The Mutually Shared Delusion

As I look back on my old posts here from 9 months ago, I can't help but blush a little. The excitement and optimism about the law and being a lawyer is just dripping from all the writing. It was a time of blissful ignorance and naivete. There was a feeling that everything was at my fingertips and I was seizing the day. Unfortunately, there was no day to be seized. I'm not sure that everyone, even some in the legal community, understand how times have changed. My corporations teacher starts nearly every sentence with "when you are a corporate lawyer." She gives us helpful hints and things to think about when we are in practice and working on putting together "big deals." If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny. No one in that room is going to be a corporate lawyer, working on big deals for multinational clients. At least not for the foreseeable future. They'll be lucky to find volunteer work with the City government this summer.

Despite this inconvenient truth, time marches on at NYLS. Everyone lives in a mutually shared delusion. The faculty and administration pretends they are preparing students for a legal career. The students pretend that they are preparing themselves for that legal career. On my more cynical days, I tend to think the powers that be at NYLS know how dire the situation is, but purposefully coordinate their activities so as to keep it a secret from the vast majority of students, who have not been exposed to the realities of the legal market in 2009. Other days I think they are just as blind as the poor students whose tuition money they take. Perhaps they are in denial of the fact that the school is simply not relevant and has nothing to offer students in this market.

That might seem a bit harsh. But consider this. My class at NYLS has 420 students in it. To finish in the top 10 people in a class that size I think everyone would acknowledge is quite a special accomplishment. Yet, of those ten people (of which I am one, and I know most of the other 9), 1 received a job offer for next summer from a big Manhattan law firm. If the school cannot secure jobs for the top ten people in its class, why does the school exist? It should probably just close up shop. Perhaps this a little unfair because from what I understand even schools like Harvard and Yale are having trouble placing their students this year. However, it is not an unreasonable or unjustified thought.

Maybe things will get better. Maybe they won't. The fact is that the legal profession has imploded and there is absolutely nothing that recent grads or those in law school now can do about it. The fast track to prosperity for those who worked hard and finished at the top of their law school class does not exist anymore. Even if you assume that things will eventually improve, everyone's career has been set back years in terms of money and work experience. Some people just laugh it off, put their blinders down and just keep plugging along. I am jealous of them. However, I wonder how much of that is just for show. I can't imagine there is anyone in my position right now who is not also having a crisis of confidence.

So pardon me if the glow of the first year of law school has worn off. I've been there and done that. I had the Kingsfield-like Contracts teacher. I got an A from him. I learned about mens rea, personal jurisdiction, proximate cause, and adverse possession. I got A's in all those classes too (well except Torts). It was the most exhilarating and rewarding 9 months of my life. When I received those grades, it was the greatest sense of pride and self-accomplishment that I have ever felt. But looking back now however many months later, was it all worth it? Did it really matter as much as I thought it did at the time? Did it matter as much as every single person I went to for advice in my life told me it mattered? The answer is a resounding and unequivocal "no". It's virtually meaningless. I'll have to prove myself again this year all over again and hope that maybe next year some employer with throw me a crumb. Right now, my 1L GPA of 3.75 and $2.25 will buy me a subway ride to Brooklyn.

But hey, I have to get to bed early now. I am required to attend a conference early tomorrow about the emergence of a new duty in corporate law that directors owe shareholders (known as the duty of good faith). I'm told that it will come in handy for me when I am a big corporate lawyer. And the delusional continues....

Statutory Interpretation

Unlike torts, contracts, and property, criminal law is almost entirely statute-based. There are still many cases to be read. But unlike in the other courses, the cases are not read in order to discern what the law is. Instead, the purpose of the case readings is to provide examples and guidelines for how to interpret criminal statutes. Often times statutes can be quite ambiguous. When lawyers and judges are interpreting statutes, they need to consider the legislative history and the legislative purpose in order to understand what the statute means. For example, in criminal law, in order to be found guilty of a crime, there is almost always the requirement of a mental element (known as mens rea). It is not enough that a person does a criminal act, that person must also have a culpable state of mind at the time of the action (purposefully, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently to name a few). Sometimes statutes are silent as to what the mental requirement is. The usual common law practice is for court to assume that a mens rea requirement is implied in the text of a statute, and can only be nullified by the legislature specifically stating that there is no such requirement. However, interpretation can sometimes lead in another direction. Policy considerations sometimes can counteract common law assumptions. For example, if a law is passed that has clear public policy objectives (for example regulating the sale of prescription drugs), a court might discern that those objectives outweigh the potential harm done to an individual who is found strictly liable for breaking that law (finding a defendant guilty for simply committing the act without any consideration of fault or the reasonableness of their conduct). In these cases, courts will interpret the statute as not having a mens rea requirement unless the legislature specifically requires one. 

