It took just a few days, but I think that I’ve already become bored at home, which means that it’ll be time to get back to my apartment. Luckily, I have a few interesting side projects to work on:

1. Legal research regarding self-defense as it relates to sexual assault and the differences (if any) between defenses to spousal assault vs. non-spousal assault.
2. A fund-raiser for Lawyers Without Borders

In the meantime, friends have come home! It’s already proven to be an eventful break.

Immediately after finals, I partook in the not-so-subtly concealed vodka I had, grabbed some food and went out drinking. I was wearing a suit, and it just so happened that the bar that we ended up going to was also hosting some kind of office Christmas party. Thanks to my dapper attire, I managed to get their 75% discount on drinks. Spectacular, except that it led to…

I can’t account for about 3 hours. I left that bar in a taxi and came back in a taxi but, for the life of me, I can’t recall what happened in those 3 hours. All I know is that I came back with my shirt unbuttoned and my tie in my pocket. No one can fill in any details. When I came back, though, I saw everything I needed to see to cap off my night: Beardso McGrundleton, 5 o’clock shadow still painted, neat as ever, on his face, standing alone at the bar at the end of the night. I was told by a friend that he had been hitting on, and had gotten rejected by, the same girl continually all night. Schadenfreude, you warm my heart.

…

LF visited! I made sweet potato and chicken quesadillas and they were everything I thought they would be. We caught up on Friday Night Lights and Jersey Shore and memories and it was just lovely. And now even more friends are coming home from inconveniently placed locales and it makes up, almost entirely, for the unsettling onset of winter.

…

I got terribly excited when, while standing in the bathroom, I stepped on something warm and squishy with my bare foot. I should explain that my chihuahua, when she was with us, was mostly paper trained. But, if no paper was available (or all the time as she got older), she just crapped on anything that wasn’t the floor. And then, eventually, anywhere. So, I got excited for the briefest moment until I realized that what I stepped on was only a wet bath mat.

…

I can’t help but feel, every time I pass the new construction of 1 World Trade Center adjacent to the vacant, concrete footprint of the Twin Towers, that they’re building a tombstone next to an open grave.

…

I visited my grandparents today. I continually feel guilty that my hold on the Russian language isn’t strong enough to fully grasp and internalize all of the stories that my grandparents have for me. I find it odd, also, that the political discussions that I have with them are never as vitriolic as the ones that I have with my parents.

And my heart breaks a little more each time my grandmother asks me a question that I answered just seconds prior.

If you venture outside the day after a snowstorm, gloriously beautiful snow will have been trampled into slush and grime.  The day after NYC’s recent snowstorm, I discovered several things about my kicks: they were not warm, they were not waterproof, and they were not stain proof.  Tramping around a mushy New York City left my feet numb and my kicks as dirty on the inside as they were on the outside.  I decided, for the first time since I was 5, that I needed winter boots.

This means that on January 11th, the first day of the second semester of 1L, I will swoosh into class wearing winter boots. This is a problem, a problem that ladies may not understand. Ladies have an array of cute winter footwear to don: ugly or adorable (depending on your opinion) uggs, rain boots to tuck pants into, valenky boots, and even high-heeled winter boots. The lads have it different. Rarely do gents tuck pant legs into their boots. If gents wear boots, the pants usually go on the outside. This leaves pants exposed to the slimy kick-up from the snowy streets that scars the backs of pant legs. But that’s not all.

Winter boots for guys are hideous. Absolutely hideous. Guys don’t have cute winter boots. Guys don’t have fashionable winter boots. Guys have winter boots that make them look like they walked out of Demolition Man. Boots that are closer to cyberpunk than GQ. Boots that should accessorize combat gear, not your wardrobe. In olden times, I strove for fashion over function. I avoided marshmallow jackets and battle boots. But the times, they are a changing.

I’m a law student now. That means I am: poor, supposedly care less and less about how I look, and should value self-preservation over self-styling. Maybe the process has already begun. After last semester, I am closer to Gollum than I am to [Insert Attractive Male]. But even so, winter boots will be the last nail in the coffin. If ever there were a way for lads to ward-off the ladies and to cement bachelor status as a lifelong condition, winter boots are it. Besides, why should I care about the opposite sex when I have lovely casebooks to while away the night with? So next semester I will don a puffy jacket, slip on some chunky boots, and read some case law. Oh la la!

