Sigh

And somedays, law school is hell.

I woke up to darkness and rain at 7:30 in the morning.

And that was the highlight of my day.
Enough said.

The Joys of Lex

Somedays I think law school is like Christina-heaven.

I love walking through the manicured lawns to school, gazing at classical architecture along the way, smelling the musty air of decaying leaves.

I love listening to the lectures, feeling mental cogs churning and synapses crackling, analyzing ideas to death.

I love being with my classmates, all of whom, surprisingly, I really, really, genuinely like, joking about legal doctrines like nerdy guild members and admiring their acumen.

And I love the myriad events and clubs and activities open to one and all, which include student improv comedy, Athenian murder trials replete with togas, and the ever ubiquitous bar gatherings.

But, please don't misunderstand. These halcyon days of euphoric bliss are few and far between. Indeed, I think they're so rare because they are directly correlated to how prepared for class I feel!

The Corridor of Fear

This is the corridor of fear.

It is a path that runs in front of the law school library (the building with the columns in the picture) and it leads me to the rest of the law school campus. I walk down this path everyday and my stomach does a little flip everytime (ok, maybe flip is too tame, it's more like a congo-line dance).

I know it is only my nearsightedness that makes me anxious when I walk down this path that leads me to class, but it's real adrenaline, all the same. Everyday I feel stresed out and unprepared. I can't ever quite finish my reading assignments and don't really understand or remember the principles taught the day before.

And so I drag myself to class with an act of sheer will, knowing that I will be called on by professors and humiliated in front of peers. Nary a day goes by that I am not humbled. My classmates all seem to be quicker and saavier than yours truly to the point where I am starting to feel like "Watson" to 79 "Sherlock Holmses".

But I call it the corridor of fear for yet another reason entirely.

If you look carefully at the picture, you will see that it is lined with oak trees. There are at least 8 giant, beautiful oak trees that are a source of great terror to me whenever I have to walk under them.

Coming from a land of evergreens, I didn't know that oak trees were a thing to be feared until one day I saw a girl walking in front of me suddenly grab her head and say, "What the f*ck?! That hurt!" Her friend laughed and said, "You got hit by an acorn!"

I've never seen a real-life acorn until I moved out East, but they are really quite big! About the size of a big gumball. Imagine the pain one of these things could cause falling on your head from fifteen feet high! Walking along the corridor lined with oaks feels like playing Russian roulette with your skull.

But now that Fall is almost over and most of the acorns and leaves have already dropped, I think I'm safe until next year.

Wish I could say the same about classes.

A peek behind the veil

Sometimes learning the law can be quite frustrating because legal words don't mean what you think they ought to.

My casebook gives a witty example of this when it says:

"...the title 'parol evidence rule' is about as descriptive as 'Holy Roman Empire,' which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

Law really is its own little world.

Caveat Reader

Let the reader beware:
What you are about to read may just be the worst legalese ever written in the history of Western jurisprudence. Not because it's complicated, but because it hurts.

The following case is written by a judge that needs to be held in contempt of court for his horrible, horrible sense of humor (I am paraphrasing, but the quoted portions are from the bad jduge). :

Stambovsky v. Ackley

The plaintiff, Mr. Stambovsky bought a huge victorian house from the defendant, Ms. Ackley. But soon after the deal, Mr. Stambovsky heard a nasty rumor that Ms. Ackley's house was haunted! In fact, the whole neighborhood believed the house was haunted and Reader's Digest even wrote an article on it once. Needless to say he wants to back out of the deal now.

So Mr. Stambovsky is suing Ms. Ackley in order to get his money back. Mr. Stambovsky should get his money back, but not because of any fraudulent misrepresentation on the part of Ms. Ackley.

(And here is where the nauseous prose begins) "While in pursuit of a legal remedy for fraudulent misrepresentation against the seller, the plaintiff hasn't a ghost of a chance, I am nevertheless moved by the spirit of equity to allow the buyer to seek rescission of the contract of sale."

And the opinion goes on and on with the horrible ghost puns. Can't you just imagine some old white-haired judge chuckling at himself in his chambers as he writes his opinion, thinking, "I'm a funny chap, I could've been a comedian. Who says law is dry and boring? Just wait till law students read this. They'll be laughing out of their chairs."

And sadly enough, I actually did think this opinion was funny.

Christina Gets Protein, Still Lacks Nerves

This was a good week for a starving student, all in all.

I got to eat sirloin tips with onion rings and mashed potatoes twice this week. And the best part was, it was free! Oh and smoked salmon and quiche and wine. How can this be? The school gives money to professors so they can take students out to lunch atleast once a semester.

I went out to lunch with Prof. S and Prof. H this week. There was a group of us students, and we got to chit chat etc. It was nice. But how much can you really get to know another person in just an hour or two? Not much. But I ate good.

Since our semester is effectively over in just about 3 weeks, I wanted to shake the profs' hands and thank them for their teaching and tell them I really enjoyed their classes. But I didn't. I lost my nerve. I didn't want to look like a cheesy pansy in front of my classmates (but I am a cheesy pansy!) so I let the opportunity slip me by.

But having been a teacher before, myself, I know how much it means to a teacher to hear encouragement. And you hardly ever hear it. You always hear about it if someone doesn't like what you're doing...but you never get to hear praise. Teachers are people too. Even law professors need to be told they did a good job.

Maybe I'll do it privately on the last day of class.

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

Here is further evidence of the hilarity that is Prof. H. Our class wants to put him on the front of our section T-shirt and some very memorable quotes of his on the back. Now keep in mind, these are verbatim quotes said in class!


Everything I Need to Know About Law I Learned From Prof. H:

On Discovery: Please tell us your entire sexual history. Beginning, from, when it began.

