a musing ames

My academic interests have taken an unexpected turn: into the realm of law and history that deals specifically with women. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise. I am, after all, a woman. But more importantly, over the last two and a half years I have really been seeking God’s guidance in what that means. After reading Genesis 1:27 in a new light, I couldn’t keep saying that the differences between men and women were minimal and insignificant. I embarked on understanding what unique way God may have for me, as a woman, to reflect His image.

But I didn’t think this spiritual, and even social, pursuit would bleed into my intellectual sphere. This semester, it did. For my masters degree (and my law degree, I guess), I took two different constitutional history classes, one on the history of the constitution during the 20th century, and the other specifically on the first forty years of the 20th century. And in both classes, the cases and readings that were most interesting to me were those that had to do with women. (Granted, we didn’t do very much reading on religion and the constitution. I suppose that will have to wait for another semester or independent study.)

Illustrative story: To kill some time before one of these classes, I started doing reading for the other one for the next day. As I read an account of women’s struggle to gain the right to vote in the early part of the past century, when I reached the part where the last state needed finally approved the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, I teared up. I quickly cleared my eyes before the rest of my classmates entered the room, seeing as I was only one of two women in the whole class and such displays of emotion are not looked upon well in the legal academy.

Now, all though my exams are over, I still have a paper to write. And I’m writing it on the way that the law regulated women between 1924 and 1937. I won’t get into the details (no one wants to read about them on a blog, trust me). But as I am pouring through the secondary sources, searching for evidence to support my thesis, I’m finding myself utterly confused.

As I read about these laws that were “protective” in nature, some women academics are complaining that these laws were sneaky ways for men to keep women down. Other women authors acknowledge that they ended up having a discriminatory effect, but that it was accidental. The latter tends to be the view I side with. But what gets me is that the former gets so bent out of shape about these laws forgetting one thing: it was women who lobbied for them to be passed! Men (business owners and the like) were actually opposed to the protective legislation because it was too expensive to implement.

Dealing with how the law treats women in different circumstances is still a controversial question in society and constitutional law. There are many who are in support of a doctrine that would say that men and women must be treated equally. Some don’t want formal equality because they think that women will lose their privileged status in society.

Where I stand, I’m still not quite sure. But it brings me back to that day God revealed to me something I’d never seen before in Genesis 1:27. Yes, men and women were created equal, created in the image of God. But, we were created different. The differences are important. How secular law should reflect this fundamental reality, I still don’t know. But I have a feeling that figuring that out might be one reason that I’m in law school.

Yesterday I made the most amazing discovery of my law school career (which is, by the way, only a week and a half shy of being halfway over): horn books.

Now, I had heard of horn books before. My first semester, the lady at the law bookstore encouraged me to buy one for my criminal law class. When she said I wouldn’t have any assignments out of it, I wondered, “why would I buy a book I don’t have to read?” and kindly declined the offer.

As that first semester wore on, I heard more about horn books. They were good for finding black letter law. In fact, in judicial opinions, if the judge thinks the law is clear, she will often write, “it is horn book law that…” But they seemed to have a bad reputation with my professors. They may help you understand the basics, but not the analysis of the case. If we were studying the way we were supposed to, most of our professors said, we would have no need for horn books. So I smuggly patted myself on the back for not buying the crim horn book.

At the end of that semester, turns out I did alright (the lowest grade being the crim class), but, I dismissed horn books as something I would never use in my law school experience because they were a needless crutch.

Fast-forward to today. I have a Civil Rights Litigation Exam an hour the time I am writing this post. I’ve gone to all of the classes, and have found the material interesting. But I knew there were somethings from early in the semester that I didn’t have a firm grasp on. In addition to the fact that 50% of my class is on Law Review, I was worried my lack of familiarity with the subject matter would have a negative impact on my grade. Remember, law school exams are often 100% of your final grade, and graded on a mandatory curve.

The last day, I noticed that there were a number of people in the class with a horn book. I went to the bookstore to check it out for myself, but when I saw that it was over $60 and I really only needed a couple of chapters from it, I again thought it would be a useless crutch. But after four days of study from my book and notes, I knew that I needed something to fill in the gaps. I went to the library, got the horn book out of the reserve room and made the necessary copies.

As I went through the materials, I wondered, why haven’t I ever used one of these before? Everything is spelled out clearly, no obscurity that law textbooks love to include. And it says what happened in each case, the holding, what’s good about it, what’s wrong with it. My whole class was in this book. It was so much better than my textbook for learning the material. I spoke with some friends about it, and they said they had had similar epiphanies about the use of horn books, and thought the professors should just use them instead of textbooks.

