Dylan Goes to Law School

Headed back

2004-01-11T21:17:00.000-05:00

I hadn't really intended to take a blogging break while I was on break. It just worked out that way.

But now it's time to head back. The line-up for this semester: Criminal, Constitutional, Labor and Intro to IP. I'm pretty excited about the line-up. The crim reading was more interesting than I expected and everything else looks pretty good.

I got out my job search letters and bought a new suit. Now I just need someone to offer me an interview.

Basically, I'm ready to go back. Refreshed and well-rested. And the Eagles won today, so I'm in a good mood.

Doneness

2003-12-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

It feels amazingly good to be done.

Congratulations to all my fellow 1L survivors.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening at three different parties celebrating doneness with my cohort. And I was still in bed by 10:30.

The Post-Mortem Ban

2003-12-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

This parody over at Jeremy's weblog is exactly why my friends and I have banned substantive post-mortem discussions of exams. It'll make you crazy, particularly on an exam where it's essentially impossible to discuss all the points the professor would like to see.

It's pretty difficult to avoid, though. More than once, now, I've had to leave the room to avoid getting pulled into post-mortems.

Still...in 3 days, I'll be on break and avoiding post-mortem discussions (and all other law-school-related talk) will be pretty easy.

And Then There Was One

2003-12-15T15:21:00.000-05:00

Torts - Check.

The exam was significantly harder (by which I mean requiring more nuance in the application of doctrines) than the practice exam, but I think it went fine. I just can't bring myself to get too worked up about the individual exams at this point. I just want to be done.

Thursday - 1:00 - that'll be me running down the street shrieking with glee.

Here's lookin' at you, Civ Pro.

Dreams...still getting weirder

2003-12-12T15:40:00.000-05:00

Right...I meant to post this before the exam but it didn't happen:

Last night I dreamed that I was taking my Contracts exam (at least I've moved on to dreaming about the proper subject) and I was writing my response in the form of a christmas carol. When I woke up, I was having problems with verse 3, which dealt with waiver of conditions.

Lucky exams are over soon or I might be irredeemably insane by the end. Could happen anyway, I suppose.

That's Two

2003-12-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

Contracts is no more. The end is in sight.

Didn't go badly, though I did my best work in the last 30 minutes, which is a little scary. I also noticed (quite by accident) a little point in my outline which, had I missed it, would have resulted in me saying something really dumb.

Now to take the afternoon off. Ahhh....

Procrastination Aid

2003-12-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

Someone got to the blog today after searching for "rule against perpetuities exam questions" and spent half-an-hour here. Clearly the season of procrastination is upon us. Sorry I couldn't help with the exam questions.

A Good Omen

2003-12-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

I received a good Contracts omen yesterday: on my way home, I passed a truck with an old sticker from the Reading Pipe Company on it. This just has to be good.

[For those of you who aren't in Law School (hi, Mom) - there's a very famous case involving a contract for a house, which specifies the use of Reading pipe.]

How to Google a Blog

2003-12-09T21:23:00.000-05:00

Jeremy's got a funny post here about the sorts of searches that tend to get people to blogs this year. I've gotten several "rule against perpetuities" hits because I talked about our professor telling us we didn't need to know it. I've gotten lots of hits from people looking for old exams, no doubt because I keep talking about taking them.

Today I got one for "slept before finals law school." Just in case that's a popular question, I'm going to come out strongly in favor a sleeping before (but not during) finals. Apparently, there was a final at the school once during which a student thought the student next to her was taking a nap. It turned out she was in a diabetic coma. The notes from the dean before finals now remind us that no one sleeps during finals. This morning he also regaled us with stories of disrupted exams past (including the snarling dog that people in the front row spent twenty minutes fending off while still writing and the homeless guy who wandered in and was ignored by the students who thought he was a proctor).

Speaking of sleeping...I'm pretty worn out after today's final, so I'm going to go do some of that now. Tomorrow: Contracts.

One Down

2003-12-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

Property is now behind me. All in all, I think it went pretty well. The exam played to my strengths, which was a lucky break. I felt well-prepared. It's an intense experience, though. I started writing the exam and the next time I looked up to check the time, an hour had gone by. I walked out of the exam pretty seriously dazed. But now Property is done. The rest of today is vacation and then it's time to dive into Contracts.

Wish me Luck!

2003-12-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

Well...I've done many old exams as practice. I have my outline in hand. Nothing to do now but take the exam. This time tomorrow, I'll be a quarter of the way to done.

Good luck to all the rest of you who have exams tomorrow.

Still on Schedule

2003-12-06T17:34:00.000-05:00

There were a few moments there in liquidated damages where I thought my head might explode before I finished, but I did, as planned, manage to finish the Torts and Contracts outlines today. Now if only my reward for being on time was that I got to take tomorrow off...

Thanks to JCA!

2003-12-05T21:29:00.000-05:00

JCA over at Sua Sponte has set up a non-denomonational, belief-independent prayer circle for us 1Ls on exam days. We appreciate it, I can tell you. All help is greatly appreciated.

For those of you who aren't following along over there, my exam schedule is:

Property - 12/9
Contracts - 12/12
Torts - 12/15
Civ Pro - 12/18

and then I will have survived my first semester of law school.

Hmmm...what should I do now...

2003-12-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

...I know. How about working on an outline!

For more than a week now, I've been introducing variety into my life by switching from my Property outline to my Torts outline. Still, progress is being made. I finished Property yesterday and I'm almost holding to my original schedule which would have had all the outlines done tomorrow. I think Civ Pro will still be hanging out there, but it's my last exam, so it'll get done sometime.

Sometimes I wonder what the point of spending all this time building the outline is, but then I go take a practice exam and realize that it really does help to have all the elements at my fingertips. Besides...I don't think I have enough unused neurons to actually store everything in RAM at the moment, so I think I'll be one of those people frantically flipping through my outline all through the exam.

I said down with a friend today and went through some old property exams. Aside from one major misstep (after much discussion we decided that a tenancy at will had been created...then we flipped to the answer sketch from the prof who said "aside from a few inexplicable detours into licenses and tenancy at will, most of you realized that this was a basic adverse possession problem") we were basically able to work our way pretty easily through the questions. Still...about half the time when I look at old exam questions my immediate reaction is "I have absolutely no idea...nope...nothing at all to say." After another 90 seconds or so, the answer starts to take shape, but there's definitely a moment of sheer panic that sets in.

We had a review session for the Civ Pro practice exam today. Aside from one major blunder (I forgot that foreseeability matters for minimum contacts...that won't happen again, I assure you) I felt like I'd pretty much avoided saying stupid things and even said some pretty smart things.

But every time I make a major blunder, I add a few points to my outline and know that I won't make that one again. Now the trick is just to make as many major blunders as possible on the practice exams.