I understand that this can be confusing. That is precisely the point. Statutory interpretation is NOT easy and can be downright painful. But my extensive work with it in criminal law is providing me with another skill that every lawyer needs to have. I continue to be impressed at how well-rounded and complete the first year of law school is in teaching students all the required basics of being an effective lawyer.  

Directed Verdicts in Negligence Cases

A directed verdict is where the judge renders a verdict, usually for the defendant, instead of handing the case to the jury because he feels that no reasonable jury could decide in the plaintiff's favor. The last few cases in Torts, a directed verdict was rendered.

I was kind of confused by the decision for the judge to direct a verdict especially in a case where a blind employee bumped into a 75 year old man, which resulted severe injuries when he hit the floor. The old man sued the blind employee for negligence because he did not have his walking cane with him at the time of the incident. However, expert testimony exclaimed that it is common and usual for a blind individual to not use his cane when walking around at his place of employment; therefore he acted with reasonable care.

I agreed, but believed that it should go to the jury to weigh the facts and reasonably render on the side of the defendant. However, the judge rendered a directed verdict of the defendant without handing the case to the jury. Puzzled, I asked the professor to explain. Of course he didn't answer me directly (professors never do) but instead he posed another hypothetical about a malpractice case where the doctor was actually not liable for negligence. He then asked me whether a reasonable jury could conclude that the doctor is not liable for negligence when the plaintiff is in the courtroom bandaged up. The jury would have been swayed by their emotions rather than rendering a reasonable judgment. It made sense when he explained it that way: juries are not always the best to render a decision. (also this was a matter of law and not a matter of fact since there was insufficient evidence that he knowingly or should have known that he was breaching his duty of care...anyway...)

In the blind man case, he did not breach his duty by walking without a cane. It was unfortunate that someone got hurt, but legally, he was within his right to walk without the cane in an area that is most familiar with him. A jury might have felt sorry for the old man if given the case, but that wouldn't have been the correct judgment based on the matter of law since the plaintiff is unable to establish a prima facie case.

Yes, It Appears They Are Serious...

Echoing what John said yesterday, Torts can be very frustrating. In a case I read tonight, a school district was held liable in a claim by a student from a different school district. What happened was the Defendant school district wrote a letter recommending a former employer of theirs for a position in Plaintiff's school district. He was hired. Plaintiff was later sexually molested by this guy and she sued the Defendant school district for recommending him for the position. The court found that the Defendant had a duty of care to the Plaintiff because it was foreseeable that this guy could have caused harm to a student at his new position 

Hmmm... bit of a stretch. By this logic, pretty much everyone has a duty of care to everyone else, even if they've never met them and their actions have nothing to do with them. I guess if the end goal is to create a society where the government either directly or indirectly (through coercing a third party) compensates all citizens for anything that goes wrong in their lives, this opinion makes for very good policy. If you think those policy ends are total hogwash, this opinion is a nightmare.  

By the way, this decision was from the California Supreme Court in case you were wondering. All the landmark tort cases come from California. Not many big cases expanding the scope of tort law coming out of Texas or South Carolina.      

Are you serious?

So we officially started Negligence in torts class today. And let me tell you, this pleading negligence stuff is really bothering me. I'm not saying all negligence cases are frivolous; in fact, many are very important and have made the world a much safer place.

But there are many negligence cases, especially against companies that have caused endless litigation that has resulted in owner manuals to be as thick as phonebooks. The American citizen, through negligence litigation, has not only disregarded personal responsibility but has created a society were you blame everyone except for yourself.

We have read cases where products have been misused, individuals trespassing on private property, and reasonable precautions are not enough; all of which the defendant has been liable for negligence. Granted, most of the cases in which these things occurred, the court has ruled correctly and said that the company wasn't liable. However, this is not the case in every situation.

Thankfully, the defense has a tool called contributory negligence (which now, i think is being called comparative negligence). This is an affirmative defense used by the defendant to show that plaintiff was more or equally negligent than that of the defendant's negligence. It is the best tool I feel (or at least that I have learned about) to stop frivolous cases where plaintiff's don't own up to their mistakes but rather try to blame big business.

