The Hitchhiker's Guide to Law School
This book By Author Brian Herbert Wilson Jr., is the quintessential guide for any law student. This is not an action packed thriller will leave you breathless, but it may help you get through law school!

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Professor L.M. Nilas is a fictional character created by B.H. Wilson, Jr. the insights in this section are intended to be a lighter anecdotal viewpoint, but don’t be fooled, there is an abundance of wisdom here.

 

 

 

-          Of Course the Bar Exam is rigged but don’t let that stop you, you can’t practice law without passing, if you don’t take it, you don’t get a license.

 

-          Guard your reputation above all else, if you lose it, you can’t get it back.

 

-          Always use experts, they will tell you how and why it can’t be done, then you can prove them wrong.

 

-          If you do use experts, be sure you are too.

 

-          If the testimony can’t be expressed in physical numbers, it is opinion.

 

-          It is well established that a person can testify as to speed, the question is whether the person testifying is up to speed.

 

-          If you don’t like the person in the mirror, how can you expect the jury to?

 

-          A motion to Adjourn is always a good idea.

 

-          Sometimes a lawyer will move for a motion in lemonade which probably makes sense.

 

-          I have also heard some pro se parties seek to squash a motion, which also makes sense.

 

-          No State has the right to deprive you of life, liberty or property, unless they want to.

 

-          Man has legislated away many bizarre things, the greatest is common sense.

 

-          The rights laid down by the founding father are life, liberty and property, but the government only needs a rationally based reason to take them away.

 

-          The Supreme Court of the United States has told us that there are “fundamental” rights that are not found in the Constitution, the Government needs to prove the highest most compelling reason to take these away.

 

-          Be sure you understand the difference between Constitutional Law that is written down and the type made up by judges; they have the same force of law, but arise from totally different sources.

 

-          Mankind is not created equal.

 

-          God loves you, some restrictions apply.

 

-          God did not give you inalienable rights, man made that up.

 

-          God did give you some inalienable facts; two of these are birth and death.

 

-          Man did not give you inalienable rights either.

 

-          What are inalienable rights?  If life is an inalienable right, why do women have a fundamental right to choose?

 

-          If one insists there are inalienable rights, direct him to the Sudan, or have him pick any third world place of his choosing, bring lots of food, water and medicine, and just for good measure bring the United States Constitution along for some bed time reading.  If he survives the first night, it won’t be long before he burns the Constitution for heat.

 

-          All real inalienable rights come from within.  First, if a man truly believes himself to be free, he can never be enslaved or truly captured, though the liberty is removed, his Spirit shall always be that of a free man.  Second, the base definition of inalienable means “cannot be removed” or divested from a person, this means that a true inalienable right begins and ends with the heart.

 

-          This is why a truly free people can never be conquered until they have been broken of the will to fight.  This is why the true battle is for the hearts and minds of the masses.

 

-          The conqueror can never give inalienable rights to his conquest because those conquered cannot appreciate the cost associated with the sacrifice of trading the privilege of liberty with the moral duty required to keep social decay from entering the city gates.

 

-          If you feed a man fish for a day he will probably want some wasabi to go with it.  If you teach him to fish he will destroy the eco-system, if you give him inalienable rights he will sit on his couch and apply for government assistance and get all the fish he can eat for free and then gripe because the country is going to hell. 

 

-          A generation, who fails to observe the past, has no future.

 

-          Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. He said that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”.

 

-          The Common law is based on hundreds of dead white guys who wanted to control the world.

 

-          Dead white guys are controlling the world.

 

-          Thank God for the Common law.

 

-          Those dead white guys were actually pretty smart.

 

-          During the history of mankind, people have continuously tried to eradicate poverty.  Civilizations are built on this notion.  In the same way, the law helps mankind to harness the civility of the nation by force of arms what otherwise people ought to do on their own.  When people must be forced into moral choices not from conscience but from compulsion, poverty is not far away. 

 

-          Laws are required for a civilized nation because people must be compelled to do by force of arms what by good conscience they should have done voluntarily.

 

-          Men everywhere should have a greater respect for the right to be involved in making laws, than in respecting the laws created by men.

 

-          Liberty and peace are rarely seen in the same place at the same time; they are opposites and cannot coexist because true liberty comes only at the price of force of arms.  Once the force of arms is used to procure peace, to keep the peace liberty is sacrificed.

