The Student Newspaper of the New York University School of Law

THE COMMENTATORVol. XLI, No. 4 November 8, 2007

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Are Christmas trees nature’ssilent killer?

Fun with Boxes – can you solveour puzzle?

Fall Ball! OMG Parties!

BY BEN KLEINMAN ’08

Most of us know they exist.Many of us suspect they wieldgod-like power. Those who fol-low their lives sometimes callthem the “elect.” They are clerksfor the Justices of the UnitedStates Supreme Court.

And this year, Leila K.Thompson ’05 is one of them.

Ms. Thompson was reluc-tant to respond to our interviewquestions because of an under-standable concern about step-ping on toes, preserving deco-rum, etc. So reluctant, in fact, thatshe ultimately decided not toparticipate. The Commentatorrespects that. But The Commiefelt that it should let folks knowthat we do have a body at theCourt, and we decided to do alittle bit of research.

A little bit.First off, the basics. Thomp-

son just began clerking for JusticeClarence Thomas. Relatively quieton the bench, many readers maybe more familiar with the Justicefrom his recently released book MyGrandfather’s Son or from his stintas head of the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission.

Thompson started at NYULaw in 2002, entering as anAnBryce Scholar. She had a re-markably impressive set of expe-riences here: she summered fortwo firms, was a Robert McKayScholar, was on Law Review…and the list goes on. Beforeclerking for Justice Thomas,she clerked f i rs t for JudgeRoyce C. Lamberth on the D.C.District Court and then forJudge David B. Sentelle on theD.C. Court of Appeals.

One of Thompson’srecommenders was ProfessorClay Gillette. Modestly claimingthat he doesn’t get asked to writethat many Supreme Court clerk-ship recommendations becausehe has little in the way of per-sonal relationships with the Jus-

BY LAURIE STARK ’10

The first Town Hall meet-ing of the year was held on theafternoon of Halloween inVanderbilt Hall. These meet-ings are a chance for the en-tire law school community tomeet with Dean Revesz as wellas other administrators tovoice their concerns, ask ques-tions, and be the first to hearabout late-breaking news thataffects the law school.

Dean Revesz opened themeeting with the exciting newsthat Pascale Walker, a familiarface to many NYU Law stu-dents, has been selected as thenew Assistant Dean for Stu-

NYU Grad Selected forClerkship with SupremeCourt Justice Thomas

Dean Revesz Addresses BurningIssues at Law School Town Hall

tices and his subject areas arenot in the Court’s gaze, he be-trays little pride in the idea thathe now has a former studentclerking and thus must have builtup some credibility.

Gil let te does, however,show a lot of pride in Thomp-son. She was one of his stu-dents in Torts her first year, didresearch for him her secondsummer, and then wrote a di-rected research paper under hissupervision. “After her gradu-ation, I asked her to co-authoran article with me on a subjectrelated to her directed researchpaper,” said Gillette. “She isthe only student I have everasked to serve as a co-author.”

Why was Gillette so takenwith now-clerk Thompson?“Leila was one of the most inter-esting, engaging students I havehad the privilege to teach. Sheis inquisitive and respectfullycombative in all the ways thatmake a law professor thrilled tobe in the classroom. She pre-pared meticulously, agonizedover issues and analyses thatshe felt she had not mastered,and frequently contributed in-cisive comments in class thatwere instrumental in moving theproverbial ball.”

dent Affairs. Walker attended lawschool at the University ofMichigan but, Revesz joked, “Wewon’t hold that against her.”

Revesz followed up this an-nouncement with news of a newelectronic registration system forthe law school, which will in-clude wait list functionality aswell as other improvements overthe current program. The newsystem will hopefully be inplace by Spring of next yearand Revesz hopes that the SBAwill open a dialogue with stu-dents to determine which newfeatures and functionality aremost important.

The next topic of the after-noon was course evaluations.Revesz expressed how importantthese evaluations are to studentsand the administration’s ongoingbrainstorm on ways to encour-age completion of course evalu-ations. Response rate has dra-matically decreased and, as aresult, evaluations tend to onlybe submitted by students whohave strong feelings about thecourse, rendering the evalua-tions significantly less helpful.Revesz pointed out that theseevaluat ions don’t just helpo ther s tuden ts choosecourses, they are also an op-portunity for students to have

an impact on faculty hiring.The administration is en-

couraging faculty to set aside tenminutes for students to fill outthe evaluations during class.This has boosted response ratessomewhat but there is still atemptation for students to usethat time to check email and surfthe web. Revesz suggested thatstudents need to create a culturein which there is value placed onsharing this feedback.