Yippee (1)

2003-12-03T17:17:00.000-05:00

Last day of classes today. Now it's just finals. It sounds a little odd to say "just finals," but at least the work that remains to be done is clear and the end is in sight. You'll see a much bigger "Yippee" in 2 weeks. Now back to Contracts...

Finals Stress Creeps into the Classroom

2003-11-25T21:08:00.000-05:00

As finals approach, I've noticed two contradictory behaviors showing up in my classmates.

The first is that either less reading is being done or its being done less carefully. This is no great surprise. I'm spending less time on my reading 'cause I want to focus on exam prep. But it's pretty noticeable.

The second is a need to understand all the details of the doctrines were covering. Gone are the days of figuring we'll get to that later in the course or that we'll figure it out when we read commercial outlines or whatever. We have to know now.

The combination of these two leads to a huge increase in the number of clarifying questions that get asked in class. It's a bit maddening. It seems as if, particularly in Contracts and CivPro things have come to a screaching halt. Ah well. In a week in won't matter anymore.

Anonymity is no more

2003-11-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

My Sitemeter told me an interesting thing this morning: someone found this blog by searching for just my full name. I tried it myself and it works. In fact the blog comes up first.

This brings up two questions:

1) Why does this come up? My last name appears no where in the HTML for this page. I checked myself. Twice. So how does Google manage to associate this page with me.
2) Who's searching for my full name? I haven't sent out any resumes yet. So who's looking for me.

In any case, in the absence of answers to either of these questions, I've decided I just have to live with my lack of anonymity. There's nothing here I wouldn't happily stand by, but it is a little disturbing to have that imagined veil thrown back once and for all.

Parodies of Note

2003-11-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

Two parodies of note this week:

The first, of a piece with Tom Lehrer's (also Harvard-generated) setting of all the chemical elements to a tune by Gilbert and Sullivan, is Jeremy's listing of Supreme Court justices to a tune by Billy Joel.

The second is a timely addition to the Model Penal Code courtesy of Wings and Vodka.

Enjoy!

Still Here

2003-11-20T09:34:00.000-05:00

I realize it's been more than two weeks since I posted, but I'm still here. We've now entered the calm before the storm: Legal Writing is done, just a few classes left. I'd probably be better off if I were further along in my outlining, but, no doubt, I'm not the only law student saying that at the moment.

Actually, I feel pretty ready to face finals. Sure I can't remember all the elements of res ipsa loquitur, but I've got some time to remind myself. At least I remember that it exists. I was beginning to worry that my brain was just full and that I wasn't going to be able to fit everything in that I needed for finals, but that seems to have passed.

My dreams have been blissfully law-school-free up to this point, but not so anymore. Night before last I dreamed that I was adding Vosberg v. Putney to my Civ Pro outline (odd since we didn't even read it for Torts, much less Civ Pro) so I've decided that work done in my sleep is probably unreliable. Too bad...it'd be great to be able to finish my outlines while I slept.

Now if I can just stay relatively calm for the next month, everything will be OK.

Degrees of Failure

2003-11-05T17:42:00.000-05:00

One of my classmates made the observation yesterday that works in law school (answers in class, written assignments, exams, whatever) can be good, great, even outstanding, but they are never satisfactory. Instead we are left with varying degrees of approaching "correct" without ever actually getting there. I guess this doesn't bother me. In fact, it's kind of nice working where there's no right answer, just better or worse answers. Still...every once in a while I get a hankering for something that's just "right" or "true." Guess I'll have to look for that elsewhere.

On a More Amusing Election Note

2003-11-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

The town of Bolinas, CA passed the following measure, yesterday:

Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.

Apparently the measure's sponsor wears hats made of tree bark and newspaper.

I miss California.

Election Day Thoughts

2003-11-05T08:47:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts, post-election day:

1. For the first time in my life I voted for candidates from 3 different parties in yesterday's election. I've always been more or less a straight ticket voter (though I make myself vote each office individually rather than pulling the big lever (or, with the new voting machines, pushing the big button)). This year I'm particularly fed-up with city partisan politics, and I guess my voting patterns reflect that.

2. Why do I have to vote for the Registrar of Wills? And why is it a partisan office? Does this person make major policy decisions affecting the city's deceased voters? I don't get it. As my little protest vote, I voted for the non-incumbent, non-majority party candidate. She didn't win.

3. I've always thought election of judges was a bad thing and partisan races for judges were an even worse thing. This year, either because I'm in law school or because partisan politics are upsetting me more than usual, this got to me even more. I'd like to maintain the idea (whether or not it's true in all cases) that judges are relatively unbiased public servants rather than partisan idealogues.

I guess this can all be summed up as: partisan politics are really starting to get to me this year.

Made It

2003-11-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

OK...I survived last week. Two rehearsals, two concerts, a family visit, and my regular workload later, I'm still here (although I spent a fair amount of the weekend sleeping it all off).

We had our unofficial kickoff with the career planning folks last week. Now that the concert's over and I've got all this free time it's time to look for a summer job. I suppose it would help if I had any idea at all what I wanted to do. Any and all suggestions from the former 1Ls out there are appreciated.

Lifting the Veil (a little)

2003-10-23T09:48:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are local, you have an upcoming chance to match the blog with my place in the real world. The chorus I sing with has a Halloween concert coming up next week. It's Thursday the 30th at 8 or 10PM at the Episcopal Cathedral (38th and Chestnut). Check out the website for ticket info.

Climbing Out from Under

2003-10-23T09:45:00.000-04:00

OK...things are getting better. The memo is in, I have a draft of the Contracts write-up, and Thursday is well on the downhill side of the class week. Now it's time to start on the open-research memo. This should be fun. I figure, if it's not, the next 5-10 years are likely to be pretty bad and I should get out while I can. But I'm looking forward to trying out my newly acquired research skills on a real problem. Soon, I'll be all about attorney-client privilege in Tennessee courts.

The Week from Hell

2003-10-20T20:45:00.000-04:00

I'm not ignoring you; it's just the week from hell. We had one make-up class on Friday and two more today (four 80 minute classes in a day isn't a good thing). Our memo rewrite is due Thursday and we have a written assignment for Contracts due Friday. And then there's the whole regular classes thing. I should be back above water by the end of the week. More then.

Minor Rant

2003-10-14T08:42:00.000-04:00

I know it's petty, but, well, it bugs me. Four days a week, the entire 1L class (and presumably some upperclass folk as well) have class at 9AM. Why, then, is it thought that 8:40 is an excellent time at which to clean the only restroom large enough to accomodate more than a couple of people? Seems to me like 9:02 would be an excellent time.

While we're on the subject of restrooms (a subject I promise we'll leave momentarily), why is it that in school and office buildings, the restrooms invariably get room numbers? Do classes meet in there? When someone asks where the bathroom is, do the librarians say "oh...that's room 247c"? Does this serve any real purpose?

