What a week this has been.
My school has students take a class during orientation week, an introduction to law and legal reasoning. It sort of operates as a mini-class, giving you an idea of what a full-length class is like. We have reading to prepare, we are examined under the Socratic method in class, we learn some substantive and some procedural law (as well as a bit of legal history and a bit about American and British legal structures) and we take an abbreviated exam at the end of it, part multiple choice, part legal essay/short answer.
I am so glad they have us do this. It has given me some time to sort out exactly how I want to learn this year—because it is not like anything I have done previously. We’re students and, of course, we read and study written material. But from here on out, our reading is pretty much going to be confined to case law. There will not be a lot of exposition and we will have to derive principles of law from the cases themselves—they will not be laid out for us. This class has been essential in giving us a conception of what that’s like. It has also been crucial for sorting out the mechanics of how I’m going to work. I mentioned earlier how I’ve been using OneNote. At first I was loving it and I loved that you could make lecture recordings right alongside your note-taking. Now that I’ve finished this little class, I’ve decided I probably won’t use OneNote anymore. (There are certain inconveniences about it that mean it would be easier to just use Word. And... like anyone is going to want to listen to their lectures one more time, right?) But at least I’ve decided definitely to use the computer for note taking. I also think I have a strategy for how to prepare for exams, which is the most important thing. Everything depends on exams in law school, so you’ve got to get your strategies down. I’m glad I had this small class to experiment with before the real classes start.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We did our volunteering one afternoon early in the week; it had rained all morning. A group of 40 of us got bussed out to a nature trail where there were some park rangers waiting for us in the parking lot. They told us that they had cut down a bunch of baby trees from the forest—because they take nutrients and light from other trees?—they had all been piled up about a quarter mile down the trail. We were to bring them up to the wood chipper parked in the parking lot. Pretty simple. So we just did trip after trip after trip. Of course what happens when 40 people march up and down in a moderate rain on a woodland path—oh—by the way—dragging trees behind them? It turns into a mudslide and everything gets filthy, including the people moving the trees. Despite which it was actually kind of fun. My mood was significantly elevated by a particular circumstance, which I will relate now!
The dean of admissions was in our group (also getting filthy, he’s a nice guy) and, seeing my name tag, he told me that he was sorry if I had suffered some distress over the confusion with the deposit because, in fact, the IT people had looked into and it turned out that I had NOT made a mistake! The online program logs people off after 30 minutes without their knowing it. They have since fixed this problem. And there was actually one other person whom this defect effected. He said that if it had been just one person who reported this problem they might not have believed the story and they might not have looked into it. So I must thank that poor other person who went through the terrible time I went through. I wouldn’t normally wish it on anyone else but thank goodness it happened to just one other person!
Oh sweet, sweet, delicious VINDICATION!
I hope that takes me off the shit list, but I don’t think it does because all the admin people seem to know my name, and not in a good way.
Moving right along...
My class has been really interesting. I made some serious studying mistakes, which I will not make again, thanks to this class. (More on that later.) I have been really enjoying the material and the work—the mental processes are... I hesitate to say it because it’s so nerdy... but it’s fun. After taking this exam, I was embarrassingly thinking, I wish I could write more! I may not think that if it turns out I did really poorly. I don’t know what it is. I’ve always enjoyed studying law.
In class, I felt I should sit tight for the first few days and not try to volunteer, lest I make a fool of myself early on and develop a reputation as a dolt. But on the second day, I did volunteer. HINT: If you don’t want to get called on, just volunteer when you have something worth saying. I thought I had this whole case figured out and I was thinking no one else was getting it but me, and I’d just sort them out by stating the obvious. So I volunteered. And I was promptly shut down. My cheeks burned for a moment, but then I decided others had said dumber things and that we would all say some dumb things this year. And if anyone was thinking I was stupid, well they were stupid! Let’s just give everyone a break, shall we?
Anyway, the next day I said something really smart that no one else knew and felt totally awesome, until I got over confident, volunteered again and said something sort of moderately stupid. I do not think I am one to go on the law school emotional roller coaster, so I’m letting these roll off my back and will just do the very best I can and hope everyone else does the same
There are those who are making nuisances of themselves in class... yes—the gunners have announced themselves. Now, how do you know if you’re a gunner? It seems that gunners don’t really seem to know they are gunners, so here is a little checklist:
1.) If you are quoting Kant and no one asked you to, you’re a gunner.
