My first experience in court

Well, that was fast! Slightly less than 4 full weeks into law school, and I'm already making a court appearance! Today, as part of the Domestic Violence Action Center program I'm involved in, I went to Brooklyn Family Court with a law school friend. We spent early part of the morning introducing ourselves to people in the waiting area, offering our services as student advocates. After helping a couple people fill out their preliminary paperwork, we found somebody that we might be able to help. She was a lovely elderly woman who wanted custody of her grandson and an order of protection against the mother of her grandson after her son passed away, and the mother of his child became abusive of the grandmother. We sat down with the grandmother, interviewed her about the incidents that led her to court today, and wrote an official petition to the court for an order of protection. After submitting the petition, we waited to be called by the judge. Once called, we stood in the courtroom, and took questions from the judge. After the questioning, the judge ACTUALLY GRANTED EVERYTHING WE REQUESTED! You read that right: our petition and oral presentation went well enough to convince a judge not only to grant a temporary order of protection to our client, but to grant custody of a 6 month old infant to an 81 year old woman!

Anyway, back to my regular life of classes and the like tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm savoring my victory.

Wow, that was a busy couple weeks!

I know, I know. I'm a crappy blogger. The gaps between posts are too big, and people lose interest. I'm sorry. That said, the last two weeks have been pretty damn busy. I was given my first practice exam question for property, as well as my first graded assignment in my writing class. I felt pretty good about the practice question when I completed it and emailed it in, only to find out later that I had done a remarkably poor job on it. So much for an early-semester confidence boost. Luckily it was just for practice, and it doesn't count towards my grades at all. After that, I got my writing assignment, which I have been agonizing over for about a week. I spent a good deal of time planning, writing, rewriting, meeting with other students, rewriting again, meeting with my TA, rewriting again, meeting with my TA again, rewriting again, and so on.

In more interesting news, I have my first day in court this Thursday! I will be spending Thursday in court meeting with victims of domestic abuse, potentially finding the person I will be advocating for this semester. In a similar vein, this week is also the week that I get trained to advocate for uncontested divorce applicants (also a part of the Domestic Violence Action Center). It's going to be a very busy week!

Today I got up and took the subway down to Tribeca where I marched with the Fordham OUTLaws (the legal LGBT group) for marriage equality in New York. I got there around 11, when I met up with the other OUTLaws. We then moved over to Foley Square, where there were people making speeches on the subject from noon until about 1:30, after which we marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, holding signs and making our beliefs well-known. It was really a blast, and I'm looking forward to doing more stuff with OUTLaws!

I'm sure I'm forgetting things that have happened, but for the moment I can't think of anything else. If I remember something that I forgot to mention, I will be sure to write another post, or perhaps add to this one. But until then, I'm calling it a night.

In Which Law School Goes From A Sunny Day To A Light Drizzle

As the title of this post cryptically implies, the workload has gone from easy to merely manageable. Today we banged through three or so full cases in a less-than-two-hour Contracts class. Also, the research assignments have begun, and our first major writing assignment is going to be assigned next Monday (we already have the readings that will be required for the paper). Now, rather than working a few hours on Saturday and Sunday and being done with all my classes for the week, I'm working all day Friday, half the day Saturday, and most of the day Sunday, as well as between and after classes every day in order to be one or two classes ahead.

That said, I am still staying current/ahead of my work, so I am not yet drowning. I feel like if I can just keep a day or so ahead, I'll be a mile ahead of everyone else. Which reminds me of a new experience I'm having here that I never had in high school or undergrad. While everyone is generally very friendly and helpful to each other, there is a discernible undercurrent of competition. As assignments are starting to come up, conversations inevitably include some reference (jokingly or otherwise) to the curve on which we will be graded. I understand if people think that I'm being naive, and that a sense of competition was there in high school and college, but I just don't think it was for me. In high school, I didn't apply to the same schools as my friends for the most part, and when I did, it wasn't the same program. And in college, I was friends with people in other majors, so I was never in competition with anybody I knew, so I never got that sense. Now, all of a sudden, I find myself a little torn between genuinely wanting to see my new friends succeed and be happy, and the realization that we are essentially in a zero-sum game, and every A they take is one less for me. I don't much care for that feeling, and I hope that next year when we start taking classes in our respective concentrations, we will be able to have a true non-competition relationship.