There...I'm done. No more about bathrooms.

Statute of Frogs

2003-10-13T13:44:00.000-04:00

When I was talking about what I was reading last night, A. misheard me and thought I said "Statute of Frogs." That's a little known doctrine which says that contracts to which amphibians are parties must be reduced to writing or they are unenforceable. Now you know.

Chance Encounter

2003-10-13T08:34:00.000-04:00

A. and I were at our favorite neighborhood bakery yesterday morning finishing our breakfast when I heard a very familiar voice. I looked up and, sure enough, there was P. Contracts asking what kind of muffins they had. I'm not sure I would have noticed him without the voice, but that got my attention immediately. We were on our way out, so I'm not sure whether he saw me (or whether, in fact, he would have recognized me out of context). Turns out he lives about 4 blocks from our house, so I suppose I'll run into him on the street again. At least he's unlikely to call on me for making sudden movements there.

2003-10-08T16:08:00.000-04:00

I hereby resolve not to make any more sudden movements in Contracts. Today I got called on for rolling up my sleeve. Since the professor hadn't asked a question and I hadn't raised my hand, we were at something of an impasse. Best just to avoid catching his attention.

2003-10-08T16:05:00.000-04:00

You may think me odd (you may, in fact, have thought me odd for some time), but I love my Property casebook. Today's reason is the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley. It's hard not to like a case that includes the phrase "as a matter of law, the house is haunted." But when it goes on to quote both Ghostbusters and Hamlet and to make statements like "plaintiff hasn't a ghost of a chance" and "a hobgoblin which should be exorcised from the body of legal precedent," it really does break up an afternoon's reading.

2003-10-01T16:00:00.000-04:00

Prof. Property a few weeks ago glossed over the rule against perpetuities saying that if we really wanted to know about it, we should take Trusts and Estates. He gave us a few simple rules:

a) Don't create any future interest that doesn't vest within 21 years after the interest is created.
b) If anyone asks why, say "because of the rule against perpetuities"
c) If anyone asks you to explain, say "it's very complicated. You wouldn't understand."

The rule against perpetuities seems to be somewhat legendary for its complexity but I had no idea how much so until my Torts reading today. We have a squib for Lucas v. Hamm, a 1961 CA case in which a will was declared invalid because of the rule against perpetuities. Plaintiff sued attorney for malpractice. The court concluded (after determining that the beneficiaries had a right of action, which is really why we care about this case) that the legal error wasn't negligence because the rule against perpetuities is so complicated. What, pray tell, is the purpose of having a rule that attorneys can't be expected to apply correctly? The defense even brought in expert testimony to expain all the eminent legal scholars who'd applied the rule incorrectly.

2003-10-01T15:25:00.000-04:00

After 2 days off, I'm really confused about what day it is. I've gone through the day in some weird mental combination of Monday and Wednesday. Now that I'm through the class day, my opportunities for damaging confusion are more limited. As long as I remember to meet A. at 5:00, she won't let me forget that it's Wednesday. Mustn't forget. A. 5:00.

2003-09-29T16:24:00.000-04:00

The 1L's have a two-day break this week (the 2 and 3Ls have the whole week for callbacks), so it's a good chance to get everything back in order. In theory I was going to use the time to start getting my outlines for the first month together. In reality, it's been more break-like (though I did actually take the nominally productive step of coming to school today) with a trip to the western part of the state for a large family event and a little bit of sleeping in and such. That's OK, though. I'm not feeling behind and getting rest is useful, too. I am managing to get some things done (fixing the car, getting a haircut, paying bills, etc.) that seem to have been falling through the cracks since school started.

2003-09-25T15:07:00.000-04:00

In the midst of a hypo about a tattoo parlor in a suburban shopping mall (have I mentioned that I love my Property class) Prof. Property mentioned in passing that he'd occasionally considered getting a tattoo of an open book and crossed quills on his biceps. Not sure whether to take that seriously, but it sure livened up the class.

2003-09-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

There's been some discussion on Jeremy's and WT's blogs about the attitude (which is clearly prevalent in some places, though, thankfully, not here) that law school is a required credentialling process for working as a lawyer more than an educational one. I'm happy to say that I actually feel like I'm learning things that:
   a) I didn't know,
   b) are interesting, and
   c) are relevant to my presumptive future career.
This is as opposed to some professional programs (which I won't name...you can guess) where people I know who have been through them just felt like it was extended hoop-jumping in order to get a necessary credential. It's entirely possible that sometime before I finish here, I'll feel like I've learned what I'm going to learn and they should just hurry up and give me my degree, but for the moment I feel like I'd be completely unprepared to practice and the things I'm learning are making that less true.

2003-09-20T17:51:00.000-04:00

Bekah over at Mixtape Maraton talks about (well, really talked about...I've been a little behind on my blog reading as well as updating) moods and how much better this year is than her 1L year mood-wise. I have much the same feeling about this year as opposed to my last year of work. I'd been aware in a vauge sort of way that I wasn't content, but, once I'd started school, I could see how much of that was tied to my unhappiness at work. As soon as school started, I had more energy, I slept better, and I generally felt more purposeful. My brain is really happy to have something substantial to work on. I'm being exposed to new ideas and new people.

I was a little worried about whether, after a year of not working very hard (just because I really didn't have much to do), I'd be able to focus again once it mattered. It really hasn't been a problem at all. I suppose, since this is a law school blog, I should complain about having too much work or something, but really I'm so much happier having a lot of work that interests me than I was having very little to do. So I won't complain. I'll just enjoy my good mood, instead.

2003-09-19T22:04:00.000-04:00

I've been amused this week by the selection of cases we read in CivPro. Obviously, in those cases, we're much less concerned with the subject matter of the case than with its progress through the courts and jurisdicitonal issues and whatnot. Some of the cases are clearly canonical because of their historical value, but some of them are, just as clearly, canonical because the subject matter makes them memorable.

This week, we read Mas v. Perry. Now, there must be literally thousands of cases that could be used to demonstrate the difference between residence and domicile in regards to territorial jurisdiction, but which one do we read? We read the one about the landlord who installs two-way mirrors in the apartment so he can watch the newlyweds. Likewise, I'm sure Keenan v. Hustler (editor at Penthouse sues Hustler for defamation) is not the only case ever to use jurisdictional handwaving to avoid statute of limitations problems, but it's the one everybody reads.

It does make the cases a lot easier to keep straight, though...

2003-09-18T21:36:00.001-04:00

GO PHILLIES!

We now return to regularly scheduled blogging...

2003-09-18T21:36:00.000-04:00

Having now gotten the hang of my week's structure, I've realized that the key to survival is using the weekend to get prepared for the first half of the week. What with my class schedule and chorus, I blink and suddenly it's Thursday and I haven't had any work time. This week, that was particularly true because I had a large Legal Writing assignment. But, if I use my weekend effectively, it all works pretty well.