2.) If you are asking questions about substantive due process, and we’re working on ‘what is a statute?’, you’re a gunner.
3.) If you think you’re at the head of the class because you were a philosophy major and did pretty well on the LSAT, and you want everyone to know it, you’re a gunner, and you’re an idiot.
We had an orientation session with upperclassmen with no professors or administrators around, for the really candid questions. The best piece of advice was, ‘Just calm the fuck down.’ So much of law school stress is self-induced and really, you must just calm the fuck down. This was also the primary message I got from Scott Turow’s book, One L. I meant to post a proper review of One L but, heck, I don’t have time to do that anymore. So I’ll just say that One L was really interesting. He talks a lot about the stress and the oppressive workload, but he never explains how he got through it. It would have been useful to learn how one person managed to handle the law school workload, especially at Harvard Law School. So don’t go to One L looking for study tips. Do look at 1L of a Ride by McClurg (can’t remember the first name). It’s full of useful information, and I think it even helped me during the introductory class and certainly on the exam. So many people at the law school don’t seem to have a clue what is going on. Do some research before you go to school, because you don’t always have to learn as you go, especially when that has such high-stakes consequences.
Other random tips I learned this week:
--Read footnotes—they’re interesting and sometimes hold key information.
--Brief every case, but brief it keeping in mind what you’re looking for—know what you’re supposed to be getting out of it by contextualizing it. I went to bed the night before the exam feeling okay about how I reviewed. Then, at some point in the night, I realized that I had been studying all the wrong things. I had been studying the substantive law, when actually this course was about and I should have been studying the legal reasoning and basic legal principles in the judgments. I woke up early in the morning (as I had been doing all week actually) and made a quick cheat sheet (open book exam) of some basic legal principles and the development of some legal reasoning in lines of litigation. And this cheat sheet was absolutely crucial for me in the exam. Of course, I could not rely heavily on it, it was just to have the exact language laid out and in one place. But it was crucial.
--DON’T just highlight in your book without going back immediately and extracting the main points in a note format. I read and highlighted everything for my introductory class the week before and it was a complete waste of time because I did not retain any of it and I had to go back and take actual computerized notes on it anyway. It was annoying. Particularly with cases, because they’re so dense, highlighting just will not do. You have to extract the facts and rules and, very important, put them in your own words as much as possible.
I think it’s going to be a difficult but rewarding three years.
Sunday 22 August 2010
Sunday 15 August 2010
Orientation: Day One
I want to say a quick word about my first day of orientation. Why does the strategy of law school socialization mean you just throw 200 students into a room and say, 'okay, go make friends'? It's so awkward and uncomfortable. If they just got down to classes, people would eventually get to know each other and I wouldn't have had to hang out with a bunch of people today who I'll probably never speak to again.
I had forgotten how obsessed people are with football. I shouldn't be surprised, it is the Midwest after all. But damn, people, develop some other interests will you? Still, this is law school, so maybe appearances are deceiving. These are serious people, so maybe the football talk is just the ice breaker conversation topic for the first few days. I was, however, the oldest person I met all day. I am also well past my clubbing days, so I felt quite old and lame while everyone else talked about how hung over they were this morning. I did not meet any other married people, but there must be some, because at the cookout, some people brought their children.
With regard to the cookout--yes, I ate. I had a burger--and it was damn good too. They also served these gigantic bratwursts that looked ludicrously phallic, but the girls in the group I sat with were digging in, so, I lost my inhibitions. Plus, the grilling just smelled so good, I could not resist.
I also got the very welcome news that the orientation Intro to Law course has a much heavier workload than the term-time classes. I don't know if that means per class or overall. If it means overall, I will be extremely pleased, but I felt I could definitely handle that amount of work. Yet I suspect it is the former rather than the latter.
I did not get switched into the section I requested. Another person in my orientation section randomly got switched into my preferred section without even asking for it. I'm telling you, I'm on someone's shit list somewhere.
