Not Playing by the rules

# Flashback 1

Getting in one of the Ivy League Schools was nothing too special for him. Leon was pretty sure that he would be accepted in Harvard and if not then definitely Princeton. He knew that he was going to be lawyer, just like his own father and his grandfather before him. He had decided that he was going to be as much as prepared as possible before starting college in the fall. His mother knocked on his door and came inside.

“You know that you can come in any time Mom. There is no need to knock really,” said Leon not looking at her raising his eyes from the magazine that he was reading.

“Leon, you have been already accepted to Harvard. You are graduating from High School in a week and you are still studying. I don’t mean to be rude at all but don’t you think that you should be out with friends and enjoying a little more?”

“Nah the article is much better than those bumble-heads,” he replied not bothering to hear what she said next. He went back to reading the article which went as:

A funny thing about the U.S. Constitution is that it’s written down. Words might seem like an obvious feature of a constitution, but they're notably missing from much of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the country from which the United States seceded. Historians have often assumed that the quirky American practice of putting constitutions into single documents has its origins in the corporate charters of the seventeenth-century trading companies that founded more than half of the thirteen original states. But, as historian Mary Bilder has written, it is surprisingly difficult to explain the change from corporate charter to modern constitution with precision and persuasive power.

This Article attempts to do just that, telling the story of an eighty-year lawsuit that forced the Massachusetts Bay Company to treat its charter's terms as Gospel. Relying on original research of thousands of primary sources from the United States and United Kingdom spanning from 1607 through 1793, the Article presents an account of how a corporate charter evolved into a “Charter Constitution” in America while the British Constitution remained intangible.

The Article demonstrates that written words became a defining feature of American constitutionalism a century before the American Revolution, and that this distinction between the American and British understanding of constitutions contributed to American independence. It also demonstrates that charter constitutionalism emphasized text but also included methods of interpretation that today might be described as purposivist or living constitutionalist.

“Leon, I am talking to you. Are you even listening to what I am trying to say?” asked his mother, her voice at the end of exasperation.

“Mom I really need to concentrate on this article. I shall have enough time to have fun later on but these I need to know now for sure. Whatever conversation you wanted us to have, we can continue that at a later stage. Is that acceptable to you?” asked Leon.

“You have just become like your father Leon. Don’t make the same mistakes he did. Maybe he got away with them but you won’t,” said his mother and left the room closing the door behind her.

He could not understand why she said those words at that moment but it would not be long that Leon would learn them the hard and painful way.

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. It is ranked first in the world by the QS World University Rankings and the ARWU Shanghai Ranking.

Each class in the three-year J.D. program has approximately 560 students, among the largest of the top 150 ranked law schools in the United States. The first-year class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students, who take most first-year classes together. Harvard's uniquely large class size and prestige have led the law school to graduate a great many distinguished alumni in the judiciary, government, and the business world.

According to Harvard Law's 2015 ABA-required disclosures, 95% of the Class of 2014 passed the Bar exam. Harvard Law School graduates have accounted for 568 judicial clerkships in the past three years, including one-quarter of all Supreme Court clerkships, more than any other law school in the United States.

Harvard Law School's founding is traditionally linked to the funding of Harvard's first professorship in law, paid for from a bequest from the estate of Isaac Royall, Jr., a colonial American landowner and a slaveholder. Today, it is home to the largest academic law library in the world.

This was the speech that they were welcomed with in their introductory session. Everyone knew it but still for some reason they had not said any single thing. Leon was more than excited to start his classes and unlike his classmates he did not need any motivation for studying since he had nothing to distract him at all. He did not have girl-friends neither was interested. But he was not homosexual either.

But then something happened. What happened in the next three years was a disaster for him and a blessing for the one who made him go through with it.

It was the class of criminology which Leon wanted to specialize in. It was the second week of their classes and they were all burdened with only one thing, that is case studies, analysis and home works and assignments. The woman who entered the room was nothing like Leon had ever seen before. He had seen professional powerful women in the courts and the jury members but nothing ever like her. She wrote her name on the blackboard and turned towards the class, that single moment her and Leon’s eyes locked on each other and he had a raging hard-on instantly.

