Orientation Week--Humiliation , Experimentation and Vindication!

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.

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.

What I'm Doing to Prepare for Law School

Now that I’m a 0L, I’ve been getting full swing into the 0L thing. What am I doing to prepare for 1L?

I have been advised over and over and over again that the summer before 1L should not be spent trying to learn law because

a.) You won’t understand anything anyway and

b.) The first year of law school is a very brief and intense period before which you should rest, relax and gird yourself for the forthcoming work.

The advice from a British book called Letters to a Law Student by Nicholas J. McBridge is that if you get your books and can study the first few chapters of each, you’ll be a little bit ahead when school starts.

A friend of mine who just graduated from the University of Pomorum Law School this past year has also advised me that I should just try to enjoy myself. He said that once school starts, things will not be bad, just different.

I told him I was only worried about wearing myself out enjoying myself this summer. For one I’m going on a million vacations. I just came back from Scotland. In a few days, I’m going to go to Ireland. Then I’m going to Boston for a family reunion. After that I’m going to visit my brother-in-law where he and his fiancé live. I won’t say where, but I will say it will include a beer brewery tour and a fancy new modern art museum.

After that I’m helping The Economist move to Cowville, then returning to Pomorum City for the briefest of moments before the school year actually starts!

McBride has a few more pieces of advice. First, he suggests that although you shouldn’t read law, you should read a lot to get used to the volume of material. Second, he suggests you should read things you won’t have time to read in school, particularly about different subjects to law. He also suggests that you read a study skills book well before school starts. Third, he thinks you should cultivate an interest in politics and economics. Scott Turow also has an interesting take on this issue, which I will write about later.

Following that advice, here is my reading list for sliz-ummer 2010:

One L—Scott Turow DONE

Never Let Me Go—Kazao Ishiguro DONE

King Leopold’s Ghost—Adam Hochschild ALMOST done

Infidel—Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Gilead—Marilynne Robinson

Moby Dick—Herman Melville

The Rule of Law—Tom Bingham

1000 Days to the Bar—Tonsing

1L of a Ride—McClurg

Succeeding in Law School—Ramy

I might also add a straight study skills book to the mix because I seem never to have developed those myself.

I’ve also been reading from the blogs, such as this post by Dennis Jansen, about what law students should be wearing to orientation and beyond. I’ve realized that my wardrobe is not suited to a semi-professional environment and that I will have to remedy this once I get back to Pomorum City. I do not want to veer too far into a non-law related subject, but I do think that the way you dress is important to the way you are viewed as a professional. It sucks, but there it is.

I feel the following is a delicate issue.

I have always had difficulty finding clothes that fit well and this is especially problematic when it comes to professional dress. You don’t want to look sloppy, or unkempt, or vulgar. The way I see it is that, far from being fashionable, you should try to look so effortlessly well-maintained and well-groomed that your clothes become a non-issue. There should be nothing positive or negative that stands out about your clothes, so that your work and your manner come through as the strongest impression left upon people. Office politics being what they are I know it is impossible to completely escape scrutiny of one’s clothing, especially if one happens to be a woman who works with other women. I want to stick, so far as it is possible, to my ‘ethic’ or philosophy of workplace clothing.

Consequently I’ve realized that I have to lose some weight. I am about to say something controversial, without apology; it’s just what I think at the moment:

You can be a fat man and still be viewed as a professional. It is harder for a fat woman to be viewed as professional.

Women’s clothing always affects the way they are perceived professionally more than men’s. I will see in time if this opinion in correct.

Anyway, I have to get into shape. Since appearances are so important, I’m just going to take this as part of my ongoing professional development. It wouldn’t hurt to be a bit healthier too.

I also got some pre-orientation reading in the mail from Pomorum. I had to fill out the FAFSA for the first time as an independent. It turns out I am eligible for the low-interest student loans, but I think for the first year, I will be able to pay from my savings. And since I will not be paying rent, my living expenses are going to be quite small. I want to delay taking out loans for as long as possible. Luckily, The Economist has full funding and a stipend at Cow College, so we will keep our debt load relatively low. Still, we will end up at least $100,000 in debt between us. This is an amount of money I cannot possibly conceptualize right now, so I won’t try. I think, like most people my age, I’ll just think about it later. What else can we do?

I’m off to continue ‘preparing for law school’ by enjoying the crap out of myself.

The 5-step method to calm yourself down

I like relaxation mechanisms for when you face a moment of intense stress/confusion/frustration. I really like JE's 5-step method for calming yourself down when something happens that sets you atwitter. It's fairly similar to what I do, but more rigorous and more results-oriented.