Going To Law School

:-/ Apparently my final exams are in October! Uhhh, is that typical for law school?

Nevermind, read that wrong. I've just failed out of law school.

I've already done 120 pages of reading, 40 pages of which were cases that I briefed. And that's just assignments for ORIENTATION.

Move tomorrow, start classes the 18th. FUUUUUUCK

Wow, I just got my assignments a few hours ago. I'll probably start nerding it up tomorrow myself.

i suddenly regret not doing work tonight

just to round this thread off, seeing as it bore witness to my exam stresses and whatnot. i am now a lawyer! yay

Just had my orientation. Law school seems like it might be fun; I mean, the work is already piling up, but the other students are cool and the members of the opposite sex are very friendly. I suppose people buy into the stereotype of meeting their spouse at law school or something... looked like people were already pairing off.

Congratulations, Gem. Good luck, Burt and Hurting. I liked law school a lot, but it isn't an experience I'd want to go through again (by contrast, if I could, I'd happily go back to school to get a master's degree in another discipline).

I'm pretty alright with it so far. I know the work hasn't really piled up yet, but right now compared to the working world it feels like a vacation.

I like reading cases - it's kind of like being an English major again except there's a point to it.

Plus I just really like the area of the school. Living and studying somewhere pleasant makes a huge difference.

y'all are so naive. kudos, though. be strong.

cutty otm. "i like reading cases"! lolling @ u

eh, I know it sounds naive. I'm aware of the more cynical views but sometimes you just have to become cynical for yourself, over time.

um

some legal jobs (eu&competition; environment) involve reading hella lots of cases so lolling @ u

i'm sure we can all relate to hurting's enthusiasm in some way. i just want to protect him.

getting slammed over here :-/

do the work. there's no easy way out of the first year.

the most learning you will have to do is HOW to take these tests--there is a very specific art to the law school exam and to some it doesn't become apparent right away.

it's always best to find a professor's old exam's, and what they consider an A+ paper to be. study that shit.

then you must combine that actual aubstantive law that you have learned, with the analytical process of examining a hypo/fact-pattern, and writing a cohesive essay.

law school sounds like the opposite of (the first two years of) med school.

we don't get to do any kind of analysis, per se, for a long while

law school is all analytical, with no actual practical instruction on how to be a lawyer. you'll graduate with no knowledge on how to do anything law related, EXCEPT of course, reading a case and underlining things.

mostly otm, but clinical work, trial practice, negotiation, etc. help.

i like lawyering a lot more than law school. cutty's exam advice otm.

there is a very specific art to (taking) the law school exam and to some it doesn't become apparent right away.

Very true. Knowing law school test-taking skills is a must.

yeah ok i sorry for lolling @ u. i remember way back when. sometimes i do like cases but not in the oh isn't this so fun kind of way.

i do examples and explanations questions and that has worked well for exams but some professors emphasize totally different things so they aren't always useful

i love trial practice

another thing i loved: 1st year civil procedure

w-w-w-what?

civ pro was like the oasis in the desert of common law study

also best case names ever

re: professors emphasizing totally different things--

many professors pride themselves on making insane hypotheticals and fact-patterns, so the trick is finding every single nook and cranny they have introduced as opposed to rote memorization of the law. it obviously varies from professor to professor.

the bar exam is another story, where it is all rote memorization of law. let's discuss that in three years.

I am almost a lawyer guys (4 more days)

All the comments made are all OTM. Get previous exams, do them ALL.

Then make up your own with other classmates, and trade them with each other. The more fact patterns you look at, the better chance you will have of doing well.

Also, don't get caught up in stupid section bullshit. Be friendly to EVERYONE, and just kick ass on the tests. They really are the only things that matter.

I can say that I graduated with a pretty positive rep among my classmates, a very good one among my professors, but only a middle-of-the-road GPA. I know for a fact that I am 10x happier with my job than those in the top 15% of my class - I keep in touch with several of them regularly.

One foot in front of the others, pre-counsellors. It sure as shit ain't brain surgery.

how many feet do you have?

For some obnoxious reason they have classes on top of 7 hours of orientation BS this week, classes that require briefs tomorrow. Already puts me in a bad mood... either have classes and no orientation or orientation and no classes.

when you say "require briefs" you mean they are requiring you to brief cases and hand them in? ha

Yes, and classes haven't even officially started yet. My Elements professor: official turd.

My legal writing class doesn't even require its first 'unofficial' brief until the end of next week. I basically skipped the second half of orientation today to do this dude's homework.

At some point along the way - hopefully, sooner than later - you will realize WHY they make you jump through all of the hoops. There simply is no substitute for doing each and every task you have to do in law school.

The important things to include in a case brief are the following:

Court
Disposition at lower levels - trial and any lower appellate courts
Parties' names
Key Issues, disposition of each and rationale for each disposition

Cases are the lifeblood of first year - your textbooks are made up of them, your classes are spent arguing and discussing them, and your exams are spent making or discounting arguments from cases you've covered.

Keep reading the cases until you understand them. Rest assured that if you got into a law school that ANYONE has heard of - and I seem to remember all 1Ls here did - you are smart enough to understand this stuff. Really. Take that as an absolute, gravity/death/taxes surety.

By the way - a promise to act as a surety for someone is one of the contracts that must be in writing in order to be enforceable. Good ol' Statute of Frauds.

also realize that after 2-3 weeks you will likely never brief anything ever again unless you really like it for some reason. because it's kind of dumb. i always just highlight things and repeat points in the margin w/ pen. OR, if the book is printed on the right kind of paper use pencil to do that and then when you go through the case in class write anything else important in pen so you can find it when you outline. so my book is a mess, but my hw is manageable!

Wait, you actually have to turn in briefs at Cardozo??? Man am I glad I went to BLS.

Although I briefed all the cases for orientation and then the prof didn't even ask us to state facts of most of them let alone answer questions.

yeah i would totally hate that too because it's like, i'm here to be a grownup. don't collect my homework.

We got a big lecture on (the pitfalls of) laptop usage today from an otherwise good but relatively old prof. It was pretty irritating, and his reasons were total bs. I actually listen BETTER when I type notes instead of write, because I type faster than I scribble and thus waste less time. What's more, I then have nice, legible, easy to re-organize notes. Fuck off (otherwise smart) old dude.

I think Carbozo is trying to go all hardass like Fordham; Fordham used to be a pretty dingy local NYC school even just 2 decades ago. They adopted the harshest grading curve of any school outside North Korea, and now they're like, top 25. So I can't imagine this place is going to get any easier.

FWIW, my process developed into the following, increasingly succesful order of actions:

1) Read cases
2) Make SHORT - like 5 line - notes for class discussions
3) Include notes from class next to/ interspersed with your notes.
4) Keep organized by date/chapter
5) Repeat for next topic/subject area

At first gloss, that's really it. Especially with Contracts and to some extent Torts, you really want to see the ENTIRE body of law all at once, and then again all at once, and this is what outlining is for.

And another word on outlining...

NEVER

EVER

EVER

Expect to do as well with pre-made/borrowed outlines as you would with formulating your own.

I cannot stress this enough. Law school, as stated above, is all about learing the academic level of legal analysis. Outlining is creating a map for your brain to use when doing these analyses. Therefore, would you know the mapped terrain better if you made the map yourself, or just bought one?

Thanks for the advice. This brief's gotta be done by tomorrow.

it's ok to peruse the internets in class when you get bored

My first day of class I didn't quite understand. Everything the professor talked about was the shit I made notes of when I did the 100 pages of reading. I stared at the wall for about 2 hours.

Just wait.

just wait . . . until you get to business associations