divine angst

I’ve now had four weeks of classes (five for legal writing, since we started that early). What have I learned?

Contracts: I know all about remedies, sort of. I basically understand expectancy, reliance, and restitution and I can probably muddle through which interest to use in which situations. I also know that our contracts case book is really fond of really old cases that are a bitch to read. Thankfully, they usually pair the really egregious old English cases with something more modern. Heck, we even got to read a breach of contract case involving Shirley MacLaine!

Criminal Law: We spent some time discussing rationales for punishment. Then we moved on to voluntary acts, omission, and mens rea. Criminal law is the one class where digressions are common and, unfortunately, not always helpful. I enjoy the subject matter and I think my professor is brilliant. She’s just not used to the one-hour class format (she usually teaches two days a week for an hour and a half instead of three days a week for an hour). Maybe as the semester progresses, things will get a little tighter.

Civil Procedure: Unlike many 1Ls, we just got to Pennoyer and International Shoe. Thank God. We spent some time going over the anatomy of a lawsuit and learning some of the key concepts in civ pro: summary judgment, for instance. We read a lot of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. I like Civ Pro, but it’s the one class where I think I get more out of the reading than I actually do. I read and book brief and think I have a handle on the issues, and then I get into class and discover I totally missed the point.

Torts: Torts is the class we have only twice a week, on Thursday and Friday. Our other Thursday-Friday class is legal writing, so Torts feels like it just got appended to the week. Every time Thursday rolls around, I can’t remember anything from the week previous. Other than that, I like Torts. We’ve been discussing negligence, cost-benefit analysis (and by the way, they told me there would be no math involved, so what’s up with Learned Hand and his algebra??), and this week, res ipsa.

Legal Writing: Going just fine. We had some Lexis and Westlaw training this week, along with an introduction to print research. We’ve done two ungraded assignments—one a memo discusison section and the other parts and pieces of a full memo. The actual full memo based on that second assignment is due in a couple of weeks. I should probably start looking at the parts I haven’t written yet, huh?

OK, so generally, things are going well. I get my reading done, I go to class. I book brief. I try and raise my hand when I have something to add to the discussion or when I have a question that’s not stupid. I try to NOT raise my hand when I have something to add that isn’t really important or when my question is stupid.

Also, I’ve joined a low-key study group, I’ve made some friends, I’ve joined a couple of student organizations. I have a routine. My body is used to getting up early again. My cupboard is stocked with coffee and cereal and lunch meats. I see my husband fairly often and we make dinners several nights a week.

So law school is going well. One month in. I’ll do another one of these later in the semester. Just so I remember how I felt way back when, once exams roll around.