summer of bar review

The thing about law school graduation is that it's rather anti-climactic. Sure you feel a great sense of pride when you walk across the stage after three long years of discipline and sacrifice to be handed the most expensive piece of paper you'll ever own. But the feeling of accomplishment is fleeting, because you know that you aren't really done with this arduous process until you pass the bar exam. And this knowledge hangs over you like a menacing storm cloud through each champagne toast and every celebratory meal with family and friends.

So I'm now the proud holder of a Juris Doctor degree from a regionally renown law school, but I'm not a lawyer yet. No, the bar exam still stands between me and the practice of law. The bar exam varies state by state, since the Supreme Court of each state has plenary power over who may practice law in their jurisdiction. Most states these days utilize a standardized test of common law principles called the MultiState Bar Exam (MBE), and then throw some essay and/or performance questions specific to that jurisdiction to drag the ordeal out for an extra day. But not Louisiana; Louisiana is special.

Because of Louisiana's unique history, being a relative late-comer to the nascent United States and all, the civilian tradition of Spanish and French law permeate and distinguish the law of Louisiana from that of her 49 sister states. And so the Louisiana bar exam is unlike that of any other American state. For starters, the exam is the longest of all the states, with 21.5 hours of testing over a three day period. Also, it's mostly all essay questions, with a sprinkling of short-answer and multiple choice questions thrown in for good measure.

I'll be sitting for the Louisiana bar exam in July. So my life for the next two months will pretty much consist of nothing but learning Louisiana law. I'm taking the de rigueur Bar Review Course, which lends structure and guidance to my studies, with lectures six days out of the week for the next six weeks. After the course term ends, I'll have three weeks to continue to study the materials on my own, according to their schedule but without the lectures. (I'll be sitting for the Mississippi bar exam in February 2013, which means I'll be doing this all over again come the first of the new year.)

The first week of Bar Review was overwhelming. The second week wasn't quite so bad, but only yesterday did I come to the realization that this feat of memorization is indeed possible. Prior to this realization, I had been actively banishing fears of failure from my mind, but I lacked a firm conviction that I could indeed conquer this material and formulate a sufficient command of the law that I will be able to demonstrate my minimal competence to the bar examiners. (Thankfully, the bar exam tests for minimal competence, not maximum mastery, as is the case with law school exams.)

So I'm now genuinely confident in my ability to do this thing. And that feels good. Despite knowing how incredibly tedious the next several weeks will be, and how hard I'll have to work, I'm sure that I can do it. I just have to accept that the contours of Louisiana law will necessarily permeate my every waking thought, and I will become a living, breathing encyclopedia of legal knowledge. So it goes that, with this update complete, I must return to making of flashcards on the classification of property and the dismemberments of ownership.

2012: so far, so good

Busy. as. a. bee.

Enrolled in 12 credit hours (plus reading & writing time outside of class). Spend approx. 10 hours per week working at the CDC as an extern. Assist a professor 2-3 hours per week. Keep house and home from falling apart. Tend to hubby and critters.

Breathe. Stretch. Repeat.

I try to remind myself to savor the cool breeze of each jasmine-laden moment, because -- stressful though they may be -- they are fleeting. Soon the miserable heat of summer will be upon New Orleans, and I'll be in the thick of intensive Bar Exam Study. Then, with a little luck and plenty of moxie, come the cool breezes of autumn I'll be hard at work at my first Lawyering Job.

So it goes that, even though I'm constantly in a mad dash where I blink five times and it's Thursday again already, I'm trying to enjoy this these last Law Student weeks and days for what they're worth.

The Most Terrible Time of the Year

For a law student, exam time is a horrific thing.

First, there’s the sheer volume of law that you’ve spent all semester learning. You must review it, delving into every nuance, and thoroughly comprehend each and every twist and turn.

Second, there’s the pressure. Your entire grade for the semester rests on your performance on this one exam. Nevermind if you came to every class fully prepared, participated meaningfully in every class discussion, and read all of the optional supplemental materials; that doesn’t matter a whit. All that matters is how you perform on that exam, and if you have a momentary lapse of reason, or your mind goes blank in the exam room, that’s it. You’re screwed.

Third, there’s the inherent unfairness of the grading system. Law professors aren’t free to assign grades based solely on the merits of each exam response. No, instead their grade distribution must align with the school’s grading curve mandate. That is, only so many As may be given, only so many Bs, only so many Cs, and so forth. Which means that the professors frequently end up making arbitrary distinctions between papers on the cusp of two grades (A- and B+ for instance) just to comply with the curve.