Revesz next addressed theissue of this year’s ConvocationDay. The ceremony is normallyheld in Madison Square Garden(MSG) the day after theUniversity’s graduation. Unfor-tunately, MSG was unavailableon that date this year. The ad-ministration met with the SBAto discuss alternatives and de-termined that students wouldlikely prefer to hold the Con-vocation ceremony together inMSG on a different day than tosplit into smaller ceremonies indifferent locations. As a result,the Convocation ceremony willbe held the following Wednes-day in the Garden.

Since most law studentsdon’t attend the University-widegraduation ceremony, the inter-

Dosa Cart Guy Wins Vendy Cup Award

See CLERK page 2

See REVESZ page 2

Leila K. Thompson ’05 recently beganclerking for Justice Clarence Thomas.

NYU Law’s very own “Dosa Man” won New York City’s third annual Vendy Cup Award for best street food. The “DosaMan” is Sri Lanka native Thiru Kumar, age 39. For the past six years, Kumar’s Dosa cart has been serving vegan Indiandelights at Washington Square South and Sullivan Street, right across the street from the Law School’s main buildings.Until his first big win this year, Kumar had been dubbed the “Susan Lucci of the Vendys” because he had been a finalistthree times.

Preston Merchant

Burning issues included the new lactation lounge, the “low cost”Golding sandwich, and how Fall Ball has been ruined.

CommentatorPage 2 November 8, 2007

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THE COMMENTATOR

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Join The Commentator.

BY IAN SAMUEL ’08

’Tis the season.Some time ago, I discov-

ered that NYU residences donot allow Christmas trees to bebrought into the dorms. Tech-nically, what is not allowed are“evergreens,” which is a less-than-subtle reference to you-know-what. Alas, I had alreadygotten sap on my hands.

This is a stupid rule thatshould be changed. It isbased on the same sortof poor risk assessmentas shark attack stories.The substantive dangerfrom Christmas tree firesis basically nothing.

According tothe National FireProtection Asso-ciation, Christmast rees cannot bythemselves s ta r tfires. This muchshould be obvious.And the common be-lief that Christmas trees are in-herently flammable and danger-ous is untrue.

In 1998, for example, over 32million Christmas trees were usedin the United States. Of these,0.00093% were ignited in homefires. This might seem like a lot,except that in fires involving

Christmas trees, newspapers andmagazines were 13 times morelikely to catch firef i r s t ; boxes andb a g s , 10 timesm o r e likely;

curtains and drapes, 9times more likely.

In other words, Christmastrees don’t start fires, and theyaren’t any more flammable thanthe items we’re already al-lowed to have in our apart-ments. Last year six people

The Christmas Tree Menace Debunked:Lawyers More Likely to Commit Suicide thanBe Injured in Evergreen Tree Fire

Any of you looking to get aletter of recommendation that issimilarly effusive and effective tothe one Gillette wrote for Leila maywant to heed the professor’s ad-vice: “I think clerkship letters areuseful only when the professor cansay something useful and interest-ing about the student that thejudge cannot discern from the tran-

vention of a week between ceremo-nies won’t affect many students.However, the school is aware thata Wednesday ceremony may bedifficult for families traveling fromout of town. The administration isregretful of the inconvenience andis working to ensure that this is-sue will not arise next year.

Revesz also addressed apricing mistake on the “low cost”sandwich in Golding Lounge andassured students that this errorhas been corrected. Addition-ally, Revesz announced that a re-frigerator and lactation loungehave been added to the secondfloor of Vanderbilt in response tostudent requests.

Opening the floor for ques-tions, Revesz addressed the con-cern that Constitutional Law for1Ls should be a five-creditcourse, as it is for upper-levelstudents, but is only worth four.NYU wants to offer the courseto 1Ls, but all other 1L electivesare four credits ,so it doesn’tseem fair for Constitutional Lawto be five credits. Revesz saidthat although the credit alloca-tion will not change for Spring2008, the issue is under review.

Another student expressedconcern over the lack of space fororganizations to book for meetingsand events, as well as the $105 feethat applies to some rooms. Reveszsaid he feels that there is enoughspace already, but noted that it’scommon for groups to book roomsthat they don’t actually need or useand this creates a shortage forgroups that really need it.

“We have twice as muchspace as we had five years ago,”he added.

died in fires involving Christ-mas t rees; several hundreddied from lightning strikes, and58 died from shark attacks inthe pas t few years . Morepeople die or are seriously in-jured in vending machine acci-dents on a yearly basis than diefrom Christmas tree fires. Ihave noticed, though, that NYUstill allows both vending ma-chines and rainstorms.

Faculty-in-residence arepermitted to have pets, evendogs, in Mercer; since 1979,

dogs have killed over 300people in the Uni tedStates, making them twiceas deadly as the Christ-mas Tree Menace.

