Before I started law school, I got a lot of advice. I’m sure you have, too, by this stage, if you’re starting law school in the fall. Of all the advice I received, two things still stick out in my mind as being particularly useful.

1. Your classmates today will be your colleagues in three years.

It’s said so frequently in law school orientation that it becomes a cliché: “Your reputation as a lawyer begins today.” I suppose the reason it’s emphasized over and over is because it’s true. When the hellacious ride known as law school is over, you will be an attorney. And so will the out-of-control guy who showed up to class hung over more often than not, and so will the out-of-control girl who slept with 20 different guys (that you know of). You get the picture. Later, when a client brings you a problem that you can’t handle for him because he’s in a different city or the problem is beyond your realm of expertise, you’re going to want to make a referral. If you know two attorneys in Pleasanton that you went to school with, and one of them threw up on your shoes at a party every semester and regularly turned assignments in late and demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to follow simple rules, you’re probably going to refer your client to the other person, all else being equal. Just keep this little piece of advice tucked away in the recesses of your brain somewhere and it’ll serve you well.

2. Don’t take it too seriously.

At first, you might think this contradicts our first little nugget of wisdom, but in fact it’s a nice complement. You want to strike a balance between being sociable and serious, and it’s not always easy. If it’s possible to develop a negative reputation by being too sociable, so to speak, it’s also possible to develop a negative reputation by not being social enough. This is particularly true if you’re a nontraditional student (married, parent, older/career change, etc.). Don’t look down your bifocals at the “kids” and decide that you’re too mature to go out to the bar and knock back a few. If alcohol is just not your thing, what the hell are you doing in law school you can still be sociable without having to drink. Just get out of the house/library/carrel once in a while with some fellow law students and laugh and have a good time. Referring back to our hypothetical situation above, if you need to make a referral and you know two attorneys in Pleasanton who were your classmates, and one of them camped out in the library every day until 9:00 at night and never attended any social functions and was your sectionmate for your entire 1L year although you didn’t know it until the 12th week of your second-semester classes, you’re probably going to refer your client to the other person, all else being equal. Just as you wouldn’t refer someone to an attorney who was completely out of control in law school, you probably wouldn’t refer someone to an attorney with whom you had absolutely no social relationship with at all. If you discover at some point that your conversations at school are largely dominated by school-related topics, I’m talking to you. Get. A. Life.

Plus, law school sucks. Not so much because it’s hard, although that’s part of it. The main thing is that it’s just so different from undergraduate work, and the only people who can really relate to you are people who’ve either already been through it or who are going through it with you. You’re going to want to have friends in law school who will understand your silly adverse possession jokes and who will commiserate with you about your constitutional law class. When you develop ASS Syndrome, you’re going to want friends who sympathize and probably suffer from it, too, so you can sit around and collectively wonder how you’re going to get motivated to study for exams. Beyond that, though, some of the friends you make in law school can be lifelong friends, and everybody needs more of those.

So take the time to build and cultivate friendships with some of your classmates. Go out, have some drinks, socialize. Have a lot of laughs. Our section had a little dinner party rotation on Thursday nights and people would take turns hosting throughout both semesters. Form study groups. Join some law school organizations that you find interesting. Get on an intramural softball team if that’s an option. Just don’t be a study hermit.

**********

I may have one more of these free advice posts in me, but I’m not sure. Are there any topics you’d like to see covered or questions that remain unanswered for you? If so, leave me a comment on this post and I’ll do my best to address it.

So the other day I started writing this post, the third in my series, and then this thing happened, and then I had to rename part 3 into part 4 because now part 3 has to be about this thing that happened.

Here’s what happened. I was doing a whole bunch of things at once, a practice we innovators call multitasking, and one of those tasks I was multi-ing was watching my Twitter stream. I follow between 450-500 people on Twitter at any given time. I follow all sorts of people: reporters, people who blog about politics from the left and the right, people whom I just find to be entertaining for some reason, and even a few celebrities. But mostly I follow law students and lawyers. I mean, it’s what I am and what I aim to be. This isn’t rocket science. If it was, I’d follow rocket scientists.