2003-09-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

An e-mail from my mother (hi Mom!) has me thinking about what it is about blogs that's interesting or compelling enough that people (I guess I mean, in particular, strangers) read them. I don't know why people read my blog (though I'd be interested to know if anyone feels like telling me), but I can talk about why I read other people's blogs.

I like to "hear" other people talk about going through the experiences I'm going through or will be going through. It's very comforting to read about other people whose experiences are similar to mine. To some degree I can get that talking with the fellow students at my school that I'm friends with, but there's an honesty that comes with the "anonymity" (whether it's real or perceived) of the blogosphere that makes some things easier to talk about.

A. is very surprised that I do this. I've never really been a journal keeper but I find it helpful now. In a weird way, I'm much more inclined to keep it up because other people are reading. I feel a responsibility (admittedly a pretty vague one) to keep going, but I'm always glad for the opportunity to try and put things into a little perspective.

OK...enough introspection. I need sleep.

2003-09-11T21:39:00.000-04:00

I feel like I'm starting to hit something of a stride. Now that I'm almost through the 3rd week, I have a feel for how the weeks operate, and that helps me feel like I've got me feet under me. And I feel like I have a handle on how things work in each of my classes. All of which means that I no longer feel like there are potential surprises around every corner.

Tuesday and Wednesday are really long (3 classes on Tues, 4 on Wed plus my chorus rehearsal), but I'm getting the hang of planning accordingly. There are the same number of hours available in the week no matter how I arrange them, so I just have to move the work I would normally do on Wednesday to somewhere else. So far, that seems to work. We'll see what happens when I start having larger Legal Writing assignments to throw the week off kilter.

I've been very impressed with my fellow students. Sure there are the occasional dud and the occasional person I wish would just go away, but, as a whole, they are both smart and civil. I feel pretty lucky about that. The stories I've heard (and read on other blogs) lead me to believe that it doesn't have to be like that.

All in all (and especially compared to my last year of work before school) I'm very happy to be where I am.

2003-09-08T18:00:00.000-04:00

Some time ago, I mentally divided the world into two kinds of people: those who deal most comfortably in facts and those who deal most comfortably in rules (in other contexts one might substitute concepts, algorithms, formulae, etc.) from which facts can be generated. I am firmly in the second camp. So firmly that I can't really imagine what it's like to be in the first. But I have to imagine that, to such a person, law school is a very near thing to hell.

I remember several years ago being in a parking lot in the early evening. I walked around to the parking meter to figure out whether I needed to put money in. A woman who had also just pulled in asked whether we needed to put money in the meter. I said "the meters only run until 6:00." She looked at me confusedly since, I now understand, in her mind I hadn't answered her question. I changed my reply to "No" and she thanked me and left.

That woman shouldn't go to law school.

2003-09-08T17:19:00.000-04:00

[After trying several versions, I've decided to remove this post. It dealt with a conversation another student had with one of our professors and, while the student chose to share that communication with several of us, I decided that discussing it here (even though I think it probably represents a class of conversation that happens frequently and was unlikely to be recognizable) was inappropriate. So I've removed the post.]

2003-09-06T16:42:00.000-04:00

Yes...I know I've added like 15 postings in the last half hour. It's just that I've had all these bloggable thoughts in the past week but haven't managed to get them up here. Getting my work done is falling into more of a rhythm, so I hope I'll do better keeping up.

I've realized that, having spent my days reading case books, I can't read anything substantial for fun. So my before bed reading (yes...even after spending all day reading, I still have to have something to read at the end of the day to wind down) has moved into the serious brain candy realm. So, although it is technically true, as my reading list on the site purports, that I am in the middle of Richard Posner's Law and Literature, I suspect I will be in the middle (and, in fact, at exactly the same point in the middle) for quite a while now. In the interest of honesty, I'll try and keep the reading list up-to-date.

2003-09-06T16:34:00.000-04:00

Siva Vaidhyanathan has some lovely thoughts about marriage on his blog. Couldn't have said it better so I won't try. A. and I lived together for almost 3 years before our wedding and I think were both surprised by how different things felt after the ceremony. It's a great thing. Best wishes to AC and to the other folks out there who are getting married soon.

2003-09-06T16:22:00.000-04:00

JD2B reports on a Vault survey listing the 50 most prestigious consulting companies. I was not surprised to discover that my former employer is not among them. Our CEO is no doubt taking it pretty hard though.

2003-09-06T16:13:00.000-04:00

I've decided (just in the past 3 minutes) that the motto of my law school career should be "old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill."

2003-09-06T16:11:00.000-04:00

We can add another to the list (this may be the first one I've written about here, but, really, there's a list) of skills, useful in law school, that come from several years of work experience: getting work done in small increments.

Several of my fellow students were complaining last week about the fact that our current schedule leaves us with a one hour break between classes and how that made for an unused chunk of day. Maybe it comes from a life of trying to get actual work squeezed in between useless meetings, but I still think of an uninterrupted hour as a godsend. Same goes for the hour between when A has to be at work (she works a few blocks from the law school and we commute in together) and when my first class starts.

In fact, I find I have something of the reverse problem. If I have a wholly uninterrupted afternoon (as I did yesterday) I find it difficult to remain focussed enough to use that whole time effectively. Ah well...experience giveth and experience taketh away.

2003-09-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm not the only one jumping through computer hoops.

2003-09-04T21:05:00.000-04:00

Last night was the first 2003-04 rehearsal of my chorus. Although it makes my Wednesdays extraordinarily long (I have 3 classes, legal research, and then rehearsal) it does provide another all-important non-legal outlet. Plus, since A. sings in the chorus as well, it ensures that we get to eat together on the way to rehearsal.

I continue to focus (with reasonable success) on being a low-stress law student. I'm not slipping behind and I feel like I basically understand what's going on in all my classes, so that helps keep the stress low. So far so good.

2003-09-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

I had a lovely weekend in New York. Thanks for asking. Saw some friends, walked in Central Park, ate well. Last night, one of the friends we visited had US Open tickets, so we sat high above Flushing and watched. Lots of fun.

We came back early today so I could get some work time in (trains were also good for that). There was also a BBQ at the law school for married and attached students and their spouse/significant others/children. It was good to see some of my fellow students in family mode (although having it at the law school made it hard for the conversation to stay out of law school mode).

A great weekend. I'm ready to dive back in tomorrow morning.