On Jurisprudence: "Would you dismiss the case? You would? You guys are too harsh. Screw you guys."

On Appellate Review: De novo means We disagree. Abuse of discretion means we REALLY, REALLY disagree a LOT.

On Courage: I'm not scared of you Schary (We have a classmate named Ms. Schary).

On Ethics: It's like the square root of negative one, can't get my head around it. Ask an esthetician, or an ethecizer.

On Bargaining: You wanna know what my final answer is? Zero. Zero, plus an expletive that the court will not permit me to make!

On Modesty: That's a stupid answer Mr. Steinberg. All of you should learn to call yourself an idiot.

On Jurisdiction: Attaching the property after the suit? Do you have any idea like how not in rem that is?

On Telling the Truth: Ok Mr. Lacey, you got me. You caught me. So sue me, I lied!

The Wierd Ones

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for kooky teachers.

In highschool, it was Mr. Wilson, who referred to himself as: The Wilson. The corpulent balding man of sixty still lived with his mother, wore a green labcoat to class everyday and made us all sew stuffed moles for Avogadro's Birthday. (ha ha ha, get it? A "mole" of any element has Avogadro's number amount of atoms in it...get it? Oh, nevermind.) It was like "bring your teddy bear to school" day and "Holloween" all rolled into one since we dressed up our moles with wacky costumes and had a contest and candy.

In college I came to love Prof Leslie Threatte, another over sixty round fellow who still lived with his mother and rhapsodized about Classical Greek poems. He also referred to himself in the third person as "L. Threatte." For example: "L. Threatte would rather that accent be on the penultimate syllable since it would lend more comedy to the line. But who is L. Threatte to question Aristophanes?"

And now, in law school I have Prof. H. The class loves him. He's quite a departure from my previous favorite teachers, being younger, in good trim shape, and not living with his mother. But he looks funny and says wierd things nevertheless.

Yesterday in class, he was belaboring how an angry plaintiff wanted to get money out of a certain defendant who fled to another state to escape the lawsuit. "What's the plaintiff to do?!" bellowed Prof. H. (he loves to yell). "Should he drive all the way to Missouri to seize his assets?!" And as he said "seize his assets" he put out both his hands and did a kind of grabbing action as if squeezing a pair of imaginary ummm... "oranges"...if you get my drift.

The entire class could NOT stop laughing. With a look of great annoyance on his face, Prof. H. waited for the laughter to die down and said:

"Oh, gosh. I'm so glad I decided not to teach third graders. They're so immature. I get to teach serious law students." As he spoke he rolled his eyes in disgust, all the while garnering more laughter from the class.

Let's him and you fight!

Law school is starting to feel, among other things, like a kick-down, drag-in, all-out fight. Our professors are always telling us to argue (the legal counterpart to fighting) with each other.

It's like some kind of academic throw-back to the most primitive instincts of man which have led to such unsavory recreational activities such as cock-fighting and bear-baiting.

But our professors love it. Their legal blood-lust seems to be insatiable.

In class after class, we hear this typical professorial goading:

"Suppose you were the plaintiff's lawyer. Mr. Chen, what would your best argument be?"
(prof rubs his hands together)
(Student says something)
"Ok, good, then Ms. Craw, how would you counter that?"
(prof salivates)
(Ms. Craw says something).
"And then what would you say to that Mr. Chen?"
(prof's eyes gleam)
Etc...

Back and forth the verbal tennis match goes. Brains churning, arguments forming. An endless litany of he argued, she argued.

And that is what good lawyers are supposed to do. That is how they think. That is the backbone of American Jurisprudence: The Adversarial System. (You know, that's not the way they do it in Europe). But it's a time-honored tradition which, as Prof. H reminds us, goes all the way back to the "ye olde adversarial system" of jousting in King Arthur's court.

But alas for me, I am a lover, not a fighter. I'm a peacemaker. I'm a merger, a synthesizer, a "why can't we all just get along" kind of gal. When I hear an argument my first thought is not: How can I shoot that down and utterly discredit it? It's usually more along the line of: Hmmm...that's interesting...I think that person has a valid point.

Needless to say, this non-confrontational attitude is not serving me well in law school. It's like putting a dove in the ring with an angry cock. Watch out. Carnage and bloody massacre. Trust me, my in-class performances are not pretty. They're a massacre. Pure, bloody, rated-X for violence, massacre.

The End Game

Now that it's November, law school has shifted to another gear.

It's time for my end game.

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, law school is like war. In war, you always need an endgame. You've fought your battles, you've disciplined the troops, you've looked the enemy in the eye, and now, it is time to strategize your final victory.

But what, you may ask, is the "victory" of law school?

Those of you pure in heart and soul may think that the goal is general wisdom and learning. Well, it's not. The sweet victory of law school is pure and simple. It is as basic as your first grammer school lesson, when you sat on rickety wooden chairs, colored innocently out of the lines, and sniffed paste...it's an "A."

Call me a cynic, but that is the goal. That is a touchdown. That is the prize.

Now, this coveted prize is exceptionally hard to attain because that is the way the "system" has set it up to be. All exams are curved and only maybe 10% of students will get an A in any given class.

The way is narrow. The path is steep. The competition is fierce. But I have a plan. Yes, you always need a plan.

Of course I won't bore you with the details of my little strategy...but suffice it to say, it's going to be very expensive in terms of time. In a war there is always sacrifice. And in order to really put this baby into action I need to sacrifice my discretionary time. That means less TV, less internet surfing, and no more shopping. If I were wise, I'd cut out TV altogether...hmmm.

That would be tough...
I do love my shows...

But I should suck it up! This is war!