With warm toes,
i.don’t.wear.skinny.jeans

Each semester in law school was a little different, but each had at least one thing in common. When exams were over, it always seemed as if I had eaten the meal so quickly I could hardly remember what had been put in my mouth. Fine delineations, whole concepts, even common sense principles seemed to disappear as I walked out the door. What remained were a few jokes, some peculiar facial expressions, some­times a question asked or the facts of a particular case. Some classes seemed to reduce to a single sentence. Contracts: You get what you pay for. Family Law: Tit for tat. Conflicts: You play in my yard, you play by my rules …

I went home at the end of the first semester of my second year car­rying little bits of energy, doubt, knowledge, wisdom. Listening to Landrow, the adversarial process hardly seemed, as Wigmore had said, the greatest engine of truth known to man. In Remedies, an injury was often only as good as its cause was bad. Business Enterprises helped the rich get richer. And the Clean Water Act was a big cork with a few holes, more problematic than utopic, soaked in scientific uncertainty.

I returned to school after a break far too short and settled in with classes, with my work on the ELJ. Grades finally began to trickle out in late January and February. As I suspected, the limited partnership ques­tion on the B.E. exam was damaging. Still, I ended up with B’s in both Business and Remedies. Landrow’s crazy point system and the Louisiana law got the best of me: C+. The worst, though, was Pollution Control, where in February I found facing me on the weeping wall a big fat C. I wasn’t going to quibble. There were plenty of other C’s, several D’s. Some people, I was told, had written notes to Muder on their exams: I really came to class, I really listened, I really studied. They really had. They just hadn’t studied the right way. To do well on exams, you have to have the material ready to spill out on the page. You have to walk into the room like a barrel full of water and be careful not to trip on the way to your seat.

It takes so long for grades to be posted that by the time they were in I could almost see summer. More than halfway through law school, I could finally look ahead to some day when there would be cakes and cards and money coming through the mail. Jonathan would cut his ponytail. Jose would still need notes. A song about a baby bumblebee would echo in my head as I wrote my last exam. And some day, some day soon, I would blink my eyes and twenty-five years would be gone. Look. There I go, walking home from work on a cold November evening along the dark streets of Columbus, Ohio, my charcoal over­coat flapping about my legs and my breath coming out in spurts. I see it now, the trees along the curb, my little brick house in German Village, the shiny red truck in the driveway across the street. It is cold and dark and I am walking home, Katie ahead, already standing on the stoop, fumbling for keys.

This is my life. I have a reputation for writing briefs that smash high-priced lawyers into little pieces. At times, I enjoy my work. I have an office. I have a desk. I have learned by experience that often in life there are no alarms, no buzzers, no sprinklers going off overhead. I burst through emergency exits with the confidence of a lawyer. Then I march back into the library and begin again the next day.

This is my life, and there is no one to blame but myself. So I move down the street toward home, the bottom of my charcoal overcoat coursing with each step, Katie already inside. There I go, hands in pock­ets, slouching toward my destiny.

Excerpt from LAW SCHOOL RED INK WHITE COLLAR BLUES
By Kenneth David Westphal
Copyright FirstPartPress Ltd
All rights reserved.
Use in whole or in part, in any other form or medium, without written permission, is expressly prohibited.

If you want to read more, consider purchasing my follow-up book, ADAM AND EVE GAVE BIRTH TO AN EVICTION LAWYER, available at Amazon.com. What happens when an eviction lawyer gets entangled with the worst of his landlord clients? If it were only a fight to the death, the lawyer would be lucky. This just might be a fight for his soul …

http://www.amazon.com/Adam-Gave-Birth-Eviction-Lawyer/dp/0981992404/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255199444&sr=1-1-spell

While acknowledging its inherently temporary nature, I still appreciate the end of compulsory sleepless nights, endless worry and a stress truly unique to its circumstance.

The worst is over.

I’m drunk. Very, very drunk.  I can barely account for the past 6 hours and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love you, New York.

December 17
(Thursday)
(9:00 a.m.)

I took a seat at the back of the room and began spreading my notes around me like sandbags in a bunker. I would write something. I would copy my notes if I had to. I just wanted to spot an issue or two and I’d write what I had prepared. At least I had come to class. A number of people hadn’t been seen since the beginning of the semester.

Worth was fluttering about the front of the room. Exam day is usu­ally like a day off for the professor, a Saturday at the office. Most wear jeans, something casual, but Worth was wearing what he wore every day, a dark charcoal suit, pink shirt, and floral tie.