2003-08-29T17:24:00.000-04:00

I've survived the first week. Now that I'm an experienced law student, some thoughts:

On the socratic method: I know some people hate it, but it works for me. Sure it's a bit stressful, but I can't really imagine learning this material any other way. We all have to learn how to get our heads around these concepts and advocate a position. It also teaches important professional skills. Someday in any law career, one is bound to be asked a difficult legal question to which one should know the answer. Going all deer-in-the-headlights or turning green and running from the room are likely to be career limiting reactions. Best to get that out of the way in law school. At some point during today's class, one of my professors said: by my records, I've now called on all of you at least once. No one died. There's only a little blood on the floor. You'll all screw up during the semester (some of you already have) but you'll always get a chance to redeem yourself. Don't get worked up about it.

On gunners: Why? My classes are all graded anonymously, with class participation counting somewhere between not at all and a very little bit. What's the advantage of making all your fellow students hate you? It takes a pretty extreme lack of awareness not to realize this. I just don't get it.

On stress: Man...law students can stress about anything. This week I've seen serious angst about mean professors (who aren't really that mean), getting the proper seat in class, getting called on, not getting called on, studying, not studying, fellow students who are too smart, fellow students who aren't smart enough. How is it that half of any 1L class doesn't die of an aneurism by Christmas?

On work: Clearly it is possible to spend every waking hour working. But, as my Contracts prof actually pointed out, that's not likely to help you understand the material any better. Maybe I'm being cynical (nah...), but it seems to me there are only two purposes to doing the work: be prepared enough to avoid professorial abuse in class, and understand enough of what's going on in the discussion that you can make yourself a decent outline for the final. Everything else just adds stress. I do the reading. I mostly understand what's going on. The things I don't understand either come up in class (where one hopes they get clearer) or they must not have been very important. It's not at all clear to me that working harder than that now will have any positive effect on my grades or my education. So I don't.

All in all, I'm happy with my first week. My professors range from good to excellent; I'm not behind yet; I'm not totally confused in any subject yet; I've made some friends. In honor of all of this, I'm going to New York for the weekend. Just try and stop me.

Have a great holiday weekend, everyone.

2003-08-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

OK...one complaint for the day: After classes I headed up to the library to prepare for tomorrow's classes. I found myself a nice quiet corner by a window and set about studying. About 15 minutes later, I hear a "Hello" from a couple of carrels down. I assume one of my fellow studiers has seen someone he knows. But no! He's taking a call on his cell phone! And, with no apparent thought of moving outside, he proceeds to have a protracted conversation. I have to hope he's a fellow 1L because I'd hope that anyone who'd been around longer than that would have had such tendencies "calmed" by his fellow students. I suppose I should have gone over and asked him to take it outside, but I didn't feel up to it. Next time, though, he'd better watch out...

2003-08-25T21:26:00.000-04:00

I've survived day one. Torts and Contracts today, both of which will, I think, be fine. Those again plus Civ Pro tomorrow.

I was glad not to get called on today. I feel like I have a better sense now of how to prepare for the professors. Prof. Torts (hereafter Prof. T) spent a lot of time focussing on the legal arguments that had been made by the parties and I'd focussed more on the outcomes. Now I know.

I'm growing increasingly annoyed by the hoops we have to jump through to prove that we're not vulnerable to MSBlast and it's cousins. After applying all those patches (which I'd actually already done) as part of orientation on Friday, we had to do it again today (this time with all the 2Ls and 3Ls thrown in, too). A waste of time, but it's done now, I hope.

In the absence of any reasons for despair, I'll declare the first day a success.

2003-08-24T20:17:00.000-04:00

Well...my reading's done, my cases are briefed. I guess I'm as ready as I can be for the first day of classes.

I had a lovely and not overly busy weekend, so I'm feeling pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Still...it's a big change. Wish me luck.

2003-08-21T21:57:00.000-04:00

I'm halfway through orientation. Nothing too unusual, though I do keep meeting people I like and feeling like I've picked the right school, all of which is very encouraging. I bought all my books, left half of them at school and schlepped the other half home. Assignments are out for the first week so I guess it's finally time to get to work for real. At least for the moment, having work to do feels good. I imagine that will pass, but, after a few weeks off, I feel ready to have something to concentrate on again.

It took a while, but, in the end, today's orientation did eventually provide me with the basic nuts and bolts information (where are assignments posted, how do I get a locker, etc.) so I guess I feel more or less prepared to start in.

Skipped dinner with my Legal Writing section to come home and have dinner with A. instead. Seems like the proper choice. Though there may now be a secret section handshake that I'll be out of the loop on. Worth it anyway...

2003-08-20T12:46:00.000-04:00

Clearly, irony is dead.

I offer as proof of that only that John Ashcroft chose to include in his public-relations tour for the USA Patriot Act a stop at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. 'Nuff said.

2003-08-20T10:33:00.000-04:00

Spent yesterday at the beach in one last responsibility-free day. Tonight there's a pre-orientation (we have three separate schedules: pre-orientation, orientation, and orientation weekend...hopefully somewhere in there I learn where I'm supposed to go for class on Monday, the only schedule I still haven't seen) BBQ in the Courtyard, then tomorrow is orientation proper. It's basically the stuff you'd expect: welcome from the deans, financial aid presentation, a mock class, presentation for the IT people on how to set up our laptops, and one session enigmatically titled "Officer Blackmore on Safety." Excuse me? Maybe it's an urban school thing, but I don't recall any similar presentation at undergrad orientation, when I was much more likely to do something stupid (set my dorm room on fire, break my leg sliding down the bannisters, etc.) and get myself killed. It's hard to imagine what he's going to tell us. I sort of think that, once you get to graduate education, it's probably time for natural selection to kick in with regard to personal safety. I will keep you all posted (since I know you're just dying to know what he actually says).

2003-08-18T20:36:00.000-04:00

Had a good time at this afternoon's local museum cultural event. I met some people. I even remember some of their names (though there are now people I've met two or three times whose names still don't stick). Had a good time talking to some of my fellow 1Ls to be. All of which bodes well. Not surprisingly (although I'm not consciously doing anything to make it work this way) I find myself gravitating to the students who've been working for a while. We presumably have more in common than those who came straight from undergrad, but I also seem to have lost the ability to hold my own in the straight-from-undergrad conversational style.

Tomorrow we're off to the beach for one last day of vacation. There's a BBQ Wednesday night and then orientation proper. Hard to believe it's finally here.

2003-08-17T21:06:00.000-04:00

Just got back from a weekend trip with A. to a B&B in (well...near) the Hudson River Valley. Aside from a couple of unfortunate encounters with some of New York state's substantial biting insect population, it was a lovely weekend. Highlights included:

A walk along a very short section of the Appalachian Trail (just before it crosses the NJ/NY border). This would have been longer but for biting insect encounter #1.

Visits to a couple of wineries. Particularly nice was the Applewood Winery, which, in addition to wines made from grapes, makes a number of interesting and very tasty fruit wines.

A couple of lovely meals, suggested by our B&B hostess.