Lawyers have a sui-cide rate 3-4 times the gen-eral population. By train-

ing us to be lawyers,NYU endangersour lives far morethan a forest of

Christmas treesever could.

And maybe a little holidaycheer would push us back from thebrink of drug abuse, also far moreprevalent among lawyers than (forexample) Christmas tree lumber-jacks, who have managed to sur-vive despite the constant risk oftotal incineration in a Christmastree fire.

script and the student’s C.V. Re-quest a letter from someone whohas personal knowledge of youand your classroom performance,even if that professor did not giveyou your best grade. A letter froma professor who actually knows thejudge to whom you are applyingmay be useful, but professors arelikely to be more candid in lettersto judges with whom they have apersonal relationship.”

Trish McNicholas, theAssistant Dean of AlumniRela t ions and Spec ia lEvents, indicated that thereare 150-200 events per weekat the law school at this timeof year, and the $105 feeonly applies to “premiumspace” – not classrooms orthe Sexton Student Forum.She suggested that groupsshould book as ear ly aspossible.

The next question relatedto safe bike space on campus.A student pointed out thatthere is no security camera bythe bike rack in front ofVanderbilt and students areforced to leave their bikes in theexposed outer area rather thanthe inner courtyard. LillianZalta, Assistant Dean for Op-erations and AdministrativeServices, stated that the schoolcannot block egress from thecourtyard but that the schoolwill revisit the issue.

Students also pointedout that a printer in the libraryunder Furman wasn’t net-worked and that the libraryhas been unofficially closingtwenty minutes early. Admin-istrators agreed to follow upon both issues.

Finally, a student askedwhy Fall Ball no longer offersan open bar. Revesz said thatit was in response to the vio-lence and destruction of prop-erty at last year’s event butthere can be a discussion aboutdifferent possibilities forSpring Fling.

“We don’t want to be pa-ternalistic,” said Revesz.“That’s the last thing we wantto do.”

CLERK: Professor GilletteGives Advice on ClerkshipRecommendation Letters

REVESZ: Spring FlingDrink Policy Still Uncertain

Continued from page 1

Continued from page 1

This week’sThe Commentator

Fun with Boxes!Solution (no cheating):

Commentator ArtsNovember 8, 2007 Page 3

BY STEPHEN ILG ’10

A chef haunted by hispast and a waitress hardenedby hers fortuitouslyen te r each o ther ’slives. Bella is a mov-ing story that showsthat life doesn’t haveto be perfect to bebeautiful.

With an excellentsoundtrack, the movietells as much of thestory with the musicas with the dialogue.Al though EduardoVerástegui’s (both themain character and aproducer) characterJosé does not havemany lines, he givesa very strong perfor-mance as a man tor-mented by his ownguilt yet sympatheticto those around him.

In stark contrastto Verástegui’s per-formance , TammyBlanchard, as Nina,plays a woman hardened byher lack of parental love andby l i fe in genera l .Blanchard’s performancethroughout the movie im-

Movie Review: BellaLife Doesn’t Have to BePerfect to Be Beautiful

proved, but it got off to a pain-fully slow start.

Nina, with awkward deliveryat best, describes New York as a

city where nobody cares aboutanybody else. As you find outabout her life, it becomes morepossible to empathize with herviews of the city and life in gen-

Ratings Guide:(1) A must-see. (2) Worth the admission. (3) Netflix it.

(4) Wait for TV, if at all. (5) I wanted to walk out.

eral, but – by the time you do –the hour and forty minutes ofthe movie has almost run.

On the other hand, thesupporting cast wasexcellent: José’s stereo-typical yet loveableLatino parents and histwo brothers – one ashappy and loving as theother is cold and busi-ness-focused – are apleasure to watch.

If you’re botheredby strong Christian un-dertones, you may wantto skip this one, thoughthe focus is not as muchon Christian morals as itis on familial love. If yousee this movie, the less ofthe story you know in ad-vance the better. While theplot was unsurprising, itdid keep itself from amushy, all-together pre-dictable ending.

Bella will have youcaptivated, if not by thestory, then by theloveable performances

of José’s tight-knit PuertoRican-Mexican family.

Bella was:(2) Worth the Admission.

BY MADELINE ZAMOYSKI ’08

Place the following characters in the boxes according to therules below: ! # = < > / \ ^ + % ~ @ $ * & ?

Fun with Boxes!

Rules:^, #, + in same row\, &, @ in same row?, $, = in same row^, $, * in same column!, &, # in same column=, ~, @ in same column& touches left wall of << touches bottom wall of $% touches bottom wall of ## touches right wall of >$ touches right wall of %/ touches right wall of ~> touches only one other box

Commentator SportsPage 4 November 8, 2007

Fall Ball Photo Extravaganza