Mid-semester Ouch

Ok, so the one mid-term was all great and good and I learned a great deal from the experience and yadda yadda yadda. So what? Today I'm sick of Torts, and sick of reading and briefing cases. Sick and tired. Ugh.

So instead of saying anything intelligent about anything, I'll just suggest you go visit En Banc, a new group blog to which I hope to contribute something just as soon as my head stops spinning from all the other things I'm supposed to be doing now. Thanks to Unlearned Hand for proposing the project, inviting me to join, building the site, and posting like a fiend to get the ball rolling.

Posted 08:37 PM | law general law school

Midterm II

Tow other things I learned from the experience of taking one midterm: First, one midterm is better than three. See Not for Sheep's experience for more on that. (Question: Under what testing conditions would a 50-page outline really be helpful? I'm thinking it could be great for a take-home exam, but otherwise, who has time to flip through it? Index? Brilliant idea!)

Second, I should have read Getting to Maybe last summer like Sue suggested. I've read bits of it, and that's enough to know it's worth reading in full.

To prep us for the exam (or was it to further convince us to give them lots of money?) the BarBri folks sent USC law prof Charles Whitebread to give us some exam-taking tips. Whitebread is the author of The Eight Secrets of Top Exam Performance In Law School, which BarBri gives away for free by the truckload. Whitebread's talk consisted of a 40-minute shorthand version of everything in the book, so if he comes to your school, I'd say go listen to him because then you won't need to read the book. The best tip I think he gave was to take the first 10-15 minutes of your exam period to get thoroughly familiar with the question and to organize (outline) your answer. If you do that, you'll have a good plan to follow and then you can just type out your plan.

Another great tip of Whitebread's was to use "the magic words": "But if there were.... but if he has...." The real magic word seems to be "If" because it allows you to explore more options with the facts and increases the chances you'll hit the issues and rules your prof was looking for when he/she wrote the exam. Of course, I have no idea how I did on the test so it's hard to say if this really works, but I can say that the sample answer my prof gave to a sample test used lots of "ifs" and I found it helpful.

Both Whitebread and Getting to Maybe were helpful in advising me not to waste time citing cases or quoting authority, and both encourage students to get right to the point; i.e., begin with "The first issue is...." But while Whitebread advocates the IRAC method for those issues, Getting to Maybe thinks IRAC might just get in the way of exploring the issues fully and that it might also lead students to be too conclusory. I didn't really use IRAC, exactly, for whatever that's worth. And in the end, I guess it's hard to say what advice was good advice until I know how I did. I'll let you know when they tell me, supposedly sometime before Thanksgiving.

Posted 05:48 AM | Comments (4) | law school

Law School Midterms

Apparently, the law school midterm is a strange duck—not too common. Today I took my first and only midterm for the semester, a one-hour, one-issue-spotter exam over personal jurisdiction and venue, and I have to say, I highly recommend the whole mid-term experience.

That's not to say it was fun. I spent many many hours over the past weekend reducing a horrible mess of a 20-page outline down to about 1.5 pages of essential material, plus another 7-8 pages of statutes and more complete notes on cases so I'd be covered if I blanked. The question was taken straight from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," except that the "queer eyes" were called "Fab Five, Inc." and instead of being on tv they were a consulting firm in NYC that offered fashion and etiquette tips to men. The main issue was that Fab Five had given advice to a client who was a resident of New Jersey, and when the advice produced bad results, the client brought a suit in diversity against Fab Five in NJ. He also sued the French manufacturer of a tanning spray Fab Five recommended; a third defendant was Allen, one of the Fab Five consultants (the plaintiff was suing Allen for activities that were not directly related to his work as a Fab Five employee). The question was, of course, if the New Jersey U.S. District Court had jurisdiction over these defendants, and if venue was proper.

I spent about 15 minutes reading the facts and organizing an answer, looking through my notes for relevant bits. Then I spent about 25 minutes furiously typing the answer, which left me with nearly 20 minutes to wonder what I'd missed. I'm thinking that's not a good sign, and that will probably show up on my grade. So what I learned from the experience was this:

1. I need to take much better notes. Thus far I've just been doing the standard Facts, Issue, Holding, Reasoning, Disposition, Random Notes categories in my case briefs. The Random Notes section becomes a catch-all where I basically transcribe most of what happens in class. This leaves me with a bunch of miscellaneous garbage, and when it came time to study I had a hard time sifting through it all to what what was most vital. The lesson is, don't just take down everything that happens in class; prioritize and make the priorities of bits of information clear in your notes.
2. Another note-taking lesson for me: I need to spend more time with my notes after I take them. I've heard this advice before and now I know it's good: After class each day, spend a few minutes (or more) reducing the notes from that day to a concise outline of the most important bits. This will help you when you study for exams, but it will also force you to make connections between cases you've previously read, and it will highlight those things you still don't understand so you can ask the appropriate questions in the next class or during your prof's office hours.

So in all, the experience was good because it shook me out of my complacency and reminded me that I need to work a lot harder if I'm going to be prepared for and do well on final exams. Yay! I love working harder! I really do!

Posted 07:37 PM | Comments (3) | law school

The Deficit Speaks Volumes

As the U.S. budget deficit hits a record $374.2 billion, sane people have to ask: What the hell does this mean for our future? It means many things, but among the most important for voters to consider next fall is this, as described by Howard Dean:

Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean accused Republicans on Thursday of running up the federal budget deficit so they can undermine the fiscal underpinnings of Medicare and Social Security.

"I think their principal motivation is to undo the pillars of the New Deal, particularly Medicare and Social Security, by making the budget deficit so big that those programs can't be sustained," he said at a lunch with USA TODAY and the Gannett News Service.

Thank you, Howard Dean! It's about time someone stopped beating around the Bush, so to speak, and honestly confronted this issue. Republicans have been fighting for decades to slash holes in the "social safety net," but now they've finally found a way to get rid of it altogether. Don't believe it? The Bush administration is celebrating this record-setting deficit as great news:

Because the shortfall marked an improvement from a $455 billion projection the White House made in July, Bush administration officials cited it as evidence that their attempts to fortify the weak economy were working.

"Today's budget numbers reinforce the indications we have seen for some months now: that the economy is well on the path to recovery," Treasury Secretary John Snow said.

Perhaps this is why "maybe" now prevails in presidential surveys; or perhaps that story is right and those surveys are meaningless. We'll see next November, but check out this innovative way to have some effect on that outcome: End the Stupor Tuesday.

Posted 06:02 PM |