"The Project of Law School" [John]

So Orientation is unofficially over. We have no class tomorrow but only a welcome reception with the Dean tomorrow night. So I would like to use this post to sum up this past week and to lay out my expectations for the weeks to follow.

Orientation was definitely very helpful in easing the pressure and uncovering the mystery that is law school. Most of the lectures they had us sit through delivered very helpful tips on how to approach my law school career and also highlighted the many services that Catholic Law provides its students. The days were long--and I mean very very long, but I definitely appreciated them.

As for next week, I still am a little nervous about what to expect. Granted, today we did have a "model class" which went through the steps of an average day of class. It cleared up many questions I had and left me feeling confident that I will do good in class. However, one of the constant themes throughout orientation was to actively participate in class and don't get left behind. This shouldn't be a problem for me, but there is always that lingering question--what if it does happen?

This is not undergrad; teachers are not going to hold your hand up to commencement. (and yes you all know what I mean...paper extensions, excused absences, postponed exams...no more) They will however, do their best to guide you but of course that is within reason.

That brings me to my next point. Law school is like a job. You show up at 9 and leave around 5. You are suppose to bring an asset to the table that will help benefit the company. In law school, that was your resume and the skills you developed throughout undergrad. The expectation now is not what the law school can do for you, but rather what you can do for the law school. My law school experience not only affects my reputation but also that of the law school. Today, I want to make it clear that I am up for the challenge and cannot wait to delve into what one professor rightfully called it "the project of law school."

IRAC... or DRAC [Eugene]

I am very glad John brought up IRAC. Although, I have not started school yet, it is something that I am already very familiar with. The good people over at Law Preview warned my class two weeks ago that all of our law schools would try to indoctrinate us into the legal analysis method  that is IRAC. It seems like Catholic has already begun, and its only the third day.

To be completely honest, the Law Preview instructors did not have much nice to say about IRAC. In fact, they flat out thumbed their noses at it. To quote the Law Preview text book: 

Praised for its simplicity, IRAC has helped hundreds of thousands of students survive their law school exams. But if you are interested in doing more than just surviving your exams - if you want to conquer them - then you will see how using this methodology is far too limiting for students who want to earn a top spot in their class

Ouch! Law Preview instead recommends their own equally cheesy acronym for law students wishing to do legal analysis: DRAC. This supposedly superior approach lists the 4 steps of analysis as 1.)Dispute, 2.) Rule 3.) Arguments, 4.) Conclusion. The key difference here is in step 3. In IRAC, so they say, simply applying the legal issue to the case you are discussing unnecessarily limits the scope of your analysis, whereas laying out all the potential arguments that each party could possibly make in a dispute (the DRAC way) will broaden your analysis to include not only factual issues, but also legal and public policy issues as well, and therefore give you a more complete and more correct answer. 

Yeah, whatever all that means! However, DRAC is essentially the big scoop that Law Preview offers its students. So for anyone out there who is planning on attending law school in '09 or later and was thinking of taking Law Preview, I just saved you $1,200. 

 

From Iraq to IRAC... [John]

My undergrad career as a political science major delved into the policy issues of the War in Iraq. Law school has brought forth yet another IRAC. IRAC is a mnemonic device that is used to help develop legal analysis of issues considered within a law suit. The acronym stands for Issues, Rules, Application/Analysis, Conclusion.

When approached with an issue, you need to first look for authority that includes rules that will help resolve the issue at hand. Then you must analogously apply those rules to the facts of your case and then reach a conclusion that determines whether the facts satisfy the legal rule.

Of course, it is much more complicated than that, but a blog post is not the venue to delve into the intricacies of forming a legal argument. However, by sharing this with you I wanted to stress the importance of legal writing and the forming of an argument. We have not began any of our doctrinal classes yet, but rather have focused heavily on understand the basics of the law and how to correctly develop an argument. They expect us to have a good grasp on this by Monday when class officially starts. Hopefully, by Sunday night, I can report to you that I fully understand and have practiced numerous times the IRAC device of legal analysis.

