I am no longer a 1L.

This is my last post. I am finished with finals and I am now a rising 2L. Upon reflection I kind of let my dork flag fly a bit but I think overall the blog is probably a pretty fair representation of what it is like to attend California Western as a 1L.

Here is a run down of spring semester finals and a reflection on the 1L experience.

TORTS:
Torts is a hard class. I had professor Lynch. It's a very subjective course and the multiple choice probably set the curve on the final. I downloaded law in a flash on my iphone and did all the practice problems. I can still remember the essay hypo. Closed Note.

CIVIL PROCEDURE II:
Professor Stiglitz is a difficult professor and he gives away no free points on his exams. Do practice multiple choice problems and make sure you know all the material. Our short answer essay problems had nothing to do with his questions from past exams. I'm not sure how I did on this exam. I think most people walked out feeling tricked by the professor. Closed note with a handout FRCP booklet.

CONTRACTS II:
Professor Barton wants you to word vomit everything you learned from the semester into the essay. The multiple choice is hard. I used law in a flash to study for this class. I lost track of the time a little bit and dwelled on the first question a little too long determined not to miss easy points like I did last semester. This caused me to feel rushed through the last two essays which were worth 10% each. Closed Note.

PROPERTY II:
Professor Smythe is probably the best professor I've had from undergrad to present. He is very easy going and never hides the ball in class or on exams. Open Note.

LEGAL SKILLS II:
I have mixed feelings about this class. I really liked the oral advocacy exercise. The final assignment is an appellate brief. It takes a lot of time and is only worth 2 credit hours. It also does not count against you if you're on the brink of failing out of California Western. The course material isn't exactly helpful to learning legal writing and the best resource is the professor. I think ultimately I learned the most from the student honors instructor who helps out.

For all the substantive classes I prepared all my own outlines and I went to all the tutoring sessions offered. The tutoring sessions are run by upper division students who did well in the class. I can't stress enough how valuable it is to go to these tutoring sessions even if you feel like you don't need it. You'll feel much better when you are outlining or reviewing for a topic and you have the tutor's handout and they respond to your 3:00 a.m. questions about non-mutual offensive issue preclusion or whatever.

Life as a California Western 1L:

1L is a weird experience. You have a lot of work and there is no escaping it. You're surrounded by high stress and highly competitive peers. I'll start with the bad and finish off with the great parts of the school and random personal advice.

The Bad:
California Western really pours the pressure on to do well and escape the attrition rate. The first semester the attrition rate seems like a foreign thing. Everyone is confident in their own abilities. The gravity of the attrition rate doesn't really sink in until you're in class a few weeks into the second semester. People will be asked to leave and some will leave on their own.

Certain social aspects feel like a sequel to high school life. Students form little cliques together. There are a lot of spoiled kids who came straight out of undergrad and haven't worked a day in their lives. They seemed to have had the most trouble keeping up with work though. I think this is probably a trait universal to just about every law school. My friends at Emory, Davis and UCLA have said pretty much the same thing about their 1L experience.

A few people have emailed me saying they got the 'if you can keep an 80 we'll pay for your school' scholarship and wondering how hard it is to keep an 80. An 80 is above the median and grading is on a 95 scale so it's difficult to keep an 80. I don't know what the average grade is because the school doesn't report it which means it is probably below 80. You're gambling with a lot of money.

The Good:
If you're in California Western it means you're living in San Diego. The quality of life here is incredible. The weather is great and you can run, bike, swim, surf, hike, camp, party throughout north park, south park, hillcrest, PB, OB, gaslamp. Produce here is really cheap.

There are a lot of fun student groups and ample opportunities to get involved with the campus. I didn't use the career services to find my summer internship. My friends who did said the career services are almost overzealous in finding you summer work. There are a lot of on campus interview opportunities and community service work to get involved with.

California Western is currently in talks with UCSD about merging. From what I can gather it seems like the only impediments are external political factors and maybe internal UC politics. It's looking more likely than not to happen in the next few years from the sound of the townhall meeting I posted about in January. I hope this happens and Cal Western goes public with UCSD. I wouldn't go here based just on that possibility until there is something more concrete but it's a really exciting time to be a part of California Western/ UCSD. The two schools already share a lot of resources which is another great part about Cal Western if you're interested in exploring it.