All of that, combined with the fact that all this studying amounts to a major time suck, makes for an unpleasant experience for law students in early December and early May.

I’ve lodged these exact same complaints before, though, so I won’t elaborate any further.

But it has begun once again for me, and I can’t help but whine just a little. Classes are over, and crunch time is now.

So it goes that my days are spent in my study, at my desk, diligently studying legal ethics, health care law, business enterprises, and trusts & estates. I refuse to become a study zombie, though, so I allow myself stretching breaks and dog-walking breaks, and I get up early and get to bed at a decent hour instead of working late into the night. (Since my exams are at all at 9am, I don’t want to fall into a night-owl routine during my study period.)

And although it's unpleasant, I will survive. I will pass all of my exams, even if I don’t come out at the top of the class. Best of all, I only have one more exam period to live through before this law school business is a thing of the past. (Although this is a mixed blessing, because after graduation I’ll have bigger exam worries, like passing the bar!)

In the meanwhile, though, I’m going offline. No facebook, no twitter, no blogging, and no internet stumbling. I shall endeavor to focus on my exams to the exclusion of such distractions. Wish me luck.

the beginning of the end of law school

Time flies when you're a busy bee law student. So it goes that I find myself already halfway through the first semester of my third and final year of law school.

I remember the day I received my acceptance letter from Tulane. It was during the days of my laid back schedule: the spring of 2009. I had received a lot of rejection letters from graduate programs that spring. On the day the letter arrived from Tulane Law, I was home alone with the kitties when the mail arrived, and as soon as I read the word “congratulations,” I started imagining a life in New Orleans. Of course, I was still awaiting other admittance decisions, and I had no way of knowing what my final decision would be. But I knew that New Orleans was relatively close by, and that both hubby and I had an affinity for the city. And the thought of moving there and attending Tulane was absolutely thrilling. I skipped giddily through the house, announcing excitedly to the kitties that we just might move to New Orleans.

As it happened, that’s precisely what we did. Two years and many challenges later, I find myself beginning the end of my law school career.

For the entire academic year I’ll be working as a judicial extern at the Orleans Parish Civil District Court for class credit. So I’ve been in the courtroom instead of the classroom at least 10 hours each week, doing real legal work which has real consequences for real people. And that’s a whole lot more fulfilling than just working for good grades. (Although I’m still doing plenty of that, too.)

As far as classes go, I’ve made the strategic decision throughout my upper years of law school to take classes that interest me and which will give me a sound knowledge base for the areas of law in which I desire to practice, rather than taking only classes in subject matter which will be tested on the bar exam; I figure I can learn what I need to know to pass the bar outside of the classroom, and I’d rather have the in-depth coverage offered in a law school class for those areas of law where I’ll actually be working instead of just being tested once. So I’m enrolled in Trusts & Estates, Health Care Law, and Business Enterprises. I’m also knocking out my final graduation requirement: the Legal Professionalism course.

Apparently, law schools didn’t used to require law students to take a course in Legal Professionalism. The thinking goes that instituting this requirement might just result in fewer crooked lawyers out practicing in the world inspiring nasty lawyer jokes and committing malpractice. So now the American Bar Association has mandated that all aspiring lawyers take course in Legal Professionalism in order to obtain that J.D. (And, now 46 states also require a passing score on a nationally-administered Professional Responsibility Examination in order to be admitted to practice in the state. I’ll be taking that exam Nov. 5th.)

And that is why, along with the substantive law of intestacy, informed consent, and derivative actions, I’m also learning what it means to competently represent a client, why trust funds can never, ever be co-mingled, and other ways to avoid finding myself in front of a disciplinary committee someday.

I’ve heard it said that 3L year is an aspiring lawyer’s last opportunity to be a slacker (after 2 rough years of schooling and before 5-10 years of hard work in the Real World before getting a chance to relax and take it easy). But that’s not been the case for me. I’m still working hard, learning a ton, and running around NOLA like a mad woman, from home to school to work and back, barely getting enough rest during the week.

Despite the exhaustion and despite the dire job market, it does feel good to be a 3L. There’s a sense of invincibility, because I’m now too far along to fail in this law school endeavor. My GPA, while not at the Top of the Class, will earn me that J.D.; there’s no question whether I’ll continue apace and finish this thing. And while I don’t yet have a post-graduation job lined up, my success is no longer uncertain. I am constantly networking and doing good work with and for the benefit of legal professionals, making a name for myself in the legal community, and I am confident that I will not only find a job, but a job that I'll enjoy. Walking through the halls of the law school and studying in the library, I feel happily isolated from all the fear and doubt that the 1Ls and 2Ls are experiencing.

