The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Several years ago I had a boyfriend who was a law student. Who started driving me up the wall because he seemed to be too negative about all sorts of things. At the time I chalked it up to a character flaw, but in facing my own recent grumpiness I wonder now if it's instead a typical by-product of the experience.

In some ways, the suspicion towards police stems from this period. He did a lot of work in criminal defense clinics and personally made a big difference on keeping people out of jail. We're not talking hardened criminals - we're talking people a bit on the fringes of society who stood no chance against the zeal of law-and-order cops, whose zeal clearly got in the way of actual justice. I'd always been interested in civil rights, but hearing about these situations made my concern less theoretical and much more immediate. It's not a hypothetical fear that innocent people may be railroaded unjustly: it actually happens all the time, with almost no outcry at all.

With regard to the ambient grumpiness, there's also the general effect on one's mood that the toll of the entire experience takes. It's a very busy time for me, what with my 2L job search and all, so my rope is a little frayed. But it's not really a question of stress as much as the existential doubt and ennui that sprouts from having no idea how your future is going to turn out, and relatively little guidance in trying to navigate it.

I'm not someone who generally needs a lot of handholding. Normally I figure out how a situation works, what the rules and expectations are, and act accordingly. But with law school there is a lot of complexity but not a sufficient amount of guidance. Now, I say this with respect and gratitude for the people at my school who have been helpful. But it's still not really sufficient. The job hunt for instance, is a nuanced process repleat with its own vernacular, timelines, and lack of guarantees. Also there are different types of job searches, which all happen simultaneously: large firms, small firms, non-profit, government... and out of all of those possibilities I have to find someone who wants me and will give me work to do that's fulfilling. I suppose it will all work out, but it's very difficult at this moment to have any idea how, and that's a very emotionally taxing state to be in.

Also on the list of things wearing me down is the process of course selection for next year. I don't even know where to begin in explaining where I am with that. I got into a bunch of courses that are hard to get into, but I'm locked out of courses that I need for prerequisites. My flexibility in dealing with these problems is meanwhile hampered by unit count maximums, scheduling conflicts, and a tremendous amount of unknowns regarding future course offerings and opportunities. I know what I want to do, but I only have a limited time to do it. It's really difficult to figure out how to work it all in even before all the hurdles and obstacles get added.

(I'm sure I'll be kvetching about course selection as the semester gets closer. Hopefully I'll know what I'm actually taking before October...)

Edit: Date changed. Was posted on 7/21.

Some light in the darkness: I got onto the journal I wanted. The writing competition was not all for naught, it seems...

Huge amounts of time last week were swallowed up by the 2L job search. And that's just for one part of one phase of it.

There are many firms that will be at various regional job fairs, and there are many firms that will be interviewing on-campus at various points. So last week I logged onto the website facilitating these programs to see what firms would be at which. Then I went to each firm's website to evaluate whether I'd even want to think about working there.

There were quite a few to check out, even when I only looked at firms that had offices in locations where I'd be willing to work. I'm concentrating my search in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC - if you can call that "concentrating." At least I've managed to eliminate a few places, like Boston. Several months ago I decided that although I like living in Boston now (er, well, during the school year) I don't feel inspired to stay. Instead I feel ready to return either to my roots in the New York area, or my later roots in the Bay Area. Washington is a possibility because it's a cosmopolitan environment vaguely in the Northeast where important things get done. I suppose of the three places it is my last choice because it's the place where I have the least attachment, but there are some firms with offices in all the aforementioned places whose DC office looks the most interesting, either given its size or practice areas. I find myself flipflopping on the NY-SF choice though. I'm very comfortable in the Bay Area, and there are certain firms based primarily out there I'd like to explore working for, but given an equivalent office in NY I find myself unexpectedly preferring the idea of staying back east. I'll have to give it some time to see how transient this sentiment may turn out to be. In the meantime I'm looking into jobs in both locales with a certain "que sera sera" attitude. Most important is the right opportunity, so I'll have to see where that turns out to be.

Written on 7/24/04 but posted on 8/03 due to travel.

A continuation of the previous post because I was unable to post it all at once. In the last one I surmised that I'd end up living where the best opportunity ended up being. More on what that right opportunity might be:

Trying to find that right opportunity though is no easy task. First of all, it's extremely time-consuming to figure out who these firms are, what they do, and whether they have practice areas that sound plausibly interesting to me, as if I really have any good way to assess all that at this juncture. What I've been doing as I do my research is ranking each firm on a scale of 1 to 5. A 1 is a firm whose core practice is something I'm not interested in doing. In theory there are lots of firms that are like this, but I only bother to rank the ones that I've actually heard of so that it's easier to keep track. A 5 is a firm that for some reason exudes a certain something that makes me particularly excited about wanting to get an interview. Maybe it's the practice area, or something else about it's attitude towards its practice or the law. On the flipside of that impression, there are the 2's that might at first SEEM to be up my alley but for some reason turn me off to them and negate any incentive to even try. The IP firms that are clearly – some even say this almost exactly – all about maximizing companies' intellectual property assets, these seem like a depressing place to devote my skills. I'm really concerned, actually, that my idealism on the subject may make it very hard to find a position. First of all, I might appear too opinionated. This might particularly be a problem when the firm has litigated for a client on the "wrong" side of an issue. If I've been rabblerousing that the argument or the client was wrong, I don't think I'd be very attractive to the firm. I'm also concerned that, if hired, I might have to advocate on the "wrong" side for a client. I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile this dilemma and still find a good position where I can develop as a litigator and this is what keeps me up at nights.

But I notice that some firms are so large that they end up having multiple practice areas where I might be able to find work I like. This is particularly true if they work with international law. Although transactions aren't so interesting to me, conflict resolutions are. Some firms even have international IP focuses, so those usually end up ranked a "5". Also, some firms seem to clearly understand that there are two sides to IP: suing everybody, and defending against suits. The tighter and tighter IP laws get, the more of the latter is going to occur. This is why I pass over the firms who only get the former but if the firm acknowledges that defense is also part of the equation, they end up on my list as a 4 or 5. Also tending to be ranked at 5 are firms that do a lot of First Amendment law. Free expression is the most important freedom to me, and why I got into IP in the first place, so that's a kind of work where my passion and the client's interests can perfectly converge.

Then there are other annoyances mucking up the process. For some firms my grades are an obstacle. Some will only interview people with a certain GPA or ranking. For some the cutoff is ridiculously high, but I wouldn't want to work in such a snobby environment anyway. For others for whom I appear to be below the cutoff, it's very hard to take, especially if I've otherwise ranked the firm a 5. For the job fairs there seems to no limit to the amount of firms I can try to get an interview with, so if the firm was a 5, or sometimes a 4, I've applied anyway. To the best I can figure out, if they wouldn't interview me anyway because of my grades then I don't think there's a negative consequence to applying anyway, because even if they were to refuse to interview me because I didn't follow instructions, well, I still wouldn't have had the interview. Anyway, lawyers are supposed to be pushy so maybe it will work in my favor... For the on-campus interviews though there is a bid limit, but since there doesn't seem to be more than 5 firms I'd be interested in for each session, and there are only about 8 sessions, with the bid limit is 75, I'm not sure it hurts to apply then either, especially if I otherwise seem like a good match for the firm's work or am in the ballpark of the cutoff. At least I hope not.

Maybe the hardest thing is to figure out a good attitude to have and to be able to maintain it. Some moments it seems like there are no good firms, or at least none who will interview me, so I despair and start casting a wider net. There end up being more 4's when perhaps they should be 3's. Or I feel more compelled to apply to 3's (I don't apply to 2's though). Other moments I think some firms are perfect and I'm a match, but then maybe something causes me to despair, like the GPA cutoff. Meanwhile, I've never worked in a firm before, it's a bit hard to know what I want in terms of size, location, practice... I have to make my best guess and it tends to vary from moment to moment. I'm still figuring this law thing out and I'm still figuring myself out. I guess the right firm for me is the one who thinks that's ok. All it takes is one.

Written 7/24/04, not posted until 8/9/04 due to travel, then dated for 7/25 to keep the entries spread out.

Edit 8/11/04: There was an interesting article in the NY Times today, about ethics in lawyering. It considered the debate, at times taking place within law firms themselves, about the conflict between zealous advocacy of clients and perhaps promoting a greater social good. It's nice to know I'm not the only one facing this problem. Maybe the firm for me is one who has at least recognized it themselves.

Comments turned off on this post since it seems to be a favorite target of comment spammers.

I just got back last night from 2 weeks of international travel, which unfortunately prevented me from posting regularly. I plan on posting a travelogue, so I might not go into many details about the trip here until I have, but I wanted to say something about my absense lest all my "fans" be worried that I'd abandoned my blogging. Nope, no such luck ;-)

This week will be my last in Washington and it will be intense in its own way. Lots of miscellaneous errands to run, school stuff to start coordinating, more job search activities, packing, finishing up some work from my job, and, since, 'tis the season, some Huey Lewis and the News concerts. I thought I was up for it, but jetlag and a nasty cold is not going to make this week very much fun.

The summer is wrapping up, gosh darnit, and I'm running around trying to get ready. Hence the lack of blogging.

This week I left Washington and returned to Boston, moving into my new home for the duration: my mom's.

This is an unexpected twist in certain ways. She used to live in New Jersey, and still did so when I began my first year. But she's always wanted to live in Boston, may have been jealous that I was getting to, and so moved into my neighborhood - two blocks closer to school than I lived.

So I did the only logical thing - I moved in with her. Unlike my last roommate (well, not the DC one), she cleans up after herself... she doesn't smoke in the house... and perhaps most importantly, she does not have a crowing alarm clock that goes off at 5:30 in the morning.

Of course, I'm 30 years old, I'm still in school, and I live with my mother. I was commenting to friends, "Where did I go wrong?!"

But so far so good, we've survived the week. Amazingly my room is all essentially unpacked and organized. I'm astonished, I can't remember having a room that was organized. I think it's been years. This is still a transition though: I'll be up and down the East Coast next week in the waning hours of my summer vacation. September is the beginning of normal life. To the extent that life in law school is ever normal...

Actually posted 8/21.

I spent the day on campus running school errands and attending an orientation for the journal. The new 1Ls were there in force as well, running around looking a combination of proud and bewildered. Sitting in the lobby watching them pass by I could immediately identify them, although granted I was aided by the fact that unlike lots of the 2Ls and 3Ls I'd never seen them before. Their body language was different, more upright in a way. They had not yet become stooped with the burdens of carrying their books or the stress that slowly weighs you down the first year.

More interesting were the 2Ls. We greeted each other and compared our summers and our courseloads. This is where we finally get interesting and differentiate ourselves, where for better or worse we are finally in charge of our own destiny (at least more so than 1Ls with their prescribed regimen). We're a year apart from the incoming 1Ls, but somehow it seems like a lifetime.

Edit 11/26: Per request below (and it's a good idea anyway) I finally syndicated the blog.

I milked it for all it was worth, down to the waning moments. Three and a half months, spent working with international IP in Washington, visiting Cambodia, Israel, and the places formerly known as Yugoslavia, and, for good measure, because I could, indulging in 12 Huey Lewis and the News concerts... I also spent time with friends and family, including some relatives I hadn't met before.

It was probably one of the most interesting summers of my life. People have been asking me how it was and I've been responding, "Thorough." Unusual opportunities were presented to me, and I was lucky enough to be able to seize all of them.

Edit: posted on 8/31.

It was quite exciting, I finally had an on-campus job interview today. There's a system where you can submit a resume to be considered for an open slot in an interviewer's schedule, and I managed to get one of them. It was quite validating to be so blessed, and I thought the interview generally went well.

Of course, I later sent a particularly dorky thank you note to follow-up, so trust me to ruin that moment.

The bigger problem is that my writing lately has gotten cludgy. Thoughts are not flowing well, typos are endemic... I have lots of good ideas, but I'm in a period where articulating them is unusually difficult. This happens from time to time and may be exacerbated by increased stress and the fact that my mental cycles are now being pulled in all sorts of directions. It could also be that my muse is mocking me. Maybe she's annoyed that when I was in her part of the world I didn't stop by to visit.

This is a bad time for my muse to be moody because I'm starting to have an awful lot to write. For one, I'd like to maintain the blog and even be able to write more regularly about many more things than I have been. I'd also like to be able to draft articulate responses to major news events, maybe even of publishable quality. But all that is getting pushed to the side by all the other things with the new semester I suddenly need to write. For the Copyright and Rhetoric class are several writing exercises, some of which I've done a shabby job on so far, and major papers are upcoming. I also need to draft a whole bunch of cover letters and hopefully some (ideally non-asinine) thank you notes, all of which require deft (or at least basically literate) use of vocabulary and grammar.

You'd think with all the blogging the practice would have helped, and maybe it has. But when I look back through the old posts I sometimes cringe, because not all posts have been the fine pieces of writing I'd hope to showcase my skills with. Some are close, but sometimes my zeal and enthusiasm have had a corrosive effect on fluidity or clarity. Sometimes it's a simple mistake that does me in, with an incorrect use of a homonym or some such linguistic blooper. It's not because my control of the English language is so tenuous that I make the mistakes, but just that when you are cruising along at a million miles an hour it's hard to find the time to go back and make sure you got everything right. And sometimes it's because in the excitement, with so much to say, it's easy to get a little lost.

I got some thoughtful comments in my email this morning from a friend who reads my blog, but he too agreed with the counselor about taking the blog off the resume. Especially, he said, because of the content (maybe I'd be better off if it were asinine drivel?). Oh, and he also told me I should rework more parts of my resume but this is getting ridiculous: about a dozen people have reviewed my resume over the last several months and I've gotten heaps of advice, most of which is now contradicting. There is no moment of zen-like perfection to be achieved. The resume will never be perfect because I'll never be perfect. Firms that want cogs will not want me. And vice versa.

However, with the gaping hole in my future job prospects, this realization was extremely depressing. I have this plan to go out to California and attempt to talk to firms, but it might not work out at all. I might not be able to talk to anyone those days, untouchable independent-minded leper that I apparently am...

So with the wind fully taken out of my sails first thing this morning, I went web surfing and headed over to Salon.com, which I read regularly. I checked out the posts of the week from TableTalk, an online board I used to participate in until I decided blogging was a better forum for me.

