Some things to remember about law school

I just re-read this post by The Rising Jurist, which reminds me that I am not the only one who suffers during 1L. It's seems to be pretty much universal.

This point certainly seems spot on, considering my own angst over the past week:

Be kind. It must be all the Type A personalities clashing and competing, but law school just attracts jerks. There's no way around it. You will be surrounded by people you despise the entire time you're in school. As for them, deal with it. As for you, don't be that guy. Yes, you're a law student. Yes, you will someday be an attorney. So what? Don't act like an ass. You never know who among you will be the next federal judge or senator or hot-shot partner at the local legal dynasty. So try not to step on too many people on your way up the ladder. Exception: You may find yourself faced with some spoiled rich kid whose chosen you as the next little person she has to crush on her rise to power. Feel free to yank the silver spoon out of her mouth. Some people have to be stopped, lest they become the next judge, senator or hot-shot partner. Your call.

TRJ's advice to 1L's is pretty good, and now that I am more than halfway through it, I think its worth reading again.

In the midst of my first law school all nighter

Let's face it. I like to think that I am pretty on top of stuff, but sometimes, I screw up. I sure did this weekend. For some reason, I thought that the argument section of my trial level brief was due on Wednesday. No biggie.

I went out for drinks on Friday with a girl who was visiting for admitted students weekend.
I went out for drinks on Saturday (and dinner) with my sister and her husband and drank a lot of wine.

This morning, I woke up at 10 am (11 am really because of daylight savings time) and had a leisurely morning of coffee drinking, hangover nursing, and internet surfing.

Got to school at about 4:20 and realized that my argument section is due tomorrow. At noon.

Shit!

I had a basic idea of the issue, but arguing it is another story. I began furiously paging through our legal writing text for some info on how to write this damn thing, and found none. I then stormed over to the stacks and found some legal writing "how to" books and browsed through those for an hour or two. Then I started re-reading cases so I could develop a coherent argument. I finally started typing at around 9 pm.

It's now 12:40 am and I am still working on this damn thing. I have no idea why. The argument section is technically non-graded. It only counts toward our participation grade (10 % of the total). I seriously don't care anymore. Whether I work for another 2 hours or 7 hours, the end result of my efforts is sure to be a B.

OK, back to work. I have exactly 6 hours before I have to be awake for my Property class tomorrow.

I am seriously too old for this crap

I think that it would have been a lot easier if I had gone to law school 10 years ago. I can deal with the workload and the stress of the job hunt, but the rest of it drives me nuts. I don't think that I am a typical non-traditional student, but I still don't always fit in. I don't know about who is dating who unless I find out by accident. I don't get invited to parties very frequently. People make a whole set of assumptions about me yet I continually fight myself to not make assumptions about them.

Despite being treated like an old lady socially, I don't get any credit for having years and years of professional management experience or years of volunteer leadership experience when it comes to dealing with people on regarding classes, clubs and other stuff I do all week. They think that since they've been in law school for a year or two more than me, that I am supposed to "look up to" them somehow. That my experience outside of law school is not valuable. I don't think I act like the "traditional" non-trad. I am assertive though, and people tend to act more passive-aggressive in law school than straightforwardly assertive.

I seriously don't know what to do about any of this. I have tried listening more and talking less. I have tried just not attempting to have friends at school. I have tried to be myself. I have tried being super nice and super friendly. (That gave me a "super" headache)

Maybe I should just give up. I will go to class, and study and hang with my non-law school friends, and that will be it. No law school organizations. No attempt at friendships. Nothing.

I am "The Guardian"

Because I didn't feel like reading more cases for my brief, I took one of those personality-typing tests. Here are the results:

Guardians are the cornerstone of society, for they are the temperament given to serving and preserving our most important social institutions. Guardians have natural talent in managing goods and services--from supervision to maintenance and supply--and they use all their skills to keep things running smoothly in their families, communities, schools, churches, hospitals, and businesses.

Guardians can have a lot of fun with their friends, but they are quite serious about their duties and responsibilities. Guardians take pride in being dependable and trustworthy; if there's a job to be done, they can be counted on to put their shoulder to the wheel. Guardians also believe in law and order, and sometimes worry that respect for authority, even a fundamental sense of right and wrong, is being lost. Perhaps this is why Guardians honor customs and traditions so strongly--they are familiar patterns that help bring stability to our modern, fast-paced world.

