Orientation is over, classes don't start until Monday, and I've got a few minutes of downtime from briefing cases.

The last three days have been an absolutely amazing opportunity for me to plunge into the depths of my own ignorance and start to learn how to climb back out again. It's been, a spectacularly humbling and inspiring experience.

Yesterday was pretty damn nice. I'm a cynic by nature, and not typically impressed by touchy-feely bullshit like ceremony. I wasn't spectacularly impressed when I first learned that students at the William S Richardson School of Law take a pledge at the start of their legal education. That lasted almost until it was time to actually take the pledge. The class made a legal peregrination through downtown Honolulu yesterday. The day was fascinating enough before the pledge (it included a panel discussion in the courtroom of US District Judge David Ezra; his response to a question about the restraints of stare decisis was both sobering and inspiring). The day concluded with the administration of the pledge.

The pledge was administered in the Hawaii Supreme Court's courtroom, by the Chief Justice, and with all four of the Associate Justices present. That setting, with those people, was pretty damn good at dissipating my remaining cynicism.

For those who are curious, here's the pledge:

No, no, no.

The first year you work hard;and
The second year you go to most of your classes and interview with firms; and
The third year you go skiing (and drink a lot and occasionally indulge in illicit substances); and
The third summer you take bar prep classes where you learn what you need to pass the bar.

That was back when they actually still did that. Most of that has evaporated.

I believe the drunken despair phase starts about year two now.

Mike

Something has been niggling at my brain reading your posts about starting classes on Monday. I got an email from a law school friend the other day and I finally realized what it was.

I started law school on Monday, August 20, 1990.

Chris emailed about getting together on Sunday with some friends from law school - basically a group of friends who we met in the first week of law school. At Temple the first year class was split into 8 sections, with sections paired together (1 & 2, 3 & 4, etc) for all of their classes in the first year. Since 4 out of our 5 classes were in the same room and most of the teachers has assigned seats I pretty much sat with these same people every day in every class all year.

It will be fun to see everyone again, some I haven't seen in a few years, and laugh at how we've all changed in 22 years. What's really funny is that Chris didn't realize the significance of the date, she just thought it would be a good day to get everyone together. I've promised to bring our first year face book so we can see exactly what we looked like all those years ago.

So, when the law school grind gets you down, remember that you can and will survive and do well. In 22 years you too will be looking back and wondering where the time has gone.

I'm sure Taft Online Skool of Law Stuff does something similar.

Enjoy these first months of law school! It's hard work but it is also invigorating to be around people who care about things like justice and equity.

The drunken despair can wait.

After three whole days of classes, I think I can make two definitive statements about the experience:
1: I'm having at least twice as much fun as I expected to have.
2: I'm working at least three times as hard as I expected to.

Get used to it!

And yes, there is much fun to be had.

Conversely, you will be able to tell who smells like Rule 11, and will learn to trust your gut on that.

Try to find a study partner or three. Look for the 3 most diligent and intelligent members of the class. (Other than yourself, of course.) Make sure they can take good notes. Flatter them. Befriend them. And you will have it made.

Totally agreed on this. Find the people smarter than you. They will be few. They will be useful.

One 1L study partner in our group was very busy starting both a business and a family while we were all attending law school at night. He was also a huge Kings hockey fan and would often sneak off campus at the mid-evening break to catch the last period of a home game.

Before exams, he would call one or more of us on the phone to just "ask a few questions" about material he had missed. At graduation, where I was happy just to have the whole thing over and done with, he was honored as a member of the "Order of the Coif" and recognized as part of the top 5% academically at our law school.

I've tried pretty hard to hate him for all that, but he is a really great guy. And since he's super smart, I've benefited from his brainpower on several occasions in the years since.

The person I remember most from 1L was my Civ Pro professor, who shall remain nameless for reasons which appear below.

She was one of those I call "ferociously competent". Tiny little woman, weighed maybe 90 lbs. soaking wet. No apparent sense of humor. Very sober-minded.

But she was the best I ever met at the Socratic method. I came to fear appearing in class unprepared after just a couple of classes. She accepted nothing less than our very best, and could humiliate you if she had a hankerin' to. I got my highest grade of first semester in her class.

