Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sweet Relief

I turned in a paper yesterday - 30% of my grade in my writing class. With that monkey off my back, the reading load doesn't seem so bad. I should be able to get back on top of things by the time the next paper comes due at the end of November. We're starting to hear rumblings about the end-of-semester tests. There are test-taking seminars on offer and professors are starting to hand out sample questions.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Pet Peeve

At the end of nearly every class, as soon as the professor intimates that he or she is wrapping things up there's a cacophony of slamming books and shuffling papers. That sort of rush for the door was standard operating procedure in high school. It was kind of annoying in undergraduate school. In law school it seems completely out of place. Where are these people in such a hurry to go? Everyone in the class has the same schedule. The worst of it is, the professors usually finish the class with a word about our reading assignment for the next class. That is often completely swallowed up by the din.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Honeymoon is Over

At some point in the last couple of weeks, all this reading stopped being a pleasure and started being a chore. There's always at least one class in which I'm right on the edge of falling behind. The information is still interesting, but sometimes a body wants to stop and reflect. I can't just sit still and read for three hours at a stretch the way I could in September. I'm afraid the four weeks leading up to Thanksgiving break are going to be a death march.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Free Food

I thought for sure that the free food would dry up after the first couple of weeks, but the gravy train just won't end. Some form of free lunch is on offer about once a week. At least half the time it's pizza, but today it was mexican food from the Hispanic Law Students Association. The HLSA lunch didn't even require sitting through a seminar. Fantastic!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Missing class

I had car trouble and didn't go to class yesterday. These are the times when being a friendless misanthrope has its disadvantages. There are ninety people in my class, and not a soul whom I'd feel comfortable asking for notes.

I didn't really notice until now how much school plays to my introversion. That must be why I like it so much. If you go to class and keep up with the reading, you can do just fine without ever saying three words to anyone. I talk more to this blog than I do to the people I spend all day with. Dear Diary, How embarrassing.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Civil Procedure

Civil procedure meets for two hours on Friday mornings. You would think that issues like jurisdiction and the appeals process would make for pretty dry reading, but procedural issues like that tend to wind up in the Supreme Court, so the opinions have a better than average literary quality. Civil Procedure is probably my most readable textbook.

The professor is very likeable, too. I'd guess he's my oldest professor, and he has an ease with the material that makes for entertaining listening. His classroom talk is full of jokes, asides, and anecdotes.

And that's the last of my classes. There are six in all, for a total of fifteen classroom hours per week. It feels like more.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Legal Research

Legal research is the other practical course. It meets just once a week, for one hour every Wednesday afternoon. Most of the work for legal research happens outside of class. We're assigned a research project every couple of weeks. Basically, we're given some question about the law and a list of library resources to use to get an answer. I've enjoyed learning how to find stuff in the shelves and shelves of highly stereotypical law books in the library, but it's a real nuisance having to write up my research. I suppose the professor has to have something to grade, but I already have my hands full with my RWA writing assignments.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Property

Property meets for ninety minutes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It's my favorite class, as far as subject matter goes. The minutiae of inheritance, eminent domain and water rights are a pain to learn, but they're all very necessary and interesting.
I mentioned that the contracts professor, whom I liken to John Houseman in The Paper Chase, is a favorite among the upperclassmen. It was the property professor that the upperclass students all warned us about. Again, it's probably because I like the material, but I don't find her all that intimidating. She's very serious in class, but not aggressive.
Property is the one class that has stuck relentlessly to the syllabus. We've covered so much material that the final exam is already a horrifying prospect. I am told that property law is tested heavily on the bar exam, so I suppose it will all be worth it in the end.

Monday, October 6, 2008

RWA

Reason, Writing and Advocacy meets for an hour on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It's one of two practical classes, which is to say we do written assignments throughout the semester. I like it. We meet in relatively small sections - there are seventeen students in mine - and get some kind of feedback from time to time. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but most of the classes - the "substantive" classes, they're called - have no grades throughout the semester. The final exam determines one's grade for the entire class. The periodic deadlines and grades in RWA are a welcome relief from all that uncertainty. Besides, my undergraduate degree is in history, so I write reasonably well and tend to get good grades.
The writing assignments are along these lines: we'll get a short description of a fictional client's situation and a list of court decisions that dealt with similar circumstances. Based on that information, we write up a paper that analyzes the applicable law and predicts the outcome for our client should the case go to trial. It's kind of fun.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Contracts

Contracts class runs for ninety minutes on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. If you've been reading this blog, you know that a couple of weeks ago I called shenanigans on the whole field of contract law. My attitude hasn't changed. More and more, it looks suspiciously like judges decide who they think deserves to win, then devise some cockamamie theory to justify that outcome.
The class isn't much fun, either. The contracts professor is the one that most reminds me of the infamous Kingsfield in The Paper Chase. She's imperious and tends to make students look dumb. I'm sure that to some extent I'm letting my attitude toward the material affect my disposition toward the professor. She's a favorite among the upperclassmen, so she can't be as bad as all that. Even so, if I could wipe one class off my schedule, this would be it.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Torts

It occurs to me that I haven't written much about my day to day routine, so over the next week or two I'll give a quick description of my classes.
Torts starts my week. It's a two hour class on Monday and Wednesday mornings. If you don't know what a tort is, it's basically any civil wrong. Negligence and trespassing are torts. So are assault and battery, if you're suing for damages in civil court (they're only called "crimes" when the state is prosecuting them).
Torts is a pretty low stress class. The professor is a young guy - in his early thirties, maybe. He mostly relies on volunteers to answer questions and doesn't quiz students too aggressively. The classroom discussion tends to be about the public policy underpinning the law. It's interesting stuff, and a nice way to start the week.