Every 1L at my law school has the same five classes, which have titles ranging from the straightforward ("Contracts," "Constitutional Law") to the specific-if-not-yet-part-of-the-nonlawyer's-everyday-vocabulary ("Torts") to the obscure ("Civil Procedure") to the completely vague ("Lawyering"). Each class has now met multiple times, and here's a quick description of what they're about:
CONTRACTS is about how you get legally bound to someone else when you agree with them on something. Most contracts are straightforward and everybody is in agreement: you do x and I'll pay you y. But the ones that get litigated are the ones in the casebook, and those are full of conflicting and often confusing claims: if I make an offer to the public, can I revoke it? What defines acceptance of the offer? What kinds of things are considered to be binding even when they're not explicitly written down?
My Contracts teacher is the one who seems like a movie version of a law school teacher. A fat man with nice suits (although the tailoring is quite generous, given his size), a gray beard, a booming, oratorical voice, and a tendency to laugh at his own jokes, somewhat like Jeffrey Tambor on The Larry Sanders Show. (And he is a dead ringer for him too, especially Tambor with a beard!) He loves the Socratic method -- which every teacher uses, but none of my five teachers are as single-minded in the answer they want to hear. His questions feel disingenuous because he'll abruptly cut off anyone with "Not what I'm looking for!" when it's not what he was looking for. Now I do like a teacher's willingness to shut down unfocused responses when the class period is lacking clarity, but Prof. Tambor goes too far. It's boring to sit through his open-ended questions when he's only ready to accept one answer.
TORTS are defined as civil wrongs -- sometimes as "civil wrongs for which there is a legal remedy." If I can sue you for something you've done and am able to collect damages for it, then you've committed a tort against me. My Torts professor, a tall 45ish woman with long brown hair and a headband, has admitted to us that she's spent most of her career defending tort cases for nuclear power companies, health insurers, and Big Tobacco. She is always polite in class and doesn't question students too aggressively -- though again, keep in mind that every class is Socratic, and every teacher is going to randomly call on one or more students in every class. But Nuclear Prof., despite her politeness, strikes me as a genuine sociopath. (Which she should know, given that she is the director of a law and psychiatry clinic here.) She has a very casual, flippant way of joking about liability in cases in which people die or are seriously harmed (and just not in a tortuous way of harm, in which being pushed against a wall by the junior high bully can be a harm that receives a monetary remedy, but in the layman's use of the word harm: being shot, hit by a car, etc.). It's kind of shocking to hear her laugh at these situations. I know that a torts lawyer needs to be able to work on such cases relatively objectively, but I don't think that macabre jokes need to be part of that objectivity.
Nuclear Prof. has also rearranged our schedule without our consultation or approval. We have a bunch of "rescheduled" meetings for the late afternoon when our class is normally scheduled for 10:00... and some are scheduled on different days entirely, which imbalances the reading load for all of our other classes. Still, Torts law is relatively straightforward compared to some of the other topics, so the class hasn't seemed too tricky so far. With torts, it's usually pretty easy to get a mental picture of the events, unlike, say, getting a mental picture of the Judiciary Act of 1789, and the situations in which the U.S. Supreme Court has original and appellate and original-but-not-exclusive jurisdiction. More about that class next time...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Procedure
One of my five classes is called "Procedure" ("Civil Procedure," officially), but this post is more specifically about how a class period proceeds on a typical day -- based, of course, on my potentially unrepresentative sample of the first four days of my 1L year. (1L, 2L, and 3L being the identifying years of your time in law school.)
The first thing to know is that your reading responsibilities begin before the first day of class. It is understood that every class will be discussing the content of the course on the very first day, and that you have completed a typical chunk of reading for that day, and that you are ready to be called on in class to discuss it. The professor won't be handing out a syllabus, because you've already looked up the course on the law school website and printed it out, along with any "handouts" (inappropriately titled, given that no one's handing them to you). There are no icebreakers, no calling of roll, and there's not much of an overview or introduction from the professor to speak of. One professor was calling on students within 10 minutes of the beginning of the first class period.
