Archive for the ‘Chicago_1L’ Category

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!

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.

Well, the end of the year is coming and I figured, in case there are any 0Ls still out there paying attention to this blog, I’d post a few of my penultimate conclusions/advice/guidance for all those coming in to law school.

1) work hard. It sounds pretty dumb and maybe even a given in law school. But, to me, 1L year is definitely more of a marathon than a sprint. The problem with 1L year is, you have to be ready to sprint for 24 miles (or however long a marathon is). Maybe I’ve been able to stay up in grades (other than dumb luck …. again, crossing my fingers to keep that lucky streak rolling) because I work pretty hard. There is some advice out there that says, forget about cases, read the outlines/E&Es/hornbooks and learn the black letter law; then learn how to apply it through practice tests.

Overall, that’s pretty good advice. Learning the cases almost doesn’t matter …. almost. But I’ve found students get so wrapped up (especially in the beginning of the year and even this late into the year) in performing when getting called on in class or presenting some novel argument about a particular case’s reasoning, that they get lost in the fray and, come exam time, they are unable to decipher what law to apply where. However, while, as I said, the cases mean ALMOST nothing, there are times on the exam where it is apparent the professor wants you to make factual or analogical comparisons between a hypo and a case previously studied. This is really the only time that cases come in handy and where maybe idiosyncratic reasoning (or even policy arguments) in a case will be relevant.

So, my strategy, so far, has been the following: read the cases during the week and make sure to stay on top of the reading week-by-week (getting behind is the worst feeling ever and always seems to take more time to get back on track than it should). Once I’m on top of the reading, I’ll dedicate all other remaining time to 1) writing assignments when I have them (memos, brief); or 2) outlining. Ideally, the goal is to be completely done outlining at least by the time classes are over for the quarter. The rest of the time between the end of classes and exams is dedicated to (where I haven’t done so beforehand) skimming through E&Es and hornbooks to make sure I: 1) have a handle on some concepts I might not understand (like the entire second half of contracts last quarter); and 2) do tons and tons more practice problems than are available through professors’ past exams and such. So, in short, work hard.

2) think intelligently during exams. This one also sounds dumb, but it might be the only other reason (besides advice point #1 and obscene good luck) that I’ve been doing so decent in school. Take the point of view of a law professor, they don’t want to give you some fact pattern that will be a straight application of some legal doctrine. That would be: 1) too easy (so the curve would be ridiculous); and 2) boring for them. Instead, recognize that they are providing you with a fact pattern that lies between these rules. I think one of the best things to do on an exam is find HOW and WHY the fact pattern does not fit perfectly into one rule or another and then argue both ways (that it does or does not fit under the rule) using details and specifics and intricacies in the fact pattern. After all, every fact is put into this exam for a specific, and often well-thought-out, reason. I try to find that reason and make sure I address it appropriately. Red herrings in these question stems are usually pretty easy to figure out and dismiss and I sometimes hope to find specifics in the facts the professor may have glanced over or not realized it was as important as it may be to the question she/he poses. That’s a good way to stand out and perhaps be rewarded when it comes to grading.

Anyway, hope that makes some sense. Off to outline.

So, now that the brief is in, which was the worst thing of my life by the way, the only thing between me and the end of 1L year (and, therefore, the end of caring even marginally about law school … if I still care at all) is just about a month away. Only 4 more exams and that’s it. Granted, this will be by far the hardest and most stressful quarter ever — I have just as many exams as I did over the first two quarters combined. For some reason, the school has found it a good idea to focus more than half of our entire 1L grade in the final 10 or 11 weeks or whatever of school. So that sucks for me, but whatevs.

In other news, this past weekend was a blast. Since everyone turned in the brief, we all decided it was time to take a brief (haha) hiatus from working on law school and go out and have some fun. Bar review was pretty amazingly fun and it was nice to see people come out of their shell a little bit just before buckling down one last time to deal with the hazing that is 1L year. Plus, next weekend is Law School Prom, which is going to be amazing. My girlfriend couldn’t make it out, since the event was not very brightly planned on the same weekend as Mother’s Day, but I managed to find myself a plutonic date for the evening (or, she managed to find me). Speaking of my girlfriend, things are progressing pretty well. We’ve been talking pretty much every day and I think things are starting to get pretty serious, which is both kinda scary and kinda exciting all at the same time. Considering she still lives very far away, we’ll have to see where things go from here, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her out here in Chicago sometime in the not so distant future.

Let’s see ….. we also have some kind of training coming up from the Career Services Office about the Fall OCI. To be honest, I think it’s going to be a huge waste of time (the training, not OCI). I think I’m more partial to the advice I’ve been given by 2Ls and 3Ls instead of the Career Services people. Many of them seem like they are just there to placate students and make them feel like everything is going to be all right. It’s not their fault. Prior to this economic downturn, they didn’t have to do much of anything. Now that things are tough, it definitely seems like they’re trying to scramble to come up with ideas on how to: 1) continue to get Chicago students the same kind of jobs at the same rate (which is impossible); and 2) continue to make sure students think Chicago students get the same kind of jobs at the same rate. So far, they’ve been mildly successful with our class in Goal #2, though most of us are starting to wise up … and some of us are starting to get more and more worried as more and more grades come out.

Anyway, we’re not all as special and unique as our Mom’s all told us we once were. Or, at least, I’m not. Here’s to mediocrity.