Which is a good thing, because it seems like it was just yesterday that I was a scared and shaken 1L, reeling from the mental hazing that comprises one’s introduction to the world of lawyering.

And that's your seasonal update, dear readers, for now it is time for me to return to my studies.

{This post brought to you by a cancelled class this morning.}

pro bono and a tangential rant

Pro Bono Publico: For the Public Good. That’s the literal translation of the Latin.

Usually shortened to pro bono, the phrase is now synonymous with free legal work above all else, both within the profession and to the public at large.

Most law schools these days require students to serve a minimum number of pro bono hours in order to graduate. (As it happens, my school was the first to introduce this requirement.) Generally, a student’s pro bono requirement can be met by doing a variety of tasks at a variety of organizations, so long as the work is uncompensated and law-related. Basically it’s legal community service.

At Tulane, the pro bono requirement is 30 hours. I was determined to complete this obligation before my summer session abroad and before my 3L year (which begins the week after I return home), so that I’ll have one less thing on my plate during my final year of law school. The way the timing worked out, I didn’t get to start my pro bono work until last week, and I just finished yesterday, which was less than ideal since it made our final weeks before the trip a little more hectic than the rest of the summer has been. Now that the obligation has been met, though, I’m feeling greatly relieved. (Not to mention super stoked about packing and departing in three days!)

For my pro bono service, I worked at the Lawyer Referral Service of the New Orleans Bar Association. It was a fairly easy job as far as I was concerned, because it required little of me other than a skill I perfected for 5 years at my paralegal job: fielding telephone calls, listening to folks describe their legal problems, and sending them to an attorney who can help them, if at all possible. So it wasn’t very difficult, even though it did require me to resurrect my Sweet Southern Girl telephone persona.

But I’m very pleased with the experience, because it demonstrated for me in a very concrete way the continued need and demand for quality legal services. There’s a Big Worry among my cohort of law students about job scarcity upon graduation, because big firms aren’t hiring at the rates they used to, but since folks continue going through the law school grind, there’s no shortage of lawyers. Of course this leads to increased competition across the board, but particularly in areas like government which used to be something of a safe harbor for law students without impressive GPAs. So there’s lots and lots of law students right now, all across the country, fretting about where and whether they’ll get jobs after graduating. And their worry is actually well founded, because the system which perpetrated $100k+ salaries for newly-minted lawyers is, IMHO, unsustainable.

The thing is that there’s no shortage of need or demand for legal services. (I knew this going into law school, and it’s the reason that I’m not worried about my prospects for enjoying a decent standard of living after graduation; it’s just nice to have been viscerally reminded of this fact during the course of completing my pro bono requirement.) Even still, most newly-minted lawyers are not equipped to meet any of this need or demand for legal services, because all they know about the law is from the classroom and their casebooks. Most law graduates simply lack the real world experience to walk off out of the classroom and into the courtroom if they hope to competently represent anyone’s interest.

And that’s tragic. The way I see it, legal education is severely flawed in many ways. It’s something I hope I can work towards changing once I get my fancy credentials, which I'm one step closer to having now with my pro bono requirement out of the way.

summer vacation, 2L version

Two weeks into my summer vacation, and it's feeling a lot more like summer than vacation.

Things were lovely for a little while: the last front of cool, feel-good air moved through New Orleans, which naturally led to picnicking and walking in the park. Hubby and I enjoyed a lovely date night downtown. I luxuriated in several days of post-exam-relaxation, sleeping late and generally doing very little other than watching the Netflix. I re-read a comforting familiar dystopian novel for fun and at my own pace. And even though I fought a little fever bug and played nurse while Hubby did likewise, it was a lovely respite indeed.

But then there were chores to be done, and plans to be made, and business to handle. Because even though I'm not actively a law student at this moment (attending class or reading cases) there's always business to be done relating to my chosen career path. And having a home means there's always chores to be done. So it's not feeling very much like a vacation any more, even though I'm not punching a clock or going to class. Meanwhile the warm temps and high humidity have returned to ensure that it is feeling very much like summer.

At least I have roughly another month to tackle things at my own pace before it's time to get back into student mode for summer school. Which will be very bizarre indeed, seeing as how I'll be physically on vacation from home at the time, studying international human rights law at the University of Amsterdam and living in a flat in Jordaan, Amsterdam.