So how does this work, exactly? It's hard to imagine that a class such as "Frankfurt School Aesthetics," or "Advanced Biochemistry and Enzymology" could work so efficiently that barely any introduction would be necessary before diving into the content of the course. But for the most part, this approach seems to work in law school for a very simple reason: it's all about the cases. For the most part, each aspect of the law on a given topic is going to be illustrated by individual cases, with only a minimal amount of contextualizing material. To determine what the case means is my job, and I'm limited in my search for meaning by the evidence cited within that case. In my Contracts class, for example, we began with a case called Ray v. William G. Eurice & Bros., Inc., which happened in Baltimore between 1950-1952. The condensed version of the case is this: the plaintiff, Ray, contracted with the Eurice Bros. to build a new house. As is the case with construction projects, the plans were revised back and forth by each party a couple of times, and then the deal was signed. The problem is that the Eurice brothers were confused when they eventually signed the final contract; they didn't realize the extent of the revisions which were in the final document. Essentially, they were OK with draft #3 and when they met at the bank to formalize the contract, they didn't realize that the document in front of them was actually draft #4, which required them to build a much fancier and more expensive house.
So once the Eurice Bros. realize that they've actually signed draft #4, they refuse to honor it, saying that they wouldn't have signed it if they'd known what was in it. Ray naturally expects them to honor the contract as a done deal, and sues. The litigation begins.
In my textbook, I get to read the appellate judge's version of this case and the reason that he decides the way that he does. (The casebooks, by the way, are strictly appellate decisions, which means that they're all cases in which the loser of the original verdict has taken the claim to appeals court. The main reason for this -- i.e., the reason that we're reading the appeal rather than the proceedings of the original case -- is that it's more concise. I can read an actual, binding legal judgment in Ray v. Eurice without having to read tons of pages of court transcripts -- longwinded opening/closing statements, rambling witnesses, etc.)
But even though the casebook contains a summary, it's not a very compact summary. And the judge who authors the decision isn't going to tell me why this particular case is important. I have to use his citations and his reliance on rules and precedent to decide what precedent this case seems to establish. That's not easy! If you gave me a random modernist poem, I could probably tell you how it adheres to and how it deviates from precedent, but I could do this because I know a few things about the aesthetics of modernism, the history of poetry, etc. I could probably do this exercise with a lot of examples drawn from traditions that I know pretty well: I can tell you how a current French film is different than a New Wave film, or how Peter Crouch is a different kind of center-forward than Alan Shearer, or why Obama is a different politician than Jesse Jackson. But I couldn't take, say, a piece of Japanese chamber music and explain its innovative features because I've never learned anything about Japanese chamber music. And after only four days of law school, I can't claim much more expertise over the tradition of contract law.
Another thing that can be initially overwhelming about law school is that we're expected to be able to retell the stories of these cases in exhaustive detail. I didn't get called on in the Ray v. Eurice discussion, but I would have been really lost if I had, because when the professor asks you for the facts of the case, s/he does not want you to skip over anything. If you'd said that "Ray and the Eurice brothers met a few times to revise the contract," you'd have been rudely interrupted and asked to identify the dates of those meetings and the specific nature of each of those revisions. Think of how weird a literature class could be if the professors demanded that you be able to retell all of the nuances of a story before analyzing it. You could spend five minutes of class time talking about the characteristics of Turkey and Ginger Nut before even getting to mention poor Bartleby. And who'd be prepared to do this? Pick your favorite novel right now and explain to me what happens on page 1. Don't leave anything out. Then move to page 2. Repeat.
More about how my five classes work in the next post...
The first thing to know is that your reading responsibilities begin before the first day of class. It is understood that every class will be discussing the content of the course on the very first day, and that you have completed a typical chunk of reading for that day, and that you are ready to be called on in class to discuss it. The professor won't be handing out a syllabus, because you've already looked up the course on the law school website and printed it out, along with any "handouts" (inappropriately titled, given that no one's handing them to you). There are no icebreakers, no calling of roll, and there's not much of an overview or introduction from the professor to speak of. One professor was calling on students within 10 minutes of the beginning of the first class period.