Anyway, there I was, multitasking like a champ, and this comes across my Twitter stream:

Anyone who tells you to take the summer off before law school instead of preparing, either made “B”s or has a very short memory.

Now y’all. There is so much wrong with this statement I hardly know where to begin.

For starters, since when is a B such a bad thing? You’ll recall (because I know you read part 2 of this series, in which I explained in so many words that B is the first letter in BFF) that the orientation gurus will tell you over and over that a C is a good grade in law school. To hear this guy talk, though, a B is the Mark of the Law School Flunkie. Wrong. There is nothing in the world wrong with a B, especially if you go to a school that curves to a C+ or even lower. And considering how many law schools are starting to either inflate their students’ grades or drop the grading system altogether in favor of a modified pass/fail system, grades are becoming more and more meaningless anyway.

Also, WTF Captain Generalization? This guy makes all kinds of assumptions about people’s grades and their memories based on the advice they give regarding what to do the summer before you start law school. Does that make any sense? Does that seem responsible? Of course it doesn’t. I mean, this guy wasn’t directing his comment at me specifically, but as someone who has most certainly advised you to take the summer off before law school, it ruffled my feathers a bit.

But really, the thing that just made my outrage-ometer soar off the charts is this: the guy who tweeted the above statement? He’s an author. Oh hey and guess what kind of book he’s selling? Oh wow, that’s weird. This guy sells a book that’s all about how to spend the summer before you start law school PREPARING FOR LAW SCHOOL.

Huh.

So wait. You’re saying there’s this guy who sells a book (and presumably makes a profit of some sort) that professes to tell you how to prepare for law school, and that same guy also says that anyone who disagrees with him either must have gotten B’s or has a short memory?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

So, being the snarky bitch that I am, I tweeted this in response:

Anyone who sells books about preparing for law school either couldn’t hack it as a lawyer or has a very short memory.

I mean, two can play at this game.

But really, this whole episode got me to thinking. Who are the people who advise you to do all this preparatory work the summer before you start law school?

Almost invariably, they are people selling you the (best) means by which you are to prepare.  (I say “almost invariably” because I do know anecdotally of one current law student who recommended a specific pre-law-school prep program to an incoming 1L.) If you search for “law school” on amazon.com, you get 28,972 results (at the time of this writing). The book written by Captain Generalization above is somewhere on the first page of the search results, along with however many other bazillion books that claim to have the secret to law school success. But did you ever wonder whether all those books have the same secret? I mean, there can’t be that many different secrets to law school success, right? Weird.

No matter how you slice it, there are a bunch of people out there making a shit-ton of money preying upon the insecurities of future 1Ls. An entire industry has grown up around the concept that law school is this dark, scary, mysterious place where gunners stealthily deploy biological weapons against unsuspecting classmates and professors randomly behead students who can’t withstand the Socratic scrutiny. Now, all I can speak about with any authority is my own law school experience. And in my experience, this is simply not the case.

Now I know you guys already know this because you read part 2 of my series, in which I told you in so many words the dirty little secret: law school just isn’t as hard as some would have you believe. I’m not being glib here. It’s new, and different, and challenging for sure. And it definitely is difficult. It may even be the most difficult challenge you’ve encountered to this point in your life. But y’all. It’s not like climbing Mount Everest. You don’t have to train for months and months just to make your first attempt at it, only to reach the third base camp and get frostbite and get sent back down the mountain to try again in another year or two. Thousands of people graduate from law school every year. Most of those people do so without having spent a fortune preparing for law school before they started. Some of the people who graduate from law school will do so still not knowing that it’s “would have been” and not “would of been.” This makes my toenails curl up, but it’s the truth.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less whether you take my advice or leave it. That’s why it’s free. I have no personal stake in your success or lack thereof in law school. Odds are, you don’t go to my school, you don’t live in my city or even my state, and we’ll never even meet, so whether you do well or not has no effect on me personally. Unlike Captain Generalization, I do not profit based on whether I can scare you into taking my advice.

But for god’s sake, you’re going to law school. Use your brain. It’s time to employ your critical thinking skills. Think about what motivates people, especially people who are trying to convince you that you can’t fully succeed without buying their snake oil. If you really and truly believe in your heart of hearts that you need to spend over a thousand dollars on a law prep class and/or hundreds of dollars on law prep books, do that. But if it gives you pause to think of spending a thousand dollars preparing for the education that’s going to cost you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, don’t worry that you’ll be behind in some way or at a disadvantage. You won’t.