One of the posts was a tribute to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who recently died and whose work "On Death and Dying" radically changed the medical establishment's attitude, approach, and treatment for dying people. Kubler-Ross led a life of distinction in many ways, the poster commented. Hitchhiking to Russia... Being trapped in Poland when WWII broke out and needing to be smuggled out in a coffin... And being a woman in a profession not tolerant to them, and then turning it on its ear.

The poster quoted from her autobiography:

"It is very important that you do only what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may live in a shabby place, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days, you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do."

The quote bolstered me and reconnected me to the sense of purpose I had in pursuing the law, which is very easy to become detatched from as debt-loads grow and all your classmates are running around school wearing suits getting interviewed... I didn't come to law school to make money. I came to make a difference. The blog is one part of that overall plan, and I feel it would be both dishonest and counter-productive to suppress it. I guess I am slowly reconciling myself to the fact that if it precludes me from being palatable to some firms, so be it. Then that's not the right path for me.

I'm going to break my own convention and post twice in one day. I wanted to write about why a Big Firm might be a good place for me, despite their possible requirement of cog-like performance.

I came to law school because I wanted to do important things. There are firms who also do important things, who are on the vanguard of technology law, for instance. Blog-debate aside, I don't think all big firms are the place for me but some might be great and empowering. I imagine there are big firms who might appreciate a demonstration of intellectual independence, just as there are some who would also appreciate that I've had professional experience prior to school. Not all do, certainly, but I have no reason to believe that the population of Big Firms is so homogenous that there might not be one out there that could be a fit.

In doing my research I've taken a look at some of the cases the firms have taken, or case studies they've written. The firms that brag about having written the DMCA (bad law with bad consequences) I've resisted applying to, but there are some out there who tout how they've defended people under it. It's those kinds of firms that I'd like to pursue.

The blog is a red herring anyway. This is a very strange job application process. In no other circumstance have I essentially needed to tell a potential employer, "I have no idea how to do the job you are hiring me for. Could you hire me anyway and pay me $125,000 while I learn?" I don't want to be just a cog - to continue to overuse an oversimplified shorthand of the stereotypical summer/new associate experience - because I don't want to deprive my employer of the actual value I can deliver. I guess that's partly why I'm finding the blog controvery so surprising. I suppose I thought that the blog would help advertise the fact that I'm willing to be something more, and I thought that someone would see that as desireable.

The other source of my distemper is that if the blog really needed to have been removed, BEFORE I bid for umpteen job interviews might have been a good time to have had this suggested.

But really, attitudes on this don't seem to be unanimous. There is an increasingly loud chorus of removal advocates piping up lately, but there are others, including another counselor, who said that as long as I didn't mind having it read, I could leave it on. That logic resonated with me, so here we are.

By the way, readers are invited to share their thoughts in the comments section if they would like. You don't need to give your true email address or identity if you prefer - the comment spammers I keep having to delete certainly don't - but if you could post in a way that I would know who you are that would be good. Particularly if I DO know who you are, in real life. Otherwise anonymity is fine, no problem...

Edit: I emailed this guy for his opinion. His initial response is on his blog.

When we last left our hero (me) I was still getting my schedule in order. Class-wise, it's settled. Mondays are long days, with Corporations, International Law Process, and Copyright and Rhetoric. I'm in class from 8:30-5, with nary a break (some days I have make-ups of another class so there ends up being no break at all). I also have Evidence and a seminar on Antitrust and IP. I originally thought the last seminar was going to be really interesting, then I thought it would be really boring, but then I changed my mind again and now I'm really excited about it. I'll end up learning a lot more about patents along with antitrust law. Evidence is an interesting class too. My professor is really nice, and I find it very similar, in a way, to a methodology course I took as a sociology undergrad. It's all about critically thinking about information and what it actually indicates, although in Evidence there are some actual legal rules to help shape that analysis.

Corporations is also turning out to be a good class. The casebook is readable, and the professor is extremely understandable. Nothing dry and boring like I feared. International Law Process ... I'll have to get back to you. I haven't really found my rhythm in that class, although I think the fog is slowly lifting. This course is interesting to me because of my work this summer, reading all sorts of international intellectual property treaties. I think I'll end up learning more about the treaty process, which is also relevant after my recent international travels.

Then there's the Copyright and Rhetoric class. Because of Labor Day we've only met twice so far but it's turning out really interesting. We've been drilling on writing, discussing rhetorical structure, and soon we'll get more into copyright policy. We also have a guest-teacher, an actor (and instructor) from Shakespeare and Company, who knows a lot about how to communicate to an audience (as well as classical rhetorical strategies – in other words, he's not just a pretty face...) So I'm taking a lot of courses, but some of them are just fun so I don't even consider them as being "work." Still, they all claim time from my schedule.

In the schedule also are obligations for my journal, including writing a large paper over the course of the year and doing "tech checks." (We haven't started, so I can't describe them too well, but it basically means double-checking the citations of the papers we are about to publish in the journal.) I also just signed up for moot court. And of course I need to make time for the job hunt and a few other obligations.

So I'll be busy this semester, but at least it keeps me off the streets.

There was an article making fun of the law firm hiring process in the recent ABA newsletter, readable here, and its inflexible attention to grades.

Meanwhile I'm getting more and more disheartened by it. It's hard enough to know what the best career path might be without being shut out of entire categories of possibilities. I have a B average. I grant you it's not as stupendous as an A average would be, but it seems to suggest, I would think, that I did the work, went to classes, and essentially learned what I need to know. Apparently, though, failing to attain a better GPA is a serious failing itself, for which there are serious penalties. With a B average it seems the punishment is shunning - I just can't seem to get firms to talk to me. But I shudder to think what a C average might get me. Perhaps a flogging? It makes one wonder what horrors await those with D's and F's...

A friend of mine called me to invite me to an event on Thursday. I had to turn her down because my schedule is incredibly packed, but I felt bad and worried she would feel I was blowing her off. So I tried to explain all the things I had to do instead, but as I was doing it I kept remembering more and more things. Eventually it seemed very reminiscent of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch:

(warning: the following humor may only be detectable if you know the sketch to which I refer, and even then it still might not be)

"I have an obligation for my journal, writing my note and doing a tech check. I have TWO obligations, writing my note and doing a tech check and writing a moot court brief. I have THREE obligations, writing my note, doing a tech check, writing a moot court brief, and looking for a job. Wait-- AMONGST MY OBLIGATIONS are such diverse elements as writing my note, doing a tech check, writing a moot court brief, looking for a job, and wearing my nice new suit..."

The other connection to the Spanish Inquisition (sketch) is the mention of the rack, the infamous torture device. In the sketch the assisting cardinal incorrectly brings a *dish* rack, which is torturous only to the venomous head cardinal's plans for extracting a confession. The real rack is a device that stretches people to the breaking point. Hmmm, just like this semester...

Date adjusted to when conversation happened. Otherwise posted 9/28.
Edited for EVEN MORE cleverness on 10/3...

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word,
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

In the Copyright and Rhetoric class we've entered a unit where we have been using Shakespearean texts to connect to our inner emotions, to find and tap into a truth inside us so that we can learn how to communicate it.

There are several benefits to this exercise vis a vis our legal education. One, that we will be able to argue more effectively when we can hitch our own internal energies to our cause. This can only be done when there is a certain sincerity, a certain truth to our advocacy. It's not about agreeing with the specifics of the argument per se but that there is a belief in the cause. Being able to speak to it from an authentic place not only will help us craft the arguments better, but it will help them be received better. Our audience, the people we need to pursuade, will be most open to our position if we can communicate the depth of our own belief in it.

The other reason my professor wanted to do this is because law school is so much about the opposite process: detatching ourselves from what we are doing, the arguments we try to put forth. Stripping down, she called it. There is a strong impetus to be dry and clinical. It's not that to be lawyers we should be emotionally mushy, demonstrative people, but that the underlying benefit of the efficient professionalism is washed out by the suppression of ourselves. We will be much more effective communicators and advocates when all of ourselves can be in attendance in the practice.

To practice all this we each had to memorize a verse from Shakespeare. We then have been reading it before the rest of the class. An instructor from Shakespeare and company (actually two of them - one who already has helped teach and another who once was his disciple) queries us and prods us to tap into our core, to get in touch with a true emotion and be able to communicate it truthfully through the words of the text.

It ends up being a powerful experience, because it works.

I chose the above text from Macbeth. I chose it partly because in the 6th grade the class performed it, and through all the rehearsals and repetition the rhythm of many of the lines has stuck with me over the years. So I chose it partly because of its familiarity, its resonance. I contemplated using other verses from it but settled on this one because I wanted to explore the futility Macbeth lamented about life and the passage of time.

Before I performed it the instructor asked me all sorts of questions about how I felt about things. It was an open, safe forum, so I talked about all my fears and frustrations with the law school experience. He asked me what was the emotion I felt. I couldn't narrow it down to one single one. Instead I described it as a single thread, made up with two separate pieces intertwined: indignant fury, about the dysfunction of the institution and how pure merit seems to not be sought after or valued, and fear, fear that all the energy I sink into it may be for naught, and all the potential I have may simply end up spent and squandered, without the world becoming any better of a place for it. It would be such a waste, I said. And I hate waste, more than anything. Its tragedy is sometimes too much to bear.

I took some time off from school last weekend, by necessity, for both job searching and mental health purposes...

I headed out to California mostly to do informational interviews, and along the way I went to see the Cal-USC football game and yet another Huey Lewis and the News concert. Great weekend double-header, two of my favorite things...

Job search-wise, it was also really productive. I'd managed to arrange a whole bunch of informational interviews with lots of interesting lawyers who've done cases I've admired. In some instances my resume was passed along to their firm, but even without that it was great to get more information about the legal field, make contacts, and get referrals to other people to talk to.

One of the takeaways of the experience was that if I don't get into a big field next summer, or next year, or ever, that it may all be for the best anyway. That if I want to acquire the skills I think I'll need, and do the work I want to do, or even have time to write on the side, smaller environments will foster that better. Given that the door is closing for the year on large firm opportunities anyway, that was especially good to hear.

Caught up in the 2L work flood, not posted until 10/28 so backdated.

Life as a 2L is ridiculously intense. I feel like I live 6 lives in the span of one day. Things that happened just last week feel like they transpired a year ago.

In some ways the intensity is my own fault. I overloaded my schedule, for one, and I still like to take advantage of other interesting opportunities that pop up. Last Wednesday, for example, I saw a presentation by Judge Posner at our school, and on Monday, in addition from classes from 8:30 to 5:00 almost non-stop, I still went to a brown bag lecture on the human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay. That actually was hard to sit through – it was disturbing material, and I was worn down and had little emotional fortitude to protect myself from being paralyzed with depressing thoughts about the state of our world.

But some of the intensity – and by intensity I don't just mean the hours required and the difficulty of the mental labor involved, but also the variety of subject areas my brain is constantly required to devote attention to – is not my doing. Becoming a lawyer demands paradoxical applications of energy: for instance, I am expected to do well in school, and simultaneously I am also expected to find a job. These ends are mutually exclusive goals given how demanding of time each one of them is. There is only so much of me to go around, energy-wise, and even if I were able to operate at 100% every moment (of course what human is) there are still only so many hours in the day.

It dawns on me though that maybe the law school regimen is purposefully designed to be like this. Maybe as a lawyer I will find myself pulled in so many directions, with so many different things requiring my full intellectual powers and attention. Maybe the purpose of law school is not to learn law so much as to simply train the brain to handle constant full-throttle use, to push it to mental exhaustion and then be able to keep going. Like with weight lifting, when strength is built by working to muscle failure and then doing some more, ultimately increasing stamina.

I'm not particularly complaining about this though. I find the intensity exciting in a way. I like the vibrance to my day. It's just that sometimes it would be nice to be able to press pause.

Due to the aforementioned busy-ness, not posted until 10/28.

To give some more specific examples of intensity, behold my week of October 11 (or at least what I can remember of it that hasn't disappeared into a blur):

Monday was a day off for Columbus Day, and I was still in California doing informational interviews. I spoke to three people that day and had time for little else. That evening I took the red-eye back to California, as it was the only time-efficient way to travel that wouldn't require missing lots of classes for transit.

As it was, I bailed on my first class on Tuesday to attempt to catch up on sleep. I had a meeting with a professor that afternoon to discuss a presentation later in the week, and then a class from 2-5, followed by dinner at a professor's house.

Wednesday was simpler – I merely had a 24 hour take-home exam to do. Thursday was the day of the major presentation in one of my seminars involving running the class for 2 hours. And Friday and Saturday and Sunday was sunk into writing an impossible moot court brief. By the end of it I was wiped out.

This may sound simple and straight-forward. It's not all that many activities. But that's because I made it so. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, skipping certain classes and ignoring various tasks so I could focus on these major (and many graded) projects that had all converged at once.

Slowly I've been trying to catch up, but in addition to the stress of having a lot to do, it's compounded by the ambient stress of feeling behind. So the catching up itself has been slow.

Posted on 10/28.

These things don't often go together, but they should. It's not just that the human body needs hours to repair itself physically – or at least minimize the amount of conscious hours where it might continue to break itself down – but that the dynamic busy-ness of this life, being pulled in so many directions, each of which requires mental exertion to the point of exhausion, while constantly juggling the existential questions of who am I, what am I doing here, and what will happen to me when it's over... it all requires processing. Sleep is the perfect time to do it, not only because it puts life on pause but because it allows you to dream. The subsconscious finally gets time to untangle your life, to reset you so you're ready to go back out into the fray the next day.

Last night I finally finished moot court. This was the second moot court I'd done, and this time it was optional. By my own choice I had to write a brief and then argue it before a pretend panel of appellate judges. My topic was on antitrust law, a very confusing subject I'm starting to know a lot about, what with this brief and my Antitrust and IP seminar. That said, it was a very difficult legal question I had to write and argue about. It involved tying, which is when a company conditions the purchase of one product on the purchase of another. This kind of arrangement can have anticompetitive effects as the company can use its dominant market power in one area to exert dominance in another. The law generally frowns on anticompetitive behavior, and on tying, but not necessarily. Tying isn't always illegal, and sometimes anticompetitive behavior isn't either. Sometimes it's even encouraged. So it's a far more complicated matter to figure out if a company doing tying would have liability for an antitrust violation. I had to argue in this case that the vendor in question was not.

