Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Dark Side of Law School

Although so far law school has been awesome, I wanted to do a fun post about the types of people you meet in law school. I have mentioned that my fellow students are generally helpful and willing to engage in productive discussion, share notes, or just kick back and relax, but there is also a decent sized group that are none of these. They include:

1) The Law and Order Lawyer
This is the guy (at least in my experience) who watched Law and Order, maybe read some John Grisham, seen Philadelphia. While the professor presents the basis of tort law with a short example, he raises the point that, "Can't under the fair rights rule of Jamaica, a pleading for non sequitur relief be a mitigating factor in the pertinent sections?" No, just because you saw it on television once, does not a) mean its real or b) mean that you have even the most basic understanding of the concept. Please stop making the professor spend class time explaining minor details of law that most of us will never run into. If you want to play the hypothetical games, the professor has office hours. You are just confusing us.

2) Ms. High School Valedictorian
This is the young lady (again, in my experience) who just... can;t... stop... trying... so... hard. You know she was high school valedictorian, honor council, college student body rep, and in her majors honor society, well of course, thats a given, oh, and she also did an internship at "Big Important Firm," oh, you never heard of it, its in DC, they do, like, property things. She is the one who is in the library before class, then in the front row of class, then back in the library. You can't sit near her, else you go into epileptic seizures when she opens her casebook, fully highlighted in more florescent and scented colors than God and Crayola, in all their mightiness, were able to create. That's right, she has created her own highlighting colors.

Of course, she might be a good person to talk to, except you have never seen her emerge from behind the pile of supplemental and extra materials surrounding her.

3) The Internet Addict
Laptops in class are wonderful. I also enjoy the soft sounds of rain that occurs as 100+ people begin typing at once every time the professor recites a statute. The internet is also wonderful. My daily mood is directly proportional to the amount of time I am able to spend online.

Having said that, there are people who come to class to sign the attendance sheet and use the internet. Ladies are generally shopping, while the guys are usually abusing Gmail chat.

I am sure professors hate it, but if nothing else, so do your fellow classmates. Its distracting enough, we are already struggling to resist the temptation ourselves. Also, stop wasting our time by asking "Can you repeat that?" when you decide you want the notes after your Nordstrom purchase confirms.

4) The Panic Inducers
These are the harried students that just can't get a handle on their own lives/studies, but instead of buckling down in the library or seeking counseling, they attempt to infect as many of their fellow students as possible. I will illustrate this with two case studies:

Case One: This student is probably doing well enough, judging by the amount of notes he has in class. He also feels comfortable speaking in class, sometimes being right on point, sometimes being completely off base. Still, he tells you in a hushed voice that he is going to the post orientation orientation (Oh, forgot to mention that, law school orientation at UB lasts all through your first year) on study skills. "But you sat next to me at yesterday's session, and they are giving the same presentation, plus there is no free pizza this time," you point out. "Well, I am still a little worried about my case briefing format. In my criminal law class I sometimes only write the first citation down, and in Torts I made a mistake in subject-verb agreement." What does this have to do with law school? Nothing. Will you fix this by going to a time management class? No. Has a single professor OR TA OR Law Scholar asked me for A SINGLE brief? No. But still, this kid is panicking about his briefing format, and abusing the continual orientations. But he tells everyone this, and they all then panic, "Wait, I haven't done a brief, did I miss an assignment? Are they being collected? Subject - Verb agreement isn't in the casebook? Is it in the Law Dictionary? On West Law?"

Case Two: This student can't go a single TA or Law Scholar Session without asking about final exams and outlines. Even though each time she is told "You have only had two classes, don't worry about it yet," she can't stop biting her nails. Therefore, the TA spends YOUR ENTIRE HOUR AND A HALF LUNCH answering questions about exams, and all the other students are trying to understand the lecture. Also, for some reason, this girl seems to know every other law student in the country. "Well, at UVA they fail if you are unable to answer when cold called. My friend at Yale has already done two outlines for all his classes. I hear at Maryland they read six casebooks per day." Great. You go to those schools and do that, I am going to finish my UB syllabus in the meantime.

