Summer Reading

Recently, as My Judge has decided to take weeks off for his personal vacations, I have found myself with some blessedly free time.  I have used this time to catch up on life tasks (using loan money for important bills such as rent and food) and do some light, fun reading.

One thing that happens when you inform your parents and other close, adult relatives (like your girlfriend's parents) is that people start buying you books that they think are related to law school.  Having already read most of John Grisham's catalog, I have been fortunately spared that road.  But others come through, and being a law student, and therefore capable of reading for 8+ hours straight, I have read most of them.

First of all, I'll start with the good: A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr.  This is also a movie staring John Travolta and the father from 3rd Rock from the Sun.  My Civ Pro teacher showed us clips during football season when she was too lazy to prep for class.  The book, however, is a decent read for someone getting ready to start their first year of law school.  It is light on legal principles, but heavy on the personal destruction of a lawyer.  The beginning is laboriously slow and poorly written, but after 75 pages it picks up nicely and moves well to the finish.  Anyone with an interest in litigation or torts might want to peruse this.  This is a true story, and a solid piece of American legal history, something I think you should be able to talk about, or at least recognize.

Next, the Just Okay: May It Please the Court, edited by Peter Irons and Stephanie Guitton.  This book purports to contain 23 live recordings of the oral arguments of landmark Supreme Court cases.  I was really, really excited by this book when I saw it on the used bookshelves.  Instead, what you get is 5 pages of background introduction to the case, 2 pages of heavily edited transcript (with interruptions from the "Narrator" explaining what each argument means) and then a heavily edited 2 page decision.  For an American, this book is invaluable, as it gives the arguments and reasoning behind cases such as Roe v. Wade, that everyone mentions but few really understand.  For someone about to enter law school, this book has some value in being a primer for Con Law, and giving easy to digest opinions to practice reading.  For someone with even a semester of law school behind them, this book is worthless.  The arguments are edited so heavily that you don't get to see them develop, the Narrator just tells you, "Here, Justice Marshall asks about the limit of executive privilege."  Then you read "Marshall: But sir, don't you think that extends the limit of executive privilege? Counsel: No, Your Honor, I would argue that it simply defines the outer limit." Well, thank goodness we got to hear it in their own words!  The edited decisions are the same, they might as well just be summarized by the editors, since the chopped sentences full of ellipses don't give any flavor of the actual judicial process.

And finally, the terrible: The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer.  Quite possibly one of the worst books I have ever read. Staring a Supreme Court Clerk, the book starts off awesomely.  The opening chapters discuss the clerk's role in shaping Supreme Court decisions by drafting the opinions, and assisting in review of certiori requests.  The author discusses the power held by recent law school grads in careful phrasing to influence the way law is made for the entire country.  Unfortunately, this lasts for about 100 pages, then it just turns into a crazy spy thriller type, with the Supreme Court becoming only the setting.  While this isn't in itself bad, most John Grisham books do the same thing and I generally enjoy them, the problem is that this book does it terribly.  One minute, the main character is a nerdy law school grad, the next minute he daringly fights off a trained assassin with a fire extinguisher.  The assassin is a great character too, at first he is a sort of weaselly nerd who gets winded running a few blocks, later he kidnaps three characters and a federal marshall!  Also, there is some great whodunnit intrigue that I was pretty genuinely mystified by, until the end when there was a "its all just a dream!" type explanation offered.  Not recommended for anyone, unless you are on one of those committees that gives awards to awful literature, in which case you might check this one out.

10 Questions for Law Students (now with answers!)

Reading through my old posts, on July 11, 2009, I did a post called "10 Questions for Law Students" where I posted open questions to current law students.  Although that post in particular received no comments, I was able to discover some answers on my own.  Now that I have completed my first year of law school, I can answer all of those questions I had, for the benefit of you, the soon to be 1L.


Question 1: I only am scheduled for about 10-15 hours of class, as of now. I am wondering how accurate this is. 
I originally guessed that it didn't matter, you spent about 40 hours per week at the school, regardless.  For a 1L, this is both true and not true.  Your scheduled class time is your class time.  That's it.  However, you will have small group TA sessions (at UB they are Law Scholar Sessions) probably once a week per class.  I really recommend these when you first start out, especially since the TAs tend to share outlines, which as a 1L you don't know how to write.  UB also had "orientation" every Tuesday during lunch for the entire first semester, but they always served pizza.  In addition, there are some law school social or academic functions to go to, you will probably want to go to the "study tips" session, the "writing an exam" session, and  pick a special interest law group to attend (you know, animal rights, international, IP, environmental).


So while on one hand, yes, what you see on your schedule is what you get, on the other hand, there are always other things coming up.  But as a 1L you also will probably study at home, from the hours of 10PM - 2AM, a lot.

Question 2: Additionally, in college I was told to expect about 2 hours of work outside of class for each hour spent at class. Therefore 15 credit hours per week was assumed to have about 30 hours of work per week outside of class. Is there a commonly accepted ratio for law school? 
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Two hours a week of work outside of class! As a 1L (or at least a first semester 1L) you will probably spend at least 4 hours a night reading and prepping for the next day. The big difference between undergrad and law school is that in law school, you can't slack off until the week before finals.  You will quite literally spend 4 hours per day every day reading.