Random Advice:
I went into 1L engaged. I'm 25 years old. I love my fiance and she is a pillar in my life. I'm lucky because I get to go home to my best friend each night and she supported everything I did. Most of my friends who went in engaged or with a significant other are now single. Their grades almost certainly suffered as much as they did emotionally. I don't really feel comfortable giving relationship advice but having a life partner is a team effort so pick carefully.

Make sure practicing law is something you really want to do and not just something you think is awesome from watching too many episodes of Law and Order. Law requires really close attention to detail and uses a system including some weird, archaic and poorly written rules. Law school isn't one big Law and Order exercise where you're in trial at light speed making dramatic oral arguments and slinging back scotch on the rocks with big cigars like Wiliam Shattner in Boston Legal. You're doing really tedious legal research, reading cases, briefing, attending classes, practicing hypotheticals, and reading E&Es until the cows come home. It doesn't stop or slow down and the amount of information you're given can feel like trying to drink from a fire-hose until you get a better grip fitting the legal framework together.

If you're uncertain about law school I'd recommend taking the summer enrichment program California Western offers. It's a pretty good insight to how California Western/ any law school education works and you'll be better prepared for the first 6 weeks of classes than your peers who didn't take it. I think it's 1,000 dollars which is a small price to pay if you decide you hate law school (much better than piling on 1L debt and deciding you'd rather watch paint dry). If you know you already want to practice law and you're passionate about it I'd recommend reading "Getting to Maybe", "The Insiders Guide to Your First Year of Law School", and if you really want to let your dork flag fly you can learn the minimum contacts analysis from the civil procedure E&E (MC analysis is basically the same regardless of professor or what school you go to).

Exam preparation is key. The people who did well figured out how to take a law school exam. In undergrad you can get away with 'passive learning' which is basically just reading the material and showing up for class. To some degree you do this in law school by reading and briefing cases and outlining the course. The 'active learning' aspect is crucial to doing well where you take the concepts you've picked out as important and you begin to drill them. You must take practice exams, use Bar Bri or Cali exercises, answer the questions in the E&Es and I personally really liked the Law in a Flash cards app for the iPhone.

A good strategy for closed note exams is to build an attack outline in addition to your normal outline. The attack outline should just have a checklist of things you run through to make sure you covered everything you needed during your issue spotting. To some degree you should have common answers memorized and ready to write down as soon as you spot the issue (like an introduction and basic framework of your minimum contacts analysis for civil procedure I).

Stay healthy. Get adequate rest and exercise. A few of my friends put on about 20 pounds or so over the year. 20-30 minutes of taking a break to walk around each day isn't going to destroy your GPA. If you make yourself sick/ catch a cold during finals you haven't really done yourself any favors by abusing yourself to study more. At a certain point in the semester you should probably stop going out and partying on weekends. You're just burning the candle at both ends and if you're just wasted during the day Saturday and Sunday you've fallen behind on your work. I got H1N1 fall semester. My advice is to avoid that like the plague that it is (if thats even possible). You can go back and read my posts about it if you want.

Use California Western's student tutors. They're really good. They know the material and they'll help you out.

California Western is a tough but good school. The merger with UCSD makes it exciting to be a part of the student body right now. The attrition rate is bad but if you want to practice law in San Diego it's not a bad option. They offer discounted bar prep. classes and have a pretty nice career services administration. The faculty is knowledgeable and helpful. The upper division 1L tutors are excellent. The library even comes with an ocean view. You can walk to the waterfront (NOT the bar) for coffee and studying and you can even pitch your umbrella and hammock for studying at the beach on the weekends. Just remember to hit the ground running and you'll be alright.

Goodbye readers. Goodbye blog. Goodbye 1L.




Post Script:
If you liked the blog or found it useful you can use the donate button to buy me a cup of coffee which fueled my 1L learning and blogging. Or, if you're the eccentric rich type you can pay my tuition! :D

The button is off on the side bar and you don't need a paypal account to donate (just click on one of the little card graphics when you get to that point) ------->

UCSD and California Western Merger Townhall Meeting

California Western held a townhall meeting to discuss the possible UCSD-Cal Western merger. The students asked questions and the Dean gave answers.

Highlights:

Someone asked who the school perceived as political obstacles to the merger. The Dean pointed the questioner to the San Diego Tribune without directly naming anybody.