 

-          The separation of Church and State has been accepted as a foundational precept of the union.  That is to say that Church’s are not supposed to be in the business of direct government.  This is a truly revolutionary concept that does not exist anywhere in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or any of the founding documents.

 

-          A Church, defined is a group of people who follow a conscious dictate either by gathering in a location or by following a teaching.

 

-          Governments are in the business of controlling the behavior of the citizen through moral dictate.  Thus, what may have morally reprehensible in the time of Thomas Jefferson is the norm today, some call this progressive, others call this depravity.  In either case, it is the Supreme Court who has the final authority over what that moral dictate looks like.

 

-          The Supreme Court is the head of the “State” Church of the United States.

 

-          In the United States the moral barometer has been abdicated to the Supreme Court and is enforced by the President, or so they think. 

 

-          Any Church which challenges the Supreme Court on matters of moral efficacy is deemed to be extremist and not progressive.

 

-          The United States was founded by religious extremists, who were white, male and tyrannical but never the less walked by faith.

 

-          In a civilized society, a person who is called a civil servant is really a civil master.

 

-          Of course our form of government is flawed, but it is so much better than all the others.

 

-          When the Government has the right to print money without oversight, they will do it a lot, because it seems good at the time.

 

-          If you see a law class called, “law and (fill in the blank some social pet project, like animals ect….)……..” don’t take it!  It won’t help you earn any money.

 

-          History does not record a nation long endured, that did not have a fixed position based on a strict moral code that included a protection against the abuse of women and children.  When both women and children are disregarded, entropy is not far behind.

 

-           A Republic is a representative form of government, a democracy on the other hand is a system of one man one vote, and the United States has a Republic.

 

-          All systems of government will work, given enough time and money.  But not all systems of government are good for the people. 

 

-          Self governed, hmmmm, is that what we have?

 

-          Trials are based on facts, but jurors vote for the best lawyer.

 

-          The Best lawyer understands the voting process of jurors and therefore, begins building his case during law school.

 

-          Trying a case is like charting a course on the ocean, it is an adventure, an undertaking with an uncertain outcome.

 

-          God forgives, judges can’t and are not asked to, they are charged with the task of seeking justice.

 

-          Indeed, If God’s sole purpose was justice; we should be afraid, very afraid.

 

-          Judges are bound by the legal code, best to remember that justice has nothing to do with it.

 

-          The credibility of a witness has nothing to do with his ability to tell the truth.

 

-          The bible does not command not to lie, it does command not to bear false witness, (which of course is a lie) so if you must lie, pick the forum very carefully.

 

-          You can specialize as a lawyer, but why? 

 

-          A law school graduate has learned just enough law to go out into the world to commit malpractice.

 

-          Legal writing is not something you need to be ashamed of, but if you do it, don’t tell anyone and be sure to wash your hands after you are finished.

 

-          In truth the legal community has been given a bad rap, 99% of the lawyers have given the rest of us a bad name.

 

-          Lawyer math is simple.  Bill for your hours, keep track of your taxes, doesn’t commingle client’s funds and most of all understand that it is clients who pay the bill.

 

-          A law practice is built on relationships.  Know your clients because in the end they will be your best friend or turn out to be your enemy.

 

-          The biggest mistake a lawyer can make is to not call your clients back.

 

-          Don’t bore your clients with legal jargon, tell them what they really need to know, you care about them.

 

-          As a lawyer you are scrutinized far more than the average person, therefore, remember that you are always on “stage” be alert and ready to give an account, tell the truth and look the part.  Even if you don’t really know the answer, if you look good, they may not notice, you don’t have a clue.

 

-          When societies grow to the extent that a stop and frisk is conducted and an I.D. is required to get into and out of court, you live in a police state.

 

-          A police state is one in which social servants give you peace and safety at the cost of freedom.

 

-          Ignorance cannot be cured by throwing more money at the problem, any more than taking a pig to college will educate them not to play in their own pooh.  But at least if you take a pig to college it would be funny.

 

-          Never underestimate the power of ignorance. The only cure is education.

 

-          Latin is a dead language that is why the law uses it, since no one understands it.

 

-          Latin is a dead language so Lawyer can charge more for explaining to their client what it means.

 

-          Liberty is a tool of the free, safety is a tool of the Master.

 

-          Laws do not make men more just, just more powerful.

 

-          Be cautious of saying, “let me be honest with you” it tells the listener you have not been honest before.