So how does this work, exactly? It's hard to imagine that a class such as "Frankfurt School Aesthetics," or "Advanced Biochemistry and Enzymology" could work so efficiently that barely any introduction would be necessary before diving into the content of the course. But for the most part, this approach seems to work in law school for a very simple reason: it's all about the cases. For the most part, each aspect of the law on a given topic is going to be illustrated by individual cases, with only a minimal amount of contextualizing material. To determine what the case means is my job, and I'm limited in my search for meaning by the evidence cited within that case. In my Contracts class, for example, we began with a case called Ray v. William G. Eurice & Bros., Inc., which happened in Baltimore between 1950-1952. The condensed version of the case is this: the plaintiff, Ray, contracted with the Eurice Bros. to build a new house. As is the case with construction projects, the plans were revised back and forth by each party a couple of times, and then the deal was signed. The problem is that the Eurice brothers were confused when they eventually signed the final contract; they didn't realize the extent of the revisions which were in the final document. Essentially, they were OK with draft #3 and when they met at the bank to formalize the contract, they didn't realize that the document in front of them was actually draft #4, which required them to build a much fancier and more expensive house.
So once the Eurice Bros. realize that they've actually signed draft #4, they refuse to honor it, saying that they wouldn't have signed it if they'd known what was in it. Ray naturally expects them to honor the contract as a done deal, and sues. The litigation begins.
In my textbook, I get to read the appellate judge's version of this case and the reason that he decides the way that he does. (The casebooks, by the way, are strictly appellate decisions, which means that they're all cases in which the loser of the original verdict has taken the claim to appeals court. The main reason for this -- i.e., the reason that we're reading the appeal rather than the proceedings of the original case -- is that it's more concise. I can read an actual, binding legal judgment in Ray v. Eurice without having to read tons of pages of court transcripts -- longwinded opening/closing statements, rambling witnesses, etc.)
But even though the casebook contains a summary, it's not a very compact summary. And the judge who authors the decision isn't going to tell me why this particular case is important. I have to use his citations and his reliance on rules and precedent to decide what precedent this case seems to establish. That's not easy! If you gave me a random modernist poem, I could probably tell you how it adheres to and how it deviates from precedent, but I could do this because I know a few things about the aesthetics of modernism, the history of poetry, etc. I could probably do this exercise with a lot of examples drawn from traditions that I know pretty well: I can tell you how a current French film is different than a New Wave film, or how Peter Crouch is a different kind of center-forward than Alan Shearer, or why Obama is a different politician than Jesse Jackson. But I couldn't take, say, a piece of Japanese chamber music and explain its innovative features because I've never learned anything about Japanese chamber music. And after only four days of law school, I can't claim much more expertise over the tradition of contract law.
Another thing that can be initially overwhelming about law school is that we're expected to be able to retell the stories of these cases in exhaustive detail. I didn't get called on in the Ray v. Eurice discussion, but I would have been really lost if I had, because when the professor asks you for the facts of the case, s/he does not want you to skip over anything. If you'd said that "Ray and the Eurice brothers met a few times to revise the contract," you'd have been rudely interrupted and asked to identify the dates of those meetings and the specific nature of each of those revisions. Think of how weird a literature class could be if the professors demanded that you be able to retell all of the nuances of a story before analyzing it. You could spend five minutes of class time talking about the characteristics of Turkey and Ginger Nut before even getting to mention poor Bartleby. And who'd be prepared to do this? Pick your favorite novel right now and explain to me what happens on page 1. Don't leave anything out. Then move to page 2. Repeat.
More about how my five classes work in the next post...
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Introduction to the blog
Molto Giuridico is translated as "very legal" or "very juridical" in Italian.
I'll be using this blog to write about my experiences as a first-year law student in a city in the midwestern US. What I like about the idea of a blog is the ease with which you can publish journalistic accounts of all sorts of things, from obscure sports to molecular gastronomy to juicy narratives about being a nanny to a stuck-up Brooklyn freelance writer.
What I don't like about many blogs is when writers attempt to cover too many of these varying topics, and not very well at that. In this blog, I won't post descriptions of what I cooked for dinner last night, predictions for the Rugby World Cup, my review of Flight of the Conchords, links to Obama campaign commercials, or any topics that don't directly pertain to the blog's subject: being a first-year law student. My goal -- which will take some practice, I know -- is to report on law school like a good feature journalist would do. My previous stint in a graduate program in the humanities taught me a lot of things, but it did not sharpen my ability to write with concision; most of my professors in that field actively or passively encouraged disorganization in my writing. I hope that blogging can help me relearn the skills of expository and analytical writing for a non-specialized audience.
