Law School: What's the Big Deal?

One Last Post About School

2012-02-12T22:26:00.002-06:00

This blog has been more or less dormant since I passed the bar, and I haven't quite decided whether I should shutter it altogether. This I know for sure: I can't call it a law school blog anymore. But before I pack it in or change the blog's name or whatever I'm going to do, I want to ask myself the one question that sums it all up: If I knew then what I know now, would I have applied to law school at all?

I suppose so, but it's hardly a slam dunk.

Financially, law school was not a good bet.
To make law school pay (at least in the third-tier, small-market law school world I experienced), you have to be either an academic savant, a networking savant, or a lawyer's kid. I would categorize myself as an academic savant and a networking dullard, and that combination almost sank me. Those eight months of unemployment after graduation were a terrible, terrible time for me, and it's going to take a long time to forget them. Now I earn maybe twenty percent more than I did before I went to school. My long-term earning potential is good, sure, but it's going to take me a long time to make up for that lost three years.

In terms of job satisfaction, so far, so good.
I went to law school in the first place because I was burned out on the clerical and accounting jobs I've done my whole life. Practicing law is a lot more fun, but I've only been at it for a month. In five years, will I be more burned out than ever? Statistics say yes--law is just about the drinkingest, drug-abusingest, most depressed profession there is. Maybe I'll be the exception.

So law school turned out to be an okay option for the bored accountant I was four years ago, but if I really had a do-over, I'd go back and warn my eighteen-year-old self to lay off that cushy history major and take some physics or chemistry or computer science classes. I suspect I'd be more employable with most any science undergraduate degree than I am with a law degree. What's more, I'd be more employable as a lawyer if I had some kind of science background; the field is saturated with history and poli-sci majors. Stay in school, kids!

Employed, For Now

2012-01-16T21:46:00.000-06:00

Today was my first day as a practicing attorney. A small firm hired me to fill in while one of the associates takes maternity leave. That will last a few months, and then they'll decide if the workload (and my performance) justifies taking me on permanently.

I've been chasing every job in sight for eight months, but I got this one because one of my law school classmates heard about it through the grapevine and gave my name to the hiring attorney. Do not underestimate the value of having a good reputation among your peers.

I'm Still Here

2012-01-02T20:56:00.001-06:00

I haven't abandoned the blog. There is simply nothing to report. There have been eight job applications, two interviews, and no offers since my last post.

Professional Practicum

2011-11-12T22:24:00.001-06:00

I passed the MPRE, passed the bar exam, took the oath, paid the license fee, but I still had to take care of one more piece of business last week. Every attorney licensed in Arkansas is required to attend a Professional Practicum put on by the Arkansas Bar Association. The state supreme court evidently takes the requirement seriously, because I know at least one attorney in town who missed the thing and had her license suspended over it.

The practicum is an all-day seminar that aims to promote professionalism and civility among lawyers. That is to say, it consists mostly of a series of speakers admonishing new attorneys to play nice with one another. Apparently the Arkansas bar has a history of cooperation and collegiality, but as the number of lawyers increases there is a fear that we'll get more attorneys of the type exemplified by this famous YouTube video:

The practicum is the Arkansas bar's bid to nip that trend in the bud.

To me, it was mostly an opportunity to mingle with old classmates. I like visiting with these people, but I'm getting tired of having to tell them that I'm unemployed. The pool of jobless attorneys for me to commiserate with is shrinking all the time (though I can't help but wonder how many of the people identifying themselves as "solo practitioners" are de facto unemployed). It's only a matter of time before my friends start avoiding eye contact at social events so they don't have to talk to me about it.

More on the Bar Exam

2011-10-29T08:15:00.001-05:00

In the weeks since bar results were released, I've interacted with my classmates enough to pick up some gossip about who passed and who didn't. The list seems pretty arbitrary. Many slackers passed; many good students failed. Based on these results, I do not think the bar exam does much to separate the good candidates from the poor.

You might wonder how my bar exam scores panned out. I didn't botch the essays so badly as I thought. All my essays passed, though the scores were thoroughly mediocre. This tends to confirm a theory I've heard more than once: the essay questions are intended to test one's ability to write, not so much one's knowledge of the law. Probably half of what I said about the law in my essays was made up on the spot.

My multiple choice scores were fairly strong, which made for an overall score well within the passing range. My total score was just above the midway point between barely passing and top paper. A popular aphorism goes, "If you passed the bar by more than one point, you studied too hard," but I have no regrets about my hours of preparation. I prefer an aphorism that BarBri puts on some of its t-shirts: "Do it once. Do it right. Never do it again."

Those Who Can't, Watch

2011-10-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

During this long sojourn in the Valley of Unemployment, I have passed some of my time by hanging around the county courthouse and attending whatever trials or hearings I can find. It's always interesting, and I recommend it to anyone who has a weekday free. I have observed a handful of criminal proceedings, but the real drama is in family court. Watching parents fight over child support or--worse--try to prove one another unfit is heartbreaking. Family law would be tough to stomach day in and day out, but I could see myself working in criminal law.

Certificates

2011-10-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

The Arkansas attorney's license is big: 11"x17". Between this, my diploma, and the certificates I picked up for various honors and extracurricular activities, if I open my own law office I might be bankrupted by framing expenses alone.

The Job Market

2011-09-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

It's tough out there.

Here is a summary of the applications for law-related jobs I have submitted to date: six to judges, four to private firms, five to federal agencies, and ten to state agencies. About half of those jobs required a law degree; the other half were administrative jobs in legal departments. I have also applied for fourteen jobs outside the legal field. All of my applications were for advertised jobs; I have only cold-called the one or two places I most want to work.

My applications have resulted in five unsuccessful interviews, the last of which was about six weeks ago. I have been politely rejected without an interview six times. Sixteen of my applications got no response at all. That leaves twelve jobs that are either still open or closed recently enough that I am still hoping for a response.

Law School: What's the Big Deal?

2011-09-21T17:46:00.000-05:00

I finished law school and passed the bar, so I guess I am now qualified to answer the question I posed when I named this blog three years ago: Is law school really that big a deal?

Nah. The workload does seem to be heavier than the average graduate program, and certain aspects of law school culture do seem calculated to stress students out (the Socratic method, the obsession with class rank, the all-importance of final exams), but one gets inured to these things. I certainly don't think I had it as tough as my acquaintances who went to medical school.

At bottom, law school is like any other academic program. The teachers tell the students what to do. The students who do those things make good grades. The students who cut corners make poor grades. If one doesn't care about one's grades, it is even possible to coast through law school on a bare minimum of effort.