As I was contemplating this last night, I thought about how legal studies parallel studying the Bible. Both are exercises in hermeneutics. And the thought comparison gave me pause about the horn book. I would never, never, never tell someone to read a book about the Bible over reading the Bible itself. Yes, they might be helpful to orient yourself with a particular passage or topic of Scripture, but ultimately, you can’t throughout the Bible and just read books about it. You have to keep reading the original source.

As much as we may complain about reading cases, they are the original source–why should I be happy reading a book about the source rather than the source itself? As an historian, this makes sense, you have to read the original. But then again, there is not a divine spirit of legal illumination whispering in my ear the proper case law interpretation that judge will hold me to when I argue a case in court.

So it’s not a perfect parallel. But it has reaffirmed my understanding of the need to feast on the Bible first and foremost, returning to it as the ultimate source. As for horn books, I may still never buy one.  will after all be held accountable for what was in the casebook, not the horn book. But they are quite helpful, and now I know where they are in the library…

Either way, ready or not, I need to get going, and take this exam!

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” 1 John 1:1-4.

I have spent a good part of my summer vacation from law school in the courtroom, not yet practicing as an attorney, but observing proceedings, hearings, and trials as an intern.  One of the trials I was able to observe involved a man who was accused of witness intimidation in another case against him the court.  He was trying to have the witness against him kidnapped so that she could not testify in court.  If she did testify, her eye witness account of what he had done to her would surely convince a jury, causing him to spend a significant portion of his life in jail.

Witnesses are key to proving your case in court.  And as I studied 1 John 1:1-4 last week, I see how important witnesses are even in the Great Controversy.  The book of 1 John was written in part to combat some of the things that were being said at the end of the first century about Jesus that were not correct, ideas of gnosticism and such.  John is establishing that he has the authority to speak, authority to say who Jesus really is because he has witnessed Him, he has experienced Him.

In this day, where people say that Jesus is a great teacher, a moral man, but not the Son of God, the importance for each child of God to have not just an intellectual knowledge of our Lord, but an experience of Him, so we can testify to who He really is.

In the reality that is the Great Controversy, God is on trial.  He is on trial for not being the loving God that Scripture declares Him to be.  The jury is still out for those who have not yet made a decision one way or another for Christ.  As much as Jesus is our lawyer (1 John 2:1), representing us in our judgment before Heaven, we serve as an advocate, a respresentative for God’s character on this earth.  Not just as representatives or lawyers defending Christ, but witnesses to what He has done personally in my life, and in yours.

People are misrepresenting the character of God to the eternal detriment of those who come in contact with the felonious argument.  Can He get a witness to who He really is?

I’ve heard it said, “Bible students should know their Bibles as well as law students know their cases.”

Right now, I’m kind of wishing I knew my cases as well as I know my Bible.

At this time in the semester, perspective is imperative: Matthew 6:33.

I just realized something as I reflected on this past week.  Everything I’ve been told I needed to know about law and etiquette this week, I learned from canvassing.

Example #1:  Lawyers cannot use futility as an excuse to attempt to keep their client from wrong doing.

Lawyers know the law.  As in house counsel, they know when those that they represent may be doing something wrong.  Even if they think that the people they are representing will not cease and disist from their wrongful behavior, the lawyer is obligated to tell the client they should stop, and why.

But I already learned this.  As canvassers, we can’t use futility as an excuse either.  We know God’s law in a way that non-believers don’t, and it’s up to us to tell those who are within our sphere of influence what He expects from us.  We knock on every door.  Even if we don’t think they’ll respond well.  Because the truth is, just as with the lawyers, you never know, the person you are telling may actually respond and get that book.

Example #2:  You must find creative ways of making friends quickly for networking sake.

When attending a social function hosted by your law firm, you are expected to network with a whole bunch of people you may not know.  Most people don’t like talking to strangers, it doesn’t come naturally to us, at least not to me.  But talk you must.  You can try talking about any random thing: their shirt, their practice area, whatever.  One of the most effective ways is to get people talking about themselves.  If this is still something you have trouble with, practice all the time: at the grocery store, mall, post office.

But this is something I also picked up how to do canvassing.  If you don’t want that door slammed on your face, and you want an opportunity to let the person know about the precious books you are carrying, you have to make friends quickly.  What did our leaders say?  Talk about the dog, their nice yard, their kids, what their hobbies are.  Find anything to talk about that they like so they can associate that with you.

Example #3: One minute commercial.

While networking with people, you need to have the one minute commercial of yourself so you can let people know who you are, who they are dealing with.

This is something else I learned canvassing.  Identify yourself, quickly (one minute is way too long), and explain what you are doing at the person’s door.  And keep it simple, that way, they can remember you.

To think, I earned money learning these lessons the first time…