Monday, April 27, 2009

Exam Prep

I'm finally through with classes. Time to get ready for exams. Professors encourage law students to prepare for exams by making an outline of all the material in the course (try Googling "law school outlines" and you'll find that that's true all over the country). I'm not very good at structuring information into outlines, so I prefer to draw diagrams like the one below.
I have six pages like that for Property. Later, I'll type this into Freemind software, a free mind-mapping tool that I have found very handy. Freemind will spit my diagram back out as a conventional outline that I can use to study for the exam.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Registered

I registered for summer and fall classes today. Online registration for students entering their second year started at 7:15 this morning. I lallygagged until about 11:30 and found that some of the more desirable classes had filled up. Even so, I think I have an interesting schedule to look forward to. In the summer (that is, starting May 26) I'll be taking Legal Profession (ethics, basically) and Criminal Pretrial Procedure. As for my Lawyering Skills class in the fall, I chose the litigation track. I enjoyed oral arguments so much that it was really no contest.
Classes should be over, but we have to make up a missed session of Contracts on Monday. Contracts, of all classes. sigh.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Registration Looming

Registration for summer and fall classes is in eight days. It will be my first chance to take some electives, but that's not what's on my mind. Next fall we'll all take a version of Lawyering Skills I. We must choose between transaction skills, in which we'll draft contracts; and litigation skills, in which we'll draft lawsuits. On the one hand, I've never liked jobs that required a lot of interaction with the public. On the other hand, Contracts is my least favorite class. I guess what I'm asking myself is, which branch of the legal profession will I hate least?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Law Prom

On Friday I went to the "Barrister's Ball," the law school's annual semi-formal dance. It was nice to interact with my classmates socially--something I don't do very often. On the other hand, it served as a reminder of how schmoozing-intensive the legal profession is. A few of the local attorneys who have addressed my class have intimated that we have a lot of charity dinners in our future. It's fun to picture myself walking among the rich and powerful, but I hope I don't turn into a smiling and insincere handshake machine.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Semester Winding Down

Yesterday I was graded on my oral argument, the last big assignment in Reason, Writing and Advocacy II. I still have a paper to turn in, but it's ninety per cent finished.
Final exams are on the not-too-distant horizon, and I have done almost nothing to prepare. Fortunately, most of my classmates seem to be in the same boat. At the end of the fall semester I aired my belief that cramming for exams just doesn't work. I hope I was wrong.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Done Researching

I turned in my last assignment for Legal Research this week. It might just have been my happiest moment all semester. It's surely in the top five for the year. Legal Research assignments are to law school what mimeographed worksheets were to high school. I haven't talked to anyone who thinks they're anything but useless busywork. It's a great feeling to know that I've put them behind me for life.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

I Like to Talk

I've always told anyone who asked (and everyone asks) that I see myself becoming a transactional lawyer--contracts, corporations and the like--but since we started working on oral arguments I've been hearing the siren call of litigation. Standing in front of a panel of judges and making a case is a lot more fun than I would have guessed.