How I Spent My Summer Vacation

• Year: 2024
• Citation: Vol. 93 No. 6 Pg. 44
• Pages: 44
• Date: 01 December 2024

How I Spent My Summer Vacation No. 93 J. Kan. Bar Assn 6, 44 (2024) Kansas Bar Journal December, 2024

CLE abroad program

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By Mary Feighny, Retired from the City of Topeka Legal Department

Acalico cat greeted us, sullenly, as we walked through Tom Gate and onto a football-size lawn at Christ Church College in Oxford, England. In the middle of Tom Quod is a koi-filled pond with the statue of Mercury looking like our Ad Astra, toned buttocks in full moon. In olden times the 'hearties' (jocks) would throw the 'aesthetes' (nerds) into the pond. A large fine now dampens enthusiasm for such frolics.

Christ Church College, founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, is one of the 39 colleges that comprise the University of Oxford. Student population is about 600 and its august students and professors include thirteen British prime ministers, King Edward VII, William Penn, Lewis Carroll, W. H. Auden, and John Locke. Former President Bill Clinton attended for a couple of years and smoked weed but didn't inhale.

And now here we were — a bunch of Yankee lawyers from Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia — gathered to imbibe British and American law for two weeks as part of an annual CLE organized (brilliantly) by Dan McCarroll, CLE director at the University of Missouri-Kansas City law school.

Porters in bowler hats, dark pants, white shirts, and ties escorted us to the dorm rooms that would be our abode for the duration: bed, desk, shower, toilet, and sink. Ancient plumbing required a modicum of upper body strength to depress a large "flush" button affixed to the wall. Breakfasts and lunches were served in the dining hall, formerly the seat of Parliament during the English Civil War and, more importantly, a feature in Harry Potter films.

Lacking a written constitution, England's rule of law is based in Acts of Parliament and common law, with...