What would a blog about law school be if it didn't talk about final exams...
Yesterday I finished for the week with exams on civil procedure and contracts. Technically these were midterms and not finals because the courses continue into next semester. Heading into them was scary: law school exams are evil creatures of lore that lurk unseen in dark caves. You know they're there, you know they could eat you, yet you don't know where the soft fleshy parts are that you can drill your sword through to defeat them. You just hope you get lucky when you lunge at them in the shadows.
But it turns out that maybe they weren't so bad. For the most part I felt like I knew what was going on. How well I'll do may depend on how well I was able to write clear analyses under the unforgiving ticking of the clock. I've begun to notice that when I write quickly I sort of end up taking a belligerent tone. That might be fine, as long as I'm belligerent accurately.
And then there's the curve, that horrible, apersonal mathematical monster that assigns grades relative to other students. But perhaps it's not an altogether bad thing. It means it's like my friend reminded me: you don't have to outrun the bear - you just have to outrun your friend.