Lawyers are evil

Apparently during on campus interviews the recruiters from different firms sit together and talk about who they met. Apparently one of the people I had a bad interview with was nice enough to tell some of the other recruiters about it. Apparently this makes everyone not want to hire you. Cause law firms are like the snotty people in high school -- they only want you if the cool kids want you.

I have a feeling I know who said not nice things against me. I think it was the jerk whose idea of a joke was asking if I took a lot of bribes at my last job. Ha ha. I committed a felony. Just kidding.

So tonight I went to a gathering of lawyers and got to check their names off on a list as they came in. As I watched them stand around in their fancy suits and make kissy faces at people, I was thinking about how evil lawyers are... that's when I ran into my old boss. I happened to mention that my interviews were going poorly and she got me another interview with a big firm out near the beach right on the spot. All I have to do is not blow it.

So maybe I'll get to become an evil lawyer after all.

No Comment

Actual email from Dean of Something or other at my school:

"Hi. I'm writing to apprise you that your choice of blouse is a risky one for interviewing insofar as the neckline is perceptibly low for this purpose. It runs the risk that interviewers will find your choice inappropriate and reflective of your judgement. This is particularly true of female interviewers who can be keenly aware of apparel choices they might consider inappropriate. I see my role here as trying to enhance students' success and I would hate to see your job prospects compromised by something as simple as this. I strongly encourage you to make a more conservative choice moving forward.Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions."

Signed Dean So and So (You know, the guy who looked down your shirt today)

And here is the shirt I was wearing (The one with the ruce front -- in blue though - we all know only whores wear red): http://www.expressfashion.com/styles/womens.jsp?groupId=40

Back to school

I'm now officially done with my first week of second year. (We go back pretty early compared with other schools -- I know many places aren't starting up until after Labor Day. I guess we just really get the education we pay for. Whoo.)

So far, 2nd year is both better and worse than first year. On the plus side, it's nice to already know people on campus. At lunchtime I don't have to wander awkwardly around campus looking for someone to sit with. It's also nice to know how different things work. For example, my loan check was waiting for me on the first day because I already knew what paperwork needed doing and how to do it.

The downside is that 2nd year is an even bigger drain on my time than first year. In addition to classes, I have to do my law review office hours, go to my work-study job and get ready for on campus interviews. I'm trying to get my writing sample edited, find a second suit so that I don't have to wear the same outfit for 2 weeks straight and research all of the firms I am interviewing with well enough that I can impress them at the interview. I'm sure that I'll be running around like a nut come interview week -- especially since I currently have 7 interviews scheduled for one day.

1 week left

Only one week of my summer job (actually only 2 days) left. I'm looking forward to the 2 weeks off before I go back to school. I definitely need a break after the frustration of endless research. 1 year of law school doesn't really prepare you at all for doing effective research on real cases -- I nearly pulled my hair out working on some of the assignments.

The judge was very good at finding legal issues that had no answers and then sending me out to research them. Equally frustrating is the fact that every single case I've worked on has settled -- good for the legal system, but bad for me because it essentially means that every one of the memos I've written ultimately wound up in the trash can. Fortunately, the memo I just finished related to a preliminary injunction. It's really unlikely that they parties will settle so early in the proceedings, so I'm looking forward to actually having the judge read my memo and make a decision on the issue. Good times.

Fortunately, due to flexible hours, I've had lots of free time this summer. Here are a few books I read that I think are worth checking out.

"The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" by Robert Rankin
Thirteen-year-old Jack goes to the City to find his fortune, unaware that the City is in fact Toy City, where legends and fables walk (or stumble, if they've had too much to drink). He meets up with detective teddy bear Eddie, who is investigating the murder of Humpty Dumpty. When Little Boy Blue is offed, it's clear that a serial killer is prowling Toy City, leaving behind the titular chocolate bunnies as his calling card.

An utterly original book with memorable characters and a writing style that combines children's books and detective stories with fantastic results. I read this book straight through from start to finish.

"Wicked" by Gregory MacGuire
A retelling of the Wizard of Oz: In Maguire's Oz, Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, is not wicked; nor is she a formally schooled witch. Instead, she's an insecure, unfortunately green Munchkinlander who's willing to take radical steps to unseat the tyrannical Wizard of Oz.

"The Ethical Assassin" by David Liss
Finally, a book featuring a vegetarian assassin -- just what I've been waiting for. In sticky south Florida of August 1985, Lem Altick, a 17-year-old door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, witnesses the murder of two potential customers in a mobile home. Fearing he'll be fingered for the crime—or worse, that he's next—Lem establishes a wary relationship with the likable killer, Melford Kean, who is either a violent psychopath or an animal rights vigilante fighting agribusiness. Some of the reviews I read on this complained that the "social message" aspects of the book took away from the story, but I found the book fast paced, funny and very entertaining. Not the book for you if you see no difference between animal rights and Nazism (as one Amazon reviewer seems to believe), but if you like good books, I recommend this one.