But she did not even bother to look at him twice. Jean Anne Merson was her name.

Two days later he was called in the office of the woman who taught how to get away with murder successfully. Everyone said that she was ruthless and a disaster but she was the most sought after lawyer in the damn country and that definitely meant something, if not to others, to Leon it did.

Leon entered the cabin after a small knock and found her swathed in a tomb of papers. She raised her green eyes towards him and said,” So you are the son of Casterfall who came here on merit and not by the charity of his father!!”

Leon was thunderstruck at her comment and did not know what should be said.

“And you don’t speak. Good. I like it. That is a quality which has to be honed if you want to rise to the top. You need to start developing the habit of listening and then analyzing them later on,” said Jean Anne.

“May I know the reason why I have been called here? There are still three days till the date of submission of your assignment and I am sure I would not lag behind in my course-work,” said Leon trying not to look at her because if he did, he would get hard again and nothing would be more embarrassing than that.

“I have seen your interview sheets and the paper you have been working on for Prof. Jones. I like your work Casterfall. You have a keen and sharp mind ad you do not drone on in your work,” she replied as she rose from the chair and walked in her six-inched high heels towards the front of the table where Leon was still standing and had not taken a seat.

The click of her heels made the vein at the back of his neck throb painfully. He had no idea why this happened or why he was attracted to her in this way. This woman was old enough to be her mother but still it elicited such reaction from him.

“I want you to be my assistant for the next six months,” dropped the bomb as Jean Anne sat atop the table crossing her legs and Leon gasped at the statement.

“Me? You want me to be your assistant? That too for the whole semester?” asked Leon with his jaws still dropped open.

“If you do not want this opportunity I am sure there are plenty of others in your class who will be….What do you say?” asked the woman who looked at him as if she would pierce his soul with his gaze.

Leon looked back at her in her eyes and said,” I never said I don’t want the opportunity Ms. Merson. I just want to know why me and you have not asked me any questions or tested my knowledge, how can you be so sure of the fact that I am going to be perfect for this job because this opportunity as I know is once in a life-time but I want to be clear from your end as well.”

Jean Anne kept looking at him just in the way like a mountain cat looks at a ferret. Leon had still not understood that here he was not the predator but just the prey and that knowledge gave her immense pleasure. Naïve college students were rare these days and she had her hands on one.

“In all these years of my conversation with students you are the third one to show this courage and ask me back this question Casterfall….”

“I am sorry to interrupt but I would like to point it out Ms. Merson that Casterfall is what my father goes by, not me. I am Leon, please address me so,” said Leon not moving his eyes away from hers.

“Alright then, Leon it is. I would definitely take your interview and discuss a few ongoing cases of mine but not now and of course not here. I need privacy to discuss the details of the case which are confidential. So reach my apartment at 7 in the evening today, and if you had any plans for the night then cancel them. You are gonna wake the whole night working for me. If you are good at doing what you are asked to do then you are going to be working as my assistant which means double the work that you would have done previously and no rest at all. If you decide not to come then I would understand that you have declined my offer,” said the woman getting down from the table and turning back to Leon, making it abundantly clear that the conversation was over.

“I shall be there Ma’am,” said Leon as he left the room closing the door behind him.

He still could not understand what the hell just now happened. He had been asked to be the assistant of Jean Anne Merson and that privilege had been given to only three more people before him and all of them men. The professor did not counsel female students which was a bit of discontentment amongst the female folks of the college but she never budged from her own ways to manage and teach the classes.

Leon came to his dorm and on the way met Ericka who was from the same school but one year senior.

“Hey Ricka!!!” Leon called out.

“Yes Leon…No..don’t ask me on a date or my old assignments. The answer to both is no,” Ericka said nodding her head.

“I need neither. Just wanted to ask what the case with Jean Anne Merson is,” said Leon with a smile hoping that would melt her a bit into divulging information.

“What for Leon?” Ericka’s head and eyes both had snapped to attention.

“I have been offered to be her assistant for the semester,” said Leon not knowing what to say. The look on her face was of surprise, anger and then jealousy in rapid succession.

“It is a swim or sink option. Now depends on you Leon. Nothing more to know,” said Ericka as she left the place and Leon trudged back to his dorm room.