【Episode 17 – Bulletproof Brief (2)】
The next morning,
Vanderbilt Hall, courtyard.
“My brother said it’s perfect.”
“Yeah?”
It was an essay that had been praised for being well-written even ten years ago.
Back in my second year, when I could only continue attending school if I received a scholarship, I needed some kind of noticeable achievement. That was why I had written this brief, visiting and asking advice from an immigration law professor whose class I wasn’t even taking.
“He asked if a graduate wrote it. If that guy said that much, it’s huge praise.”
Maybe because it was an assignment I had finished with everything I had, I remembered it as if I had written it yesterday.
On top of that, my experience suing an insurance company and the state over my father’s traffic accident had been a great help.
“Okay. Then we just need to double-check the citations one more time and submit.”
Citations are the measure that distinguishes a professional from an amateur.
Unlike civil law countries (for example, Korea, Japan, and Germany) where all laws are codified, common law countries (for example, England, the United States, and Canada) contain applicable legal principles within precedents. Therefore, it is essential to find and cite cases that explicitly state the relevant legal principles in a brief.
If you do not follow the citation formatting rules exactly, you lose a lot of points.
In fact, there are professors who check the citations first and do not even read the contents of memoranda of law (legal opinion documents similar to a brief) if they contain errors.
It is a field that places that much importance on formality.
“I already did that,” Sein said. One look in her eyes told me I didn’t need to ask twice.
After checking Donguk-hyung’s opinion one more time, we submitted the brief.
---*---
This year, there were many applicants for the Immigration Law Moot Court Competition.
Professor Amy Drypers, who taught the immigration law course, checked the authors of the brief she had just read.
[Je Heon, 1L
Oh Sein, 1L
...]
She wondered about the authors’ nationalities because the names were unfamiliar, but there was no particular ulterior motive.
It was simply that after dealing with many immigrants, she had thought she had seen quite a variety of name formats from around the world, but she had only wondered because it was her first time seeing the name “Je Heon.”
In fact, what surprised her more was that the authors were first-years.
“I’d believe it even if they said a practitioner wrote this.”
At the request of her colleague, Professor Mitchell Gonyak, who was in charge of hosting the Immigration Law Moot Court Competition, Professor Drypers was reading the briefs of the participating teams.
While she was feeling satisfied with the high-level briefs submitted by the second- and third-year students, she was quite surprised to see the brief written by the team of Je Heon and his first-year peers.
An excellent brief includes not only this side’s argument but also anticipates the opponent’s counterarguments, incorporating preemptive defensive analysis. Even if one knows of such strategic writing, it is not something first-years who have just entered law school can easily do.
It is only possible if you know all the laws related to the issue at hand and accurately understand how those laws are applied in reality.
The brief she had just read had done just that.
“I think this team should advance this year.”
Professor Amy Drypers made her choice.
---*---
“We did it! We were chosen!”
Upon hearing the news that we had been selected as representatives, we headed to the Peculiar Pub on Bleecker Street.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“Whew—beer tastes good.”
I had been expecting it to some extent, but since there were many applicants, I had thought they would at least hold oral argument evaluations....
Being selected through the brief evaluation alone was quite encouraging.
It was something worth raising a toast to.
“Now—everyone, applause for Heon. Clap, clap, clap.”
“Ah—why are you doing this?”
“That’s right. It’s no different from you doing it all.”
“You are the man!”
Embarrassed but feeling good.
I definitely had the feeling while writing it. You know how it is sometimes, right? A feeling as if time had stopped. My eyes didn’t leave the manuscript I was writing for several hours, yet I wasn’t tired at all.
It had been a long time since I had focused on something like that.
But when I actually gave it to others to read, my confidence dropped a bit. Had I rashly handed over something I wrote while getting carried away on my own? Should I have reviewed it more before submitting?
At least when I heard that Michael’s brother had approved, the confidence that I might actually succeed returned.
Still, I hadn’t expected to be selected in one go like this.
“Honestly, I thought they would pick a few teams and hold oral argument evaluations.”
“Me too. It wasn’t written precisely in the guidelines, but most moot court competitions proceed that way.”
A moot court competition is usually composed of two rounds.
First, each team submits a brief regarding the presented case or issue. In other words, laying out arguments in writing is the first round.
The second round is the oral argument round, a contest where the teams selected as best in the first round present oral arguments before judges.
The team that did best there would become the winning team for that year.
“Doesn’t that mean our brief was overwhelming?”
“Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say Heon’s brief rather than ours? Heon wrote all of it.”
“What Heon wrote is what we wrote. All our names are on it anyway.”
“We just added a spoonful.”
“No. It is true that we wrote it.”
I only drafted it; it is correct to view it as written together.
The work at a law firm is similar too. A junior drafts the written brief, but a senior reviews it before submission, and when submitted, the names of all the lawyers on the team appear on the document.