Sometimes Even the Best Get it Wrong

In my last post I was discussing how challenging it was to read with a critical eye the legal opinions of some of the most celebrated jurists in American history. What seemed like an impossibility last week (finding flaws in the arguments of geniuses) became reality today. 

In Torts today, we discussed a legal opinion from Oliver Wendell Holmes from 1927. He was in his 80s at the time and was perhaps losing it, but it turned out to be the most bizarre and stunningly incoherent opinion I have read since starting law school. One of the fundamental concepts of torts is determining what is the reasonable standard of care in a given situation. The courts have found that the reasonable standard of care is an issue of fact that should be decided by a jury. But Ollie, perhaps old and cynical at the time, decided that this particular case was one where he didn't need a jury to tell him what reasonable behavior should be, because he thought he had the answer for himself. 

The case involved a man who while in his automobile was hit by a train while driving across railroad tracks. There was no denying the railroad's negligence, but the law of torts states that if the plaintiff was in any way responsible for his injury, there is no liability. Holmes decided as a universal principle that in order for a driver not to be negligent in a case such as this, he had to get out of his car and look both ways down the tracks before driving over them. If the driver failed to do this, he was creating unnecessary risk, and was negligent.  Hmmm.....

The silliness of this opinion was proven by the fact that it was overturned less than 5 years later when Benjamin Cardozo stepped in and corrected the obvious error. Cardozo correctly observed that getting out of the car to look to see if a train was coming clearly would not increase safety, and in fact would make the situation even more dangerous. By the time a driver got out of his car and looked down the tracks, by the time he turned around, got back in his car, started it up again, and began to drive... it was very possible that a train, not visible to the naked eye when the driver originally checked could have come speeding towards the intersection and hit the driver who was now driving across confident that the coast was clear. Cardozo, respectful to his predecessor on the court (ironically Cardozo took Holmes' seat), politely changed the law back to the infinitely more sane policy of letting juries, not judges, decide what is reasonable care.

The moral of the story I guess, is that even sometimes the greats (and Oliver Wendell Holmes is certainly one of if not the greatest) get it wrong on occasion. So, I guess all law students can take some solace in the fact that even the very best legal minds have struggled with this material. 

Third Week Law Student v. Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have been so busy the last few days that it has been impossible to create a post. I am trying to stick to my schedule of staying 2 days ahead on all the reading, but it is turning out to be quite the undertaking. Last night, the Torts reading for next Monday included 8 cases that needed to be read and briefed. I got home from class at about 1:30. Factor in 30 minutes for dinner and 45 minutes to watch Sarah Palin totally renew my faith in politics, and I did not get done with my work until after midnight. 

So far, I would have to say that Contracts is the most challenging course. Not so much because the material is any more complicated than Torts or Civ Pro (in reality con law is actually quite simple and basic once you cut to the essence of the opinions), but because of the professor. He constantly challenges what we read in the case book. When I am reading the cases, I read them several times to gain a full understanding of the facts, the issue, the holding, and the reasoning. I then read over my brief a few times, commit the new law coming out of the case to memory, think about why it makes sense and is the correct resolution given the facts, and move on to the next one. 

This has been quite an effective strategy so far in Torts and Civ Pro. My strong ability to identify the issue in a case, and to fully understand the holding and the reasoning of the court, has served me well in those courses. I have already on several occasions been able to distinguish myself during class discussions through my mastery of these aspects of the opinion.

However, in contracts, the professor is constantly throwing a monkey wrench into my neat, orderly, and concise way of understanding the cases. I find the pattern has become quite familiar. After he has thoroughly traumatized a student, and ultimately managed to pull the court's holding and reasoning out of them, you can almost feel a collective sigh of relief in the classroom. Every student is thinking the same thing: "Finally! Now that we have identified the law, we understand it, we can probably (hopefully) apply it to different fact patterns, its time to move on. We've escaped this case!"  Not so fast...

The professor will then always come back with the question, "so, now that we understand it, tell me why the decision is incorrect?" Everyone's face just drops at this point. We've just spent the last 40 minutes working very hard to understand why and how this opinion became the law, and now we have to punch holes in the dam we just built. It has become the job of a third week law student to pick apart the legal reasoning of Benjamin Cardozo, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and all the other greatest legal minds in American history. Not an easy task to say the least. 

Last week I discussed how invigorating it was just to be able to get to the point where I could follow the reasoning of these legal giants. But now, it is my task to pick and prod at them, to critique THEIR reasoning and understanding of the law. It does not get any more difficult than that. I am finding it to be the most intellectually challenging exercise of my life. At times it physically hurts my head, but I suppose thinking about the material from this type of critical perspective will ultimately be of great assistance to me when trying to master it.      

