A different look at law school life
This is an entry I wrote back in July of this year [2009]. It is just now being posted because I wanted to seek the author’s permission before drawing attention to her blog. She gave the nod of approval, so I’m posting this for y’all to see. I think it’s important to have a balanced view of what law school can be like, and this is part of my attempt to do that. Cheers.
There are many blogs I love and enjoy reading; there are so many that Google Reader – thought designed to simplify – is becoming a bit cumbersome. I link to many of those that I read on the right side of my page to spread the love and help my readers find some that they too will enjoy.
I’ve never “featured” a blog on my page, aside from the shout outs and links to a few, but I thought that since this is something unique (at least in the blogs that I have come across), it deserves a mention.
Somebody shake me, please is an anonymous blog buy a soon-to-be 2L. She begins her first entry by stating, “Not a single person I know in real life will know about this blog.” Her entries reflect that. I was compelled to read every single one of them; the entries reflect the drama many of us go through and few of us write about. The archives aren’t long – they date back to July 28, 2008 – so it isn’t a difficult task to read through them all. I’d actually forgotten about it for a while because she didn’t post for a couple of weeks. Today, she wrote a post reflecting on the past year, and I thought I should tell others about her story.
Many of the law school blogs out there are in the same sarcasm-lined, school-sucks-but-not-really vein. Many of us gripe about our trials and tribulations, but keep a stiff upper lip for the most part. Most of us use wit and sarcasm as coping mechanisms to veil any real or raw emotions. Not the author of SSMP.
Her entries read like a good diary, one you find left on a bench somewhere and can’t put down after picking it up. The beginning documents the joy, excitement, anticipation, and angst many of us face before beginning the much-feared 1L year. The story starts with her apartment hunt – and at this point I can pretty well relate – then moves on to the move, being in a law school section, and dealing with the classmates, the classes, and the coursework. There’s also the saga of her love-life and the bumps along the way. And then – there’s a shift. She writes completely openly and unabashedly how “law school really does a number on one’s confidence,” about feeling less than adequate academically and socially, and about how aside from being difficult in and of itself, law school can cause one’s life to start splitting at the seams.
This isn’t intended to be all doom and gloom – and I’m sure neither is her blog – but I thought it would be important to share because it is something many of us – especially the 0Ls out there – hear stories of but are never privy to. Even Turow’s One L – which I know many of us read within 2 days of being accepted – has been edited for mass public consumption. SSMP is raw, like a real diary, and just left outside for passersby to pick up and leave at their leisure.
I started this blog as a way to help out the Pre-L/0Ls out there and to help lift the veil of mystery on the hallowed halls of law school. I think that providing a balanced view of what this whole adventure is like is an important part of that. In spite of the Great Anonymity Debate, I think anonymous blogs can be important because it allows people to share things like this with us. I’m a firm believer of knowing what you’re getting yourself into [look before you leap, etc], and blogs like SSMP, again, are a part of that.
If you’re considering law school, are in law school, or like good true stories, you should definitely check out this author’s blog. It’s a reminder not all of us have such semi-charmed lives. It definitely reminds me how lucky I am to even have my omgigotintoUTlaw post.
Grateful for the reality check,
Mariel
ANTC 5
Last night I had my first law-school related dream in a while. These are the kinds of things law school does to your brain:
“UT Law has decided to move to another facility while the law school undergoes some renovation. Your Civil Procedure professor has been told she must move all of her things to a new office. Now, your professor has been in her current office for a very long time and has many items – books, bookshelves, her personal desk [because she didn't like the standard one], some paintings – that she will need moved. She hires some movers to pick up her things and take them to the new facility. She goes to the new place and the movers arrive with her things. This moving company asks for payment on delivery and she pays them happily after seeing that her things have been delivered safely. She is about to stick her key in the door of her new office when she sees a note taped to the door stating that the agreement with UT Law to use the facility has fallen through, the locks on the offices have been changed, and the facilities are not to be used. So, the professor is left sadly standing outside her one and future office with all of her belongings. She has already paid the moving company, and will have to hire them – or someone else – again to take her things to wherever her office is now. What, if anything, would she be able to recover?”
That’s right.
Apparently, I’ve started dreaming in HYPOS.
Let’s take a moment while I BANG MY HEAD ON MY DESK.