In the welcoming remarks, the dean of the school said something very interesting. She said that there are no law prodigies--good lawyers are not born, they are made. Ojala.
Finally, a word on dress: I don't want to go too far off topic, but I dressed up a bit for the first day of orientation on the advice of several people including Denis Jansen, whose advice I usually rely upon, without hiccup. I was one of the best dressed people there. I wore a pencil skirt of dress fabric, a GAP t-shirt and a black cardigan on top. I think I struck the right balance between professionalism and casual ease. Apparently not many other people felt that was necessary. I think it reflects poorly on them, and I'm going to keep dressing in a way that makes me feel comfortable. I want in every respect to put my best foot forward since this is the beginning of my career. Special thanks to Huma.
Tomorrow is our first class and our first exposure to Socratic method. I'm staying cool though. No sweat.
I had forgotten how obsessed people are with football. I shouldn't be surprised, it is the Midwest after all. But damn, people, develop some other interests will you? Still, this is law school, so maybe appearances are deceiving. These are serious people, so maybe the football talk is just the ice breaker conversation topic for the first few days. I was, however, the oldest person I met all day. I am also well past my clubbing days, so I felt quite old and lame while everyone else talked about how hung over they were this morning. I did not meet any other married people, but there must be some, because at the cookout, some people brought their children.
With regard to the cookout--yes, I ate. I had a burger--and it was damn good too. They also served these gigantic bratwursts that looked ludicrously phallic, but the girls in the group I sat with were digging in, so, I lost my inhibitions. Plus, the grilling just smelled so good, I could not resist.
I also got the very welcome news that the orientation Intro to Law course has a much heavier workload than the term-time classes. I don't know if that means per class or overall. If it means overall, I will be extremely pleased, but I felt I could definitely handle that amount of work. Yet I suspect it is the former rather than the latter.
I did not get switched into the section I requested. Another person in my orientation section randomly got switched into my preferred section without even asking for it. I'm telling you, I'm on someone's shit list somewhere.
In the welcoming remarks, the dean of the school said something very interesting. She said that there are no law prodigies--good lawyers are not born, they are made. Ojala.
Finally, a word on dress: I don't want to go too far off topic, but I dressed up a bit for the first day of orientation on the advice of several people including Denis Jansen, whose advice I usually rely upon, without hiccup. I was one of the best dressed people there. I wore a pencil skirt of dress fabric, a GAP t-shirt and a black cardigan on top. I think I struck the right balance between professionalism and casual ease. Apparently not many other people felt that was necessary. I think it reflects poorly on them, and I'm going to keep dressing in a way that makes me feel comfortable. I want in every respect to put my best foot forward since this is the beginning of my career. Special thanks to Huma.
Tomorrow is our first class and our first exposure to Socratic method. I'm staying cool though. No sweat.
Friday 13 August 2010
OL Crazy and Mandatory Volunteerism
It's only 1.5 days until the star of my law school career and I am putting everything in order so that I can be ready to study with minimal drama and distraction. Almost everything is in place, except for minor, completely unimportant things like my health insurance. I've realized through this preparation that I am maybe a tiny bit obsessive (but not always compulsive).
I have bought some new clothes in all neutral colors so that they can all go together and so that I do not display any unseemly personality, god forbid. Orientation starts with a cookout, which I am dreading. I am dreading trying to make friends in a big group of people I don't know. I am horrified at the thought of actually SPEAKING to professors outside of class! And I am terrified of having to attempt to eat and talk at the same time. How does anyone manage this without looking like a gaping idiot, or dribble food down your front, or ending up with green stuff in your teeth? This is all starting to sound a little crazy.
I read a horror story somewhere (I can't remember where) about a 1L student dropping a whole PLATE full of food on a professor's clothes. I do not have the greatest track record of being impressive and poised in front of people I actually want to impress, so I am actually kind of worried about this. I think the only solution is to not eat at this thing. I'll be too nervous and I am actually just scared to look stupid and embarrass myself on the first day of law school. Call me whatever names you wish. I may turn out to be this person.
