Well, it’s been a fun year y’all. Things are winding down piece by piece. First Legal Writing got pretty much done with turning in the brief. That assignment definitely sucked. Then Legal Writing got officially all finished up with completing the oral argument and getting my brief back (which I did better on than I did on the winter memo … that’s not saying much – at all – but still nice to know I’m improving in that field). Now this blog is done, so I can officially check off another 1L obligation from the list of “to-dos.”

As for updates, I got relatively ahead in terms of outlining so I decided to take the weekend off. I only worked for about a half a day on Saturday. The rest of the time, I made sure to avoid any: a) work, b) law school-related topics, c) law school-related people. So I’ve been a little MIA over the past few days, which has been sooooooooo nice. Seriously, people get so worked up around finals that I just need to take a break (especially 2-3 in particular I can’t avoid more and who constantly stress other people out to try to maybe bring us all down with them or something).

Other things to note, immediately after our fourth and final exam (property), we get our writing competition assignment. Damn. So that gets to put another 2-week damper in my summer. It actually sucks a lot. Like 2 days after that last final, I leave to go to the city I’m living in this summer and then start work two days after that. UChicago is really sticking to its guns with the whole quarter system despite all its ridiculous flaws. Anyway, not sure the positives of the system outweigh the negatives, at least from a student’s perspective.

I met a couple older non-UChicago law students this weekend (just by chance, which was lame since I was trying to avoid all things law) and they were like, “If you don’t make law review, you’re screwed.” I didn’t say what I thought at the time out loud back to them but it would have gone something like this: “Thanks for the advice. I’ve never heard anyone say ‘You should try to get on law review’ before. Truly unique and inspiring words of wisdom. I’m not trying really hard to get on it or anything. Oh, and by the way, where did you go to school again? Yeah, probably nowhere nearly as competitive to get on it as UChicago. Ok, see ya.” I’m bitter, whatevs.

In other news, the 1Ls just had our lottery for the clinics. I was selected very highly on one of the projects I heard was really interesting (from one of my friends’ experiences in working there) and decently highly on another I hadn’t heard anything about but that looked pretty interesting. So if the journal thing falls through next year, I suppose I’ll have that to fall back on. I don’t think I would want to do both. After all, once these last 1L exams are done, if law school ever started for me (as in, if I ever cared about it), at that point it will most decidedly be over for me. I’m checkin out y’all.

Peace!

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since I began documenting this journey here on T14. Today that journey comes to a close. Exams are done and I just handed in the last of my journal applications. 1L is officially over and so is my time here. At this point in the year, most law school hopefuls have decided where they’re off to in the fall and for my last post, I wanted to leave you with a few things I learned along the way.

• Have friends outside of law school. I can’t tell you how important having non-law school friends was to me during 1L. It was easy for me because I lived in New York before starting school. Many people move to new cities for law school and the only people they meet are the ones in their classes that they see day in and day out. Try not to live in such an insular world. Non-law school friends keep you grounded and remind you that there is life outside law school. And when you’re with them, there is no pressure to talk about exams or the professor or the cases because they’ll have absolutely no tolerance for that kind of talk. It’s refreshing and you’ll need it from time to time.
• Find a study space that works for you. I didn’t realize how anal I was about things until I started law school. I couldn’t get a stitch of work done unless I was completely comfortable in my surroundings. I struggled a lot to find the perfect study space. At first I assumed that this space would be in the law library. After all, in college, I used to love to sprawl out in a study carrel and make a day of it. But in college I could leave my computer and things on a desk in the library, disappear for an hour or two to eat, and everything would be as I left it when I returned. Things are a little bit different in law school. Or in New York. Or really anywhere that isn’t Wellesley, Massachusetts. I gave the law library a shot one afternoon, but with people crackling their papers and loudly whispering and tap tap tapping on their laptops, I gave up. Ironically, I ended up getting the most work done at my neighborhood Starbucks. The hum of the café was more like white noise than a distraction and I adapted to it easily. I’m one of those freaks who can’t sleep without some background noise. Which brings me to my next point.
• Invest in a good quality bed. Sleep can be difficult to come by in law school. I never had more trouble sleeping in all of my life (with the possible exception of my first year of life…well maybe the first couple years of life…my mom says I was a difficult child in this regard…and that that’s why I’m an only child…oh well, moving on…) than I did this year. Don’t settle for a cheap hand-me-down mattress (ew) and for the love of God, don’t think you can sleep for a whole year on a futon. You’re in this for the long haul — get a decent bed.
• Eat well and exercise. There’s every reason in the world to let your health fall by the wayside during 1L. You’re stressed, you have no time, when you do have time you want to spend it sleeping or hanging out. But I swear, if you take care of your body, it’ll be much harder for the stress to tear you down. And getting sick is an absolute nightmare in law school. It isn’t worth it.
• Above all, stay true to yourself and know what you want. All right, fine, it sounds kind of corny, but I mean it. In law school – especially at my law school – it’s easy to get caught up in the general air of smugness permeating the student body. People start to think they’re much more important than they really are. Give them a few A’s and a prestigious firm job and they think they rule the world. If you came to law school with a certain goal in mind, hold onto it and don’t let anyone try to make you feel bad about it. It’s kind of strange how the most honorable legal work has the poorest reputation at certain law schools and it would be easy to give in to the hype. Fortunately for me, I’m a bit older than most of my classmates and I came to law school knowing exactly what I want to do with my law degree. Most people go into law school with no clue. Be patient with them, but don’t feel as though you need to justify yourself. A strong sense of self is absolutely key to saving your sanity in the first year of law school.

