The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Summer School 2010: Improv Acting Class

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    Ruth Carter

    I spent a significant amount of time this past semester applying for summer positions.  With the economy still on the rebound, they were hard to come by.  I made a promise to myself that no matter what I did during the summer before my last year of law school, I got to take improv acting classes.  I had a few experiences in the last year that inspired me to take a formal class:

    1. Captain Eric Mayer, U.S. Army JAG:  I had the pleasure of spending last summer with the Army JAG in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  Captain Mayer was the defense attorney in the office, and he was phenomenal in the courtroom.  Whenever there was a court martial, I sat in the audience and watched him in complete awe.  He never seemed uncomfortable or at a loss for words.  I don’t think he ever wrote a script for anything he did, not even his opening statement.  When he questioned a witness, he didn’t have a list of questions.  He put a list of the information he needed to get out of the witness to build his case and would check off each one once he got the answer he needed.  I was intimidated by his skills just from sitting in the audience.
    2. Professor Dallyn’s Applied Evidence Class:  This course taught us how to apply the rules of evidence to a courtroom situation.  Every day we did role plays where we took turns playing the parts of the questioning attorney, the opposing counsel, and the witness who on the stand.   The final for the class was a fake trial.  I tried to use Captain Mayer’s approach to questioning a witness, but found myself needing a script of questions and feeling flustered while the opposing counsel and I were making objections.
    3. Improv AZ’s Coroner Prank #2:  I’m a founding member of Improv AZ, a local performance troupe in the Phoenix area.  After our success with the Coroner Prank on the light rail in October 2009, we decided to repeat it at a local mall.  Things did not go according to plan, and we were confronted by the mall cops who called the real cops.  My fellow coroners were former professional improv actors.  When things turned sour, they slipped back into improv mode.  I turned seven shades of white and tried not to pass out while reserving my right to remain silent.  Thankfully the cops let us go after questioning us and the mall cops banned us from the mall for three months.  Check out my legal analysis of the event and the video.

    My class started a little over two weeks ago with Jester’Z Improv and it has been amazing.  It’s a 12-week course that ends with a showcase for our friends and family.  I hope that taking this class will help improve my ability to think on my feet.

    Having been a gymnast and a singer for most of my life, you might think that taking improv acting would be easy. However, in both of these activities, the performance is completely scripted.  With improv, you don’t know what’s going to happen until you’re up on the stage.  It’s a bit unsettling when you don’t know what your partner is going to say or what scenario you might be playing out.

    I went to the Jester’Z Improv show featuring the regular cast and nearly peed my pants from laughing.  Part of me simply enjoyed the show and part of me was a student trying to absorb ideas from the actors and thinking, “Oh geez, these are the games I might be in during my showcase!  How am I going to pull this off?”  It’s going to be awesome.

    Photo courtesy of Jester’Z Improv Comedy Troupe.

  • Survival Tips for Incoming 1Ls

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    Ruth Carter

    I remember feeling very excited and scared during the weeks before I started law school.  I remember having a lot of questions and not always having a clear answer for many of them.  I want to share some of the wisdom that I’m glad people told me and some that I wished I had been told before I started law school.

    Enjoy Your Pre-law School Summer
    You will have offers to take special pre-law school prep courses to help prepare you to take law classes.  You probably don’t need this.  Enjoy spending your time relaxing with family and friends instead.

    Law School is Overwhelming – at first
    You might feel like a deer-in-the-headlights for the first month of school while you’re getting used to classes and studying.  This is normal and temporary.

    Your Reading Speed will Decrease
    Reading legal cases is a lot different than reading other textbooks.  Don’t freak out if you are only able to read 6-10 pages per hour your first semester.

    You Can Still Have a Life
    Going to law school does not mean you have to give up having a personal life, but you will have to prioritize your activities.  I strongly encourage every law student to have a life away from school.  I was the most miserable the semester I spent the least amount of time participating in non-law school activities.

    Studying will take up a lot of time.  However, a disciplined person can regularly be done with studying for the day by 5pm or 6pm.  One of my classmates was known for getting all of his studying done between Monday and Friday and was able to spend his weekends relaxing with his wife.

    Don’t Even Think of Trying to Work During Your First Semester
    The ABA prohibits 1Ls from working their first semester, and this is one time where the ABA and I agree.  Having worked 2 jobs (13 hours/day) in the past, I thought I could try working a few hours a week when classes started.  My first week of classes proved to me that this wasn’t an option.  Law school is mentally draining your first semester.  Let your free time be devoted to rest and enjoyment.

    Form Relationships with your Professors
    Professors are great people when you need advice or someone to listen to your frustrations.  They are also awesome resources for networking in your local community and glowing letters of recommendation that make you stand out from your peers when you’re applying for jobs and scholarships.  Professors are a highly beneficial and often under-utilized resource for students.