 

-          Never embellish your accomplishments.  It tells the world you are ashamed of the truth.

 

-          Consider the banking industry and remember that bankers are not there to earn money for you, they are there to make money for themselves, any money you earn because of a bank pales in comparison to what they earned with your money.

 

-          Banks don’t lend out their own money, they lend out the money saved by others, and this means that banks are using other people’s money to make money, that’s pretty cool.

 

-          Compound interest is the greatest tool of the rich.

 

-          As a rule of thumb capitalism is the art of manipulating or turning land, capitol and labor into profit that is privately held in order to trade for other land, capitol or labor.  This means that the individual must put one of the three into play in the world’s market.  In other words, you must have land, labor or money to trade for other goods and services.  If you don’t have any land or money you are left with labor.  This is why most of the world works for a living, we call this a job.

 

-          Most people are not capitalists; they are laborers only because they fail to recognize the true value of the labor they provide.

 

-          When a laborer trades his future labor for luxuries today, he has become a debtor to the person with the money. This is why the borrower is always servant to the lender.

 

-          The Chinese own the largest number of Treasury Bills issued by the United States.

 

-          True freedom exists only in the freedom from things, to be truly free; one must live without the fear of loss, fear of others and fear of poverty.  In essence to be truly free, you must be able to create a place fully self reliant, without fear of the strong man taking it away.  Good luck on this planet.

 

-          The Romans built a society based on concrete. Cool.

 

-          Any doubt that the Roman’s engineered the modern world?

-          The bargaining process or contract law is the base of all civilized society.  Man must trade his goods or services with others to survive and mankind is the only creature on the planet who does so, just think about it, when was the last time you witnessed cats getting together to trade mice.

 

-          The loudest person in the room is most insecure.

 

-          When opposing counsel asks you to step outside of the courtroom just before trial and becomes the loudest person in the discussion, they are afraid of going to trial.

 

-          Always be prepared to go to trial. Never rely on the possibility of settlement.

 

-          Hope for settlement, work for settlement, pray for the best and bring the entire arsenal of weapons and be ready on a hair trigger to use them.

 

-          The best way to never get caught bluffing, is to never bluff.

 

-          History is full of men who believed they could solve the problems of the world within themselves.  For eons they have tried to rid the world of absolutes, citing examples of religious vanity and a lack of scientific proof of God.  In the end, faith has long endured and become the bedrock of both camps.  Indeed, faith is essential to any system of belief and swallows up any notion of man’s self rightness.  Finally, it appears that a society must have faith whether in the existence of a moral compass or in the lack thereof.  The first is a “person” by which to guide them the latter is God, you have to choose which is best for you, and commit to it.

 

-          The only thing man has limited control over is his decisions.

 

-          Man is judged by his decisions.

 

-          Clinically speaking there is no proof of life after death.  But then there is no clinic proof there is not.  In either case, there is no proof that is why it is called faith.

 

-          Faith is a verb.

 

-          Reliance on Faith is courage.

 

-          Courage fully developed is Conviction.

 

-          Conviction is the willingness to stake one’s very existence on the extent of their purpose. This is why people die for their Faith.

 

-          Conviction motivates men to do things unthinkable while sober.

 

-          Conviction defined is the certainty of giving the fullest devotion and greatest measure of sacrifice to the extent of your purpose or in other words, I will do this or die trying.

 

-          Never challenge a man to a dual of convictions unless you are willing to test his, because the other man is most willing for you to test yours and will certainly oblige you. 

 

-          Soldiers are not asked to have conviction, but they are asked to have honor.  As a rule, men don’t die for honor, but they will kill for honor.

 

-          A soldier was never tasked with dying for their country, dead soldiers can’t defend the nation, their job is to get the other guy to die for his country and do it honorably.

 

-          If a soldier says he is not afraid, he is lying.

 

-          Fear is a great motivator, exceeded only by the motivation of Love.

 

-          The opposite of Love is not hate, but fear.

 

-          Half hearted efforts create half hearted results, so give yourself with full conviction to your efforts and your reward will be manifest.  Choose to be the architect of your work, to assemble your industry based on a calculated cost that you are willing to pay, and then pay the price of your effort.  The pain you encounter will no doubt arrange an introduction to your strengths.  What will remain will be a legacy for future generations to marvel at, strive for, and admire, for you will have conquered the greatest enemy of the human heart, fear.