Originally I felt like I'd done a poor job on the brief, because despite being able to write up to 12 pages, I only wrote 5. But the original question we were supposed to answer was unclear and contained confusing details. As best I was able to understand what was going on, 5 pages may have been perfectly adequate to lay out my argument. And after I handed it in I also discovered many other student with the same argument had only written 5-7 pages themselves, so perhaps I don't pale in contrast. Many other may have dropped out of the competition entirely as well, because that's what this was, a competition, and the best competitors this semester get to do the honors moot court in the spring.

With the briefs turned in last month, last night we finally had the chance to argue the case. I didn't do spectacularly because there wasn't sufficient enough time to do the preparation needed to be spectacular, but I think I did solidly. I'm resigned to not continuing on to the honors moot court next semester, but I hope to do some more moot court competitions in some form. I aim to keep doing it until I get it right.

Backdated to 11/4. Actually posted 11/6. Edited a bit on 11/17.

So this class I'm taking "Copyright and Rhetoric" (actually it may be "Rhetoric and Copyright," but whatever) is a particularly unusual course for law school. It's probably one of the most productive and useful: we're honing our persuasive writing and speaking skills, essential skills as future advocates. But it's a little free-form, more like a workshop than a class, which raises a problem with how to work out grades at the end. My professor invited us to write to her a proposal for how we thought the grades should be calculated, and this is what I sent:

I've long lamented that my education is inconducive to my education. The classes where the educational value is most bountiful are bullied into mute submission by a system that demands to be able to measure and rank its participants. Succeeding grade-wise often seems to require mastery of a different game than mastery of the material itself, which really should be the ultimate goal.

Here we have a class where learning for learning's sake is tantamount, and where that learning is somewhat ephemeral (not easily quantifiable). While you could quiz us on how many cool Greek words we've learned, the larger lessons we are supposed to walk away with probably won't reveal themselves so directly. Our thinking is being shaped, and that's a hard thing to test. Especially because the true impact of these lessons might not reveal itself until years from now when we are all supreme copyright scholars, or politicians, and have had lots of practice behind us.

The other problem with measuring things is that its validity depends on students knowing up front what those things would be. Some people may have exerted themselves in different ways if they'd known that certain aspects of their work would be more highly valued. But we were mostly left to our own devices to figure out how best to apply ourselves to get the most out of our engagement with the class.

The real problem I think you are faced with is that you need to differentiate students who may not really be differentiatable on any sort of productive basis. It's a small class, which self-selected serious, intelligent, hard working-students. If only you had a couple of complete flakes enrolled... but alas, not at this school.

As long as everyone has done what was asked, with reasonable good-faith effort (and I'm inclined to think this is true for everyone), we are all essentially equal. Nitpicking individual assignments may not be constructive because it changes how we should apply ourselves to them. To truly get the most out of this class we should feel able to risk failure. But if doing so jeopardizes the GPA game we are all forced to play as part of our larger progression through school, we will not feel sufficiently free to be able to get as much out of the class as we should.

So this is my proposal, the best I can come up with if giving all A's is not an option...

Step A: We trust you. You are an experienced educator committed to the development of your students. You have the ethos to be able to gauge potential and know when your students live up to it. So for each student, based purely on a subjective sense of how well you think we've been engaged in the class and the material generally, you determine a legitimate high grade and low grade. The test for you to use is whether, after this semester is over and we go out in the world saying, "I got X grade," you would cringe or not. Too high, it might not be deserved. Too low, you would feel it injust.

It may or may not be possible to spread these out over the letter notches (A, A-, B+, etc.) because there may not be enough for a legitimate spread, so perhaps you might temporarily use a more nuanced scale, like from 1-10, where 1 might correlate to a B and 10 an A. This is a step in a process, so that they don't quite match to the potential grades available isn't important right now.

Step B: Draw lots, throw a die. Use some sort of random device. Grades often feel like a crap shoot anyway, with the way they are so often detached from the educational experience. Let's be honest about it for a change. In the end it will be much more fair.

So the idea would be that the random device would allocate a grade distribution. You could even do this without Step A, if you chose. Just draw lots for the A's, A-'s, etc. But if you feel that someone really has a better claim to it than someone else, then use the floor-ceiling pre-qualifier to decide who even gets to be in the A pot, etc.

If you use the 1-10 system, perhaps you would pick a number from a hat for each person. If it were outside the range, you would redraw. When you have the final digit decided, then you can correlate it back to the regular grade scale.

However you would do this process logistically is less critical than that it be done at all. The important ideas to keep sight of are that the grades don't inhibit our learning, and that they don't incorporate unfairness that would result if certain aspects alone suddenly became more greatly prized. Your subjective judgment, applied to the entire course and tempered by randomness, would be far more equitable and constructive.

Interestingly, the skills we've learned this semester showed up in most people's proposals, as we made our suggestions and strongly argued for them. My favorite was the one from a classmate who did a contractual analysis of the syllabus, reaching the seemingly incontrovertable conclusion that it would be unconscionable if we didn't all get A's.

Also interestingly, I didn't make the case for all A's. It's like I feel that A's are so rare and exceptional... someone naturally needs to get the B's. And I guess I feel that, such is my lot, inevitably that someone is going to be me...

Backdated to 11/8, was posted on 11/9.

Today I went to a library I've never been to before, the Science and Engineering library. Despite its best efforts to evade me I eventually tracked it down. I was there to get a book on TCP/IP for research for my note. It was a nostalgic moment, holding a computing book in my hands. What a nice change to carrying law books. I read it right away, and while computer textbooks used to bore me, having been lately so inured to legal texts, reading about TCP/IP now kind of tickled...

Posted 11/25, backdated to when "today" actually occurred.

The calendar on the side of my blog homepage flipped to December today. If I had made a post yesterday I think it would have flipped then. But with no post it was willing to continue to show off my impressive array of November posts. This calendar function is a significant reason behind why I sometimes backdate my posts. I sometimes can only find the time to make several posts all at once. If I can spread them around I will look more prolific than if I post them all under just a few dates. I do frequently begin posts on many days, but it is sometimes only all at once that I am able to finish them properly.

But there was something very striking about seeing a blank calendar for December, having nothing to do with blogging. What a month it's going to be. Classes are wrapping up this week. 3 exams will need to be taken (2 in-class and 1 takehome). Study sessions need to take place. A paper needs to be written. Jobs need to be searched for. Rooms need to be cleaned. A note topic needs to be drafted. Everything previously neglected for the past several months needs to be attended to. Family needs to be visited.

But maybe most striking is that by the time the month is out, nearly everything I've done this semester will be behind me. Come January I'll be off to learn new things. Seems a little weird though – having put so much effort into everything this semester to suddenly have it fade into the background. In just a mere few weeks.

In my meandering through cyberspace to find interesting blogs, I happened across this one where someone pen-named "Publius" has been waxing poetic about deep Constitutional issues.

I am filled with envy that someone could have the time to immerse themselves so thoroughly in Constitutional inquiry, wrestling with policy ideals and practice. Studying, thinking, learning, writing, innovating. How I would love to do that.

In the context of doing it here on my blog I'm limited by the other demands of my life. Finals loom, and I don't have the resources to devote to diving as deeply into some of these incredibly important and fascinating issues as I'd like. I try to as much as I can, but I sense I will have to scale back even what I've managed so far in order to focus on the tasks at hand.

But in the longer view, I would love to be able to do that kind of scholarship for a career, to be able to bathe in the luxurious waters of legal inquiry. But it will be no small task to get that kind of job, and even more difficult thanks to the milquetoast-y performance of last year. And of the choice of school. I love BU, but it's not Harvard, and even though most of my professors came from Harvard and many do extraordinary work well respected by their peers, it still may not be good enough.

It seems that if that's the kind of life I want I may have needed to make different choices far earlier in this process than now, and far earlier than I would have even known to have made them. If there was ANY additional stone I could have turned over to get into Harvard, I should have turned it over. If there was ANY additional thing I could have done my first year to elevate my grades (gotten rid of the roommate?) I should have done it.

The conventional wisdom that had been available to me had recommended getting into the best school I could and doing the best I could gradewise. But the true import of this advice was not obvious before it all may have become too late.

It's not to say that if only I'd known what was at stake I would have worked harder. I worked as hard as I could. But it would have been nice to have had in mind what the ultimate goal was, and then been able to systematically prioritize and achieved the intermediate steps in order to attain it. It is only being in the middle of the process that from the process itself I've begun to figure out what it is I'd like to do.

Therein lies a fundamental problem with the law school process: there are so many aspects to the law one could cloak themselves in, but how is one to know the one most preferred until it has been attempted? I do think you could have some inkling beforehand, but I maintain there is no way to know what studying the law is about until you've actually done it. Until you've read case after case and case-reading becomes as second nature as reading street signs. Until your vocabulary has incorporated the new terms necessary to convey the kind of analysis you've now learned to make. The Great Change needs to take hold before you can even contemplate what you'd want to do with it with any sort of accuracy.

And with trial there often is failure, maybe because something isn't a fit or maybe because it's hard to achieve perfection the first time you've tried it. It seems therefore that the institution of law does itself a disservice by keeping score so early, before the student's worth as a future practitioner can really be measured. And before the student can possibly know to what end they wish to apply their education.

Backdated to 12/4 when this was begun. Actually posted 12/6.

Edit 12/8: Another law student on grading (with links to even more law students on grading).

I am doing much better in my current abode than I did in the one from last year. I am at least much more sane by this point in the semester, even though I'm busier, probably in large part because I'm not being woken up everyday at 5:30AM by a remorseless crowing alarm clock.

I have, however, in recent weeks, begun to be affected by the 8AM Stomping: The upstairs neighbor seems to routinely stomp through his apartment, or more specifically, the room above mine. I do not hear stomping anywhere else in the apartment or at any other time of day, except at 8AM right above my head. It produces an ensemble of percussive thumping and chandelier (well, light fixture) rattling. I could do without either. Now that I'm in study period my schedule is different, and from time to time I might actually like to be sleeping at that time of day. But I do not appear to have that option. It's very annoying. While I am a morning person and I generally like to get up early, I don't want to HAVE to. I have not been able to sleep through it, and even if I'm just lying there contemplating the upcoming day it's still very jarring.

So I guess I'm going to have to leave a note or something, though I'm not quite sure how to phrase it. "In your morning routine, could you please hover? The daily traipsing is very disturbing."

In other apartments where I've lived confronting neighbors has been less risky. If relations turned frosty it wasn't the worst thing in the world because inevitably one of us was going to move. But since my mom lives here, I guess I need to tread more carefully. (Ha! Get it? Tread? Um, yeah....)

Edit 12/11 (Saturday): Apparently the stomping is reserved for weekdays only.

Edit 12/11 (Sunday): Correction - it seems to be a Sunday thorugh Friday thing...

Two exams (in class) are down. Two more major activities to go: today and tomorrow I need to finish my paper for Antitrust and IP, and then on Tuesday I will do a takehome exam for International Law Process. Then I'm sort of done. Over the break I will need to finish up some papers for Copyright and Rhetoric, and I will need to make significant progress on my note (major paper for the journal). And look for a job.

So this is not a good time for my muse to be taking a break. I know she's worked very hard all semester, but I really need her help still. I'm able to get good ideas on my own, but I'm having a harder time than normal conjuring up the correct words to express them when I sit down and try to write. I feel like my brain is very dry, and it needs some sort of lubrication so that I'll be able to properly access my vocabulary.

I have now horribly mixed metaphors, but it goes to my point...

If you help someone study for the bar, is that a bar mitzvah?

Edit 12/22: I want to believe I made this joke up. And I did. It came to me after reading Jeremy's bar song. But I can't help thinking it has a certain obviousness that maybe someone else has stumbled upon before. Great minds and all that...

My paper for Antitrust and IP is now all turned in. There were confusing instructions about what font it should be in, so I printed it out in both Courier 12 and Courier 10. It's either a 20 page paper or a 16 page paper, respectively. I wrote it about whether the RIAA could be subject to antitrust liability for its strategy of mass litigation against filesharers. I argued that it could be. This means I now know everything about Noerr-Pennington petitioning immunity, its sham exception, and the test for the exception espoused by Justice Thomas in Professional Real Estate Investors v. Columbia Pictures, 508 U.S. 49 (1993). (It's not a very good test - the concurrence has a better argument.)

I may post the paper at some point. I'm a little concerned because it's the first academic legal paper I've ever written, and it's not like we're actually taught how to write them. So I can't completely vouch for its quality. It also wasn't an assignment that required significant outside research. There could be some perfect cases and articles on point, but we were only required to use the class materials as the basis of our analysis. On the other hand, they were good materials and may have been sufficiently authoritative on their own. And I did do a bit of extra research, mostly using the Web to find articles on the RIAA's tactics to support my argument.

After I dropped off the paper(s), I picked up my takehome final for International Law process. I now need to scrape myself together to do it. It has to be turned back in tomorrow by 11:30.

Did I mention I'm tired?

The final final exam is done. It was a 24 hour take-home exam for the second half of the International Law Process course. Other bloggers have been debating the relative merits of this kind of exam, at least compared to 3 hour in-class exams, 8 hour take-homes, and term papers. The one 8 hour take-home I've done in law school was hell. It required all 8 hours to do, and rapid sprinting to and from school to pick it up and turn it back in. (It also ruined my birthday, and, subsequently, my GPA...) At least with the 24 hour exam, while it may require 8 hours to complete as well, it also permits enough time to sleep (well, nap) and generally futz around while you get your head together.

But I think the key thing is variety. Too many take-homes would have been taxing and too many in-class ones would have been tedious. I lucked out pretty well this semester with my 5 classes: 2 in-class exams last week, nicely spread out, then plenty of time to do my paper for another class and then devote 24 hours to this last exam. Next semester doesn't look so good though: 4 of the 5 classes have in-class exams, two of them on consecutive days, and two of them on the same day.

My fifth class this semester didn't have an exam, but I need to finish up some other work for it from during the semester. I have until the 5th to do it. While it's nice I didn't have to cram it in while I was working on the finals for all the other classes, it means that today isn't quite the closure to my semester I would have liked it to be.

Nonetheless I met up with some friends and we went to a "celebratory" lunch at Friendly's, as is becoming our inadvertent tradition. I'm a sucker for Friendly's and always wished they had some in California. Good sundaes and decent food, although something went awry with today's salad as it seemed to have been served to me an ingredient at a time...

I am now officially a basket case, but hopefully the condition will be alleviated after a good night's sleep. It's been several days since I last had one. Hopefully the stomping won't be too loud tomorrow... And then I can get busy on everything else I still have to do.

