I think people who read the Harry Potter Books, especially Book 5, have a fair idea of what awaits them in law school, except for the whole magic thing of course.

1. The insane course-load and schedule Hogwarts students (especially 5th years) have is similar to that of a first year law student.


• They have Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and Divination (if you're Hermione Granger there is also Ancient Runes).
  


• A first year law student has torts, civil procedure, contracts, legal research and writing, criminal procedure (or law) and property.


• They have Quidditch practice, Gobstones club, visits to Hogsmeade, and Dumbledore's Army.


• A first year law student may join organizations such as BLSA, FedSoc, ACS, SPELA, etc.


2. The extreme importance of exams.


• They get year-end exams, and O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S.


• A law student gets semester-end exams and then there is the dreaded bar.


3. The Socratic Method.


• Remember Harry's first day of potions with Professor Snape? "What's a bezoar Mr. Potter?"...


• The first day of law school in civil procedure -- "Can you tell me who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant?"...


4. The slightly sadistic faculty


• Professor Snape


• Your Contracts Professor...whomever s/he may be


5. The annoying classmate(s) who just seem to get it without any discernible extra effort...


• Hermione Granger


• ??? You know who it is in your section

To sum it up shortly and sweetly: Potions = Contracts

Herding Ducks

I had been asked to help out at graduation and pass out programs or something, but when I got there they asked me to herd the bagpipers and drummers. I had to give them cues and stuff. It was fun. One of the pipers said the job I was doing was "like herding ducks, difficult, but not as bad as herding cats."

As I was talking with one of the pipers before the ceremony, he made the observation that there must be a lot more women graduating than in the past. The reason he made that statement was because everytime there was a crying baby and he looked at it, the baby was being carried by a man. However, during the ceremony I only saw women holding the fussy babies, so I don't know if that is a good indicator to say that there are more women graduating from law school than in prior years.

This was the first graduation that I've been to where the graduates haven't been forced to walk in alphabetical order. Instead each of the graduates filled out a card with his or her name and gave it to the Dean while going up the stairs and then the name on the card was read as the graduate was being hooded. It was really cool because the graduates were able to group up according to their friendships and relationships. There were several married couples where the spouses had different last names, but were able to walk together and receive their hoods and diplomas one after another.

1/3 of the way to the bar

So it's official-- I have completed one year of law school. It flew by and yet was so long. Today was my last final of my first year. I have absolutely no clue how I did on any of my exams and I don't believe I'm going to find out until the end of June. Well except for the one old-fashioned professor who still posts his grades by exam number in the library, and his exam was multiple choice so I would hope that is a quick turn-around on the grades.

This semester's exams went better because I didn't stress out to the point of being physically ill on any of them; however, I definitely felt that all of my preparation was not 100% sufficient. I'm hoping that's a good place to be.

Anyhow, it's been an amazing year and a fabulous semester, but I just don't know what to do with myself since I don't have an official assignment until August. I'll probably be a nerd and read some law review articles for fun. Hopefully, I'll have performed well enough this semester that I receive an invitation to attempt to write on to the law review, but if not, there is nothing that prevents me from attempting to write a law review note (aka student comment) to publish elsewhere.

I'm trying to convince my school to add a course in Animal Law (not Animal Rights, but Animal Law, i.e. the intersection of Animals with all the various existing substantive topics in law). It would probably be beneficial to be able to approach the administration and demonstrate that this is an existing, current and growing field of law that is not necessarily filled with a bunch of nut-jobs. I have a meeting with the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs tomorrow, whoops make that today, to make the initial pitch and find out all the lovely dirty specifics for making the Animal Law course a reality.

For the summer I've arranged to visit friends in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend and then I'll be working for the Doctor's office for June and July, except for a couple of weekends where I need to do things in OKC. I'm also going to see if there are any legal profession related volunteering opportunities available in Georgetown.

I'll head back to OKC in August because I am one of the admissions ambassadors. I'm really excited about that because I'll get to be one of the "sage and experienced" 2Ls who helps hold the incoming class members' hands as they try to adjust to the craziness that is law school. However, if I can get a head start on my reading that would be fabulous because I'll be taking Constitutional Law, Evidence, Legal Profession, Criminal Law, & Information Privacy Law next semester. All of which promise to be heavy reading courses and all of which have exams. Yikes!