Practical and down-to-earth, Guardians believe in following the rules and cooperating with others. They are not very comfortable winging it or blazing new trails; working steadily within the system is the Guardian way, for in the long run loyalty, discipline, and teamwork get the job done right. Guardians are meticulous about schedules and have a sharp eye for proper procedures. They are cautious about change, even though they know that change can be healthy for an institution. Better to go slowly, they say, and look before you leap.

Guardians make up as much as 40 to 45 percent of the population.

What's interesting to me about this is that the other test I took said a very different thing.

People of this type tend to be: friendly, strong willed, and outspoken; honest, logical and demanding of selves and others; driven to demonstrate competence; creative with a global perspective; decisive, organized, and efficient.

The most important thing to ENTJs is demonstrating their competence and making important things happen.

That site said good careers for me would be:

• Chief Executive Officer
  
• Network integration specialist
  
• Management consultant
  
• Politician/political manager
  
• Franchise owner
  
• Corporate finance attorney
  
• Personnel financial planner
  
• Real estate developer
  
• Marketing executive
  
• Intellectual property attorney
  
• Investment consultant/planner
  
• Economic analyst
  
• Chemical engineer
  
• Educational consultant
  
• Judge
  

Go out and make the world a better place kids

Oh wait, you can't afford to do that. You have student loans and lots of them. This education isn't free kiddo. Yep, we lured you here with high-minded ideas about truth and justice, but we didn't want you to go out and actually help those poor people! We do an annual clothing drive for them, and the 10 sweaters law students donate is enough charity, isn't it? Those clinics happen to focus on social justice issues, but the real purpose is to prepare you to get jobs working at Wal Mart corporate HQ.

You want to work at Legal Aid now? Oh no! You can't do that. See, we made sure that you've got $100,000 in debt. Those Legal Aid people will only pay you $28,000. Do the math bleeding heart liberal - you can't pay back that monstrous debt with $28,000 per year! The joke's on you do-gooder. When we talk about public interest law, we are talking about wanting to help the underprivileged - we don't actually want you to take a job doing that! Wake up and smell the poverty 1L. It's time to sell out.

Why the heck did you take that summer job at Legal Services? They aren't paying you a dime. While your classmates are good little boys and girls and took firm jobs that pay $2,500 a week, we are going to have to give you a $2,500 grant for the whole summer so you can at least pay your rent, you pitiful slacker.

After you graduate, if you keep this up, we will try and make the world think that we give a damn with our lousy LRAP. The year after you are done with this place, we are gonna kick in $978.00 toward your student loans so that the rest of the world thinks we care about you and what you are doing. Don't be fooled we don't. After that, you are on your own. I know that we recruited you saying we wanted our students to be compassionate and go out and make the world a better place, but we didn't mean it. Now buck up and get your ass over to Dewey, Cheatem and Howe and get a real job!

Signed,

Your Law School

Tiny Bookstore Manager makes over $50,000???

While I was looking for information on professor's salaries, I found the IRS Form 990 (Statement of income, expenses, etc for a 501(c)(3) org) for the law school's tiny little bookstore.

Turns out that the manager of the bookstore only works 35 hours a week and makes $52,000 plus $10,000 in contributions to his/her retirement plan.

The bookstore is only open for 5.5 hours a day most of the year. The only time I see it as being busy is at the beginning of the semester when all of us buy our books for the semester. I have purchased stuff from the bookstore before, and was always waited on by someone who looked like a student getting work-study.

Here is a damn good question: Why isn't the manager the one working the counter if she is getting paid so much? I would like to offer to take her job for $45,000. The school would save $5K a year, and I would have a job that is likely to be more lucrative than the public interest position I intend to pursue after graduation.

Better yet, perhaps we should just buy our books from the University Bookstore, located less than a block away and eliminate the law school bookstore entirely. I might end up paying 2% more for books, but I would also be able to pay with a credit card and be able to shop from 8 am until 8 pm or so (more than 7 hours longer than I can here).

As a bonus, the school could take the $60,000 they are saving (not to mention the cost of the student help and other operations costs) and put it into the LRAP every year. This would more than triple the amount that they could give to public interest students.

What is more of a social value - law students avoiding a block-long stroll to the bookstore, or us encouraging and fostering public interest work?

Seems that this school is choosing the former.