Only 2 weeks until Thanksgiving. Then it’s time for finals. I’m sure that will bring about some amusing nightmares. Cheers.
A walk down memory lane
Okay 1Ls, I’ve found something encouraging we can all do so that we feel like we’ve actually learned something this semester:
I encourage all of you to go back to the beginning of your casebooks. Flip through the first couple of cases you read for each class. Take a moment to look at the things you highlighted, underlined, noted, or otherwise marked in the text or in the margins.
Now, take a moment to think to yourself, “wtf….” and make this face.
If you’re anything like me and a few of my good friends, you highlighted completely irrelevant and nonsensical statements by the court, you made comments in the margins that were not useful or enlightening [how many of you wrote, "I agree!" or "What does this even mean?"], and you underlined things that just. don’t. matter. I, for one, may as well have taken all my colored pens and scribbled “I don’t know what I’m doing” across the first ten pages of each of my books.
In going back to the beginning as I start to study for finals, I’m realizing that I have learned things this semester. Aside from the black-letter nonsense I’m supposed to know for the finals, I’ve learned how to quickly read a case and pick out the rules and other important statements by the court. Things that took me over an hour to figure out at the beginning of the semester now take minutes. I remember when reading 60 pages of Contracts took me an entire weekend [Thursday through Sunday evening]. This weekend? I’ve read 130 pages since Friday morning, and that’s with multiple distractions, going out to eat, going to run errands, and generally having a life.
I just wanted to point this out to all of you so you can breathe a little sigh of relief and realize that while we might not be prepared for finals ::sadface:: we’ve definitely made progress since we started, and that’s worth noticing and smiling about.
Cheers.
Anyone else need a Montage?
On facebook, I wrote: “2 [more] cups of coffee and ‘Eye of the Tiger.’ Contracts, you’re going down.”
Then, a friend at Baylor Law wrote, “sounds like you need a montage…” and linked to the following:
This reminded me of the following GW Law Revue gem I found the other day:
Is my life a musical?
Yeah, it kinda is.
Hiding from finals?
Not a chance. They’ll find you eventually. Can you believe we’re already almost done with our first semester?
Supplemental Shakedown
Alright,
The substantive posting around FTS has been…sparse…recently, so I’m making my first venture back into things a post about supplements and what has and has not worked. I know it’s before finals, so before I have the “proof” of grades, but I wanted to do it early enough so that those of you who are still confused in class can pick them up in time to read through them once before finals start.
This semester, I’ve got Civil Procedure, Torts, Contracts, and Legal Research and Legal Writing. Everybody takes a “lawyering” class and since that class is pretty unique to each school, I’m going to skip it. Though, if anyone knows of any good collections of books to aid in memo writing, feel free to share. And before we begin, I’m adding the little disclaimer that I’m just a lowly 1L sharing my opinion with fellow students, and that I am not receiving any compensation for recommending any of the following books or study aids. This is just my two cents, and you should bring your grains of salt.
Civil Procedure: Let me begin with a shout out, hug, high five, and thank you, to Professor Richard Freer. He’s a professor at Emory Law, and if you’re in Civ Pro, he should be your freaking HERO. He wrote the casebook we’re using in class, as well as a BRILLIANT book titled, “Introduction to Civil Procedure” [henceforth called "Freer"]. I think Amanda [2L] over at Teasingly Diverse first recommended it to me. I have been grateful that she did at least 243608135135 times this semester. So why is it so special? Because he manages to tell you what’s going on, what things mean, how the rules fit the way they do, and he manages to do so in a way that is straightforward, easy to read, and conversational. It’s been a joy to have his casebook also, because the two fit together wonderfully. I love my professor, but Freer’s book is an excellent way to review what we’ve been over in class, to cement certain concepts, and to make sure I understand what’s going on. His chapter on personal jurisdiction is definitely worthwhile, as well as the chapter describing pleadings. Of course, no conversation about study aids would be complete without mentioning Professor Glannon of Columbia Law’s ”Civil Procedure: Examples and Explanations.” [Henceforth referred to as "Glannon." And if you're wondering where his shout out and hug are, wait until we get to Torts.] I’ve been using both the E&E and the Freer for Civil Procedure. For some people, both might be overkill. For me, it’s just about right. The Glannon is, first, hilarious [in the way that law students find things hilarious], and beyond that, the hypotheticals he puts forth are invaluable. I read through the Freer because his explanations of the concepts are very very thorough and very clear. Glannon’s explanations are less detailed and intricate, a way to refresh the general concepts. Freer’s good if you need help with what the heck is going on [and let's face it, you might], and Glannon is good for testing what you know. The real meat of the Glannon is in the examples. First, they’re just funny. Second, they start out fairly simple and grow increasingly complex. They build upon the concepts you’ve learned little by little, so by the time you’re done, you’ll not only understand the concepts, you’ll remember them. Excellent. Anyway, they’ve been my buddies in Civ Pro this year, and it’s been fun times.
