Crim Pro Could Get Political

The Criminal Procedure Post-Trial professor is a bit of a crusader. She's a criminal defense attorney who teaches on the side, and she's easily side-tracked into holding forth about the sorry state of defendants' rights in this country. No one has challenged her views yet, but I'll be surprised if we get through the summer without some law-and-order conservative picking a fight with her.

My Enthusiastic Classmates

Advanced Torts must be the chattiest class I've ever been a part of. I think the students have done more talking than the professor. Part of it is the professor's style--there are some twenty students in the class, and the professor calls on pretty much every student at least once in the course of a two-hour lecture--but mostly, I think a handful of the school's most gregarious students have just coincidentally converged on one class. Mind you, I'm not accusing my classmates of being what are pejoratively called gunners (students who volunteer in class just to flaunt their own intellect). These are just that unusual breed of student that isn't too intimidated to ask the professor for clarification.
So far, I like it. The constant back-and-forth makes the time trot, if not fly, and the professor's classroom management skills are such that we don't get bogged down in one subject for too long. It's going to be a nice summer.

Okay, one or two of them are what I'd call gunners, but I'm not here to judge.

Limited Study Space

I was back at the library today for the first time since I had to give up my private study carrel. You see, there aren't enough carrels to go around, so they turn over every semester. Now that I'm finished with my law review note, I no longer get priority when carrels are assigned. I'm going to miss having a place to store all my books and bags.

Gearing Up For Another Round

My summer books came in the mail today, just in time. Classes start Monday. I'll be taking Criminal Procedure Post-Trial and Advanced Torts (I did not get into the over-booked class I had my eye on). It is more or less an accident that I am taking these two classes--the summer schedule doesn't offer many choices--but they both look interesting to me. I think they can hold my focus for eight weeks, notwithstanding my new jaded 3L attitude.

Involuntary Summer Vacation

Today I got a polite "no" from the law firm I interviewed with last week. I'm starting to believe the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and too many blogs to count when they say I'll never find a job in this business. But there's no point in second-guessing myself now. I'll be in my seat with pen in hand when summer classes start next week.

Business Associations Exam

The Business Associations exam was a week ago, but I've been hanging on to this post because there was a late make-up exam date and I didn't want to inadvertently tip my classmates to the exam's contents. Here's the low-down:

My grade on the Business Associations final will make or break my semester. It was the only four credit-hour class on my schedule, making it 25% of this semester's grades. I went into the exam in pretty bad shape. I was under the weather all weekend, so I lost a lot of valuable study time to NyQuil-induced naps. Fortunately, the professor went much easier on us than she might have. The bulk of the exam was short-answer questions that anyone who paid attention in class should have been able to answer.

The bad news with an exam like this is that the questions that were easy for me were probably easy for everyone. The professor can't give everyone As (that's just not the law school way), so the difference between an A and a C will probably come down to marginal differences in our responses to the essay questions. Did I remember only five factors of what was supposed to be a six-factor test? Did I forget to mention that Delaware courts apply some variation on the general rule? That kind of stuff could kill me.

One unusual aspect of this test that is worth mentioning: it was not timed. The exam started at 9:00 AM and ended when the last person left. We've all had the awful experience of remembering some key fact (that sixth factor, say) on the drive home from an exam, so it is hard to walk away from an untimed test. I stayed for four hours, and there were at least a dozen people still at work when I left.

One More Chance at a Summer Job

A few days ago, the career services department sent an email alert about a late-breaking summer clerkship opportunity. I interviewed for the job this afternoon. Previously, almost all of my clerkship interviews have been on campus. It was nice to sit down in an airy law office instead of the claustrophobic, institutional on-campus interview room for a change. But I'm being uncharitable. I'm sure I found the on-campus interview room perfectly pleasant a year ago. I've just come to associate it with failure. By Monday I should know if I give better interviews off campus.