Most of my readers will probably be people who know me, and so of course we have other lines of communication to talk about everything outside the world of law school. And conversely, you probably don't want to talk to me on the telephone about the cases I have to read in Civil Procedure, so it's here for your reading (dis)pleasure. If we're friends and you want to remain friends with me and yet you're bored to tears by the law school stories, it is OK: reading the blog is not a prerequisite for any future conversations we can have. I don't know if it will be worth anyone's time to read, and I won't make conversational references to its content assuming that anyone has. I hope reading this will be entertaining, but the commitments of law school itself will prevent me from spending too much time polishing my blog posts about it.
After a six-day orientation program, classes will officially begin this Tuesday. The first-year curriculum is comprised of five classes: Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and something called "Lawyering," which is called Legal Writing and Research at some other schools. The classes meet two or three times a week, so I'll be in class from 9-noon every day, with an additional class in the afternoon on Monday and Thursday. The class time itself is a little lighter than some other schools (by 1-2 hours per week), but the reading load is just as daunting. I just bought several massive textbooks (costing nearly $700, including a couple of used ones!) which I'll be lugging around until mid-December. My daily planner now has a regular block of time devoted exclusively to these guys: Sunday through Thursday evenings, 7-11 P.M. We'll see how this reading plan works in practice...
Monday is the last day of orientation before classes start on Tuesday morning. I'm now dreading my email for fear that a professor is going to assign reading before the first class. Returning to the classroom as a student is going to be really strange...
I'll be using this blog to write about my experiences as a first-year law student in a city in the midwestern US. What I like about the idea of a blog is the ease with which you can publish journalistic accounts of all sorts of things, from obscure sports to molecular gastronomy to juicy narratives about being a nanny to a stuck-up Brooklyn freelance writer.
What I don't like about many blogs is when writers attempt to cover too many of these varying topics, and not very well at that. In this blog, I won't post descriptions of what I cooked for dinner last night, predictions for the Rugby World Cup, my review of Flight of the Conchords, links to Obama campaign commercials, or any topics that don't directly pertain to the blog's subject: being a first-year law student. My goal -- which will take some practice, I know -- is to report on law school like a good feature journalist would do. My previous stint in a graduate program in the humanities taught me a lot of things, but it did not sharpen my ability to write with concision; most of my professors in that field actively or passively encouraged disorganization in my writing. I hope that blogging can help me relearn the skills of expository and analytical writing for a non-specialized audience.
Most of my readers will probably be people who know me, and so of course we have other lines of communication to talk about everything outside the world of law school. And conversely, you probably don't want to talk to me on the telephone about the cases I have to read in Civil Procedure, so it's here for your reading (dis)pleasure. If we're friends and you want to remain friends with me and yet you're bored to tears by the law school stories, it is OK: reading the blog is not a prerequisite for any future conversations we can have. I don't know if it will be worth anyone's time to read, and I won't make conversational references to its content assuming that anyone has. I hope reading this will be entertaining, but the commitments of law school itself will prevent me from spending too much time polishing my blog posts about it.
After a six-day orientation program, classes will officially begin this Tuesday. The first-year curriculum is comprised of five classes: Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and something called "Lawyering," which is called Legal Writing and Research at some other schools. The classes meet two or three times a week, so I'll be in class from 9-noon every day, with an additional class in the afternoon on Monday and Thursday. The class time itself is a little lighter than some other schools (by 1-2 hours per week), but the reading load is just as daunting. I just bought several massive textbooks (costing nearly $700, including a couple of used ones!) which I'll be lugging around until mid-December. My daily planner now has a regular block of time devoted exclusively to these guys: Sunday through Thursday evenings, 7-11 P.M. We'll see how this reading plan works in practice...
Monday is the last day of orientation before classes start on Tuesday morning. I'm now dreading my email for fear that a professor is going to assign reading before the first class. Returning to the classroom as a student is going to be really strange...
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