Bizarre, but incredible. Even though I have plane tickets and passport in hand (and two homework assignments already!), it's still somewhat unbelievable to think that I'm going to study abroad this summer. I've never before left the US, and I've always been a non-traditional student. I'm not quite sure how it happened that I'm now one of those twenty-somethings heading off to spend 5 weeks in Europe.

But it's totally happening. This is going to be an amazing summer vacation, even if there is some summer school thrown into the mix!

another year, another semester, and another home

As I greet 2011 and a New Semester of law school, I’m feeling quite content, if a little overwhelmed.

With another semester of law school under my belt, I’m now officially half-way through with my Juris Doctor degree requirements. And while law school continues to be practically all-consuming, I know that this, too, shall pass, and I'll come out the better for it in the end. (Last semester about killed me – working whilst taking 15 credit hours required more effort than I could muster most days, but I survived, mostly with the help of vast quantities of coffee and espresso.)

So far, so good with the Spring semester. I’m enrolled in classes that are both intellectually stimulating and practical, and the reading load seems to be mostly tolerable.

Good thing, too, since in the midst of the New Semester excitement, it happens that I’m once again living in Box House, the inevitable result of our recent move to a bigger place here in New Orleans. And while I love living in an Irish Channel shotgun double in true New Orleanian style, my desire to get unpacked and settled serves as a huge distraction from my legal studies. I try to delegate my time wisely, and I think I’m on the right track: the house is coming together incrementally, and I’ve not yet fallen behind with my schoolwork.

Also this semester I’ll be Acting President of the Law Women’s Association at Tulane. I was elected to serve merely as Vice President, but our President got the opportunity to study abroad in Hong Kong this semester, and away she went, leaving me to act in her stead. While this is all well and good, it is yet another distraction which influenced my decision to take only 4 classes this term.

Hopefully, after a few more marathon weekends of unpacking and organizing, the new house will be much more settled, giving me more time to focus on my legal education and career development. For now, though, my time remains divided between these two all-important tasks.

And trying to fit in a decent amount of sleep. So it goes that with this brief update I must bid you farewell and goodnight, dear readers. Mayhap 2011 will allow more time for blogging than did 2010...

New Academic Year's Eve

Tomorrow begins my second year at Tulane Law School. I'm super-exited. I've had a great summer, in terms of my intellectual and experiential growth as a budding attorney, and I'm ready to get on with the formalized aspect of my legal education.

For all that this year will be a rigorous challenge much like last year, I'm certain that it will be vastly superior in many ways. This time around, I know the Law School Drill. I know how much time I'll have to devote to my studies; I know about the Socratic Method; I know about Exams. The material will be new (and more exciting, seeing as how I get to choose my own courses), but the method and the madness will be familiar. And, I know the lay of the land; the sprawling beauty of Tulane University's campus is no longer daunting or intimidating, instead it is a comforting sight.

I'm also going in this year with a renewed sense of vigor and confidence. Vigor, because I am freed of the doubts that plagues first-year law students: Do I really want to be a lawyer? Is this endeavor really worth the mental exhaustion and the astronomical tuition? I now have the concrete sense of purpose that stems from the certainty that there is nothing that I could do for a career that would bring me the satisfaction of lawyering, and the education I'm receiving is most certainly worth the cost in time, effort, and dollars. Not only that, but I have a career path planned already, one that neither grades nor economic recession can derail. And I have a renewed sense of confidence after having worked on real-life legal problems this summer without faltering, something that led me to law school initially but which I sorely missed during that daunting first year when doing real legal work was not possible.

And autumn is approaching. Even though the New Orleans summer days are still miserably hot, the sunlight grows shorter with every passing day, and the afternoon breezes grow increasingly cool and comfortable. It won't be long before the few deciduous trees put on their fall gowns and the sun is barely up when I'm waiting for the streetcar.

It's a time of year I've grown to adore 'lo these past 4 years. Ever since I moved far enough north to see the seasons change (FL only has two seasons: hot and mildly cool, and the mildly cool season is quite short indeed), fall has been one of my absolute favorite times of year. And since going back to school in 2006, I've come to associate it with beginnings, and the freshness of beginning new endeavors, since fall does, after all, traditionally mark the start of a new academic year.

This year, in particular, seems especially significant for new beginnings. For one, Hubby will be going back to school this year to finish his bachelor's degree after an 8 year hiatus. And then there's the fact that this will be the first time in a long time that I've started a new school year without the encouragement and support of my dearly missed father-in-law.