On Wednesday I sent off the last of my work for last semester. This means I am now officially halfway through law school.

I greet this momentous occasion with some mixed emotions. I'm a little concerned, for instance, that I don't know what will be in store for me when I'm done. It makes me a little nervous, blazing along at top speed, when there may very well be a sheer cliff up ahead...

I'm also a little sad. I like law school. I like being a law student. I like studying the law, thinking about the law, writing about the law. I'd miss it if I stopped. So I'll have to figure out a way not to stop, even after I graduate.

On the upside, I am a little excited. Law school is a lot of work, and it's nice to be able to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. I also eagerly anticipate returning to the work force and being a productive member of society again.

And I'm curious about what I will be like at the end of this process. I clearly have been changing. I think differently than I used to, more mechanically and logically than used to be intuitive. At the same time, I'm not (as my Contracts professor once jokingly phrased it) "ruined." The idealism survives in tact, and I don't think I've devolved ethically as may happen to many law students tempted by the reported riches of the profession.

But stay tuned, there's still another year and a half to go...

I have 3 days of "vacation" left before the semester starts.

I'm not ready. My brain is still all cloudy and encumbered. Last semester plagued me for WAY to long, interfering with all the projects I needed to get on in order to be ready for the next semester. It's been fun travelling and seeing people - that part has actually recharged me - but I've been unable to better capitalize on the downtime to get a jump on the other projects. My brain is just so drained, and it's affecting my writing ability. I have all these lovely ideas and inspirations swirling about my head, but converting them into readable text has been surprisingly laborious, with the results astonishingly inelegant. This is not good, not when projects include sending (nondorky) cover letters and writing my journal note.

But I may have a little time even after the semester starts. I'm in 5 classes, but I get Fridays off. On MW I have Patents and Law and Ethics. On TTh I have Copyright, European Union Law, and Tuesdays also Trial Advocacy in IP. I may also be a research assistant for a professor, and I hope to start swimming. Last semester I was a bump on a log, and all my exercise resulted from walking to and from school. If I think I'd like to do triathlons ever again, I'm going to have to do better. So all that, plus the LSA plus the IP Society plus the job hunt, this will be my life for a while.

But not till Tuesday.

Yesterday was one of those days when I ended it distinctively smarter (or at least better-informed) than when I began it.

It was the first day of classes, and I had Copyright, European Union Law, and Trial Advocacy. In each class I came away with discrete knowledge that I had not had before. I'm very excited about all of them. For copyright, it's a joy to just be able to ponder these issues. I can't wait until I know more about the mechanics of how the law works. Yesterday gave a good sneak peak. For EU law, my wonderful former Contracts professor walked us through the rationale of economic integration - in other words, why independent states like those in Europe would see it advantageous to integrate their economies. (I was also quite the history maven in class, being the sole volunteer to explain the Treaty of Versailles and the Marshall Plan. Which goes to show all you high school students that you should pay attention in history class because you never know if it may come in handy a decade+ later...) Later on in the day in Trial Advocacy we learned about how a trial attorney will set a theme for the case, the foundation of the story that will be told to the jury supporting the facts and the law. We practiced with the infamous case of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I was on the side defending Goldilocks. My theme was "A child lost and alone sought refuge in a home." You'd vote to acquit, wouldn't you?

Today is Day 2 of classes, with Patent Law and Law and Ethics. I wonder what cool things I'll learn today?

It's the third day of classes now, and I still like them all. I'm really excited about everything I'll get to learn, and the schedule seems manageable. In fact, it's now about 1:45pm on Thursday, and once I finish with a 2pm appointment my weekend essentially begins (not that a lot of lounging around will occur - I still have a lot to do - but nothing too immediate will need to be addressed). The only downside I've noticed so far is that between the end of classes MW at 6pm and the beginning of them on TTh at 9am there's not a lot of time/energy available to do the readings. So I may need to find another time to do my homework.

One of the other odd features of my schedule is that 3 of the 5 classes are being taught by non-BU professors. The Trial Advocacy class is taught by two practicing attorneys. My Copyright class is taught by a professor from Northeastern and the Law and Ethics class professor is from Suffolk. But I like them all, so other than a few additional logistical difficulties in visiting office hours, it's all good.

Meanwhile, thanks to the untimely and tragic but presumably not permanent demise of my laptop, I'm remembering what it was like to take all my notes by hand. At the moment I kind of enjoy it. Dare I say I seem to be paying more attention in class? But I am a little concerned with the situation I'll face at the end of the semester. It may be much more difficult to review everything from the course encapsulated into pages and pages of scribble. (I seem to be taking about three pages of notes per class session.) And it will also be more inconvenient to share my notes with my peers, as I usually do. On the other hand, my typed notes tend to be little more than digital scribble anyway, so maybe nothing really will be lost if I continue this. It might be worth continuing as an experiment, just to see if I can sustain it. Live on the edge, I always say...

My friend came out to visit. Well, actually she didn't really come to visit me - she came to do a puzzle hunt. But she nicely squeezed me into her schedule before heading home. Not that it mattered too much: I just saw her about two weeks ago. We have a remarkably geographically unspecific relationship. We've seen each other in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, London, the Bay Area... sometimes all in the same month (well, at least a subset of those places).

So I took her to school with me. I showed her around a bit. I showed her the view from the 12th floor, I showed her the elevators, I showed her my locker... She then showed me that my locker didn't actually lock upon being closed unless the combination was turned. I find myself wishing someone had shown that to me when I'd begun using it a year ago... (How did I never notice this?)

Then I took her to my class on European Union law. She has EU citizenship so she thought it would be interesting. My professor has been going over a lot of introductory material though, making sure that we understand the governmental institutions and the political realities they result from and reciprocally affect. Knowing all that up front gives context to the cases that we will study subsequently. But the consequence of this preparation was that my friend didn't quite get to see a typical law school course. It was more overview lecture than normal, and it wasn't until about 20 minutes left that we started turning to case analysis, which is more emblematic of an American legal education. Of course, American law is more embematic of the typical legal education so there was that difference too.

But I think my friend found it interesting. She's getting a Master's in education, and is apparently studying educational technology right now. She was thus particularly fascinated by my professor's prodigious use of the chalkboard.

Read Part I

I'm friendly with some 1Ls, who so far have not been burdened by grades and the psychological torture they impose, overshadowing the entire educational experience. Anyway, the other day we were shooting the breeze and I was kvetching (as usual) about how much I hate grades. And how mine probably kept me off Law Review.

"I've talked to some people on law review," one of them said, "And I could barely have a conversation with them. YOU I can talk to. You have balance."

I think she meant that I wasn't one dimensional, that I wasn't so consumed with law school that I forgot how to be interesting. Although the truth of the matter is that I am consumed with law school - but ALL of it.

While some people are in the library every day until 11pm briefing every case, I'm doing other things. I like being involved with student groups. I like going to symposia. I like working on the journal. I like doing moot court. I like drinking up everything I can from this wonderful, decadent opportunity to learn and think about the law.

Of course, there's always a question of resource allocation. But even sinking more effort into any one class doesn't necessarily translate into a predictable outcome. I devoted quite a bit into my ConLaw class last year and still ended up with a bad grade. And I doubly regretted it, because the extra effort came at the expense of classes I might have stood a better chance in succeeding in had I not diverted my energies.

But in general I try to maximize how much I can absorb from the experience. Of course it's not possible to have it all: perhaps if I did fewer things or took fewer classes I might have better grades. But I'm not willing to make that sacrifice. And I think it's a reasonable decision not to, one which in fact provides the maximum educational benefit, even if it technically comes at the expense of the GPA. it's also one I believe will ultimately make me a better lawyer in the long run.

I would rather learn some smaller percentage of a lot of things than 100% of a few. I also think it's a myth that you could learn 100% of the material from any one class anyway. The legal education has a certain disposable quality to it. Your head gets stuffed with a lot of cases and doctrines for a short period of time, and then it mostly gets purged by the time the new semester begins and new things get stuffed into your brain. And that's ok, it's expected that when you get out of school you "won't really know anything" (which is how I've heard it described). You learn the most from the practical experience of working with the law. The legal education though has a purpose, which is to prime you so that the next time the knowledge comes around it will stick much more efficiently.

So with that in mind, I would rather be primed to understand many things when I get out into the world than just a few. I think in the long run it will make me a more effective legal thinker, because I will have more "blocks" of legal knowledge at my disposal to underpin my further thinking. I've always been a fan of interdisciplinary study, because being able to draw from a variety of backgrounds results in a much more meaningful discovery. My approach to a varied and thorough legal education stems from the same principle.

it's also a product of my personality to want to "taste" as many things as I can. In the last few years I've traveled around the world and back, spending a week in one far-flung area, 3 days in another... My friends tease me for my efficiency, but I have no regrets. I am so motivated by curiosity to see what it's like over there that I can be completely satisfied by an expeditious trip that fully informs me while still leaving time to go see what it's like somewhere else as well.

I only get one shot at this law student thing. Grown-Up Life beckons, and soon I will need to return to the working world and its logistical demands. it's a wonderful luxury to be a student, to have a singular purpose to learn things. And learn things I do, by trying and exposing myself to the many opportunities the experience offers. This newfound knowledge will one day be effectively demonstrated. It just may not be by my GPA.

I saw a sign that said that grades for last semester will be out tomorrow. Here's why I think I might not have done well, followed by a post on why it doesn't really mean anything if I didn't do well.

In general, I still don't think I've quite mastered the Law School Exam, although I think I'm slowly figuring it out. There have been posts here where I've been able to rip apart a fact pattern to fuel an analysis in a way that law school exams require. It's a skill I didn't really have before starting law school but that I'm clearly developing. Unfortunately I still don't always find myself able to demonstrate it sufficiently in the heat of the exam.

During the exam I feel pulled between two sources of tension, which I don't feel I can satisfy simultaneously: the need to catch all the issues, and the need to write a good analysis. We're theoretically expected to do both, but I always find myself so rushed to cover all the material that the analysis ends up somewhat neglected.

Professors also grade differently, which exacerbates the problem, because what works for some exams won't necessarily for another. I've had professors return exams where the goal apparently had been to accumulate checkmarks. So on these exams you wouldn't have wanted to risk leaving an issue on the table, it seems, in the quest to make certain points more meaningful. Yet other professors seem to emphasize the analysis, and will withhold checkmarks if the points are not made in the same specific language the professor prefers.

My evidence exam has me the most worried. I really liked the class. The casebook was great, the material was interesting, and the professor was extremely engaging. There wasn't really anything on the exam that didn't ring a bell, but I felt like I wrote the exam a little haphazardly, trying to throw everything in. And I may not have quite gotten the feel of how to phrase things the way he liked. I missed a bunch of classes, though not by choice. Well, maybe the election day trip was optional, and if missing that trip causes my grade to suffer I'm prepared to accept the consequence - I felt it was that important for me to help protect the election. But I also missed some classes in the middle, traveling to do my job search. I hated missing the classes, but it's something 2Ls often have to contend with. I did get notes and things and borrowed videotapes of most of the classes I missed, but I still have this nagging suspicion that I should have done more, and sooner. As if that was at all possible…

My international law process class also concerns me because I had a difficult time staying engaged during the class lectures. I liked the professor and the materials were intriguing, but I feel like I learned the entire class's material during the review I did at the end of it. Perhaps that was sufficient, but that's not the way I feel comfortable learning.

Corporations will be a bit of a crap shoot. I liked the class and the professor, but there were no practice exams because he'd never given one before on the subject. And I think he may have underestimated the amount of time his exam required to complete. He had said beforehand that there should be plenty of time to do a good analysis AND cover all the issues, but I found myself pressed for time. I think many other people were as well. There was so much material to cover, and the way the exam was set up you couldn't really skip any of it without consciously leaving points on the table. It was also really hard to calculate how much time to devote to each part in order to pace yourself, because the total number of minutes available for the exam and the exam question point values didn't easily correlate, at least not without working out some complicated algebra.

My other two classes, the seminars, stand better chances of coming out well. Not only are they not on curves (meaning that while I may have had a perfectly decent evidence exam, if all my classmates had slightly more decent exams I will still get a crappy grade) but I produced papers, not exams. I much prefer doing papers than exams. They seem like a much more constructive effort, for one thing. Even if I ace my Evidence exam, I'll never be able to publish it or anything. It offers nothing new to the discovery and discussion of the law; it's simply regurgitation. Whereas for my Antitrust and IP class, I wrote a paper that could maybe be posted or published elsewhere, or at least built upon - provided, of course, that the professor thought it was as good as I did… But even if he doesn't like it, I think it was a more valuable exercise applying the material I learned.

I'm a bit more concerned about the other course, Copyright and Rhetoric, because I petered out a bit at the end. I wasn't really satisfied with how the final edit of my paper came out, but in the end the grade probably won't be contingent on it specifically. The important thing from that class were its larger lessons. I know I internalized most of them, and I think my professor does too.

Even with all this in mind, I think there are a couple of reasons why I feel so squeamish about my upcoming grades. For one, I'm still shell-shocked from my first year. I used to test well, reliably. I aced everything through elementary and middle school; high school and college worked out pretty well too. My first year made me worry that I'd completely lost my game, like I'd completely forgotten how to take a test successfully. And nothing has happened subsequently to rebuild my confidence on that point.

The other reason I'm concerned is that I feel like there was more I could have done to have succeeded in the classes. This is technically true: there was more reading, more studying, more outlining, more reviewing… There was an infinite vessel of diligence I could have endeavored to fill. But given the available time, energy, and various other obligations, I did everything that I could. I didn't blow off my classes, I didn't blow off my reading. And I'm not worried that I'm going to fail. It's just that as a measure of how much I've really absorbed as a law student, I fear the grades will come up short.

Read Part II

Edit 1/22: Some exam tips.

Read the earlier posts in the saga...

The registrar just emailed to say that grades were posted, except for a list of 17 courses whose grades were still "outstanding." (Now there's a deceptive choice of words...)

Three of them happen to be for courses I was in. And may very likely be the ones with the better grades. So now I get to decide if I want to potentially ruin my day by looking at the three grades that have been posted now, or wait until the others dribble in.

I did actually attempt to look them up on the web just now, but kept mistyping my password. I take that as a sign to leave them be for a while.

In the meantime, for perspective, there's always this.