The bar exam, on the other hand, is a very big deal. The bar exam is the reason you shouldn't coast through law school, even if you can. I don't think the risk of failure is significantly higher on the bar exam than it is on the average law school test (about 84% of my graduating class passed the Arkansas bar), but the stakes are terribly high. Failure on a semester test ruins your GPA, but failure on the bar exam practically negates your law degree. The eight weeks prior to the bar exam and the five weeks after were the worst period of sustained stress I have ever experienced.

The conclusion I draw from the last three years is that law school probably doesn't deserve its scary reputation, but the bar exam most assuredly does.

It's Official

2011-09-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

I just got the receipt for my $125 license fee from the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, along with my license number. I am now as legally qualified as the best lawyer in the state to draft your will or represent you in that million dollar slip-and-fall lawsuit.

Bar Results

2011-09-02T17:05:00.000-05:00

PASS. Winning, tiger blood, etcetera. Congratulations to all my fellow travelers.

My Obsolete Law Library

2011-08-27T15:42:00.003-05:00

I was able to sell off a few of my old textbooks before the fall semester started, but I still have a shelf load. Two or three of these are still current and might be in demand come January; it looks like at least eight are in my permanent collection whether I like it or not. Maybe I'll make some really posh book safes.

One week to bar results.

Suitable for Framing

2011-08-19T10:50:00.006-05:00

Diplomas finally arrived at the registrar's office this week. You would think that picking up my diploma would be a morale boost, but not so. The career services office has decided that the most efficient way to garner responses to its employment surveys is to distribute them with the diplomas. Thus, every diploma comes with a tacit request to put a dollar value on it. So far, mine is worth zero.

Two weeks to bar results.

Job Hunting

2011-08-12T14:00:00.004-05:00

My lack of a law license puts a crimp in my job search, but I can't just sit here and wait. So far I've sent applications to five judges, three law firms, and four government agencies, all in central Arkansas. My applications have resulted in four interviews, but no job offers.

I've also applied for a dozen or so jobs outside the legal field, but no one has so much as acknowledged those applications. I suspect that my law degree actually hurts my chances with a lot of employers; they may see me as overqualified.

Three weeks to bar results.

Bar Exam Postmortem

2011-07-28T23:16:00.008-05:00

I don't think I exaggerate when I say the first day of the bar exam was one of the ten worst days of my life. If I fail, I might upgrade it to one of the five worst. I broke the seal on my essay test booklet and felt a little sicker every time I turned a page. The questions seemed calculated to expose my blind spots, and I certainly deserve to fail that part of the test. I might have failed it by a substantial margin.

Fortunately, a strong multiple choice score can whitewash a bad essay score. I wrote in an earlier post that the essays account for just 25% of one's score, but that wasn't quite accurate. The essay and performance tests combine to make up 50%, but I don't know how they are weighted against each other. In any case, multiple choice counts for the other 50%.

So my future in the legal profession boils down to whether I aced the multiple choice test. That means anything could happen. I answered perhaps a quarter of the questions with confidence. The rest were more or less educated guesses between two or three plausible responses. This is consistent with the way my practice tests went. If my hit-to-miss ratio on the real thing was at least as good as my ratio on the practice tests, I have a fighting chance at getting that law license.

Results are made public in five weeks.

I Took the Arkansas Bar Exam

2011-07-27T18:38:00.002-05:00

I'll write something about the bar exam experience after my blood cools. For now, there is only this: I feel like I should demand my money back because, in two hundred questions, I was never asked about the rule against perpetuities.

Bar Prep Summary

2011-07-25T16:43:00.005-05:00

I had eight weeks to prepare for the bar exam. I did not take a commercial prep course. This is what I did instead:

Reviewed 570 pages of commercial outlines (about 70% BarBri and 30% Emanuel, just because that was what I could get free or cheap; I preferred BarBri's outlines)
Answered 1,028 multiple choice questions (735, or 71%, correctly)
Wrote 42 practice essays (15,600 words total)
Wrote 5 practice performance tests (3,900 words total)
Invested 180-200 hours altogether

By most standards this is lax preparation, but I feel like it should be enough. I broke my back to get good grades for the last three years, so I shouldn't have to cram here at the end. My practice work adds up to roughly five bar exams. Number six will count.

Inventory

2011-07-25T16:29:00.004-05:00

This is the kit I'm bringing with me to the bar exam.
1. Laptop (essays are on day one).
2. Two pencils, two pens, and two highlighters. No sense risking being caught without the right writing implement.
3. Eraser. I probably won't need this until day two (multiple choice), but I might as well pack it now.
4. Soda. Because I think the stress-reducing effects of a swig of sugar water will outweigh any loss of time that results from extra bathroom breaks.
5. Earplugs. I never used these for law school tests, but the bar exam will probably be more crowded and louder.
6. Gum. The all-purpose stress reliever.
7. Origami paper. Applicants have been instructed to take their seats thirty minutes before test time. I'll need something to pass the time.

Essay Reality Check

2011-07-21T11:33:00.007-05:00

I just answered the essay questions from the February 2011 Arkansas bar, and the results improved my disposition immensely.

Previously, I had written some two dozen practice essays. After comparing those to the model answers, I felt like I was just riding the line between passing and failing. The beauty of the February exam questions is that I have no model answers to compare to. Instead, the State Board of Law Examiners publishes the top answers by actual applicants. Now I see what the graders really expect, and these answers are just as rushed and sloppy as mine. Of the six questions on the test, I only really blew it on one. I'll take that in a heartbeat.

There Are No Right Answers

2011-07-19T22:35:00.009-05:00

I've been getting my multiple choice practice from old BarBri books, but today I decided to mix things up with a hundred questions out of an Emanuel book at the library. Emanuel and BarBri obviously base their practice questions on a common set of released bar questions, because many of the Emanuel questions were substantially identical to questions I had already seen in my BarBri books. Only names and minor details were changed.

But here's the thing: in at least two cases, the Emanuel and BarBri books had opposite answers. Opposite! Contrast this passage from BarBri's answer key:

The general rule is that one who possesses an animal not customarily domesticated in that area is strictly liable for all harm done by the animal . . . . For trespassers, however, strict liability is not imposed against landowners.

with this passage from Emanuel's:

. . . the skunk will be considered a wild animal, making Householder strictly liable for damage it creates. As a result, Walker's status as a trespasser will not relieve Householder of liability.

Why must you mess with my head, Emanuel? I don't need this cognitive dissonance a week before the exam, so I'm just going to assume that the rule I learned first (BarBri's) is right.