So it goes that I'm gathering my books and getting ready for Evidence, Comparative Private Law, Constitutional Law: 14th Amendment, Family Law, and Environmental Law whilst helping Hubby gather his books and get ready for Asian Religions, Earth History, Poetry, and Latin American Studies.

a 1L no more and other law school news

My first year of law school is officially over. Yay!

The feeling of accomplishment is immense. I can only imagine how good it will feel to get that JD in hand come 2012...

The exam period was daunting, but I survived. No word yet on grades; they'll be weeks in the coming.

In the midst of it, though, I was dealt a major set-back: with two exams down and one to go, my laptop died. It wasn't completely without warning; Mr. Lappy had been giving me fits when powering up and when waking from sleep, so I had been regularly backing-up my Absolutely Essential data, but I haven't yet managed to save all of my digital photos or archived e-mails. Alas, I remain hopeful that I can salvage those things some way or another.

Luckily, my trusty old ThinkPad, with his dead battery and held-on-by-one-screw-screen came to the rescue so that I didn't have to hand-write my Constitutional Law exam. He'll serve my portable computing needs for the summer, and at home I can share hubby's desktop, and by mid-August I should be able to save up for a new laptop. I will not, however, be buying another HP. Instead, I'm looking to custom build with AVADirect, so that I can tailor my computer for doing what I need it to do: helping me to be a better law student and someday-soon-lawyer.

So, with my 1L year behind me, I'm all geared up for a busy summer. I've got my judicial internship, and not one but 2 part-time law clerk jobs for local small firms. And I'm taking a summer externship class. Although summer school means I'll be super-busy, it will be a good thing because I'll start my 2L year with more credits than students who don't do summer school, which will mean a lighter class-load at some point in my law school career. On top of that, the externship meets Tulane's "skills course" requirement, which is a fancy way of saying that you can't graduate without doing hands-on legal work for class credit. By getting that requirement out of the way now, it will be one less thing to worry about down the road.

The externship involves two components: classroom and field placement. During May and June I'll have class 1-2 times per week, and then during July I'll be working in the Family Law Unit at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services. Classes start on Thursday, so I haven't really had much of a break, and the way things are looking I'm not likely to get much of one.

Not that I really mind working through the summer. I'll get some great experience and it will feel good to be working again, but I hope that at some point we can plan a few weekend trips here and there to visit friends and family in Mississippi...

yikes

Let's hope this won't be my fate!

Unlike poor Mr. Parker, I feel I've got Constitutional Law in the bag. It's Property Law and the Rule Against Perpetuities that just might kill me...

h/t to Josh Blackman

mental marathon

The curse is come upon me,

the curse of law school exams, that is. When TLS will test not merely my aptitude for applying the principles of the Uniform Commercial Code, Constitutional Law, and Property Law to hypothetical fact patterns, but also my mental endurance.

The exam period, which began on Thursday, is like a mental marathon. The challenge is to have a working understanding of the legal doctrines and rules we've been learning all semester, not merely in the abstract, but in order to apply those doctrines and rules to new facts and predict an outcome during the three hour exam. The pressure is enormous, not only because of the massive amount of law we've covered over the last 16 weeks which must be condensed into something that is mentally digestible, but also because in law school one's entire grade for the semester rests on that final exam. Nevermind if you've come to every class, done all your homework, and participated in class discussions; it doesn't count towards your GPA. All that counts is your performance during those stress-filled three hours of testing.

I've been working diligently since classes were over on Wednesday. And I'm secure in the knowledge that, in the end, it will all be alright. I'm not going to fail. I will have my J.D. in 2012, and with it I will carve out a satisfying, meaningful career path for myself.

But I can't help but feel the pressure. And I sincerely wish to do my very best on all 3 exams. So, I've been putting in 9+ hour days of studying, and I will continue to do so until May 3rd, the day of the last exam. For this reason the law school exam period is like a marathon.

It's exhausting. And it's excruciating to be locked up in the climate controlled library, day in and day out, while all I want to do is revel in the glorious New Orleans spring time. I feel like the Lady of Shallot: trapped in the tower of the TLS library while shadows of the world pass me by, damned if I quit weaving the web of my study guide to go down to the Camelot that is the French Quarter.

I am half sick of shadows.

