JD Law Students Blog

Two years ago, I didn’t imagine that in the fall of my third year I would be sitting for exams in Evidence, Estates, Environmental Law and Land Use in a span of six days, but I did. This is in addition to the roughly 65 pages of combined Note and IRP that came due this month. Oh, and I don’t believe I mentioned the 50 hours put into editing VJEL’s fall issue since late November. Eighteen hours of credits, and the same awaits me on the other side of the holiday season.

No. I distinctly remember telling my wife that 3L would be a breeze. “That’s the year they ‘bore us to death,’” I told her. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be a real joke. At most I’ll take a couple bar classes, but they’re really just taking our money. Law school — what a racket!” We’ve all read that somewhere, right? I think everyone picks that up at some point and the myth gains new life. So it goes. At any rate, that myth (lie) is part of how I leveraged such a hectic 2L against my wife’s limited patience. “3L will be different, honey. I’ll be at home so much you won’t know what to do with me…”

But don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining. I’m just laying to rest the idea that a lazy 3L year is a realistic expectation. Unless, of course, you’re just in law school for your health. Actually, can I let you in on a little secret? It’s something I’ve come to realize in my time at VLS. Lean in a bit closer, because this really is just between you and me. A little closer. Ready? Okay. If you’re not pushing yourself to your breaking point every day that you’re in law school, they really are just taking your money.

No kidding, and you can take that little nugget to the bank. We’re not financing $100K based on the school’s ability to download some “lawyer-bot” software into our skulls, reboot us, and send us into the world. That money spends because your lender (and hopefully you, too) believes in your ability to take a proactive role in your education, to master a specific skill-set, to go out there and practice the law, and to make payments for ten to thirty years sufficient to yield a reasonable ROI for the shareholders.

Of course it’s not easy always to be “on.” We all have those days, those classes, and most certainly those courses that don’t quite inspire us to the height of our abilities. But if you never push yourself at all, you never learn what you’re capable of. I’m not sure whether this whole post is meant as a warning to 2Ls, a reality check to 1Ls, both, or just my having become a rambling idiot after a particularly demanding semester. Either way, you’ve read it, and you can’t un-read it. For those of you who have one, enjoy your holiday! I’ll see you in January.

Today is a strange day. It’s Shabbat in the middle of finals. I don’t work on Shabbat, although I am willing to use my computer (obviously). There’s no work going on here. I’m just entertaining myself really. Anyway, here I am taking a full day away from the final exam freak out. Last night, I enjoyed some lovely wine (La Posta Bonarda from 2004 only $15. Seriously, if you’re a wine drinker, go get some.) Today, I slept late, spent the day with my children, and we’re getting ready to go to a friend’s house for a dinner party.  It’s a strange sensation to be enjoying myself so much in the middle of finals, but this observance of not working on Shabbat has saved my sanity from slipping away into the black hole of obsessive studying/life without balance.

Speaking of finals, some of you may be wanting to know how that went. Well, I’ll tell you - I don’t know. Seriously, I can’t tell even a ballpark of how I did. I could’ve flunked. I could’ve gotten A’s. Who knows? More importantly, it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened I’ll find out in January and move on from there. Actually, I will have moved on already - professors are already posting assignments for Spring Semester. Anyway, finals are no time to stress out. If there is a time to stress out, it’s during the semester when you’re trying to stay on top of everything all the time. By the time you get to finals, it’s time to relax, clear your head, and focus on the questions in front of you.

The tests are long. I always go in feeling fine, and I leave with bloodshot eyes and an almost desperate hunger. Seriously, they take a lot out of you. That’s why I say relax, clear your head, and focus. You can’t magically have more knowledge in your head by going short on sleep and long on tension. Hopefully, you’ve been studying all term, so just put down your best answer and move on. The path is the goal. If you’re enjoying studying and you’re learning a lot of law, what’s the problem? Grades? To hell with grades, I’m here for my education, and I’m definitely getting my education, so I feel successful regardless of anyone’s arbitrary yardstick of my performance. Uh-oh. I better stop before I go on a rant about the problems with grades as a measure of student performance. If you want to hear that, you’ll have to ask.

Now, that I’ve been through a couple severe weather events, I can comment on the adversity of living far from VLS. The first storm was bad enough to close school for the day, so I didn’t need to drive anyway. The second storm was much worse where I live than at VLS. The roads weren’t perfect, but there had been some plowing, and there was some sand on the ice. I had a nice uneventful drive to South Royalton.

Remember that earlier post of mine called “culinary procedure”? Well, apply everything in that to Contracts except that Contracts is a one semester class. Feel free to cite cases in contracts. It could be genuinely helpful in a common law situation, but the legal authority that you’re looking for is the UCC or the Restatement. Either way, it’s in the supplement…not the case book.

My friend who started here when I did calls it Camp Law School because it’s like going away to summer camp.

