Northwestern Law cameo at the Lyric Opera!
If you make it over to see the terrific production of Showboat at the Chicago Lypric Opera, check out the scene in the second act in which the scenery depicts the Northwestern Law School building circa early 1900′s. Way cool!
Theme from Hot Doug’s
Chicago sausage emporium! Enjoy.
Guest post: Best of 2011 law-related movies
Dana Hill teaches Communication and Legal Reasoning at Northwestern Law. Following a stint writing movie reviews while attending Northwestern Law for Hoops, the student weekly, Dana has been sending out Academy Awards predictions since 2000. Her friends assure her that they enjoying reading them.
With the Academy Awards coming up on Sunday, February 26, it seems appropriate to highlight some of the best recent movies involving lawyers and legal issues. While two movies on this list have received Oscar attention, a few have been overlooked and all are worth checking out.
The Descendants
This Best Picture nominee stars George Clooney as Matt King, an Oahu real estate lawyer, who is also the trustee for the last piece of privately-owned non-developed land on Kauai. As descendants of one of the last members of Hawaii’s royalty, Matt and his extended family are required by the rule against perpetuities to dissolve the estate within the next seven years. As trustee, Matt has the ultimate decision on which developer to sell to. Take note property professors: this story would make a great starting point for an exam question. (Between this film and PBS’ “Downton Abbey”, land transference is having a pop culture moment.)
The land issues are background to the main story. A workaholic, Matt has neglected his wife, an extreme sports enthusiast who suffers a traumatic head injury during a speedboat race. While she’s in a coma, Matt must take charge of his two daughters, a precocious pre-teen and a misbehaving high schooler who has been shipped off to private school. As Alex, the older daughter, Shailene Woodley is nominated for Best Supporting Actress and she carries a lot of the movie. Along with her deeper-than-he-appears boyfriend, Alex helps Matt deal with his wife’s impending death and track down the man his wife was having an affair with prior to her accident.
Director Alexander Payne gets right the details of a lawyer’s lifestyle: Matt works on a legal pad in his wife’s hospital room; his office is stacked with files; he wasn’t around much to spend time with his kids. As in “Michael Clayton”, I bought Clooney as a lawyer – when he stops to think, you actually believe he’s thinking and he’s nearly always a few steps ahead of the other characters.
The Descendants is not the feel-good movie of the year, but is an excellent family drama about smart, decent, yet flawed people with a plot that takes some unexpected turns. The Descendants is playing in theaters. Read more 
Chicago restaurant review (times two)
Friday visit to Wicker Park neighborhood. Lively, diverse, colorful. Good find on our part! Will return for further exploring. For now, we can say good things about Mirai Sushi at 2020 W. Division St. Reasonbly snazzy place with various Japanese delicacies on order. Started with a Sakatini (good drink; bad name). Lovely wife had a Passion Cucumber drink (or something to that effect). Met with our approval.
Various menu items later (special acknowledgment of the Tuna carpaccio salad and the spicy octopus roll), we emerged with a very favorable impression of this Chicagoland sushi joint. By all accounts, Japanese cuisine is a Chicago staple. We will look forward to adventuring in this direction further.
Saturday visit to the Bayless temple on Clark & Illinois. I am speaking of the casual arm of the Mexican food bazaar established by the great chef, Rick B. We were at Xoco. Outstanding as always.
Although the winter is mild by all accounts, it is chilly enough for our Cali-Texas sensibilities to welcome the steaming Caldo (Mexican) soups on offer. The special version of the duck Carnitas soup was especially revelatory. Fantastic place, casual, economical and homey, and we recommend it strongly.
Restaurant Rec: Slurping Turtle
Yes, that’s what it is called and the name is, well, reasonably self-explanatory.
On a typically chilly Tuesday evening, we ventured out from the cozy walls of downtown apartment to 116 W. Hubbard where we found our way into a banquette in this new, noisy Asian-fusion restaurant. No reservation policy meant we were chancing it but I guess we looked cold enough to justify seating us immediately.