Why are these two so rough? Well, for one, they tend to spread the panic needlessly. They also tend to waste time with personal questions during class when the rest of the student body is trying to learn. Hey, all the professors have office hours, most the law scholars gave out their cell phone numbers and all gave their email addresses. Use them, and let's learn during class. Also, its annoying.

5) The guy who always asks a question but is really trying to make a point.
Oh wait, that's me, but I am sure my peers see right through it.

Ok, so this post got really long really fast. And please, try to see the humor in it. Any other law students you just know will be in class, as much as you wish they weren't?

Monday, August 24, 2009

Week One Wrap-Up

My first week of law school successfully completed, and so far I find that it has been a rewarding experience. I am not yet overwhelmed with work, which is nice, and I am still finding the cases interesting and engaging. I am getting to know my classmates, and finding that many of the law school myths are just that, myths. So far, I have enjoyed a collaborative learning experience, and while everyone may have their own best way of studying, no one has attempted to sabotage mine or a peers efforts in order to get ahead themselves.

Some highlights of the awesomeness that is law school:

My criminal law professor was defense counsel during the Watergate trial. He also has some pretty intense opinions about the cases we read in the casebook, and he is not afraid to share them.

My contracts professor tells non stop sex jokes during class, occasionally bordering on criminally inappropriate. He is also the super intelligent type who just doesn't have time for the things he considers unimportant. He also cancelled class for this week while he goes to Turkey on a trip he describes as "business-pleasure."

The dean is active in intramural sports, and plays on the top ranked softball team at UB.

My first two topics in criminal are sodomy and prostitution. You would be surprised how many people have detailed questions about the technicalities of sodomy laws. And thanks to my class, I am fairly knowledgeable in that area.

EVERYONE asks me legal question they have ever had. I try to tell them, that after one week, no, I can't really answer very many questions (not related to sodomy or, as it turns out, farm animals). My civil procedure professor recommends telling people that I charge $100 for fifteen minutes of their time if they really want an answer.

Yeah, the other topic that you always get in your cases: Farm animals. It seems like all the trespassing in American legal history happens in Kansas on farms. Also, judges in American legal history seem to know much about "the nature of dogs" that makes them non liable for trespass if chasing sheep.

The "Law Scholars" (the name that UB gives the TAs) are awesome. I was spoiled during undergrad and had 1 TA in my whole undergrad career. He never even lectured anyways, he simply graded papers and helped with research projects. So I was really nervous when I saw that there are a lot of TAs in law school. So far, it hasn't mattered. They have all been very helpful, and each has made time for us. None of them schedule meetings when they are really running off to their next activity. They are extremely knowledgeable, and great at providing communication between the students and the professors. So far, so good.

Got some great thoughts to write about in the future, if I can find that time that is!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

And it begins...

Well, I am sitting in the library and finished up all my reading for Criminal with a few minutes to spare, so I thought I would get down some impressions of law school thus far.

First of all, once you get to law school, LSAT, UGPA, and that awesome internship you did with your Father's Sister's Boyfriend's Cousin at that great awesome firm don't matter. At all.

What I mean is, at this point, when someone asks you for this information, you can stop worrying about being judged on how good your grades were in undergrad, how well you scored on the LSAT, and what your did or did not do for your resume. As our dean said during his presentation, "When someone says what did you get on your LSAT, tell them you got into law school."

Also, so far amongst the entering students this kind of one-up-manship has ended as well. Everyone sort of takes everyone else at face value as a 1L. I have yet to hear anyone bragging about other schools they got into, or their LSAT scores, or any of that. It is refreshing, really. During orientation there was a bit of name dropping about what firm you interned for, but once classes started that pretty much has stopped as well.