I'm also being pretty obsessive about my work space. I'm trying to keep as many potentially distracting items off my desk as possible. Smart, right? My desk (from IKEA, but I love it) is about 2000 square feet of empty real estate and it's kind of cold most of the time. When I start working, though, I have a system and my desk ends up being completely cluttered by all the things I need to have within a hand's reach while I'm studying. And everything needs to be in its proper place. My pencil case must be open and placed on the top right corner of the desk. I need three items--a pen, a highlighter and pad of post-it notes--to my immediate right. My subject binder must be open to the syllabus and placed in the top left hand corner of the desk. My planner must be opened and place just below the binder. My computer, if I am using it must be directly in front of me and slightly more than halfway up the desk. The desk lamp(s) must be placed at a 45 degree angle, pointing directly at my work. Obviously this means my things are sprawled all over the place, which makes my husband nervous because he only has one desk at his place. I imagine he wants to be the one to use it.
I've also been a little obsessive about my study statistics ever since I started reading for my intro class at the beginning of the week. I set myself a number of pages per day and I've been keeping track of how much time it takes me to read them, including how much time I spend faffing. Faffing is a fantastic British word for procrastinating and otherwise wasting time. I have a little three-channel timer and I kept track of things down to the minute. The first day I was reading, I read at the rate of 11 minutes per page--awful! I think that was mostly attributable to excessive amounts of faff. About 30% of my time spent 'working' was actually just faffing. Not good. However, by Friday I took only 3 minutes per page, and spent only 10% of my time faffing, so I'd say that's some good improvement. Did I understand much of what I was reading? Well, I certainly didn't learn it. I think that will require a second reading and some note taking. I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this in the number of hours available in the day!
Finally, one last piece of law school crazy. The 1Ls are going to spend one afternoon of the orientation doing a community volunteering project. I got a list of all the possible assignments, which included volunteering at the public library, etc, generally indoor things. Me? I'm going to be doing trail maintenance at a local park. I generally don't do outdoors in the summer, but come orientation, I will be hot and sweaty, maintaining some trails with 40 other 1Ls and the Dean of Admissions. Voluntarily.
I have bought some new clothes in all neutral colors so that they can all go together and so that I do not display any unseemly personality, god forbid. Orientation starts with a cookout, which I am dreading. I am dreading trying to make friends in a big group of people I don't know. I am horrified at the thought of actually SPEAKING to professors outside of class! And I am terrified of having to attempt to eat and talk at the same time. How does anyone manage this without looking like a gaping idiot, or dribble food down your front, or ending up with green stuff in your teeth? This is all starting to sound a little crazy.
I read a horror story somewhere (I can't remember where) about a 1L student dropping a whole PLATE full of food on a professor's clothes. I do not have the greatest track record of being impressive and poised in front of people I actually want to impress, so I am actually kind of worried about this. I think the only solution is to not eat at this thing. I'll be too nervous and I am actually just scared to look stupid and embarrass myself on the first day of law school. Call me whatever names you wish. I may turn out to be this person.
I'm also being pretty obsessive about my work space. I'm trying to keep as many potentially distracting items off my desk as possible. Smart, right? My desk (from IKEA, but I love it) is about 2000 square feet of empty real estate and it's kind of cold most of the time. When I start working, though, I have a system and my desk ends up being completely cluttered by all the things I need to have within a hand's reach while I'm studying. And everything needs to be in its proper place. My pencil case must be open and placed on the top right corner of the desk. I need three items--a pen, a highlighter and pad of post-it notes--to my immediate right. My subject binder must be open to the syllabus and placed in the top left hand corner of the desk. My planner must be opened and place just below the binder. My computer, if I am using it must be directly in front of me and slightly more than halfway up the desk. The desk lamp(s) must be placed at a 45 degree angle, pointing directly at my work. Obviously this means my things are sprawled all over the place, which makes my husband nervous because he only has one desk at his place. I imagine he wants to be the one to use it.
I've also been a little obsessive about my study statistics ever since I started reading for my intro class at the beginning of the week. I set myself a number of pages per day and I've been keeping track of how much time it takes me to read them, including how much time I spend faffing. Faffing is a fantastic British word for procrastinating and otherwise wasting time. I have a little three-channel timer and I kept track of things down to the minute. The first day I was reading, I read at the rate of 11 minutes per page--awful! I think that was mostly attributable to excessive amounts of faff. About 30% of my time spent 'working' was actually just faffing. Not good. However, by Friday I took only 3 minutes per page, and spent only 10% of my time faffing, so I'd say that's some good improvement. Did I understand much of what I was reading? Well, I certainly didn't learn it. I think that will require a second reading and some note taking. I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this in the number of hours available in the day!