“As some of you may know,” he said, “due to the beneficence of an Urbane alumnus, and to encourage Remedies scholarship, an award has been established for the best exam written in this class. It’s fairly substan­tial. One thousand dollars … if that provides incentive for any of you to give your exam a bit more thought than you might have otherwise.”

Worth smirked more than usual. Incentive. It was typical, I thought, that we were told such things only when it was too late to do anything about it. Well, this was certainly an award I wouldn’t win. I was hoping just to find something to say for the next three hours … which is what I did, crossing out a page I had written on the second question, a false start, and finishing the last question, asking us to reflect on the current state of Remedies, with the notion that the state of Remedies wasn’t bad considering we were on a rock hurling through space. It was an idea that wouldn’t win points with a judge, but Worth might get a kick out of it. One lunatic to another.

Worth reappeared at the end of the exam, fluttering again as the exam booklets were turned in. He made me nervous. Jose shook his hand. The two seemed like old friends.

Outside, I stopped to drink champagne with some people in front of the law school. These people drank champagne at the end of each semester. I sat on the steps and had a glass just to feel the effect. Worth went streaking past in his suit with a briefcase full of exams.

It was all over.

The semester was over.

*** 

The next day Katie and I would leave for Columbus. I stood at my locker at school removing books and papers. After all the fuss and fury, I felt suddenly empty. I put my notes into file folders and labeled them. I had the idea I would read them again when it came time to study for the bar exam. I stopped once to read the sample answer to one of Muder’s old exams. I hadn’t had time to look at it before. It could have helped, I thought. It could have provided a practical approach to prob­lems that to me were never more than abstract concepts. My problem was that I never knew the material until the last minute. This semester there had been casenotes, contests, committees, airplanes and inter­views … and no last minute.

 ***

I walked slowly down the street toward my car. I had a wife, a baby on the way, a job lined up. My life was advancing rapidly in ways I couldn’t comprehend. Commitments were being made. I wondered if I would ever be able to put it together into a meaningful whole. I would get through law school. I would be a lawyer. I would wear a suit, sit in an office, and deal out my time like playing cards. That’s what I would do. Thoreau left Walden Pond because he had other lives to lead. From where I stood, breaking away from the law seemed about as likely as catching a loon. I would be a lawyer. Many had tried and failed. Many more had not tried at all. I would be a lawyer. That made a difference somehow. That gave me comfort. That gave me determination. That helped to set my course.

As I passed the site of the new chemistry building, the construction workers were eating lunch, sitting near the fence in dirty jeans and tar­nished white helmets. A lot of workers, a lot of money, and still just a lot of rubble. Construction costs money. Someone was paying. Another day, another few thousand dollars. A drop in the bucket on a $25 mil­lion project. For a moment, I almost understood the fees lawyers charge. A securities offering? You’ll be a millionaire overnight. You want to acquire a company? It should shore up your product line and provide a hedge against recessionary forces. A few thousand here, a few thou­sand there. Lawyers’ fees, just the cost of doing business, just the cost of construction. Soon there would be a building standing so high it would make you gasp. Just the necessary cost of construction.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring up at the sky.

Excerpt from LAW SCHOOL RED INK WHITE COLLAR BLUES
By Kenneth David Westphal
Copyright FirstPartPress Ltd
All rights reserved.
Use in whole or in part, in any other form or medium, without written permission, is expressly prohibited.

Not too long ago, some people dreamed of becoming a lawyer and acted on that dream; some people decided to abandon their promising-but-not-that-promising-careers to go to law school; some people decided law school seemed more fun than medical school or business school; and some people decided they had nothing else to do, so why not law school? Prior to law school, we thought law school success would revolve around reading twenty seven supplements compared to the twenty six everyone else would read. We learned, thankfully, that law school success is not about a furtive race for some golden book, but about your ability to apply the knowledge that you can glean from your casebook. And maybe one supplement. Several months ago, we thought, with hope, that we were destined for law review. Then we realized, with despondency, that law review was a nigh impossibility. Then we recognized, with satisfaction, what it means to judge yourself by what you do, not what you achieve.

We swore undergrad was the last time we’d ever get sexiled. Then we got to law school and, after getting sexiled once more, realize that some things never change. If it can happen to House, it can happen to law students. We hoped gossip ended in high school, but learned that when you put people in a pressure crucible, gossip blossoms. We promised not to let law school relegate our friends, significant others, and family to second class citizens, only to realize how hard that promise was to keep. We were scared of our ability to make new friends, partly because of the unknown that accompanies a new undertaking, and partly because the law student stereotype is not one that invites friendship. But now we are grateful for the new relationships that we’ve forged and remain excited about the people we have yet to meet.