 In some ways, I completely agree.  Socially, I do feel like I’ve reverted back to high school.  There’s the SBA, which is (let’s be realistic) still a popularity contest.  It looks good on your resume, but it’s no different than the student council was in high school, or even middle school.  And there are still “cliches.”  One first-year told me that she didn’t feel like she had yet found her “group” and was worried about how she “fit in.”  Not to mention all the relationship drama.  The bar can be a real shitshow some nights, everyone trying to hook up with someone else, or keeping it a secret that they are hooking up with someone else, or trying to keep their long-distance SO out of mind while mindlessly hooking up.  I think a lot of people forget that these people are going to be our colleagues and our competition for the rest of our working lives.

However, it’s very different from summer camp in very important ways.  I would never send my kid to such a camp, not even if they were the most troubled teens in the world.  I have noticed that everybody’s psychological ticks come out.  I’ve always been slightly OCD, but now I can’t write with the same color pen two days in a row, I have to wash my face and hair in the same exact order everyday, and I will never eat a bag of M&Ms the normal way again.  I suddenly have this urge to work out for 2-3 hours every day, which adds up to 3-5 hours every day with the driving, showering, getting ready, etc.  And I can’t sleep.  At all.  I did an experiment to see if alcohol would help (ok, I probably would have gotten drunk regardless of the experiment), and even when I’m wasted I toss and turn all night.

 It’s a very strange sociological experiement, this whole law school deal.  You’re forced to grow up very quickly, but in so doing you revert back to your childhood days.

The prospect of multiple three to four hour final exams worth 70-100% of your grade and curved to a B- tends to have an odd effect on students. The week leading up to exams is stressful, and sometimes surreal. In a quest to absorb every minute detail of negligence, the Erie Doctrine, and the Statute of Frauds, students start to forget some basic things: birthdates/anniversaries of significant others/family, how to communicate without using the word “duty,”   . . . how to eat. That’s why I’m proposing that the school create an assisted living group home for law students.

Who would go to the home? Usually, it’s pretty clear. For instance, the girl who composes haikus about Equal Protection Supreme Court decisions:

US v. Virginia

Or the guy who keeps raising his hand in Contracts to quote from the Restatement (Second) of Funk.

The girl whose Civil Procedure notes consist only of an MS Paint rendering of meat and potatoes is on her way.

The home itself would have several important features. Obviously, cooks trained at creating high-calorie, easily consumed dishes will be important. There will also need to be a sound-proof “howl-atorium” for the student who screams “I can see the curve.” And padded walls—lots of padded walls.

So while many people are worried about getting their Christmas shopping done, I’m worried about my friend who has been belting out “The 12 Days of Finals” for over an hour now:

“On the fourth day of finals, my professor gave to me: forseeability.”

The most wonderful time of the year, indeed.

Maybe I should have been studying.

The job search is a full time commitment. They don’t tell you that at orientation, nor do they tell you how all consuming it is at the worst possible junction of your academic career. The 2L semester (part one) houses the appellate and oral advocacy requirement. There you are worked nearly to death and left with just enough air in your lungs to get you through the last month of classes that you barely remember you signed up for. If you failed to read a book on how to get through law school, this is the time when that stings and burns. If you have read “1L” or “Law School Confidential” you will have set up your resume and cover letter templates in the previous year and be left with the daunting task of scouring the planet for jobs that seem do-able.

Ha, ha, that isn’t an accomplishment, because you don’t know what you want to do, or if you could do it. No matter how much pre-law school experience one has, the process of law school education takes its toll on you. You are a new creature, akin to a baby, who has notions and feelings but isn’t quite qualified. You need a job, to be able to know what to do. If you are also an MSEL that is fact that looms over your entire 1L summer, because you were studying when your classmates were trying out practical skills under the tutelage of some officer of the law.

The job search hits each of us in that secret place in your mind where you store images of previous challenges, it tests your mettle and tempers your ego. If you have had success in the past it may push you to apply, revise and apply some more. If you have had poor or worse–no experience, be prepared to wade into the wealth of knowledge available through professors, upper class men and and career advice personnel.

If you find yourself in the office of career services, go into the office prepared. God helps those who help themselves, and it wouldn’t be prudent to assume that they can do any more than God. If you don’t know who you are, don’t ask them. If you’re not sure where you wanna go… think about it. If you find that you cannot quite determine your interests, read a book on careers or cruise the web but do not go in to the office hoping to be sprinkled with that knowledge because the job search is a DIY proposition. They can do alot but you must do the legwork.

A basic job application package contains:

A writing sample

Resume w/ cover letter

References

However, a job interview is anything but basic. It may involve a small measure of luck and chemistry, which cannot be practiced. The tension can make it feel like it lasts forever. It doesn’t. The initial interview can take 30 minutes and subsequent interviews vary. You can do it, I know that and I don’t even know you.