One year down and two to go!

Expressio unius est exclusio alterius

Law school doesn't exactly steal your soul, but it is very close thing.

As an example: A few nights ago my friend and I went to a bar because it was a weeknight and the only place where the kitchen was still open at 10:30 at night (we had gotten out of class at 9:00 and were waiting in the hopes that another friend could join us). We're reading the menu at this bar, specifically the burger section, and all of the burgers except for two list the meat and all the extra goodies that come with that particular burger. One of the two that didn't list the meat sounded good, but if I'm going to have a hamburger I want there to be meat on it. So I ask my friend if she thought it was a meatless burger since they hadn't actually listed a meat patty as part of the sandwich composition. She made a remark to the effect that she had been wondering the same thing. Whatever, I end up having the Reuben and she has something else.

Tonight, my friend, another friend, and I went to the same bar (this was the other friend's first time there) and she did the same thing. However, she wanted a burger badly enough that she clarified with the waitress to make sure that the burger was going to come with a meat patty.

So you may be asking yourself, what the heck does this have to do with law school? Before law school I would have assumed the burger came with meat and ordered it without a second thought. Thanks to law school I am now applying canons of statutory interpretation to frigging dinner menus, but at least I'm not alone.

Expressio unius est exclusio alterius--

The express mention of one thing excludes all other. So, because the ingredients such as the onions, the jalapenos and the cheese were mentioned but the meat was not, all three of us came to the conclusion that meat would not be included. Because that is so counter-intuitive to the general nature of hamburger-mongering we were all confused. Then once we identified why we did that we had a good laugh, but law school is consuming.Tune in next time for Law School funnies...

Who knew property could be so much fun?

So, as I've mentioned before, my property professor is "constitutionally incapable" of maintaining formality. One of the effects of this is that there are frequent outbursts of uncontrolled laughter from the professor (about some things) and then from us the students (usually about other things). Occasionally, we manage to get it all together and laugh at the same things.

This past week during our Tuesday class the professor called on one of the evening students to solve a problem in our casebook concerning the rule against perpetuities. For my non-(lawyer/law-student) friends the rule against perpetuities is an evil, evil creation meant to confound first-year law students; and the confoundment {did I just make up a word?} lasts for the rest perpetuity for many lawyers--or at least until 21 years after his/her death.

The "call" of the question required that the student advise a client on the issue brought up in the problem. The student who was one of the marginally confused came up with this great answer chock-full of legal mumbo jumbo that would sound really impressive to someone who didn't know diddly-squat and is instantly identifiable as complete BS to those who do know squat.

The professor borrowed a phrase from our contracts professor, "it is kind of surreal when you string legal terms together that have no relation to one another." At this point the professor goes into a Looney Tunes, Bugs Bunny meets "Who's on first?" meets Black's Law Dictionary performance. It was really funny, but unfortunately my writing skills (and my memory) are not sufficient to rise to the challenge of recreating it for you. Let me just say that I will never have the proper meaning of mens rea in my head from here on out.

So once the professor finished he returned to the student and asked him again to answer the question. The student, without missing a beat throws out another unrelated phrase that is extremely relevant to the doctrine of consideration (which is what we are studying in contracts) but of absolutely no importance to the rule against perpetuities. "Touché," says the professor and then moves on to another student.

* * *

Learning in law school requires the use of a series of scenarios or hypotheticals to firmly establish all of the nuances of the rules and the way that they apply to given situations. It is amazingly difficult to come up with sound hypos on the fly. The professors have a hard time doing it, and in theory they know what they are talking about, so when first-year students try it there are some very funny outcomes.

On Thursday one of the majorly confused gave us all a good laugh. We thankfully moved on from (i.e. abandoned) the rule against perpetuities and began studying co-tenancies in all their glorious varieties. One of these varieties is the tenancy by the entirety which can only arise between a married couple. The variety we were spending the most time on was the joint tenancy which has all of the elements of a tenancy in the entirety, minus the marriage. Some of us were having a difficult time understanding when a joint tenancy would become a tenants in common situation and how the transmutation didn't necessarily affect all of the people who had been part of the joint tenancy.