Jamesland by Michelle Huneven
In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz, a motley handful of residents attends Helen Harland's casual and inclusive services at the local Unitarian church. There's Alice Black, hot off a string of bad love affairs (including one with the husband of a local movie star) and living in a house belonging to her great-aunt Kate. The intermittently lucid Kate, now ensconced in a rest home, is still pursuing a life-long writing project related to her illustrious ancestor, the philosopher William James. And then there's crazy Pete Ross, a failed husband, father and chef now living with his mother, a nun, as part of his therapy.

A book about people; the characters are fully developed and I found myself really interested in their lives, even the banal details. Like all of the other books I'm recommending, the setting here was so real that I felt I could almost step into it.

Registration

I'm glad I woke up at 6:45 to register. It was nice to find out at exactly 7 am that every class I wanted to take was full. I am now stuck in sections with professors who are in their first year of teaching (generally this does not bode well). I also don't count as a full time student because every single one of the electives I wanted to take was full. Obviously there must be some class somewhere with open seats, but damned if I can find it.

More law school advice

Here is my final post offering advice to incoming 1L's. Use what works for you and ignore the rest.

1. Use commercial outlines along with your assigned reading to figure out things you don't understand along the way. It's much easier to go into class with some idea of the subject matter you were supposed to have learned than to try and learn by listening to other people being pummelled by the professor's questions.

2. Listen to everyone's advice, then decide what works for you. There will be tons of events and lectures in the fall on what to do to succeed in law school. I got some really great advice that way and some advice that I knew I wasn't going to take. (For example: I had a professor tell me that I wasn't going to succeed in law school unless I typed out briefs, but I stuck to the multi-colored highlighter system because I knew that that was what would work for me.) I'm sure that every piece of advice I decided wouldn't work for me, worked just fine for someone else. It's all about knowing yourself.

3. Do things besides studying. It will make you feel like a real human being.

4. During study period, make an exam study schedule. Decide what class or classes you're going to study for each day and what you plan to do (i.e. take practice exam or look at flashcards). You don't have to stick to it exactly, but it helps to insure that you study an equal amount of time for each class. (Don't make the mistake of studying for a class until the exam then moving on to the next class unless your exams are perfectly evenly spaced).

5. If you sign up for Barbri, do so at the beginning of the semester so you can use their study materials for exams. At my school, we had multiple choice on each exam, but most professors didn't have available practice questions. I found that the Barbri exam software was very helpful in that respect. If you don't want to sign up for Barbri, then just ignore this. There's really no reason you have to.

6. Actually write out practice exams. If the professor has sample answers available, compare them to what you wrote. Professors tend to have a style of exam answer that they prefer-- by modeling your answer after the sample answers, you're insuring that your exam is in their preferred format.

7. Don't wait til study period to put together your outlines. Outlines are a good way to put together all of the information in a class and figure out what you don't understand. If you don't realize that you have no idea what the parol evidence rule is until a day before the exam, its probably too late for you. If you don't have your outlines done by the beginning of study period, use someone else's outline or a commercial outline and start doing practice exams. Having the perfect outline will not translate to a great exam grade unless you have lots of time to study it.

8. Figure out your professors buzzwords. There are certain things that your professor will bring up over and over again. (For my torts professor, it was public policy arguments. For my crim law professor, it was figuring out which mens rea applied to each part of the statute. She really liked the phrase: "What does this say about our criminal justice system?") Those things will most likely appear on the exam. Once you've figured out what they are, prepare for those types of questions. Slip in your professor's favorite phrases or methods of analysis if they are relevant.

9. Resist the urge to compare yourself to other people. Just because the guy next to you has a 50 page outline done a month into the semester doesn't mean he is going to do better than you. He could have written 50 pages of absolute garbage. I chose to just be optimistic and believe I could do well. After all, in a bell curve, someone has to get a good grade. Why not me?

10. Don't get carried away with your outline. An outline helps you condense the material so you can actually learn it for the exam. If your outline is way too long to memorize, your just going to have to make a shorter outline, which takes more time. I kept my outlines to 30 pages or less because I knew I could reasonably memorize that much information. If you can realistically memorize more, than go for it.

Current mood = angry

I just received a rather disappointing scholarship offer from my school. Fortunately, there's still enough time to get my transfer applications together. (I'm applying to SoCal schools only -- sorry guys. But with a better name school on my resume, I'm sure I'll be able to move back East after school. Only 2 more years!)

Best things about my summer job so far

1. I'm an extern. That must be more impressive than an intern right? Why else would they make up a new word for it?

2. I get to sit in on conferences and hearings that no one else gets to see. Last week I got to sit in on a settlement conference and tell the defense lawyers involved how much I thought the jury would award the plaintiff. It was pretty cool. (Of course, the defense attorneys dismissed everything I had to say as foolish, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, I was right and they were wrong. So there.)

3. A real live judge reads what I write and uses it to make rulings. It's really cool to spend a day researching a particular issue and have the judge tell you that because of what you wrote, she decided to rule one way or the other.

4. Flexible hours. No explanation needed.

5. Close to coffee shop. See #4.