We feared her, but we knew she was the best of the crop. We were glad to be in that room, and civil procedure was never a mystery to me throughout my years of practicing. We feared her, but we loved her too also.



So on the last day of class, we hired a singing male stripper -- a really good-looking one -- to come serenade her ...

My contracts teacher acknowledged this was his role model:

My two favorite professors in 1L were my Civ Pro professor, in the second semester, and my Torts professor, from my first semester.

My torts prof, David Dante Troutt, is one of the most scary-smart people I've ever met. He was the only professor I had who I went out of my way to take again, in his intellectual property course, which I took even though I was also taking another intellectual property course at exactly the same time. He was also the only professor at Rutgers who I would describe as a "Socratic method" professor. He was pretty scary and intimidating in this persona. He would usually choose someone from the class and grill them until they broke. I'm proud that I held up for at least 15 minutes. Like most Harvard grads (he was there when Obama was), he dropped the H-bomb perhaps more than was justified. Since I'd do the same thing, I can't blame him.

My civil procedure professor was Gary Spring, not an academic. The dumbest mistake Rutgers made was not keeping this guy. Unlike most law school professors, he actually makes his living doing what he's teaching about, and taught the subject like it was something you would actually do, not some abstract intellectual endeavor. Why the fuck isn't most law school stuff like this? Yes, I like nerding out about obscure doctrinal issues as much as anyone, well, as much as anyone who is a crazy nerd, but law is a field of practice, not theory.

I view civil procedure as absolutely critical to legal practice. This is probably why I view Orly's "practice" as so abjectly awful that I am still obsessed with it. It's an insult to the whole process to have someone so incompetent punishing society for granting her a legal license.

Basically, you can have the best case in the world, and if you're on the other side, and you don't have a solid grasp of procedure, I may have a case that is a metric shit-ton of nonsense. But if I have a solid grasp of procedure, I may not be able to win my bullshit case, but I can keep you from winning yours indefinitely, or until you run out of money.

Law schools reward a genius like Troutt, but do not reward a genius at actually doing his job, like Spring. There are many reasons to be cynical about law school, and this is one.

(Note, this is no dis to Troutt, who also has good practical knowledge. In fact, he used to work for MoFo.)

One of the great things about my evening classes was that we had many adjunct professors who held down "real jobs" during the day. It was awesome to study Constitutional Law with the local director of the ACLU poking us along. These days, he's chief legal counsel for the LA ACLU.

My Con Law professor was David Kairys. He had worked for 22 years as a civil rights attorney (a real civil rights attorney, it makes my blood boil when Orly makes that claim).

I took a Law & Psychology class as an undergrad and my college professor used a lot of articles by him in that class and really admired his work. So I was aware of who he was before I got to law school. It was pretty neat learning from someone with an enormous intellectual and practical understanding of their subject area (although sometimes he could be a little too intellectual).

Temple was pretty good at having a mix of full-time academics and adjuncts who were practicing attorneys, both in the day and evening programs. I agree with Loh that practicing attorneys can add a lot of practical knowledge that is often missing in law school classes.

I try to forget he went to Temple as much as possible.

My boss at the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic was Frank Askin, general counsel for the ACLU. He is one of the few people accurately given the often-misused title of a "lion of the legal profession."

My advisor on my thesis (or whatever the hell we called it) was this young kid named Stephen Breyer. Steve had a poster of Bogie in his office. We got along swell.

Peachy!

Breyer is my second favorite current Justice. I only "met" him once at a book signing.

My favorite, of course, is Ginsburg. Despite the fact that she was a professor at my law school, mostly before I was even born, and founded the journal on which I edited, I missed every opportunity to meet her.

Law is truly a small world.

Crap. I had the worst freaking dream last night.

My daughter needed me to do something for her, but I couldn't do it until I found something, so I'm running around searching all over the place - under rocks, in bushes, everywhere - for the something. Would any of those who have been through the 1L year care to guess what I was searching for so frantically?

Prosser on Torts.

Case notes.