Question 3: And as a follow up, I found that I spent about 10 hours per week outside of class doing school work, the rest of the time I spent socializing, playing sports, Halo and Smash Bros, or doing volunteer and extra curricula. Plus I was employed all through college. How much free time can I expect?
First semester, almost none.  Seriously, see family and friends now, go out and party, play videogames, because it gets really hard to balance your time once school starts.  The good news is it is mostly because you haven't learned these skills yet.  One thing I highly, highly recommend is finding the campus gym and going at least twice a week.  I never did this first semester, and second semester, when I started going again, I felt so much better.  Also, you can socialize, but no more all afternoon gaming sessions, or all night movie/pizza/beer binges, instead, you will learn to meet a few friends for dinner or lunch, because you know you have to go back and hit the books later.
Question 4: I have been told law school is uber competitive and there is no such thing as a study group since no one wants to help anyone get ahead. Is this true?
Yes and no.  Yes, the law school grade curve literally puts people in rank, 1-70, in each class.  Yes, there are some people who will not send you notes if you miss a class.  Having said that, no one is deliberately sabotaging anyone else by sending bad notes, and I have found some really great study groups that have immensely improved my scores.

Question 5: Do professors really call on you at random all the time, or just on days when they don't have a full lecture planned?
Ok, I have written about this a few times, it isn't that bad.  Also, each professor has a style.  Some call on one or two people per class, and they have to know the entire case.  Some professors call on 15-20 per class and just ask one or two questions.  Some use shuffled cards, some use random numbers, some go alphabetical.  You will get used to it, and survive it.  However, expect to get called on, I have never had a professor go an entire class without calling on someone.

Question 6: My college roommate is now in medical school, and he reports that he is almost encouraged NOT to go to class but to instead download the notes and audio recording. Is this the case in law school?
No, in fact ABA rules allow only 5 absences per class.  You will quickly discover, and be reminded during orientation, that there is a direct correlation between missed classes and lower grades.

Question 7: My other college roommate told me, "Law school is no different than college except you have to read every night." Fair assumption?
Sort of, except you are getting older, and therefore you have more and more "life" distractions.  You can't hide away in the dorm and spend mom and dad's money.  You can't plead youthful ignorance to missed deadlines.  You have to start thinking about career choices, and really seriously consider this as the first step of becoming a lawyer.  But you will also find that it is still "school."

Question 8: Take notes via laptop or pen and paper? (I'm leaning heavily towards pen and paper, besides, how do you not get distracted by Twitter/Facebook/Instant Messanger?)
I wrote about this for my school here, but I will just give the quick and dirty: Pen and paper for class notes, laptop for re-typed notes, outlines, and papers.  Only email while in class.

Question 9: At every open house or accepted student's day I attended, or every blog I read by law students or admissions experts, incoming students always ask "What can I do to prepare?" and current students or experts always say, "Relax, enjoy life, spend time with friends and family, do fun reading, see a movie, sleep." Anyone else want to add an opinion?
Yes, do these things.  Do not prepare.  If anything, maybe brush up on structure of government type things.  My summer 1L reading list post has some more on this, but seriously, relax.

Question 10: I am not sure what kind of law I would like to practice, or how I will ultimately use my law degree. Is this going to put me behind? Should I pick something that sounds good and go for it, or should I just wait and see if anything catches my eye? (I ask because I know that pretty much as soon as I start school I also need to be thinking about a summer job or internship, and start defining my career.)
Well, two things.  On one hand, don't worry too much about this, because you don't really know what different types of legal practice really mean until you really get into school and the whole legal community.  Secondly, really, especially first semester, your grades are very, very important.  Focus on grades above all else, and you will be amazed how many doors will open for you.  Beginning of second semester you will have time to evaluate your options, try to have as many as possible by getting good grades.

Help?

To all readers who are currently in law school, as well as those who may have attended fairly recently, I am soliciting comments.  I was thinking about putting together a series of posts about law school exams, including how to prepare, what to expect, and so on.  Sort of a "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to Fail Your Torts Final)."  I am looking for tips that are general, such as outline/ study group advice, and things that are more specific, such as "In Torts, just go ahead and throw out any possible answers that might exist, no matter how remote, but in K, you probably want to stick to the most likely UCC sections."

I'm thinking of focusing on the typical first year/bar tested type courses... K, Con Law, Civ Pro, Torts, Property.  The idea is to write these now while I have some free time, and run them around exam time for all those lucky first years, and when I don't necessarily have time to sit and write original posts...

If you feel like sharing, comments, or email.  I'll give credit...

Internship Update

Well, as noted before I have been doing some research and planning work for my internship.  This week is the deadline of the first draft, and naturally as an over-eager-over-achiever 1L I pulled an all nighter making sure this was the best collection of possibly related materials My Judge has ever seen.

Then I went to email it, and realized that the PDF file is about 25MB, and my school's email server only sends up to 20MB...

Additionally, I already know My Judge's laptop only has the memory to open 3 of his wedding pictures before requiring a restart.  I also know that I need to hire his photographer when I get married (after meeting the girl of my dreams, graduating law school, and making tons of money, so, sometime around 2054).

"But Judge, I swear, it is a beautiful pdf, with bookmarks! and a table of contents! and annotations explaining what each document is so you don't have to read it yourself but can act like you have when someone on the panel talks about it!"

In other news, it is supposed to be 103 today in Baltimore.  I'll let you know what that feels like in a suit.