Finally, some parting suggestions from a quasi credible source… don’t take advice from your competition. Block out the bad vibes and you will find a job somewhere.

TDT

for finals week.  Wait, is that not the poem?  I don’t remember.  I don’t remember childhood.  I don’t remember anything that happened before August 20th, 2007.

At least that’s how it feels right now.  I can’t believe how much I have to do over the next 16 days.  It’s so scary.  It’s so exciting.  It’s everything all at once.

 You can notice the buzz on campus.  Everyone looks a bit more tired, stays at the library longer, takes vicious notes at the review sesssions, answers “ugh” in a very exasperated voice whenever asked, “How are you?”

I got to go to lunch today with my Torts professor, which was awesome.  It was interesting to hear her talk about how hard grading was.  Of course there are going to be those who are clearly below the average, and those who are clearly above the average.  But I never realized how hard it was for a professor to differentiate among the tiers.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do.  I came to this school expecting hands-down to be in the top 10% of the class.  But now I’m realizing that I may not, in fact probably won’t, be.  It’s unrealistic.  I haven’t worked as hard throughout the semester as others, and I’m not sure that I can make up for it in the next 2 weeks.  Even scarier is the thought that I very possibly wouldn’t be in the top of the class if I did work as hard as everyone else.

Am I selling myself short?  Yes.  Am I afraid of the realization that I’m not the best?  Yes.  Am I going to do anything about it?  No.  I’m going to give myself an easy out to explain why I didn’t do as well as hoped.

 Ahhhh, yet another psychological issue rears its ugly head in the sphere of law school.  Let’s see, where are we at?  Drinking problems?  Yup.  Self-esteem issues?  Check plus.  Addictive personality?  Yes, but at least it’s going towards something productive.  Fear of reality?  Definitely.

 But, what is there to be done?  At this point, nothing.  I have no time to even worry about exams; I just have to DO it.  Oh, yeah, and send out a million resumes in the next 3 days!

Guess I’d better get on that.

Remember when the title posts were “One week down…”?

 We were breathless, anxious, and nervous - our voices cracked, we jumbled our words in class, and prayed that our neighbor would not consult us as co-counsel.

Nor much has changed.  Ok, a little bit has… we anticipate arguments, we invent reasoning that actually works… we’re starting to get the socratic method. 

Now if we can get our best class outlines done, we’ll be in great shape. 

To be honest, I’m not thinking about exams.  That is sad, I know, but I’m trying to focus on these last few classes to make sure I get the most out of them.

I’m thinking more about what my plans for life are… about my last fantasy football game of the season.  I’m losing.  My opponent has Randy Moss and Tom Brady.  I’m hosed.  My league actually has a “Die Tom Brady” Weekly Trophy for when you are up by 40 points before the New England game, and then lose bc of the terrible duo.  I think its my turn.

I’m distracted.  It’s hard to focus on what I know is critically important for my family.  It’s really cold outside - about 10 degrees F.  Heating oil is expensive.  Our house is drafty, but we have a wood stove… so we try and keep things warm.  There are so many things to think about.  My wife’s job - or lack thereof.  My 8 month-old has puked the entire contents of her stomach 3 times in the past 24 hours.

The high point of my day was at church today.  My daughter has yet to grow hair and we don’t dress her in pink or in frills or anything.  But I got to make a snappy comeback about how “I dress my kid in whatever I can afford to” and the reaction on the guy’s face was priceless.  Call me the grinch. 

One professor remarked that we were a bunch of masochists for going to law school.  I’m not sure I quite agree with that.  I’m not sure I enjoy the pain, but I’m not going to quit and I’m not going to let difficulty to get in the way of anything I do.  I’ve got a lot of pride wrapped up in this endeavor called law school.  I’m about to add another $20,000 of debt for the cost of next semester.  I think I’m going to drop out of the MSEL program because I’m not sure the prestige will pay the additional loan costs.  I’m just not sure I want to be an environmental lawyer.  I care, don’t get me wrong, but I think that crim law and maybe going back into the military as a JAG officer sounds interesting …. today.

Anyhow… a professor asked me what I thought I would be doing next semester in order to do better.  Point blank, my answer is that I’m going to drop a little of my pride and see my physician about getting back on Ritalin.  We say that law school isn’t your undergrad… but for me, its really much more than that.  I eschewed the drug option a while ago… but its time to see if it can help again. 

Sorry about the long ramble.  Maybe this is the truest blog I’ve written all year.  I’d love to blame it on the alcohol, but I can’t afford to drink.  I’m not about to finance booze with student loans.

Oh and December 16th commemorates the Boston Tea Party.  Please remember this most important day when Americans revolted against the unfair taxes being imposed by the King of England.  Do your country a favor. Use google or any search engine to find out what America is going to do this December 16.  “December 16 Tea Party”