The book The Paper Chase details how students are able to get by in law school. This can be a major struggle for many students and they found some success studying together. Some of the members of the study group discovered a room where all the professors kept record of their class notes from the different classes they had taught. The human issue is the ethical dilemma of choosing between the right and wrong of an action. This particularly is an interesting occurrence because it parallels the common stereotype of lawyers and how they are supposed to be good at lying and are unethical in general.

Both Hart and Ford had to orchestrate a burglary to recover Professor Kingfield’s notes. This is during the winter and it is when Hart’s obsession with his professor becomes clearly evident. When Hart first learned about the “Treasure Room” he had an insatiable desire to get a look at his professor’s inner thoughts. So Hart and Ford planed out the perfect time to break in and that came when the secretary took a bathroom break in the middle of the night.

They found the right book after minimal effort and “Hart sat on the floor crosslegged, held the book in his lap and started turning the pages. There were dates, just like the dates in his notes and there were headings, just like his. He didn’t read the words; he watched the flow of the pen over the pages. They fell on each other softly, each page knowing the idiosyncrasies of the other.”

This style and layout of the notes had a striking resemblance to Hart’s own and it confirms the parallels between Hart and his role model Professor Kingsfield. They quickly put the book back confirming that they were notes just like either of theirs having not read even a word of their contents. They made the unethical decision to sneak a look at the notes however Osborn craftily portrayed them in a positive light by the way they did not use their unfair advantage to cheat.