Community Justice Week

The law school is having Community Justice Week, which started today. Basically, it is a public interest oriented week packed with various events. Today, I attended a panel discussion which featured two public interest attorneys. One of them started a public interest firm which provides low-cost legal services on a sliding-scale to people who normally could not afford an attorney. His part of the panel was really interesting. One thing that I really liked: when I asked which classes were most useful during law school, both panelists said that the clinics were the most helpful, and didn't mention a single other substantive law class. They both agreed that taking those classes with a professor who was a practicing attorney or one who actually had a current law license was the most important factor in choosing which classes to take.

Don't drink the water

Another day, another friend who is pregnant. Kudos to L. and S. ! Now, don't get me wrong, I am happy for my friends. However, all this fertility is starting to make me afraid....very afraid. I can't be havin' any little ones during law school. It seems like there is a pregnancy epidemic as of late. A quick tally:
M. and D.
H. and her hubby
N. and D.
L. and S.
J. and M.

That's 5 couples I know who all found out they were expecting in the last 2 months.

Time to take my pill!

A new Packer fan is coming!

I found out today that my friends J. and M. are expecting. Separately, they are both really cool people, but together, there is just something magic about them. I was surprised with the news, because they are newlyweds, but thrilled at the prospect of the person that this beautiful couple could produce.

J. is hoping for a boy. Right now, the house is filled with women (his wife and her two daughters). While the ladies of the house seem to endure his insane fandom (which is about as fanatic as this guy's), I don't think they truly love the Pack the way a Wisconsinites(and J.) does. I think that he intends to raise this hypothetical man-child to be a quarterback and lead the team to gridiron victory just like his beloved Brett Favre.

Anyway, Improvilaw is going to be an aunt again. Ah, another child to spoil!

A blast from the past

Someone asked me why I have such a strong interest in social justice issues, and I remembered my high school music teacher. I remember him having a huge influence on all of us "band kids." He made being involved in the music program cool. At other schools, I have heard that the kids in band are called "geeks" or made fun of. Not my high school. We explored all kinds of music, from blues to country. We played Janet Jackson songs in the marching band. We played Led Zepplin in the jazz band. He encouraged us to explore music, and to learn about not just what was played on the local top 40 station, but to open our minds to other genres. I loved this. As a result of meeting Mr. S, I am a huge music fan, and have seen musicians of all types perform.

Mr. S also was very fair. He made sure that everyone could participate in the music program. He found a way to get all of us instruments, even if our parents couldn't afford it. We raised money by selling candy bars. That taught us how to work for what we wanted. He also made sure that we respected each other, not only for our similarities, but also for our differences. You weren't allowed to be mean or rude, or cruel to other students during music classes. Those who were had to stand up and justify their actions. No one wanted to be pointed out in class, so we just learned to get along and appreciate each other.

I did an internet search today and found out that his wife died in 1996. That he seems to have stopped teaching sometime in the 1990's. He was music director at the Unitarian Universalist church for 30 years. I discovered that he formed a choral group in 2003. A few minutes ago, I found an address listing for him. I think I am going to write him a letter. It's important to express gratitude to those who were a positive influence on your life.

I am kind of nervous to do it though. However, I think he would be excited to hear about how his fostering of my musical interests have taken me all over the U.S. and to a few other countries. I think he would like to know that I am in law school. (He used to tease me and say that I should be a lawyer, not a chemist, and that's what I ended up doing!)

Results of this correspondence will be posted soon.

If you read this, go ahead and do the same thing - let someone who influenced you know how they did, and the effect on you.

"Secret" menu items at fast food places

Turns out that you can order a bunch of stuff from various fast food joints that is either not on the menu, or that was previously on the menu. This means that it is completely legit for me to order a "Veggie Whopper" again at Burger King. For those of you who aren't familiar, this is a whopper minus meat, with extra cheese. Don't knock it until you try it. Check out the the list of things you can order at the Consumerist's blog.

Pulled in 10 different directions

I am being pulled in 10 different directions this week. Besides classes, I have two meetings on Friday regarding the school's crappy LRAP and how to improve it. I also have another one on Saturday on contacting the alumni regarding LRAP. On Tuesday and Thursday after class, I have my study group for 2 hours. I have a Lexis training on Wednesday after Legal Writing. I also have to try and work on stuff for my volunteer work for an event that starts in 12 days. Also on friday, I am going to a friend's dance concert.

The worst thing about 1L is trying to get your reading done, while also trying to juggle 20 other things. Sometimes I wonder if I should just not be involved in all of this stuff, and become a hermit. On the other hand, I am making lots of good connections with other students and making some new friends.