Going To Law School

My uncle is a pretty high up attorney for the NJ government (he's been the litigator for a few multi-state cases in the NYC metro area), and he said the two most important things are 1) grades and 2) writing samples from actual, hands-on work. He said to avoid all the chintzy little competitions and other distractions that pop up in school. Hopefully he's right

Dumb question: How do first year grades operate wrt positions with earlier deadlines? Do they take resumes early but wait on grades for final decisions? Or do they just skip grades?

I volunteered to do a practice appellate oral argument in front of my criminal law class. I'm actually extremely psyched about it. Any tips?

I have to say, I definitely regret going to Cardozo. uhghhrghhh.

I seriously can't take this anymore. Every day feels the absolute same, plus the horrible stress of this bullshit, and then you think ... I'm doing into super fucking debt, and the top students at this school are struggling to find decent work. I mean, is this all worth it? I can't sleep anymore, this is becoming like a fucking nightmare. uhhhhghhhhhh

Welcome to your first year, burt. I mean that in the nicest way possible.

The only way to develop a callus is through repetition. Read, brief, outline, test, repeat.

No regrets so far. 9pm in the library and I'm lovin it! See, they've completely broken me!! AHAHAHAHA!

Seriously, I don't regret it so far. I might regret it if I don't do well enough to keep my scholarship. But I only need to make top 40%.

i don't think i was ever in the library at 9pm. also i had a drug problem during law school.

Still here, about to leave. Before I do, a bit of corny, sleep-deprived law school humor from a message board discussion of our legal memo assignment:

E: Can we assume that Cozy Shoes ships its products to department stores using any of the common methods for shipping (i.e. truck, train, or air, but not horses, mules, submarines or hot-air balloons)? Or does "ships" refer to one particular and exclusive method?

J: Is their case law dealing with the effect of shipment by mules, horses, submarines and hot air balloons on personal jurisdiction?

E: This is not something I have personally investigated, but if Cozy Skins were transporting its goods by mule, I think that would be relevant, don't you? Especially if there was only one mule and he was from Massachusetts and all his ancestors were from Massachusetts and he was deriving a benefit from the state's protection of mules and doing things a mule could only do in Massachusetts like going to prep school, meeting other mules in cranberry bogs and giving rides on the Freedom Trail.
...

J: With all due respect, I think the shipping method is a red herring. Which is impressive, because red herring are generally unreliable as work animals.

Law school ain't bad, I just wish I didn't suck ass at being cold called on. I'm always like "uhhhh errrrrrrr uhhhhhhhhh errrrrrrrr" until the professor mercifully moves on to the next student. :{

Is this a retarded question? I'm trying to do the whole class participation thing and posted this on one of the class messageboards:

Does Rule 13(a) do something really different from the doctrine of claim preclusion? It seems like on the surface they both operate under the same principle of efficiency ("use it or lose it"), but I'm having trouble sorting out the particularities. It’s probably something obvious or unimportant, but if anyone has any ideas I’d be interested to know.

Oh yeah, exams in three weeks. Good times.

That's actually something we covered today. It doesn't seem like a dumb question -- I was sort of wondering the same thing. Like if you'd be barred from bringing the action later regardless, what do you need the mandatory counterclaim rule for?

FUN

I KNOW!

Does Rule 13(a) do something really different from the doctrine of claim preclusion? It seems like on the surface they both operate under the same principle of efficiency ("use it or lose it"), but I'm having trouble sorting out the particularities. It’s probably something obvious or unimportant, but if anyone has any ideas I’d be interested to know

Rule 13(a) is ENTIRELY about efficiency - use it or lose it, if it springs from the same operative set of facts. Claim preclusion is implicated once there is final jugment on the merits - a particular claim cannot be relitigated once it has been finally decided.

By the way - less than 6 hours to go until I find out

So, remember -

13(a) - same set of facts, you have to bring it up or you lose it because the court doesn't want to see you back on the same basic facts
Claim Preclusion - if its already been decided, you can't re-litigate.

