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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2021
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
GUEST COLUMN
Observations from Harvard Law School,
weeks 8-9
Editor’s note: Ryan Miller is a 2017 grad
uate and former valedictorian of Apalachee
High School. He earned bachelor degrees in
chemistry and history and graduated summa
cum laude from the University of Georgia in
December 2020 and graduated summa cum
laude with a master of public administration
from UGA in May. He was accepted to Har
vard Law School and recently began classes
there. He is documenting that experience for
the Barrow News-Journal.
WEEK 8
Monday, Oct. 11
•Columbus Day: The celebration
was declared by President Benja
min Harrison in 1892 and became
an official federal holiday in 1971,
largely intended to celebrate Ital-
ian-Americans.
•Indigenous Peoples’ Day: The
celebration began in 1992, 500 years
after Columbus’s arrival, to recog
nize the resilience of the Indigenous
peoples of the past and present.
•Talno: The Talno are the indige
nous people that Columbus first in
teracted with, and though they were
decimated then by the Spanish, they survive
through their Caribbean descendants.
•Christopher Columbus: Lost in most of
the celebration, Columbus’s tenure as gover
nor was so brutal that he was arrested and re
turned to Spain by order of the Crown through
Bobadilla.
•Lesson of the Day: There is a lot more be
hind our holidays and celebrations, and it is
important to think critically about where they
come from and why we do them.
Tuesday, Oct. 12
•1L Fall Break: Harvard Law School gave
all of its first-year students an additional day
off after the holiday yesterday, so we only had
three days of classes this week.
•Legal Research and Writing: Research
Assignment. Over the break, we were tasked
with familiarizing ourselves with Lexis and
Westlaw, the two most capable legal databas
es.
•Lesson of the Day: Do not let yourself go
too deep into the rabbit hole; if you’re read
ing through material completely unrelated to
what you’re looking for, start back from the
top.
Wednesday, Oct. 13
•Civil Procedure: 12(b)(6) Motion to Dis
miss. This specific motion is for failure to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted
and would end a case after pleading and be
fore discovery.
•Contracts: Exception for Duty to Read.
Terms are only enforceable if they are brought
to the attention of the signee or reasonably
should have been understood to be part of the
contact.
•Prison Legal Assistance Project. Office
Hours. Each week, students spend an hour in
the organization’s office, answering research
and representation requests.
•Lesson of the Day: The “lemon market”
demonstrates how buyers without enough in
formation, like with used cars, cause sellers of
good items to leave the market.
Thursday, Oct. 14
•Civil Procedure: Twombly and Iqbal.
These Supreme Court cases clarified that
claims must state factual allegations on which
relief can be granted, not legal conclusions.
•Section Meeting: Guest speaker. An asso
ciate of a large law firm in Boston spoke to
us about her journey from HLS to her current
position, providing advice as we think about
careers.
•Contracts: Unconscionability. Contracts
are voided if they were made in the absence
of a meaningful choice and with unreasonably
one-sided terms, such as disguised clauses.
•Legal Research and Writing: Finding Cas
es. On Lexis and Westlaw (as well as Google
Scholar), you can go to the “Cited by” section
to find cases which build off the case of in
terest.
•Lesson of the Day: You need to be able to
identify the source of a problem before you
can target it with a solution.
Friday, Oct. 15
•Civil Procedure: Joinder. This process
enables additional claims and parties to be
joined to existing lawsuits to help courts op
erate more efficiently.
•Contracts: Non-enforcement for Public
Policy. Courts will not enforce contracts when
enforcing the contract runs counter to public
policy, like if the subject is illegal or immoral.
•1L Cup: An HLS student organization
hosts a field-day-like event, where each sec
tion competes against the other in games such
as tug-of-war to win the ultimate prize.
•Lesson of the Day: Pro tip, don’t admit that
you disagree with your client’s position, espe
cially in front of the judge (or the class).
WEEK 9
Monday, Oct. 18
•Torts: Industry customs. Customary prac
tices in an industry inform general expecta
tions of care, but courts do not rely solely on
these customs in determining liability. See
T.J. Hooper.
•Property: Concurrent Tenancies. More
than one person can have the right to the same
property at the same time, such as with room
mates or spouses.
•Student body town hall: HLS student gov
ernment hosted a forum where students could
voice their concerns regarding student life at
Harvard.
•Looking ahead to exams: Outlin
ing. A common practice in prepar
ing for law school exams is creating
an outline of the rules and cases
from the class so far — and the ear
lier, the better.