Torts: Now, we get to give Professor Glannon his own high-five and thank you for his “The Law of Torts: Examples and Explanations.” I. Love. This. Book. Transfer the hilarity from his Civ Pro E&E, and crank it up a few notches, just because Torts cases are inherently more ridiculous. While I’ve been reading the Civ Pro E&E and the Freer from day one, I just started reading the Torts E&E on Sunday. Let me tell you, it’s an AMAZING review. All the good things I said about the Civ Pro E&E can be said about the one for Torts as well. Again, the introductions to the topics before he presents the examples are not meant to be a substitute for your casebook and class as they’re a bit more general, but they put forth the main points you need to understand what’s going on. And again, the real substance is in the examples, in testing what you know. I’ve noticed that some of the hypos in the book are the same hypos [more or less] that we’ve had posed to us by our professor in class. I’m definitely going to read through the entire thing and be glad I did.
Contracts: Here’s where things get tricky. Most classes start with consideration, or “how to tell when there’s a contract”, or “what’s a contract anyway?” and move forward from there. Naturally, damages are something covered near the end of the course. Unless you’re me, and 100 or so of my closest friends. Our professor began our course with damages, and we just finished them about 2 weeks ago. If you’re currently looking at your computer like this, it’s okay. I think there’s a method to my professor’s madness; I’ll get into that at another time. Anyway, it’s made choosing a study aid very difficult. I finally reached the point where my casebook alone wasn’t enough [Contracts is by far my hardest class], so I settled on two aids. First, I picked up Professor Chirelstein’s “Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts.” I’ve only read through the first two chapters, but I’m already in love. Again, it’s a conversational read, and it’s very conceptual, which fits with the way my professor teaches. Today, I felt a little weight lifted off my shoulders and I felt less like this when I opened the book and Prof. Chirelstein told me in about 5 pages what expectation damages are, why they’re important, and what the heck they even mean. In case you haven’t picked up on this, I like things that are written in conversational [that just means not opaque] English and present concepts in an easy to understand and memorable manner. Chirelstein is yet another professor who accomplishes this. Now, I’ve also got the E&E for Contracts, by Professor Blum of Lewis and Clark Law School. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I have a few classmates who have found its treatment of the UCC as well as its hypos very useful. Given the success I’ve had with the method used in the Glannon E&E’s [overview, hypo practice] I figured it can’t hurt. In fact, for my style of learning, it’s necessary. I’ll update this post once I’ve worked my way through it a bit.
Anyway, that’s where I currently stand on supplements for those three courses. You might notice commercial outlines are not on there. ::gasp:: In fact, that shouldn’t be surprising, and I was warned of this before I started school. They’re useful for filling in gaps in your personal outline, and for filling in holes left by your classes and your casebook, but that’s about it. They won’t really do much to help your understanding, explain the material, or make you feel like you’ve actually learned anything. I suppose they don’t profess to either; they’re outlines. Yet, I have a whole host of them sitting on my bookshelf. ::sigh:: If you’ll use them, like anything else, then I suppose it’s a good idea to buy them. If you’re like me, do what I did and get them used for between $5 and $15, so you can use them if you need them, but won’t feel guilty about spending money on them if you don’t look at them more than a couple times all semester.
Well, that’s that for now. I hope 1Ls who haven’t had these classes yet find this useful, or 1Ls who have these classes but are looking for some extra help. I know I wish I’d had someone lay this out for me before I started school [whether they thought it would mean anything to me or not], so hopefully this gives 0Ls a starting point as well. As always, my wonderful readers, feel free to chime in with your own two cents.
