First classes, first impressions:

On Tuesday morning as I walked from my metro stop to the second day of orientation, the song on the iPod was "Nervous Breakdown Prevention Day" by Elevator Ride, and all day the lyrics running through my head were:

They say no man is a mountain, and every rock will wash to the sea. My massive ego is bigger than any ocean and when I fall nothing can contain me.

Interpret that as you may,* it seemed appropriate, and it may yet prove true, but I think it's safe to say at this point that the first week of law school served me with notice that this won't be easy. It may not be nearly as difficult as many people have claimed, but it won't be easy. That said, a few thoughts about the first classes:

Legal Research & Writing (Legresandwry?): Having a small group class like this is good, but the initial grammar "test" was ridiculous. The test asked us to identify whether certain marked passages were correct, or whether the suggested changes would be better. That's fine, but there were lots of mistakes in the text that we didn't have the option to identify or comment on. From this "test" I gather that the legal writing program here will encourage me to use the passive voice regularly (but apparently not always), it will be very concerned with what it considers the "proper" use of commas, it will praise me for my ability to use semicolons, and it will also reward me for the fact that I understand the difference between its v it's, effect v. affect, then v. than, etc. I'm realizing I may have to try hard not to be the English geek who argues over style and grammar with the TA and practicing lawyer who joint teach this course. When I taught business writing courses I told my students that they would do well if they wrote like I taught them to write, but that what would really matter in the "real world" was what their boss said. When your writing is going to judged by anyone, be it a teacher or a boss or the ultimate recipient, that person is your "800-lb gorilla" and you better do whatever he/she thinks is best, or you may find yourself getting squashed. I will try to take that lesson to heart now.

Contracts: The structure and apparent simplicity is appealing at the moment. "A contract is a promise or a set of promises that the law will enforce." Simple, right? Of course, that's just the tip of an iceberg, but so far the way PContracts (aka: PC, the professor) is presenting the info is making this the easiest class for me to follow at this point.

Torts: Oh. My. Gawd. For some reason I'm still trying to figure out, the first class was very frustrating. Prior to class we'd read several cases; in class PTorts (aka: PT, the professor) presented a hypo (for you sports fans, the hypo was the "sausage beater" case from last month) and then asked how many torts we could identify. No intro, no preamble, we were just expected to start applying what we'd learned from the cases to this new case. I found myself frustrated by the slow pace at which the discussion progressed as PT seemed to repeat or rephrase every response he got from the class. It seemed he didn't want anyone to feel stupid on the first day, so he took pains to try to make everything we said sound plausible, if not smart. But in hindsight I can think of other possible reasons the class seemed frustrating, primarily that I don't care about baseball or sausage races; I want to think and talk about serious issues like poverty and domestic violence and environmental degradation, etc. And I realize how stupid that sounds; I know I can't expect to just think about/work with cases and issues and questions that I deem important, and I know that this sausage beater case was just an example to illustrate points of law that I may someday want to apply to some case or issue I find more worthwhile. I know. Still...

At the risk of showing my age, I'm reminded of the early scene in "Say Anything" when Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) is dubbed the "keymaster" at a party and someone comes up to him yelling about keys and Lloyd grabs the guy and shakes him, shouting, "Chill! You! Must! Chill!" I'm working on it.

The other notable aspect of my first Torts class was the way PTorts had to wait and search for a woman to raise her hand; every time he asked a question, a dozen male hands shot up, but after calling a couple of men, PTorts would wait for a woman to raise her hand so he could call on her. I'm glad he did that to provide balance, but it's too bad he had to.

CivPro: PCP (aka: Professor Civ Pro) says he's not thrilled about teaching from The Power of Procedure: The Litigation of Jones v. Clinton, but that's what sounds like the best part of the course to me. PCP started with a mock "escalation auction" as an example of how litigation costs can spiral out of control, and that was about it. We're supposed to talk about Mayo v. Satan on Tuesday, so I'll have more to say then.

That's it. There's not much to say because not much has happened. So far the biggest challenges are case briefing (I'm writing way too much for each case) and the social scene. For whatever reason—differences in age, life experience, interests, or whatever—it seems the only people I've had good conversations with so far are those who are older than I am. My typical conversation with a law student so far goes something like this:

Q: So, where you from?

...

Q: Oh. What school did you go to?

....

Q: Oh. Have you been out of school for a while, or did you come straight here?

....

Q: Oh. I'm gonna go see if I can meet some other people.

Sound like fun? Oh, it is! On Friday I got home and pulled a cold beer from the back of the fridge. It was a special beer because it was one a friend of mine had made and given to me last spring before I moved to DC. I've moved many times in my life, so leaving friends and making new ones is not a new experience, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a hard thing to do. Pouring that beer was like pouring a glass full of nostalgia, and as I took the first drink I thought of all the great friends I had in Illinois, and for a second I thought I was going to cry. What the hell was I thinking moving here and starting law school!? But then I remembered: those aren't friends I had, those are friends I have, and instead of lamenting losses, I drank a toast to them. (I love you guys!) Then I smoked some video crack played playstation. It's all good.

Maintaining perspective: It's only been a few days. I'm confident the social aspect of law school will get easier as time passes, even as the difficulties of the academic aspects increase. Everything will balance in the end.

*Aren't those the best lyrics? Elevator Ride will provide the connoisseur of lo-fi, indie guitar rock with massively amped rockage, which you can hear for yourself by downloading the free mp3s at mp3.com.

Posted 04:06 PM | Comments (6) | law school