Meet John Donaldson While You Still Can!

By John Crouch, Attorney at Law, Crouch & Crouch, Arlington, Virginia; (703) 528-6700;
Copyright John Crouch 1995 / / Amicus Curiae, College of William and Mary
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[Note to readers on the web: John Donaldson is a taxation, property, and trusts and estates professor at the College of William and Mary's law school, formerly known as Marshall-Wythe. However, this article will be of interest to anyone who has been to law school, because every accredited law school has a John Donaldson -- or should!]

Ball Professor of Law and Thanatocracy John Donaldson yearns for Death. "I no longer have any future interests here at the College of William and Mary," he intoned, "and I have no present interests outside the College of William and Mary. When I have no present interests and no future interests, what, then, do I have? NOTHING!"

But that is not why John Donaldson yearns for Death. "I hasten to add," he added without apparent haste, "that I tend to frown upon suicide, inasmuch as I remain disinclined to disinheritance, which has historically been its ineluctable consequence at common law."

Few students know that Donaldson blossomed rather suddenly as a legal educator only six years ago, after he trekked to Nepal with Professor John Levy to receive training in Advanced Chanting at a Buddhist monastery.

"The monks were delighted with John's cultured patois of Old High Virginian and Law French," Levy reminisced.

Donaldson added that his college summer jobs as an auctioneer, singing street vendor and camp-meeting preacher also stood him in good stead. "Using my native capabilities and the techniques inculcated by Professor Levy's co-religionists, I try to mold the wording of my lectures into a chant that lulls the unsuspecting students into a trance that replicates a near-Death experience," he explained. "I think this helps them to understand the pros and cons of Death first-hand.

"Then, when they have achieved the mental state of a Typical Testator, I suddenly SHOUT loud enough to wake the Dead," Donaldson cried, leaping around like a hot-footed sinner on the Day of Jubilo.

But John Donaldson does not spend all his time proclaiming the mysteries of mortality. In his spare time, Donaldson relaxes by practicing his Deathbed oration and adding codicils to his will. Donaldson's will is a strong will, inscribed upon sturdy asbestos parchment and executed holographically in ineffable cadmium ink in his own fine chancery hand. "Incendiary options, needless to say, are hereby foreclosed, and anyone who attempts to fold, spindle, mutilate, efface or pulverize the instrument will only inherit a lawsuit and a nasty case of lung cancer!" he chortled in his joy.

The will is Donaldson's masterpiece. It is so complex that, when probated, it will paralyze and revolutionize the inheritance systems of the entire Western world and every nation of the Commonwealth. "They'll never know what hit 'em," he enthused.

"It will tie up every probate court and tax court in the world until such time as the nations of the earth join hands in peace and harmony and enact the Donaldson Unified System, which will entirely replace everything that has gone before in the realms of property, inheritance and taxation."

The Donaldsonian Unified System is amazingly simple and commonsensical. "It is so transcendentally simple," Donaldson explained, "that only a very few of the world's finest minds will ever be able to comprehend its simplicity. I could not begin to elucidate it to you in time for you to meet the deadline for your newspaper. However, you may find, as you begin to practice law, that my forthcoming treatise on the system will be of some assistance to you, as will my exclusive series of Continuing Legal Education seminars."

In order to make his will into an instrument of consequence, of course, Donaldson has had to amass scraps of realty and personalty in every corner of the globe. He owns a possibility of reverter in a small floating island of weeds and mud in the mouth of the Mississippi, and a rotationary interest in the disputed Hangnail Hundred, the no-man's land where the Mason-Dixon line collides obliquely with the gentle curve of the Delaware border. His bicycle, that proverbial article of personalty, has been pounded into the living rock at the summit of the Sierra Intestita, straddling the border between civil-law Spain and canon-law Andorra. "My summer research assistants, John Ashley and Jonathan Sheldon, provided invaluable assistance on this project," he recalled. "I think it provided them with real hands-on experience in molding the law, in a way that is far superior to summering in Williamsburg with one's nose in a book."

Asked to name his most arcane interest, Donaldson revealed that he owns a veritable remainder in equinoctial kelping rights on a woebegone mud flat on the nether coast of the Isle of Dingledy, one of the lesser Channel Islands. Though they are in fealty to the crown, these islands have never been subject to Parliament and its statutes, and instead remain governed by customary Norman feudal law. Thus it is eternally "Before 1290" on Dingledy, and that is why Donaldson stresses that when considering any case or question in property law, the most important initial determination that must be ascertained is simply, "Is it after 1290?" [true fact!]

But when the Donaldson Unified System is come to pass, even this question need not be asked. Every meddlesome legal innovation that has accreted since 1290 will be destroyed. And that is why John Donaldson yearns for Death.

-article by John Crouch, basic concepts by Joe Woitko, original byline Ruthie Ritalin. Quotes and some facts ficticious, but Professor Donaldson's friends were all fooled, even though the article appeared in the allegedly satirical "Ambulance Chaser" insert.

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