A sad day; a long post
It’s a sad day when two beloved institutions clash, but that’s what happened late last week. On the one hand, we have the Mr. Wolverine contest – entertaining, beloved annual Law School male-“beauty”-contest of the last six years. On the other, we have the Res Gestae, the Law School paper, itself an institution of almost sixty years’ duration, according to the most recent issue. While perhaps less consistently entertaining than Mr. Wolverine, the RG has the advantage of a Latin title. (I am not too proud to admit that every time I learned a Latin legal phrase in law school, I stood a little taller. Metaphorically, in any event.) (Fond memories intrude of the time a classmate used the phrase “ipso pipso” in class, perhaps meaning to say ipse dixit, or maybe ipso facto, which earned him a long, cold, horrified stare from Professor St. Antoine, perhaps one of the nicest human beings on the planet, who in my opinion bears an uncanny resemblance to Gregory Peck.) In any event, I am deeply fond of both Mr. Wolverine and the RG.
But I digress. Back to the titanic clash. The RG ran an article on the previous week’s Mr. Wolverine contest, making the claim that the contest was “unprecedented” for its “crowning of a 1L Mr. Wolverine. … For the entirety of the competition’s storied six-year history, 3Ls have exclusively won the coveted crown.” The article then goes on to quote a wide swath of enraged and/or saddened 3Ls, expressing their dismay.
Never mind that the author almost certainly meant “exclusively 3Ls have,” since I’m pretty sure that 3Ls have long been doing other things besides winning the coveted crown. The deeper problem here is that this claim is false. The inaugural Mr. Wolverine contest was won by 1L nonpareil Adam Dubinsky, a score clinched by a dead-on imitation of Professor Krier and a to-die-for basso profundo harmony in an a cappella Proud Mary (although the latter was, to be fair, eclipsed by the melody part sung by then-1L finalist Tim Caballero).
Naturally, this error cried out for correction, and I was forced to send a sternly worded email to the estimable author, explaining that I was shocked and appalled and threatening suit on behalf of the defamed Dubinsky. (I also included the RG editor-in-chief as a recipient, because I like to tattle, but she just ignored me. She’s very bad about answering emails. Yes, I am calling you out on the worldwide web, Rooks.) The author’s response was quick, and heart-gladdeningly lawyerly. He quite reasonably assigned responsibility to the law library, which allegedly does not have an adequate collection of past RG issues readily available, and immediately moved to join the law library as a necessary party under Fed. R. Civ. P. 19 . And then, in a clever legal strategy twist that I did not foresee, he further moved to disqualify me as counsel for Dubinsky on the ground of likely collusion between me and my colleague, the library director. At which point he apparently amazed even himself, observing, “I must really miss law classes to be leaping through such preposterous procedural hoops.” Our Author is a dual-degree student doing a year at the School of Public Health, you see. And the Federal Rules really get in the blood.
Our story would not be complete, however, without a word from the original Mr. Wolverine, whom I of course cc’ed. (I’m sure it’s inappropriate to threaten a lawsuit on someone’s behalf without at least cc’ing them to alert them.) And that’s how I was led to recall what I had forgotten—apparently I have a serious habit of emailing RG contributors with corrections. (Note to blog readers: no reason to get any ideas.) Turns out, according to Dubinsky:
Uh-oh. The last time Sarah C. Zearfoss was shocked and appalled after reading the R.G. was during an admitted students weekend in 2007, when my story on the front page of the latest edition began, “If any of you have had. …”
I would like to say something comforting. I would like to help mitigate that feeling of shame, of your heart falling through your stomach, upon discovering that you have appalled our Great Mater. But I can’t. It never goes away. You will carry it with you for the rest of your lives. My every morning begins with a silent prayer: Let my verbs agree with the appropriate subject. It is a mantra I repeat before I begin legal memoranda. Let my verbs agree with the appropriate subject. I collapse into unconsciousness at night, relieved at surviving another grammatically passable day, but toss and turn in a sweaty tangle of worry over tomorrow’s word processing. Let my verbs agree with the appropriate subject.
Am I distressed that my legend has faded into obscurity? No. That is my design. What is this legend of mine? 1L and first Mr. Wolverine, yes. And the first Mr. Photogenic too – don’t forget that. (Curse you Sam Erman for stealing Mr. Congeniality from me!) But also ungrammatical Zearfoss appaller. There is no crown or trophy for that. No after-party.
While I appreciate the ironic ferocity with which SCZ leapt to the defense of my legend, my heart goes out to you*. I will not be pressing charges.
A happy ending! And after I got over my initial shame at being a crank, and a forgetful crank at that, I decided I was really happy to have a role in increasing the amount of verb-noun agreement in this world.
But now that I have gone to town on the RG‘s fact-checking, let me throw this bone: the author got one very important point very right. The Mr. Wolverine contest is a lot of work (and it saddens me that I lack the fortitude to use the far more colorful phrase of the author in describing the amount of work it is). “What would compel anybody to take on an additional 20 hours of work per week when law students can barely keep up with the work we already have on our plates?,” he asks. I’ll tell you what: philanthropy. As I mentioned in any earlier post, late January is a time of year crying out for a little fun, and Mr. Wolverine provides it in spades. I hereby move that the contestants get full pro bono credit for the endeavor.
-Dean Z.
Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions