So I haven’t posted in like two weeks. Terribly sorry. I really haven’t even been all that busy, although I’m supposed to have been busy this whole time. My motivation has flown out the window and I’ve been waiting for it to come back.
Okay, okay, I cannot tell a lie. The truth is, I bought Parasailin’s new book, Glowing Rouge, and I just couldn’t put it down. Such wordsmithery! Such esoteric writing! Such depth of knowledge! Such… such…
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Just kidding, you guys. I’ve just had a severe case of the lethargies.
Today I’m not going to complain about how horrible law school is because really it’s not so bad right now. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve had a lot of canceled classes (Contracts for almost a whole week, Legal Practice for almost two whole weeks because of individual writing conferences, Torts for one day) so my life hasn’t been as hectic as probably most other law students’ lives have been.
Ninja Kid did have a birthday and Ninja Pops (that’s my dad) was in town for that weekend, so that was fun. I can’t believe my little tiny baby ninja will be a teen-ninja next year. Zoinks!
Anyway, I think that late last night I may have found something that resembles my motivation. I did start my CivPro and Contracts outlines. I haven’t started one for Torts and I’m thinking that I may not do one at all. We can’t take anything in the exam so I’m thinking that just doing a bunch of hypos in the E&E and reviewing notes might be sufficient. Also, I bought the Acing Torts and Acing Civil Procedure books. I can tell I’m going to like them because they’re done with more of a list concept, which appeals to me on all sorts of OCD levels.
Aaaaaand, what I’m most excited about is that I may — MAY — have a lead on a paying summer job with a local family law attorney here. But ssshhhhhh — at this point it’s all very, very preliminary.
So, just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know I’m not dead and I haven’t dropped out of law school yet. I promise to do better with posting. Guess I just needed a little coma time.
It’s a milestone kind of day here at Chez Ninja. This is my 100th post! Hard to believe. So, to celebrate, I’m completing a half-finished post from a long time ago while watching Get Smart with Ninja Kid and eating tons of leftover Halloween candy. Hey, don’t hate me cuz I know how to par-tay.
So we have about five weeks until exams. Five weeks! That’s 18 classes. Almost time for this:
We started some study group work on Saturday morning and I think it was helpful. We just worked on Torts and we went through some of the hypos in the E&E and answered them as a group. I haven’t really started doing any outlines yet and I guess it’s time to get that underway. I think I said that a couple of weeks ago here, and somehow I’m not any farther along now than I was then. I blame the open memo from hell.
How much fun is this PicApp thingy? Oodles, that’s how much.
Okay. So I’m realizing that there are some things I don’t know (shocking!). For example, will the world come to an end in December of 2012, absolving me once and for all of my law school debt? Hey, I strive to look for the silver lining. Half full, baby.
Ha ha ha.
No, really. I do have some questions.
1. How can you tell the difference between dicta and reasoning in an opinion, and is this really important? It all seems like reasoning to me, like the judge is just building a case and then making a decision. I didn’t think this was a huge deal until I watched the 2L/3L Moot Court final round and there was all this debate about the nature of a judge’s comments in a previous case. The justices were arguing that it was persuasive precedent, but the appellants were arguing that those comments were just dicta. I mean, I know what dicta is, as far as the definition, but to me it just blends in with the reasoning. Discuss.
2. The tutors keep telling us to mark up our FRCP book and our UCC/Contracts Restatement book, since those are the only things we can take into the final. (For Torts all we can take is a pencil or a computer, no books at all.) What does this mean? What am I supposed to be writing in said books? I mean besides copying my outline onto the blank pages at the back.
3. Is it normal that I’m still completely lost in Contracts? He lost me right after promissory estoppel and we’ve never gotten back on the same wavelength. Will I have a eureka moment for this class like I did for CivPro? Surely I will, right? Shirley. Anytime now, I’m ready.
Also, I’m going to start Getting to Maybe this week in my spare time. Haaa. After exams, I’ll do a book review. Don’t let me forget.
Last week in Contracts we had a practice exam over the Statute of Frauds. Prof. K told us from the get-go that we’d probably all fail it but that he’d spend a few days the next week (this week) going over the proper way to take one of his exams.
So one of the deals is that if you choose to type the exam, you’re on a word limit. Or, you can write on the lined paper he provides and you’re limited to that space. He prefers the written exam so I’m sure that’s what most people will do. The point is that he doesn’t want to grade a bunch of BS. He just wants to know if you know something about Contracts. Me likey.
Anyway, today he spent a long time talking about how to look for cues in the question. For example, if the question says that a contract has already been formed, you don’t need to discuss offer, acceptance, and consideration. Makes sense, right?
Then, in a classic Prof. K moment, he turns to the chalkboard, says, “You all are familiar with IRAC, right?” and writes:
Issue Rule Analysis Qonclusion
“Whatever you do, do not go to IRAQ in your answer. I do not want to see that in your answer. If you do, you will find yourself caught in a bloody morass that you’ll have a heck of a time getting out of.”
So apparently the blog has been down for a little while. I’m not sure exactly how long, but I know it was longer than 24 hours. Apologies if you were trying to access the site and you got an error message. Hopefully the problem has been fixed and we’re good to go.
In case you didn’t notice, the week 6 edition of Law School Lessons is suspiciously late. Sorry about that. Strangely enough, I’m finding that some weeks are just not as amusing as others. Who would’ve thunk it?
Week 6 was… well… Eastwoodian.
The Good: Prof. Torts and Prof. K were both out of town on Thursday and Friday of last week, and Prof. Legal Practice figured out that if she held class there wouldn’t be very many people who showed up, so I was done last week for the week at noon on Thursday.
The Bad: I chose to spend that extra time staring at the cobwebs on my ceiling rather than getting ahead (or catching up) in my classes.
The Ugly: We had to have two Torts classes on Tuesday (one at 8:00 and one at 10:00) to make up for one of the missed classes later in the week.
The Good: I got my practice exam back in CivPro. Prof. CivPro wrote a lot of things on my paper, but the “good first effort” made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The Bad: Every person whom I’ve talked to also got the “good first effort” comment.
The Ugly: On closer inspection, I’m beginning to think the comment actually reads “cod list effect.” Except I didn’t list anything about fish anywhere in my answer.
You get the picture, right? A mixed bag. Something tells me this may be a recurring theme.
Professor Contracts was trying today to explain to us the finer points of Worker’s Compensation and indemnification policies, in the context of Allied Steel & Conveyors v. Ford Motor Co.*
Hey, let’s say that this Allied employee is wearing sweatpants — they all wear sweatpants, right? — and he pulls a gun out of his sweatpants and shoots a Ford employee. Do you see that the Ford employee would have a Worker’s Comp claim against Ford? Because he was injured on the job, right?
At this point, Prof. K walks over to the chalkboard and erases one arm of the stick-figure Ford employee he’d drawn earlier.
Let’s say the Ford employee loses his arm. The Allied employee shoots it off. Now, we’ve already determined in our scenario that an arm is worth $2500. [laughter]
Wonder what a leg’s worth? What if he loses both legs? I don’t know, probably $6500? Either that or he’d swell up with gangrene, right? [more laughter]
Now then… hey, I wonder what they do with those arms? You think they take ‘em out back to the smokehouse? [hearty laughter]
Four solid weeks of law school and I’m still standing. Must give credit where credit’s due.
nectar of the gods
BREAKING: we’re all gonna die!! Ninja School of Law has announced a special swine flu policy for this semester. Basically, they’ve realized that the current policy of allowing five absences before your grade gets docked will result in people coming to school while ill. And believe me, if one person comes to the law school with the swine flu, we’re all bound to get it, because it’s like we’re all up in each other’s faces all day long. So, the new policy is that if you have a fever and flu/cold symptoms, DO NOT COME TO SCHOOL. Email or call your professors and inform them of your impending porkishness, and your absences during that time will not be counted against you. They don’t even require a doctor’s note for this. Obviously it’s an Honor Code violation to fake the swine flu, plus it’s just not really that good of an idea to start with, but I have no doubt someone will do it. I’m really glad they did this because I was worried about what would happen if Ninja Kid and I both wind up with the swine flu. Now I feel a little bettah, but I’m still gonna start wearing one of these just for good measure.
And now it’s time for Law School Terms of the Week!
2. mensch: shorthand, slang term for something one says in passing; e.g., If I see him, I’ll mensch that you think he’s cute.
3. hereinbefore: where one puts one’s marker in order to win at bingo
TORTS
Gah. Negligence. All we ever talk about any more is negligence. What happened to the good ol’ days when we talked about pushing and hitting and throwing and trespassing and imprisoning and inflicting and placing in apprehension? Still, the reading is the easiest of the three substantive classes and Prof. Torts is still taking volunteers.
Prof. Torts is supposed to be making up a little practice exam question for us. He said we should try to do it within a timeframe of about 45 minutes to an hour and without consulting our book or our notes, in order to best simulate the real exam environment. I’m anxious to have a look-see at this practice exam, although I think I have a pretty good idea what a Torts exam might look like. Anyway, it’s optional whether we turn it in or not, but if we do he’ll grade it and write all over it so we can see just how badly we suck at taking exams.
CONTRACTS
Gah. How boring can one subject be?!?! Seriously. All I have to do is just glance at my Contracts books and it’s like an instant coma. Plus, I’m completely lost in there all of a sudden. I spent all day Saturday on Contracts and it. was. brutal.
Prof. K was really only funny for one day this week. Suffice it to say it involved a talking Dr. Evil doll and something about adventures in urination with kidney stones. Don’t ask.
LEGAL PRACTICE
Gah. So much going on in this class all of a sudden. ICW exercises. Closed memo draft. Video tutorial re secondary sources. Research path #1. Client interview questions (by the way, I have no idea what we’re supposed to be interviewing about). Writing proficiency exam. Library computer session for research tutorial. I’m not making any of this up. Oh, don’t forget the 3783 pages of reading and probably a quiz or two.
But, fantabulous Prof. LP makes it all bettah with a little chocolate birthday cake therapy.
CIVIL PROCEDURE
Okay you guys should probably sit down before you proceed. Ready? I really like CivPro. There, I said it. I’ll say it again: I really, really like CivPro. It just makes sense all of a sudden. Which is weird because for the first two weeks I had no clue what was going on in there. No frakkin clue. I fully expect that this warm, fuzzy feeling will be short-lived, but for now I will wallow in it. Don’t judge.
Prof. CivPro has almost made the rounds, so probably by the end of next week everybody will be fair game to be called upon again. I’m going to step waaaay out on a limb here and make a totally wild prediction: My warm, fuzzy feelings about this class will fade in conjunction with my being called upon again. Ha ha! Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Well, what can I say? I’m all about living on the edge
Sorry, I have no clever picture to go here.
I promise I’m going to try to start posting more frequently than just once a week. Gah.
Apologies in advance to both of my loyal readers. This week’s edition of Law School Lessons will be brief for two reasons: (1) I spent the better part of my weekend working on a draft closed memo, (2) the season finale of True Blood is on HBO in an hour and nothing — NOTHING — will keep me from watching it.
To start, let’s just address a real problem I have with law school. I had hoped that there would be some perks that came along with being in my 30s. For example, I thought by now I might have gotten old enough to stop worrying about ACNE?!?!? WTF?!?!? The law school giveth, and the law school taketh away. And this week, the law school giveth me a giant zit under my nose. Not quite this big, but close.
I like how the guy moved his hair out of the way just in case you couldn't quite see the whole thing.
TORTS
We’re mostly finished with consent and privileges/defenses, so next week it’s on to negligence. I’ve been told that this is where it starts to get more difficult. Torts is still my favorite reading.
I believe we’re also supposed to get a practice exam pretty soon. Can’t wait to see what that looks like. None of my professors have practice exams available in the school’s database. FAIL.
This week we were discussing a case in which a football player hit another player during a game, and whether the one was liable for battery. Professor Torts said, “I didn’t get to play football; I was on the debate team. We called it ‘Jewish football’ because none of our mothers would let us play the real sport.”
LEGAL PRACTICE
Well, I knew this day had to come. Legal Practice is starting to be a pain in the posterior, and it’s only gonna get worse. This week we had to take a writing proficiency exam, which wasn’t hard, but it required that I come back to school on a Friday afternoon, and that ain’t cool. Should have the results of that test in a week or so. We’ve been informed that if we don’t like our grade, we can take the test again and they’ll take the higher grade. WIN.
And about that closed memo: not really very pleasant. I hate to bitch about it too much, though, because I know in a few weeks I’ll be longing for the days when my research was done for me. It’s due tomorrow at 9:00, and frankly I’m bursting with pride because I finished it this afternoon instead of starting it after True Blood. How very adult-y!
CONTRACTS
Contracts this week was quite eventful. First of all, you already know that I’m highly entertained by Professor Contracts. The thing is, when he says funny stuff, you don’t always know it’s gonna be funny until after he’s already said it, and then it’s too late to start writing it down. This happened one day last week, when Professor Contracts had the most elegant moment of poetry, and I realized it just a little too late. Luckily for me, the Contracts tutors dutifully recorded it word for word, and I reproduce it for you here in all its profundity:
We are engaging in an astonishingly boring activity. You are going to find in law school you are going to spend a lot of time looking at the most boring concepts in the world. But part of the motivation is fear, and that works for me. You are going to be afraid of not knowing these things in December. Once you get out in practice, you are going to be doing the same horribly, horribly boring things.
I got called on in Contracts this week while we doing promissory estoppel. Go ahead. Ask me any question. I’m an expert now. I was on for this one case and I did okay, and then he moved on to the next case and called on someone else. At that point, I completely checked out. I mean totally. The people on G-chat in front of me were providing me with plenty of entertainment and I had no idea what was going on until I noticed people in front of me turning their faces upward to look at me. Wut? Sure enough, Professor K is saying, “Are we still on up there?” So I stumbled around and looked like an incompetent boob for a few seconds, and then I managed to figure out what he was looking for. Good god, man, don’t you know it’s not nice to double dip??? FAIL.
One last thing about Contracts this week. This was by far the funniest thing EVAH to happen in class, but when I retell it you won’t think it’s so funny. Anyway, I’m gonna tell it anyway. So we were in class on Friday morning, everybody was half asleep because, well, it was Friday morning, and Professor Contracts is talking about the Lucy v. Zehmer case. You know, the one where the dude got drunk and sold his farm? Prof. K asks a question and a girl toward the front raises her hand to answer. Right when she started talking, the fire alarm went off. LOUDLY. Everybody in the room jumped a mile, some people started acting like they were headed for the door, and there was a general sense of confusion. Without missing a beat, Professor Contracts gets this kinda crazy look on his face and yells out, “You won! You won!” The whole class dissolved into hysterical laughter, and it took forever to get back on track. WIN.
CIVPRO
Okay this may sound weird, but I don’t hate CivPro anymore. At some point early in the week last week, a little tiny light bulb went off in my head and I saw the light. Yay! We’ve been discussing Rule 12 and all these motions you have to file, some all at the same time, some not, some favored, some not so favored… It all appeals so much to my OCD self. I confess. Don’t judge.
We did have one pretty hilarious moment in CivPro this week, also. We were talking about anonymous plaintiffs and when that’s appropriate and when it’s not, blah blah. So we had a little squib on this case where this girl was suing her (former) boyfriend for distributing a sex tape they made, and she wanted to remain anonymous but the court wouldn’t let her. Anyway, we were discussing this and out of the blue Professor CivPro hits the button and the giant movie screen starts dropping. The whole class started quietly giggling, then laughing louder, and louder, and Professor CivPro kinda looked at us like we were crazy. Then she realized what we were giggling about and she said, “Oh! No! No, I’m not gonna show you the sex tape!”
Yeah, so much for brevity. Perhaps I should start doing this more frequently so these aren’t so freakin long. FAIL.
But the True Blood finale was freakin awesome. WIN!
Thank heavens for three-day weekends! By the end of last week, I was completely out of motivation to do any reading. So, I just didn’t. And now I’m a tad behind. This is why Barack Obama invented Labor Day, right? I hope he invents another Monday holiday in October because I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need it.
But first, a new feature! Law School Terms of the Week! (applause)
1. administratrix: like a dominatrix, but with a rule book in one hand
2. chattel: a genetically unlikely cross between a French cat and a herd of cows
3. perdurable impetus: an infuriatingly large and long-lasting skin lesion on one’s mouth
This week’s Law School Lessons won’t be broken down by class because I’m feeling a little lazy. Sue me.
I still like Torts the best. The reading is interesting and the lectures are informative and entertaining. That spells W-I-N in my casebook. Professor Torts is still taking volunteers to discuss cases, so I’m probably going to try to get a turn next week. Pretty soon he’ll start cold-calling people who haven’t volunteered, so I’d just like to get my turn over with. Since I like reading Torts so much, I’m way ahead in there. I may not have to read Torts again until next weekend, if I’m lucky. We finished up all the intentional torts and have moved on to privileges and defenses (e.g., consent).
Contracts is quickly becoming my least favorite. It’s a close competition between Contracts and CivPro for that bottom slot, but for now I think Contracts has the edge. Blah, blah, blah, illusory promise, blah, blah, specific performance, blah, blah, blah. I’m pretty sure the abbreviation for Contracts is K for Killmenowpleez. I hope this gets better. I am still highly entertained by Professor Contracts, though. This past week he recommended a book on Contracts by a guy named Chirelstein for help in understanding some of the more complicated cases we’re reading. I ordered it, and I’ll be sure to let you know if it’s really helpful or not.
My number was up in Civil Procedure this week. I got called on, but I got off pretty easy. We were doing a class exercise on the federal legal process as a whole, and she was wanting the entire class to participate but sometimes she’d ask a question and get a classroom full of blank stares. So she got frustrated and decided to call on people, and of course she called on me. She asked me a hypothetical that I had no idea about, so of course I answered incorrectly. Then a classmate tried to chime in and offer help, and he got it wrong, too. She asked me a few more questions, I ended up feeling wholly inadequate and foolish (just like I predicted last week), and then she moved on. After class, several people told me I was so lucky to have gotten called on that day because it was pretty easy. And by easy I mean that I didn’t cry or wet my pants. Also, I have no idea what the hell is going on in this class. I’m as thoroughly confused as I’ve ever been in my whole life. I’m just gonna have to pull a Dory.
Legal Practice is still going swimmingly well (hee hee). We got our first major assignment this week – a closed memo assignment that has to do with a real Texas case involving a monkey stealing plants from a nursery at the behest of his owner. Ka-razy! I just couldn’t love my LP professor any more than I already do, so I’ll refrain from gushing.
We had a mandatory meeting last week about filing our intent to practice law with the bar. Apparently this form is made of gold and encrusted with jewels, because it costs us each $190 just to file the damn thing. Actually, at this point I’m already so numb to spending god-awful amounts of money on law school that I didn’t pay that much attention to the cost, but quite a few of my classmates were seething mad about it. Anyway, what are you gonna do? Not file it? I didn’t think so. Also, they went on and on and on and on about being 100% positive that we disclose everything that might come up on a background check, so that it doesn’t seem like we’re trying to hide anything. I’m talking this lady spent at least half her entire speech on this one point. I get it, I understand that they’re just trying to help, but jeez. I’m now so frightened of forgetting some little detail of my life that I may or may not be hearing voices. And the voices tell me to run away! run away! run away!
Ninja Dog apparently is having issues with my being gone from home all day, because every time I turn around she tries to eat some of my precious highlighters. This week I had to say a sad farewell to my red, dark blue, and purple highlighters. Those colors have been replaced with thin Crayola markers in comparable shades. I’m such a school-supply nerd.
Well. The first week of law school is over. Do I love it? Absolutely. Is it going to be a huge challenge? OMG. Yes.
So rather than bore you with a lengthy account of my first week, which was probably very similar to your first week as a 1L, I thought I’d just do a brief recap of my week by class. Hopefully I can do this as a weekly series.
But first, I do have some general thoughts:
I just love my law school. Love. I realize I’ve only been there a week, and all you seasoned law students are at once rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself, “Let’s ask her how she feels in three months at exam time.” I know I may be a little doe-eyed at this point, but seriously, it’s been great so far. The building is nice (especially the new add-on), there are lots of comfy chairs and couches and nooks and crannies in which to study, and it just has a good vibe. Most of the professors are pretty un-scary and everybody seems to be very willing to help when you run into a snag. I’ve met some nice people and some fellow snarksters and some who annoy the crap out of me, all of whom make for a very entertaining day.
I didn’t spend enough time doing the assigned reading before classes started, and as a result I was barely able to keep my nose above water as far as reading for class. Luckily, the gambles I made paid off and I didn’t get caught unprepared, but I have to get a little farther ahead in my reading. This week I had a mandatory parent’s meeting at Ninja Kid’s school and that two hours cost me.
On a related note, it took me about four days to realize that this formal case briefing business is for the birds. It simply takes way too long. If you have some extra time or you just want to make the time, more power to ya. Instead of formal briefing, I’m just highlighting (color coded!!) and making notes in pencil in the margins of my book.
Waking up at 5:45 every morning SUCKS. Is there some sort of button I can push to make myself go to sleep at 11:00 instead of midnight or later? For some reason, no matter how tired I’ve been all throughout the day, shortly after supper I get a second wind and I can’t make myself go to bed at a reasonable hour. This resulted in my falling asleep with my head in my torts casebook by the time Thursday came around. I really, really need to get this under control.
I love OneNote for organizing all my class materials. Can’t say enough about this program. However, I’m kindof at a loss when it comes to taking notes in class, especially in those classes where we spend inordinate amounts of time on details of cases rather than the big picture. I can hear some of my classmates typing furiously throughout the entire class period, yet for some of my classes I barely have half a page of notes for the whole week! Just when I was starting to think I was missing something, I came across this post on Fearfully Optimistic. [Sidebar: If you're not reading Fearfully Optimistic on a regular basis, shame on you. It's brimming over with helpful, practical advice and you owe it to yourself to check it out if you're a current or future law student.] Anyway, I feel better about my lack of notes now. Thanks, John!
And now, for this week’s installment of Law School Lessons!
TORTS
I like Professor Torts. He’s got a good sense of humor and he makes funny jokes. He uses PowerPoint and he posts it so we don’t have to copy down a bunch of stuff if we don’t want to. Better yet, at the end of each major concept he hands out an outline of the pertinent points. So helpful! He generally takes volunteers, and so far he hasn’t called on anyone out of the blue. There are a lot of people in my section who like to talk.
This week we studied Intent and Battery; next week we start with Assault. What’s cool about Torts is that the cases are interesting and sometimes even kinda funny, so reading is not a chore.
Somehow this week, while talking about intent to harm, we got off onto a discussion of duty versus obligation to help someone in need. He mentioned that in some instances, if you stop to help someone and you end up harming them in the process, you may be held liable. One student was incredulous and asked, “You mean if you just try to help somebody they can sue you later?” Professor Torts replied, “Well, the basic principle of life is that it sucks and then you die, so… yeah.”
Regarding the obligation to help someone in need, Professor Torts explained that if we see a fellow classmate whom we don’t particularly like drowning in the local lake, it’s legally okay to “pull up a lawn chair, light a cigar, and watch the show.” Totes.
CONTRACTS
Professor Contracts is great. He sports a bow tie on most days, and Fridays are Hawaiian shirt days. Snazzy! He’s pretty laid back and a slow talker, and he also has a great sense of humor.
On Friday, Professor Contracts announced that it had come to his attention that some in our class were concerned that we weren’t moving quickly enough through the material and that we needed to pick up the pace. He assured us that he knows what he’s doing. WTF? Somebody actually complained about that?! In the first week of class?! WTF is going on here? I guarantee you, if I find out who it is, I’m gonna have my posse boil their bunny on the stovestick a horse’s head in their bedattack them in the shower give them a stern talking-to.
This week we studied contracts in general and we started talking about consideration. We were reading a case that referenced a “noted thinker” named Chitty. Professor Contracts said, “Okay, Chitty on Contracts. Why do we give a chit?”
CIVIL PROCEDURE
Professor CivPro is the most intimidating of the lot. We can’t use laptops in her class. When you get called on in her class, you have to stand. And you don’t just answer a couple of questions; you have to stand there for about half the class period (20-30 minutes) and respond to hypotheticals.
This week we studied due process. Professor CivPro’s class tends to devolve (or maybe it’s intentional) into discussions of public policy, such as the fairness of the welfare system or the disability benefits system, instead of focusing on the law. This aggravates me for two reasons: (1) isn’t this what we did in undergrad? (2) is it even relevant if my classmates think it’s unfair to rely on the testimony of doctors in determining disability benefits because a friend of a friend once had an on-the-job injury and the one doctor said she had this percentage of disability and the insurance’s doctor said she had less disability, so therefore doctors could be biased and we should just give Mr. Eldridge the benefit of the doubt when he says he’s in pain…? Now I’m not saying I have no empathy, but I just don’t think it has anything to do with the case we’re talking about, now, does it? Grr.
A lot of people in my section are spending an inordinate amount of time preparing for CivPro because of their fear of getting called on and not knowing every single little tiny miniscule detail of the case. As a result, one student already got caught unprepared when she got called on in Contracts. I think this is a losing strategy, and I ain’t fallin’ for it. Here’s my rationale: If I get called on in CivPro, regardless of how well I know the case, I’m going to end up looking like a fool because Professor CivPro is eventually going to get the best of me. Additionally, this will eventually happen to every single person in my class. So I’m going to read the cases and do my highlighting tricks, and I may jot down a couple of notes on a piece of paper to keep handy just in case. But I will not neglect my other classes just to join in the freak-out-over-CivPro party. Hopefully this strategy will pay off.
LEGAL PRACTICE
This is the research and writing class and it lasts for two semesters. I have nothing but nice things to say about Professor LP. She’s pretty, she’s a fashionista, and she seems really, genuinely nice and very smart. She tells us stories about when she was practicing. Also, she bakes birthday cakes.
For this week, this was my favorite class. That’s because it was so easy. We talked about court structure and that’s about it. It was like taking a freshman government class. But please don’t misunderstand: it was glorious, restorative therapy for my overloaded brain to get to sit there and relax for an hour. I realize that later in the semester I won’t be such a fan, but for this week it was just right. Also, my classmates who have different LP professors have already had one quiz and one group exercise where they had to prosecute/defend a fictional character. None of that from my Professor LP. No stress here (yet).
Okay, so this didn’t turn out to be as brief as I intended. In my defense, though, there was a lot to cover. I suspect when things settle down a bit this weekly post will, too.