In this case, my classmate inadvertantly proposed to the professor; he meant to create a hypo with a joint tenancy and inadvertantly said tenancy by the entirety. So, the state of Oklahoma now recognizes gay marriage, and Mrs. property professor has a husband that is scarred for the rest of his teaching career.

Stay tuned for more nerdy law school fun!

Pop Culture and Law School part II

In property tonight we were learning about estates and fun inheritance rules and stuff like that. For one of the problems, which has been titled the "spendthrift" problem, the professor decides to flesh out the hypo. The problem in the book read something like, "O conveys Blackacre to 'A and his heirs.' B, A's son, is a spendthrift who accumulates massive amounts of debt. Can B or his creditors touch Blackacre to honor B's debt?"

The professor's version goes, "So O conveys Blackacre to 'A and his heirs' and B, A's son, runs up huge amounts a debt living a proflagate life. B is dating Paris Hilton and trying to impress her... God knows why, and so what I want to know is can B use Blackacre to continue the farce?"

The extended question in the book was, "A decides to sell Blackacre and tour the world, does B have any recourse against A?"

The professor's version, "So A decides to look up Nichole Ritchie and join her jet-setting crowd, oh and he calls Brittany Spears too, and is there anything that B can do to stop him?"

I have to appreciate people who can appreciate how ridiculous Paris Hilton and Nichole Ritchie's fame is. Why the heck are they famous? What's worse...even though I don't understand why they are famous, I have a hard time avoiding activities that contribute to that fame such as clicking on the links to articles about them and laughing at jokes about them. It's 2:00am; that probably explains why this is such a "philisophical" post. I think I better quit before the rambling gets any worse.

Good Night and adieu!

Pop Culture and Law School

The new semester has started and I'm doing great. Instead of the "light" 13 credit hour courseload of last semester I now have a "moderate" load of 15 hours. The maximum load you can take is 16 hours; after that you have to get the special approval of the Dean and pay extra money. However, I am the person who regularly took 18-21 hours as an undergrad. I can handle it, no sweat. Oh, and I'm also volunteering at the public defender's office for a couple of hours every week.

For my classes this semester I've got the sequels to Civil Procedure, Contracts and Legal Research and Writing. Torts has been replaced by Property and then the additional course is Criminal Procedure.

Once again I have to wax enthusiastic about my professors. I am so blessed to have such wonderful and talented professors. My sequel courses have the same professors and I still love all three of them, even after receiving my grades from last semester. =) The two new professors are GREAT! My property professor is a first year professor like my CivPro professor and he is another funny rabid democrat who is "constitutionally incapable" of formality. Thus, his class includes plenty of pop culture references. Apparently he is a "Lost" or "24" addict...I don't know which because I don't watch either show. The references I've caught include "Beavis & Butthead", "Scooby-Doo", and sundry others that escape me right at this point in time. However, I am sad to say that he missed a great opportunity for a Monty Python reference. Bummer. Then my Criminal Procedure prof seems to have practiced law in virtually every state. Okay, so he's only practiced in four, but that seems like a lot. I think he is extremely funny and should take his act on the road, but stand-ups aren't typically subtle or nuanced in their jokes like he is. However, he is a Saturday Night Live watcher and regularly includes applicable references to appropriate skits in class.

Today my CivPro professor referenced The Godfather part II; unfortunately, I don't believe I've ever seen it so it went over my head. Last semester he was prone to boy band bashing (we had a case where one of the party's names was Hanson) and referencing R&B groups from the early nineties.

I have to say that I enjoy the references to pop culture because it makes class a) more fun, b) humanizes the talking head at the front of the classroom, and c) injects a little of the otherwise unknown outside world into my daily existence.

As the last part of this update our grades came out this week. On my personal scale of acceptable/adequate (average), satisfactory (slightly above average), happy (above average) & ecstatic (freakishly high) I'm pleased to report that I'm borderline satisfied/happy. For my classmates, please know that the scale only has a loose correlation to grade points; it includes external factors such as goal-setting, study habits and overall well-being. It would have been straight happy except for my contracts grade, but I goofed somewhere. I'll get the exam back in about three weeks so I can find out exactly where I goofed.

I hope all of you out there are doing well. Please if you have the time drop me a line on how your life is going because I need reminders that there is a world out there beyond Oklahoma City.

