Going To Law School

Seriously, though, burt: if you are really only freaking out about your grades and not able to figure out what you did wrong (i.e. crawling up your own ass and taking Hurting's advice on anything rather than relaxing and dealing with the question in front of you when it's there), you could live with a semester or two off. AT LEAST.

My first semester 1L was all As, second semester a B- nightmare. Then I realized I was letting my classmates' "oh this is so hard and oh so important and very very SERIOUS" shit get to me, so I cut it out and got through with a very nice A- average (with really good grades reserved for the classes I actually was interested in).

I know good lawyers with good lawyering jobs that make them happy who did not get top grades and go to big name schools. I got good grades at a top school and oh-so-prestigious jobs afterwards and it did not make me happy.

Did you change your username again, C0lin?

Congrats, dude. A+ striaght through means you're doing it right. Now, keep it up - whatever the hell it was.

As for telling other people, do NOT be that guy. I still remember those people, and we all hated them. I was friends with probably 5-7 out of the top 10 students in my class, but those other assfaces? No one liked them. Ugh.

And we all remember. Believe me.

I just realized today: going to law school for me isn't a pursuit for a new career. it isn't self-betterment. It's yet another act of self-destruction. I rule.

Redemption!!!!!! I got a full fucking A in Contracts. An A in Contracts. That's way more important than Civ Pro. I won't kill myself now... sorry, hatas.

second or third highest grade in the class. maybe I'm not such a dumb ass ;_;

and the whole thing is true about doing better in classes you think you're going to fail, and you do shitty in classes where you think you got an A. I left Civ Pro and Torts thinking "I rule" and Contracts thinking "what the hell was that?"

I wonder why that is... does knowing a little less actually help you be more creative with your legal thinking?

A in contracts is aces Burt. Congrats.

Thanks. Hopefully Property and all that stuff goes equally as well ... Civ Pro and Torts just made no sense.

Which classes are you doing this semester?

Contracts, Con Law, Property, Legal Writing again.

I'm liking property the most so far, surprisingly. Reading about fox-hunting and whaling and duck decoy ponds is so much more enjoyable than reading about commerce clause powers or consideration theories.

I'm thinking about going to school to study copyright law, so I can fight for the artistic rights of producers who sample records. Is this a smart thing to do? Is there enough cases to even fight? Who even pays these lawyers considering that indie-label rap guys, home-recording mashup people and John Oswald types generally don't have a lot of money to throw around.

Who even pays these lawyers considering that indie-label rap guys, home-recording mashup people and John Oswald types generally don't have a lot of money to throw around.

Nobody.

So what type of stuff do they do in their non-doing-that time?

There's already too many lawyers and people who graduate from law school but never use their degree. Unless law is really your passion, law school just seems an expensive exercise in hubris and status chasing.

My impression that there is a general rule that going to law school "to fight for the rights of x" means that you have to be willing to compete very hard for low paying jobs. The reason for this is simple -- people who really NEED someone to fight for their rights in order to avoid being screwed by the Man don't generally have money, or else they would just hire a good lawyer on their own and avoid being screwed by the Man.

There's no reason, I suppose, that you couldn't be some other kind of lawyer that also did that work pro bono or at a low cost. You could do any kind of stuff in your "non-doing-that time."

But my general opinion, which is largely received wisdom, is that a mere interest in a social cause is not a good reason to go to law school -- you have to actually like and be interested in the legal aspect itself in order to not want to claw your eyes out from the tedium of law.

whiney, stop right there.

law school will teach you the doctrines, but that's useless. to get experience in IP and fight for whomever's rights, you need to get a job in IP.

to get a job in IP, especially copyright law, you will be competing with the millions of other people who think it's an attractive field. it's hard to get a job in an IP-centric firm without a technical degree. they want you to be able to do the patent stuff as well.

most soft-IP firms that only do copyright/trademark do not hire out of law school.

IP is probably the most fashionable field in law right now... it's fun, easy, and you get to deal with all that 21st century "cool stuff" like the internet, media, software, etc. So basically, unless you absolutely destroy the LSATs and then are willing to work hard to one-up all the aspie douchebags who make up the top of the class of the top 10 schools, you know ... it's probably not a particularly wise move if you sit around and take into consideration these above here factors.

God knows why I'm in law school. At least I'm good at the really boring stuff.

