BarBri has begun. So far so good, sort of. I've liked the lectures. "Charles Whitehead of USC" (how he is always introduced) did the last two days of lectures* on criminal law. Yesterday was on general criminal law, and today was on criminal procedure. He was fairly entertaining, all things considered, and it wasn't too hard to take notes on what he was saying. In fact, it was kind of interesting, since this is the New York version of the course. First they teach us the law that will be on the multistate portion of the exam (which isn't connected to any particular state, and when I say "isn't connected to any particular state" I often mean "is not law in any state in the union at all"…), and then they point out the New York exceptions that we'll need to know for the New York portion of the test.
Although it will be a mess to memorize, it's kind of fun to get this first inside look into the actual mechanics of New York criminal law. I see it played out all the time on "Law and Order," but now I finally have some insight on those particular New York vagarities that I often see portrayed. TV will never be the same after this…
As if I have any time to watch it. I still feel behind the 8-ball and am behind on all sorts of things that are hard to channel the energy for. I got some stuff done today, but there's lots more to deal with and I'm tired. In a way I'm just not ready to ramp up for this. I can handle going to the classes, that's fine, but we're supposed to study 5-9 hours every night as well, and I haven't gotten my head around that part yet. (Although I suspect that 2-5 will be the most I'll ever be able to do on any given day under the best of circumstances in order not to go completely insane by the end of the summer.) I presume I can catch up this weekend on the crim material since it wasn't unfamiliar to me, but I don't want to get too far behind at this point.
* By the way, these "lectures" are not live. We all gather in a large classroom to watch recordings of the ones done live in New York City last week. Oddly enough it's not really as off-putting as you'd think…