We feared we wouldn’t be able to handle what law school would throw at us, only to realize that law school isn’t that different from anything that has come before it. We believed law school would terrorize our social lives, and while it wreaked havoc on our freewheeling leisure time, we gratefully discovered that you could always carve out time for what was important to you, be it friends, exercise, or vegging out. We cherished our healthy eyesight, then had law school destroy our 20/20 vision by giving us enough reading to blind a sharpshooter. We thought we’d maintain a healthy diet through law school–you are, of course, what you eat–and then began a journey through a field of potato chips, pizza, fast food, and donuts.

We went to law school in search of high minded ways to effect change; to discuss the moral gray that abounds in society. We find, as always, that beauty is in the details, not in ideological dreams. You pave your road to intellectual satisfaction one chunky doctrine at a time. We went to law school with an eye towards bettering ourselves as professionals, but not changing ourselves as people. We found out that learning in law school has as much to do with learning about ourselves as it does with learning the law.

Tomorrow, NYU 1Ls take the last exam of their first semester of law school: Contracts. Tomorrow, months of maintaining a robot-like lifestyle (albeit life as an emotionally-charged robot) culminates with one more exam. Tomorrow, 1Ls can wash away the film of self-doubt that plagues every question of can I and will I, because we will have done it. When Contracts finishes, we can truthfully say we’ve been there and done that, and then get ready to do it all over again next semester. Tomorrow, we’re just getting started.

Good luck,
i.don’t.wear.skinny.jeans

Sorry I didn’t catch this posting a few days earlier, but the WSJ blog is feeling a bit of 1L pain and decided to survey law professors about what makes a good law school exam answer.  My favorite is this one:  “A good law exam answer . . . is like a poem.”

December 16
(Wednesday)

It was almost over. The first semester of my second year of law school was almost over. Only one more exam to go: Remedies. I called Jose the night before to see how his studying was coming along. The first time I tried his number I got his machine. I tried again at about eleven and reached him. He seemed worried as well. He called back several times to see what Worth had said on this or that. I read him whatever I had in my notes. By four o’clock, Jose said he was calling it a night. He couldn’t spend all his energy on Remedies; he had another exam on Friday. I told him I would be going to bed soon myself.

At six I was in bed reading when my system shut down. I became afraid that if I didn’t set the alarm, the next thing I’d know it would be ten o’clock, so I set the alarm and shut my eyes. It was a cold night. I huddled beneath the covers. I thought I was going to fail for sure.

Excerpt from LAW SCHOOL RED INK WHITE COLLAR BLUES
By Kenneth David Westphal
Copyright FirstPartPress Ltd
All rights reserved.
Use in whole or in part, in any other form or medium, without written permission, is expressly prohibited.

I tried to report live from the trenches last night, mostly out of boredom. But my iPhone sucks (the one complaint I have about anything graced by the Apple logo), so here it is this morning:

Story 1

Law School Wife and Law School Husband walk into the Law School-sponsored extended Happy Hour at a popular bar downtown. We immediately recognize a group close to the entrance, but I notice someone whom I’ve never met. I stick my hand out to shake and introduce myself, and he doesn’t take it.

“Hi, I’m B.”

“I know who you are.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“No, but I know the gossip. He’s married, you’re his wife, blah, blah, blah.”

“What? I think I just got yada-yada-yada-ed. What did you just gloss over?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m “Sam.”

“Nice to meet you.”

NOT!

——

Story 2

Well, I had a second story. But now I don’t remember it. Don’t let that fool you. I had one drink at dinner and 3/4 a beer in the 2.5 hours we were at the late-night “happy” hour. But there was another ridiculous conversation. I’ll think of it and update later.

——

Story 3
We arrived at said happy hour bar at about 9:30 pm. I had to use the ladies room, but soon realized that that would be an IMPOSSIBILITY for the night because every single stall of the ladies room was occupied by law school students throwing up.

Yes, I am judging. Let me explain.

1) I know for a fact these girls’ finals were over at 6 pm. So in 3.5 hours, they’d managed to get so drunk they were passed out on a DISGUSTING bathroom floor, puking their guts out.

2) There is a time and a place for getting that drunk. It’s called UNDERGRAD. Better yet, HIGH SCHOOL. Seriously, ladies, by now you should know your limits and have already had your fill of public vomiting.