Printing on My Own Dime

2011-07-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

Of all the things I miss about being a law student, I may be most nostalgic for those sweet, sweet library printing privileges.

Improving

2011-07-11T17:13:00.005-05:00

As planned, I have started targeting my study at a few problem areas. The early results are promising: my last two hundred practice questions yielded a 74% success rate. That's not ideal, but I'll take it. I'd love to hit 80%, but I'll be satisfied if I can keep my average in the 70s from now until exam day.

Undertaught and Overtaxed

2011-07-08T00:22:00.005-05:00

I'm annoyed when I come across a point of law that is heavily tested on the bar but somehow got little or no coverage in the relevant class. Couldn't the contracts professor have spared a few days to teach contract assignments and third party beneficiaries? Did the Torts professor really think we'd learn conversion in fifteen minutes? Those topics are killing me.

Bar Review as Math Problem

2011-07-06T17:24:00.005-05:00

I've answered 528 practice multiple choice questions to date, and I just can't seem to get my average past 66%. That means I've put down more than 150 wrong answers so far.

I decided to mine that data by putting it in a spreadsheet. I made a list of every rule of law I got wrong, sortable by subject. It took six or eight hours to type it all up, but I am happy with the results. I came up with seventeen legal principles that I botched at least twice. Six of those got me three or more times. Altogether, these repeat offenders accounted for forty-four of my wrong answers, or more than a quarter of the total.

Now my path is clear: if I can master these seventeen rules--no more than a few pages of notes, really--I should see a marked improvement in my multiple choice scores. That's the theory, anyway.

Performance Preparation

2011-07-04T17:00:00.005-05:00

The "performance" part of the bar exam consists of ten or fifteen pages of cases, statutes, depositions, evidence, or what-have-you and instructions to draft a document using them. It isn't really possible to study for a test that supplies all the applicable law, but I gave it a go. I took four mock exams over two days. The documents called for in my practice tests were a closing argument, a brief, a memo, and a demand letter. I did well at assignments like this in school, but mostly because I spent a lot of time on them. The documents I put together in ninety minutes looked rather incomplete. Hopefully that is what the graders will be expecting. At any rate, now that I have a feel for what the test is like, I'm setting it aside. The rest of my study time is going to be devoted to getting my multiple choice scores up.

No More Essays

2011-07-02T16:43:00.006-05:00

I downloaded the 2006 bar exam essays from the National Conference of Bar Examiners website. After answering six questions and comparing my responses to the model answers, I am satisfied that I would have passed, if barely. Barely is good enough for me, so I don't plan to look at the essay subjects again until just before the exam.

Three weeks to go.

Essays, Essays, Essays

2011-06-26T14:21:00.008-05:00

In my bar preparation, I am giving the essay questions short shrift. This is a sensible strategy for a few reasons: Most importantly, the essays are not weighted as heavily as the multiple choice questions (25% vs. 50%). For another thing, it's hard to practice for the essay test because the grading is not objective--I have model answers to my practice questions, but those are "ideal" answers. They don't really tell me if my crummy answers would pass or fail. This lack of feedback on practice essays may be the biggest disadvantage to blowing off a commercial prep class. Lastly, let's not kid ourselves, it's easier to fake it on an essay test than on a multiple choice test. After three years of law school, I should be able to write a plausible essay on even a branch of law I've never heard of.

With all that in mind, I picked up a book from the library that contains practice questions and short outlines (most are under twenty pages) of the essay subjects not covered on the multiple choice test. I also got copies of longer outlines of subjects I didn't study in school (commercial paper, conflict of laws) or did poorly in (family law). For the last week I have been reading quickly through one or two outlines per day, then writing two or three practice essays. To date I've written thirteen such essays. Most have been pretty poor, but my expectations are low. One day this week I plan to wrap up my essay prep by giving myself a complete practice test, meaning six essays in three hours. After that I'll spend a maximum of two days practicing for the "performance" portion of the bar (a test of one's ability to interpret and draft legal documents), then it's back to multiple choice drills.

Spring Grades

2011-06-24T22:06:00.003-05:00

Spring grades are out, so my GPA is finally set in stone for ever and ever. I managed to give it a .01 bump in my last semester and finish with a nice round number. Excelsior!

Immortalized on Film

2011-06-19T14:14:00.004-05:00

Last week the school surprised me with a complimentary 5x7" photo of me receiving my leatherette diploma cover. Very nice. It makes me glad I put off responding to the eight emails I've received to date from the graduation photographer.

Scant Progress

2011-06-16T17:08:00.002-05:00

Three weeks after graduation and five weeks before the bar exam, I have finished my first pass through the multiple choice test topics. My performance to date on practice questions is 283 out of 428, or 66%. That's weak. The conventional wisdom I've heard is that one should be able to hit 80% consistently on practice tests before taking the bar.

Even so, I have to put the multiple choice stuff down for now. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to spend a week or two writing practice essays. Maybe the multiple choice questions will look easier when I have fresh eyes.

Developing a Study Plan

2011-06-09T19:19:00.005-05:00

I don't know what my colleagues are doing in their Barbri and Kaplan classes, but here is the pattern I've slid into as I review for the multiple choice portion of the bar exam:

I spend six or eight hours going through a subject outline, taking notes (these are duplicative of notes I already have, but note-taking is the only way I can force myself to read slowly and carefully). After each outline, I take a sixty- to seventy-five-question practice test on that subject. The test takes about two hours, so by the time I review the questions I missed I've spent about ten hours on each subject. With six subjects tested by multiple choice (constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, evidence, property, and torts), I'm on a pace to get through a complete review in sixty hours of study time.

After that, I'll spend some time prepping for the essay and practicum portions of the test, then go back for more multiple choice practice in July.

Bar Prep Begins

2011-05-28T12:47:00.003-05:00

My first efforts at studying for the bar exam have been demoralizing. This week I took practice exams in the areas of constitutional law and contracts. I scored 73% and 59%, respectively, and that was after several hours of review. I obviously need to improve my study methods if I want to get up to speed in two months.

Graduation

2011-05-23T17:52:00.006-05:00

Speeches were spoken, hands were shaken, and I collected a handsome diploma cover (sans diploma--that will have to wait until the last round of exams are graded). For the graduates, I think the best part about graduation may have been the opportunity to scope out one another's regalia. Students rarely talk about their GPAs, so most of us were finding out for the first time who would or wouldn't graduate with honors.

After the ceremony, someone asked me if I felt any different. I said, "ask me again after the bar exam." By itself, a juris doctorate doesn't amount to much. As one wag at the ceremony observed, as if it isn't bad enough that we can't practice law, we can't even make people call us "doctor."