A visit to the Storm King Art Center, a 500-acre sculpture garden and museum. It's only about an hour North of NYC and has a great collection displayed beautifully on rolling hills. Several of the pieces were site-specific commissions, including (my favorite) a half-mile-long stone wall by Andy Goldsworthy.

It was great to get some time away before the great crush that starts to ramp up tomorrow. It was just far enough away and just long enough to feel like a vacation.

And tomorrow it all begins (well...sort of). There are pre-orientation social events the first half of this week (actually they started over the weekend but, as I mentioned, I was away). Then orientation starts in earnest on Thursday and classes start Monday the 25th. It's a pretty easy way to start, but it keeps looking more and more real.

I'm actually looking forward to meeting my classmates. There've been a couple of informal events, but, now that everyone's starting to gather, tomorrow will be my first chance to meet a good cross-section. So far, all indications are that these are people (on the whole) that I can happily spend the next 3 years with, but I've only met a few.

In some ways, I'm at least as worried about the social events as the actual start of classes. I feel like I more or less know what to expect in class and I'm prepared for that. I know I have the skills to survive there. The meeting people part feels likely to come less naturally. Partly that's just 'cause I'm not great at meeting people. But I also feel a little outside the mainstream. I'm older (I finished undergrad in '93) and more married than most of my classmates, I live relatively far from campus (I'll commute by train with A.), and haven't just moved to a new area. I'm not really counting on law school to provide me with a whole new social life: I've got lots of friends in the area and all, but I also don't want to feel completely outside the social scene. I'm hoping there's a balance to be achieved, but I'm much less confident about that than I am about my ability to be as successful as I want to be in the classroom.

2003-08-14T20:37:00.000-04:00

We went to see Seabiscuit with some friends last night. It's pretty heavy-handed and entirely lacking in subtlety (the director seems very worried that we might forget that there was a depression in the 30's, so David McCullough keeps coming on a narrator to remind us including a particularly good moment where he says something like "Just when all of America really needed a drink, you couldn't get one in this country") but it's still hard not to get taken with the excitement of it all. At the end of climactic race, half the theater (which admittedly only accounts for about a dozen people) cheered and clapped. It's manipulative and a bit cliched (swelling music, the occasional slow-motion sequence, etc.) but it really does work.

It's easy to see why the book and movie have been so popular. First, it's a very American success story: we definitely go in for the kind of hero who has to triumph in the face of much failure and adversity. Second, while the current economy is nowhere near as bad as that of the 30's, people need heroes at times like this. That's no doubt why Seabiscuit was so popular when he was racing and it plays just as well now. Third, it really is just a good story. Lots of action, several interesting characters (even if they are drawn with rather heavy strokes in the movie), and a stirring conclusion. I'd be worried about giving something away, but it's just not that kind of movie. There's never really any doubt how it comes out, but it's easy to get caught up in it just the same.

2003-08-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

According to this article found by JD2B, the days of the highly lucrative, work-free, substance-abuse-rich summer associate job are behind. But that's the only reason I was going to law school. (Extracts tongue from cheek) Actually I'm sort of glad to know that it actually matters whether you do good work as a summer associate. Since I really can't help it, I might as well get some benefit from being conscientious.

2003-08-14T15:05:00.000-04:00

I am jealous because Transmogriflaw's as-yet-unidentified law school has events focussed on older and married students. I've been pleased to discover through various pre-orientation events that there's a pretty wide range of ages in my class, and there is a student trying to set up a married students group, but there's nothing official as yet. Maybe it's just as well in that it will force me to fraternize with the whole class. We'll see how it goes.

When A. was in graduate school, several of us attached males (her grad school class was, for whatever reason, almost entirely female) had a sort of informal support group. I hope that she can find something similar while I'm in school.

2003-08-13T14:26:00.000-04:00

Whew...I'm back.

I've spent my day rebuilding my laptop from scratch since the week before classes started seemed like a bad time for it to be growing increasingly unstable. It seems much better now. But I've finally gotten far enough along to have access to my blog again.

Actually, reinstalling Windows XP was a reasonably diverting way to pass a day. It's hot in Philadelphia, so I don't really feel like frolicking outside. What better way to spend 7 hours (good lord...has it really taken that long?) than rebuilding my computer. Mark's very funny post about doing this (which is, incidentally, the 3rd listing that comes up when you search Google for "Install Windows XP") has been my guide, though his 5 hour mark was a bit ambitious.

I was offline for a grand total of 36 hours (including sleeping and other non-internet-based activities). It's amazing how out of touch I feel. A little scary, actually.

Now off to catch up on reading everyone else's blogs.

2003-08-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Is there any reason Gray Davis can't just resign and skip the whole election fiasco? Given that polls are running about 60/40 against him in the recall, it seems he'd be better off resigning and ensuring a Democratic replacement. Is there some additional wrinkle to California election law that would make this a bad idea or are we just dealing with catastrophic denial? On the other hand, this could be the first election in US history to feature both a publisher of adult periodicals and an adult film star running for the same office. Who'd want to pass that up?

For those of you keeping score at home, my father has decided not to run...

2003-08-09T14:36:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow marks 10 years since Ruth Bader Ginsburg took her seat on the Supreme Court. Happy Anniversary, Justice Ginsburg!

2003-08-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

OK...I think comments are back now. Thanks to HaloScan for providing the commenting host.

2003-08-08T20:14:00.000-04:00

I take back everything (well...not quite) I said about the California election. Turns out my father is one of the 300-plus candidates.

He hasn't decided whether he'll actually go through with it, but he's got the paperwork.

I just happened to see his name scanning the list of candidates, so I dropped him an e-mail saying "is that really you?" It is. He'd met a guy (at the local diner) who was considering running because his name was Bob Dole, so at least he'd have name recognition.

It costs $3500 to get on the ballot. You can use nominating signatures to reduce that at 35 cents each. It's an additional $10 a word to have a statement printed in the sample ballot. But I think the deadline's tomorrow, so hurry if you're interested.

It bears no resemblance to an orderly political process, but it's interesting to watch.

2003-08-08T16:10:00.000-04:00

Comments are gone for the moment because my old approach didn't have a way to remove the abusive, anonymous ones and I didn't feel like leaving them up. They'll be back as soon as I have a good solution to that problem. In the meantime, send me mail if you feel like responding.

2003-08-08T14:07:00.000-04:00

Lawrence Lessig has jumped into the fray on the CA gubernatorial election. I agree with everything he says. I particularly like:

This is just a badly crafted constitutional provision — a kind of constitutional loophole. It’s the sort of clause which we fail people for writing in constitution-drafting classes. (No, there are not really any constitution drafting classes, but clearly there should have been in California at the beginning of the last century).

As a former Californian, I'm embarrased at the even-worse-than-the-last-presidential-election circus this has become.

