Outlines, Briefs, Notes, and music.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RJ5WNBX0 - law

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NFGTDUSG - music

Thats everything I have SAVED to this computer. There is about half the semester I typed up at school and sent to my gmail never saving it to my 'law' file on my computer.

Disclaimer: I am a student. Not everything is correct. Most of my briefs and outlines have hand written notes and line outs in pen. If you depend on my notes you should take the same route.

Some briefs I took from:

http://lawschool.mikeshecket.com/civpro/casebooknotes.html

4law.com

I assume everything has a creative commons license until I am notified otherwise by the creator.

Contents:

CIVIL PROCEDURE 1 W. PROFESSOR STIGLITZ:

Asahi Metal Industry Co.doc

Asahi Metal Questions.doc

Bridges v Diesel.doc

BurgerKingCorp v Rudz.doc

Burnham v Superior Court.doc

Butler v Rigsby.doc

Carnival Cruise Lines v Shute.doc

Civil Procedure Outline.doc

DeeK v. Heveafil.doc

Gibbons v Brown.doc

Hansen v Denckla.doc

Hawkins v MastersFarms.doc

Helicopteros v Hall.doc

Houchens v AmericanHomeA.doc

InternationalShoe v Wash.doc

McGee v International Life.doc

Norton v Snapper.doc

Notes and problems159.doc

Pavlovich v Superior Court.doc

Perkins v Benguet.doc

Piper Aircraft v Reyno.doc

Rush v City of Maple Heights.doc

Sample Essays.doc

Shaffer v Heitner.doc

Shoe Questions.doc

Sigma Chemical Co v Harris.doc

Worldwide volkswagon v. Woodson .doc

Yeazell 267.doc

CONTRACTS 1 BARTON:

Austin Instrument v Loral.doc

Batsakis v.doc

Contracts Outline.doc

Contracts Outlined 1.doc

Coppola Enterprise v Alfone.doc

Davies v Martel.doc

Dougherty v Salt.doc

Feinberg v Pfeiffer Co.doc

Foakes v Beer.doc

Grouse v Group Health.doc

Hadley v Baxendale.doc

Haines v New York.doc

Hamer v Sidway.doc

Hawkins v McGee.doc

Hill v Jones.doc

Kenford Co v Erie CoKGMHarvesting.doc

Kirksey v Kirksey.doc

LacledeGas v Amoco.doc

Lingenfelder v Brewery.doc

Lucy v Zehmer.doc

Osteen v Johnson.doc

Piper Aircraft v Reyno.doc

Raffles v Wichelhaus.doc

Rockingham County v Luten.doc

Schnell v Nell.doc

Scott v Moragues.doc

Security Stove v American.doc

Shirley MacLain Parker v Fox.doc

Spaulding v Morse.doc

United States Naval Institute.doc

Walgreen Co v Sara Creek.doc

Webb v McGowin.doc

WickhamCoal v Farmer.doc

CRIMINAL LAW 1 BENNER

Chaplin v United States.doc

Criminal Law Outline-1.doc

Criminal Law Outline.doc

People v Ashley.doc

People v Brown.doc

People v Khoury.doc

Rex v Manley Brief.doc

State of New Jersey v Palendrano.doc

The People v Carlson.doc

Thompson v State.doc

United States v Selwyn.doc

PROPERTY 1 SMYTHE

Ghen v Rich.doc

Gruen v Gruen.doc

Keeble v Hickeringill.doc

Kuntos.doc

Newman v Bost.doc

Pierson v Post.doc

Property Outline.doc

LEGAL SKILLS CATO

CatoMeet.doc

Final Memo.doc

Final Memo and Reflection do Hypothetical.doc

Krona v Brett.doc

Marengo v Ross.doc

memo.doc

memo2.doc

MEMORANDUM.doc

MEMORANDUM2.doc

outline.doc

People v Woods.doc

Peter v Arco.doc

Professionalism Civility.doc

research ex. 3.doc

Research ex2.doc

Research Reflection.doc

umbrella.doc

United States v Selwyn.doc

Victor Victime.doc

writing assignment.doc

Wydick Exercise.doc

music

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NFGTDUSG

Moth - Failure

Frogs - Failure

Undone - Failure

Memory Lane - Elliot Smith

King's Crossing - Elliot Smith

Carry the Zero - Built to Spill

Else - Built to Spill

He War - Cat Power

Renegade - hed pe

Oblivion - Mastodon

Armistice - Phoenix

LA - Elliot Smith

Wouldn't Mama be Proud - Elliot Smith

Can't Make a Sound - Elliot Smith

Criminal - Eminem

1901 - Phoenix

Lisztomania - Phoenix

Jesus, etc. - Wilco

Losing A Whole Year - Third Eye Blind

2+2=5 (The Lukewarm.) - Radiohead

Just - Radiohead

My Iron Lung - Radiohead

The Bends - Radiohead

Planet Telex - Radiohead

Sidewalk - Built to Spill

Half way there.

My civil procedure and contracts finals are done.

