Monday, July 27, 2009

Topical, But Not Too Topical

I'm all a-dither about finding a topic for my law review note. This paper will be a year-long project, and I have about two weeks to pick a topic. The trick is to find an issue that is 1) unlikely to be resolved in the next year (i.e., cases pending before the Supreme Court are out), 2) topical enough to merit publication (freak show jurisprudence probably would not make the cut), and 3) not so topical that other people have already written about it ad nauseam (anything to do with Guantanamo detainees? Fuhgeddaboutit). If you can think of a contested point of law that deserves a twenty-plus page treatment, please feel free to drop me a line or post a comment.

For those keeping score, this is the one-hundredth post to this blog.

Friday, July 24, 2009

A New Year Brings New Swag


Here is the stuff I picked up at my law review orientation meeting. There was free food, too, but it was that old standby, pizza. I had hoped that our lofty position on the law review would merit caviar and bonbons. Not to worry, though. This meager pile of giveaways is nothing compared to the shower of goodies that will rain down in September when vendors are trying to impress the new students.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Exam Time at Last

Night time is not the right time to take an essay exam. I feel like I did pretty badly on my Criminal Procedure exam. There were only two questions, and my answer to one of them was full of padding. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing the point. Fortunately, my track record for predicting my grades on exams is poor.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

A Full Schedule

Since I don't have a clerkship lined up, I deliberately piled on the extracurricular activities in the fall. The rocks and pebbles that will eventually become an avalanche of obligations are starting to appear on my calendar. I was accepted onto the law review, so that will mean a series of orientation meetings starting later this week. I've also signed up to serve as a mentor to incoming 1L students, so I'll be going to their orientation in mid-August. My schedule-juggling skills will get a real test when classes start.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Wrapping Up Summer

Today was the last day of summer classes. I'm left a little disappointed with Criminal Procedure. It was a terrific class, but we only covered about half the textbook. I bet I would have learned more if I had waited and taken the class in the longer fall semester.

Exams are almost two weeks away. I need the review time. An eight-week course really doesn't give one time to soak in information and properly commit it to memory.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Thinning the Ranks

Looking at the class rankings, I see just three students in my class with GPAs low enough to wash out of the program. Two students disappeared from one of my summer classes around the time grades were issued, so they are probably among the unlucky ones. Readmission is possible, but one has to repeat the first year. Ouch!