It's also worth noting that this (I mean governor of California) is an unarguably terrible job to have at this moment. Who in their right mind wants to assume responsibility for a gazillion dollar debt and do it under controversial circumstances, at that? The only reason to take this job is as a publicity stunt for either your next campaign or your next movie. It's sort of pathetic that, under those circumstances, we have candidates coming out of the woodwork. Whatever evils Gray Davis may have committed (and I'm far enough from CA politics now not to be able to comment cogently on the existence or not thereof, thank God), how can anyone actually believe that Gary Coleman or Gallagher or even Arnold the Economist is better equiped to get the state out of its current hole than he (Davis) is?

2003-08-06T08:56:00.000-04:00

I read Marci Hamilton's article laying out why suing students for P2P downloads is "the right thing to do." It's hard to argue with the idea that P2P downloading does, in fact, represent infringement and, given that, the RIAA and other can (assuming they file in the proper jurisdiction...oops) sue and likely recover. That's not my issue with the whole thing. I have two issues, both of them more business-oriented than law-oriented:

1) Does it make sense for the RIAA to attack its customer base? I would imagine that, on average, those who download music spend far more per year on music purchases (as well as concert tickets, etc.) than the population as a whole. That's just because these are the people to whom music is important. The people I know who download, rip, and burn, also own and buy a lot of music; far more than I, for example, do. When I was a consultant (it feels really good to say that in the past tense), we were very reluctant to litigate over disputes with our customers, even when those disputes represented a clear breach of contract. We didn't want to get a reputation as an organization that sued its business partners. I would think that the RIAA and its member companies should be worried about much the same thing. The potential for backlash is significant and there are plenty of excellent artists and labels who are not associated with the RIAA.

2) By spending their time, effort, and legal dollars suing downloaders, the RIAA is largely missing the opportunity to participate in the debate over the future of copyright and how best to use technology to distribute copyrighted material. To my mind, existing copyright has been overcome by events and, while the current big copyright owners have succeeded in holding the status quo for the moment, it's only a matter of time before the current distribution model (music on physical plastic discs) is replaced. Those labels that figure that out soonest and identify how to tap into that market are going to attract the next generation of artists who want access to the distribution mechanism that the internet represents.

Maybe I'm just being idealistic, but I really do believe that, although the RIAA is excercising legitimate legal rights, it's making a bad business decision by doing it.

2003-08-06T08:27:00.000-04:00

I'm a little behind the curve here, so forgive me if this has already been said somewhere, but this article by Donna Wentworth got me thinking: Wouldn't it be ironic (in a delicious sort of way) if the net result of the DMCA and the Patriot Act was to reduce the amount of subpoena-able information that was kept, rather than to make that information easier to access? I'm now waiting for the day when ISP or library records are subpoenaed for some far-more-important-than-P2P crime and the prosecutors are told that those records aren't kept to prevent frivolous subpoenas.

This now has the potential to become a competitive advantage among ISPs. Who wouldn't pick the ISP that keeps less data about them, all other things being equal?

2003-08-03T21:07:00.000-04:00

Spotted on GrepLaw: If you're worried about your hard-earned (or worse, -borrowed) music dollar supporting the RIAA, here's a tool to help. RIAA Radar will help you identify albums produced by non-RIAA artists, labels, and albums. In addition to a search utility, the site, through the magic of web services, has produced the Amazon Indie 100, the top 100 selling albums at Amazon.com that are RIAA-free.

2003-08-03T16:46:00.000-04:00

Someone wrote in response to my Anonymity posting and asked how I'd feel about working for a firm that Googles it's potential employees. This is an interesting question. I've thought about it and decided it really doesn't bother me. I suppose I would worry if they gave too much weight to the information they found without contextualizing it, but it seems like a reasonable thing to do. I'm going to Google the firm and, if I know the names of any individuals I'm interviewing with, I'm going to Google them, too. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't expect them to do the same.

2003-08-01T16:15:00.000-04:00

Should I Worry?

I was checking the logs of who's clicked on to my site in the past few days and saw that I've gotten 3 hits from someone at the US Dep't of Justice. I've decided to take the optimistic view that I have a fellow-law-student-reader who's working there for the summer, but maybe they're onto me already...and I haven't even said anything controversial yet. Just wait 'til I'm in the mood for a rant...

2003-08-01T09:10:00.000-04:00

GrepLaw links to an interesting article in Wired on some of the potential First Amendment and civil liability issues with blacklisting spammers at the ISP level.

2003-08-01T08:16:00.000-04:00

As someone new to the blogosphere and also in the midst of a career change, I've been very interested in the posts by WT , UD and others about anonymity in the blogosphere. My current feeling is:

a) Anyone who really wanted to know could find out what I really think about most things anyway. I'm just not that good at keeping my thoughts to myself.
b) Anyone determined could link anything I post on the internet anywhere back to me unless (or maybe not even then) I work really hard to make myself anonymous. I'm too lazy for that.
c) I can't talk about the things I really care about without providing relatively frequent clues to where I am and (by extension) who I am.
d) There is some value to me in preventing the less-than-determined from knowing who I am and/or from making it less-than-obvious. I'm more likely to say what I really want to say if I don't feeling like I'm entirely public.
e) If all else fails, when confronted with words I've written here, I can always claim this blog was a vast, global conspiracy by my enemies at large to sabotage my nascent law career.

This may of course all change on a frequent basis, though I'm conscious that, once I post something in public, it's very hard to take it back.

2003-07-31T15:00:00.000-04:00

Well...that's that. I've turned in my laptop and my keys and I'm now officially unemployed. I've been sort of tapering off for the last several weeks, so it doesn't really feel all that different, but it's hard to believe that I've really left that job behind. Now I can focus on working myself into a tizzy before school starts. No...I'm going to try really (really) hard to take AC's advice on low stress 1L-hood. We'll all be much happier that way.

2003-07-30T21:57:00.000-04:00

Just got back from my farewell happy hour with my current (and a few former) co-workers. Don't get me wrong - I have no regrets about leaving - but it's still sad to think about no longer being able to call those people my colleagues. Some of them are people I've worked closely with for nearly 8 years. Suddenly, the enormity of the change I'm making by heading off to law school seems very real.

I've got one more day of work tomorrow, but that's basically just turning in my laptop and cleaning out my mailbox. Really, I think, it's pretty much over now.

I'm sure in the morning (or after I get back tomorrow) I'll be very happy about the end, but tonight things seem bittersweet. Sitting around talking and drinking with the people I was closest to at my job reminded me about the best parts of my tenure there.

2003-07-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but exactly what sort of consumer confuses software and processed meat?

2003-07-29T09:00:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd share my thoughts on the go to the best school you can conversation that JCA has kicked off. I've had two conversations recently that seem relevant.