Well, that’s that. I hope you enjoyed reading about my year in law school. I’ve enjoyed writing about it most of the time, but I’m kind of glad to be done. Sometimes law school felt as though it had sucked out my soul and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was write about it. So thanks for your patience. I’ve got myself a new blogging gig that has nothing whatsoever to do with law school or the law in general and I’m looking forward to the next step.

Take care,
Soleil ☺

Well, now two of the six things our class had to turn in/complete for this quarter are out of the way. Everyone finished up with oral arguments yesterday. I won’t spend too much time describing them, first, since Soleil has already done so and, second, since it was really no big deal. I’m not sure how it is for other classes, but ours was not graded, so not too many people took it that seriously or prepared that diligently for it. Considering I don’t care that much even when grades ARE on the line, you can imagine how I felt about this assignment. I probably spent 3-4 hours printing out the cases I used and highlighting major points. Never got a chance to practice questions or how to convince people, say, through like a mock session with a friend. It definitely showed. I was unsure of myself and paused and stuttered a low, which was upsetting as I generally consider myself a pretty good public speaker. Again, chalk it up to lack of preparation.

Now that that’s over, the last thing on our plate, and it seems the last thing on everyone’s mind, are finals. This quarter is curious in relation to past quarters. Maybe those with median grades have generally accepted their middle-of-the-roadness or maybe everyone just has finally come to the dark side of apathy where I live. In any case, people seem much more relaxed/indifferent this time around. We are only a couple weeks out and there are a bunch of people I know who just have not outlined at all yet — either that are they are very far behind where I would expect most people to be either because they 1) don’t care, or 2) don’t realize how much more work we have this quarter in comparison to last. As for me, I’m hoping to finish up my outlines sometime in the middle of next week and spend the rest of the time doing what I do after that: reading through hornbooks/E&Es and doing practice problems (especially for classes I don’t really understand, like the second half of torts).

In the end, I’m hoping for similar results as last quarter, but I won’t be disappointed if I don’t get there. I did pretty well last quarter with an A and one point away from an A and, as I’ve said many times, I’ll credit luck for that. Nonetheless, about this time last quarter, I had not learned a thing about remedies for contracts and managed to squeeze and entire quarter’s worth of learning into about 2.5 days of hardcore, no-holds-barred treatise reading …. so maybe some kind of magic will happen again to make me both very happy and more convince that this whole law school thing is just a big joke.

Other than that, things are generally good. Since people are caring less (like me) there is a less stressed air about the law school and people seem to be freaking out less. So that’s nice. Granted, there are 2-3 people in our class that are typically known to freak out whenever anything (however small or insignificant) is due. They’re nice people most of the time, but I try (and I think most people try) to avoid them during these due date times — otherwise, you’ll get either way stressed out through some kind of emotional osmosis or they’ll yell at you for not being more stressed out or for making fun of them for being so stressed (but, of course, if you can’t laugh at yourself, your sense of humor probably isn’t that great anyway so I probably don’t want to hang out with you in any case).

