I’m Back

Where, you might be wondering, have I been the last three months?  In two words: law school.  I got bogged down in the grind that is reading, class, and outlining.  A few highlights:

Grades came out the first week of February.  I did pretty well.  Contracts was the outlier.  It was ugly.  Sports teams will say after a particuarly gruesome game for them that they’ll watch the tape once and then throw it out because there’s nothing they can salvage.  That’s how I felt when we went over the first semester exam.  My conclusion was that I hadn’t yet figured out how to take a law school issue spotting exam by the Monday before Thanksgiving.  Luckily the rest of my grades made up for it, and because contracts is a year long course, the its grade isn’t factored in until the end of this semester.  So for a semester at least I’ve been quite pleased with my class rank.

Classes went okay this semester I think.  Another semester of contracts was fine.  Having gotten the theory last semster, this semester we delved into the actual specifics like offer and acceptance, warranties, terms, and all their friends.  Constitutional law wasn’t what I expected.  I’m not sure what I expected, but the class felt like it was just the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment rather than the whole constitution.  We spent two months on those.  Con law has the problem of being too big for just a four credit course.  I think I would have just picked the topic list differently.  Legislation was a bit different.  The professor even said as much.  At its heart, I guess it could be described as how to interpret statutes.  But we thew in a lot of civil rights, lobbying, direct democracy, and election law too.  The professor said the course would cover the legislative process from the election of legisators to the enacting of a bill into law. It did do that, but it felt a bit like a grab bag.  Property was okay.  The professor loved policy justifications.  I don’t.  Plus, she’s been in academia her whole career.  I prefer professors who’ve had some real world experience.  The class didn’t always click for me, but I think that was largely my fault.  Legal writing felt like discussing how to ride a bike, then being given a bike and told to ride it, and then, surprise, surprise not being ready for the Tour de France.  It was very much an interative process: write, meet with the professor, revise, repeat.

This semester really felt like a grind.  It was hard for me to get excited about the classes.  The new car smell was gone.  It wasn’t exciting to be back on a college campus like last fall.  It was just a lot of repeitive work: read, class, outline.  Over and over and over again. Plus, I wasn’t having much luck finding a job for the summer when all my classmates seemed to have lined up awesome opportunities.

But around the middle of April, my luck finally changed.  It was the best week of my law school career to date.  It started with a last conference with my legal writing professor.  I should say our previous conferences had such gems as me being asked, “You’re not a writer, are you?” and “Do you know what a comma splice is?”  Not my finest moments.  My hopes were not terribly high.  But the professor actually like my brief!  He even said that one of my arguments had changed his mind!  Latter in the week I had a third interview witn an intellectual property law firm in town.  It wasn’t much of an interview: after five minutes of small talk, they offered me a job for this summer.  There is the very real expectation that I should be able to keep working there during the school year, next summer, and after graduation.  Finally, the week ending with me meeting the university president, E. Gordon Gee, at a scholarship lunch.  So that was a good week.

Now I’m in the middle of exams.  Property was Monday, con law is tomorrow, and legislation is next Tuesday.  I’m ready for the semester to be over.  I’ve been ready since I found out I had a job for the summer.  After exams there’s the law journal competition/application process, and then orientation for work is the final week of May.  After a year of reading, going to class, and outlining, I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

Back in the Saddle Update

It was a good weekend.  Saturday I participated in the Hocking Hills Winter Hike and Monday I went to the auto show in Detroit.  As for studying:

Read for constitutional law – Done!

Read for legislation – Done!

Legal writing – Not done on the weekend, but done today

Work on resume – Not really done.  Looked at my resume and still need to decide if some tweaking is in order.

Weekend Study Resolutions, Presented by Back in the Saddle

First week of the second semester, done. 

Read for constitutional law – One of the things about constitutional law is that it’s always changing.  The Supreme Court keeps issuing new decisions.  fortunately, rather than revising the casebook each year, there’s an annual supplement.  The case I need to read this weekend is from the supplement.  It’s close to forty pages.  I’m hoping that’s because the page layout is smaller. 

Read for legislation – We’re going to be reading a case study of last year’s health insurance reform, so I’ve got a summary the professor’s research assistant put together.  I’m actually looking forward to this one because I’d like a nice summary of how the law was created.

Legal writing – Need to read the next two chapters of the book for next week.

Work on resume – I did a mock interview this week. It went well and I got some great feedback, including on my resume.  That’s what I want to work on.

Time Will Tell

Two inquiries to “big” law firms are presently in the US mail system and being carried to their destinations.  They’re still a long shot, but time will tell if anything comes of them.  If nothing else, they were a good dry run of getting a resume in order and writing a cover letter.

Short and Sweet Update

How’d I do this past weekend?

Read for the week of Thanksgiving – Casebooks, done Saturday morning before the game.  Torts restatement, done today.  Criminal law supplement, read today, but still need to outline it for class.  So I would say I was mostly done.

Fininish contracts outline – Done!  Now I just have to learn it.

Research “big” law firms – Done!  I drafted up a coverletter, sent it to Sunday night for my career counselor to review, and she’s already gotten back to me with some comments.  So the long shot 1L summer associate job hunt is moving along.

Weekend Study Resolutions, Sponsored by Short and Sweet

Like I said, short and sweet.  Tomorrow afternoon, Penn State is coming to town.  That leaves tomorrow morning and Sunday for study activities.

Read for the week of Thanksgiving – The Monday morning of that week, November 22, I have my contracts exam.  The Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, and possibly Monday afternoon, I’m back to regularly scheduled classes.  I don’t think I’m going to want to deal with reading for those right before the contract exam, so I want to get the reading out of the way.

Finish contracts outline – I’d like to have my study materials set by the end of the weekend.  That would give me the next week to learn them.  It’s a closed book exam, so flashcards will be flashing.

Research “big” law firms – Still hoping the slim chance longshot plays out into a job next summer at a “big” law firm.

Hat in the Ring

Today I met with my career counselor to go over my resume.  She had announced that if any 1L’s were interested in applying for summer associate positions at large firms, we should come see her.  So, sitting in her office, I said let’s talk about that.  She said, because of my work experience, I’ve got a chance.

At this point, I should add that my career counselor also said that, traditionally, large firms hire very few law students after just their first year.  She then added that in the current economic state of affairs, even fewer are doing so.  And that’s if I can match up a firm that would look kindly on my construction management work experience.  So I’ve got a pretty slim chance at a pretty small opportunity.

Still, I’ll take that.  I know it’s probably going to be to no avail, but it’s easy enough to research firms to find ones who practice construction law and send off a few cover letters and resumes.  Deadline is December 1.