•Lesson of the Day: Heirs, tech
nically speaking, are those who in
herit property when there is not a
will, while devisees (real) and leg
atees (personal) inherit property by
a will.
Tuesday, Oct. 19
•Zoom breakfast: Property pro
fessor. Our professor continued his
tradition of hosting small groups of students
for breakfast, albeit through Zoom because of
pandemic precautions.
•Torts: Cost-Benefit for Precautions. To de
termine the care expected, courts often mea
sure the probability and seriousness of the
risk of injury involved to the cost of taking
steps against it.
•Property: Future Interests. Leases and
wills allow property owners to give rights to
non-owners that take effect for a certain peri
od of time or after a certain condition occurs
(such as death).
•Reading group: A Market for Organs? We
discussed Dirty Pretty Things and whether a
market for organs would be a good thing and
how that market might be regulated.
•Lesson of the Day: If you have bad hand
writing, be thankful for online banking meth
ods because banks would often reject checks
for people like my professor.
Wednesday, Oct. 20
•Civil Procedure: Counterclaims. Some
counterclaims must be filed immediately
when you are sued (compulsory), while oth
ers can be brought in the same case or later
(permissive).
•Torts: Negligence Per Se. When certain in
juries occur as a result of someone violating
a regulation (ex: no headlights at night), they
are automatically liable for negligence.
•Contracts: Identifying the relevant terms.
Before a court can determine if a contract was
breached, they must identify the terms rele
vant in the writing and the circumstances.
•Mississippi Delta Project: Conference. Ex
perts working in the Delta discussed how we
might begin conducting our research to illu
minate USDA discrimination (see Pigford v.
Glickman).
•Lesson of the Day: The three lies of the
John Harvard Statue. John was not the found
er, the school was founded in 1636 (not 1638).
and the statue does not depict John.
Thursday, Oct. 21
•Civil Procedure: Discovery. A guest speak
er introduced us to concepts about discovery,
the process of acquiring relevant information,
formally and informally, prior to going to tri
al.
•Section Meeting: Practice exam. Our civ
il procedure professor walked us through a
portion of the final exam, explaining answers
and fielding questions to help us prepare for
what’s ahead.
•Contracts: Parol Evidence Rule (PER).
PERs determine how much evidence of prior
terms and discussions courts look at for iden
tifying contract details, and they vary by state.
•Legal Research and Writing: Legal analy
sis. Affirmative cases (which confirm a con
clusion) provide stronger support for legal
arguments than negative cases (which deny a
conclusion).
•Bar Review: Felipe’s. HLS students con
tinued the fun (and pun) tradition of sharing
food and drinks on the rooftop bar located
nearby in Harvard Square.
•Lesson of the Day: When conducting le
gal research, you need to double check that
the statute or case has not been overruled (be
cause then it is not good law).
Friday, Oct. 22
•Contracts: Plain Meaning Doctrine. Courts
under this doctrine look only at the terms in a
contract to determine what those terms meant
for the agreement.
•Lecture: Originalism, A Debate with Pro
fessors Sachs and Feldman. The Federalist
Society provided a forum for the professors
to express their support and criticism for the
theory.
•Lesson of the Day: It is not possible to
interpret words without outside information
because everyone thinks something slightly
different about the same words.
ryan
miller
The important work of a nurse
I remember a man who had suf
fered a traumatic injury telling me
that shortly after his accident he
believed he was trapped in the back
of a Family Dollar unable to leave.
But he wasn’t at a chain store. No,
he was in the ICU in deep pain and
confused about where he was.
The guy kind of chuckled about
it a year later as he told
me of that confusion.
Many times people laugh
off something terrible,
because what do you do
with something so heavy,
so completely lacking hu
mor and lightness? Maybe
you laugh because there’s
nothing appropriate to fill
the spot. Maybe you laugh
because you’re trying to
counteract the heaviness
you know you’re lying
on another person when
you share a deep pain. Anyway, this
gentleman is the first person who
comes to mind as I try to write about
nurses, because nurses have been on
my mind so much over the past year
and a half.
I guess the man came to mind
because that nightmare sounded
intense to me, and he is yet anoth
er reminder that the line between
self-sufficiency and complete vul
nerability can be far thinner than
we acknowledge. We can be quick
ly transported to another reality
through no fault of our own, com
pletely pained and confused. It can
happen in an instant when it’s least
expected. It can also happen through
diagnosis and decline.