Cheers.
Thanks and gig ‘em
Howdy!
SO, it’s NOVEMBER.
We’ll pause so all the law students can run screaming for the library in anticipation of the horror that is finals. Unless you’re a Baylor law student, in which case you have finals right now. (Good luck!)
Okay, now that that’s done, it’s time for my monthly reader thank-you. Those of you who’ve been there from the beginning, thanks for sticking around, despite the real drop in substantive posts recently. Those of you who are new – howdy, hello, and welcome! Pardon the occasional lolcats; law school apparently drains one’s brain such that lolcat images are the only way to express oneself at the end of the day.
If you’re an old friend: I hope I haven’t let you down yet. I worked hard to get FTS up and humming along. The hum isn’t as loud, but it’s still moving…slowly.
If you’re new: I hope that something on here makes you laugh, makes you smile, makes you think, reminds you of your time in law school, makes you glad you’re not in law school anymore, makes you excited to get to law school, and generally gives you a break from the madness that is every day life.
As always, feel free to shoot me an email at freshthoughtsoup [at] gmail [dot] com. I do check it, I promise.
And, I forgot to say this last month [I think], but if you’ve linked to my blog, feel free to let me know! Shoot me a comment, an email, a reply on twitter, whatever, just let me know you’re out there so I can help spread the blog love and link back to your site. I can’t begin to describe the epic ::sadface:: when I check my stats, and realize I’m getting referrals from someone who is clearly also AWESOME that I just didn’t know about.
I hope everyone has had a wonderful start to their month.
Cheers,
Mariel
p.s. I read your blogs, I promise. I’ve just fallen into the bad habit of putting it off and then reading them in a flurry and not leaving comments. Just because I don’t comment doesn’t mean I don’t care. Fellow blawgers, please keep up the good work, somedays my best laughs come from y’all. Cheers.
The marathon adventure
So, one of my bestest best friends and I have decided to run [run, mostly run, whatever] the Austin Half Marathon on 2.14.10. She was the brave one who came up with the idea. I’m the ridiculous one who said I’d be totally in.
You might say, “Mariel, you must be really athletic! I hope you have fun.”
You’d be right to say, “Wait…what?”
My level of athleticism might be compared to that of a…something that isn’t very athletic. In fact, I already have a picture of myself crossing the finish line:
SO.
What’s important is that we finish, and we totally will, so it’s all good. I’ve decided this 1/2 Marathon thing is awesome for several reasons:
- It’s on Valentine’s day. Instead of watching movies and eating chocolate, said best friend and I will be doing something completely EPIC which will be an awesome story and anything BUT lame.
- Again: it will be an EPIC ADVENTURE.
- Do you know how many CALORIES we’ll burn over the course of this endeavor? Nay, how much FOOD we’ll get to eat because of this?
- Of all the things I’ll put on my resume, this will be my favorite. Ahem: “Hobbies – running really far while being awesome.”
- I’ll actually have an example of athleticism when it comes time for my JAG interview.
- I’ll actually have motivation to stay in shape for the JAG pft.
- Number 3. Again. Because I heart food.
It seems that I’m not the only law student who’s been driven to marathon-ing it. Jansen, our friend over at No634, is training for his first marathon. Another friend of mine at law school up east is also running a marathon next summer. Maybe in the spring of 2011, I’ll be up for the full marathon, but the odds of me being ready by 2.14.10 are zero. Actually, less than zero. A LOT less. But, hey, that’s okay. We’ve all got to start somewhere.
In the past, I’ve written about my get-in-shape misadventures and I’ve never been able to follow through, mostly because I don’t ever have something to work toward. Losing weight is a goal, but it’s not really tangible. A day won’t show up when I say: HA! I’m done! There isn’t a hard deadline. With things like 5Ks and, now, apparently a half marathon, there’s an actual date I can look toward. So, with that in mind, I’ll be adding my running adventures to my law school ones. Apologies for the complaining that is bound to happen. I’ll try – as always – to put a positive spin on things.
Key word there: try.
If any of you other law students/lawyers have been driven to marathons – or any other sports – to maintain, or regain, your sanity, feel free to chime in and share your stories. Or if you want to mock me point out how ridiculous I can be, that’s cool too.
Cheers.