Peace out ya'll!

1/6 of the way to the bar

No, not the neighborhood bar, although a drink *sounds* like it could be a good idea.
So tonight was the official conclusion to my first semester as a law student. I took my last final. I sincerely hope that I did well enough on all of my finals to get to continue on the merry-go-round of stress. This is the first time I've ever felt physically ill because of the emotional toll of a test (being physically ill after a test you pulled an all-nighter for so does not count).
I'm kind of sad too, because I won't have the excuse of being a clueless 1L anymore. Now I have to actually know crap, and if I get to pass go and collect $200 I'll have to remember it for next semester's exams. Zoinks!!!
So I'm heading to my parent's house for the holidays and I'm working, but if any of ya'll in C-Tex feel like trying to hang out between now and the new year, give me a call and we'll see what can happen.
Happy Holidays to all!

Enrich Your Word Power: Law School Edition

These are the "big" words my professors have used in the past week.

Quixotic:
1) Romantic- tending to take a romanticized view of life
2) Impractical- motivated by an idealism that overlooks practical considerations
3) Impulsive- tending to act on whims or impulses

"I realized it would be a quixotic effort to give a lecture on the same day as a practice exam." ~ Prof. O'Shea

Panacea:
Supposed cure for all diseases or problems"It almost seems the writers [of sec. 87 RST 2d Contracts] thought this was the ultimate panacea." ~Prof. Dillon (I may have remembered this one out of context)

All the remaining words came from Prof. Morgan as we were discussing contributory negligence, assumption of risk and strict liability. I'll leave it to your imagination to determine the context ; )

Solipsism:
Belief in self as only reality
The belief that the only thing somebody can be sure of is that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything else is impossible

Panoply:
1) full array—an impressive and magnificent display or array of something
2) full ceremonial dress—ceremonial dress with all the necessary accessories
3) full armor—a full suit of armor and equipment for a warrior
4) protective covering—a covering that protects something

Demagoguery:
The character, behavior, tactics, or rhetoric of a demagogue
1) emotive dictator—a political leader who gains power by appealing to people's emotions and prejudices rather than their rationality
2) popular leader in ancient times—in ancient times, a popular leader who represented the ordinary people

Approbation:
1) expression of approval—approval, consent, or appreciation
2) official sanction—the official approving, authorizing, or sanctioning of something

So now that I'm a few words richer I will sign out.

Take Care Ya'll!!

Jackass

Unfortunately, I'm not referring to the movie. Yes, ladies (and gentlemen) I am a Jackass, but not the kind that gets lots of money for doing stupid shit in front of a movie camera. It's more along the lines of, "wow, she can be STUPID."

So the latest episode to remind me of this oft-ignored part of my personality was my tryout for the mock trial team at school. For some reason I had the bright idea to try out for the mock trial team. I don't know where this idea came from; I just happen to be pretty sure it wasn't mine orginally.

The tryout entails crafting an opening statement and presenting it to the coaches of the team. I've never been to a trial. I don't know what an opening statement is other than it happens somewhere near the beginning of the trial. At least that is what I am assuming since it is called an "opening statement."

So I download the fact pattern. It's a hundred and twenty pages of rules, court papers and depositions from a products liability suit. I'm a first year law student. Not a single one of my classes has touched on products liability yet, but I press forward in a misguided little train that could sort of way. "I think I can, I think I can."

Then to make my life a little bit harder I decide to try out as the defendant of the big bad corporation that really didn't have a defective product (just a stupid consumer) but it's hard to create jury sympathy when david is only asking goliath for $500K.

We'll just say my presentation tanked. It was like that first date in the movie Hitch. It was awful; I metaphorically kicked my Torts professor in the jaw. I think the last speech I gave that was that bad was my first informational speech in junior high.

Then to make this bad speech even worse; I used words with four syllables or more. Apparently this is a major faux pas. Unfortunately when I get flustered it's hard for me to remember the KISS principle and so all these "big" words slip out. I can't help it. I think that I am going to defenestrate my visual aids. Look it up!!! Defenestrate is a great word!

So, yeah, I'm a jackass. Nothing new there!

As a side note: CONGRATULATIONS Camel!!! You're going to NYC! I am so, so, so excited for you!!!!

Peace Out Ya'll!