Category: Law

Law School Diary: Week 1

Dear Seattle University School of Law,

Today marks the end of my first week of fall semester. As a matter of record, I’m calling this letter “week 1” even though I’ve already spent the summer with you, studying Criminal Law. While four credits can seem like 10 when they are crammed into six weeks instead of the usual 15, it seemed a little too much like summer camp and a not enough like the chaos to which I’ve been subjected this week to really count.

What do I mean by chaos? Let me start by saying law school is hard – not because the work itself is hard (although I reserve the right to change my stance on this as the semester progresses), but because the challenge of managing school deadlines requires a different kind of discipline than managing a task list at work.

There’s way too much to do, requiring intense concentration, and not enough solid blocks of time to do it in. I’m up to the challenge as long as I can hole myself away in a secluded study carrel on the top floor of the law library. The mission? To eliminate as many interruptions – however minor – as possible. Each time I’m distracted by something, it adds 10-15 minutes of time when I start reading again to rack my brain for the thoughts that were swimming hazily in the grey matter before I had to change focus. That might not seem like a lot of time, but when you’ve got too much reading and professors breathing down your neck three to four times a day for the “answers,” every second counts.

Despite this challenge, however, I can honestly say I’m floating on a honeymooner’s high: I LOVE law school. (In fact, I have a note on my to do list every day to kick myself for not enrolling in law school earlier.) Think about it: How many times in your life do you have the privilege of dedicating yourself ALL DAY to reading and thinking? And thinking about REALLY interesting things? (Okay, maybe they’re just interesting to me and my dad.)

Take Civil Procedure, for example. Did you know that in Germany, lawyers don’t get to present cases on behalf of their clients? Instead, they are there to assist the judge who calls and questions witnesses and decides which laws have been violated all on his/her own in search of The Truth. This runs somewhat contrary to our notion that everyone deserves their “day in court.” I don’t think that system would work here, where our notion of justice rests on the idea that we each have the opportunity to tell our side of the story. It also seems counter to the idea that there is no single truth, that each of us understands a version of the truth based on our perspective, and that the best we can do is come to some normative legal conclusion about which truth is acceptable given the set of relevant facts. Whew!

In closing, I’d like to share a few nuggets of wisdom from my professors. These won’t help you earn a vicarious J.D. but they might be entertaining nonetheless. (Yes, these are actual, honest to goodness quotes, from my professors, spoken in class this week.)

“You know, people are always optimistic starting a new project. That’s why they get married.” – Professor Contracts

“If you can’t be tall and compelling, wave your arms around a lot.” – Professor Civ Pro

Thanks for the laughs; see ya next week.

Yours truely,
Carry

Live the dream

When you open a bottle of Full Sail’s Session, there is an image of a rock-, paper-, or scissors-hand underneath the cap. It makes for fun times opening beers in the company of others. Apparently, they’ve also started adding sayings to the caps of their other beers.

“Live the dream” appeared on the cap of the beer I opened on the first day of law school. I showed my prize to Nick, who thoughtfully responded, “The dream? Of course! That must mean the one where I sit around the house in my underwear drinking beer and watching Speed Vision, right?”

Right…

Links o’ the day

Well folks, I survived my first law school final last night, and to be honest, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Andy, Max, Jay and I celebrated at the Elysian afterwards with a vow to avoid all post-mortem discussion of the exam.

Why?

Because nothing good can come of it; one or both of you is going to end up feeling bad. This is because there is typically no “right answer” to an exam question, and people can arrive at acceptable, full-credit answers in different ways. How would you feel when your classmate reveals the brilliant public policy argument he threw in, or the directly-on-point advisory committee note he found in the back of the book which enabled her, in two paragraphs, to answer the question that took you 10 pages to reason out? And how is she going to feel when you start talking about an issue raised by the question she didn’t even notice? See what I mean? So, when the exam is over, it’s over.

In keeping with the rule, I will not re-hash the exam here either. Mostly because I doubt you care that the final exam question regarding homicide didn’t even have a dead body...huh!

Moving on here is a nifty collection of cool links for Thursday - not related in any way of course - but they’re interesting and fun:

Career advice from Dilbert’s Scott Adams

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, reflects on his own career (which includes majoring in economics, picking up an MBA, and working at a bank and a phone company before becoming a world-renowned cartoonist) and gives his thoughts on what it takes to develop a successful career.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy…

10 reasons to throw away your cell phone

Okay, so I’m already predisposed to this idea, but even if you like your phone and don’t think you can live without it, read the list. My favorite reason:

It encourages stupid people to become a public menace
Forget about whether talking on cellphones while driving should be illegal: the fact remains that it is stupid. I know that you are perfectly capable of the mental gymnastics required for all this — you are a hypercephalic Gadget Lab reader — but it’s best that you stop now, so as not to encourage lesser minds to attempt similar feats. Some are now being caught texting while driving. Just pull the car over, for heaven’s sake!

Worldclock

My brother’s wife Sarah sent me this link. This clock tracks the world population in real time in addition to a host of other really interesting things. Did you know, for example, that bicycle production out paces car production by 3 to 1 globally? Cool.

10 free trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. The only catch is that you have to join the Foundation for $10. So the trees are really a dollar a piece, not bad for flowering dogwoods, redbuds and golden rain trees.

Motivation

I did the math today and realized that, thanks to the mandatory grading curve, only 6-10 people in my Criminal Law class will receive an A. Another 20 or so will get Bs. The rest will fall out somewhere below that. I can’t help but think this fact is slightly demoralizing for a group of students who is used to always being at the top of their class.

I think I’ll put this “poster” on my laptop as motivation for my final week of studying. What, after all, is the worst that can happen?

For more motorcycle-related posters courtesy of the Southern Pennsylvania BMW Riders, read on. 

Continued...

Mr. Picassohead

Sometimes you need to put off a nasty task. Today, for example, I had the pleasure of 50+ pages of assigned reading about battered women’s syndrome for Criminal Law class. Ugh…

Mr. Picassohead to the rescue! Okay, so it won’t sell for millions, but it is really fun tickling your inner artist.

I invite you to create your own portrait and post a link to it in the comments.