BTW - I passed the bar exam. Good luck with your exams, guys. Send along any questions on which you would like a different perspective.

CONGRATS!

What the hell is a torts exam like? I need to robble robble some of these old exams. Do we try to analyze new cases based on the general principles of each tort theory?

like ... we get some case that resembles a DES-like situation, so we try to apply the general theory of market share liability to the new facts? Our prof isn't particularly forthcoming about this stuff.

wtf's DES?

torts exam should be just a story about something bad happening to someone, you recognize what the issues are (like oh it's not clear there's proximate cause here, the defendant did or didn't have a duty toward the plaintiff, etc.). you might also get a policy question where you have to tell what the pros and cons of adopting a different theory are. i would find some old exams or a book with practice problems in it.

Do they make old exams available at Cardozo? You should get some of your profs old exams.

Mine basically just gives you a really long fact pattern with tons of different issues in it and then writes "discuss," or "assess the liabilities of the parties" or something like that. So you might have six people and you have to explain why and under what theories each might/might not be liable, any defenses that might come up and whether they're likely to succeed, any issues that might come up with damages, joint-tortfeasor liability, etc.

The advice I get over and over again is that you're not trying to get the right answer but trying to properly identify/examine/address/discuss as many ambiguities and sticking points as possible.

DES was a very popular drug that turned out to increase the risk of... was it birth defects or cancer? Anyway, it was a big market-share liability case (lots of different companies produced DES and it was impossible to figure out which one produced the DES a particular plaintiff had ingested)

The DES thing comes from Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories, apparently one of the standards for market share liability.

(the case happened in 1980, so for you oldsters it was probably less standard then)

Yeah, our prof said it's basically useless to name drop cases, only if you use it when you're illustrating principles

SPOT THE ISSUES

if you see a similarity to a case.. cite it, and then say what's different in the hypo

IRAC

ok i remember that case. you might have to know that, i dunno. some professors use problems that resemble real cases you read, at least in part.

btw it's impt to outline your answer before you write the problem. then the exam becomes like a large series of related short answer questions!

maybe also mention law and order, or boston legal? you know, to seem like you care about the law a lot?

Our exam's closed book, no notes, so the professor said not to bother citing cases. It's more of a test of theory

i'm almost amused when max pops up in the law threads

I guess if we did a market share liability case, we'd have to demonstrate we understand the formula of x multiplied by y dispersed amongst blah blah blah, and then apply the percentages if the theory is met in some other way. Hurting, you get any of this shit?

a closed-book exam is a good sign, i think. i hate open book and i hate the whiners that ask for open book exams.

What about a closed-book Civ Pro exam?

if it's a test of theory, read your prosser hornbook. oh, you didn't buy one? yr fucked

my civ pro exam was closed book and i pwned it. a lot of people cried after that exam and i laughed at them.

(j/k)

burt, it's really hard to gauge what your teacher is going do. everyone is different. my civ pro exam was comprised of two two-page long ridiculous fact patterns. i remember one involved a federal civil rights statute and the erie doctrine. the other a defective snowboard and how it related to juridiction over the manufacturer, the seller, etc.

like you have time to look in the book anyway

^^^ otm

FOUR HOURS will never move faster than it will during a law exam final

You know, civ pro's not really that bad ... my problem is, I'm sloppy when reading questions, and so I come up with truly bizarre responses to ridiculosuly easy questions. : {

I really need to bone up on the Erie doctrine's tree of fun.

i've got an open book exam in my medical ethics course and it's making me wish i could lawyer the shit out of the answers

you can lawyer the shit out of anything... if you're a lawyer

read the problem more than once, burt!

Anyway, I'm going to be bad and skip class tomorrow for an extended Thanksgiving break. I can't sleep anymore :{ None of the 1Ls here I know can sleep thanks to exam time. Perhaps we should have all gone to cheaper schools.