To the Law Review Write-On...

...here's what I have to say:

Schadenfreude Strikes Again

From a comment on another blog (click here for many colorful law-bloggy comments)

"I hope you avaricious, credential-obsessed schmucks go all lord of the flies on each other, because I’m less of a man than I wish to be and I can’t help the schadenfreude."

In my capacity as a 2L at an upper second-tier school, I hereby join this opinion in full.

Hi Bob.

Another Visual Metaphor for Law School

That's one of the orcs from the Lord of the Rings movies if you didn't already know.

The Obligatory "Realizations After Year X of Type of School Y"

I'll preface this post with two apologies to our enormous throng (which isn't as dirty as it sounds) of readers. First, I'm sorry I've only posted something like twice in the last month. Between working in the library and everyone being out of town, I just don't have anything major to write. Second, I would like to apologize to a particular reader, our resident Friendly Investment Banker. This post (and probably a lot of future ones) are likely to be less angsty than you want them to be. I've reached the nirvana of not really giving a shit about law school anymore. After a year of drama and BS, I've come to realize that the law school and legal employment systems treat most students students like garbage most of the time, and I just don't care anymore.

Some might say this amounts to passive acceptance of the same old BS and the perpetuation of the same system we've been bitching about for a while now. I say it's an enlightened state of mind.

1. The first major aspect of "the system" that everyone hates is grades. Grades mean absolutely nothing about the person who gets them except as an indicator of how good that individual is at writing law school exam answers. Note: this is not equivalent to being intelligent, knowledgeable, or even a good writer...in fact, being good at answering some exams may indicate the exact opposite of those positive qualities. The only people who think they really do mean something about anyone have anchored their identities squarely to their "academic success" which is defined by grades, not by actual intellect or knowledge. One student in our class actually told another student that his opinion about a question was less valid than hers because she was ranked higher than him. We've all been guilty of judgments about ourselves and others like this at one point or another and probably will be again in the future. High grades do provide some sense of validation to all the work and the associated stress we go through in our academic careers. However, when one starts believing that grades are determinative of intelligence, academic ability, and overall self-worth, it plows right through the line between healthy reinforcement and simple, ironic arrogance. There are entirely too many people in my class on the wrong side of this line.

2. The second systemic feature that burns a lot of people is the summer job search. At some point I realized that first year students in most parts of the country don't even HAVE a summer job search because no one hires first year clerks. It also became clear that employers care more about grades (and not even the ones relevant to clerking, like Legal Writing) than interpersonal skills, professional experience, or interviews in general. This makes COMPLETE sense just like everything else about law school. The ultimate insult was when one of the weirdest people in our class got one of the jobs for which I also interviewed, probably because he was ranked a few spots ahead of me just barely across one of those cutoff points they use to break down class ranks. I swear, if I'm ever in a position to interview students for clerkships, things are going to be different.
I also realized that firms in smaller markets have major inferiority complexes because firms in larger markets tend to snatch up the "best" applicants and often steal associates who work at the smaller firms for a few years. This leads these small firms to give ENORMOUS preference to applicants from their particular markets because they are more likely to stay at those firms in the long term due to family, sense of being at home, etc. I'm fairly sure I missed out on another clerkship for this reason.

Yet another issue with the summer job search is that it sort of sucks to be a white male. If anyone says "well, it's been a long time coming" or "now you know what it has always felt like to be (insert previously disadvantaged category)," you can die in a fire. Not a blazing fire either, but a nice simmering fire with lots of hot coals but not many flames. I have never been responsible for any of the previously mentioned historical disadvantages, so I don't think it's right for me to pay for them on an individual basis. We can discuss social policy and things of that nature in a different context, but the point is that it burns me as an INDIVIDUAL. OK, so maybe I dug up a little angst for Investment Banker's benefit. I mean none of this in any way offensive to those who may or may not benefit from such practices, but the truth of the matter is that it helps to be a member of a minority, have a vagina, or both. It wasn't necessarily a dispositive factor, but I'm fairly sure it DID have an impact on the process. Most of the people in our career services office would barely speak to you unless you were in the top 10% (and didn't need job search help in the first place) or were a minority. If you didn't fall into one of these categories and they DID speak to you, it was probably to belittle your resume in a non-constructive manner and generally make you feel like a peon with little hope of success or happiness in this mortal plane of existence.