    You Don’t Have to Change Who You Are to be Successful
    The legal profession is generally conservative and traditional, and I am neither of those things.  When I was accepted to law school, people suggested that I change my wardrobe, my hair, my sunglasses, and cover my tattoos when I started school.  This was loving advice from people who didn’t want me to be judged by my appearance and bold personality.  I can understand why people might want to “tone it down” during the first few days of school to see how people who don’t fit the norms are treated, but in general, you don’t have to change who you are to be successful in law school.  For me, the best experiences and opportunities have come when I have stayed genuine to myself and not followed the traditional path.

    Attitude is Everything
    In law school, as in life, you will be as happy or as miserable as you choose to be.  If you simply accept that sometimes life will be challenging and stressful, but don’t let it get you down, you’ll be a happier person.  I have a classmate who embodies this.  No matter what is going on in his life, whenever I ask him, “How are you?,” he answers, “I’m living the dream.”  A positive attitude will always carry you through.

    Good luck!  If you have any questions about law school or if you have been a law student and have your own tips or experiences to add to this list, please leave them as comments to this post.

  • Is That Legal – Improv AZ Coroner Prank #2

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    Ruth Carter

    Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.  I am a law student.  In accordance with ABA policy, this blog should not be viewed as legal advice.  It is simply my experiences, opinions, and stuff I looked up on the internet.

    Last week the Improv AZ crew decided to revise their world –famous coroner prank, only this time instead of having four people in “coroner” shirts carry a stuffed body bag on the light rail, we took it for a walk through Chandler mall.

    We were hoping to raise a lot of eyebrows and get a lot of double takes and surprised stares of disbelief.  We succeeded in that, but we also spent just enough time in the building to get the attention of mall security.  Not wanting to cause any trouble, we offered to leave.  They refused our offer and called Chandler Police instead.  A mall cop claimed we committed “a dozen felonies.”  The real cop said we could have been charged with disorderly conduct.  In the end, they let us go with a warning and the mall cops banned us from Chandler mall for three months.

    Of course as the group’s CLS, I did my usual research before doing this prank, and after our run in with the law, I rechecked everything.

    What can mall cops really do?

    Mall cops are citizens and can only make citizen arrests.  If they are an agent of the property owner, they can ask people to leave and call law enforcement to arrest them for trespassing if the patrons don’t comply.

    Did we commit trespassing?

    I don’t think so.  Shopping malls open themselves up for members of the public to enter and shop.  We are, in legalese, “invitees.”  If we had been asked to leave by a property owner or their agent and then refused to go, then we would have been trespassing.

    Were we illegally impersonating a government official?

    The way Arizona law is written, we would have to pretend to be a public servant and engage in conduct “with the intent to induce another to submit to [our] pretended official authority or to rely upon [our] pretended official acts” to be charged with impersonation.  We did nothing to assert our authority against any mall patrons or anyone else.

    A mall cop tried to tell us that our fake coroner badges made us guilty of a felony, but anyone looking closely at them would have seen that they were made with someone’s laminator at home.  Our badges had our pictures – mine was my Twitter avatar – and the words “Coroner” and “All Access Pass.”  The mall cop took our badges from us and turned them over to the Chandler police officer.  After looking at them briefly, he gave them back to us.

    FYI – Arizona doesn’t have coroners.  It has medical examiners.

    Did we commit disorderly conduct?

    I think that’s a stretch at best.  Arizona law defines disorderly conduct as engaging in certain behavior “with the intent to disturb the peace or quiet of a neighborhood, family, or person or with the knowledge of doing so.”  The only behavior they could have tried to pin on us was “fighting, violent or seriously disruptive behavior.”   Our conduct could have been considered disruptive, but probably not deserving of being in the same category as violent behavior.  The other behaviors on the list for disorderly conduct didn’t seem to apply since we weren’t making noise, using offensive language, carrying weapons, or preventing business transactions from occurring.

    Could the mall cops make our camera guy prove he’d erased the footage he shot with his phone?

    Mall cops are just civilians so they probably don’t have that authority.  Real cops, however, can search your phone if it’s related to an arrest.  Otherwise, it looks like they’d a search warrant.

    Is it illegal to walk around with a fake dead body?

    I looked through Arizona statutes and didn’t find any laws against having fake dead body.  I find out about some of the things you can’t do with an actual dead body:

    • You can’t move a dead human body with the hopes of abandoning or concealing it.
    • You can’t move a dead body from its grave without authority of law.
    • You can’t steal stuff off or from a dead body.
    • You can’t have sex with a dead body.

    For now the four coroners are banned from Chandler mall.  The mall cop gave each of us a card with the Chandler mall code of conduct on it.  I’d share this list with you (it’s pretty funny) but it’s too long, and surprisingly, Chandler mall doesn’t have it available on their website.

    Related Articles:
    Official Improv AZ Blog: When Mall Cops Swarm – The Coroner Prank #2
    Video: Improv AZ – Coroner Prank 2, “Bob Goes To The Mall”