Things I’ve learned in Law School
Instead of venting about things that belong in that kind of blog, I’m going to make this productive and write down some of the things I’ve learned so far this year. Hopefully it gives me something to work toward and something to think about when I’m tempted to embrace the crazy.
- The most important quality to have as a lawyer is the ability to listen. I’ve realized that it can be hard to listen. Most of us have been conditioned to speak well and to be concerned with what we say and how we say it. Yet, I’ve found that often times people – myself included – will focus too much on what they’re about to say, or what they’ve said, and that they won’t be paying attention to the person they’re talking with. The person being talked to – or at, in this case – doesn’t need to be impressed by our knowledge or SAT words. They need us to listen to them, to listen to their problems, to their ideas, to their thoughts, to understand what they’re trying to share with us. They need us to listen unconditionally. They do not want us to contradict them or criticize them or qualify their statements. They want someone to listen, and then start with the words, “Well, here’s how I think I can help.” I’ve found that law students – and again, I’ve been guilty – are very quick to interrupt one another or to speak as if they’re correct, regardless of the points others are making. I think that if I’m going to have a client someday, that I should be able to listen to his [or her] problems, and yes, this means sometimes listening to things I think are “irrelevant” or “silly.” They might not be silly to the person saying them. It’s important to remember that.
- It is important to know how to take a compliment. This isn’t necessarily something I’ve learned in law school, but it’s something I think is important because it seems that in social settings [cocktail parties, mixers, etc] compliments fly like crazy and they’re the polite thing to do. [Luckily, they're usually the easy thing to do too.] If somebody gives you a compliment, just smile…and say thank you. Or, even offer one of your own [if it's sincere]. It’s rude – I think, and I’ve been told – to object to a compliment, or to qualify it, or to generally take away from it. Just smile. Is that so hard to do?
- Your personal problems are just that – yours. My dad taught me this a long time ago – and I think this may be an outcome of his military training – but I think it’s especially pertinent now that we’ve all got so many things going on, many of which are extremely stressful. Whatever you have going on, you’re the only person it’s really important to. Sure, you may vent to your friends – or roommates – but when you get to work [or school], nobody cares that you didn’t get enough sleep last night, or that you have a wedding to go to in the middle of the week [like I do this week], or that you had family visiting, or that your [insert _____ here]. It is your responsibility to be polite and to perform to the best of your ability regardless of what is going on. When I have a client, I doubt he or she will care that I’ve gotten 4 hours of sleep a night for over 2 weeks, or that I’ve got 2365024862 assignments to take care of in addition to his or hers. To that person, they are important, and they deserve just as much care as anything else. Client will not care that I didn’t get enough sleep; client will care very much if I snap at him or her, or if I do not do a good job for him or her. No matter what’s going on, you still have to do your job. Part of your job is to not take out your frustrations on the people around you. Go somewhere quiet, and enjoy the opportunity for silence. It helps, I promise.
- People will not always remember what we say, but they will always remember how we made them feel. This is something that was passed on to me at A&M, and it’s become even more relevant now. Lawyers and law students talk. A LOT. About EVERYTHING. It seems a lot of the time, they worry that so and so will remember that they said this and that and that it might get repeated here and there. Usually, that’s not the case. Usually, it’s so and so remembering they don’t like him or her because of how that person made [or makes] them feel. So, even if you’re being “polite” or “nice,” if people sense that it’s condescending or grudging, they will not like it, and probably not like you. Likewise, if you say something impolite [maybe you didn't get enough sleep and don't care who knows it], but the person you say it to generally has warm feelings toward you because they usually enjoy being around you, because you make them happy, they’ll probably forgive and forget.
- It’s okay if there isn’t a “right” answer. I’m sure this is something that we all learn regardless of where we go to law school. Well, I think it’s something we’re supposed to learn, anyway. I’ve learned that just because my answer is “right” it doesn’t mean that another answer can’t be “right” too. I’ve learned that I have to pick a side and make the best argument that I can, but to be prepared that someone else may have picked the opposite side and made a better argument. And: IT’S. O. K. I think it’s more important to be concerned with the why than the what, and I think that’s true for a lot of things.
::whew:: I didn’t expect to write a little paragraph for each part of that. I have to go be productive now, but hopefully somebody gets something worthwhile out of this.
Cheers.