-I interpreted this to mean USD as they didn't have exactly positive statements to make about the possibility of a UC law school eclipsing their program. Apparently the merger failed in it's last iteration due to local politics. This is odd considering the second largest city in California does not have a public law school.

I asked when the merger would be complete if everything went smoothly. The answer is late 2010 or 2011.

The person who answered the question had been present for the last attempt at merging and seemed very optimistic about the momentum the schools had towards a merger.

Why am I blogging at 2am? I misread a legal skills assignment and had to do the whole thing over from scratch. fml.

Edit:

I read this article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/28/ucsd-looking-law-school/

A lot of the comments came from individuals who lack reading comprehension skills. So here is the tl;dr response for critics: 1) there is no increase lawyers created by this merger and 2) California Western is already financially viable so there would be nearly no strain on the state to support the school.

Exciting News: California Western and UCSD Panel

I am delighted to share this email the students received today regarding a possible merger between California Western and UCSD.

For many years, California Western has explored ways to expand our decades-long partnership with UC San Diego while strengthening our mission to educate and serve. Today we announce a significant development in this endeavor and I want you, our students, to be among the first to know.

Late Tuesday we announced that representatives of California Western and UC San Diego have formed a joint committee to consider an affiliation that would lead to the creation of a public law school in San Diego. Click here for the news release we distributed.

The proposed affiliation holds many potential benefits for our law school. Joining with UC San Diego creates new opportunities for research and collaboration while honoring our mission and values. It enhances the reputation and visibility of our faculty, alumni, and students. The proposed affiliation offers each of us the opportunity to be a part of something larger than ourselves, the chance to provide a living legacy to our region that will make a lasting difference for years to come.

I anticipate some media coverage of this development. As the news becomes public, you may hear or read about it in the workplace, online, or in social situations. I encourage you to share your questions and comments with Assistant Dean Kathleen Seibel or myself.

I also invite you to attend a students-only town hall meeting to learn more about our conversations with UC San Diego and what they might mean for you and the rest of the California Western family.

Tuesday, February 2
12:15 – 1:05 p.m.
California Western Auditorium

As we move forward in these conversations, our first commitment remains you, the California Western family. You make us who we are and we could not do this without the support of the faculty, staff, alumni, and students whose commitment and accomplishments allow us to consider this exciting proposal. I will continue to bring you updates as events unfold in this process.

Sincerely,
Dean Steven R. Smith

------

I plan to attend the meeting and I'll report back with any details.

Here is where the link leads:

Media Contacts:

Judy Piercey, UC San Diego – (858) 534-6128 or jpiercey@ucsd.edu

Pam Hardy, California Western School of Law – (619) 515-1545 or phardy@cwsl.edu

Local Educational Institutions Form Joint Committee to Consider

Establishment of UC San Diego School of Law

January 26, 2010 – The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and California

Western School of Law (California Western) this month formed a joint committee made

up of faculty and administrators from both institutions to consider an affiliation that

may lead to the establishment of a UC San Diego School of Law. It is envisioned that the

law school would be self-supporting and no state or UC San Diego campus funds would

be needed to make the new law school viable.

Formation of this committee follows initial consideration of a proposal from California

Western to UC San Diego, according to Paul Drake, UC San Diego’s Senior Vice

Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

“We believe the proposal has sufficient merit to explore the possibilities together,”

Drake said. “A UC San Diego School of Law would enhance the research, teaching and

public service mission of the university.

California Western Dean Steven R. Smith added, “The increasingly robust ties between

our two institutions, built over the past three and a half decades of dual and joint

degree programs, co-sponsored symposia and cross-institutional teaching, led us to look

at the possibility of a combination as the next logical step in our relationship. This could

create a public law school for San Diego with no start-up costs – and without creating a

new (de novo) law school, or generating more law school graduates.”

The joint committee will explore ways in which a UC San Diego School of Law might

build on existing strengths, enhance other academic disciplines and create unique

broad-based areas of exploration in law, science and technology.

In addition, the joint committee will consider the following issues with regard to the

proposed affiliation:

• Faculty – integrating and respecting existing California Western faculty and

planning for new hires;

• Students – attracting students with strong credentials;

• Finance – ensuring that the law school continues to be self-supporting as a public

institution;

• Governance – maintaining consistency with University of California, American Bar

Association, and Association of American Law Schools standards; and

• Transition – charting a smooth transformation into a UC San Diego School of Law.

