Well, it happened. It took until the fourth day of class, but it happened. I was sitting there, minding my own business re-reading my notes for one of the assigned cases when out of NOWHERE, Prof. LM’s booming voice called out my name. I was chosen to be the lead-off victim for our class discussion that morning. All in all, it was pretty harmless. All I had to do was explain the facts of the case, correct myself when I messed one of them up, and then deal with a supplementary question. (I managed to get a laugh out of the class – even the professor – with my snarky answer to it.) The best part is that this has let me off the hook for at least a few days. It couldn’t have come at a better time either since I didn’t have time to do to the reading for the afternoon session. Okay, that’s a lie. I had the time, just not the inclination. But in my defense, this particular reading didn’t include any cases for which I’ll be responsible later, just a history lesson about the evolution of workplace safety legislation. And further, it was FIFTY pages long.

So now that I’m a little more accustomed to law school – at least so far as I can be since I haven’t started my real classes yet – I thought I’d offer up a few observations about law school that I’ve noticed so far.

Whenever the professor asks a question, one of three things happens in my head:

1.    I have no idea what the answer is.
2.    I know exactly what the answer is.
3.    I have no idea what the question is.

Unfortunately, the latter scenario is the case about 90% of the time. I felt so bad for a colleague of mine who was asked this ridiculous corn maze of a question and I thanked God (capital ‘G’) that I wasn’t the one under fire. Prof. LM then turned to another classmate whose hand was waving (a little too enthusiastically, if you ask me) and she answered his question – but not before rephrasing it into her own words. And when she did that, all of a sudden the question was perfectly clear! And the answer to it was, if not downright OBVIOUS, at least easy enough to bullshit.

So there is law school observation #1: Law professors ask questions in needlessly¹ complicated ways.

Something else I’ve noticed that actually bugs me a lot is the way many of my classmates answer questions posed to them by the professor. Most of them preface every answer they give with some variation of “I could be wrong, but,” or “I might be reading this the wrong way, but,” or “This could be way off, but,” et cetera.

BE CONFIDENT, PEOPLE!

No one, not the professor, and certainly not your classmates, expects you to have the right answer all the time. All of those prefaces are a GIVEN and therefore unnecessary.

I can’t speak for any other law student out there, but I’ll tell you that when one of my classmates is answering a question, be it factual or opinionated, I’m not judging his/her answer.² All I’m thinking is, ‘Whew! He didn’t call on me!’ Couching your answer in such wishy-washy wimpy language isn’t going to make a wrong answer any less wrong so you might as well shout it out with all the confidence you can gather.

And so, law school observation #2: 1Ls are really hesitant to say anything definitive.

One thing I learned in my pre-law school life is that in business, it doesn’t matter so much that you know what you’re talking about, just that you’re confident enough to persuade people that you do. And in a lot of ways I can understand this hesitation. I mean, what do we know about the law? No one wants to look stupid. But we’re only in classes with each other, other 1Ls. And the professor is not in the business of showing off that he knows the law better than we do; that much is obvious. What does he need to prove to us?

Anyway, those are just a couple things I noticed right off the bat. I’ll continue these observations as time plods on.

Things are going generally well. I find that I have no time for anything resembling my actual life these days, but I’m feeling good. Legal Methods ends next Friday and then the real games begin. I haven’t thought too much about extracurriculars I’d like to get involved with. Nothing I’ve come across so far really interests me particularly, but I’ll probably get involved with something just for the social aspect. A part of me is tempted to write off my classmates in any non-academic setting since I already have a bunch of friends in New York. But the more rational part of me knows that’s stupid  — that these are my future colleagues and cultivating relationships with them is as important as maintaining relationships with my non-law school friends. And besides, a lot of them are just downright cool.

But I guess balancing life and law school is a topic for another day.

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_{1. Well I don’t know if “needlessly” is a fair characterization. It’s possible that asking questions in this way prepares us to face a judge’s inquisition. Or perhaps it helps us learn. In any event, I recognize that they might have their reasons and being just a baby 1L I’m completely ignorant of them.}

_{2. It’s too soon for that. Once I’m more comfortable with law school, I’ll start fighting with my classmates a la undergrad. But for now, we’re all clueless.}

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