Yesterday was the first day of my last term as a law student…

…barring some unfortunate academic implosion or something, I mean.

Suddenly, my friends and I are the “big dogs” on campus, the experienced ones, and the 1Ls seem even younger than last year. In some ways, it feels like I just started law school, but in others I know I’ve already learned so much.

This term is heavy academically for me, but I’m looking forward to almost all of my classes. The one big exception is Federal Income Tax, because no one looks forward to that, but even still I know it will be good for me (and my clients) in my future life as a lawyer. If you plan on doing any business law, you really need to take that course.

My personal life has shifted significantly in my time here at CWSL as well. I started law school married, got divorced, and just recently have someone new in my life (not connected to the law, btw). I am not the same person I was when I started in Fall 2008. The way I think has shifted so much and that shift also is apparent in how I approach personal relationships–friends and romantic–and, really, life overall.

That’s what law school does to you–it changes how you think. For you 1Ls who are just starting down the path, don’t let this scare you off. Changing how you think doesn’t mean your relationships will end or that you’ll turn into some pretentious PITA. It does mean how you look at your relationships and your life will be different than before. It can mean, if you let it, that you can be more open in your life.

For me, it meant being more honest about what I wanted in my life, what I was willing to compromise on and what I wasn’t, and it actually opened me up to being willing to try new things–like riding on the back of a motorcycle or dating people who held different beliefs than I did. I see things as learning experiences in a way I never did before. I have more confidence to give things a shot and my fear of failure is dramatically lower than ever (I think once you face law school exams, and pass, failing anything else seems somehow less likely).

So for you new students, or any of you thinking about law school, know that it will change your life in more ways than you might expect. But if you let go and give yourself permission to enjoy it, it’s a great ride.

A quick note to let y’all know that I am taking the summer off. No law school for a term. Instead I’m going to relax and work in my business a bit, but mostly relax. Fall will be my last term and then the bar in February, so this is sort of my chance to take it easy, get healthy (ier), and be ready for the final push. I’m going to miss classes in many ways, but I think swimming and reconnecting with my life outside of school will be good for me too.

See you in late August!

I’ve been very involved professionally for many years with an organization called ASMP. That is the leading professional organization in the US for commercial photographers. Well, ASMP (and others) just filed a class action suit against Google for copyright infringement for their library project. Because I know the organization’s general counsel, I just got a copy of the complaint, hot off the proverbial presses.

I am totally geeking out.

Besides the fact that I am excited about the case–Google has been ripping of creatives for years–the complaint proved that I really have learned a lot here at CWSL.

First off, all the Civil Procedure stuff. Rule 23 (class actions) and jurisdiction and federal question… it’s like a buffet for reviewing what I learned as a 1L. Thank you Prof. Weinstein for teaching me all that stuff. I understood everything procedural in the complaint on the first read.

Then, for this term’s review, the plaintiffs pray for damages as well as injunctive and declaratory relief. Hello Professor Fink! This all made sense to me, because of your efforts in Remedies. I noted the “irreparable harm” mentioned and the balancing of burdens.

I know, I know… it seems crazy to get so excited about reading a complaint. But this is real life for me. These are people I care about and the kind of work I hope to be involved in in the future. To know that already I understand why the complaint was worded as it was, what some of the strategic choices must have been, and why procedurally certain things are mentioned as they are, well, it’s incredibly gratifying.

What a great gift, just before exams. It’s a reminder of how much I have learned and, well, maybe I can get through these exams as well.

Last evening I attended a dinner event at Dean Smith’s lovely home. The school had invited scholarship offerees and some of us past recipients to give them a chance to ask questions about being a CWSL student. There were, of course, several members of the faculty and staff there as well. It was a very nice event and I really enjoyed talking with the new crop of (potential) future alumni. Lots of interesting folk.

As I drove home after, I took the time to reflect on what it’s been like to be a CWSL student, personally. I feel very lucky. I am still honored that the school somehow saw in me enough potential to offer me a scholarship. To hear one of the profs tell some of the young newbies that I was “one of his best students” almost choked me up. To have conversations with fellow students about politics and current issues is intellectual fun on a level I rarely get outside of the school environment. And to have the staff of the school smile and be so warm to me now, to ask and genuinely be interested in how I am doing, not just academically, well, it is touching.