If I can just persevere, though, it will all be over two weeks from tomorrow. And then I'll be able to enjoy a much-needed 3½ month break from the rigors of law school.

fare thee well, LRW

Last night, as of 8pm, my appellate brief -- one of the formative rites of passage of the first year of law school -- was finalized & bluebooked. (I've been merrily reviewing & revising since Tuesday when I finished my drafting.) Today, it's not yet noon and already the brief has been proofread, the table of contents & table of authorities checked-and-double-checked, and the whole thing copied and professionally spiral-bound. And it's not due until 12noon tomorrow. WooHoo!

It feels so good to have successfully not procrastinated to the last possible minute. Thank heavens I'm not still writing, which would leave me scrambling to get it copied and bound tomorrow morning. I'm so proud of my time-management skills!

The feeling is extra sweet because it marks my last weighty assignment for LRW (Legal Research and Writing; we're big on acronyms in law school). All that's left for the class, after Spring Break, is oral argument. And I'm not sweating that. Even though public speaking is not my forte, 'tis something I've become more accustomed to through the years, and after becoming intimately familiar with my argument 'lo these last 6 weeks of researching and writing, talking about the case and the precedent will be a cake walk. Add to that the fact that oral argument only counts for 5% of my grade, and I'm simply not all too concerned about it.

Now, with LRW moving to the background, I can take a short time to relax and then focus all my energies on preparing for final exams.

to burn cool and collected

The pressure is mounting as my first year of law school draws to a close: the last major writing project of the year (which counts for 40% of the grade for that class) is due on Monday, March 22nd. Then it's oral arguments, followed all too quickly by final exams, replete with the arduous process of outlining. (Outlining is law-student lingo for preparing a study-guide since most exams are open-note, and to benefit from the process of doing so even for those exams that aren't.)

After exams, we're free to work for the summer, and the expectation is that we do legal work, even if it's on a volunteer basis, so as to get some Real World experience. Fortunately, I already have Real World legal experience, and I already have two paying jobs lined up for the summer. I'll be working as a judicial intern at the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal for a small stipend, and I'll be doing some part-time contract work for a small law office in Metairie. I hope to get another part-time gig lined up, too, simply to expand my network of local attorneys and to add some more breadth to my legal experience. All in all, though, I'm relatively isolated from the stress of finding a summer job, which is a great relief.

As for the school work, I'm trying my best to stay on top of things, and I think I'm doing well enough. My brief is completely drafted, giving me 5 days still for revising, copying, and binding. (We're required to professionally bind the document as if we were really submitting a brief to a Federal Court of Appeals.) So that is good. I'm sufficiently caught up on my reading, too.

But I'm not pushing myself too hard. For instance, I haven't started outlining yet, even though it would be best to have done so. Instead, I'm taking steps to actively avoid burn-out: taking breaks to go for a walk, making time to cook and eat real food, and getting plenty of sleep. I've yet to know whether this will be a fatal error, or if it will prove to be the best strategy.

Apparently it's working enough to at least affect a calm exterior: classmates remark on my serenity. Little do they know how furiously the anxiety churns within. But I'll fight through it, so that even as the heat turns up (literally and figuratively as NOLA says goodbye to winter) I'll keep my composure.

alive and well in 2010

Well, I survived exams and the holidays. Exams were difficult, but I studied so much and worked so hard I don't think I could have done any better for my part. The question that remains, then, is how hard my cohort studied, and how the grades will be distributed along the curve. Only time will tell, but I'll be waiting with bated breath until grades are released at the end of the month.

For now, week 2 of the new semester, I'm trying to get acclimated to a new schedule. It's a lighter load than last semester (3 substantive classes instead of 4), which is a relief, but that doesn't mean I'll be any less stressed, for my classes this term promise to be even more dense and tedious than those of the last term. Contracts II: Sales, and Property Law will both be tedious, and Constitutional Law will be the most interesting, but it will require a great deal of time and effort. (How could it not be with a textbook that's 1962 pages long?) And it is the one and only class for which the exam will be closed book and closed notes.

So, here we go again.

Aside from school, the holidays offered a much needed and welcomed break from the stress and mind-numbing pace of law school. Over the two-week mini-vacation I was able to do a lot of relaxing, and enjoy a lot of good food and good company, the memories of which will help to sustain me over the next few months as I stumble back into the fray of the Second Semester...

of practice, perfection, and patience

Twice since arriving at Tulane I've been told that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to "master" a skill. Apparently, that works out to about five years....

If that's true, I've already mastered the practice of law. I mean, sure I wasn't Licensed By The State, but I know from living in a law office day in and day out for five years what it takes to be a good lawyer. I've been there and done that every step of the way along with those who were duly licensed, with the exception of the Official Courtroom Proceedings...