Civil procedure-

I walked into the exam and when it started I got sick. I couldn't think so I got up, went to the restroom and ran my wrists under some cool water. I came back, sat down and did as well as I could. I think I messed up the first few multiple choice questions and I'm not sure how well I did on the essay. Its probably not an A but I also didn't fail. So glass half-full I suppose.

Contract-

What the fucking fuck was that? 90 minutes to type as fast as you could in issue spotting memorized racehorse word vomit. I type between 90-100 wpm. I typed the entire time and I still missed two issues by virtue of the fact that there was not enough time. At the end of 90 minutes we had to stop typing and move onto the multiple choice. The multiple choice had easy questions and medium questions, but nothing terribly difficult.

I hit a ton of issues and had some decent policy points to make. I know I hit a few things that only people that memorized every slide, the cases and their outline would have gotten. However, I missed a statute of frauds issue and I didn't address specific performance (even though it wasn't valid for either party in the fact pattern it still needed to be addressed, I ran out of time).

Anyway, I knew the whole syllabus and all the material forwards and backwards and I likely still didn't get an A.

Two more attempts left. I'm still swinging for the fences, but these exams are hard.

Twas the night before finals.

Civil Procedure is tomorrow morning. I did everything I could to prepare for this week. I have no idea how I will do compared to everyone else but I will at least do as well as I possibly could.

My grade, and everyone else's, will depend on the curve. Almost a quarter of the class will fail out at the end of the first year.

I'll have a more fun blog post before my birthday (dec. 26th).

I plan up uploading all my materials after finals are over for anyone to download. Outlines, case briefs, memos, rough drafts...

The penultimate week

My first final is civil procedure. It is next Saturday at 8am.

I recovered fully from being sick. I lost 10 pounds but I'm gaining it back. I didn't weigh very much to begin with.

I rolled through studying this week. I'm at the 70 hour mark between classes and study hours. I worked with a few study groups, took practice tests and updated all my outlines.

I have some positive and negative remarks about California Western. I'll start with the negative and end with the positive:

Negative:

-The library is not open 24 hours. This is odd. I like being there late and studying. I guess this is somewhat of an uproar as there is a facebook group and a petition to leave the library open. The general feeling is that the tuition is at an all time high and the student services are at an all time low.

-The attrition rate weighs pretty heavily on the student population. It makes everyone stressed and depressed.

-This last comment isn't so much a complaint about the school as it is something I feel like venting. There is one student in my section who for whatever reason has gone out of his way to become disruptive in class. I think he claims he will be in the top 5 or 10 percent. I have my suspicions.

Positive:

-The review sessions put on by the Women's Law Caucus are very helpful. I went to a contracts review session and they gave me an outline to augment/ correct my own with. They also taught me how to engineer an attack outline and how to approach my contracts exam.

-The tutors are extraordinarily helpful. They even proctor practice exams. The tutors also give feedback and help explain complicated hypotheticals and practice problems. They also cut straight to what is applicable to the exam.

-My legal skills professor is very pleasant. She went over my final memo for the class and gave some helpful suggestions.

Evaluating myself:

Property - I did well on the practice exam. I even nailed a pretty hard future interest problem which had language that could be interpreted two different ways. You had to determine the intent of the drafter and argue for two different parties. I like the future interest problems.

Criminal Law - I did well on the practice exam. The professor for this class wants very concise answers and does not like irac. I feel like I am going to be OK during this final, but its the kind of test that if you misread a question or miss the call of the question you could bomb the final.

Contracts - This class gets a mixed review. The professor wants us to essentially write an essay about everything we have learned and apply it to a fact pattern. This means outlining the course during the exam and sticking in facts. I am fine with this. However, the format makes me uncomfortable. Its a race horse issue spotting exam. The professor also only allows 90 minutes for the essay portion and then you are not allowed to go back and edit it.

Civil Procedure - I have a firm grasp on the material for this course. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. I think the professor scared everyone into studying like mad. Another negative point is that the exam is going to be 'easy' according to the professor, which means it will be difficult to differentiate myself from the rest of the group. This is also an exam where if you misread the question you can bomb the final.

Legal Skills - The final memo is all that is required. There is no final. My legal skills group is a 1/4 of the full section. My group has some good writers who certainly communicated with the professor more than I did throughout the semester. I had my professor look over my paper and outside of a few minor errors everything seemed ok. I have my doubts as to whether I will get the A. I certainly will not fail or anything, but I don't know how my writing reads compared to others. From what I can tell the top papers are somewhat of a toss up as to who gets the A and who gets a B. This class is not included in the GPA to determine if the school asks you to leave or not.

If I took all my finals right now I would not fail them. Hopefully I can polish things up a bit and get a few As. But who knows? Nothing in law school is a given.

getting sick for a week

I got sick last Thursday evening. I rode my bike home, sat down on the couch, and I knew something was wrong. My temperature was between 99 and 101. I had an overnight century ride on Saturday and obviously that didn't happen for me but on Friday I encouraged my fiance to go and told her I would be fine.

So wrong.

Welcome to h1n1 hell.