As I have described it, CWSL sort of feels like a big, somewhat dysfunctional family– and I mean that in a very good way. So many of us are OCD or at least high-order nerds while others are practically normal and yet we all tend to get along well. How great! We’re positively competitive–pushing each other to do better–but never tearing down another student like you hear happens at other schools. We’re all excited when one of us does well. There’s a lot of respect, even when we may disagree. And the profs and staff honestly want us to do well and are encouraging and helpful.

Yes, I’m twisted. I love law school. I love the learning. Moreover, I love this chance I’ve been given by this school. Thank you, CWSL.

Now I have to get to my studying for upcoming exams.
(Btw, exams I do not love–ha!)

The whole purpose of your first year of law school is, I think, like basic training. It is to break you down so that you are a soft pile of goo, ready to learn a completely different way of thinking. Sure, you don’t have to run ’til you puke or do push-ups, etc., but the stress and completely different way of learning has the same effect.

Your second year is to start putting the pieces of your first year into some sort of accessible order in your brain and to refine that knowledge. Think of it kind of like defragging your hard drive after installing a new OS.

Now in my third year, I realize that I have internalized this new way of thinking and it influences everything a read/hear/see now. I’m filling in the open spaces made by the defragging and I’m processing more, faster.

This is mostly a good thing, although it does make me odd company when I’m talking to people who are not lawyers or law students. People do look at me and tilt their heads like a confused dog sometimes. My better friends say, kindly, “How DO you THINK of this stuff?” when I go off about some weird legal possibility presented within their anecdote about what they did on vacation.

The scariest part of this?

I love it.

Being an older student, I’m already well aware that as one ages, the sensation of time shifts. When you’re 10, waiting 2 months for your 11th birthday is an eternity. When you’re 40, two months isn’t enough time to make a grocery list. So, as I speed through my first term as a 3L, I’m struck by how little time remains for me as a student. And it’s making me a bit testy.

See, I came to law school to learn. It’s not getting through it that takes first position in my head (although getting the JD is important, of course), it is getting as much information as possible in the process that really matters for me. I want to learn. And the students who have other priorities, well, they’re starting to get in my way.

A lot of students are like me and have an intellectual curiosity. It’s not like I’m a total weirdo in that. But the problem is that the students who are just trying to learn the minimum to get through and (hopefully) pass the bar, they tend to be rude in class when one of us asks a question that isn’t likely to be exam material. They start talking while the professor answers and clarifies what may be a detail unlikely to really matter on any essay, but which niggles at me because it makes the story of the case incomplete somehow. Rude. And frustrating because I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it mattered in the understanding of the case as a whole. I’m not asking crazy questions here, just more detailed ones.

Don’t get me wrong– I hate it as much as the next student when some smug know-it-all student pontificates for 5 minutes on the “revelations of cultural hegemony expressed in the subtext of the opinion,” ending with “right?” as if that makes the soliloquy a question. That is not what I am doing and any student who does that makes me want to head-desk (or throttle) as much as anyone.

In fact, I probably hate it more than most students because it is wasting my time. Like I said at the beginning of this post, time is fleeting and I’m feeling it possibly more than other students. I don’t have much time left in school to learn and I want to make the most out of every minute of class time. So that means these jerks are taking time out of my learning!

At the same time, I’m going to use my time in class to learn as much as I can. I’m going to ask questions to learn and to check to see if I’m really internalizing the information. This is really important for me. If  a few other students don’t like it, tough. As long as the professors are okay with it (and I do check), then I’m going to keep asking.

Happily, the professors seem to appreciate my questions. After classes and via email, I’ve had several say so. That really helps and is something I very much like about CWSL– the professors are not stand-offish or haughty (okay, there may be one like that, but almost all aren’t). The professors, while they want to help us pass the bar, want us to learn the Law, cap L, more than anything. I’ll miss that when I graduate.

In the meantime, however, it’s faster pussycat, learn learn! for me.

A year ago, I was not a happy camper after grades came out. Now, I had extenuating circumstances for not doing as well as I wanted to (my marriage blew up a week before finals!), but the shock of not getting the numbers I wanted to get was harsh. I had never worked so hard in my life and not having that reflected in the final numbers, well, I felt embarrassed and like a bit of a failure. Then I went to class the next Monday, head down and grumpy, and, as my first class started, I realized what an ass I was being. Several of my classmates were gone.

I made it, they didn’t. What was I complaining about?!