I'm loving law school because it's school - challenging and rewarding - but I miss the actual practice of law. This is actually encouraging, however, because it has me totally convinced that I'm on the right path. If I find myself eager to find a law office job and again do Real Legal Work, then most certainly law school was, in spite of all the doubt and worry and difficulty of the past few weeks and months, really and truly a Good Idea.

For the time being, however, it's back to the books. School has been demanding lately (as if that's anything new), and the sorry part is that it's going to get much, much worse before it gets any better. For the past two weeks we were busy and distracted with the stress of practice exams. Although they were only practice and not for any kind of grade, to benefit from it one had to put forth something resembling the effort and time required to prepare for a Real Law School Exam. This week brought our first Real Research Writing Project Deadline, as well as the first session of a Career Development mini-course.

And all the while I'm still reading cases and learning doctrines, because practice makes perfect.

But what I miss is the day-to-day practice of law in the Real World. I'm caught up in the Ivory Tower in a way that I've never actually before been. (It used to be, in my previous scholastic endeavors, that my law office wage-earning work kept me firmly tethered to the Real World, but now I find myself steeped in the academy in a way that borders on suffocation.) What I'm doing now - right now - doesn't matter to anyone. No one is depending on me to do something with a piece of paper that will have a lasting, meaningful impact on someone's life course. I'm just reading cases long decided, and analyzing and writing about hypothetical legal problems. All the while there's Real Legal Problems happening, out there in the Real World, but they are wholly disconnected from my current endeavors.

So I'll continue diligently working, in eager anticipation of the day when the Law School Hazing is over and I can start taking baby-steps into the Real World as a Real Lawyer...

you know you're a law student if

you dream of IRAC formatting and BlueBook citations.

Such is my life lately.

a carrell with a view

I have a lovely view from my favorite study spot in the Law Library:

The photo doesn't actually do it justice. In real life the NOLA sky-line can be seen much more clearly from the 5th story of Tulane's law library.

And it is from this vantage point that I watch the hours of the day, and the days of the week, and the weeks of the month pass me by.

My days begin around 6am with a round of sun salutations, even though the sun cannot be seen from within our little basement apartment. Then I pack myself a healthy lunch, and blend up a healthy liquid breakfast in the form of a fruit-soymilk-lowfat yogurt-and flaxseed-smoothie.

After getting dressed and double-checking that I have all required books for the day as well as weather appropriate accessories, I head out to catch the 7:15 streetcar. Sometimes I miss it, and end up on the 7:25 streetcar instead. Other times I'm early enough to get on the 7:05 streetcar.

But I'm always on campus by8am. I stop off at my locker where I stow away my lunch and any reading materials that aren't immediately necessary. And, depending on the day, I either head directly up to my 5th floor carrell, or to class at 8:30. If it's an 8:30-class-day, then I'll be in the library by 10am.

And there I settle in, unpacking my bag and spreading my personalty about the carrell like strategically placed soldiers. As I read and think and write the hours pass by. At the appointed times I pack up and go to class, or go eat lunch in the courtyard when hunger strikes, but then I'll retreat once again to this safe place of quiet and solitude until the day is done and I retire to the comfort of home, hubby, and kitties. (And even there I must diligently continue to read and write and think about the law.)

initial impressions

So far, so good. A week and a day into the Law School Experience, and I don't hate it yet.

Sure enough, I was feeling absolutely overwhelmed at the beginning of the first week, but as the days slowly pass by I feel as though I'm settling into a groove of intense focus and acute diligence. If I can keep up the momentum, I think I'll be okay.

My classes are all great, and if I'm crazy for thinking that, so be it; but I'm totally enjoying this. From Contracts to Criminal Law, Civil Procedure and Torts. The Legal Research and Writing class is the only one that's at all dull. (And it doesn't help that it's at 4pm, which just happens to be the time every day when my mind kicks out of high gear after go-go-going since 6am.)

All of my professors are awesome, and in that regard I feel I am very fortunate; others I've talked with have at least one professor they would rather not have. Perhaps my insanely positive attitude helps in this regard.

The atmosphere here is one of congeniality amongst the students and absolute support from the faculty. None of that Socratic humiliation here. Sure, the Socratic method is utilized, but it is with rhyme and reason and with no intent other than to help us orally articulate our budding legal minds.