3) This is probably what bothers me the most: These girls were so sick that they could not be left unattended, so their poor friends (fellow law students, who should also have been out celebrating) spent their entire night in the DISGUSTING bathroom holding hair, wiping barf off faces, and force-feeding water. The care takers worked just as hard, were just as stressed out, and deserve to blow off steam and forget their worries as much as the girls who clearly forgot that they can’t handle a whole liter of vodka on an empty stomach.

4) Law school finals SUCK. I understand. But drinking the pain away only works for a few hours, and then you spend the next 24 hours in a miserable hungover stupor that DOES NOT FEEL GOOD. Wouldn’t you want to feel good the day after finals? Instead, you’ll be barely about to move tomorrow and will spend your first FREE day post-finals sick.

I’ll say it again:

Well done, ladies, well done.

——

So, all in all, it was not a very exciting night. It was way more fun in my head, although I do admit my expectations were too high.

At least I can say:

THE DROUGHT IS OVER!!

The lame party last night was not worth giving up sleep,

B

Torts came out swinging, but no dead bodies were left in its wake.  Of our two questions, the first did not seem to involve the level of destruction that I was expecting to see.  I expected Pulp Fiction; I got a PBS special.  The second question upped the carnage level, but only minimally.  Instead of guns and bombs and things with cool special effects, a kid fell into the water.  At least I did not have to mourn my fictional friends during the exam.  Unlike CivPro, I felt that I wrote everything I wanted to say. It is unlikely that my best in Torts will turn out to be any better than my worst in CivPro, but at least this time I can say I put it all on the table.  Then again, if I think about the exam, I realize that I’ve missed an astounding number of obvious claims.  But that is neither here nor there.  I am content to wash Torts from my mind.

Contracts is up next on Thursday, and then first semester will come to an end.

Sentimentally studying,
i.don’t.wear.skinny.jeans

This is an installment that I will generously deem part II of a two-part series (part I asked the question, “what makes a good law school exam answer?”). Similarly, part II is inspired by a post from the wall street journal law blog.

Finishing the sentence, “the smartest thing I did while preparing for my 1L first-semester exams was ________,” these law students (all members of their respective law reviews) had this to say:

3L at UVA and an editor on the Virginia Law Review: By far the most useful thing I did when preparing for 1L exams was to round up a few people from the class and take old exams. Don’t just go through them, take them — pretend it’s the real thing, time limits and all. Then discuss answers. You’d be amazed how much you miss the first time. It can be time-consuming, but all the outlining in the world won’t save you if you can’t spot the issues on the fly.

3L at Vanderbilt and a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review: For me, the smartest thing I did while studying for exams 1L year was to go through each entire course in successively shorter periods of time. . . . By successively shortening the amount of time spent thinking through the entire course, the goal was to be able to go quickly through and understand all the material in a couple of minutes — to see both the forest and the trees quickly for the entire course.

3L at Brooklyn and a member of Brooklyn Law Review: The most crucial thing to do as a 1L, in my opinion, is start outlining early in the semester and finish [your outlines] early enough to take as many practice exams as possible in real time. . . . [P]rofessors test the exact same things year in and year out. If you do enough exams, you’ll begin to see a pattern which will give you a huge advantage on exam day.

2L at Columbia, member of the Columbia Law Review: The first time I saw what my Civil Procedure professor expected us to be able to do in three hours I almost had a nervous breakdown. But by taking practice exams and going over answers in a study group, I was able to get a better sense of the material that is frequently tested . . . . By test day I wasn’t intimidated anymore and could take comfort knowing there weren’t going to be any surprises.

3L at Vanderbilt, member of the Vanderbilt Law Review: I made sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night. The finals period is already an extremely stressful time, and it is most stressful as a 1L. There is no reason to add to this stress by staying up every night until 3 a.m. working; not only does it add to your stress level, it is not as if the extra hours “studying” are actually beneficial, given that your mind can only take so much studying per day before shutting down.

2L at Iowa, member of the Iowa Law Review: [I wrote] out all the “rules” by hand. The act of writing slows your brain down enough to absorb the legal rules, and it gives you time to consider their implication. This is an especially helpful technique when legal rules come in the form of multi-part, or divergent tests. When you read these rules in your notes or type them out on your computer, the words come so quickly across the page that you don’t have time to really absorb and understand them. Writing them out gives your mind a chance to catch up with your keystrokes.