That’s the true harsh reality of law school: the first year, even just the first term, is about making the cut.

So, to all the 1Ls who didn’t do as well as they liked the first term but who are still here, congratulations! (same to those of you who did great!) You made it past the first hurdle! You get to continue down this path, for a while yet at the very least. Take advantage of this opportunity. Work work work. And you can bring up those numbers (I certainly did!). You’re not “varsity” yet, but you’ve got a great shot at it. Keep at it and be happy even when it sucks.

Also, be kind to your friends who didn’t make it. They are embarrassed and angry and frustrated. It’s got to hurt something fierce to be in their shoes right now. And though they don’t feel it right off, things will work out for them as well. Humans learn through failure, much more than they do through success, so don’t be surprised if one of your classmates who didn’t make the cut ends up being the CEO who hires your firm later.

Yesterday, I got the chance to talk with one of my classmates whom I don’t usually see this term. He looked quite spiffy in his suit, having just come from his new clerking gig. Now, this guy is someone I knew, early on, was one of the brighter students and I expected him to flourish, but seeing him yesterday was still great. He was, from the first days of class, kind, funny, and smart–it’s a joy to see how he has grown into an almost-lawyer and I wasn’t surprised to hear he was clerking for the Federal Attorney’s office. Bravo.

This is one of the pleasures of law school: seeing your friends starting to fulfill their dreams and gaining the confidence that goes with that. And clearly CWSL is doing a good job with us since my friends are getting great clerkships like this (NB: I haven’t sought out any clerking positions since I’m following a different career path). Makes me rather proud of my friend, and the school.

So, I was already thinking about how things are changing when I got an email from the school, previewing an announcement that may (may!) affect the school significantly. It’s not a bad thing, I don’t think, but it is a big thing, a change. More information will be coming out soon and I don’t want to completely let the cat out of the bag, but let me float a question to those of you who are thinking about attending CWSL: would you rather go to a public school or a private one?

Changes are exciting, when you choose to look at them that way. Stay tuned…

Barring some spectacular fail last term, starting today, I am a 3L. That seems really impossible in some ways.

Perhaps some of this is a function of age, but my time here at CWSL has flown by. I was going through some papers over break, filing things and throwing out others, when I came across some of my earliest contacts with the school after admission. A postcard reminder for orientation, for example, and the student oath on a small card. They all got put into a special “keep” file, but they made me think about how, in some ways, it feels like yesterday that I excitedly took that oath.

I was terrified at the beginning. I think that I, like many people, kept waiting for someone to pull me out of a line to say “there’s been a mistake.” After so many years of dreaming about going to law school, it was finally happening. And like all good neurotics, I half (or more) expected something to go terribly wrong.

Instead, I got to go to classes and make friends and have my brains beaten down then rebuilt in the way only the first year of law school (and maybe the military) can. I noticed the change in how I thought, the processes, the way I approached problems. My complete intimidation by professors was quickly eased by their kindness and real interest in their students (mostly, there is always one it seems, and often your “one” won’t be the same as your friend’s). And I learned. Tons. And I loved it.

By summer term, I felt more at ease and capable and as I started taking courses that I thought would be good for what I want to do with my JD. I was pleased to find that I enjoyed those courses and so wasn’t making some colossal mistake in direction. Fall continued that. I learned more about business than I thought possible to shove into my brain, since I already knew a lot about it. And IP licensing.

Fall zipped by, although the workload at time was substantial and my bookbag weighed more than god on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Although there were some frustrations here and there, overall I was still loving being in law school. There was (and is!) so much to learn, and even the stuff I will likely never use professionally held intellectual interest. Before I knew it, I had taken my exams and was on holiday break, having completed my second year.

So here I am, in my first day of classes for my 3L year. 5 courses this term, with 4 exams, much like last term. The bookbag weighs a ton on Mondays and Wednesdays now, but the courses look to be mostly interesting (in spite of what someone said about Remedies).

I’ll be taking summer off so I should graduate next December, but in the meantime I am going to try to learn as much as I can, get more active in the legal community locally, and enjoy being a CWSL student.

CWSL has a pretty good record of feeding its “starving” law students. Today, the school is throwing a Winter Festival with a full lunch. A chance to take a few minutes to socialize before the exams hit.

This sort of event is one of the reasons I like this school. Its small size does make it feel more like a huge family than an institution.