At a party several months ago (when I was still trying to decide where to go), I had a conversation with someone on the hiring committee at a good-sized Philadelphia firm. His advice was (speaking in particular of the situation in Philly), if you know you want to work locally, go to Temple rather than Penn. Temple's got an excellent local reputation and it's a whole lot cheaper. The difference is that Temple doesn't have a strong national reputation. He was talking about Philadelphia, but I have to imagine the situation is similar in lots of other areas of the country. My problem is, I don't know where I want to be when I graduate, so I can't (or at least I don't feel ready to) close any of the doors that a top ten school will open for me.

At a different party (I really don't go to parties all the time...really) I had a conversation with one of my fellow 1Ls2B. He was speaking of friends who are at tier 2 and 3 schools. He said with the economy like it is (not to mention the effect that's having on LS applications), they really feel like they have to knock themselves out to be at the top of their respective classes in order to have decent job prospects at graduation. At Harvard or Chicago or Penn, everyone who graduates is going to get a job. It might not be the ideal job, it might not be clerking for a supreme court justice, but no one's going to find themselves on the street with a sign reading "Will Sue for Food." These schools have employment statistics to maintain and their graduates are going to get the benefit of that.

All of which is to say "it depends." As others who got in on this conversation before I did have already said, it depends on what you want to do when you graduate, it depends on what your other priorities (if any) may be, it depends on how sure you are of your situation, and, of course, it depends on where you can get in and what you can afford. I didn't, for example, apply to Yale because I was pretty sure that if I (by some stroke of luck or accident) got in, I feel like I should go and I didn't want to drag my wife to New Haven for 3 years. I don't regret that decision one bit.

2003-07-28T16:07:00.000-04:00

Beanie posted a little rant today on the merits of the self-checkout line at the grocery store. I agree wholeheartedly. I love the self-checkout for the same reason I shop online: I don't like dealing with "customer service" people.

For a while, I thought I was just a misanthrope and I was a little worried at my tendency to avoid dealing with an actual live human being whenever possible. It's true that, given the option, I will almost always choose to do it myself rather than get help from a salesperson.

I am (slowly) learning, however, that, while this is perfectly appropriate for the grocery store, for buying books I already know I want, etc., sometimes (probably more often than I'd admit) it's good to get advice. There's a wine store near us that specializes in little-known (but still reasonably priced) wines, mostly from Europe. The first couple of times we went there (my wife's tendencies run the same way as mine), we sort of wandered aimlessly around, unsure of what to get. I have since learned that their salespeople are awesome: everyone there has to have tasted every wine they sell (doesn't this sound like a horrible job!). So you can walk up to someone and say "We bought this lovely rosé last summer...what do you have that's like that?" and they will lead you to a wine that turns out to be just as lovely for all the same reasons. So my former rule: "avoid customer service whenever possible," clearly needs to be adjusted.

I'm working on it. But I'd still really rather do it myself...

2003-07-28T15:01:00.000-04:00

This would qualify as a reason not to sleep though CivPro.

2003-07-27T17:49:00.000-04:00

In response to my first post, I received an e-mail from someone (I think, perhaps, the only person) who had stumbled across my blog. He had been a techie (like me) and had left to go to law school. Now he's a lawyer and hates it but, because of the enormous amount of debt he'd accumlated, he's pretty well stuck being a lawyer at a NY firm for the foreseeable future. He was begging me to bail out now and not make the same mistake he had.

This was, I admit, a little frightening. And he's not the first person to suggest that this is a big mistake. But it's made me think (again) about why I'm doing this.

It all started because I'd grown to hate my current job. I took the LSAT a little over a year ago because my job (which I used to love) was beginning to turn south. Friends were getting laid off, the prospects for doing the kind of work I liked to do were dwindling to almost nil, and what had been a wonderful collegial work atmosphere when I joined (almost 8 years ago) had turned into a world where people kept looking over their shoulders wondering if they'd be the next to go. Taking the LSAT gave me a way to feel like, if things didn't improve, I had an exit strategy. That made it possible to keep working (for a while) without falling too deep into a funk about the current state of things. Needless to say, things didn't get better and, as time went on, it became clearer that I was going to leave and make the jump to law school.

That, in and of itself, would be a terrible reason to go to law school. The only thing likely to be worse than a rebound relationship is a rebound career: particularly one that requires 3 years and huge tuition bills to get into. But I've known for a number of years that, when the consulting thing didn't work for me anymore (and it was pretty hard for me to imagine being a consultant for 30 years), law was where I would turn. I'm not sure why I didn't go to law school after undergrad (though I'm really glad I didn't) but it's been softly calling to me for a number of years.

Maybe I'm just misguided, misinformed, or overly optimistic, but I'm really looking forward to both law school and to law as a profession. Stay tuned. It seems likely there's either a reasonably happy ending or some seriously angst-ridden bogging to come. Either could be entertaining.

2003-07-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

Since I'm about to be a law student, I should have serious karmic concerns about taking any sort of enjoyment from the public flogging of another law student, but I can't help myself. I find this very amusing.

2003-07-25T13:19:00.000-04:00

So after 10 years as a professional technology geek, I'm now a week away from leaving it all behind to start law school. I always sort of knew this would happen. I never really imagined myself being a consultant for my whole life and this is not the first time vague notions of going to law school have crossed my mind. But this time, it's for real. And now that the time has finally come, I'm pretty excited.

For most of the 10 years since I graduated from college (and particularly during the years when my wife was in graduate school) I was quite happy to be out of school: no homework, weekends that were really weekends, a steady paycheck. But this is clearly the right time to go back. Giving up all those doesn't phase me (though we should probably check back in late November when my first set of exams are staring me in the face). Of course the current state of my soon-to-be-previous employer (and the economy in general) doesn't hurt: there are only so many friends you can watch laid off before you begin to think that there's maybe something intrinsically wrong with your current situation.

Two weeks ago, I had one of those "This is the universe...I'm trying to tell you something" moments. Like every other consultant who travels for a living, my constant companion has been my rollaboard suitcase. You know: wheels, fits (but only just barely) in the overhead bin. I arrived in Indianapolis (which has been my home away from home for what seems like forever), grabbed my suitcase and started to roll it down the jetway only to discovered that it no longer had wheels. They had, literally, fallen off. I suppose I'll have to replace that bag before I head off to interview with potential employers, but for now I'm pretty happy to use it as a metaphor for my previous professional existence.

People keep asking me what kind of law I'm interested in. I really don't know. Obviously it would be nice to find a situation in which my 10 years of technology and pharmaceutical experience were valuable, but that still leaves open an awful lot of options. And who knows...maybe I'll get swept away by a fascination with tax law (I'm not holding my breath) and decide to go off in a completely different direction.

As it is, I'm just excited and ready for a change. Change is good (at least in moderation). Otherwise we get bored. Or boring.