3L at Berkeley, editor on the California Law Review: Perhaps the most important (and most difficult) advice is that you need to move on when the exam is over, either to prepping for your next exam, having a beer, or just generally getting on with your life. You might feel tempted to talk to your classmates about the exam, perhaps because you have nothing else to talk about (as your life of late was probably consumed with studying). Avoid this at all costs; at best you get affirmation in your answers (which could still be wrong), but at worst your start worrying that you missed something, which at this point is totally out of your control. . . . From my own experience and my friends, taking a law school exam can be defeating and leave students with the feeling that their days of studying were not properly translated to the answer they cranked out in three hours. Try your best not to dwell on those feelings.

I have my last final, property, tomorrow afternoon, so these are some poignant reminders as I wrap up my last few hours of studying. I hope this helps any other law students who are in the same position!

I’ll be back on Thursday, blogging from Napa.

If you haven’t rushed over to Piece of Candy mainstore, then you’re missing out on the Jasmin skins worth 1L!!!!!!! All you have to do is find 20 YELLOW Diamonds each worth 1L. Great deal isn’t it??

Better yet.. I made a cheat sheet for you in case you’re on a budget and would like to see which particular skins you’d like to buy. Mind you, though these are sloppy pictures with sloppy handwritings, I’ve spent 3 hours taking pictures + editing (well I did kind of slacked off in between). I should probably have studied for my finals tomorrow, but I can’t seem to get rid of my appetite for MORE BLOGGING! (Oh wells… i’ll just give in to more procrastination hah!)

First Batch :

Second Batch:

Third Batch:

Okay.. so you’re probably wondering what’s the difference with all these skins. Well.. the lips are of different shades. And you’re probably wondering which skins you should pick. If you have 20L with you and you’re extremely bored (like me), I would TP to Piece of Candy and find ALL diamonds. It’s the best way to that confusing dilemma.

Goodluck and Enjoy!

Stay beautiful~

~~Aurora Savira

I haven’t had much to say lately, so I’ve said nothing at all. But then the calendar kept on chugging along and it is finally that time!

As I type this, we are just a mere 29 hours away from PURE FREEDOM!
At least for a month, anyway.

Mr. Law School finishes his last final of the semester tomorrow evening at 6 pm. So while this post is a *little* preemptive, I will be at a bar doing shots with my husband and his law school friends at 6:05 tomorrow night. You know, because this semester has been so, so hard on me him.
And guess what else?

Today is mine and Mr.’s six month anniversary! Just six quick months ago, I was sipping champagne on a balcony overlooking a lake, attempting to memorize every detail. I was surrounded by my two best friends in the world and my two oldest friends in the world in my honeymoon suite. We giggled. I held back tears. We drank champagne out of  a can, and wine from coffee mugs.

It was glorious!

And then it was time!

And then, in an instant, it was over, and we were married!

You can see more wedding photos here, here and especially here!

Speaking of weddings and marriage, I’ll take this moment to share a few bits of wisdom I’ve gleaned from being 1) a newlywed and 2) the wife of a 1L. Granted, I’m still a rookie. But we’ve made it through what is (hopefully!) the most stressful semester (what with the fear of the unknown) and I am pleased as punch to say that we are better than ever! But back to the wisdom:

• A law school couple is only as good as the law school student. Attending law school is inherently selfish. Even if the student is going to “provide a better future for our family,” these three years are ALL ABOUT THEM. Your student has an excuse to get out of any and every obligation and/or chore. So far, I think a couple will only make it out of law school intact if the law school student is committed to being a “we” instead of a “me.” I’m not doing a good job describing this. I’ll mull it over longer and make it its own post later.
• Megan at Tales of the Trees said she noticed as a newlywed that, “The first 5 minutes home from work have the ability to set the entire mood for the night.” This stuck with me, and now, six months into marriage, I have come to completely agree with her! I try to check my traffic-induced bad mood at the door now, and things are MUCH more pleasant when I make this extra effort.
• It takes more time and resources than I have to be a good wife and a good friend simultaneously. This is a bittersweet lesson. More on this later. It’s still developing. But on that note,
• Unmarried friends really do not understand being married. Good friends will learn to understand and will be patient while you figure out this uncharted territory.

That’s all the boring stuff I will bother you with today.

I have a jam-packed week ahead of me, what with tonight’s romantic dinner (at home…he’s still studying, people!), tomorrow night’s law school post-finals binge, a snazzy surprise party for a friend’s birthday Wednesday, Christmas cookie night Thursday, and then our romantic three-day-weekend beginning Friday morning at 10 am!

And then, after that, it’s time to pack for Christmas Ski Trip 2009!

Because celebrating life’s (small) milestones make living more fun,

B

December 14
(Monday)
(9:00 a.m.)

