I hate issues. I used to be a very confrontational person, but somehow I mellowed these days. What is happening to me? Am I mutating into that mature person I've always hoped to be? Please, God, tell me this is it...
So I am confronted yet again by another juvenille issue of whether or not I have to share my case digests and other law school materials. I don't really see it as an issue. I have never been selfish when it comes to materials. My philosophy is that those are just materials and a person will never get anything from it by mere possession. That's also why I never liked asking for other people's materials if I know I won't be able to read them or even glance at them.
I started a class case pool last week. I passed around a piece of paper where classmates can write their names if they are interested to make their lives a bit easier by having to share the burden of reading hundreds of cases (literally, our case assignments are now more than a hundred). I also wrote some "terms and conditions" to which people will adhere if they want to benefit from this collective effort. In essence it suggests, "to give is to receive."
It would be unfair to those who will do the "digesting" if others will just get copies of the digests without doing the same. The evil sought to be avoided in this case is free riding. There is no such thing as "I am busier" or "I have more cases to read" because clearly that is precisely the point of this whole activity. For you to read less full-texts, you digest one case. Just one case! What's so hard about that? Besides, we all have responsibilities... responsibilities which we voluntarily took and wittingly knew the consequence thereof.
So on the issue of whether or not I should share the efforts of this case pool, I, the sole arbiter of my conscience, will rule in favor of fairness and equity. Any type of circumvention to my rules, will be dealt with by karma. What goes around comes around.