Law School: A Necessary Evil??? [Eugene]

Yesterday in my introductory post I explained why I felt that law school was a necessary evil. It was an incredibly sobering experience for me when I began searching for a job and realized how tough it was for a social science/humanities major to find "good work", and really even any work at all. The BA just doesn't mean that much these days. The way the current educational system is set up, more education, i.e. law school, is required. In the Wall Street Journal today, Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute opines that the entire higher education system in the US is broken. I happen to agree. Money quote:

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

Whether you agree with the solution or not, it would be very difficult to argue that everything is fine with higher education. The proof in the pudding is that pretty much every single social science/humanities major in the country feels the need to apply to law school now. For the outrageous costs that are required to obtain a BA, it should definitely be providing young, intelligent people with more opportunities and open more doors than it actually does.  

Body Guard? Orientation: Day 2

Second day of orientation went great! I had two lectures and began my Lawyering Skills class. Many subjects were brought up but one in particular really caught my ear...

What is a lawyer? Everyone has their own opinions. Black's Law Dictionary says that a lawyer is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." However, it never mentioned what is our job. Today, I heard our job summed up as follows:

"Our job is to put our body in between our client and those that will do them harm"

When I first heard this description it seemed like I was a bodyguard or "Superman" protecting the innocent. However, the more I thought about it, being a "Superman" figure is not so far fetched. Lawyers have an obligation to their client, no matter what the client has done, to protect them from outside entities that would cause them harm no matter if they act in self-interests or the interests of society. In our professionalism lecture today, we discussed this obligation and its relationship to the client-attorney privilege. The professor's argument was that this obligation is both ethically and morally important; lawyers need to act in their clients best interest, even if it might lead to the court finding a murderer "not-guilty." I tend to agree that we must uphold this relationship no matter the circumstances, but instead of telling you why, I would love to hear from you, the readers. What is your opinion on this issue?

23 Years Later [Eugene]

Unlike my friend John, it would be completely disingenuous for me to say that I have wanted to be a lawyer my entire life. In fact as late as last year at this time, law school was not even on my radar screen. I graduated from George Washington University in '07 (BA International Affairs) with thoughts of high paying jobs and economic self-sufficiency on the brain. It was quite a rude awakening for me when I hit the job market in DC during the summer of '07. There were plenty of opportunities, particularly in the non-profit area, but none were high paying or even offered a path to a high paying job in the future. It did not take very long working under these conditions that I realized that I had to improve my marketability. Hello, law school!!! 

For me, law school is a necessary evil. If you aren't going to go to law school and you don't have friends in high places, there is just not a lot of economic opportunity out there for humanities/social science majors. Its sad, but its true.

As I entered the admissions process and began reading about law school, my interest and desire to study the law definitely increased. After taking the Law Preview class at NYU last week, and beginning to do my initial course readings for NYLS, I am officially excited about beginning this endeavor. I have certainly come a long way in this last 6-8 months in terms of my intellectual desire to go to law school, and my conviction that I would like to practice law for my career. But unlike John, I definitely did not start here. 

From what I have heard from friends/contacts, it seems that most law schools have begun orientation and classes this week. NYL, however, does not start until next Monday, 8/18. I will have more then.     

The Journey Begins: Orientation Day 1

So today I have officially began my first day at Catholic Law. It was a day of administrative work beginning with filling in a bunch of forms and ending with me receiving my class schedule. I am Section D and taking Lawyering Skills, Civil Procedure, Contracts and Torts.

Unfortunately, none of my friends nor anyone I met today was in section D. However, our first class (Lawyering Skills) starts tomorrow; so in less than 24 hours I will meet the 35+ classmates that will be in every class I take for the next year.

The rest of the week is filled with different orientation events/classes including a class on Professionalism and a President and Dean reception at the end of the week.

As for now, I am going to make some dinner and begin my first reading assignment: "The Foundations of Legal Analysis."