Whatever, one more post to come. Hope you all enjoyed the depressing life of a 1L. You get used to it after a few weeks, but god I hope there’s something better waiting for me in the next few years.

So whenever I venture below 14th Street, I always take my Manhattan street map with me. Good navigational sense is not one of my gifts. If it isn’t on a grid, I will be lost in less time than it takes to re-heat a pizza. I show up early to the courthouse on Thomas Street and settle in with my writing competition packet and begin reading as I wait for instructions. Finally, the juror wrangler comes in and directs us to look at our summons and make sure we’re there on the right day. I laugh inwardly that anyone could be so dumb as to show up on the wrong day for service. Then he tells us to make sure we’re at the right courthouse. I ignore this order as well. I remembered back to the night before when I looked at the box on the summons with the heading “Directions to your jury room.” I punched in the address of the courthouse on Google Maps for good measure. I was definitely in the right place.

(You know where this is going right?)

So then he repeats the instructions for the late-comers and I decide, what the hell, I’ll take a look at the summons.

“You are instructed to report to 60 Centre Street.”

I am at 71 Thomas Street.

Oh, hell.

So I gather my things and head for the back of the room passing rows of correctly-placed jurors because I just had to sit in the front. My face burned because I knew what they were thinking. I had gotten up right after he told us to make sure we weren’t at the wrong courthouse so it was obvious I was in the wrong place. I didn’t look at anyone’s face as I ran past security and out onto the street.

“60 Centre Street?!” I half asked, half shouted at the cop on the street corner. He said make two rights and walk four blocks and I’d be right there. As soon as I was around the corner I’d forgotten what he said. I consulted my street map and figured out that I should be heading west from where I was. I immediately started walking east. By the time I figured out that West Broadway and Broadway weren’t the same thing (I hate downtown), I gave up and hailed a cab. Seven dollars later and I’m two courthouses down from the correct one. (Seriously, New York? No fewer than four courthouses in the same vicinity?)

I recognized this courthouse immediately as the one Alexandra Cabot is always heading down as she rejects plea offers from defense attorneys. But I had no time to admire it as I was ridiculously late. So I get through security and find my way to the fourth floor jury room. The Welcome to Jury Duty movie has already begun so I dropped my things, collapsed into a chair, and listened to Diane Sawyer tell me about the important role I was about to play in our justice system. The movie was in dire need of an update; when Ms. Sawyer told us about litigation in popular culture, the screen switched to a clip from Perry Mason. Yeah, I’m not sure who he is either, but judging by the glasses and haircuts, I’m going to guess he was the Sam Waterston of the 70s.

Anyway. So after the movie was finished there was a lot of waiting around. Then the juror wrangler took attendance. There was more waiting around. Then she called off a bunch of names including mine and sent us off to Room A where we were to be questioned by some attorneys. There were about 30 of us in the room but they said they were only going to question the first 16 and only question the rest of us if they couldn’t find a suitable jury among the first group.

Since I wasn’t picked (and wasn’t even questioned) I can tell you that the case was a civil suit being filed by Linda Stasi against the city. Apparently she tripped over a police barricade a few years ago. I hadn’t heard of her. I thought it was strange that she was in the room with her attorney and the city’s attorney while the jury selection was going on. She didn’t say much. (Although she did tell the city’s attorney how to pronounce her last name – something her own attorney was doing incorrectly.)

After they selected their jury, I was free to go. I went back for my second day of service and was dismissed by noon. Even though I did nothing but wait around, it was not all for naught. I discovered that the lunch place across from the courthouse stocked Coke Zero Vanilla! So on my way home, I bought a bunch of cans of the stuff and schlepped them back uptown. I’ve been absolutely wired for the past 12 hours, but it’s worth it. Coke Zero Vanilla!

I know last time I said that my next post would be my last, but I feel like I should end on a more meaningful note than my newfound love affair with Coke Zero Vanilla.

So stay tuned.