I simply drafted it well. And the reason I could do so was because of my special circumstance—this being my second time around.
“No. It is true that we wrote it. Donguk-hyung conducted the legal review, and Sein, you meticulously double-checked all the citations. And if Michael hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have been able to verify things so reliably.”
It was cringeworthy, but I thought it would be good to say. Even though we had grown quite close, they were still at the stage of getting to know each other, so those kinds of direct expressions were still needed.
“Okay. Then shall we start preparing for the main competition? Ah, I’ll write the draft this time.”
Donguk-hyung said, raising his glass.
“The issue hasn’t come out yet, right?”
“No. It hasn’t come out yet.”
“Then for now, let’s drink today. Cheers—”
At that, everyone raised their glasses.
Beer tastes good after a victory.
“Whew—”
“Ah, then don’t we need to find a coach?”
To ensure the quality of the competition, participating teams are required to secure one coach.
“I’ll ask Professor James Madison about that.”
“Okay. If he’s busy, there will be other people too.”
“Alright, alright, since the important matter is past, shall we set aside talk of the moot court competition for now and talk about the dorm party next week?”
---*---
When we returned to the apartment in East Harlem after celebrating at the Peculiar Pub, it was almost eleven o’clock.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
I ran into Jennifer by chance at the 103rd Street subway station.
“Did class just end?”
“Yeah.”
“I heard from Mia. You’re in the JD/MBA joint program?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s impressive.”
She averted her gaze as if embarrassed by the praise.
“You’re competing in the Immigration Law Moot Court Competition? I heard that from Mia too.”
“Yeah. Our team was chosen as our university’s representative today.”
“Oh, really? Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I heard you made it onto the Columbia representative team too?”
“Mia told you that too?”
I nodded at her question.
“Mia is like a messenger.”
“Right. Maybe because our schedules are busy, we don’t get many chances to run into each other. I’ve wanted to talk with you if I got the chance.”
Lexington Avenue and East 100th Street intersection. Once you turn the corner, the apartment appears.
She stopped.
“What about?”
“Huh? Ah—just, like, how Columbia Law School is. And I’m a bit curious about the JD/MBA joint program too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then how about now? There’s a Starbucks that’s open late if we walk a bit. Want to go?”
“Ah... I’d love to. But didn’t we have to be home by eleven?”
“I got a text from Mia on the way. She’s not coming in tonight. She said she’s sleeping over at her boyfriend’s place.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do it.”
We headed to the coffee shop like that and returned to the apartment past one in the morning.
Looking back, I think I sensed it vaguely then. That I would meet her at the main competition of the Moot Court Competition four months later.
---*---
Empire State Building
“350 Fifth Avenue, please.”
As Sujeong stated the destination in a smooth New Yorker accent, the yellow taxi began making its way to the heart of Manhattan, weaving every which way to avoid the cars on the road.
“It’s already starting to get jammed.”
“New York is always jammed.”
“That’s why I said to take the subway.”
“I wanted to do this with you too.”
She had a long list of things she wanted to do together when I came to New York. Touring the city in a yellow taxi, walking in Central Park, going to see the Statue of Liberty, and so on.
There was a time when she had shown me that list she had written while waiting for me.
“Why?”
We had had the exact same conversation ten years ago, too.... The memory surfaced in an instant, and I lost my words.
When I stared at her blankly, Sujeong made a puppy-like face and asked,
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Why? You were just thinking something. What were you thinking?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Ah, tell me, hurry.”
“I said it’s nothing.”
“Hey, Je Heon-je!”
“Okay, okay-. I just felt like we had this conversation before too.”
“You too? I felt the same way!”
“You did?”
“Yeah. The moment I said it, I felt it too. I really feel like we had this exact conversation, riding in a taxi with you just like this!”
*Could it be, surely not...?*
No. She had always said similar things since long ago.
Whenever anything happened, she would make a fuss, saying, “Hey, Je Heon-je, doesn’t it feel like we had this conversation before?”
“Again?”
“What?”
“Every time, you go on about déjà vu or whatever.”
“I do not. I really felt it this time.”
“What do you mean by ‘this time’? Does that mean there were times when it was fake?”
“I said no. They’re all real. This time, I really, really felt it.”
“Are you starting to take after Changje? If it’s real, it’s real; what do you mean by ‘really, really’? If it’s ‘really, really,’ that’s a double affirmative, so... that means it’s fake.”
“Hey, what kind of nonsense is that?”
“There is. In law school.”
“Really?”
There is no such thing as a double affirmative in the world.
“No.”
“Ah, come on—.”
Sharing the past is not something to be ignored. Inside the taxi heading toward the Empire State Building, brief though it was, we returned to old memories that had been happy, and it was the most natural thing in the world.
“We are here.”
Amidst such trivial banter, the taxi had already arrived at its destination.