Still haven't checked my grades, what there are of them... I have too much to get done to deal with the possible emotional fallout. This post from a fellow blogger, and the comments that follow, illustrate the hazards of riding this roller coaster.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with my 1L friends last week. I'd already told them up front what my GPA was, that I thought it sucked, that I thought it wasn't representative of what I could do, etc. etc. I just don't think it's worth keeping that kind of thing a secret. The demoralization of grades is exacerbated by the fact that they are endured in isolation, leaving you to feel like you are the only loser and everyone else is kicking your ass. When that isn't true at all. Especially with curves. Your crappy grades are shared by 50% of the class. People should talk about these kinds of things candidly - why suffer alone?

So I pointedly reassured my friends, "I will still like you even if you get C's."

To which one responded, "What if I get A's?"

"Only if you still like me."

Edit: I joked on the other person's site that if it weren't for all of us on the lower end of the curve, there wouldn't be another end for anyone else to be on. We make the people there look good :-)

But it raises a serious point: the law school process is essentially defined by its outliers: people at the upper eschelons of the grade distribution. They do the law review, they get the large firm jobs... What about everyone else? Since "everyone else" really equals "most of us," it seems counterproductive to have a system that effectively ignores the contributions and potential of most of its participants.

If I was at all tempted to sneak out of the house to go do anything else, the universe has put the kibosh on that plan. There's currently 18 inches of snow on the ground, and it's not done snowing.

My mom, meanwhile, seems fascinated with it and is watching nothing but weather forecasts all day. And then she wants to discuss it. (I asked her how many inches were on the ground and she launched into a full report, practically complete with barometric pressures and footnotes...) I can think of little more annoying than talking about the weather. Unless it's on a meta level, like the green house effect, it's just so pointless to talk about. It's not like you can do anything about the weather - so why frustrate yourself? If it's snowing, it's snowing. It will stop when it's done. There's nothing I can do to change this, so I'd prefer to just ignore it.

Edited for the humor-impaired, and original comments deleted since they no longer make sense.

Edit again: Classes have been cancelled for tomorrow. I guess the universe is REALLY SERIOUS about me finishing this note... I'm feeling a little bit like Bart Simpson right now... (scroll down for reference to the snow day)

In 1995-6 as a senior in college I wrote my honors thesis for my sociology major on the diffusion of the Internet among university undergraduates. It was an interesting period to get a snapshot, mostly because while today Internet adoption rates reportedly top 63% of all adult Americans, back in 1996 it wasn't nearly so popular, or so clear that those who were using the Internet would continue once the university stopped providing access.

Fast forward to 2004-5 and I'm writing my note, again on a topic that will involve universities and the Internet. In doing my research I've been prompted to go back and look at my old work. While I cringe at some of the writing, and it suffers from being the work of an inexperienced undergraduate researcher, in looking back at it now I think some of the analysis holds up pretty well. It's also interesting to have a snapshot of data from that period. While professional researchers might have been able to accumulate their data more deftly, the methodology was about as well-controlled as was feasible, and in the end I think reasonably valid.

In my Trial Advocacy class we are actually learning to be litigators. We've been given a sample case file - with pleadings, depositions, jury instructions, etc. - and over the semester will learn the courtroom skills necessary to argue it.

Last night we did direct examinations. The exercise prompted me to miss my ex-boyfriend a bit, although not so much romantically but just in terms of the loss of the acquaintance. I always thought him to be gifted at examination. While we were still together he did some clinical work through his law school and had a client's case go to trial. He practiced his examinations on me, particularly one where I had to be the cop. I tried to throw him off and say things he didn't expect, but he was ready for all sorts of contingencies and could field anything.

Of course, that was a cross-examination, which is much different than a direct examination. Even *I* might be good at cross-examining, since I apparently couldn't stop cross-examining my own witness on direct...

Although in my own defense, it was a bit challenging to examine someone who didn't really know the story they were supposed to tell. None of us were all that familiar with the deposition of our witness, so as we took turns being the lawyer and witness, the examinations often stalled. Normally a direct examination involves asking questions that prompt the witness to tell his story. And normally the witness knows what it is.

Edited 1/27.

The accrual of humidity reaches even more biblical proportions: it's snowing again today, so classes after 2pm have been cancelled. Guess when all my classes are. The bummer is that I've already done the readings. On the other hand, it does free up several more hours to work on my note.

The strange thing is that I've had, in the first three weeks of semester, only two meetings of my MW classes (Patents, and Law and Ethics.) In fact, I haven't had class on any Monday at all so far (the first week of classes started on Tuesday; the second week was MLK Day so no classes then; this week classes got preempted by lots and lots of snow). We did have a fake Monday once, which was when we dressed up a Wednesday and made it pretend to be a Monday, but that didn't affect me so much because I have the same schedule both days.

What concerns me is that while this is sort of convenient for me NOW, there's going to be some awful period during the spring when I will have to make up all these classes...

It's been a long time since I've written a massive research paper. I know I've done it before, but the experiential memories are a bit dusty. As a result, I haven't been as efficient as would have been nice in writing my note. Although I've long since had my topic - and it's a good topic - I kept going around in circles while researching, trying to figure out how to find the support I needed and keep track of it so I could include it into a cohesive analysis without getting lost in a tangent. It kept making me dizzy

Fortunately it started turning a corner last week when I finally managed to eke out a significant portion of the analysis. After writing a certain amount I could now see where the rest of the writing needed to go. Then yesterday in a blazing feat of typing speed I finished fleshing it out. Unfortunately the writing is terrible (after I printed it out I noticed some rather creative grammatical construction...) but there was a deadline to turn something in I had to meet. But I think I'm ok: now that there's a structure, which all supports the story I'm trying to tell, I can go back and systematically improve each section.

It's a lot of arduous, somewhat painful, work, but this note is the kind of thing I will be really proud of having written, once I've written it.

Evan at Notes from the (Legal) Underground kindly posted my request for more information on public interest law support on his website. Since he gets more visitors than I do, I'm hoping he can attract more input than I have on my own so far and get a vibrant discussion going. Or at least collect some good ideas.

Since I may pursue public interest work myself there is some self-interest involved with taking on this research project. But mostly it's just one of the things I've volunteered to do to help leave my school an even better place than when I found it.

I've sent about a half a dozen non-routine emails over the past few days (meaning important, introductory types of emails and not the quick jots to the people I interact with all the time: "Yes, I'll be there;" "No, I don't think that's a good idea;" or "I think you mean promissary estoppel, not collateral estoppel."), yet none of them so far have received a response. I can therefore only conclude that I must have somehow given offense in each and every one of them.

Given that I now need to send several more important emails I'm sure I can look forward to the prospect of systematically antagonizing everyone of my (current and future) acquaintance.

So set your spam filters accordingly, because you never know when I'm gonna decide to email YOU...

Heidi Bond has a list on her website, "How to publicize your law student blog." Perhaps she should add as item #5: "Take on the entire student government..."

It was sort of a bad time to tackle a major issue. When I look at all the things I need to get done this week and factor in a modicum of sleep, I realize that I'd need to live on a planet with a slower rotation in order to have enough hours to get them all done.

Oh well, one step at a time... (or start packing for Mars)

I was catching up reading Lessig's blog and I saw a post about a talk given in Sao Paolo. Various great thinkers were there, one of whom apparently was Manuel Castells.

In Berkeley he was one of the luminaries who helped shape my thinking. Although I never took a course with him formally (he mostly taught graduate students, though I have a recollection of him letting me audit one of his seminars) he affected my intellectual development in other ways. For one, he influenced professors I did take courses with, like Francois Bar. For another, he advised me when I was working on my thesis. One suggestion he made in particular was to refer me to the work of Everett Rogers, who wrote heavily on the diffusion of innovations.

He also influenced me by simply paying attention to me. He indulged my scrawny little undergraduate intellect and exposed it to big ideas, ideas that though I wasn't quite ready to fully understand yet in whose company my intellectual horizons were nonetheless raised.

It's now years later and the effect of those ideas continues to ripple through my thinking and evolving legal practice. How could one really contemplate the legal regulation of technology without also understanding its function within and effect upon society? The thinking he inspired in these areas is no less relevant now that I'm in the legal field than they were when I worked in the sociological one.

Grades continue to leak in, although one of mine still hasn't been reported. Consequently I've still not bothered to check the ones that have come in. Of course, I'm not sure I'm going to check them even when they are all reported. However, I may have inadvertently discovered one of them when I went to meet with a professor yesterday. It seems I may have gotten a B+ in Antitrust and IP. I have to laugh at my utter pathos. It was a seminar class, which therefore had no curve, and I STILL couldn't get a damn A. (It's possible, however, that I may have gotten an A-; he didn't remember precisely.) But screw it, the grade just isn't the point. I really liked the class and it opened my eyes up to a whole body of law that I'd been avoiding, fearing it was dry and arcane. It turns out you can do interesting things with antitrust laws, things that people (like me) who think that the IP cartels have gotten too powerful may be able to use in their arsenal to help restore a more reasonable balance. So I'm glad I got to take the class because in the long run I got something more valuable from it than merely a boost in my GPA (which even a B+ would do).

As I may have mentioned before, it was the first course for which I wrote a paper. I met with the professor in order to get advice from him on what I could have done better. NEXT time maybe I'll get the A, but this time I was really feeling my way in the dark. Still, it wasn't a bad paper. He acknowledged the value of some of my arguments, but his general criticism seemed to apply to structure. He said that my strongest argument was buried and that I took too much time making points that didn't really promote my contention. To a degree, the nature of the assignment drove this approach: it wasn't really a research paper. We were only expected to use the cases we'd read. So I took my argument and (more or less) lined it up one by one against those cases' holdings. A better approach, I agree, would have been to have come out, guns blazing, in support of my main argument, and then used the cases subordinately to simply buttress the analysis. (On the other hand, to do that properly would probably have required more research.)

In the course of making this recommendation he related this (paraphrased) exchange between a lawyer and Justice Frankfurter:

Lawyer: There are 11 reasons why this statute is unconstitutional.
Frankfurter: Give me one good one.

It's a good allegory to keep in mind for the future, I think.

This is what I found myself blurting out loud a few days ago. Tuesdays are always really long days under the normal circumstances, starting with getting up at 6am to go swim, followed by class from 9 to 10:30, and another from 11 to 12:30, with yet another from 5 to 8. In between I usually have a thousand errands and assignments to take care of, thus scattering my flagging energies even further.

This week I didn't even go swimming, yet Tuesday still sucked the life out of me. I had to run around and get donations for the public interest auction, one of the things I need to do if I want to be eligible for a grant for public interest work this summer (I still don't know what I'm doing, so I need to keep my options open.) I didn't know how long it would take, so I left school during my long break and went to the neighborhood I was canvassing. My efforts went well, and I got what I needed with some time left before the next class. So I went home and flopped on the bed for an hour. I normally hate doing that - I hate coming home in the middle of the day because I over-relax and then can't get myself together enough to go out again.

But when it was time I scraped myself up and started the walk to school. In a tired daze I turned the corner, a corner I usually only walk past in the mornings. Suddenly I got confused about what time it was. Thus my exasperated comment once I realized I was still working on the same day.

I'm happy now to be through the week. It's been particularly taxing and stressful - more so than normal - for a variety of reasons. I got a little frayed at the edges, and then started to run out steam. So much so that a nasty germ was able to evade my defenses and take up residence in my sinuses. Just in time for spring break, which begins tomorrow, thank goodness...

My vacation ended rather abruptly. After my detour to the desert I grabbed the redeye back to Boston, landing in time to head over to the law school for the MPRE, the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. What a horrible and seemingly pointless test. I'm not even sure I passed it, and I did take the course and I did study (although on retrospect I think I should have taken more pretests). There were a few things that I just couldn't remember from the BarBri course that would have been helpful to remember for the test, but basically I was struck by how little bearing the BarBri course and book had on the actual questions. BarBri had actually made some sense, organizing the material in a way that you could see how the rules could work together to guide the profession. The test on the other hand was just a morass of ethically indeterminable behavior that didn't distill to any clarity at all.

But really, it was all bad timing. I'd had my spring break trip all planned by the time I realized it was coming up, and I had to juggle my plane ticket around in order to make it back to sit for the test. A friend of mine suggested I get a note from a rabbi that I was Sabbath-observant, and therefore needed to take the test on a Sunday. But I decided not to pursue that plan: I'm NOT Sabbath-observant, and lying to a *rabbi* in order to get out of an ethics test just seemed amazingly unclear on the concept...

Edited 3/15.

I just did something strange. I sent in my brief for my trial advocacy class. It was 10:30AM on Sunday. It wasn't due until 8PM on Monday. I didn't wait until the last minute! Very odd...

But before I start holding myself up as the model law student, it should be noted that my Note is a shambles, I still don't have a job, and I'm running out of time. So classes for the next two weeks may get the shortshrift, which I hate doing but must in order to take care of these other things.

Backdated to 3/20 when it was written but not posted because site was down. I knew there was a reason to be suspicious of the lack of comment spams...

Sometimes I think I've gotten this second-year of law school thing all wrong. I've taken too many classes, I've got too many extracurricular activities, I travel too much. You name it. If I do it, it's probably wrong.

Objectively, I don't think the above conclusion is true. EVERYONE gets over-extended. It's part of the 2L life, unless you consciously decide to miss out on some of the experiences law school has to offer. I hate missing out, and I like having a diversified life. In many ways I thrive on the variety in a way I wouldn't if I focused on just a very few things. And it's not that I try to do everything: I do make choices. It's like being at a buffet – I really hate overloading my plate to the point that everything drips together into an indistinct flavorless mush. I prefer to take on my plate only as much as I can savor separately.

So I really shouldn't beat myself up for having a lot going on – that's part of the experience – but I am right now anyway. I'm also beating myself up for how I've chosen to spend my time. For instance, part of me is worried I should have stayed home over spring break and not gone to Japan. But at the time I booked the trip, I couldn't really know what my workload would really be like. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with traveling. Traveling may not recharge me physically, but it does mentally. I love the motion, I love the journey, I love the sating of my curiosity. I love getting out and experiencing LIFE to its fullest. This kind of thing is really important to me. Even my silly Huey Lewis and the News concert habit – that helps reset and recharge me too. So maybe I would have gotten a little more done if I'd stayed home instead. Of course, if I hadn't been sick I could have gotten more done while I was traveling too. And I doubt I would have gotten everything I needed done anyway, had I stayed home and missed out on the trip experience. Plus the fact of the matter is that I was burning out and needed a break. So a break I took. I really, really need to stop beating myself up about it, or any other minor breathers I've taken recently either.