Outlining [John]

My first practice exam is tomorrow. However, my teacher informed us that he will not even be looking at them, but instead will give us a sheet with his grading criteria. Regardless, I am definitely preparing as it was the real thing. I have began compiling our notes, tutorials into an outline.

I will definitely, blog on my exam experience tomorrow. For now, I am going to back to studying so I can watch the convention tonight!

Study Groups [John]

So the study groups officially have began...

As 1L by Scott Turow suggests, study groups are essential to the law school experience and it is very important to find a good group. So far, I have only one study group for my Torts class. The group is comprised of, what I feel, some of the best minds in my class. Today, we spent most of our time outlining the topics that were covered in our first tutorial. I felt that we did a great job filling in the blanks with exceptions and clarifications of the rules and principles. We will be meeting every week for the next 12 weeks to review and outline the topics that we discussed in class.

Also, this Friday I have my first practice exam. Generally, the only grade you receive in a law class is the final exam. This stands true for all my classes except for my legal writing class--I have about 3 grades in that class. However, unlike in the past, more and more law professors are providing in-class and/or proctored practice exams that will not be graded but will be looked at and the professor will provide suggestions. I think this is an excellent addition to my doctrinal classes because it helps us gauge how much we have learned and also provides insight into what the professor expects on our final exams.

Digging In to the Cases...

In law school, you recognize very quickly the types of cases you can expect to read in each class. For example, torts and contracts cases, generally grounded in the common law, are largely decided by state courts. Civil procedure cases, however, at least on the subject of jurisdiction, are largely Supreme Court Decisions. These are the cases where I actually recognize the names of the judges who wrote the opinions. This can be a good thing, and this can be a bad thing. Its good in the sense that it definitely adds to the learning experience if you understand the background and perspective of the judge who is writing the opinion. It is also a bad thing, because you evaluate the opinions with pre-conceived notions about the opinions. For example, today I was reading cases dealing with the subject of personal jurisdiction (when can a state can force a nonresident to appear and defend itself in the state's court). 

In the first case, the issue was whether or not plaintiff, a seriously injured mother and wife who was injured in an automobile accident could force a New York based automobile distributor to appear in court in Oklahoma. The majority ruled that since the company did not have minimum contacts in OK, the state did not have jurisdiction. Included in the casebook was a dissent by Justice William Brennan. I just thought to myself: "what a shock". The most notorious and liberal justice of the 20th Century siding against the corporation. He advocated for an extremely broad view of jurisdiction in his consent. 

However, the next case I read dealt with the same issue, this time whether or not Burger King could sue a Michigan resident in Florida. I was surprised to see that staying consistent with his previous legal opinion, Brennan sided with the giant corporation, Burger King, and argued that the company did in fact have authority to haul this Michigan citizen into court on its home turf in Florida.

I am often cynical when it comes to Supreme Court Judges. I tend to think that legal theory or philosophy doesn't really mean anything to them. It is just the tool they use for the purpose of imposing their political views on the country; not just liberal judges, but conservative judges as well. I was pleasantly surprised by Brennan's opinion in the second case, standing true to the principle he believed in, even though you could just tell deep down he was dying inside ruling for the corporation against the "little guy". 

Perhaps law school will strengthen my faith in the American judicial system.     

Student Organizations: To Join or Not to Join

Tomorrow is the Activities Fair. I will definitely stop in. It seems like a good opportunity to network, specifically with upperclassman, who may be able to offer exam outlines and/or career tips. I'll be very interested to talk with the students over at the Federalist Society table (I am assuming the school will put their table in the Men's room across the hall from the auditorium).

Law Preview advised very strongly against getting too involved in student groups during the first year. The grades are just so important, that most/all of your time must be spent studying. They also said that extracurricular activities just don't mean that much to employers (aside from Law Review of course, which is an incredibly prestigious accomplishment that will stay on your resume your entire career). They advised that if you are going to get involved in an activity, be one of those people who shows up for the free pizza/guest speaker once a month. Take on absolutely ZERO responsibilities. If you find yourself working late into the night on a Monday trying to book a speaker for your group's meeting that upcoming Friday instead of spending that time studying for Contracts, something has gone terribly wrong. 

Sounds like good advice to me. But, I can hardly resist lending my support, even if it is only moral support, to the Federalist Society. Their mere existence at a school like NYL is in itself a profile in courage. 