Thursday though to Saturday evening was just a horrible preamble to this vicious disease's magnum opus: my near total destruction.

Saturday evening the fever started spiking up and down between 100 and 103. When it reached 104 I made that first post. I didn't think I could get worse than that but I stood corrected. 105 was the peak and at that point I became pretty dysfunctional. 3am-6am is kind of a blur. I vomited and got dizzy and had severe diarrhea which made it almost impossible to stay hydrated.

I couldn't control myself very well. I started hearing things I knew weren't there. I could hear my mom in the kitchen for a little while. I could hear my fiance at the door struggling with her keys coming to help me.

After that I slowly trended upwards. I sent a text message at 6am asking for help. My uncle is a doctor and he called me up and talked me through what I needed to do. I had to take a cool shower. The shower was brutal but it did help me bring my temperature down.

I did my best to follow what Professor Stiglitz told us in case we caught the flu. He told us to stay on top of the reading. It was hard to do. I did some pretty bad soft tissue damage to my insides during the violent heaving. I couldn't take my knees away from my chest much longer than 15 minutes at a time for a few days. I had to eat soft foods like bananas and applesauce till they healed.

I said in that previous post that my fever went away. It did, but not for very long. It kept coming back around 101 on and off until today.

Class by class damage report:

Property:

I am behind in the reading. I missed three classes. I'm going to get caught up tomorrow and make an appointment for office hours.

Criminal Law:

I am behind in the reading. I missed one class session. The class only meets twice and it was cancelled once.

Contracts:

I am up to date on the reading but behind in my understanding of the material. damages/ remedies are difficult and the professor likes everything done a particular way. if i can't figure out the important stuff from the tutoring handout key then I'm going to go to office hours.

Civil Procedure:

I am up to date on the reading and the professor cancelled class this week. I have to email the tutor and get the handout I missed but other than that I am fine in this class.

Legal Skills:

I went to this class on Thursday and had my paper peer edited. I need the peer edit for the final paper. My memo is written for the most part but it needed blue book cites and because I wrote the thing in pieces it needed some serious work to get it to flow. I worked on it with a fever and it certainly fell short of my usual standard. I got what I needed though even if it set my fever off again and I immediately went home to collapse in exhaustion.

Overall impact:

Pros: A number of my classes were cancelled this week so if I had to pick a week to get sick it would be this one.

Cons: Everyone else is healthy and cranking away at outlines and practice exams while I've been laid out for a week.

My classmates:

my study buddy is a huge help and offered me notes and someone else who I hardly talk to just offered to send me his class notes out of the blue just to help out.

the one person I asked for notes from wants to trade for my outlines. i don't mind this because i will understand my outlines better than anyone else will but its weird running into people who always insist on their 'cut'.

I was planning on visiting my folks for Thanksgiving, but that might not be possible anymore. :(

still @ home

the fever is gone. I'm really weak. I'm stuck drinking powerade and eating bananas, rice and applesauce until my guts heal. I can't sit in one place for more than 40 minutes without feeling like someone is stabbing me. I tried to read but my brain/ eyes get tired after about 2 cases.

After I made the last post things went downhill fast. Being alone and that sick is pretty scary. I'm glad it didn't happen during finals.

Screw the student health plan

I have the flu. Not just a small one either. As I write this I feel dizzy and I have fever of 104. Student health website (aetna) does not function and neither does their customer service number.

Reporting the flu to the school did nothing either. I've gotten no response from the school.

I'm alone, vomiting, and can barley stand up.

get your own health care.

finals month.

I started grinding for finals. It is, for lack of a better word, a bitch.

Status:

-2 of my outlines are behind, but they are my strongest classes.

-2 of my outlines are up to date, but they are my weakest classes.

-I am attempting to finish all the course work for legal skills today and still get civ pro reading/ briefing done for tomorrow.

I took a few practice tests last week. The practice tests are a rough experience. I have to get my minimum contacts test down to a science. Contracts seems like a race to the finish. You have to write like crazy and always argue both sides even if the other side is a poor argument.

Some people are reading ahead to the finish so they can start studying. I've opted out of this. I'm better at learning the material by reading/ briefing, going to class for the corresponding lecture, and then incorporating it into my notes. I learn the concepts best by reading, writing and listening to them back to back.

This Thursday-Sunday are going to be exam days.

I am very anxious about all this. I've never really worried about grades because I've always done pretty well. I went to a really competitive undergrad too and I didn't even worry this much about my thesis. I think the nervousness stems from three parts. 1) I've never done this before. Summer enrichment helped but it definitely has nothing on the pressure presented by fall finals. 2) I see three or four people that are consistently outworking me. They are in the library from 7am to 9 or 10pm. You're not supposed to worry about what others are doing and just focus on making sure you can apply the concepts but I can't help but end up slightly intimidated. 3) The exams are all or nothing. It feels like the fall semester really sets the tone for the rest of law school and summer job prospects.

Anyway, wish me luck.

'I have more questions than you have answers.'