And the competition among the students is barely palpable beneath the surface. Sure we will be ranked at the end of the year, but right now we're all just struggling to stay alfoat, and thus more than willing to help one another. From my perspective, the rankings are little to compete over, because in the end it will boil down to each individual's dedication, diligence, and natural capacity for legal reasoning.

The campus itself is spectacular. I feel as if I have finally arrived to a place where I belong. I've never been to a school like this: an old, prestigious university, with oak-lined lanes and old stone buildings. And yet it is the kind of place I've always imagined myself belonging. It's as if I have always known I would someday, somehow get to a place like Tulane, steeped in history and beauty and busting at the seams for all the knowledge it has to offer me, but I never quite knew how it would happen that I might find myself in such a place. And yet here I am, and it's difficult to convince myself that this is, in fact, my campus. In time familiarity and comfort will replace the intimidation and novelty, and I'll feel as at home here as I ever did at JSU.

In some ways I feel like it's 1997 and I'm a freshman all over again, and in some ways that is true; amongst the upperclassmen, the faculty and staff, I'm just another new face. But I'm making friends. The variety of people I've encountered is stunning. It stands in stark contrast to my experience at JSU, where folks seemed to have been pressed from a half-dozen or so molds. At Tulane, my fellow 1Ls come from all over the country and the world, they're of all age groups (I'm not the only married student for a change! And some are even parents, too!), and there's a variety of ethnic and cultural groups represented.

It's odd to find myself here, coming from JSU. There, it was obvious that I did not belong, and I had become accustomed to being the odd student out. Here the situation is wholly different; I feel as if I belong, and I feel a sense of camaraderie with all of my fellow 1Ls. But at the same time, I feel acutely aware of my difference. I'm the girl who only completed the 9th grade. I'm the one who took the alternative route: GED to junior college, and then to university and now law school. I don't have the common bonds that many of the younger students share: high school prom, graduation, moving away to college, dorm life, and so on and so forth. My path has been one less traveled, and yet I've arrived just the same. The differences between myself and my classmates at JSU were both external and internal; here the difference is almost wholly internal, and so it is a different sort of chasm to navigate in order to cultivate friendships. And I'm positive that I'll leave Tulane with several friends for life, which were a rare commodity at JSU.

All in all, I'm completely enamored. This is absolutely one of the best decisions of my life, and the most satisfying, awesome thing about it is that I'm here thanks to little more than my wits and my perseverance.

There's a ton of work waiting for me, and it's going to be a challenge, but one I'll be able to meet, and in the end I'll be so much better for it. So, bring it on, I say.

getting oriented

Today was the first day of orientation, and it stands out in my mind as little more than a blur of new faces walking through the humid August air, like myself, trying to make sense of the fact that their 1L journey has begun. This, punctuated by gems such as this quote from Charles Hamilton Houston: "A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society," which, together, cumulatively served as poignant reminders of the fact that I am on the right path after all.

So at this point I'm feeling confident and good, because if there's anything I want to do in this life it's to help "engineer society" in virtuous, meaningful ways. And much of the substance of today's programs re-convinced me of my ability to do that, especially once I'm armed with that TLS degree and all that I shall endure to obtain it.

I have more to share, but I'm exhausted from my efforts to take in and retain some meaningful portion of the deluge of information which swept over me today, not to mention the physical exertion of walking to and fro all the day long, and I simply must get some rest so that I can be prepared to do it again tomorrow.

More impressions will follow...

battening down

Today marks my last day of life-before-law-school.

The maelstrom begins tomorrow with orientation; it won't be long before I'm struggling to stay afloat in a sea of legal thought, theory, writing, rules, and regulations.

In preparation of the importance of my obligation to be punctual and prepared tomorrow, I'm about to leave to make a test-run on the streetcar to get my timing figured out. Not only must I rely on public transportation to get me to campus on time - a heretofore alien concept - but I must then walk approximately half-a-mile from the streetcar stop to Weinmann Hall. And I don't yet know how long all of this is going to take me. Of course, once I figure that out I'll be departing the house earlier than I think I should the first couple of times, until I feel more comfortable with the reliability of the streetcar's timetable.

Otherwise, I must finish my started-but-not-yet-completed orientation reading assignments, and pick out a "business casual" outfit (as suggested by TLS) for Wednesday which will be cool and comfortable but still make for good first impressions.

Then, there will be little left to do but wait for tomorrow to come and for this Big Thing I've been so eagerly anticipating to actually happen. Chamomile tea will certainly be necessary to help me prepare myself mentally without too much worry.