And when we are forced to con
front this inherent human frailty
we all share, our mortal nature, it’s
doctors who step in to offer a plan,
but it’s nurses who care for us. Any
one who has spent time in a hospi
tal surely recognizes the difference
in the eyes that you may find there.
When you are vulnerable or you
are with a family member who is in
deep trouble, you can feel desperate
in many ways. One desperate feel
ing is simply: “Do you care?”
If you’re like me, then you search
for that in the eyes and manner of
each nurse and doctor, the language
beyond language.
Obviously, someone can be com
petent at what they’re doing medi
cally and be cold and clinical, sort
of inhuman. But every physical trau
ma is accompanied by an emotion
al one. And from the outset of any
physical upheaval, the mind works
on healing the emotional part, too.
We want empathy. We want to feel
real care.
That’s why the nurse who is truly
present, who truly sees you or your
loved one and who looks out for you
through another set of eyes, like a
family member, then that nurse feels
like the greatest blessing in a scary
time. I have felt such gratitude when
I’ve encountered such a person and
been a little sad when they left the
shift, realizing that the same care
might not be there on the next one.
I expect that a significant number
of those who enter into nursing do
so, because they have encountered
a nurse in their own life who made
an impression on them. I expect
that feeling of being the helper to
the truly vulnerable is also a kind
of high that can keep a person go
ing through hard days. The sense of
self-worth that can come from that
role is really huge, because it’s im
mensely valuable in a human sense.
It’s the real deal. Nurses matter so
much.
But if you think of nursing in
2021 America, then you also have to
think about the numbers. These past
two years have been a kind of war.
There’s been such a sad abundance
of tragic stories. The hospitals have
been slammed. And there’s a cruelty
in the air. It touches many aspects
of life.
It seems a sad absurdity that a state
Senate committee is now necessary
to study violence against health care
workers. But that’s where we are.
One veteran north Georgia nurse
recently testified to the committee.
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“I was attacked by a patient who
had already attacked one of our
technicians.” a nurse who identi
fied herself only as Destiny, said.
“While I was trying to de-escalate
the situation, the patient lunged at
me, grabbed my hair and twisted
it in her hands. I was punched and
kicked several times; I was bit; and
she tried to drag me into
the bathroom.”
According to a study
from the Occupational
Safety and Health Ad
ministration, health-care
workers account for ap
proximately 50% of all
victims of workplace vi
olence.
But Deborah Bailey, ex
ecutive director of govern
ment affairs at Northeast
Georgia Medical Center,
told the committee 75 per
cent of all workplace assaults in the
U.S. involve health-care workers.
“Only 30 percent of nurses and
26 percent of physicians actual
ly report those incidents,” Bailey
said. “Violent altercations are so
common now that most employees
consider them just part of the daily
job.”
I expect that a percentage of vi
olent cases are by patients who are
truly not in their right minds. If you
are medically incapacitated in a de
lusional way, you may not under
stand what you’re doing. I think of
that man believing he was stuck in
the back room of a Family Dollar. In
such a disoriented state, I might do
something desperate to free myself.
But there are other reasons, too.
People are emotional, frustrated,
sad, angry. They may think they
have a good reason for lashing out at
a health care worker. But no, there’s
just never a good one. There’s no
validation for that — not if the ser
vice is slow, not if the care doesn’t
seem to be there, not if the results
aren’t happening. Nothing.
Health care professionals are
tasked with too much these days.
There are too many cases, too little
staff. And many nurses are getting
burned out. They are every bit as
human as their vulnerable patients.
This country needs to think about
its future in so many aspects. And
health care is one of the top con
cerns, with an aging population and
a risk of extreme staffing shortages
as these hard days take their toll on
health care workers, who must deal
with really intense emotions related
to their work.
We need to thank them, not attack
them.
We need leaders to do whatev
er possible to get more people in
the profession to meet the demand
we’re going to have in coming
years.
We need to recognize that we are
all vulnerable and potentially need
ing the care of someone else, no
matter our fierce willpower for the
opposite. All bodies fail.
And when we find ourselves in
those tough spots, and we are for
tunate to find real care in the eyes
and manners of another human, we
need to thank that person for their
humanity. Because it’s the tradition
that has to live on — the important
work of the nurse.
Zach Mitcham is editor of The
Madison County Journal, a sis
ter newspaper of the Barrow
News-Journal. He can be reached
at zach @ mainstreetnews. com.
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