It’s like this. The 1L fall semester can be pretty terrifying and overwhelming and exciting and inspiring and lots of other things–did I mention overwhelming?–all at once. You don’t really know what to expect as far as how to study, what to study, when to study, what will be tested, and so forth. You may get involved in student organizations, you learn how to do legal research and writing, you have happy hours, and everything is just new and shiny. The whole semester kind of just whizzes by in a blur of panic and adrenaline. Then you have exams. After grades come out, you get to see whether your study techniques were on target or not. Then you open Christmas presents or celebrate the winter holiday however you do, and all is right with the world. Yay law school.

In contrast, at least for me, the spring semester was, well, just the opposite. With the spring semester came this weird sickness that will henceforth be named Apathy of Spring Semester (ASS). Whereas the fall semester was just 16 weeks long, the spring semester was more like 457 weeks long, give or take a couple. I started out enjoying my classes, and then I just lost interest somewhere around the 32nd week of the semester. For one thing, having an 8:00 class (Property) four days a week is just simply not conducive to learning. I felt like a zombie every single day in there. The professor was engaging and easy to listen to, so it wasn’t his fault at all. For me, it’s just physiologically impossible to drink enough coffee to be fully awake for Property at 8 a.m. Four. Days. A. Week. So there’s that.

But it wasn’t just me. Most of my classmates seemed to be having the same problem with ASS syndrome. In Legal Practice (the research and writing class), we had a pretrial brief as our first assignment, and I don’t think anybody even started working on the draft more than a couple of days before it was due. Definitely not my best effort. And then there was Moot Court. Lots of people participated and lots of them us didn’t prepare as well as they we could’ve because of this horrible affliction with ASS syndrome. We also had a Mock Trial competition but I didn’t even attempt to participate in it. The last major hurdle before exams was the appellate brief, but thankfully by that time I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I did put a decent amount of effort into writing that.

As it turns out, the only known cure for ASS syndrome is removing the afflicted person from the source of the infection, which, of course, is law school itself. So a steady diet of sleeping late, watching TV (Netflix instant watch is my BFF for life), reading fiction, and eating ice cream is just what the doctor ordered, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I know, I know. It’s a hard life.

All of this is to say that really you should be glad I didn’t post at all during last semester because I have a feeling those posts would’ve all been whiny emo whiner posts and nobody wants to read that kind of crap all the time. So really I was doing you guys a favor. Yes, that’s it. You’re welcome.

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
ME: Um, I don’t know.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
ME: Whichever kind somebody will pay me to do, I suppose.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little unfair to label this as a pet peeve. It’s not every person in the world’s fault that I’ve grown weary of answering (or not answering, to be more accurate) these questions. The thing is, there’s really no way to properly answer them. Either you lie…

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
LIAR ME: It’s fantastic! I love it so much I get up every morning at 5:30 just bursting with pride and joy. I even sleep with my casebooks!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
LIAR ME: See above. Also, if I could just win the lottery, I’d choose to be a law student fo-evah.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
LIAR ME: Oh, finals were so much fun! Like seriously, I studied all throughout the semester and I took copious, relevant notes during classtime, plus I developed the most kickass outlines of all time. So, yes, I think I did really well. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna ace this thing. It was so awesome to get to put all my good knowledge to work!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
LIAR ME: Well, actually, my professors have already graded all my exams and emailed the results to me privately. But shhh! I’m not supposed to tell anybody because everyone else is waiting impatiently for their grades. I got all A++++++’s!
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
LIAR ME: Oh, definitely. I mean, I’m not really in it for the money. I just want to help people. That’s what it’s all about. So probably I’ll just concentrate on pro bono work for the homeless midget population.

… or you sound like a whiny emo whiner.

EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: So, how’s law school?
WHINY EMO ME: Oh. My. Gawd. It’s so so horrible. I hate its guts. Every morning I wake up and I wish I had the swine flu so I didn’t have to go to class. I can’t even find my casebooks.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you like it, though?
WHINY EMO ME: Are you kidding me? Let me try to think of something remotely similar in terms of brutal torture and sheer horror… Well, I got nothin. It takes too much energy and law school has consumed all my energy.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Well, how were finals? Do you think you did well?
WHINY EMO ME: Well? By “well” do you mean something better than the lowest grade in the class? Because I think *maybe* there’s one person who could’ve scored lower than I did, and that’s because he just didn’t show up for exams at all. Exams were horrible. Four hours in a cold room with a computer screen and an empty brain. I bombed. I’m flunking out of law school.
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: When will you get your grades back?
WHINY EMO ME: Never, I hope. I’ve heard they send grades out in descending order, so every day that goes by without grades is just another nail in my job-finding coffin. *deep sigh*
EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD: Do you know what kind of law you want to practice?
WHINY EMO ME: I’m not even so sure I want to practice law. Assuming that I flunk out of law school this semester, I’m just gonna find some menial job in some boring cubicle somewhere and shuffle papers. Or perhaps a career in retail sales at the mall.

You see, neither of those approaches is really a winner. So I just stick with the standard, “Um, I don’t know.” Eventually they stop asking questions. Anyway, it’s kinda pointless to try to talk about law school with people who have never been to/aren’t currently in law school. It’s just impossible to understand.

So, people-of-the-world-who-aren’t-in-law-school-currently-and-have-never-been, a word of friendly advice: If you start asking your local law student friend/relative/acquaintance questions about law school and you start getting a lot of this look…

… save your local law student the trouble of having to try to figure out the appropriate answers to those questions. I have all the answers right here. And my fellow law students, feel free to refer your friendly inquiring relatives/friends/acquaintances here for the answers they seek. They mean well, so don’t be rude.

• Law school is law school. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it sucks. It’s just varying degrees of suckage. I don’t know that it’s ever particularly pleasant, except on those days when certain people get what’s coming to them. Those days are satisfying.
• Obviously I like law school to some degree; I haven’t dropped out yet. If I hated its guts for real, I wouldn’t waste my time. “Like” is probably not the best choice of words, but I’ll say this: It’s definitely challenging, and I like challenges. Sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes it’s not, but overall the experience has been more positive than negative.
• Exams are hard. Some are harder than others, but they’re all hard. I have no idea how I did. And really, how well I think I may have done on the exams is completely irrelevant. It’s all up to the professor and the other students in my section. So, no, I have no clue, and in fact I’d kinda like to maintain my blockade of those thoughts.
• Grades will come out sometime within the next several weeks. I don’t know when that will be. I refuse to sit at my laptop hitting the F12 button every few minutes in anticipation, although the urge to do that is sometimes very strong. Please, please don’t remind me that I haven’t checked for grades in a few hours.
• Honestly, I don’t have any idea what kind of law I want to practice. After one whole semester in law school, I can say with full confidence that I don’t want to draft contracts for a living. Although I will do just that, if it’s the best job I can find.

Now can we go ahead and eat dinner?

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.

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.

Any other general advice for exam preparation?

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.”

No, that’s not Ninja Kid. I have no idea who this poor little girl is BUT GOOD GOD LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT RABBIT!

Anyway.

I forgot previously to write about the Negotiations competition. The competition was actually two weeks ago. So I partnered with another girl in my section and we signed up for the Negotiations competition. Nobody really knew what was going on or what to expect, so we were all on a pretty level playing field. There were 74 teams competing overall and three preliminary rounds to be held before any scores were tallied. Once we got our problems, my partner and I got together and worked out where our firm limits were, areas where we had some wiggle room, and our initial offers.

So maybe we weren’t the best negotiators evah. Okay, maybe we weren’t even in the top 16 best negotiators evah. Or even in the top 16 best negotiators in the 1L class at Ninja School of Law.  But still, I’m glad I participated. Obviously it was a great learning experience. Like I said, I certainly had very little understanding of how the process would work, and after going through it three times I think I’d be much more comfortable with it in the future. It was tons of fun to play lawyer for a little while and represent a client’s interests. I was surprised at how un-nervous I was before our first round, and by the time our third round came along I was downright relaxed.

