Posts Tagged ‘CLS’

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 ☺

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.

…With exams that is. The week-long writing competition to get on a journal starts tomorrow. But wow, what a relief to be finished with exams! I apologize in advance for this post – I’m no longer capable of higher brain function. The last bit of brain power I had went into my last exam which I finished early this evening.

Exams went pretty well, apart from some minor technical difficulties that lasted for a few panic-stricken minutes. About an hour after finishing my con law exam, I got an email saying the exam file did not upload successfully. But that panic didn’t even come close to how I felt during my property exam when my netbook decided it didn’t feel like loading the exam software. They started the exam without me and then I had proctors trying to help me re-download the exam and re-run the program. I was terrified they were going to tell me I would have to hand-write the exam. That really would have been the end of the world as I knew it. There would be no way I could write a coherent exam by hand. I would fail for sure. But fortunately, my computer got over its bout with PMS and decided to work third time around. They gave me compensatory time so it didn’t even matter in the end.

It really feels incredible to be done with 1L. It went by ridiculously fast. I can remember one year ago looking at the glossy brochure that came in the admission packet. Every now and then I would flip to the last page and stare at the fresh-faced CLS grads decked out in their blue robes looking happy and accomplished. I couldn’t wait till that day. I still can’t. But now instead of it being three years away, it’s only two.

But since I just finished exams only today and haven’t really had time to adequately reflect, I’ll save the deep and meaningful reflection for my next – and final! – post.

I have jury duty next week. I postponed it once already so there’s no getting out of it this time. The last time I was called I was living in Massachusetts and I think it was really close to finals then too. I got out of it by telling them I had family members who were in law enforcement. Hopefully that works this time around too. I actually think I would really like to do jury duty, but it never seems to come at a convenient time, does it?

After the writing competition is over, I have one whole week of vacation before starting my internship. I’m not going anywhere, but there’s plenty to do in the city. Item number one is to repair all the friendships that have suffered as a result of my falling off the face of the planet for the month of May. So many calls have gone unreturned and emails unanswered. Most of my friends are not law school people so they don’t really understand what I was going through. As readers here know, law school exams are unlike anything and if you’ve never experienced them you can’t really understand. So I didn’t really bother to try to explain. I just let them know I’d be off the map until late May.

Congratulations to everyone who finished 1L. ☺

Two exams down, two more to go.

I came out of the con law exam feeling spent but pretty good overall. Ever take an exam and have one of those moments where you map out your whole answer, feel awesome about it, and then realize – oh holy crap, I completely forgot this Incredibly Important Thing? Yeah, I had one of those. At first it was like – whew! That was a close one! Then it was like – well, Jesus – if I had forgotten THAT, I’d be fast-tracking it to C+ land. And then it was like – well what the hell else am I forgetting??

Crim law was a different story altogether. I had certain expectations going into the exam, which was probably my first mistake. Based on the past exams I thought I had an idea of what to expect, but I was wrong. The questions weren’t exactly unfamiliar, but I expected the layout of the exam itself to be different. What’s more, there wasn’t a suggested time limit for each question, which threw me for a bit of a loop. It has been my experience so far that professors generally put suggested time limits for each question and that signals which questions are weighted more heavily than others and thus where you should spend the bulk of your time. Without time limits, I can only assume the questions are weighted equally which terrifies me a bit considering I spent way more time analyzing two questions than I spent on the other. They also had more parts so I find it hard to believe each question could possibly be weighted the same.

I walked out of that exam feeling completely and utterly spent. I walked back home practically zombified. My mind was blank and I felt incapable of higher thought. I got into my apartment and sat down at my computer and couldn’t really remember the walk back from school.

I hadn’t planned to, hadn’t wanted to, but I ended up taking the night off and curled up in bed watching a few stupid movies.

My approach to exams this semester is the exact opposite of what I did last semester. Last semester I was attentive and present and engaged in classes and by the time finals rolled around, I wasted a lot of time and didn’t study very hard. This semester I tried the opposite approach. I skipped a lot of class, hardly ever volunteered, and kept up with the reading in only half my classes. But now that exam time is here, I am studying my brains out. Literally.

I’m completely isolated. I hate studying at the law school (I know, I’m a broken record on this point) so now that I have my air conditioner installed (thanks Dad!) I’ve been holed up in my apartment for days on end emerging only to take an exam or print something. I made a bunch of food before classes ended and subsisted on that, but now my fridge is running on empty. I’ve tapped into the emergency rations – canned soap, oatmeal, and a box of raisins I didn’t know I had. I’m out of soda except for a half a bottle of Diet Stewart’s Root Beer, which I’m saving for when I need a jolt of caffeine-infused happiness.

But it’s almost over. I can see the end in sight.