My only question is how many students actually belong to the NYL chapter of the Federalist Society? I am willing to take bets on this. I am going to set the over-under on the size of the group as 6 members. Any takers?      

Reading the Cases

I am trying to stay 2 days ahead on reading (completing assignments due Wednesday on Monday, assignments for Thursday on Tuesday, etc). Much easier said than done. The cases are very interesting and it is by far the most intellectually stimulating work I have ever done. However, working the cases through is a very slow and tedious process. It's mostly because the judges are trying to take very specific facts and produce grand abstractions which can then be applied to different, yet comparable situations. This often produces results that are very difficult to wrap your mind around. Unfortunately, however, these abstractions are essentially what you must learn in law school. They are the tests and standards you must apply to the hypothetical fact patterns that appear on the exams. A student's ability to apply these "rules" to different circumstances is pretty much the sole determiner of his/her grades. 

The reading also comes slowly (and this just might be a pet peeve of mine) because a lot of the cases are very old, and some of the terminology is difficult to work around. At some points, when reading 19th Century cases, it feels very much like trying to get through Shakespeare (which I was never much good at).

The work is  hard, but it's fun and its exhilarating. There's no greater rush then reading a case, re-reading the case, doing your brief, and all of a sudden the light bulb goes off, and you actually understand what the hell this crusty, old judge is thinking and why he is thinking it. If there is anything more exciting than being able to get in to a Supreme Court justice's mind and actually follow their train of thought, I don't know what it is.  

This is indeed a very exciting time. 

Torts v. Contracts: The Law's Political Spectrum??

Perhaps I am going out on a limb here. Maybe my view is distorted because being such a political creature myself, I tend to see almost everything through the lens of politics and ideology. But after reading the introduction material to all my courses, perusing the first couple of cases in each book, and now having sat through my first torts class today, I can't help but making a few political observations.

The law of torts is extremely collectivist by nature. Someone is injured during the normal course of the their life by someone or something (perhaps a household appliance or an automobile) and there is the intrinsic assumption that this person is owed something from another individual or a larger entity (a corporation or the government). The law of torts commands that every person has a duty and an obligation to every other person, and that corporations and governments have duties to all of us. If someone is hit by Coca Cola truck, society has an obligation to compensate them for their bad luck. Coca Cola pays the damages directly, but consumers also share in the cost as Coca Cola compensates for the loss by raising the price of their products. Sounds collectivist to me.  

On the opposite side of this spectrum, I see contract law as very individualistic by nature. The right of two private parties to enter into a contract with one another on their own terms is an incredible source of individual freedom and liberty. There is no government intervention or paternalism that dictates what your contracts look like. It is completely up to private citizens to decide the nature of a contract and whether or not it is their personal prerogative to enter into it. In fact, the role of the courts in contracts law is largely to enforce contracts where they deem them to exist. The courts hold people personally responsible for the agreements they themselves created. There is no excuse-making on the behalf of the party that wants out of the deal, no sob-story or claims of oppression by the powerful against the weak. No, none of that at all. It's basically a matter of "you decided of your own free will to make this contract, and now you are responsible for the consequences of your own actions." This is the very essence of individualism and personal responsibility. 

Is torts law liberal? Is contracts law conservative? I obviously do not have definitive answers to those questions, and I am certain that even if there is a general rule, there will always be exceptions to it. But this observation is something that immediately jumped out at me while doing my introductory readings this past weekend. It is a hypothesis that I am definitely going to keep my eye on as my courses progress and I will test it as often as possible. 

Legal Writing: Law School's Ugly Step Child?

Today was the first official day of classes. I only had one class, Legal Reasoning and Writing. The professor said it will be the most important class we will take this year because reasoning and writing are the skills that all successful lawyers must master in order to be successful. Torts, Contracts, and Property will come and go and the grades will only matter for acquiring that first job after school. But in 5 years, no one is going to care what you got in those courses, all they are going to want to know is if you can reason and write. This was not the first time I had heard a speech like this from a bitter legal writing professor. At Law Preview, the Legal Research and Writing professor (the chairman of the writing department at Fordham Law) gave a very similar lecture. 

I have definitely observed that the writing departments at most law schools seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Most law schools send implicit and sometimes rather explicit messages that legal writing is not all that important. I have heard at some T-14 schools, the legal writing class in the first year is not even for credit. I even heard that at some Ivies the job of teaching the legal writing class falls to a 3L. This attitude towards legal writing was definitely reflected in the Law Preview class which offered a Legal Research and Writing session on the last Saturday (after 5 straight 10 hour days), and it was optional. Half the students who paid for my Law Preview session did not even show up on the Saturday.  

