Day 168

Tonight I went to this dinner to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Kansas District Court with my dad.  It was ... interesting.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was there because she is the Supreme Court Justice assigned to our Circuit.  (I didn't even know this was a common practice... law student fail.)  Anyway, I thought the evening would mostly be about her and we would get to hear her speak.  I was wrong.

The night started out great, with a cocktail hour and lots of lawyer schmoozing and then we had dinner, which was also very good.  After dinner, there was a 'fireside chat' with Justice Sotomayor.  Now generally (and I've only ever seen one other 'fireside chat'), a fireside chat consists of the important person for the night sitting on stage with someone else who asks them questions and they have a little 'chat'.  Well, for this fireside chat, Justice Brennan, who is the one U.S. Supreme Court Justice from Kansas (and dead), was a disembodied voice from the past who asked Justice Sotomayor the questions.  A little weird.  Disappointingly, Justice Brennan could only haunt us for about 3 questions, and then we had to move on to the other festivities.

After the fireside chat, Abraham Lincoln (or an impersonator of ol' Abe) made an appearance and orated for a full 45 minutes on the history of Kansas as a free state and its various, early politicians.  There may have been more, but I zoned out when my Contracts I professor started demanding, in not so quiet whispers, that he and his wife leave because he was bored.  It was all I could do not to giggle when his wife continued to shush him until he finally stomped his foot and walked out of the room.  She followed.

 
                 Fake                                                     Real

So, finally, honest Abe got to the end of his talk and we moved on to the final portion of the night.  A sing along.  Yep, that's right, the Kansas District Court commissioned someone to write them a theme song, which the judges of the court then performed. They then requested that we all join them in the singing of Home on the Range, the state song.  While singing Home on the Range the 10 or so judges from the District Court of Kansas linked arms and swayed.  Again, trying not to giggle.