But beat myself up I do. Over everything. My level of pathos right now is extraordinary. I don't feel like I can have a conversation without saying something inept. I don't think I can send an email without risking offense. Everything I'm doing I feel like I'm doing badly. Instead of exuding experienced composure, I feel like I'm flailing. I seek advice of mentors, but it feels like I'm begging. I practically ooze desperation: hire me, somebody, please! Of course, why would anyone hire someone like that? Even my supporters I fear are getting tired of me, and I don't know if I'd blame them. *I'm* getting tired of me too.

As I've been writing this I have a Huey Lewis and the News concert video playing in the background. This post has gone through several revisions while I try to pull my thoughts together, and in the process I got to thinking about one of the reasons I really like watching my favorite band. It brought to mind something I once saw posted on an Internet board with regard to the appeal of watching Norm Abram work his carpentry magic in the New Yankee Workshop, "Extreme competence is very sexy."

Well, sexiness aside... I enjoy watching the band perform because they're just so GOOD at it. There's something very reassuring watching people (generally) confidently and competently perform, and by perform I don't just mean perform musically but perform in any way, performing some task. Just as it's nerve-wracking to watch someone unsure try to work something out, watching someone do something they make look easy inspires a profound confidence and makes you, the observer, feel good and secure as well.

Most of the time, anyway. The exception to the rule is when you're trying to do the same thing and struggling with it. Then watching people seemingly handle the same thing effortlessly can be pretty demoralizing. In law school everything involves figuring out how to do something you've never really done before and have little to no experience in. Failure to get it right is really pretty likely, but somehow everyone else seems to walk around looking like they know exactly what they're doing. So while everyone else's lives all seem perfect and functioning, and I by contrast seem like a clumsy loser who can't quite get anything right.

Of course, it's all a façade that I'm seeing. Everyone else struggles too – I just may struggle with more candor. But the candor might be a problem, though, because as I worry that I can't do anything right, I think I may inadvertently convince others to worry I can't either. For instance, as I've been sending out exploratory emails in the job search, they've been dripping with humility. I've been extremely concerned that any employer who got my resume now would wonder what was so wrong with me that I'm still unemployed. So I've been trying to address that concern pre-emptively, which isn't a good idea. Especially because it's not really the case: the other day someone pointed out to me that lots and lots of 2Ls got their jobs as late as May last year, as many employers are only just now starting to figure out their summer needs. My job status does not suggest a defect on my part and I need to stop apologizing for it.

In fact, I need to stop apologizing for a lot of things. I need to stop inviting other people to take me down a peg by doing it myself first. Maybe I haven't hit home runs as often as I would have liked. But maybe my expectations may have also been unrealistic. I expect a level of perfection and brilliance in the work I do that just may not be reasonable. Somehow I need to come to terms with redefining "success" as something much more manageable. And to learn (again) how to see the positive in what I do and stop dwelling on the negative. Because otherwise I won't get anything done. My brain will remain frozen in paralysis, afraid to cogitate for fear of not cogitating well. And then nothing good will get done.

In one sense, I already intuitively understand this. In my study abroad interview the other day, I was asked what makes this year different than last, and I said that this year I'd found things to do to play to my strengths. I know, for example, that I'm good at running things. I know I'm good at coming up with community-serving events and making them happen. So that's what I do with the IP Law Society. It's rewarding, this particular responsibility. Of course, it's also exhausting. Trying to keep everything going requires constant attention. Even if the best laid plans all worked out on the first try (and they never do) it would still be a very interrupt-driven activity, whose demands on my time suck up far more hours than the actual labor required. And even with the previous experience doing this kind of thing I have, I still find myself challenged by new situations that I have to learn to deal with. The kind of situations where confident composure is most called for.

Meanwhile it's the pile of other things that I need to do that ends up tearing me to bits. The more buried I get with obligations and commitments, the more stretched my self-esteem gets as well. And with that, the less energy and diligence I have available to throw at any one thing and increase its chances for success. There's also a lot of pressure, imagined and real. It's hard to bravely send out resumes and cover letters when you feel like your entire career teeters on a precipice. Either I get the right job right now, today, or all my future prospects will be scuttled... (so it seems.)

Writing this post has made me think it's time to regroup and rediscover my own inner bravado. The old adage, about who will believe in you if you don't, is quite apt. Not to have a complete Stuart Smalley moment, but I need to remind myself that I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me... Some days it's easier to believe than others, but it's never any less true.

Right?

Behold the life of a 2L. Here, for your amusement, is an accounting of my day yesterday:

7:00 am – Up, did something constructive but I can't remember what.
8:50 am – Out the door, walk to school. This was bad, I should have left by 8:45.
9:00 am – er, 9:05am – Copyright class.
10:25 am – Go up to 14th floor to read for EU law.
10:40 am (or so) – Fire alarm. Walk down 14 floors.
11:00 am (or so) – Fire alarm over. Walk up 14 floors.
11:30 am – EU law.
12:25 pm – Wander through the building seeking advice on next year's moot courts. Apply.
1:00 pm – To journal office to begin source coordination.
1:30 pm – To student union for lunch and catching up on email, etc.
2:30 pm – To library for more source coordination.
3:30 pm – To another library for more source coordination.
4:00 pm – To career office for a job search counseling appointment.
5:10 pm – The conversation was so productive I completely missed the event at 4:30 I was supposed to be at, and I'm now 10 minutes late for Trial Advocacy. Oops.
8:00 pm – Trial Advocacy class over, stay late to talk to instructor.
8:30 pm – Finish (um, well, mostly) source coordination. Turn in.
8:50 pm – Leave school. Take T home. Stop off on the way to buy gum.
9:00 pm – Home. Microwave leftover spaghetti. Various miscellaneous activities.
11:55 pm – Sleep.

The end.

Of course, this was an easy day since I didn't even wake up at the crack of dawn to go swimming...

Today is much less complicated, as I'm staying home to do nothing but finish my note. And write this.

But I wouldn't know.

The journal I'm on had elections this evening, and I didn't win Editor-in-Chief, as I'd wanted. As I'd really, really wanted.

At first I felt really bad about it. I wanted that job, a lot. I tried to do whatever I could do get it, and come out tonight swinging for the fences in my speech. What bothered me most about not getting the position was not just that I didn't win, but that I felt I let myself down, giving my speech much too placidly and forgetting to mention an entire element I thought was pivotal to establish my qualifications. I can deal with not having things I can't control work out - it's the things I CAN control that turn out wrong that irritates me. I felt like I let myself down, and it added to my general sense of frustration that I can't quite execute on the things I need the way I need to. It also seems that if I have any political aspirations (and I do) I'm going to have to figure out how to give those good speeches, reliably and regularly. I think I know some basics on how to make them; now it's a matter of learning how to execute.

Oddly, however, the feeling has rather rapidly morphed into one of relief. There's a certain dysfunction to my journal, and it's strangely nice to know it's not really my problem. Even the elections were dysfunctional. Attendence was spotty, no one asked questions... It had an informality that didn't suit the importance of the position, or how seriously the candidates took it. It's entirely possible that even if I had gotten my speech off the way I wanted it still wouldn't have mattered. Of course, the other reason it wouldn't have mattered is because the other two candidates were extremely well-qualified. Had I not been running I would have been perfectly comfortable voting for either, so it really should have been a tight race.

Still, this whole episode turns my world up on its head. This job was something I really wanted to do, and now I'll need to come up with something else to take its place to give me the sense of accomplishment I seek. I shouldn't worry, though: my predilection for overstuffing my schedule will surely reveal itself once again.

Edit 4/2: I should mention that I'm not done with the journal. I do get to do some editorial work, having volunteered to be an article editor.

As I've mentioned before here, I'm on a quest to master moot court. Despite some valiant attempts, it hasn't quite happened yet. But my friend and I have gone ahead and signed up for a national one next year anyway (although we might swap it out for an international one - we're still researching our options.) Third time's the charm, right?

Of course, we should be a kick-ass team, just so you all know. Woe be the team that goes up against us. You should hear us go back and forth against each other with the Yankees-Red Sox trashtalking. Imagine how awesomely powerful we'll be if we can channel all that verbal wit into the practice of appellate advocacy.

(Of course, we're so used to directing our powers against each other that there is the danger, as my friend mused, that whichever one of us goes second in oral arguments might be inclined to say, "Your honor, let me begin by rebutting my co-counsel..." I suggested that someone's probably advised against doing that, probably on a list of "things not to do during moot court that are so stupid that we didn't even think to put it on the list of things not to do during moot court." I have the sinking suspicion that if there's not such a list yet, there will be by the time we get done with it...)

Today is one of those arduous days. Even without swimming my day is packed. I already had my copyright class. Then between it and my EU law class I had to work on my cross-examination and prepare evidence for my trial this evening. Now I'm in my EU class, which will run until nearly 12:30. Then I meet my witness and practice my examinations until about 2:30, when I meet with the journal editor and advisor about a cool project we're thinking about doing. Then at 3:00 I meet the speaker we've invited for the IP Law Society. That event runs from 3:30-5:00, but I need to duck out at 4:00 to take the T to the Federal Courthouse for the trial. The trial is the final event for my IP Trial Advocacy class, the event my grade will be based upon. So not only is today nice and hectic, but it's also stressful too. Which makes it really difficult to pay attention to the things I'm doing while I'm doing them.

I will be glad to have today behind me, but it's hardly going to be smooth sailing from here. Not for a while, at least.

* Apologies to the Boomtown Rats.

Last night was the final trial for my Trial Advocacy in IP class. It's just like a regular trial advocacy class, except the subject matter deals with patent infringement. I'm wondering how much I really like litigating patent infringement: there's something hideously boring and seemingly futile about parsing the complex and obfuscating language describing each invention. It makes me just want to bang the parties' heads together and make them work something out.

I was also wondering how much I liked the class. It met from 5-8pm, which is not a time when I am particularly alert. Especially on days when I began at 6am. Classes were long, and maybe a little tedious. But guess what: it turns out I learned stuff!

My job at yesterday's trial was to cross-examine one witness and do direct examination on another. I was nervous: I'd never really done either before, not the whole thing anyway, and I'd never also handled evidence at the same time. But it went great.

The biggest issue for my side – and in a real trial, this wouldn't have been a factor – was time. We were limited to 15 minutes combined for two cross-examinations and 30 for two directs. But it wasn't really enough time for us to make the cases for the two issues in dispute. (I'd insisted we also do the wrongful termination claim that the case file included because I thought it was more interesting than the patent infringement claim. Patent law seems much more about things, whereas wrongful termination seems much more about people. Others may argue the opposite, but unless there's a wholesale adoption of someone else's patent I just don't see the great injustice when different people's innovations just happen to overlap around the edges.)

I was the second examiner in both cases, and in both instances the person who had gone first had used up time I needed. So I had to improvise my questions and stray from my preplanned ones. For cross that was especially true, and expected, because I couldn't really anticipate what she might have said on direct. I only knew what I wanted to make sure she'd say at some point. But that examination went really well. Now, granted the witness was just a classmate role-playing, and the evidence in the case file made it easy to make the witness out to be sort of unpleasant, but last night it was all about execution, and I skewered her. I picked up on a lot of momentum she'd had during direct, and used it to undermine her own credibility. I also deftly used exhibits and memory refreshment to do this, which is what I'm most happy about since going into the trial I wasn't sure I had the slightest idea how to do that.

Overall I thought my side lawyered the whole thing great, but we still lost. There was no official verdict, but the polled jury seemed to not be comfortable deciding for us on either count. That, too, was a learning experience, because we could see how certain ideas resonated with the jury.

The trial was held in a courtroom at the Federal Courthouse, a gorgeous building on the waterfront. The jury was made up of people each of the acting attorneys brought. I brought my mom. Who I was impressed to see really picked up on the nuance of the patents. But I don't know why I should be so surprised - patent law is in our genes...

I just back back my MPRE score, and I passed! I got a 110. No idea how, that test was the most opaque exam I've ever undertaken. But I only needed a 79 for California (who doesn't even use the rules that were tested), an 85 in New York, and a 72 in New Jersey. (These are the places where I'm considering taking the Bar.) But the bottom line is, I NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN!

And I don't just mean from the 150 comment spams I got while I was offline today.

Without going into too many details, at least not in this post, I just want to say for anyone concerned that it may very well be true that I screwed up this year. I may have made any number of mistakes. I may have made any number of bad choices.

I am perfectly willing to take responsibility for any such missteps I may have made.

But if anyone other than me wants to take me to task for any choices I may or may not have made this semester, they should first stand in my shoes and live my life before they have the presumptive gall to tell me what I should or shouldn't have done. I can be plenty hard on myself without having to take anyone else's sanctimonious lecturing.

Several people have expressed concern at my "Under Attack" post. I'm fine, that was me in indignant mode. It's true, though, that I'm frustrated by a lot of things, and with hindsight I'm second-guessing all sorts of choices I've made this year. In particular I'm second guessing whether I should have done anything different for the last IP Law Society event, and whether I should have handled my job hunt differently. The truth is, though, that I've made the best decisions I could at the time, knowing what I knew then about both myself and this whole law school process.

Anyway, it's probably best not to go into the details of what set me off [Edit 4/19: but to clarify, it had nothing to do with the IP Law Society] , but the basic story is that I'd had to ask someone for something – something which I thought was entirely reasonable – and I got it, but couched in a particularly obnoxious, presumptive, and judgmental email. Rather than responding to the email – I am grateful for having been given what I asked for, and it's probably best just to drop the matter – I decided to blog instead the reaction that the email really deserved.

I think law school may actually be killing me. I can't believe I'm sick again! I used to think I had a pretty decent immune system, but it seems to be no match for this 24/7 law student thing.

Maybe I'm not too sick. And maybe I can stave off whatever germ is trying to set up residence. I just ate Japanese food, and I dare any bacteria to survive the onslaught of wasabi I just threw at it.

Anyway, not that I don't have good reason to be stressed and annoyed, but I think I might be pissier than normal because of how I feel. Again.

Edit for the people overreacting: I have a COLD, not an ulcer.

I spent all day wandering around Berkeley, trying to get my summer in order.

Because I finally got a job.

