Tag: semester

Spring Semester: Week 4

It’s already the middle of the week – nearly the end of my school week. I’m done at 10am on Thursdays, which is great for now but will make adjusting to an actual job environment all the more difficult.

In an attempt to sabotage my studies, I bought and have been reading John Grisham’s latest legal thriller, The Associate. The story is making me want to go into big law and be worked to death to the tune of a $200,000 salary. The character states that if he works 56 hours a week for 11.5 months, he’ll bill approximately 2500 hours. An impressive number.

Of course, actually getting to 56 (or 2500 for that matter) is harder than it seems. Can’t bill at lunch, in the bathroom, or while chit-chatting. I worked longer hours than 56 during some weeks at Ruckus. I arrived to work at 7am and left at 10 or 11pm. I’m not sure what the hourly breakdown between work and play was, but I worked a lot. I think I could handle the legal work.

Aside from the novel, there’s lots of reading about various topics of law. We’re finally getting into actual environmental law in Environmental Law. For a while there I thought it was a trick to get me to retake Administrative Procedure and Con Law. We’re still covering Partnerships in Business Entities Taxation. I’ve got a decent grasp on the material, so its somewhat enjoyable. Wait, that was the wrong word. It’s not horrible. The other classes are fine. I have an Order due on Monday for Judicial Opinion Drafting. I’m procrastinating on that with this post.

Not much else going on at school worth talking about. More next week.

My Last First Day

Today was my last first day of law school, which started at 8:30am with Business Entities Taxation. The professor was 15 minutes late, which gave me time to order the third book in the Twilight series on Borders.com. (The book was actually sold out in the store!) Fifteen minutes late is not bad considering some of the roads around Concord right now. It snowed eight inches two nights ago and the city and residents are still struggling to find places to shovel it. Sidewalks won’t exist until late spring. “For Rent” signs are a no longer visible, not that they were of any help to me when I was apartment hunting three days ago. But, I’m situated now, so all is well and good. I’ll be spending the final months of my law school career in what will hopefully pass for a closet in my future. My room is two long paces by three long paces. It has wood paneling, which no matter how much I strive to move away from, keeps coming back to comfort me. Moving around and living in such a small room has made me realize what I actually need. I’ve boiled down my “necessary” possessions to a few pairs of pants, a handful of t-shirts and sweaters and a coat. My computer and TV distract me when necessary, and the few books I keep in my room are dry textbooks I’ve been required to buy for classes. All of this “stuff” would fit in my trunk, and is far less than I ever took when I shipped off to college. My point: I like less stuff over more stuff. It’s easier to manage at this point in my life.

There is a great deal ahead of me this semester. Mostly work. Some fun. And, eventually, goodbyes to friends and to Concord, New Hampshire. The later of which I’ve enjoyed, but have not taken advantage of enough. I’ve spent too much time reading, studying and worrying and not enough time hiking and exploring. Especially lately. I hope to change that (a little) this semester. I spent an hour walking around in the finger-numbing cold weather today shooting pictures of the city. I plan on doing more of this.

Along with Business Entities Taxation I’ll have Environmental Law, Copyright Licensing, Estate Planning and hopefully International and Comparative Copyright Law. Most of these classes have very low enrollment, which is good (no curve) and bad (more class exposure). I’ll reserve final judgment until I’ve had a few of each of the classes, but right now I am most excited about Estate Planning. It is a follow up to Wills, Trusts and Estates, which I enjoyed very much (read: did well in!). Further, I am starting to see some focus to my studies. Two and a half years in, I seem to have gravitated towards business planning-type courses, estate planning, and some tax. I’ve taken my share of soft IP courses, too, but have more difficulty imagining focusing my practice on that area of law and think of them more as informative knowledge that will help me be a more versatile lawyer.

Besides classes and taking pictures I have the very daunting task of deciding where to go after law school. I’ve written about this before and will write about it again. Job? Bar? Location? One of these things will dictate the other three. It’ll come together.

More soon regarding my final months of law school. I’ve always liked and overused the following T.S. Eliot quote:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning

Law school may be ending, but there’s more than enough ahead to keep me happy and full. I look forward to the challenges I face and hope to have the courage to pursue my dreams.

1L Classmates’ First Semester Memories

– Law has reason

– The cookie lady… being funny

– No time to do things well

– Midterm nightmares

– Our group being bad at passing papers across the row

– Introducing ourselves

– Engagement

– Variety of personalities

– Getting called on for the first time

– Research Report #2

– School’s care for 1Ls

– Contracts and cases involving women

– Causation expert in Torts

– October was the worst month

– Knowing you can survive

– Forgetting the clicker for Civ Pro

– Hard drive dying the Monday before the Civ Pro midterm

– Torts prof calling on a white shirt instead of red

– Exploding rat case in Torts

– Barry Shanks’ impersonations

– Southern kid getting welcomed to “Yankee Land”

– “Small-town Brooklyn”

– Writing down the reason why we’re in law school

– Feeling like you’re the dumbest person in the room… there’s only one

– Torts prof talking about loss of consortium (man had lost his hand)

– Lack of sleep

– Brad’s dance

– Contract professor assigning wrong problems

– Missing first day of Contracts because of accident on I-93

– Acoustics in the corner of the Rich Room

– Overestimating the amount of stress

– Weekly research assignments

– “Thanksgiving research assignment”

– Learning to like research

– Torts prof saying, “You should be very nervous about the exam”

– CivPro prof reciting all of our names from memory

– Property prof’s Halloween costume

– Question and answer from 1st Circuit arguments

– Every moment

– Getting confused by class

– Practice Torts exam – herd of charging buffalo and resultant dream

– 1/6th done

– Getting to take a nap after class

– Lack of decent restaurants in Concord

– Moving around in class to not get called on (according to prof, it works)… the girl was never called on in Torts or Contracts

– The amount of chalk Contracts prof could get on his face

– Missed Research Report #3 deadline

– CivPro map of Oklahoma

– Learning about the Dram Shop act, then experiencing it in real life

– “Slippery slope,” and something about dime and dollar

– Hating Concord, NH

– Getting called on… big difference from undergrad

– Contracts prof saying something about something

– “I see us as a little family.”

– The coffee… “never drank so much”

– “Rotting jeep” from oral arguments

– Enforcement of “sit in the middle” rule

– Now I can finally sleep in

– Getting called on when not prepared

– Getting called on again

– Contracts professor asking classmate if she was a buddhist because she kept making something out of nothing

– Name cards

– Difficulty with writing $750,000

– Free pizza

– Serious orientation… then the Judges were spinning in chairs