Tax Policy Exam

2011-05-16T21:37:00.003-05:00

My last (ever) exam was a barn burner. The Tax Policy professor asked some devilishly specific questions about readings that were assigned weeks ago. I reckon I handled it okay. Even if I didn't, this late in the game anything but an F qualifies as a success.

And that's that. The only thing standing between me and a juris doctorate is the formality of picking up my diploma.

Secured Transactions Exam

2011-05-13T22:03:00.005-05:00

It was impossible to fully prepare for the Secured Transactions exam. We covered an absurd amount of material in the last fifteen weeks (UALR Law Student summed up the prevailing sentiment pithily at his blog). Add my complete lack of motivation to study here at the end of my 3L year, and I was expecting the worst.

It wasn't too bad. The essay portion of the test was exactly what the professor had told us to expect, so I think my answer was competent, if a little rushed. About an hour after the exam I remembered a statute that made part of my response dead wrong, but that shouldn't be enough to sink the whole essay.

The multiple choice questions worry me. They add an element of chance to an exam that I'm never comfortable with. Your typical law-school multiple choice question is about half a page long, and you only have to misread one word to botch the answer. Since half the points on the test came from the multiple choice questions, anything could happen.

Open Book

2011-05-10T14:26:00.003-05:00

I have two exams this semester, and both are at least partly open book. Since I'm about to graduate and have a pretty casual attitude toward my grades, this open book business is a nuisance to me. For a closed-book exam, I would probably just read through my notes a few times and take my chances. With an open-book exam, expectations will be higher; now I feel like I have to spend time organizing my notes, writing cheat-sheets, putting tabs on things, and what-have-you. After the thousands of hours I've sunk into my legal education, these last few dozen feel like too much to ask.

Regalia

2011-05-07T10:29:00.005-05:00

My graduation regalia has arrived. I'm renting, so I only get to keep the cap. You can tell a juris doctorate is a prestigious degree because the regalia is very, very silly.

I tried on a sample before I placed my order, but somehow I got a cap that is much too small. I hope my sewing skills are such that I can fix it, because I don't want to deal with ordering a replacement.

Health Services

2011-05-05T10:45:00.002-05:00

Three years as a UALR student, and I never had occasion to use the student clinic until this week. I had heard bad things about the health services department, but my experience was perfect. I was just there for a tetanus booster (dog bite, kind of a long story), and they took care of me in under ten minutes. Best of all, it was free (well, free in the sense that I prepaid for it with my student activity fees). Incidentally, if you are a UALR student and plan to step on a rusty nail in the next few years, now is the time to get that tetanus shot. Starting in fall 2011, they're going to cost $25.

Because the law school is across town from UALR's main campus, I think some students don't realize that their student ID gets them all the same perks the undergraduates enjoy. My favorite is the free admission to school sporting events. I'm going to miss that next year.

The First of Many Lasts

2011-05-03T16:40:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I attended my last law school class. Ever. The professor knew he had a room full of graduating 3Ls, so he gave us a lovely pep talk about passing the bar and being a force for good in society.
I like school a lot, and I'm a little sorry I won't be back in the fall. Hopefully I'll be doing something else at least as interesting.

The Never-Ending Semester

2011-04-23T15:13:00.002-05:00

The clock is slowing down as the closing bell approaches. Another week of classes? That doesn't seem right.

How I Plan to Pass the Bar

2011-04-12T13:38:00.004-05:00

There seems to be a presumption on the part of the school administration that every graduate is going to take a commercial bar exam prep course. I don't know what percentage of my classmates have signed up for one of these, but it certainly isn't in the cards for me. Rather than spend $1200-2000 on a full-on course, I bought these gently used books on eBay for $160. I think they'll be more than enough to get me across the finish line if I can maintain the discipline to study them thoroughly.

Brush With Greatness

2011-04-06T19:48:00.004-05:00

Justice Stephen Breyer spoke at the law school today. Breyer was the first Supreme Court justice to visit Bowen in my three years there, and he was great. He spoke effortlessly without notes and had engaging, expansive answers to all the audience questions (even a couple that I thought were dopey or ill-considered).

Coincidentally, yesterday I found myself in line at the DMV behind Jermain "Bad Intentions" Taylor. Time will tell which of these brushes with greatness will make for a more popular anecdote.

David and Goliath

2011-04-04T21:24:00.004-05:00

It's good to be Goliath. I am one of two law clerks working on a particular case. Today I Googled the opposing attorney and learned that he's a solo practitioner who graduated from law school in 2008. Tough break for that guy. He probably doesn't have an army of clerks to deflect the storm of paper we're blowing his way.

Senioritis

2011-03-30T18:04:00.004-05:00

The post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about using spring break to reset my study habits was naive. Spring break is over, and I'm more ready than ever to put school behind me and start worrying about the bar exam. These days I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for the disengaged 3Ls that seemed so lazy to me this time last year.

Bar Application IN

2011-03-30T17:41:00.004-05:00

I just got email notification that the State Board of Law Examiners has received my application to take the July bar exam. I beat the April 1 deadline by three days. This might just be the scariest deadline in all of law school. Late applications are not accepted--if you're one day late, you can take the exam in February. In possibly related news, I missed work today because of headaches and nausea. Stress? May be.

Easily the worst part of the bar application process was having to wrangle letters of recommendation. It's never fun to ask people for favors. Still, there are psychological benefits to asking your friends and acquaintances to write nice things about you. Awww, thanks, guys!

A is for Annoying

2011-03-23T19:54:00.002-05:00

There is an unexpected downside to practicing law in Arkansas. Books that survey a legal topic state by state are always arranged alphabetically, so the books will never lay flat on my desk when turned to 'Arkansas.' I have encountered this problem repeatedly. Lawyers in Michigan don't know how good they have it.

More Lumens, More Learning

2011-03-16T18:29:00.004-05:00

The projector in classroom 305 got a new bulb yesterday, ushering in a new era of clarity and legibility. Note-taking is going to be a piece of cake for the rest of the semester.

Honored?

2011-03-10T15:36:00.003-06:00

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but one has to question the prestige of an award certificate that bears the URL of the website from which it was downloaded.

The Lawyer-Client Disconnect

2011-03-09T22:14:00.004-06:00

Here is the impression I get from the real, live lawsuits I have been exposed to in the past few weeks. The paper war over any given sub-issue in a lawsuit is likely to involve a couple of motions from each side, one or two written arguments from each side in support of or opposition to each motion, and possibly an in-person hearing. Researching and writing any of the legal documents involved is very time-consuming.
The upshot is that lawyers experience litigation as a constant stream of looming deadlines; their clients experience litigation as months-long (and fabulously expensive) stretches of time during which nothing gets decided. No wonder they hate us.