Well thanks for the advice, guys. Just looking for SOMETHING I can be passionate about since rock critic/drummer is about as smart a career option as "typewriter repairman" right now.

if you want to be a lawyer, try not to expect to be passionate about your work.

being a lawyer for me is a job, an honest profession. pays the bills. i leave the passion for drumming and bike racing (no one is paying me to do those things.)

Having a job that one is genuinely passionate about is a luxury few obtain. If you really like being a rock critic and a drummer, find something else to support those things that uses your skills, e.g. some kind of writing job of a more boring and technical nature.

OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS BOTH AMAZING AND HORRIFYING.

My Property professor is the female equivalent of The Onion's Kelly. She won't let us use laptops in class. Not only that, but she referred to a student's laptop as "that gizmo". She also said, "you kids only know your rappers. I doubt you're familiar with literature" (when using a book to lay out some property principle).

Kelly points:

usage of the word "gizmo" to refer to completely ubiquitous and normal technology +10
usage of the phrase "those rappers" +10 and its usage to show that the youth of today don't know culture +10
constantly insisting that "kids these days" don't know about responsibility or hard work like they did in the old days +1,000,000

Society is in the gutter

first sentence of that post was overstating things a little burt_stanton

My property professor is a horror -- the single worst teacher I have ever had in my life. I'm seriously considering a letter to the dean over it, although I'm concerned it will just look whiny and self-entitled if I do.

Slogging through Constitutional Law. This class is so useless... why do they make us study this? If I'm advising a client about shifting liability with explicit notice, I could frankly care less what Marshall has to say about the Judiciary Act of 1801.

fuck a constitution

seriously I used to not know what my law student friend meant when he said it, but it's true. Non-constitutional democracies are just as free if not freer than we are.

law students are so fucking uppity

yeah i would like a non-constitutional democracy but we don't have one. the class has been useful to me in later classes though, and sometimes at work. but i hated all that marbury v. madison, etc crap.

cutty otm

What's wrong with questioning a curriculum where you're investing a lot of time and money in? Cutty is off the mark for being complacent.

maybe after you become a lawyer or take some real classes you can decide whether it was or was not useful, but now how do you know? btw i loved property and i love wills

I love the property casebook so far because it's all whaling and duck decoy ponds and fox hunting.

Interviewing with two Fed Dist Judges for summer.

This feels very strange. I was never a prestige guy.

That's so awesome. I'd be lucky to get traffic ticket court in the Hudson Valley

I'm going to send out all my resumes tomorrow ... my grades block me out of anything noteworthy, so whatever.

I thought your grades were pretty good, iirc. At least one A, nothing too bad, right?

also, it's good that such accolades are going to someone who doesn't seem like one of those douchy shark gunners, though I'm sure they're doing fine, too.

No, bad.

Civ Pro: B-
Torts: B

That's all we got. We have 19 credits this semester, so there's definitely a chance to get out of that nosedive.

Well, they say your first summer job doesn't matter very much anyway as long as you do something decent and get something out of it. I'm not even sure why I want the federal judicial thing except that I don't know what else to do and it's what everyone says is the thing to do.

Federal is federal. I'd like to work for some kind-of gubment agency or Legal Aid type thing, just to network and see what it's like. I didn't know I'd like Contracts so much. I probably only did well since I was a straight-A accounting student back in the day, and my corporate job involved working with general counsel on advertising and marketing copy.

You could probably make your undergrad and your corporate job work well to counterbalance some of your grade damage.

cant wait for burt_stanton studies for the bar posts

ohhh, I finally just realized what they meant when they called the constitution a "contract with the people". wow, it really adds some dimension.

cant wait for burt_stanton studies for the bar posts

This is entirely the truthiest truth ever truthed.

Even unemployed, the fact that I never have to take the California bar exam again makes me smile, smile, smile.

What is it about spending 12 hours a day with law books that turns people (including me) into cranky, hateful bastards?

i was already that way

turned me into a straight b*tch

Either

A) I have become paranoid or
B) Ever since I did well and also got this judicial internship, this one kid is out to get me.
Yesterday he climbed over me and banged into my laptop, today he practically yelled -- in earshot of the professor after class -- that I was gchatting during class.

He might just think he's doing a little friendly ribbing.

Either way I'm having strong visions of breaking his nose and it's making me a little uneasy.

Also my patience for everything is very low.