Court Chat #2

Judge: Have a nice day. So ordered.

Court Chat #1

Judge: (to defendant after pleading him out to time served) Go forth and sin no more.

Bar Exam Blues

Silly me... I thought life would get EASIER after graduation. Turns out, this whole bar review thing is like being a 1L all over again (but worse, if that is even possible).

I'm taking a BARBRI course and am SO behind. Is it even possible to keep up with their paced program? God help us all.

One. More. Semester.

Exams are finally over!!

I turned in my last paper of the semester last night. It's so crazy to think I only have one semester of law school torture left before I can start obsessing over the bar exam. I have to say, as painful as they've been, these three years have just flown by so far.

Exams this semester were pretty awful, I'm not going to lie. I think I finally figured out something more brutal than law school exams in general... taking them while you are nine and a half months pregnant! Ugh. SO glad that's over.

Now I get to wait around for the arrival our new baby in two weeks. Can't freaking wait.

How to Read & Brief Cases

Your first year of law school, you will spend a big bulk of your time reading and briefing each of the cases in your assigned reading. This is super important. By your second year, you will probably be able to get away with using canned briefs (which are case summaries you can pull off the internet using your case name and citation), but your first year it's important that you understand HOW to properly read and brief a case, so you don't want to skip learning how to do this. You will need this skill come exam time and in the unfortunate event you get cold-called. Trust me.

READ

Chapters in case books are generally organized according to a broad topic. For example, in Criminal Law, there may be a chapter on Homicide and in it there will be different sections for Manslaughter, 2nd Degree Murder, 1st Degree Murder, etc. Each section will illustrate important rules of law according to the most relevant and controlling cases available. When reading your cases, keep in mind that some of the stuff may not make any sense at first. Especially in subjects like Property law, some of the cases can be really, really old and use archaic language. Just hang in there and don't get stuck re-reading the same sentence over and over again. Your professor's job is to flush the cases out during class lecture. Also, don't skip over commentary, footnotes or dissents (although by 3L year, you won't really care about Scalia's dissenting opinions). Often times, you'll find pieces of helpful info in there that your Prof wants to discuss/question on. Use your highlighter and write all over the page, you'll thank yourself later when you get cold-called and need that info fast.  

BRIEF

At the very minimum, you'll need to include the following in your case brief:

Heading: Case name, court name and date of decision

Facts: Relationship of parties and relevant facts to dispute

Procedural History: Describe what happened in the lower courts

Issue: What is the question in litigation? What is the court attempting to resolve?

Rule: Legal principle being applied by the court
Analysis: How the court came to their conclusion

Conclusion: Judgment/ court's response to question at issue

Write your brief out and take it with you to class. When you get called on in class, you're up! The Professor will ask you a series of questions about the required reading and you can use your brief to answer them. If he asks you something so specific you don't have it in your brief, revert back to your highlights and notes in your textbook.

GOOD LUCK!!

CHAOS IS COMING...

SO, Friday I wake up with no voice - none. Considering the fact that I had an oral argument as my final exam for my Research and Writing class that afternoon, this was a serious problem. There was no way to cancel or re-schedule it so I went through my oral argument as best I could hoping that Professor Research & Writing would feel bad that I sounded so pathetic and give me some sympathy points on my exam grade.

When I got home, I made an appointment with my doc because on top of losing my voice, I was starting to feel all around crappy (nauseaus, headache, nasty cough). The earliest they could get me in was Monday. Monday I went in the appointment in panic mode explaining to the doctor that they HAD to fix me ASAP because I was in the midst of law school exams and I couldn't stand one more second of being sick for it. They did a couple tests to try and figure out what my problem was...

Diagnosis? PREGNANT.