Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. Well, Christmas is mostly over. I am heading back to work after a wonderful couple of days of relaxation. I had to move, again, but after that was over I had plenty of time to hang out with the dogs, read books I wanted to read, and cook. I even made bread today, which is one of those hobbies that has unfortunately gone to the wayside since starting law school.

At least I am only just heading back to work and have another three weeks before my last semester begins. If I passed Business Entities, I will only have four classes this next semester. I have 3 credits in the bank from that dreadful summer Administrative Law class. That should leave me some time to actually learn the law. As I have said many times before, I learn a lot more by doing the law than by reading about others doing, messing up, appealing, having their case decided, published and deemed important enough to be put in a text book.

For example, between my finals I did a trial. All the senior prosecutors said it was a dog of a case. We tried it anyway. The outcome, however, isn't important. The jury was hung like a . . . jury that could not agree, but at least we got a majority of the jurors to agree with us and maybe he will take our plea or we will take another crack at it. Again, the outcome is not as important as what I learned in that case: Doing direct and cross is difficult!

I had a moment during closing arguments where I really hit my stride. I had at least a majority of the jurors right with me; I was off the script speaking directly with the jury, convincing them that I was right; it was smooth and clear and fun. The same cannot be said of the testimony part of the trial. Closing is theater; testimony, on the other-hand is difficult and technical. It is so hard to get from your witness all the information you want without the stuff you do not want and cross can easily get out of your control and meander into an area you do not want to visit. It is so hard to tell a story using other people's words without being able to tell them what to say or how to say it and have it all make sense to a jury. It must take a lifetime to really get good at taking testimony. I think opening and closing are really very simple compared to testimony. Learning that is going to take many, many trials and a lot of mistakes.

And that is why I need free time from law school to learn the law.