The last major issue with the job search process is that despite all the previous issues and advantages given to some people in the class (mostly due to grades), very few people actually got jobs through on campus interviews. This includes some people in our top 10% and certainly a solid number in the top 25%. Most of the people who have jobs got them through previously existing connections in the legal field. I don't fault these people for taking the opportunities available to them, but it does suck for someone such as myself who comes from a family without any lawyers who come to mind. Ever...not a single know I know of since my family immigrated to this country as poor Scotch-Irish sharecroppers a couple of hundred years ago. Hint: this is another reason I'm bitter that I have to suffer for what those damn landed gentry did a long time ago.

The overall point about the job search is that I realized that not having a summer job doesn't really say anything about me as an individual or as a law student, and I stopped feeling bad about myself for this reason a long time ago. However, that doesn't mean I have to stop bitching about the system.

3. One of the standard rising 2L revelations is that you really DON'T have to be absolutely prepared for every single class. That's not really the case if you have the 10,000 year sentence former criminal judge as your professor, but it's true for most classes. Knowing that you don't have to kill yourself because you didn't read the footnotes to that tenth case you've read for the next day takes away a LOT of stress. The worst thing that can happen in most classes is that the professor calls on you and you're mildly embarassed in front of a bunch of people who are just glad it wasn't them because they didn't read the material either. A few professors will "adjust" grades based on participation, but they seem to be relatively few even in this first year. In any case, I started to figure this out during last fall semester in Civ Pro, a class in which I barely read anything all semester and still ended up with my best grade in a "substantive" class. The evolution wasn't totally complete until the end of the first year, however.

Overall, I'd say I started off as Terrified Newbie 1L just like almost every other law student in the history of law school. At this point, I'd consider myself somewhere along the lines of Jaded/Sarcastic/Apathetic 2L. The 2L-3L evolution will probably be one of degree more than a drastic change into some other type of law student. In other words, look for me to become both more apathetic and sarcastic in the coming days of the blog...the typical law student evolution, right? Nothing new to see here, now move along.

All Quiet on the Law Dungeon Front

I must apologize to our four readers (including myself) for the lack of blogging lately. There was a six day span beginning last week and continuing through this past Tuesday during which I didn't have a damn thing to do. No class, no work, no required reading, no girlfriend or friends in town who were available to do anything. The only thing to do has been to worry about grades and try to forget that I'm in law school. It was the first genuine break I've had pretty much since last August. Condolences go out to those who started summer jobs the Monday after finishing finals on the previous Thursday. I would love to have a real job with substantial pay and things to do, but the break was nice as well.

So I've been back in the library at 7:30 AM both yesterday morning and this morning. I don't really mind being on this schedule, but damn if it isn't more difficult to wake up at 6:30 AM than 9:00 AM even if I get the same amount of sleep. I'm also not sure why this feels like a different schedule than usual since my section had class at 8 AM four days per week last term. The mysteries of law school continue.

I would berate my fellow blog contributor for his lack of recent posts, but I think he's stuck working what he claims are 12 hour days for a firm close to home. It's hard to envy someone's job when he's the only clerk at a (relatively) small litigation firm. This position seems like it would be analogous to being an effeminate florist with small features who gets sent to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for sexually abusing his 7 year-old niece. Haha, just kidding...those guys get sent to STATE pound-me-in-the-ass prisons. Enjoy, Phaedrus.

Stomach is Rumbling

Yes...that is all. Perhaps eating breakfast 5+ hours before the anticipated lunch break wasn't such a good idea.

Expect more useless posts like this as the boredom gets progressively worse throughout the day.

Well...So It's Summer

The end of first year arrived with the proverbial drunken revelry, but it has departed in a boring and somewhat sober fashion. Everyone is gone for one reason or another. Most people are working for law firms in various cities around the state. However, this should not be interpreted as an indication that anyone in our class actually got a job through OCI. Almost everyone with a summer job got it through some connection related to family, previous work, etc.