I'm going to be working for a Bay Area legal aid organization on its legal advice line and writing self-help legal documentation. I'll be great at that second part; the first part will involve learning new skills.

It's not QUITE the job I wanted. My dream job would have been to marry tech law with litigation work. But I couldn't quite conjure up one of those opportunities. And even at this organization I would have preferred a position with more case management. Those positions were all filled, so I have to presume that with my actual role I won't get to represent anyone at any hearings and such. This is too bad, because I really wanted to skewer someone else on cross-examination... Of course, if the opportunity presents itself I'll certainly be in the right place.

But there are upsides to this job, not the least of which is that the JOB HUNT IS OVER!!! Who knows, maybe I could have knocked on more doors and gotten something closer to what I thought I wanted. But the uncertainty was sapping me and threatening to undo my semester, as this job search process dragged on and on. I now can focus on my schoolwork for the remaining few weeks of the semester. And then when I'm out in California I'll be in the right place to network for jobs for the following summer (er, career...) Plus I get to remember what it was like to live in the East Bay and test whether I would want to come back here when I'm done with school.

In any case, the summer will be full of opportunities, and it's my job to make the most of them. There should be no more indulging of "what-ifs" about this summer. It's now all about "what is" and "what will be." It's surely untrue that doing this kind of work this summer somehow precludes me from praticing tech law litigation in the future. And I'm sure I'll be keeping a toe dipped into the IP world this summer one way or another anyway. I need to stop worrying that this is somehow a misstep, that there were rules to follow about how to get where I want to go that I've somehow violated by taking this detour into housing and family law. Surely I can still clerk; I can still be a good litigator; I can even still be a good IP policy analyst if I decide I want to be. I'm not going to unlearn any of my expertise in these areas, and a little breadth shouldn't be a bad thing.

No job could offer me any guarantees, anyway. Even 2Ls earning $10,000 for the summer at large law firms aren't guaranteed any interesting work or valuable learning experiences. Me, at least I know that the work I will do will have an immediate and direct impact on people's lives.

I can't think of a better way to spend my time.

Edited and title changed 4/19.

Lunch today was two bowls of ice cream. With toppings. Washed down with a pepsi. Could this be why I keep getting sick...?

(If I keep this up I may end up with that stomach ache my grandma is so worried about after all...)

The ice cream occured because of the IP Law Society elections. I've officially passed the Presidential Torch to the next generation (a current 1L). The group is in good shape to continue, and I'm pleased with what we were able to get done this year: three good events, and survival to next year!

After the voting, and while we were still eating, a couple of 2Ls and I answered questions from the 1Ls about what those IP courses were REALLY like. It was sort of interesting, being regarded as someone with worthwhile knowledge to impart...

I just got the training packet from the agency I'll be working for in anticipation of the work I'll be doing in just a little over a month. It suddenly made the law seem like a much more tangible thing than it ever has before. In school the teachers often say, "When you get into practice..." but they might as well be saying, "Once upon a time there were fairies and ogres..." for all the immediacy these lessons would appear to have on our lives. In reading over the packet, however, practicing the law suddenly does not seem like such a fanciful fiction anymore. Real people will be involved.

I used to like having a late April birthday. Most years I got a party in school, with cupcakes and such, and then I got to have friends over for a party one day and relatives over on another. The weather in NJ had always turned irreversibly to spring by then, and usually by my birthday the leaves had just come onto the trees. A late April birthday was the best time of year to have one, I always thought to myself.

Until law school. Now it's terrible, coming in the heat of exam preparation. Or worse, the finals themselves! Last year I spent my 30th birthday taking the Con Law final. What a crummy way to mark that occasion. As if one's 30th birthday isn't depressing enough. Of course, it's not like simply worrying about and studying for finals is a huge improvement either, but that's how today was largely spent. And I fear that's how next year's birthday will be observed as well.

It isn't right. Today should be my SPECIAL day. A holiday, if you will, in honor of me.

Fortunately there are people in my life who understand that. I got some calls, some cards, a few presents, and then my friends took me out to dinner. These are proper birthday activities. Not the running around the law school doing a thousand errands. That is not a proper birthday activity, though I did that too.

After dinner then one of my friends and I went to Copynight in Cambridge. Copynight is a chance for those who are concerned about the commodification trends in copyright law to meet up with other like-minded people. Meetings happen on the same evening in a whole bunch of cities. I think the first Copynight had been last month, but this was the first one done in Cambridge.

Anyway, Copynight this month had extra significance since WIPO has declared April 26 to be World Intellectual Property Day. Its intent is clearly to use the day to further brainwash the populace to submit to the copyright cartel's rhetoric.

But for me, intellectual property maven that I am, I can't help see it as a personal call to arms. Think of it, they picked MY day to be World Intellectual Property Day. Of COURSE my future career will be in this area. It's clearly destiny!

Tomorrow, by my own instigation, exams will begin.

I'm a little worried. My desire and ability to cogitate pretty much ended a few weeks shy of the actual end of the semester. Plus I ended up missing a whole bunch of classes I did not want to miss but had to for my note and job hunt. And then I've only been semi-productive during the past few days as a result to the Second Coming of my Cold (or sinus infection, as the doctor I saw believes).

So tomorrow I'm supposed to take Copyright. I don't HAVE to take it tomorrow - it's a takehome I can schedule more or less any time within the final exam period - but it's really the best time to get it out of the way. On the other hand, I don't feel as well-prepared as I should, of all the ironies. It's one of the classes I feel like I missed too many of. But I don't think I'll gain anything by waiting, so on with the studying this evening and then the test tomorrow...

Next Wednesday is European Union law. That's also a class I missed too many of. At least it feels like I did because I started to miss a lot at the end. The truth of the matter is that my attendance in all my classes was excellent at least halfway through the semester, and even afterward I never missed more than one of the two classes in a week. But I was overstressed and overtired, so even when I was there, I'm not sure I was really "there."

Patent law comes next, on the 10th, because that's when I scheduled it. It is not a takehome, but I had two exams at the same time so I moved the harder one up. I attended Patent class much more regularly - at least it feels like I did - and was much more on top of the readings. On the other hand, it felt like I really needed to be. I learned a lot, but right now it's all tangled mess in my head.

Then I do Legal Ethics. I don't have a lot of time to study for it, but when I was in that class I was IN that class. And I've technically already studied for a legal ethics test. So I'm not too worried, although perhaps I should be a little. I don't want to accidentally look past it.

Overall, I don't expect to fail anything, but I'm not optimistic about avoiding mediocrity either.

So it's a good thing I've decided against ever looking at my grades again, or else I might really be worried....

Edit 4/29: OK, I've decided it was dumb to try to take the copyright exam so soon. I've pushed it off to Monday so I can do more reading.

Despite rumors to the contrary, my exam period actually began today, about 5 hours ago when I sat for my European Law exam. I'm sure I missed issues and I think I may have accidentally merged together the goods and services articles from the Treaty Establishing the European Community, and my policy essay may have sucked to some degree, but I think my biggest obstacle is that the class is curved, and all my classmates are on Law Review... (Oh, and dropping my notes all over the floor in the middle of the test when the clip holding them together fell off didn't help either.)

On the other hand, I didn't fail. And since I've officially stopped caring about grades it doesn't really matter. Except it does matter because the professor is one of my favorites. She's one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, and she's been really supportive and encouraging so I don't want to let her down. I felt really bad about running out of steam before the class was over, not just because it kept me from learning as much as I could, but because I was afraid it could be seen as disrespectful to her and her teaching. It totally wasn't intended to be, and I completely regret on my own behalf not being able to absorb as much as I could. It's just that the rest of my life (er, law school) consumed me.

But it was really interesting, and I learned a lot about the subject matter. I wouldn't say I'm an expert in EU law because it's so complex, but it was good to gain some insight into the institutional, legal, and to some extent political structure.

After the test two friends who were in the class with me and I went over to the new gymnasium they just built on campus. It's fairly labyrinth, and the place has some stupid/expensive policies (No day lockers in the locker rooms??? Given the rampant laptop thefts on campus, they expect us to leave our bags sitting out?), but it does have a hot tub so we went to soak in it for a bit. Couldn't relax too much though – there's still more exams to go...

I have no choice - I must take the copyright exam today.

It's funny, I felt almost prepared to take it last week. I held off a few more days, and now I feel like I don't know anything.

Which isn't true: I know a lot about copyright. The question is whether I know the copyright that will be on the test. Um, perhaps not...

Edit: Well, that's done. I can't really talk about it because it's a takehome, and other people haven't done it yet. But suffice it to say, I knew stuff. Potentially even the right stuff, though we'll see...

Edit 5/6: I think I feel at odds with the exam because I feel like there are so many unanswered questions with regard to the material generally. Some of this might be due to the class itself - it was really short. It was only three units, instead of the usual four, which meant there was less class time (2 x 1.5 hours per week, rather than 2 x 2 hours). It just didn't really allow for any juicy policy discussions to develop, and we had move really quickly to even cover the basics about copyright law topically. As it was we still didn't quite get to a lot of good and complicated stuff, like state preemption.

Fortunately, this is a passion of mine so I'll keep learning copyright law one way or another. It's just that, even if I get a kick-ass grade, my transcript (as usual) won't be what expresses the expertise I may actually happen to have in it.

A friend of mine sent out an email invitation last night for a birthday dinner he's trying to plan for later in the week. In inviting us to bring along other people not already included in the email distribution, he wrote, "Oh, and please bring whoever you like, or multiple whoevers."

Unfortunately at 11:30 at night after a long day of studying patent law (although perhaps the subject matter had nothing to do with this) my feeble brain read it as "multiple whores."

In clarifying this with him he said they were welcome, but not required.

Edit: Actually, the above error reflects poorly on my legal scholarship. I should have known that, according to the 7th Circuit, the correct spelling is "ho." See USA v. Murphy, footnote 1:

"The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch 'hoe.' A 'hoe,' of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's response. We have taken the liberty of changing 'hoe' to 'ho,' a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps 'You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies.'"

What a waste of a perfectly good morning.

I spent it doing my patent exam. One other classmate did too. Everyone else will do it Thursday, but because I have another exam scheduled for then I got to move this one up. Like the copyright exam I can't talk about it since people have yet to take it, but I think I can say that it's nice to have it behind me. There's just one more exam to go now, which I'll spend all day tomorrow studying for.

After the exam I then ran around school for a bit, talking to various professors about upcoming academic ventures and a counselor at the career office about clerkships. Unfortunately that nice break I was looking forward to once exams are done has now been booked with dealing with the clerkship application process. It's going to be a huge mess next fall trying to interview while I'm in Germany, but it's an opportunity I'd really like to pursue so I'll try to work something out. Fortunately it doesn't bother me, except for the expense, to fly back and forth from one continent to another. I'm very portable...

By the time I got done with all this my brain was pretty fried. But then I found the perfect antidote: the live Huey Lewis and the News concert DVD (from the *one* concert I wasn't able to see last year...) will be coming out next Tuesday, and Rhino records has up videos from three of the songs. It was the first I'd seen of them, and they were a wonderful way to perk up my legally-deflated brain. I've been looking forward to the DVD ever since I heard about it - although not too much. The fan in me thought May 17th couldn't get here soon enough, but the law student was happy for it to take its time, what with a pile of exams and other law school detritus to deal with before that date came around. Now with it being just a week away and there being only the one more exam I'm starting to get excited, although there are still things interfering with a full onslaught of jubilation. For instance, I'm supposed to meet with someone on my journal on Tuesday, and I don't know how to tell him that I might not be available because I have to run out to the store to buy the new DVD, and then come home and watch it 10,000 times.

After that little interlude I stopped into a review session and then my friends and I piled into my now-mobile car and did our traditional end-of-semester trip to Friendly's. One of them is leaving town on Thursday and both will be spending the summer in a different city than me, and then at the end of the summer I'm heading off to Europe, so this was our last chance to hang out for what might be a very, very long time.

Law.com just ran an article about some fallout from a lawsuit by the family of two daughters who were essentially enslaved by a Berkeley, CA landlord. The particular issue from the article – a malpractice dispute over the fees their attorneys are entitled to – is not of so much interest here. But the underlying case that led to this point was pretty horrific.

A landlord named Lakireddy Bali Reddy had brought over these two sisters from India. They spoke only Telegu – no English whatsoever – and they did maintenance work on his apartments. Though people in the community always had a sense there was something not quite right about the arrangement, nothing happened until one tragic day when one of the girls died. They had been living in one of Reddy's apartments with a faulty gas radiator and one of them died of carbon monoxide poisoning. This was discovered when a neighbor saw Reddy's workers struggling with a large carpet roll they were trying to shove into a van, and the other girl crying hysterically on the sidewalk. The neighbor offered help and was told to mind their own business. The neighbor called the police anyway, which led to the whole mess finally being uncovered.

But Mr. Reddy wasn't just any horrible Berkeley landlord – as an undergrad (and a few years thereafter) he was MY horrible Berkeley landlord. He was the kind of landlord who would try to get away with as much as he could from his tenants, who rarely had the resources (particularly in terms of knowledge, time, or money) to fight back. I did fight back, however. When he took me to the rent board to raise my rent, I fought back for overcharges and lack of repairs. The whole thing dragged on for quite some time, but I stuck with it, and eventually he settled with me for a significant amount of money (and from that point on he treated me much better as a tenant, although my neighbors who had not challenged him were still subject to the previous status quo).

I was lucky, though: back then, as a scared, green, young adult, I had the assistance of local public interest organizations to help me navigate the process. I wrote in my application for my upcoming job was that I'm grateful to the community that had once helped me, and I'm glad to be able to finally return the favor.

Tonight was the final exam for my lifeguarding class. I passed. But geez, what a time suck that class was. I wish I hadn't let my previous lifeguarding certification lapse. Having done so meant I needed to take the whole thing over again. It took 30 hours, 5 hours a night over the past 6 nights. But now I have my lifeguarding card, my first aid card, and my CPR/FRP AED card, as well as my WSI card. If I really wanted to make aquatics my career, I'd be set... (I did all this so I could teach.)

It was weird being in a classroom, learning something other than law. I didn't really know what to do with my brain. It was a different kind of learning. Plus water was involved. Law classes don't usually involve buoyancy. Or the threat of drowning.

I've been taking these courses since 1989. Over the years the Red Cross has changed its curriculum, as well as its mind about how best to save people. Which makes things very confusing for me, because after they've pounded it into my head "DO IT THIS WAY" it's difficult for me to now overwrite that information with the new instructions, "DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE!!! Do it THIS way!"