I answered questions for about 30 minutes in class the other day. The professor for civil procedure is probably the toughest on the students and the class has more of an 'academic boot camp' feel to it than the others. I handled the questions pretty well. At one point the professor attempted to create a hypothetical to elicit a certain response from me. I answered all his questions correctly. He just didn't ask the question the right way to get the answer he wanted. He finally laughed, phrased the question correctly and as I was thinking about the answer he said 'See, I have more questions than you have answers.'

I laughed because it was painfully true as my mind raced to find an appropriate answer.

After rephrases and the scribbled out drawings on the board about who lived where during whatever time period and what state the parties all lived in I got a little confused and fumbled on the last answer. I did my best to work through it and I think I did alright.

Next weekend is Halloween. For whatever reason California Western students take this holiday really, really seriously. They treat it like a Catholic treats Fat Tuesday before lent. I guess there is a parallel (admittedly not the best analog, but I like it so shut up) there in that after Halloween everyone gives up their freedom to go out and starts putting in 8-12 hours a day, every day, until finals.

Some students haven't caught on quite yet to how hard this work load is. You can get away with not reading or not briefing once or twice but its painful to catch back up. If you don't read or brief for a class and do nothing to learn the material otherwise you have effectively put it off for another day. It takes about 50-60 hours per week of going to class and studying outside of class to learn and know the material cold. To learn it well enough to answer any kind of questions you could get away with 40. So lets just say 50 hours/ week. If you only put in 30 hours for a week you've backlogged 20 hours of learning for yourself. If you do that two weeks in a row you have a 40 hour backlog.

Thats not to say it isn't irrecoverable. Its just going to be an excruciating experience.

I played soccer all through high school pretty competitively. Our coach, who we not so affectionately called, 'the soccer Nazi', would make us run 60-50-40s. You have 60 seconds to run a lap around the field and without stopping you have 50 seconds to run the next lap and without stopping you have 40 seconds to run the last lap which leaves you breathless, dead tired and wondering why you ever thought soccer was fun.

The fall semester feels about the same. The beginning is 40 hours/week, the middle is 50 hours/week and the end is 60 hours/week to the finish. I think the school recommends 70 hours/ week for the whole semester or something ungodly like that but that would probably leave you with the social and networking skills of a turnip.

My outlines are looking good. My tutors like them and have given me their input. I'm going to start taking practice tests this weekend.

One last sprint to the finish.

Y'all be hatin' and I see why

cause you don't know me.

Love ATL.

Sleepless in San Diego

I'm usually lights out and asleep before midnight but for whatever reason I'm wide awake and figured I'd make a post.

I had a few bad days last week. Monday and Tuesday it felt like my brain went on an involuntary mental vacation. I tried to grind through it but just came home retaining nothing. Wednesday onward went fine.

I've started working with other classmates. Up until now I've been working on my own and going to the tutoring sessions. I like working with others but its only good for outlining and reinforcing old material or clearing up questions or ambiguities in the classes or the readings. I'm definitely at a point where I need to review and memorize the material from the start of the semester up to this point so I can start working on hypotheticals in November.

Here is my break down class by class:

Legal skills -

This class is still lame. We've only really learned bluebook citations. Beyond that we work on IREAC. Its a particular structure for writing memos and essays for law school exams. Its nothing you couldn't learn on your own in a whopping 15 minutes. Its worth less than the other classes. Unfortunately that doesn't make it entirely worthless to GPA and maybe getting a summer internship or clerkship.

My biggest motivating factor for this class is that the professor recently came from a pretty nice firm and knows what employers want in a writing sample. Hopefully I can pull an A and get a writing sample out of it.

Contracts -

This class is a lot of black letter law.

Criminal Law -

I think our professor made a mistake. He hurried through 'attempt' and made it seem unimportant. It took talking to the tutor and pouring over the reading to figure out that this will probably be worth big points on the exam.

Property -

It is the easiest class but after reading ahead I think it might become one of the most difficult. I got called on the other day to answer questions. I did pretty well. I inadvertently used a common word that has a legal definition. The professor corrected me. One of the disadvantages to reading ahead a few classes is that you forget what you read when the class rolls around. It didn't matter. I had my brief and the case highlighted and color coded in a way that gave me all the answers and refreshed my memory.

Civil Procedure -

I answered all the questions in my Glannons study aid and it helps a lot to answer questions in class. I have a question for the professor that I'll probably ask him about when class is over.

Some random thoughts:

I'm not nearly social enough. I have friends and I get invited out I just choose not to go anywhere. I like working on law school problems with people but when it comes to going out for drinks or whatever I'd rather not spend the money. I've made some cycling and surfing friends around the city but its not quite the same as the law school social scene which can have a distinct 'high school' feel to it. I am pretty certain every law school has that same feel after talking to my friends at other schools.

I guess the hot 'blawg' topic has been whether or not to trust school sponsored blogs. Several law schools have these now and California Western is no exception. Most potential law students want an accurate view of what a law school is like so here is my take on internet resources and developing an authentic view of a law school.