I stumbled through the Evidence exam, afterward grumbling like every else that Louisiana law seemed to play a larger part than we had been led to expect. Hadn’t Landrow said it would only amount to about three percent? The oddest part of the morning was the odor of muscle ointment from the guy who sat in front of me. He had smeared himself with the stuff. Some sort of associational thing, I figured, a college ath­lete reliving glory days. I finally put it out of my mind, sucked on my peppermints, and tried to find a way to say something intelligent on the essay portion.

Jeremy was upbeat afterward. Sharon wasn’t so sure. She said a Beatles song had played over and over in her head. She couldn’t shake it. Three hours of getting back to where you once belonged.

“That happens to me, too,” Jonathan said.

And they carried on a conversation about songs that played in their heads during final exams.

Excerpt from LAW SCHOOL RED INK WHITE COLLAR BLUES
By Kenneth David Westphal
Copyright FirstPartPress Ltd
All rights reserved.
Use in whole or in part, in any other form or medium, without written permission, is expressly prohibited.

When exam booklets are opened on Monday, NYU 1Ls will read about streams of carnage that end up with some people dying and some people getting maimed for life. It is a sad state of affairs when law students reacts to tragedy by looking for liability as opposed to drowning their laptops in tears of compassion. But such is the world we live in. I, however, shall write a disclaimer at the top of my exam: I will be taking a moment of silence for my lost homies who have fallen in this fact pattern. When my private mourning concludes, I’ll take out my bottle of Jack Daniel’s, open it up, and pour it into the empty seat next to me. After my tears have dried, I will, against all instinctual sympathy, look for who the dead and injured can sue.

I look askance at cute animals that have strayed into my fact-patterned calamity of disaster. No longer do I think, “adorable cow.”  Rather, affection for lovable bovines is replaced with eyes colored red with rage, seeing nothing but liability for whoever let this mega-dangerous cow out of the barn. I see a friendly farmer innocently hoeing the hay and cast a glare in the farmer’s direction. I yell, “why did you not take more precautions to prevent your murderous cow from escaping?” The farmer responds, “but I only did what a reasonably prudent person would do!” With tears streaming down my cheeks, I ponder the farmer’s words and then deflect the question to the jury.

But the injured will not rest until every party in this Rocky Horror Fact Pattern is in court, paying out damages for lost wages, medical expenses, and pain and suffering. Let them indemnify, let them contribute, all I want is for the guilty to answer. I grab every single doctor, nurse, EMT, anesthetist, and country Samaritan who happens to be carrying a medical bag and accuse them all of wrongdoing. I scream, barely audible as I choke back tears, “this is your fault. If you just gave my homies band-aids instead of blasting them with radiation, they would still be alive.” The medical entourage responds with The Cone of Silence, but I attack them with Latin magic and cast a spell of res ipsa loquitur on them. And yet, Latin magic will probably not be good enough to bring down the medical empire.

Eventually, with my Lasso of Torts Justice, I throw the liable parties before a jury. But is that enough? Is it ever enough? I am weary from all the tears that have been shed, but there is no rest of the weary. There is still one more fight to go. The last stand. The battle of the forms. But that is another battle for another day, a battle for Thursday.

In torts we remain,
i.don’t.wear.skinny.jeans

How many of you dumped OR was dumped by your high school sweetheart on your freshman year of college Thanksgiving break? Even though the split seemed like an earth-shattering event, it’s quite common for those “unbreakable high school couples who went to different schools” to realize that there’s a sea of temptations and raging hormones out there, and eventually break-up. This is a “well-documented phenomenon” coined the “Turkey Drop“.

This “Turkey Drop” occurs again on the law school level. I call this happening the “Tortious Turkey Drop”. The “Tortious Turkey Drop” occurs on the cusp of finals usually during Thanksgiving Break–the first 5 days you’ve had to yourself since law school started. This is a time when you set all kinds  of unattainable goals set for yourself:

• Finish Outlines
• Learn future interests
• Eat lots of food
• Do laundry
• Visit with family
• Hang out with friends

In reality, you end up boozing and over-eating. Your outlines are still far from finished, you still contemplate re-wearing the socks on your floor, and you’re an over-stuffed hung-over waste of space.

And that non-lawyer boyfriend/girlfriend that was smart enough not to follow you to law school seems even more annoying. Here are some signs that a “Tortious Turkey Drop” is in your future.

