bar exam is now on the visible horizon. I filed my conversion application with the Florida Board of Bar Examiners earlier this week.

A bar prep course is a necessary part of the law school experience. So, see me if you want to enroll with a great program! : )

Until Next Time,

Nathan Marshburn