School sponsored blogs-

School sponsored blogs are probably an OK source to get a preliminary idea of what attending a law school is like. Take it with a grain of salt. The authors aren't going to say anything to shake the boat about the professors, administration, career services or whatever or they likely wouldn't be asked to blog in the first place.

Independent non-anonymous blogs-

These are likely to have some good information and have impartial opinions about the school. Some of them have the same issue that the school sponsored blogs have though in that their authors might not share negative experiences they have to avoid real life road bumps.

Anonymous blogs-

Some are great and some are just rumor mills.

Blogs in general are pretty bad. They are usually a single view point with no alternative perspectives. This one is probably no exception. At least I'm honest about it. Heh.

Message boards-

These are an excellent way to get to know students at any law school in the country. A lot of the users are anonymous but will reveal themselves if you integrate with the community. They'll give honest opinions. The downside is that on any massive law school message board you'll run into 'if you're not top 14 you're worthless' trolls.

Epinions, Yahoo! Answers, Yelp, whatever your favorite ratings site is-

Yahoo! Answers is usually a cesspit of stupid. Epinions I know very little about. Yelp is generally pretty good for restaurants and getting my haircut but I don't know if I would go there for advice about law school. The ratings on these kinds of cites seem to be either one star or five. I suspect that the only people to actually go out of their way to fill out a rating and write something about their school are those that are either overjoyed with their law school choice or are super disgruntled that they failed out or that they hate studying law.

Law school numbers, US News and World Report, Princeton Review-

These are very useful. They are written by competent individuals who know the law school geography intimately. I wouldn't get too caught up in law school rankings. USNWR does not weight bar passage very highly and thats definitely a crucial part of becoming a lawyer. Always look at the different metrics these kinds of organizations use and make sure it fits with what you are looking for. Princeton review costs money but its not hard to find a free password. Law school numbers last I checked just gave a statistics only representation of a law school's make-up.

The above mostly just states the obvious. The potential law school student is really their own best filter.

Time for bed.

Mornin'!

The morning routine:

1) get up at 6, hit the snooze button.

2) actually get up at 6:15

3) make coffee

4) read news/ whatever until the coffee is done.

5) review brief, notes and reading for first class over 2-3 cups of coffee

6) bike to class

Yesterday I got called on to answer questions in criminal law. I finally made it through socratic questioning without saying something dumb, stuttering, or rushing through answers nervously. Woo hooooooooo!

Sick as a dog

I didn't feel well all of last week and Friday it finally turned into full blown illness. I've had a fever of about 100 from Thursday night through to today.

Just because you're sick in law school doesn't give you a free pass to quit doing work. I planned on going to the library this weekend and working on legal skills until the cows come home but I don't think its a good idea for me to ride my bike around like this. I've taken the opportunity to review and outline for all my classes. Here is an update, class by class, of what I work on.

Legal Skills:

I hate this class. Its time consuming and the lectures are worthless recitals of powerpoint slides. The handholding through writing a research paper makes me especially agitated. In every other class you are presented with material (tons of it) and the professor guides you through it. That is not the case for this class. They spoon feed you everything.

The first assignment was a disaster. They pitted all the 1Ls against each other in a competition for the same books. The professor for whatever reason didn't see this as a problem until the due date came up and almost no one had turned in the assignment due to the line for books. Then the rules changed and we were allowed to use online resources. We will likely never use those books again. I think it would have been far more beneficial to get acquainted with lexis and westlaw than it was to waste hours waiting on books in the library.

Pros: I got better at writing out citations.

Cons: The ratio of time spent to material learned is all out of whack. The bluebook has mistakes in it and you have to find an overburdened TA to show you the correct way to cite. The professor seems to think this is high school.

Criminal Law:

This is a great course. Everything is clear and concise. My outline looks good and the hypotheticals are fun. The TA for the course is a brilliant guy and he is excellent about picking out and mapping out what we need to know for the exam.

Pros: The hypotheticals are like interesting puzzles you get to solve. The TA is fantastic.

Cons: It is sometimes ambiguous regarding what we need to know for the exam and tangents the professor goes off on because its something of interest to him.

Contracts:

I understand the material in this class the best. Its all really clear and my outline looks good. We just finished up consideration.

Pros: The professor is great at clearing up misconceptions after class.

Cons: This isn't a con for me so much as it is for everyone else. The professor presents the material in a really intuitive sort of way which gives the illusion of understanding to a lot of students. If you read the material and think about it though you still have lots of black letter law to memorize for the exam. It doesn't matter that it seems intuitive, you get points based on what you can put down on paper. You have to do the reading and the supplement reading to understand what the reading says about the law.

Property:

This class goes at a slow pace. I enjoy it the most. The material is really cool and the professor is excellent. I felt bad being sick in his class and visibly struggling to pay attention this week.

Pros: The slow pace allows you to keep up with reading in other classes. The readings given to you get straight to a clear point about the law regarding property. The TA is wonderful an reviews outlines.

Cons: There really are no cons to this class.