In some ways the changes might be an improvement. Better equipment is available, and some of the new techniques might be safer (particularly for the rescuer). But I'm not entirely sure all these changes are for the better. For one thing, I used to know how to rescue someone when no ring buoy was available. I knew how to grab them, I knew how to level them off, and I knew how to swim with them back to safety. Now, all the rescues require ring buoys. Which is great if you work at a properly equipped pool. But kind of sucks if you happen to see someone drowning in some other body of water not at a swim front. Should such a situation arise I have no duty to try to rescue them (at least if I'm not in Vermont...), but, if I thought I could do it without danger to myself, I might like to try. With my 10-15 years old knowledge I have the skills to do it, but the new lifeguard trainees do not.

(Side note: the old courses also used to emphasize that rescues should not be attempted if they would pose a risk to the rescuer. That admonition hardly exists in the current course, and in fact certain skills were taught for which I have serious doubts about their safety, were they attempted. For instance, a multiple-victim rescue with just one guard if both victims are adults seems like a recipe for disaster. There just is not enough buoyancy in a ring buoy to properly support three people, at least two of whom are panicked. It seems likely that at least one victim would try to climb on the guard, thereby risking his or her drowning as well. There should be at least two guards for this rescue, but the Red Cross didn't teach us how to do that.)

In fact there's a lot of useful knowledge that the new lifeguards haven't learned. The Red Cross has really dumbed a lot of stuff down. It seems to be a course designed to prepare 16 year olds for their first summer jobs, not 31 year old law students who are going to see right through it. But it used to be much more thorough in its curriculum. The first aid component, for example, was much more robust. Other than some topical discussion of some conditions and basic treatments, this week we did bandages and made slings. We didn't even make splints with the slings, like we used to. The first aid skills, like the lifeguarding, seem to require that we be at a properly-equipped facility. If anyone should happen to need first aid anywhere else, too bad.

Which makes me wonder what I'm supposed to do with all this knowledge that's been stuffed into my head over the years. The Red Cross now stresses the legalities of lifeguarding, including in the curriculum lessons on what constitutes negligence, abandonment, duty to rescue, etc. The overall instruction seems to be that if you perform your skills properly as you are trained, you won't have problems with liability. But it raises the real problem of what happens when you have lots of training, like me. Am I obligated to limit my rescuing skills to only what was covered in this latest course? What happens when those skills come up short and I need to draw on the old ones to get the job done?

I used to think that if I learned the law I would feel better about how all this works, because I'd understand the law so it wouldn't feel so scary. But that hasn't happened at all. Because I do understand the law, because I can understand how plausible lawsuits can so easily be plucked out of the air and served onto well-intentioned, helpful, but legally-vulnerable people, I find it all the more terrifying. Why would I want to be a lifeguard? It just doesn't seem to be worth the risk.

Technically posted 5/21. Date stamp applies to when post was written.

My car is as healthy as it's been in years. The wheels all spin, the brakes have been checked, the engine has been tuned, the broken lock has been fixed, the windshield is replaced, and I have four shiny new tires.

I, on the other hand, am not quite in as good condition. Whatever Evil Germ attacked me in March has not quite given up the ghost, despite two courses of antibiotics. But I can't tell if it is what's wearing me down, or if it's because I'm worn down that it's able to hang on. Either way I need to bring back some sanity into my life. As advertised, the 2L year was extremely intense. What was surprising is that it never really ended... I thought I'd have all last week to recover and reorganize my life. Not so. I didn't even end up with time to pack.

It might get better now, just because I'm finally away from there. Yesterday morning I got into my lovely car and drove off to New Jersey. Of course, I was planning to do this on Sunday, and by being late it meant I didn't get to go to New York yesterday to see my grandma or my friend. But I did get time to see my dad and run some errands, and today will be ok, finishing up the errands and seeing some other relatives. Then tomorrow I begin my journey to California. I'm actually looking forward to the drive, as long as my car radio works...

I think I've lived this summer before. When I was 19, between my freshman and sophomore year at college I spent the summer in Berkeley, renting out someone's room and teaching swimming lessons. That's pretty much what I've got going this year. Plus the law job, of course.

But it's the summer I really wanted to have. I can't quite explain it, but I really wanted to come back here, even if it were just for a last hurrah. And being here for the past couple of days makes me feel very glad I did. I'm just really comfortable here. Berkeley was the first place that I ever made my home as an adult. I was 18 years old, and I moved thousands of miles away from the only home I'd ever known to start a life here. I stayed for six years, before new adventures called me away. Even though I lived in the Bay Area for three more years afterwards, it wasn't the same. I always felt like a stranger in Santa Clara. But in Berkeley I feel like I belong.

I'm renting a room in a house converted into apartments. My room is on the third floor, the bed in a dormer from which there is a nice view of the Berkeley hills. It makes a good nest. So far the roommates seem reasonable, although there will be a new one later this week I haven't yet met.

I've also got all sorts of plans to get healthy this summer: eating better, and getting lots and lots of exercise. I'll have a ton to do this summer, with two jobs and some summer law school stuff to take care of, but I should be able to follow through on a lot of it. I already feel much more invigorated just being here in the sunny Bay Area. At last it feels like summer.

The law job has also started already; today was the first day of orientation training. We were given crash courses covering public benefits law, which is surprisingly difficult to master (the hypos we worked on required identifying the different funding sources available, and the various Byzantine income requirements each of them had), and domestic violence issues, which are very sobering. The terror some people have to feel in their homes is just terrible. I wasn't unfamiliar with the problem of domestic violence generally, before this, but it used to feel like the people involved were "other people," and no one I could ever possibly know. But that's just an illusion; it's more common than people think. And this summer I may be helping some of them.

Yesterday was a crash course in how to keep people from losing their homes.

It turns out the housing law we'll practice is different than what I expected. I thought that we'd help out more with people having difficulty with their landlords - being charged too much, not getting deposits back, not getting repairs taken care of, etc. Poorer people are more easily victimized by crummy landlords, and there's a lot of help they could use to prevent their exploitation.

But apparently we will mostly concentrate on keeping them from losing their homes. Those other problems are important, but it seems they'll mostly be dealt with in the context of an eviction defense. Which from a resource-allocation standpoint makes sense: keeping a roof over one's head seems the most urgent thing to address.

Of course, those other problems - liberties impermissibly taken by unscrupulous landlords - are the very thing things that help keep poor people poor. If your landlord overcharges rent, or doesn't return a deposit, it becomes very expensive for those who can least afford it.

And these kinds of things just aren't fair. People should be entitled to fair treatment in their dealings. We have laws and lofty notions of justice and legal recourse to help ensure that they are. But fairness takes a back seat to survival. Yesterday I came to the unpleasant realization that there will be many, many worthy battles for justice we won't be able to fight, because all our attention will be consumed with just trying to keep people safe in their homes.

Yesterday's training included a crash course in public benefits and a workshop in client interviewing. There's a few techniques to use, like issue-driven or holistic, and active and passive. Most of us seemed inclined to use some combination of all of them at various points in the interview, depending on how it was going (and how much time was available). Issue-driven interviewing can generate more of the important details more quickly, but sometimes entire issues can be missed if the interviewer doesn't know they exist and the interviewee doesn't bring them up. A holistic interview, where the client speaks more freely make illuminate more problem areas, but potentially less efficiently. On the other hand, as we gain experience we will know, in an issue-driven interview, what kinds of questions to ask about. Someone with a housing issue, for instance, may simultaneously be having a problem with their benefits as well.

This week the Supreme Court finally rendered its decision in Ashcroft (now Gonzalez) v. Raich. I'd blogged about this case before. The Court ruled in favor of the Federal government.

There is much that can be said about the wisdom of the decision or the Constitutional issues it raised. But that's not what I want to talk about. Sometimes Supreme Court decisions, particularly because they adjudicate cases coming from all over the country, seem very abstract. They're about strangers; they're not about anyone you would know.

But in this case I know both the lawyer who argued the case, and the doctor represented. It's very easy for me to see just how this decision affects some very real people.

Is it really a function of my journey through law school that the law seems more personal than it once did? Certainly my social circle includes far more people who have argued before or clerked with the Supreme Court than it once did... But then again, I already knew the doctor. And I know other citizens, like him, for whom these laws are meaningful to them, whether they realize it or not.

So perhaps I follow the law more closely than most. But just because I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to pay closer attention to it doesn't make it more important to me than anyone else. It matters to everyone, but I sometimes feel that people feel overwhelmed by the law and abdicate their interest in it to the professionals. And sometimes I think practitioners play up that perceived gap, making ordinary people feel helpless and subordinate to it and dependent on the professionals to handle their legal matters. I think it's a shame. The law belongs to everyone, and everyone needs to be equipped and empowered to navigate it.

Date reflects when post was written.

Once I was able to tear myself away from my glorious visage, I flipped through the rest of the magazine. There was very little in it of any interest to me - I really don't care who the best corporate law firms are - but at the end there were some anecdotes about lawyers helping some hard luck cases. They're written with a slightly marvelling tone - that lawyers actually do good sometimes! - but they do show a really important aspect of the legal practice.

Anyway, someday I wouldn't mind having my picture associated with one of those stories.

I can't believe how much last year took out of me. It didn't just take out energy; it took out enthusiasm. I remember my 1L days when I had hyper-puppy energy -- "Law! Law! Teach me! Law!" And now I'm more like a lazy, aged hound that just wants to lie in a heap in front of the TV.

Sadly, that's still not really an option. The semester may be done but I have a 40 (in theory) hour per week job to go to plus a side job that takes about 10 more hours a week, two major projects for my journal to work on, job hunting for next year to do, clerkship hunting to do, a personal commitment to get more exercise to follow-through on, next semester to coordinate (a bigger deal than normal since it involves another country), and, also in theory, a modicum of a social life to maintain (or perhaps I should say, "establish"). I've been in the Bay Area for more than three weeks now and I've only managed to see two friends so far. There's a lot more I'd like to see, but I'm afraid to even tell them that I'm in town because I'm not sure when I'd be able to find the time to see them anyway. Nearly every moment of my summer has been earmarked for some purpose or activity, and there's not a lot left to go around.

Now, some of those activities I really like. I like the swimming lessons, for example, and I also started playing soccer on Sundays. With that and the 2 miles I've been walking every day to/from BART, I'm excited to say that I'm starting to feel something resembling muscle tone return to my legs. But there's a few other activities I'd like to do (eg, bike riding) that I haven't been able to get started on yet.

Part of the problem is that even though physical health on its own seems like a worthy priority, it ends up paling to the panic of coordinating my legal future. Thus the burnout. Because it's not really burnout that's the problem; it's more like a form of resentment that this discipline is sucking away so much of my life and denying me balance. I don't begrudge throwing a huge portion of my energies into it - I'm extremely committed to being successful in this practice - but I mind HAVING to. I mind this passive pressure to perform perfectly and punctually on a schedule I have no control over in a system where I have even less. And I mind that I can't feel comfortable blowing off certain activities without feeling like I'm blowing off my entire career.

I don't know how to fix this other than just persevering. But I did want to explain and leave this breadcrumb of how I'm feeling right now on my blog, partly for posterity and partly to explain my absense. It's not that I want to neglect my blog - indeed, I find blogging an incredibly pleasurable and surprisingly recharging activity - but at the end of the day there's nothing left to give to it. There's not enough air left in my lungs to fan the little sparks of inspiration into full-blown ideas, and I really miss doing that.

In fact, perhaps the only reason I'm able to post today is because I took the day off.

At lunch I was talking with my boss* about the bar exam.

I realized it was the first conversation I've ever really had about ME taking the bar exam. Sure, I've had a few where it's been some sort of far-off hypothetical "oh yeah, I guess I'll take the bar someday," but this was the first where it was discussed as a certainty, as in a "this time next year" you WILL be studying for the bar.

Anyway, my boss imparted me with some advice: don't get pregnant before the bar. Apparently she did, and suffered greatly during the preparation and actual exam taking. Of course, she DID pass, so perhaps I should take this advice with a grain of salt...

* = I actually have two bosses. This conversation was with the one who's a woman.

I took a long-planned, much-needed day off yesterday to run around and get myself medically poked and prodded and generally declared sound enough to continue existing for another year (though the permission to masticate only applies for the next six months).

As all relaxing days-off should begin, mine began with me waking up at the crack of dawn to finally consolidate my loans before the July 1 deadline. As I understand it, because I'm still in school I could only consolidate the federal loans I have so far (two subsidized, two unsubsidized, totaling $37,000!!!!), so that's what I did. Eventually. Following repeated crashings of the relevant website.

Then I rushed up to the pool where I teach to take a shower. The place where I'm living has no water pressure to speak of (why does this always happen to me?) but one of the perks of the swim job is that I have access to the locker rooms. So at least I have a place to get clean. Although I do tend to feel like an ancient Roman, commuting to my bath...

But I also had business up there, apart from the ablutions. A sub would be teaching my classes that evening, and I had to make up the end-of-class certificates for her to give the kids. So I did that, and then got in the car and rushed down to the South Bay for a dermatology appointment. From there I dashed off to the dentist, where I rebuked him for asking how I was doing while the hygienist was still hacking at my mouth with pointy objects. "How could I possibly answer honestly under such duress?" I protested.

After the teeth cleaning it was time for a haircut, where more pointy metal objects were thrust towards my skull. Then it was back to the doctor's office for a physical.

Following the slew of appointments where pretty much everyone went after me with sharp instruments, it was time for the fun part of my day to begin. I headed back up north and an hour or so later arrived at the Marin County fair. I remember when I was a kid really liking fairs - particularly the Sussex County (New Jersey) one my summer camp took us to. I think I'm a little over it now, but I still like Huey Lewis and the News as much as ever, and that's where they were playing. Fortunately the band itself was well-tuned, so it wasn't another occasion to endure more sharp instruments.

(Sorry.)

Anyway, I had a great time, as usual. I got a spot right up front and took off my shoes to dance on the grass. We kept getting buffeted though by the security guard who'd barrel through the crowd to over-enforce a no cameras policy, leading the woman next to me to comment that we weren't standing in a good place.

"Oh, no," I thought, as the music from the stage washed over me. "This is the perfect place to be."

I'd brought the magazine my picture was in with me to show people. Comment by Huey, after I described the two-hour photoshoot: "Now you know what it's like."