Finally, one last piece of law school crazy. The 1Ls are going to spend one afternoon of the orientation doing a community volunteering project. I got a list of all the possible assignments, which included volunteering at the public library, etc, generally indoor things. Me? I'm going to be doing trail maintenance at a local park. I generally don't do outdoors in the summer, but come orientation, I will be hot and sweaty, maintaining some trails with 40 other 1Ls and the Dean of Admissions. Voluntarily.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Admin Ladies
Why are admin ladies at universities so bitchy!? And totally unhelpful? I mean, I know they must get a million stupid calls and emails from self-important, entitled students every day, but seriously--they're not nice. Why is that? Do they hate their jobs?
In more upbeat news, a good friend of mine is going to apply to go to law school and she wants to practice immigration law. She lives in Arizona--chronically screwed up Arizona. I'm going to keep up my boycott of Coldstone Creamery no matter how delicious and creamy it is.
In more upbeat news, a good friend of mine is going to apply to go to law school and she wants to practice immigration law. She lives in Arizona--chronically screwed up Arizona. I'm going to keep up my boycott of Coldstone Creamery no matter how delicious and creamy it is.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Further Prepping for Law School
I have been engaged in further preparing my world for the onslaught that is one L.
I have received notification of my loans. This is the first time I have had to take out loans and it is a scary process.
I am also fully engaged in covering my readings for my Intro to Law class. I have no problem reading the material, I can do that in a couple of hours a day. The problem is taking notes on it such that I have actually learned the material. It's just too huge a volume of information to get by just highlighting. I've started using OneNote, which I am loving, but note-taking in outline form is exhausting. My system is that I read the material once, highlighting important parts (which, for a lot of the reading, is every single word in ever single sentence of many sections). Then I go back and take detailed notes in outline form. It is taking forever--I have to find a better system--any suggestions out there?
Speaking of OneNote, if you haven't tried it you should. I think it is a fantastic way to organize all your notes in one place where they are easy to navigate but, more importantly, also much easier to amend, revise, edit, and expand. If you are going to use OneNote or another computer program to keep all your notes though, for god's sake, please back everything up. I am going to sign up for an online automatic backing up service that backs your harddrive up remotely over the internet on a continuous basis.
The material I am reading is really interesting. Of course, it is only the basics of law, but I am finding it so fascinating. This is helped by the fact that law is a subject that revolves around human behavior and human conduct. The hypothetical and real-life cases make it easy to connect with the material. I really love engaging mentally with the legal issues in the judgments as well, thinking along, 'Oh I agree with that' or 'That's not right!' or 'I disagree!' or, as when I read a judgment by Justice Scalia, 'Oooh, this is so persuasive... but.. must... resist agreeing!'. Also, I know it's totally juvenile, but I was reading a judgment where a woman sued a defendant over negligent acts that resulted in her husband becoming sexually impotent and it was called Cox v Haworth. Tee hee. Forgive me.
I also had the opportunity to meet two of my potential future law professors because they are friends with my in-laws and we all had dinner over at another family's house. I've realized that knowing law professors personally or semi-personally is a double-edge sword. On one hand, they're much easier to approach if you need advice or help with something. On the other hand, they are your professional contacts and you have to keep that in mind even in a personal social setting. I had been complaining to my mother-in-law about how I have a test in the first week of law school, only joking about it. But she must have mentioned it to one of the law professors, who then gave me the whole justification for why it had to be done, why we have to start school so early; she also told me in a somewhat exasperated tone (because she has probably had to deal with a lot of 1Ls panicking over this ONE credit hour, PASS/FAIL class) that the casebook is easy to read, that the exam isn't a big deal and that I should not worry so much about it.
Well, reader, I had not been worrying about it so much. I think my little joke just got misconstrued as it passed through the grapevine, and now I fear one of my future law professors thinks I've already started complaining about the workload of law school. Not the first impression I wanted to give to this lady. Am I being paranoid?