Civil Procedure:

I read and read and read and I think I get 'it' then I go to class and realize I know nothing. This is somehow my worst class. There are set rules that come into play in the timeline of an action. It seems very cut and dry until you get in there and the professor asks questions until you have completely lost track of what the rule is and your brain feels like it melted out your ears.

Pros: The rules are easy to memorize.

Cons: The application of the rules is difficult. The professor has a tendency to follow a bad thread with a student who gets called on and didn't read or didn't understand the material. The professor tries (often in vain) to lead students through to the correct answers. I wish he would question less and lecture more. The more bad answers he gets out of students the more confused I get about the correct answer .

The above has taken over my life. I work from 6am - 6pm every weekday only taking a break to eat for 10 minutes or so in the morning and at lunch. The weekends I sleep in and generally do about 4 hours/ Saturday and Sunday.

UCSD and CWSL Update:

The student news paper (The Commentary) had a big article about the relationship between UCSD and CWSL. I would provide a link to the article but after a lazy google search for it I couldn't find one.

UCSD set up a committee to work out a merger with CWSL.

http://gradlife.ucsd.edu/2009/04/gsa-announcements/

Its looks more and more like a done deal. I suppose there is something holding up the process though.

Worthy of a blog post?

Rumor mills in law schools generate ideas ranging from reasonable to completely insane. Usually they spawn out of the 1Ls mishearing or misrepresenting something from a 2 or 3L.

This rumor came from UCSD. My significant other landed a research position at UCSD. Their boss/peer there talked about California Western becoming a part of UCSD. I'm inclined to believe him.

After some quick googling it turns out this rumor has been around for ages. Who knows if it will ever come to fruition? It would certainly be a phenomenal experience for California Western students to have access to UCSD resources and UCSD could benefit their mission having their own brand of lawyers.

Anyway, this is the best I can do for a 'source':

http://jollylawger.com/?p=107

Week 3 Down

I've made it this far relatively unscathed. Then again its 1:30 in the morning on a Friday (I guess now its Saturday morning) drilling civil procedure. Its a very straight forward class. Its a series of rules that come into play at various points in a law suit's timeline. So long as you know when they are triggered you're good to go.

Although, the professor for the class is a bit unmerciful at times. If he thinks you didn't do the reading or brief a case he'll make sure you're embarrassed to the point of never making the error again.

Everything else is going swimmingly. I tend make friends a little slower than everyone else. I have no idea why. I guess its just shyness on some level. It seems like there is a constant element of networking that makes it difficult to tell if you're dealing with a person who is genuinely interested in what you have to say rather than what you have to offer. That said I've made a bunch of friends and I have a great time at all the social things the school does. I think the most fun I've had was after the final from the summer course. Right after everyone walked to The Local and just kind of hung out.

A random civil procedure side note: After looking up a bunch of rules I don't think there are any repercussions for a defense attorney to just use 12(b)(6), failure to make a claim upon which relief can be granted, no matter what. I don't see why attorneys don't just go for it no matter how bogus their reasoning is behind it. It can only help or leave you where you started.

I'll be back at it in the morning.

Goodnight!

'California Western 1L, you have been called to greatness. Arise!'

I was called on today by professor Lynch. He is a great professor and for whatever reason I ended up losing my confidence a little bit in class. The results were embarrassing but I was so bewildered by what I said that the humor of it didn't sink in until after I was out of the classroom.

We were discussing defamation. He asked me to give a hypothetical situation in which a person could find themselves in criminal and civil court. I read my hypothetical. It satisfied all the elements of defamation and all the elements of a statute that was given. Professor Lynch then started asking me questions. This is where things went wrong.

He asked about when a DA would choose to prosecute a criminal defamation case. I gave an answer and he explained how public interest relates to prosecutorial discretion and times where it would be inappropriate to prosecute. This is where my brain and the words coming out of my mouth started to disconnect.

My brain: Ok, so the small things shouldn't be pursued in court because they're expensive and really tear apart human relations but the bigger things should be prosecuted if there is public interest or its harmed someone... I think thats right.

Professor: Say you have a situation where Bill and Bob are at a bowling ally and Bill turns to another member of the bowling team and says 'Bob is a terrible person and a serial rapist.' Would you prosecute?

My brain: Thats a big deal. Thats serial rape. Thats a lot of raping. No one is going to talk to poor Bob again after this. Prosecute.

Me: I wouldn't prosecute.

My brain: Wait. What? NOOO! YOU FOOL!

Professor: You're meaning to tell me that serial rape isn't that bad? Can you think of anything worse than serial rape?

My brain: OK. He is letting you bail yourself out here. Agree with him and say that you would prosecute.

Me: Uhhh... Serial murder?

My brain: Whats wrong with you?

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day and I'm laughing about for whatever reason I boxed myself into a corner where serial rape wasn't all that bad. Despite having a handle on the reading and the concepts I have never managed to escape an exchange where I've been called on without having my foot served up for me on a silver platter so that I could place it firmly in my mouth.