Need a Break

2011-03-08T23:01:00.004-06:00

Spring break needs to hurry up and get here. My work ethic is slipping badly. Even though I have a light class schedule, lately I have been waiting until the last minute to blitz through my reading assignments. I need a week off to reset my study habits.

Supply and Demand in Action

2011-03-04T20:23:00.004-06:00

Enjoy this map of my workplace parking options. I usually park in the $3.50 lot, but as the weather warms up the $2.25 option is getting more attractive.

Long Day

2011-03-02T22:47:00.003-06:00

One of my classes met tonight to make up for a day we missed during last month's snow storms. That meant working from 8:30 to 5:30, then sitting in class from 7:00 to 9:00. Also, it's my birthday.
I would complain, but some part-time students might read this. For them, this is a normal schedule. For four years. Ouch.

Defending My Character

2011-02-26T19:08:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours filling out the thirteen-page "character questionnaire" portion of the bar exam application. I still need to get three letters of recommendation and have myself fingerprinted. It must be this onerous screening process that earned the legal profession its sterling reputation for integrity.

A Nod to Black History Month

2011-02-22T09:23:00.004-06:00

I don't usually write about the law in this space, but I came across a case this week that so took me aback that I had to share it. I've been researching the law of bailments for work lately (for the uninitiated, a bailment is a loan or temporary deposit of something; coat checks are a classic example). As part of that research I read Miller v. Dyer, 243 Ark. 981 (1968). The plaintiff was suing over damage to a truck that he had rented out. As courts will do, the court looked for analogies in prior case law:

[A]n express agreement by bailee to return the bailed property imposes no greater liability upon the bailee than is implied in every bailment. Yet, this court has held that one who hired a slave upon a written contract that, in addition to providing for payment for the slave's service, required his return at the end of the year, was liable for failure to return him because of the slave's escape without fault of the hirer.

So the state supreme court thought that loaning out your truck was kind of like loaning out your slave. In 1968. Real classy, Arkansas.

Honored

2011-02-17T22:27:00.004-06:00

Getting an A is good. Getting top paper is better. One has to take about thirty classes to get through law school, so one has a fair chance, if not a good chance, of coming away with at least one top paper. As I heard one student say, "everybody's a savant at something." After twenty-one bites at the apple, I finally found my something. In Decedents' Estates I scored my first top paper in a substantive law class.
Last night my fellow overachievers and I--fifty or sixty in all, somewhat undercutting the notion that we were the 'best of the best'--were feted with hors d'oeuvres and encouraging speeches. A good time was had by all.

Nice Work if You Can Get It

2011-02-14T20:01:00.004-06:00

This is the view from the office I share with three other clerks.

There are ninety attorneys at the law firm and six clerks, so you'd think there would be plenty of work to go around. Not so. A project gets offered up via email about once a day, and it's a race to see who can get it first. I'm sure there will be feast periods to complement the present famine.

The work I have done so far has been interesting. I've researched eminent domain, guardianships, stock repurchase by insolvent corporations, and tax exempt bonds. I think I'm going to enjoy the semester.

People Aren't Litigious Enough

2011-02-07T21:39:00.006-06:00

One of my coworkers was going to observe a jury selection this morning, so I tagged along. I had never been in any of the courtrooms at the county courthouse, and I was pleased to see that they are old in a good way--venerable, not dilapidated. They're also kind of small, and when we arrived the room was jammed with potential jurors, most of whom had already been waiting for half an hour or more. We sat and waited with them for another forty-five minutes while attorneys furtively slipped in and out of the judge's chambers. Just as a riot seemed imminent, the bailiff called the room to order and introduced the judge. He sat down just long enough to tell us that there would be no trial because the parties had reached a settlement. Everyone was free to go. My colleague and I hiked back to the office, crestfallen.

I'm not even a lawyer yet, and I'm already disappointed when people settle their differences without resorting to a jury trial. What will become of me?

Tax Policy

2011-02-06T22:24:00.005-06:00

Tax policy is going to kick my butt. I registered for this class more or less as a lark, because I really enjoyed the professor's Federal Income Tax class. I have since learned that the credit is also good toward an MBA, so the class is packed with dual JD/MBA students. It's very heavy on economic theory. I know nothing about economics, having taken exactly one undergraduate macroeconomics course some fifteen years ago, so I'm starting Tax Policy at a terrible disadvantage. I figure I'll learn a lot, but this class probably won't help my GPA any.

Contemplating the Bar Exam

2011-01-31T20:36:00.003-06:00

I spent my weekend taking a grueling thirteen-hour class on how to apply for and prepare for the bar exam, so I'm good and scared now. The bar exam tests a dozen subjects, three or four of which I didn't study at all in school. I'll have about two months after graduation to learn those subjects and relearn the ones I studied two years ago. In Arkansas, about 75% of bar takers pass.
As part of the class we watched the documentary A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar . . ., which I can recommend as entertaining whether you're going to sit for the bar or not (pro tip: you can watch it instantly on Netflix!).

The Tyranny of the Billable Hour

2011-01-26T18:27:00.006-06:00

Ever since I started school I have been hearing about what a pain it is to keep up with billable hours, but I have not had to do it myself until this semester. I'm in the office seven and a half hours a day, and if I stay busy all day I usually wind up with about five billable hours.
On the one hand, I feel like I need to pack on more billable hours to justify my employment, so I have a powerful incentive to keep the meter running no matter what.
On the other hand, I know my time is being billed to the client at an extravagant rate, so I feel guilty if I bill even one minute spent chatting with my office mates, staring out the window or whatnot.
Billing is ethical dilemma number one in the legal profession.

Fall Grades

2011-01-22T11:57:00.002-06:00

Fall grades are in. Mine were respectable. About six months ago I settled on a target GPA that I wanted to graduate with. I'm on a pace to beat that target, but I could still blow it with a poor showing in the spring. This is no time to slack off!

Swimming with the Sharks

2011-01-13T10:38:00.006-06:00

My spring clerkship is underway. This is my first exposure to a big law firm ("big" is relative--the largest firms in Little Rock would be considered "medium-sized" in a place like New York or Chicago). I haven't done much actual work yet, so I don't know what that's going to be like, but I can tell you that the offices are almost a parody of big law firms. Seriously, you can't turn around in that place without bumping into some burled wood or tufted leather.