Your gf or bf:

• Doesn’t give a shit about intent,
• Stares at you blankly when you talk about these mysterious “outlines”,
• Constantly feels like they are being cross-examined,
• Seems to have a thriving social life while you’re a hermit in the library.

This is when you second guess how you ever could’ve dated an inconsiderate “layperson”. Maybe it was that cutie in your section that helped you understand future interests;  or your deluded visions of “saving the world”; or pent up finals aggression that prompted you to make the “Drop”. Whatever reason, you decide that you cannot spend another minute with someone this “pedestrian” and promptly dump them. This is usually followed up by the Christmas Break Relapse, to the January Recyling, to the Bar Exam Bomb (Stay Tuned!).

Share your “Tortious Turkey Drop” Story below!

December 12
(Saturday)

I spent Friday morning polishing a letter to Fielding, a letter that struck the right balance between their loss and my gain. I asked them to kindly keep me in mind for the future. But their letter reached me before I could get mine in the mail:

Dear Mr. Westphal:

On behalf of the firm, I want to thank you for spending the day with us on December 2.

As you know, we have been fortunate this year to have seen a number of highly qualified candidates. We have thus had many difficult employment decisions to make. As I am sure you realize, the competition for the limited number of positions is quite intense. We enjoyed meeting you and are impressed by your quali­fications, but unfortunately we will be unable to extend an offer for a summer position.

Thank you again for your interest in our firm and we wish you every success in the remainder of the school year.

                                                Sincerely,

                                                Jerome P. Thorson
                                                Recruiting Committee Chair
JPT/jgm

I thought about sending my letter anyway, but finally threw it away and focused on memorizing the outline I had found at the back of my Evidence book. It was a nice straightforward outline that Landrow, if he knew about it at all, hadn’t mentioned to the class.

Excerpt from LAW SCHOOL RED INK WHITE COLLAR BLUES
By Kenneth David Westphal
Copyright FirstPartPress Ltd
All rights reserved.
Use in whole or in part, in any other form or medium, without written permission, is expressly prohibited.

I finished two finals already?  That’s the thing about the first semester – if flies by so quickly and at a pace so unexpected that it makes me wonder what the hell I have been doing all this time?

Here is what I remember:

The inside of the library,

The inside of The Max, (our nickname for the cafeteria)

Contracts, Torts, and Civil Procedure books.

Writing some huge memo.

Typing on the computer things that I believe had to do with the law.

A dozen or so people who I call my friends and who are completely insane!

The thing about first semester is that you generally are lost in the sea.  Treading water and trying to figure out all sorts of things that are impossible to figure out: am I studying enough? Am I studying correctly? How do I learn this stuff? Is it really 2am? Why is the professor asking me this question? Why are these cases almost like a labyrinth of inconsequential situations and suddenly a holding is tacked on the end? Did Cardozo really just cook the facts in this case? Is this a poem or a case? Is my brief brief enough? Did I brief this case? Should I brief this case? Is Starbucks open? Is it really time for class? Is class over yet? Am I really limited to 250 words total and still have to include the entire restatement rule for Self-Defense? Do I have to be at least in the top 10%? How does everyone fit into the top 10%? Is that person for real or just acting like he / she is important?

You see, the way you figure all these it is by taking the final and THAT is the WORST place to find out.  Seems cruel and unusual to some – others are breaking out in hives – and yet more are missing sleep over studying for finals.  Some act calm and cool others are calm and cool.  But no matter what act we all put on, we are all one thing: in the same boat.
We all have professors we love and all have professors we hate and all have professors we respect.  For me this semester looked much like this:

Contracts:

Does this Prof ever teach anything?

Wow, during the review I find out this prof is brilliant!

I failed as a student to ask the question I thought I would need to know while waiting for the professor to answer them.

Studying for the final and realizing I know much more than I thought I did.

Torts:

This professor is brilliant! A bit TOO brilliant.

What the heck is going on in this discussion? Why is my head hurting so much? I need a nap.

Wake up in the middle of the night naming the duty factors for Negligence.

Civil Procedure:
Why are we still on Pennoyer?

Slowly but surely this is all starting to connect and make sense.

I wish I could use FRCP 11(c) on anyone at any moment, sua sponte!

Lawyering:

I love my Prof!!!!

I love my Prof!!!

I love my Prof!!!

With one final left I cannot believe this semester is over.  I cannot believe how much I learned in such a short time.  I cannot believe that I love my 1L year and hopefully upon receiving my grades I will still love my 1L year. . . .

Words of Advice:

Study or Die, time has never gone as quickly as it does your first semester as a 1L.