Orientation is tomorrow

Orientation is tomorrow at 8am. I still have to buy my books. They cost a little over a thousand dollars and after having my car towed (cost 500 dollars) I couldn't afford it last week. As a result, there is a 67 page long assignment that I have to crank through on Monday after orientation and whatever else the school wants from me. I wish they would disburse my loan to me before I had to purchase books. How odd.

The other first day assignment was available online and it was a cakewalk. It was basically just 'why do you want to be a lawyer and what do you want to accomplish in law school?' type stuff with an intro to using defamation definitions. It was all stuff that was covered over the summer. I'm hoping the 67 page assignment that I have to crank through is about the same. I doubt it is though. :/ C'est la vie.

After I finished the final I went backpacking through Yosemite. It was really nice. I love the High Sierra.

These are books I found useful for the Enrichment course and I think will be useful for the fall:

http://www.amazon.com/Law-School-Confidential-Complete-Experience/dp/031224309X

http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Guide-School-Student-Student/dp/1598690841

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Maybe-Excel-School-Exams/dp/0890897603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251067644&sr=1-1

The Final is Tomorrow

I am as cool as a cucumber. I know all the rules and I took all the practice exams that are available online through the library. At this point its not a matter of remembering the material or concepts but being able to apply them correctly and remembering to address all sides of an issue. I fooled around a bit with the IRAC method of exam taking and just kind of outlining. IRAC is much quicker for me so I'm going to stick to using it. I'm good with issue spotting so I'm not worried about that. The hardest parts will be applying the rules and addressing issues from every angle.

I feel really comfortable going into the exam. Part of this is probably because I have the knowledge that its not going to damage my GPA if I screw up (and I won't screw up). I've run into a few people who are really stressing out about it but it seems like they're doing themselves a disservice at this point getting wound up.

So far I've lost 9 pounds since I moved here. I think this is due to three reasons: 1) I bike everywhere including up and down a monster hill each day. I get my groceries, go to the post office, the store, bank, you name it and I bike there (unless its to go surfing in which case I strap my board to the roof of my car). 2) I surf each weekend. Thats a hell of a work out and its really addictive. I'm a total kook but who cares? Its fun. 3) I drink less. I just kind of stopped having a beer with dinner. Because I grocery shop with my messenger bag I have to shop smart unless I want to make two trips. When it comes down to a 6 pack for the week or milk and cereal the food always wins out. I wasn't fat to begin with or anything but I definitely feel better and even though I can't give a causality between being fitter and doing better on exams I certainly feel like I retain more information more easily.

After the exam is over I'm going on a backpacking trip through Yosemite. See you when Fall starts.

:)

Final Exam Prep.

I have an outline with all the rules. A lot of people are worried about remembering the fact patterns for each case which is weird to me. I read it and I remember it so there isn't much memorization to do in that department. I'm memorizing the rules that each case works with. I understand all the concepts and how to apply the rules to I feel pretty alright going into the final.

I think some people have lost their focus judging by how many computers I see opened to facebook, espn, or some other time waster of choice. I don't bring my computer with me to class just so I'm not tempted to follow suit. I think that has worked to my advantage. Physically writing the notes from class has also helped me retain the huge amount of information we've been presented with. I've been taking notes and then typing them up at home and revising my briefs if I need to.

Going into the midterm there weren't that many rules or cases to remember. Looking back from the final exam perspective this would be much less of a headache had I used each weekend to memorize each rule and modify my typed outline. I'll definitely use that in the fall.

Something entertaining

Sarah Palin recently announced that she would step down from her position in Alaska. Shortly after that she threatened to basically sue the internet and networks that would publish what they could gather from blogs. It was entertaining to imagine being the defense attorney for a blogger facing defamation charges.

I don't want to get too political but I'm having trouble figuring out which is worse: that Palin thought there was a 'department of law' or that she thought its purpose would be to make sure she didn't have to follow the law.

Midterm results

I didn't do as well as I wanted to but I still ended up with a 'high pass' on a scale of honors, high pass, pass, low pass, and fail. I think there were only 5 honors and 11 high passes given out for my section. I don't remember off the top of my head how many people are in my section but its between 40-50 people.

The errors I made were pretty much just due to not being familiar with taking a law school exam. I really just need to be more detailed and to mention which precedents came from which cases. It took me back to math classes in a way. I could always come up with the right answer but the teacher/professor was more interested in how I arrived at that answer rather than that I solved the problem. It was a good learning experience and I feel like I'm in good shape going into the final.

The class has moved on to the subjects of death, birth and property. The cases surrounding birth for whatever reason have some concepts that are weird for me to grasp. Some of the guidelines the courts like to use seem to be almost contradictory and sometimes a justice will list out guidelines only to violate them a few paragraphs later. The professor does an excellent job of clearing up issues and the t.a. I get to work with is world class in my opinion. The t.a. is motivated, loves talking about law and genuinely gets into helping you progress through the course. I plan on asking him if hes going to be tutoring at all in the fall.

