Picking Up The Pieces

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus."

On Thursday, those words sizzled in my heart.

Why? Because I receieved the grade to my Criminal Law midterm. It was a nasty grade. It was an undeserved grade. I wanted to visit Professor Clark's office, to shout, to scream, to tell him he's wrong, that his preoccupation with fancy terms like mens rea and actus reus belongs in dusty, old books, and not in the real world that Randy McDowell knows, and from which his professor only teaches.

But then I realized something.

I realized that Professor Clark has a checklist that he uses when he grades papers. The best students get the most checks in the most boxes.

Professor Clark, I have news for you.

My name is Randy McDowell, and I don't do boxes.


Clark is a searcher for consensus. Like Dr. King, I am a molder of consensus, and yes, my view of what criminal law means might not be the authoritative view.

Not yet, anyway.

As for what my view on criminal law entails, and as for this website, rest assured: Rome was not built in a day, and neither will Randy McDowell's Legal Advice- Not Your Ordinary 1L.

I'll show the doubters.  I'll show Professor Clark. I'll show the world that it's not about Black's Law Dictionary or statutes or Restatements. The future of the law will indeed be written.

And I am reaching for my pen.

- Randy