Employed, But Not Working

2011-01-10T12:41:00.005-06:00

Now this just isn't fair. Even when I find paying work, somehow the universe finds a way to prevent me from benefiting from it. I have been idle for weeks, just waiting for the first day of my spring clerkship. Today is that day, but Little Rock got five inches of snow last night and the whole city is shut down. So here I sit in my living room, getting poorer by the minute.

Fortunately, the research project I undertook a few weeks ago went well. I put in a total of around fifty hours, which went a long way toward funding my spring tuition. The supervising attorney didn't give me much feedback, but he did say I can use him as a reference, so I must have done a decent job.

Paid Up

2011-01-04T15:13:00.002-06:00

I just wrote what should be my last tuition check. The Bowen school sells one of the least expensive legal educations in the country, but considering tuition, books, and most of all the cost of being unemployed for three years, I am still out well over $100K. It's going to take a long time to make that back at the $0 per year I have arranged to earn upon graduation. I have excelled at academic life, but I'll look like a real dummy if I don't find a job pretty soon.

A Glimpse of the Good Life

2010-12-21T21:17:00.002-06:00

One thing I learned this fall is that lawyers kind of deserve their reputation as overcompensated societal parasites. I have lived in Little Rock for twelve years, but I had to enroll in law school to get a glimpse of the insides of the chichi Little Rock Club, the Little Rock Country Club, and the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. I visited all three last semester, and each had more old-money elegance than the last. I don't know what I'll do when I lose my privileged student status and am expected to pay to attend all these luncheons and galas. Now that I've seen the good life, can I go back to being a regular schmoe?

Decedents' Estates Exam

2010-12-13T17:51:00.002-06:00

The lid is on my fall semester. The grand finale--the Decedents' Estates exam--was a horrible nightmare, but that doesn't mean much. I've taken three of this professor's exams, and they've all been horrible nightmares. It would be folly for me to try to predict my grade.

I will say this: I was very unnerved by the fact that I had to use a calculator to answer one of the questions. Lawyers, law students, and law professors hate math as a rule, so exam questions are usually formulated for minimum arithmetic. The fact that my answer did not come out in round, easy numbers is strong evidence that I did something wrong. I figure I lost some points there.

Federal Income Tax Exam

2010-12-11T19:35:00.005-06:00

The Federal Income Tax exam is over and done with. It was comprehensive to be sure, but I think I had at least a plausible answer for every question. I won't flunk. Federal Income Tax was a bit like Business Associations for me: based on the course description, I assumed the worst, but the material turned out to be very interesting. I even registered for Tax Policy in the spring.

Also, it was a dirty trick for the administration to schedule an exam during the biggest basketball game of UALR's season. Shame!

Studying Without Outlines

2010-12-08T19:36:00.005-06:00

This is the first semester that I haven't bothered to write outlines for any of my classes. I'm putting in lots of study time for finals, but I kind of miss the feeling of accomplishment and preparedness that comes from having one crisp document that lists all the things I learned in a semester. I guess I'm relying more than usual on luck this time around. It's a symptom of senioritis.

Last Day of Classes

2010-11-30T14:47:00.003-06:00

The semester ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Both of my professors went easy on us with lecture and review on the last day of class.

This fall was a lot like last fall for me, in that I put in a lot of time on extracurricular activities and gave my classwork short shrift. Last fall, the result was terrible grades. Now we'll see if I learned anything from that experience. My first exam is in ten days.

Finally on Someone's Payroll

2010-11-22T22:44:00.005-06:00

From time to time, the student body will get a mass email looking for a student to take on a short-term research project for a professor or an attorney. As luck would have it, one of those emails coincided with my last day at the state supreme court. I sent in a resume and got the job, so for the last week I have been poking around the library on behalf of a local law firm, trying to see if its client has a legitimate claim.

This is the first experience I have had working for a real client. More importantly, it is the first hard evidence I have that people in this town sometimes do in fact get paid for doing legal work. Very heartening.

Passing Moot Judgment

2010-11-17T09:51:00.006-06:00

Last week Bowen hosted an undergraduate moot court tournament. It was a big tournament, and I was one of several dozen students drafted to serve as judges. I did this last year, too, and felt poorly qualified to criticize anyone's forensic skills. This year, with more moot court experience under my belt, I felt like an old pro. This weekend I'll be judging again in an intramural moot court tournament.

The more time I spend around moot court competitions, the less I think they resemble real appellate advocacy, but it's still a fun academic exercise--much more fun from the judges' side of the bench than the advocates' side. Hopefully the powers that be will keep using me for these tournaments after I graduate. Hopefully I will have an actual job as an actual lawyer to justify my participation in these tournaments after I graduate.

Too Much "Free" Time

2010-11-09T20:38:00.003-06:00

Finishing my moot court competition had an unexpected negative consequence: it freed up a lot of time for study. Preparing for classes is just the worst, and I miss having an excuse to skip or skim my daily reading. I'd like to say that I've lost my enthusiasm for classwork because I've outgrown it and moved on to more challenging stuff, but I think I've mostly just gotten tired and lazy.

Externship Extinguished

2010-11-01T17:09:00.004-05:00

Last week I logged my one hundredth hour at the state supreme court. That means that I have fulfilled my externship obligation. I am still going into the office every day as a volunteer (I'll probably keep that up for a couple of weeks), but it's nice to not have to worry about time sheets and activity journals.

Knowing that my time at the court was drawing to a close, I looked back at all the legal memoranda I've written this semester and totted up just how much work I did. In about 110 hours spread over 8 weeks, I wrote 7 memos for a total of just over 10,000 words. The law review note I wrote last year was around 10,000 words, so if you assume a 40-hour work week it seems safe to say that your average appellate court clerk writes the equivalent of a law review note every three weeks. Phew! I really loved this job, but I can see how that kind of grind might get old after a while.

Back From D.C.

2010-10-25T20:42:00.003-05:00

And just like that, my moot court experience is over. I had a great time and I never, ever want to do it again. My relationship with public speaking is complicated. I think I'm pretty good at it, and I've done a lot of it, but I always have terrible nerves beforehand and terrible self-doubt afterward.

As for the competition, my teammates and I finished in the middle of the pack (we made the cut from twenty-five teams to sixteen, then got knocked out in the cut from sixteen teams to eight). In a sense, that was the best case scenario. It was a two-day competition, with the first two rounds on day one. Since we were knocked out in the second round, we had all of day two to explore Washington. It was an excellent consolation prize.

Moot Court Week at Last

2010-10-16T21:45:00.003-05:00

If I haven't posted to this blog in the last week, it is because nothing has changed for me in the last week. Day in, day out, it's practice for moot court competition. The First Amendment is melting my brain.
My partners and our faculty adviser have done a good job of wrangling practice judges for us. In the last two weeks we have had our arguments savaged by the dean, two professors, and three alums. I think we're ready. Ready or not, it will all be over in five days.