I'm meeting up with my study buddy this weekend to start banging out an outline and some flash cards for the final. I feel like with the feedback from the midterm I stand a pretty good chance of getting an 'honors' for the course. Most importantly though - I made the silly mistakes on this midterm and I get to fine tune my test taking in this course rather than making them on the fall finals and having that damage my gpa.

I should really take some pictures to insert in these posts. If anybody reads this hopefully it will give them a good idea of what they are diving into. :)

Counting how many hours I put in feels goofy and occasionally frustrating ("I read this thing how many times and that miniscule concept is all that matters? ahhh!!!"). I'm up to 120 hours from the start of the course. Only 9,880 hours to go. :)

midterm update

I'll attempt to be more diligent in updating this thing. I've developed some pretty good habits for reading and briefing cases so that isn't as time consuming as it used to be. I also have a really good study buddy. She is excellent at getting things done and isn't dramatic about how much work is to be done.

The midterm went as well as it could have I suppose. I feel like I nailed the first question. The second question I argued my position well and hit a few key points but I neglected to address another point that could have been made. I'll probably get docked for it. Live and learn I suppose. I'm just glad I'm making the mistake here and not during fall semester's finals. I know the material cold though so I feel accomplished anyway.

We use examsoft which is a really annoying program. I had to install windows on my mac, so I have to use boot camp to get into windows and then examsoft restarts my computer again to lock itself into its own UI. This is to prevent you from cheating.

I didn't realize until this exam how slow others are at typing. I heard more than a few people talking about feeling disadvantaged because they were slow typists. I bang out 90 wpm or more so I guess I had a leg up. I developed my outline and I rocketed through the written portion with time to go back and edit. For the whole exam I think I had around 800 words.

The social scene here is pretty neat. Everyone is nice, outgoing and motivated. The professors are (usually!) concise and to the point. Explanations are clear and easy to understand. The T.A. is a great guy. He is very interested in helping you understand concepts and gives great test taking advice.

This place is really neat. There is an ocean view from the library and the course material is all really interesting stuff so far.

2 days

On Tuesday we had a fun ice-breaker activity that followed up lecture. Some students were picked to argue/ defend a case. We had the normal lecture followed by pizza and then the fake examination of a witness activity. It was pretty hilarious (no one know what they're doing). Occasionally the professors would object (your honor, this line of questioning is COMPLETELY irrelevant!). It was fun.

The socratic method is a bit scary and I don't think it really drives anything home other than to keep up on your reading. It is very possible to be called on and asked a question that you might not remember from the reading that we've been doing.

I turned in my brief yesterday for a T.A. to go over it. It was really terrible. We went over it in class on Tuesday and I turned it in revised on Wednesday. Today I have a very large case to brief before class. It has to do with the military, civilian courts and the vagueness doctrine.

I really need to pick up a copy of Black's Law Dictionary and just make a vocabulary bank to memorize.

Tuesday: 6 hours

Wednesday: 6.5 hours

(I'm including class time in these figures for the 10,000 hours to test the 10,000 hours to become and expert hypothesis in case anyone was wondering)

1st Day!

Yesterday was the first day of the enrichment course and some meet and greet activities. I met a few faculty members who were all really nice. I had the chance to meet and talk with the dean for a bit (I didn't realize he was the dean at the time, woops). He is a really nice guy and very enthusiastic about what he does. The food was good too!

The class is a mix of (mostly) California Western 1Ls, UCSD undergraduates, and a few people taking the course as a preparation for whatever law school they are planning to attend in the fall. I like the professor I have a lot. He seems like a very clear and concise lecturer. We went over the reading and some brief writing strategies and our assignment is to brief a case. We also have an additional assignment of coming prepared to interview a plaintiff/defendant tonight. Class is going to run an extra hour for this activity and pizza will be served. :)

yesterday: 4 hours.

Introduction

I am just beginning law school at California Western School of Law in San Diego. I plan on keeping a running blog of the experience and what I'm working on through the first year of law school. If you have any questions feel free to post in the comments. I also plan on keeping a running tally of how many hours I study. I've heard that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. I'll let you know how close I feel to that goal at the end of the year. :)

A little about me:

I'm 24 years old and I'm from the east coast. I just got settled in an apartment two miles from the school a few days ago and I have no furniture other than a bed (woohoo!). I have two bikes. I plan on commuting on an older single speed road bike that I got through craigslist. California Western has a bike rack outside one of their buildings and I have a u-lock to prevent my bike from getting stolen.

Tomorrow is the first day of the summer enrichment course. There was already a reading assignment. The first part came from the book The Bramble Bush. Its a book written by a law professor. It has some useful advice regarding the 1L experience and what material is important.

The second reading tied into the first two chapters of the Bramble Bush regarding cases and how to approach them. I think what the most important thing I gleaned from the second reading revolves around what a case brief should contain:

1) Citation

2) Statement of the Case

3) Procedure

4) Statement of Facts

5) Issue

6) Result on Appeal

7) Holding

8) Reason

9) Additional Points.

My B.S. is in Public Policy. It was neat to see that policy reasons are incorporated into brief writing.

Hopefully tomorrow goes smoothly. I'm excited. :)

4 hours.