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.