For the preliminary rounds we were judged by 3L students. The judging was pretty inconsistent. One judge would tell us not to do a certain thing, and the next judge would count off for not having done that same certain thing. For example, we were on a 40-minute time limit as far as the actual negotiations at the table. In each of our first two rounds, we finished early and each judge told us it was no big deal. For our third round, however, we finished early and got chastised for it. I happen to know one team got criticized for sitting next to each other rather than across from each other during self-analysis with the judge.

I heard quite a few of my classmates complaining about this and I must admit I did my fair share of griping, too. It’s frustrating not to know what is expected of you and then to get corrected on it.

And then, whilst in the midst of a deep conversation with my good friend Billy, I had a minor epiphany.

I mean, this is how it’s gonna be. In real life. Doing the lawyering thing. There are going to be times — in fact, probably lots of them, especially as newbie lawyers — when we aren’t sure exactly what’s expected of us, or exactly where certain lines are drawn, and yet we will still be expected to perform to the best of our abilities.

Actually, all of law school is kindof like this. For example, Prof. CivPro hates it when someone uses the words “clearly” or “obviously” because, her thinking goes, things are rarely clear or obvious. The first time a student used one or both of those words in CivPro, he or she (I can’t remember who it was) got corrected and treated to a mini-lecture. Now, obviously, I have a disagreement with the professor on this, because clearly there are a lot of things that are both clear and obvious to me:

• Brad Pitt is the hottest man in the galaxy EVAH. Trust.
• My dog understands every word I say.
• Jokes told in the quiet section of the law library inherently carry a funny quotient of x100.
• Cats and dogs are irresistibly drawn to sit upon open casebooks.

I could go on; the list is lengthy. But I digress.

The point I’m trying to make is that the law school experience wouldn’t be authentic if there weren’t a high degree of uncertainty involved. Someday you’re going to go up in front of a judge and you’re not going to know beforehand that he hates some specific words and here’s how it’s gonna go down:

YOU: Your Honor, I object! This is clearly speculation and whatnot.

JUDGE: Overruled. Counselor, please refrain from using the word “whatnot” in my courtroom.

YOU: Apologies, Your Honor. Obviously, I was unaware of your disdain for that word, etc.

JUDGE: Counselor, you would do well to never utter the word “etcetera” in my courtroom again.

YOU: Your Honor, would it be possible for me to get my hands on some sort of list of words that are disfavored in this courtroom?

JUDGE: COUNSELOR I’M HOLDING YOU IN CONTEMPT.

YOU: But, sir! Would you please just make a ruling on the law? I’m correct on the law.

JUDGE: [hammering wildly] BAILIFF!!

See? That could so totally happen in real life. This is what law school is preparing you for. Prepare to be unprepared.

Seems like the only class with anything exciting going on any more is CivPro. Take this last week, for instance. We only had three days of CivPro because the professor was out of town, but it culminated in a real, live Battle of the Big Talkers. It was like THE CLASH OF THE TITANS!!!

Somehow our discussion about personal jurisdiction devolved into… polluted drinking water? You can’t possibly know just how epic it was unless you were there.

Sidebar: Is it weird that I remember this movie, while most of you probably weren’t even born when it came out in 1981? [cue midlife crisis]

So I’m thinking I’d better start outlining soon, right? I’ve read lots of advice posts all around these tangled intertubez, and I think I’m about ready to get started. Especially since I did absolutely nothing productive this whole weekend. Well, by productive I guess I mean law-school-related. I was, in fact, exceedingly productive at Talbot’s and Dillard’s.

If you’re thinking about outlining, or maybe you’ve already started but you’re not sure if you’re doing it quite right, check out some of these links. Also, if you have any other questions or advice to offer re outlining (or a helpful link that I missed — apologies), please stick them in the comments.

• Outlining 101 — Thanks, But No Thanks
• Intro to Outlining — Fearfully Optimistic
• When to Outline — The Shark, courtesy of Dennis Jansen
• Perils & Pitfalls of the Outline part 1 and part 1.5 — older but still relevant posts from Law School Survivor
• general law school advice (including outlining) here, here, and here.

Finally, if you’ve had it up to here with the über-anal Bluebook citation rules, you’ll appreciate this Courtoon.

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.