I have also requested a section transfer so I can be in the other prof's class. Is that inappropriate? Is that tacky? Is that allowed? I don't know. I just know that I will find him approachable if and when I need help in class. Plus, it puts me in the class of another law professor whom I have not met, but who sounds like a one of those law whiz kids. He's relatively young and he did several degrees at Cambridge, so we can laugh hysterically about the British and really bond and basically become best friends. I also wanted to switch sections because it would give me a more compacted schedule with no awkward 1-2hr waits between classes. More compact schedule = more study time = more time for the FABULOUS new gym on campus. I've already got my deluxe, clubhouse locker.
Oh my but this year is going to be amazing. If you're thinking these are famous last words, don't disillusion me yet.
I have received notification of my loans. This is the first time I have had to take out loans and it is a scary process.
I am also fully engaged in covering my readings for my Intro to Law class. I have no problem reading the material, I can do that in a couple of hours a day. The problem is taking notes on it such that I have actually learned the material. It's just too huge a volume of information to get by just highlighting. I've started using OneNote, which I am loving, but note-taking in outline form is exhausting. My system is that I read the material once, highlighting important parts (which, for a lot of the reading, is every single word in ever single sentence of many sections). Then I go back and take detailed notes in outline form. It is taking forever--I have to find a better system--any suggestions out there?
Speaking of OneNote, if you haven't tried it you should. I think it is a fantastic way to organize all your notes in one place where they are easy to navigate but, more importantly, also much easier to amend, revise, edit, and expand. If you are going to use OneNote or another computer program to keep all your notes though, for god's sake, please back everything up. I am going to sign up for an online automatic backing up service that backs your harddrive up remotely over the internet on a continuous basis.
The material I am reading is really interesting. Of course, it is only the basics of law, but I am finding it so fascinating. This is helped by the fact that law is a subject that revolves around human behavior and human conduct. The hypothetical and real-life cases make it easy to connect with the material. I really love engaging mentally with the legal issues in the judgments as well, thinking along, 'Oh I agree with that' or 'That's not right!' or 'I disagree!' or, as when I read a judgment by Justice Scalia, 'Oooh, this is so persuasive... but.. must... resist agreeing!'. Also, I know it's totally juvenile, but I was reading a judgment where a woman sued a defendant over negligent acts that resulted in her husband becoming sexually impotent and it was called Cox v Haworth. Tee hee. Forgive me.
I also had the opportunity to meet two of my potential future law professors because they are friends with my in-laws and we all had dinner over at another family's house. I've realized that knowing law professors personally or semi-personally is a double-edge sword. On one hand, they're much easier to approach if you need advice or help with something. On the other hand, they are your professional contacts and you have to keep that in mind even in a personal social setting. I had been complaining to my mother-in-law about how I have a test in the first week of law school, only joking about it. But she must have mentioned it to one of the law professors, who then gave me the whole justification for why it had to be done, why we have to start school so early; she also told me in a somewhat exasperated tone (because she has probably had to deal with a lot of 1Ls panicking over this ONE credit hour, PASS/FAIL class) that the casebook is easy to read, that the exam isn't a big deal and that I should not worry so much about it.
Well, reader, I had not been worrying about it so much. I think my little joke just got misconstrued as it passed through the grapevine, and now I fear one of my future law professors thinks I've already started complaining about the workload of law school. Not the first impression I wanted to give to this lady. Am I being paranoid?
I have also requested a section transfer so I can be in the other prof's class. Is that inappropriate? Is that tacky? Is that allowed? I don't know. I just know that I will find him approachable if and when I need help in class. Plus, it puts me in the class of another law professor whom I have not met, but who sounds like a one of those law whiz kids. He's relatively young and he did several degrees at Cambridge, so we can laugh hysterically about the British and really bond and basically become best friends. I also wanted to switch sections because it would give me a more compacted schedule with no awkward 1-2hr waits between classes. More compact schedule = more study time = more time for the FABULOUS new gym on campus. I've already got my deluxe, clubhouse locker.
Oh my but this year is going to be amazing. If you're thinking these are famous last words, don't disillusion me yet.
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