Practice Makes Panicked

2010-10-08T16:53:00.003-05:00

My moot court partners and I have started up a rigorous practice schedule. We have about a week and a half until competition time, and I'm not sure that's long enough. I need to prepare two fifteen-minute arguments (one on each side of the issue), and I figure we've scheduled enough practice time for me to rehearse each argument eight or ten times.
The competition is going to be more of a test of my extemporaneous speaking skills than I would prefer.

Code Blindness

2010-10-05T21:54:00.004-05:00

In chess, there is a phenomenon one grandmaster waggishly dubbed amaurosis scacchistica: "chess blindness." It is a player's unaccountable inability to see the obvious, such as a rook bearing down on one's queen.
This week I witnessed an example of what you might call "code blindness" in the form of approximately this exchange about the Internal Revenue Code:

professor: "When does section 307 of the code apply?"
student: "When a transaction is governed by section 305(a)."
professor: "Does section 305(a) govern the transaction on the board?"
student: "No."
professor: "Does section 307 apply to the transaction on the board?"
student: (long pause) "Yes."

This colloquy was repeated a couple of times, with lengthy explanations in between, before the professor got the answer he was looking for. It may have been the most awkward moment I have experienced in law school since my first semester.

Attending Oral Arguments

2010-10-01T18:39:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I lived some lawyers' dream: I stepped out of a courtroom and confronted a wall of reporters and cameras. They weren't there to see me. The latest of the West Memphis Three's many appeals was argued before the Arkansas Supreme Court yesterday, and my externship got me a seat in the gallery. The attorneys for both sides brought their A game, so it was interesting stuff (the webcast is archived here), but the borderline party atmosphere outside the courtroom felt a little ghoulish. The press blitz lasted about half the day, but security did a good job of insulating court employees. I never had to come within a hundred feet of a reporter.

Blogger Went a-Courtin'

2010-09-27T19:25:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to visiting a trial-in-progress this week.

It was the first time I had so much as set foot in the spanking new Richard Sheppard Arnold Federal Courthouse. It's a thing of beauty, inside and out (once you get past the airport-style security, complete with shoe removal). I have a professor who is fond of saying that courtrooms should be designed to invoke a sense of, "My God, something important is going to happen here." Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, nothing particularly important seemed to be happening there when I visited. I sat in on about ninety minutes of testimony from a state department of education official about monitoring and compliance procedures. It was not exactly the stuff of Law and Order, but I was struck by how closely the real thing resembles the mock trials I've participated in at school. I'll have to go back when something with a little drama is being litigated.

Progress on the Moot Court Front

2010-09-25T14:38:00.005-05:00

I did not meet my self-imposed deadline for sending my moot court brief to my partners. I sat down at the computer last night with the idea of emailing something out by the end of the night come hell or high water, but when I finally finished my draft I decided to sleep on it before I hit "send." Good thing. What feels like an epiphany in the wee hours often looks more like a hallucination after a good night's sleep. After a substantial rewrite, I sent my draft on its merry way (in the end, it was about twenty-five hundred words, not the three thousand I predicted).

Demon Procrastination

2010-09-23T18:22:00.003-05:00

Well, my recent promise of moot court updates has gone unfulfilled. The due date for the brief is coming on fast, and I've barely started writing. On Tuesday I promised a teammate that I would get her a draft of my section of the brief before the weekend. At this point, that more or less means writing a three-thousand-word paper in a day. This is going to be a very rough draft.

Bombs Away

2010-09-16T20:11:00.003-05:00

I just sent out my first few applications for real, honest-to-goodness, full-time lawyering jobs. The application process makes me sick to my stomach. The economy being what it is, there are scores of applicants for every job, so I know that every employer's first order of business will be to scan my application materials for a reason--any reason--to put them in the "reject" pile. No amount of proofreading feels like enough.

Schedule Conflicts

2010-09-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

About half of my credits this semester are coming not from classes but from "co-curricular" activities: externship, moot court, law review. You would think that would make my schedule very flexible, but I am starting to see that it is going to cause some problems.
This week, for example, the judge I extern for wanted to take the office to lunch. I wasn't about to pass that up, so I missed Decedents' Estates. That would be fine if I weren't already scheduled to miss Decedents' Estates twice in October when I travel for my moot court competition. The DE professor will summarily drop anyone who misses more than four classes, so I only have one more absence to spare. My calendar is going to be pretty hairy before this semester is over.

It's Lonely at the Top

2010-09-07T20:08:00.004-05:00

During my 1L year, everyone in the full-time program spent hours upon hours together. I think we all--even people like me, who didn't make a lot of close friends--felt bonded to the group. As 2Ls we began to scatter a bit as electives became available to us, but I still saw the same faces all the time.
Now I'm suddenly surrounded by strangers. The line between full-time and part-time students is completely blurred, my classes are full of 2Ls whom I've never met, and everyone in the 3L class seems to have more obligations off campus than on. In a sense, it feels like law school is already over. 1L and 2L were the war; 3L is just a mop-up operation.

The Externship Begins

2010-09-02T16:08:00.004-05:00

Working at the state supreme court means passing through these doors to get to the office every morning. The resulting sense of self-importance is pretty intense. Here is what I learned in my first week:

1. Real attorneys spend a lot less time proofreading than students do. Every document I've looked at has more than its share of typos and grammatical errors.
2. Being asked to decide which side is right is much harder than merely being told to argue for one side or the other.

So far, I love the work. All indications are that it's going to be a great semester.

Bookmarked

2010-08-30T21:27:00.004-05:00

One of my favorite things about being a student is, no fooling, having a use for all the bookmarks I have around the house. Think about it: cool, free bookmarks are everywhere, but who besides a student has more than one or two books going at a time? This semester I'm enjoying an outdoors theme, using the "Arkansas Sportfish" and "North American Hunting Club" bookmarks pictured here in my Fed Tax and Decedents' Estates books, respectively.

Gearing Up for Moot Court

2010-08-27T20:28:00.002-05:00

Looking back at my old posts, I see that I haven't mentioned moot court in months. Get ready for a flurry of posts on the topic, because it's about to start occupying a lot of my time. My two partners and I have registered for the Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition at American University in Washington, D.C. (greetings to any of my competitors who arrive here after Googling that phrase). We have the month of September to write our brief, then the first three weeks of October to practice for oral arguments. That's a tight schedule--I had three months to do the same stuff last fall--but I'm sure we're up to the task.

