One Week Down

I'm down right giddy that it is Friday right now...just over the wall excited. I've finished my first week of law school (insert choirs singing heavenly praises...no really do)! First, I should tell you that it has gotten better since Tuesday. The contracts professor has mellowed down a bit. I think he wanted to put the fear of God into us and it worked. Everyone seems to spend a little longer on Contracts. Second, I really thought this week would fly by and it definitely did not. It crawled along. About the middle of the week, I felt that it should be over all ready.


Ok now down to business. I was called on today in Torts. Somehow whenever someone else is being asked questions, I know the answers. Getting called on is a whole new experience. Everything you thought you knew about the case is gone...out the window like it never existed. Thank you for case briefs (essentially a system to get down most of the facts/holdings of the cases while studying). I won't say it was a flawless performance, but I think I did ok. I definitely was able to give the right answers eventually even if it took verbally reasoning it out. Still it is a very jarring experiencne. I feel like Torts is a pretty straight forward class. Our teacher is VERY good about giving us bright-line rules and helping us clearly see where the ambiguity lies. A tort is a civil action to recover damages for a wrong done. For instance, if someone injures you in some way (assault and battery), it could be criminal but the person hurt also has a civil course available to recover damages. Torts is a very broad subject because there are intentional torts, unintentional torts (negligence) and strict liability cases. It is interesting stuff.


My hands down favorite class and favorite professor is property. He is so nerdy awkward but extremely funny that class just flies by. I can't really describe him in a way that does justice. I enjoy the subject too. We are talking about water rights right now, and it is some pretty fascinating stuff. One thing that is great is that our Property professor seems genuinely concerned if ever anyone doesn't understand a point in his class. It is refreshing.


Contracts has gotten easier. I'm still not looking forward to the day I get called on in class.


Legal writing has taken off. We have an outline due for our first memorandum on Wednesday. Essentially we have a "client" with a potential case that doesn't want to move forward unless she is likely to win. Based on a few similar cases we have to decide the likely outcome all nicely reasoned out to a tee. As the semester goes on we will have to find our own cases, but for now we were given two cases to use. Today the class was buzzing with arguments for why the case would be successful or why it would fail. It has definitely led to interesting discussions and helped me feel like this is definitely something I want to be doing with my life.


I've been good about not letting law school completely take over my life. On my late nights, I'm still out of here by 7:30 pm. I still haven't met to many people here besides law students. I meet my new ward on Sunday and I'm going swing dancing tomorrow so I think that will get better soon (or at least I hope). I think I'm going to brief one more case before heading off to a farmers market to check out the produce. I'm excited. :)