Monday, September 22, 2008

Civil Procedure and Nerd Appeal

My civil procedure class started on Friday (for the first three weeks of school we had extra contracts classes instead because of a professor's schedule conflict). The professor was at pains to warn us that it might be our hardest class because, being the rules of American jurisprudence, civil procedure has no analogue in day to day life. I think I'll do fine for the same reason that I like law generally: I'm a big fat game nerd.
A lot of game nerds, especially role-playing game nerds, are social misfit types looking to immerse themselves in an orderly, rule-bound world that's easier to understand and manage than the open-ended mess that is real life. The study of law is very attractive to someone like that. What do you know, it turns out real life does have rules that can be learned and mastered. And if law is the rule book to the game of Real Life, civil procedure is the game mechanics: what dice to use and when to roll them. I think I'll take to it like a duck to water.

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