OK, complaining time has officially come to an end! Now, for something completely different: things that won't surprise anybody! For my first piece of completely shocking news, I have a really strong desire to be involved in EVERYTHING. I have already signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and I will be receiving my first delivery of farm-fresh produce on Wednesday, and I will soon be volunteering to help deliver locally grown veggies to underprivileged families in the neighborhood. Also, my training for the Domestic Violence Action Center's Courtroom Advocates Program is this Friday. I will be trained so that as a 1L, I will be able to help victims of domestic violence navigate the very daunting legal processes involved in obtaining court orders of protection, uncontested divorces, community support and counseling, and other really great services. I will even have the opportunity to stand before a judge! Great opportunity, great program. I am also giving consideration to becoming a student ambassador, which would mainly entail giving tours once a week to prospective students, but I'm unsure if I'll have the time for that. Also, I gave blood today.

Well, I have class at 9 in the morning tomorrow, so it is time that I cut this rambling post off and get some sleep. Until the next post, goodnight!

Parade of Lunacy

Hello again! It's been a week since my last post, so I thought it was time to fill you in on the law school process. Classes are in semi-full swing. We're still moving fairly slowly, but I continue to understand most things, and I'm enjoying just about everything. The only real bummer is the near-constant reminder from some professors that it's OK to do badly on early projects, and to be confused and to get middling grades. We all know that in a class of 80, less than 10 will get an A- or higher, but we need not be reminded of this quite as often as we are.

Now that I have had more than a week of classes, I am starting to see the greatest part of law school: the parade of worst-case hypothetical scenarios. The best way I can think of to illustrate this phenomenon is through an old ad campaign mixed with a shockingly realistic look at my property class:

This is your brain:
Professor: "So, the court ruled that migrant workers are entitled to receive visitors and guests customary to all citizens"
Students: "Yeah, so the worker's sister is allowed to visit."

This is your brain on law school:
Professor: "So, the court ruled that migrant workers are entitled to receive visitors and guests customary to all citizens"
Student 1: "Yeah, so the worker's sister is allowed to visit."
Student 2:  "OK, then what about a clown?"
Student 1: "A clown? It's not customary."
Student 2: "What if it's a part of their culture? Who are you to decide a clown isn't customary? Or, what if they know a lot of clowns?"
Student 1: "Well, I guess if the migrant worker knew somebody who happened to be a clown, it would be OK. But they couldn't have a clown come, and then try to pass them off as a friend. You would have to establish that he had a prior relationship with the clown."

This is a fairly representative classroom discussion as we, the new crop of 1Ls, try to find our way through the Socratic Method. The only way we can really come to a fair definition of any rule is to start with a general statement, then carry it to its logical (albeit bizarre) conclusion, then carefully whittle it back until it resembles something of use to society (at which we often fail).

That's more or less everything I wanted to talk about, so I'll leave off here, but I'll be sure to share any more funny/interesting/notable things I experience soon!

First Couple Days of Classes

After two days of classes, I'm feeling good. I've been keeping ahead of the workload, and I've made a ton of friends. We all sit near each other in class, eat lunch together, and even study together in the library between and after classes. I have had at least one of every class except Criminal Law, which I will start tomorrow. By far my favorite is Property. We had a great debate in class over the ethics and potential legality of buying/selling organs. It was great!

All of my classes seem to have one thing in common: the entire grade comes down to performance on a final exam. Kind of puts some pressure on that day, doesn't it? Anyway, on a non-law school related note, I was cooking tonight, and then cleaning dishes afterward, and I couldn't help but feel like I'm a little kid playing grown-up or house or something. It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that somebody (or, more accurately, everybody) seems to think I am some kind of "responsible adult", capable of grownup-like things in grownup-like situations.

Not too much more to report right now, but I'll be sure to check in soon to update everyone on Year One!