The menu is eclectic and, as you will see from this link, cuts across a wide swath of Japanese specialities. We mainly limited out choices on this round to the grilled items and a large bowl of ramen + noodles. While not a budget restaurant, you can have a pleasant repast for a manageable amount.
Slurping Turtle: two thumbs up.
Evanston adventures
NU Law School is, in my biased view, the most attractively functional urban law school in the U.S. It is in the beating heart of Chicago’s downtown, nearby firms, courts, and other pertinent organizations and has a spectacular panorama view of Lake Michigan.
But don’t miss the fact that we have, just up the road a bit, our stellar big sister, and that is the central campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Last night, we attended a wonderfully intimate chamber music concert at the Bienen School of Music (with the Bienens, in fact! Henry Bienen being the former president of the University and his wife, Leigh, a valued colleague in the Law School). Today, we returned to the campus to see the NU Wildcats upset the Michigan St. Spartans. There is much to see and much to enjoy in this nifty college town just a few miles up the road. And the NU campus is home to great theater and music, an appealing art museum, and venues for Big 10 sports. Students, alumni, and friends of the Law School should take heed.
Moreover, Evanston is quite lovely in the winter. Chilly Chicagoland is a cliche; the bright snow settling on the parks and lawns of this city is quite a beautiful sight.
Northwestern defeats Michigan State!
And we were there.
Quality win for the Wildcats tournament resume (they have never made it to the Big Dance).
Guest post: Scion of Northwestern Law
Hello readers of Dean Dan’s blog. I am the wife of the Dean (and, I’m told, a person in my own right!). I’m very excited about our upcoming move to Chicago and looking forward to my association with what so far seems to be a fun, loyal, and interesting community of Northwesterners. (That doesn’t sound right. Is it Northwesternites? I might have to go with Wildcats.) I’ve already had the opportunity to meet some wonderful faculty, staff, students, and alumni from both the law school and the University, and we are about to head off on a bus tour (not really a bus tour – we aren’t John Madden or Sarah Palin after all – but you know, a tour of a lot of cities where Northwestern alums can be found) where I will have the opportunity to meet even more great Northwestern folks. Right now, we are in Washington DC for the first of many alumni receptions we’ll be attending over the next few months.
Last night’s reception in DC was pretty great – a breathtaking view of the White House and the Washington Monument from the Hay-Adams hotel, good grub, and a roomful of interesting and excited law school alumni. I had the good fortune to meet many cool people, among them Julie Liu DeFrain, from the Class of 2007. Julie is a lawyer at the Department of Education, but she has a side-occupation – she has helped her sister open, and is now helping her sister run, a contemporary American restaurant in DC. When I told Julie where we were staying, she said the restaurant was very close to our hotel. Read more
Northwestern Wildcats: There’s always next year
Just back from Houston, where we had the pleasure of hanging out with Northwestern alums and other assorted Wildcat fans at the Meinecke Car Care Bowl game. The Wildcats did not win the game – though there were a few moments when it looked like we might break that bowl losing streak – but we still came back feeling like winners for our good fortune of being associated with this world-class university. At the pre-game tailgate, we heard from Northwestern’s distinguished president, Morty Schapiro, who highlighted the academic accomplishments of Northwestern’s student-athletes and reiterated the University’s commitment to academic excellence and value-based citizenship, Athletic Director Jim Phillips, a charismatic and sincere guy, who, despite his obvious nerves about the game, managed to excite the purple-clad crowd, and Tim Lenahan, the uber-successful men’s soccer coach, who could also have a career as an motivational speaker. Jim told us about Joey V., a Texas A&M offensive lineman, who was killed in a car crash on his way home to Florida for Christmas, and asked the Wildcat fans to remember Joey and his family and to remember what is really important in life. The Aggies wore helmet stickers in honor and memory of Joey V., and so did the Wildcats. We lost the game, but we left Houston feeling proud of our association with this great University, and looking forward to joining the Northwestern family.
And another thing we’ll look forward to is getting that bowl game win next year.