I am somewhat confused by this because I do believe the legal writing professors to be correct: the ability to write is the most important skill a lawyer can possibly possess. I am very perplexed by the fact that legal writing  is so marginalized and de-emphasized in law school, especially in the all important first year. It also seems that the more prestigious the school, the less emphasized legal writing actually is. Very strange. 

If anyone has any idea or even a theory as to what exactly the law schools are thinking here, I would love to hear it because I have given it a lot of thought, and it just doesn't make any sense to me.  

Giving in...

So today was Torts. Excellent class with an excellent professor. However, even though I had read the cases thoroughly, briefed them and answered his proposed questions, I am still struggling. I finally had to give in and turn to Study Aids. If any of you have read 1L by Scott Turow, you will know that Study Aids were like illegal drugs in those times. Now, professors think they are an excellent source to reference. (Not a supplement to your case readings though) Even some professors actually recommend certain Study Aids to compliment their class.

I still, as a traditionalist, didn't want to use study aids. But I finally had to give in. I went to the reference desk in the library and whispered to them "could I have a Torts study aid." It felt so illegal especially when the reference desk clerk got "excited" like this was some rare thrill. Anyway, as I mentioned it isnt illegal, its not looked down on and many people in my classes use them. They definitely helped me clear up specific topics within last nights readings. Regardless, I still don't believe I am going to buy them, but I definitely see myself frequently checking them out of the library.

Day Two of Classes [John]

Today was no different than yesterday. My professors seem very nice and the classes they teach seem very interesting. Currently I am working on a multitude of case briefs for different aspects of the law. As Eugene said, anything is better than doing briefs. But I'm getting through it...at least the cases are interesting so far. For example, in Torts, we are developing the historical content of "actions involving intent" in regards to personal injury law. We literally went back into history (back to the King's Court in 1466) and see how precedent has been developed throughout the years on this matter.

In my Lawyering Skills class, we learned that on Thursday, we have our first attempt to oral arguments. The dispute is over a monument honoring Veterans of the Vietnam War. Hopefully, I will be assigned to the right side of this issue. More details to come after class Thursday!

Currently, I am two days ahead of schedule on my homework because as I said, I have an abundance of time during the day to sit in the library and finish my homework. I know this will definitely change, but I am going to take advantage of this free time while it lasts.

'Jump Start' Day at NYLS [Eugene]

I attended an event called 'Jump Start' at NYLS today. I had an opportunity to take an early library tour, buy books, and take a picture for my student ID card. I also received my fall semester schedule. My courses will include Torts (4 credits), Contracts (4 credits), Civ Pro (4 credits) and Legal Research and Writing (3 credits).  It was a nice opportunity to get a head start on some administrative stuff so I won't have to be bogged down with it next week at orientation. Just two observations: 

1. On the library tour we got our introduction to Westlaw, which is pretty much the official legal research database for the world. All law students have unlimited access to it throughout the duration of their time in school. One person described Westlaw to me as being like an intravenous drug. In law school they give you unlimited access to it and make you completely dependent on it for the rest of your career. When you leave school and begin to practice, however, the Westlaw service is anything but free and unlimited. I heard a horror story today about a 2L who obtained a summer associate position at a prestigious law firm. One afternoon during the summer the 2L was asked to do some simple research for an associate. The 2L's afternoon of research on Westlaw cost the firm $20,000. We were told today that on average it costs law firms $10 per minute to use Westlaw. So I am beginning to see why all 1L's must take some sort of legal research course.  It appears that one of the most important skills a lawyer can possess is the ability to efficiently and effectively conduct legal research. 
   
   
2. One main theme jumps out at me as I begin to examine my course schedule. The amount of time spent in class is simply not that rigorous. I will be in a classroom with an instructor for an average of about 3 hours a day, for 5 days a week. 15 hours a week is no more than the average undergraduate spends in the classroom. This is great, right? However, something tells me that all the law schools in the country didn't get together and say, "Gee, all the poor law students need plenty of rest and downtime, so lets not over-burden them with too much class time." You do not learn the law in the classroom. You learn the law in the depths of the library, when its just you and your case book, reading and briefing cases for infinite amounts of hours. In class, professors guide your reading and give you the questions you need to be asking yourself when you are reading the cases. The real work, however, does not begin until you leave the classroom.   
   

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. 

 

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."