Week 4

This is the week where my brain overflowed, where the combined stress of starting law school, moving to a new city, owing a puppy and living with my girlfriend who is also a one-l caused a break down. Don't worry, I wasn't crying in class or snorting coke late at night or beating the puppy, but rather at several points reached such utter frustration that I wanted to walk away and never come back. I lost sight of what I wanted to do here. How could this happen. What follows is a short explanation written in outline form, just like everything else in law:
1. Too much information without the right folders to put it in: I had no previous notions for how I should be organizing the information that I am receiving. All of the cases and subjects blurred together and I didn't know what compartment to put them in in my mind. Mens rea is criminal, but intent is torts, but intent is one of the possible elements of mens rea and all crimes are torts, but not all torts are crimes and when does an assault become a battery anyway?
2. Books, outlines, and citations: Lets just say that the way law books are structured is unlike any other book I have looked at. Cases followed by notes broken down into numbers and letters containing sections of other cases and speak to the same issue or mention the same issue, or refute that issue, and there is nothing in the book to tell you what is more important than the next. I have seen teachers rush through a case with the most cursory discussion and spend the rest of the class discussing a case in the footnotes. I see where learning the law is a combination of many different sources and it makes me wonder why Derrida wasn't a lawyer, but it has the same disorienting effect I spoke about in the previous point.

Time for a funny story, hidden here in the middle of the text. I have been going along in Civil Procedure, more intimidated than I probably will admit, waiting for my turn to be called on and wondering why all of the reading assignments seem to end in the middle of cases. The answer didn't become clear until this week, when, as the teacher became dangerously close to calling my name as he moves alphabetically through the roster, he asks a student to comment on Sorema and discuss the procedural implications. Sorema, I don't remember that case. I read Leatherman last night. Frantically searching through case book. Did I miss something? Did I read the wrong section. Sorema isn't here, wait a second, the students behind me were talking about a case I hadn't heard of this morning in the hall. Wait a second, could it be? I turn around and look at another students book. Fourth Edition. I look at mine. Third Edition. Fuck, Fuck. Wrong Book. I ordered it from Amazon.com before the semester based on the information the law school sent out. I got it for cheap because the cover had been put on upside down. I was proud of that find, but what the fuck, I have to get a new one, another $100 bucks down the drain, as I sweat and hope my name isn't called. And it isn't, and I get the new book, and I calm down, and realize. . .

well, this may not be the smoothest start to my career as a lawyer, but I want to be here. Take a deep breath, get out your highlighting and lets work through this case one more time and see where we can get it to fit in our mind.