“At a challenging time in the university’s history,” Drake said, “this proposed affiliation

would present an opportunity to advance the long-term vision of the University of

California system and this campus.”

Noted Smith, “The San Diego region could benefit from having a law school that helps

advance and support its most important science and technology industries, today and

tomorrow.”

If the Joint Committee determines that the proposal should advance, a planning

document will be submitted to the UC San Diego Faculty Senate and administration, and

to the California Western faculty and Board of Trustees. If these bodies endorse the

committee’s recommendation, it will then be sent to the UC Office of the President for a

final evaluation and decision. There is no firm timeline for making a determination.

###

About UC San Diego

Founded in 1960, the University of California, San Diego is ranked the best value public

university in California by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and the 7th best public

university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. Named the “hottest” institution to

study science by Newsweek, UC San Diego is one of the nation’s most accomplished research

universities, widely acknowledged for its local impact, national influence and global reach. For

more information, please visit www.ucsd.edu.

About California Western School of Law

California Western School of Law is the independent, ABA/AALS-accredited San Diego law school

that advances multi-dimensional lawyering by educating lawyers-to-be as creative problem

solvers and principled advocates who frame the practice of law as a helping, collaborative

profession. Please visit www.cwsl.edu for more information.

-----

I kind of laughed at "This could create a public law school for San Diego with no start-up costs – and without creating a new (de novo) law school, or generating more law school graduates.” I guess the market is saturated.

Its an exciting time to be at California Western. I kind of found it odd no public law school exists in the second largest city in California.

Well, time for homework. Tomorrow is another day.

Grades, The Curve and UCSD

Grades come out next week so I feel like I should make a post about the curve without knowing what my grades are.

I do not like the curve at California Western.

The curve forces about a quarter of the class to fail out. This happens even if all the students perform well. The negative effect on students is two fold. First, those in the bottom quarter are left in an enormous amount of debt. Second, it reflects poorly on the school if they are admitting such a large volume of students that are doomed to fail.

I've heard the argument that California Western drops these students to improve their bar passage rate. After all, there is no point in going through 3 years of law school piling on debt if a student is incapable of passing the bar. The school could still maintain a high bar passage rate by simply raising the standards (gpa/lsat) of admission. This would cause the rank of the school to rise and maintain the bar passage rate.

Some posit an argument along the lines that some students are poor test takers on the lsat or slept through undergrad and still deserve a shot at becoming a lawyer. I would be O.K. with this if the school did a better job of informing the incoming class of the exact nature of a law school curve. I really think there is a 'failure to warn' on the part of the school. This could be ameliorated by publishing the curve and where each student's lsat score from the previous years lined up with where they landed on the curve. This information does not exist (as far as I know, feel free to correct me with a link).

This leaves me wondering why the school admits so many students it will simply fail out or ask to leave. The only rationale for this behavior that I can think of is to collect tuition.

Curves exist at law schools around the country and I'm rather opposed to systems that force good students completely out of the school or limit the number of As that can be given. I would suggest moving to an undergraduate grading system where displaying knowledge of the law and lawyer-like thinking gives you an A regardless of some irrelevant detail the professor is forced to use to differentiate between an A and a B.

My own grades:

I'm not really sure how I did. I studied hard and hopefully that pays off. I'll probably post my grades here so incoming students can see what I did and how well I did. My only concern is that I've revealed enough about myself that someone from my section will find it, realize who I am, and take the information the wrong way.

My impression of the tests is they're pretty standard law school exams. You spend much of the semester studying how to do well on a law school exam and the students to figure that out first will likely get the As.

I have a feeling I probably didn't do as well as I wanted which means I will have to change some things after talking to professors/ tutors. So far I've kept on track this semester. I started outlining this weekend and so far things look good. I'll adjust when grades are released on Friday.

UCSD Rumors:

A few faculty members at UCSD talk about a merger between the schools as if it is already a done deal. The rumor buzzing around the school is the next edition of the school news paper will be released when the committee to discuss a possible merger/ buyout/ whatever comes to a decision. A few of my professors keep having to cancel their office hours to serve on the committee. These are all rumors, so who knows. Hopefully we become UCSD. That would make me happy.

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