Unexpected Swag

2010-08-26T17:50:00.002-05:00

Yesterday a spiral-bound calendar/planner appeared in my campus mailbox. It's a classy bit of swag, but the timing is strange. School has been in session for a week. Surely anyone who needs a planner already has one. I'm just going to assume that the 1Ls got these at orientation and the administration is only now getting around to distributing the leftovers.

I'm Gonna Flunk the Bar Exam

2010-08-26T11:29:00.001-05:00

Decedents' estates is already serving as a terrifying reminder of how little I remember about property law, a subject tested heavily on the bar exam. Interesting stuff, though.

Decedents' Estates

2010-08-24T23:09:00.003-05:00

My semester of Decedents' Estates began inauspiciously. The professor asked me a couple of questions I didn't know the answer to, leaving the impression that I was not prepared for class when in fact I had prepared quite thoroughly. The worst case scenario, really. I'll be spending a few weeks working my way back from that one.

3L Officially Begins

2010-08-19T17:48:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day of classes, but I only had to dip a toe into school life. I had one hour of class today and won't be back at school until Monday.
One hour isn't much to judge by, but so far my Federal Income Taxation professor seems like the best kind of professorial cliche: rumpled suit, oversize glasses, waving arms, quirky vocal delivery. He was a very entertaining lecturer (he has obviously had plenty of practice--he was reading from a stack of notes so yellowed and brittle that they might have predated the income tax itself). Here is (approximately) the line from his introductory lecture that I thought was pithiest: "Everyone supports tax reform. Saying you support tax reform is like saying you support justice. It's just a question of one's definition."

Externship Orientation

2010-08-18T23:01:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I endured a grueling six-hour orientation for my upcoming externship. The advice from a bona fide judicial clerk was terrific. The explanation of the rules and procedures of the externship program was necessary. The two-hour ethics lesson was a real drag, given that ninety percent of the attendees had already completed a semester-long ethics course. I suppose the professor needs to have proof that we knew better if one of us commits some egregious breach of ethics.
My externship doesn't start for another week or so, but I can tell already that the workload is no joke. I'm really going to earn these two credit hours.

Orientation Week

2010-08-14T16:37:00.003-05:00

There have been several social events in the last few days--a minor league ballgame, a barbecue, etc.--to introduce the incoming 1Ls to each other and warm everyone up for the new school year. Being the gung-ho, all-in law student that I am, I attended three. It was nice to see some familiar faces.
I particularly enjoyed chatting with a few 1Ls about their expectations and worries. That first year is so hyped and so full of pomp and circumstance that nostalgia sets in almost contemporaneously. The new students are probably already sick of us 2Ls and 3Ls hanging around them, trying to soak up their innocence and enthusiasm.

Summer Grades

2010-08-10T16:23:00.002-05:00

Summer grades are out. Now that my GPA has the inertia of sixty-plus credit hours holding it in place, grade day isn't the event it used to be. Anyway, the infinitesimal move in my GPA was in the upward direction, so hurray for that.

Associate Editing

2010-08-07T23:01:00.005-05:00

I have my first assignment as an "associate editor" of the Law Review, and not a minute too soon. There have been no school-related tests or deadlines in two weeks, and the lack of stress has been causing me anxiety.
I was a little taken aback when I learned that I am going to be (among other things) evaluating other students' cite checks. This repeats a pattern I have already experienced a couple of times in law school: one day you're learning a new skill, the next day you're presented as an expert. It's hard not to feel like a bit of a fraud when I'm judging someone else's performance at something I've done all of four or five times.

Clearing the Bookshelves

2010-08-06T22:23:00.002-05:00

I sold a half-dozen textbooks this week--five to classmates and one on eBay. Like any textbooks, law books date quickly, so I was relieved to be able to unload a few before new editions made them obsolete. The student email listserv is positively alive with textbook trafficking at this time of year. When I posted my books for sale, I got my first response in four minutes.

I still have about ten books that I've been holding on to, waiting for a professor to assign them. Now that I've had some success with eBay, I may give up on the local market and see if the Internet wants to buy them.

If you're wondering why I don't save my books to review for the bar exam, no one does that, at least no one I know. Thousand-page textbooks are just unsuited to the kind of cramming that precedes the bar exam. There are purpose-built books for that, and I'll shop for them when the time comes.

What I Probably Won't Be Doing Next Summer

2010-07-28T14:39:00.006-05:00

It's time to stop worrying about getting good grades and start worrying about getting a job. Application season for judicial clerkships starts in September. I am very enthusiastic about the idea of clerking for a judge, but those jobs don't come easily. Clerking for a federal judge is right out--I'll apply, but those are prestigious jobs that attract out-of-state candidates with much better academic credentials than I have. That leaves state judges. According to the information distributed by the career services office, exactly one state judge in central Arkansas is planning to hire a clerk next summer.
The upshot is that I plan to spend a goodly chunk of my August putting together application materials for jobs I will never get. I am trying to gird myself for ten months of similar windmill-tilting. Looking for work in a bad economy requires a healthy appetite for rejection.

Criminal Procedure Post Trial Exam

2010-07-23T18:50:00.002-05:00

The Crim Pro exam was an odd duck. Hypothetical situations are the bread and butter of law school tests, but this one didn't go that route. I daresay it was the only test I have taken in the last two years on which all of the essay questions were essentially, "Remember this thing we studied in class? Write down what you know about it." There were also a great many multiple choice questions. In sum, the test seemed to favor whoever memorized the most stuff. I'll stand my memory up against anybody's, so I figure I did fine.

Advanced Torts and Speed-Writing

2010-07-21T10:48:00.003-05:00

The Advanced Torts exam was a bruiser. It consisted of a four-page story with a cast of (by my count) sixteen characters, culminating in a mandate to discuss all causes of action, defenses, and remedies available to everyone involved. I don't think it was possible to write an A answer in the time allotted, so it's anyone's guess what the grades will look like.

I say it wasn't possible to cover everything in the three hours allotted, yet a few students turned in their tests and walked out with twenty minutes or more still on the clock. There are a few of these early birds at every exam, and it unnerves me every time. Do these people type 100 WPM? Are they regurgitating all-purpose essays that they memorized for the occasion? Do they just think faster than the rest of us? Don't they check their work? Most importantly, do they get good grades for those instant essays? The possibility that anyone is that much better at law school than I am is simply too horrible to contemplate.

Almost Ready for Finals

2010-07-17T20:50:00.004-05:00

Over the last few days I've managed to boil a semester's worth of notes down to seven legal size sheets of paper. If I can learn everything you see here in the next thirty-six hours, exams should be a piece of cake.