Some students in the 2L class are doing summer programs in Switzerland or Australia. First, it's odd to think of ourselves as 2L's. It's also perhaps a little premature for a few people in the class who shall remain nameless. Anyone who actually reads his appellate brief at the podium and yells at the student judges during oral arguments has a good chance of being one of the few people to ever actually fail out of law school. Honestly, how bad does it have to be when the most awkwardly nice professor on the planet tells you that your argument was a "train wreck." Anyways...second...ah, to have money for traveling. I suppose I could have talked the parents into one of those programs considering that they were going to send dearest little sister to Egypt this summer. Yes, Egypt...really. I know people say "bumfuck Egypt" as a clever way of conveying the concept of "the middle of nowhere," but it really is Egypt this time. I'll have to get out of the country one of these days, but it just didn't feel quite right this summer. That's mostly the case because I didn't feel like spending my remaining loan money on a foreign summer program.

Some people are just taking a break and bumming around. I probably fall into this category at the moment in some sense, but it will only last for a couple of weeks before summer classes start and the beloved law review write-on competition materials are released. It's quite nice to have time to actually breathe and not feel guilty for doing anything not school or career-related. However, it's not so nice when your new part-time employer wants you to cover an entire day alone in the library starting at 7:30 AM when you have yet to even check out a book. I'm really just bitter because I have to be here at 7:30 AM...the job isn't so bad. It mostly consists of sitting at the desk ready to be helpful. I can read (leisure reading, holy shit!), play around on my laptop, and do pretty much anything else that isn't loud and/or obscene. Do-nothing jobs are great for about 3-4 hours at a time but agonizingly boring much beyond that, so I hope this all-day thing doesn't become the normal course of business.

Some people are having major dental procedures that will hopefully signal the beginning of the end of years of spending more hours in dentists' offices than anyone except the dentists themselves. Said people are missed very much.

Shit...I just realized that I'm still doing something school-related even though classes are not in session and I'm not working for a law firm. It really is impossible to escape.

Con Law - Part Eins

Well, here we are...the last final of year #1, fondly known as the Ninth Circle of Hell. I'm sitting here feeling overly confident about Prof. Son of a Bitch's Con Law exam. The last time I felt confident about an exam was for Evidence three days ago. Scrolling down to the previous post should tell you how that turned out. I've also developed some kind of sore throat in the last two days, so I've been popping Aleve Cold and Sinus as if it will actually help. So far my brain feels awake, but my body feels like I've been fighting an epic battle with that sexually frustrated crocodile again. Those of you with minds in the gutter shouldn't go there. OK, so maybe my mind went there too.

Here's hoping for questions with at least some indication of a clear answer. Regardless of how this exam goes, I fully intend to forget my name and where I live tonight.

To the first year of law school, here's a hearty "fuck you." Cheers.

The Curse of Evidence

Our Evidence professor has given the same type of exam for years now. It consists of 40 multiple choice questions, 10 of which have a space afterwards in which to explain why choice D is correct or incorrect. There is also a fairly short essay question. This essay question has been on differences between the FRE and the rules of evidence of this state every year for a long time now. He picks a particular area of evidence rules and essentially has students explain the differences in detail. This was common knowledge, and everyone has been obsessing about the subtleties of these differences for weeks. The 2L's and 3L's all assured us that he has given essentially this same test for as long as anyone can remember.

Direct quotes from an exchange during the exam review session on the last day of class in Evidence:

Professor: I hate reading long answers. The space provided will be more than enough for both the short answers and the essay.

Student: (looking directly at last year's FRE/ARE comparison essay, including sample answer, which was distributed at the review session) So you're not going to give us a fact pattern or anything for the essay?

Professor: Are you serious? I just said I don't like reading long answers, especially handwritten ones. If I gave you a fact pattern, you people would write way too much.

We got a complicated, confusingly worded fact pattern on the exam. It's like expecting to get a warm, fuzzy, playful puppy at Christmas, but when you open that big moving box with the air holes, a 16-foot starving and sexually frustrated crocodile jumps out.

I hate law school. I hate the fact that summer interships for two entire years (and to a large extent, initial post law school job offers) are determined on the basis of first year grades which mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except that some people are better at writing law school exam answers. No, I don't have poor grades.

I want to take a hostage. Oh wait, if I do indeed take a hostage sometime soon, this statement might be admissible under 803(3) as a statement of intent to prove that I actually took a hostage under the present state of mind hearsay exception.

Dear God...

T minus 8 minutes until the Property exam starts.

Poll: Should I

A) strangle myself with my laptop power cord before the exam
B) wait for the internal bleeding from the rape I'm about to experience to kill me in about 5 hours

Quick, I need advice.