Second of all, you know how everyone is always so concerned about what to do to prepare for law school? Having gone through it, I would say it is true that there is not much to do, other than relax. In fact, I would say relaxing is actually a necessary step. You do hit the ground running in law school, there are no fifteen minute long first classes where the syllabus gets handed out then everyone leaves. You are doing substantial work from the first minute. Therefore, I hold that taking time off prior to law school is a great idea, as you want to be ready to work hard from day one.

Otherwise, I think I would have liked to review some basics prior to starting. Mostly, I am concerned with those little things that you sort of know, like you can recognize them in a sentence, but can't exactly define. Things like the difference between Circuit Court and District Court, or how Legislature really works, or the Constitution. In law school, you are expected to not just know, but understand these and any other term you run across. I think if I had spent some time doing some light reading (or even watching the History channel or PBS) would have gone a long way to lower the amount of time I spend with my dictionary, legal dictionary, and the appendices of my casebooks.

Oh, one last thing: Get a big backpack.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Where have I been?

Hello,

School started this week, and it has been awesome but a little crazy. I hope to start putting some more stuff up soon!

Cheers,

-Spencer

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Sticker Shock

Wow...

Today I decided to price my textbooks for the upcoming semester. The University of Baltimore has this really cool feature for the bookstore that allows you to enter your courses and it will automatically generate the reading list, and has of course an option to "Buy All."

I was a Psychology major with a minor in History in undergrad, but Loyola has a large "core" of courses that all must take, meaning you take almost two full years of classes outside of your major. So I took the hard sciences, the soft sciences, the classics, humanities, writing, computer classes, some art, all of it. Additionally, Loyola is a famously expensive school. And yet I never remember spending more than $300 per semester on books.

$928.44.

Yes.

That is my total for this semester, even after checking the "Used if available" boxes.

I have no idea what I am going to do about this. I guess I will be getting a job a lot sooner, and for a lot more hours, than I had originally planned.

On a funny/horrific note, the bookstore does, ever so sneakily, add in Sparkcharts for all your courses automatically. Sparkcharts? Like those laminated Sparknotes pages? From high school? Seriously? Perhaps they can also recommend some good SAT prep books while they are at it.

Also, this price caused me to spend about 6 hours scouring the internet for used books. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and even Ebay had only two, and for only a few dollars cheaper than the bookstore. Although Barnes and Noble can be explained, as my school bookstore is actually administered by Barnes and Noble, so there might be a conflict of interest there. I even tried Craigslist...

Wow, so I guess for my closing question, does anyone want to donate some money to this poor soul? Or, more seriously, is this common for law school, or just 1L, or just first semester?

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Preparing for Law School

Friday I cleared another milestone, completing my last day of employment with my last job. It was truly a bittersweet moment.

Now I have a week of free time prior to orientation. In attempting to think of something useful to write about, I was thinking of some common questions. The one I came up with is "What is there to do to prepare for law school once you have been accepted?" This question has been asked over and over, either by myself or by others. Although at this time I cannot answer it, I want to set in the record answers I have heard.

From current law students:
"Read Twilight."
"Spend time with family and friends, you might not see them once school starts."
"Sleep, you won't be able to do that anymore."
"It doesn't matter, nothing will help."
"Law school is unlike anything you have done before, you cannot really know what it is like without just doing it."

From admissions professionals or law professors:

"Relax, you have already done enough."
"Don't be scammed out of money for prep courses."
"Practice your reading and writing."

My school, for its part, sent a few suggestions:

Read Law School Exams: Preparing and Writing to Win
Refresh knowledge of US Government
They also left a list of reading/movies, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Twleve Angry Men, Legally Blonde and The Verdict.
This list was prefaced with, "Relax. Really."

For my part, in preparation I have done the following:

Begun following law - related people on Twitter (see here), started this blog, and picked up a copy of Law School Exams. I haven't finished it yet, and I obviously haven't started school yet, but when I do I will come back to this and let you know what worked for me.

Also, if any of you out there want to share either advice from experience or, if you are an entering 1L like me, what you have done so far, leave a comment.