Law Review Write On: The Basics

So, today the law review write on starts today.

Eek?

For those that don't know how LR write on works, SMU has a mandatory write-on policy. Some schools allow grading on, which is where the top XX% of the class is automatically invited on. Here, however, everyone who wants to be on any of the law review journals has to compete in the write on. (If you're in the top 10% of the class, a "good faith" effort will get you on no problems).

The write on competition consists of three portions: an editing exercise, a bluebooking exercise, and a writing exercise. The packets are made available on Thursday morning, and due back on Monday morning.

Good way to ruin a weekend, right?

SMU has three law review associations that publish five law review journals. The SMU Law Review Association publishes the SMU Law Review and the Journal of Air Law and Commerce. The International Law Review Association publishes The International Lawyer and Law & Business Review of the Americas. Science & Technology Law Review publishes a journal by the same name.

According to our LR orientation, every year about 175 students compete, and between 100 and 120 are offered positions on one of the journals. If you're extended an offer from a secondary journal but decline it, you're not allowed to write on for a "better" journal the next year. So either be really awesome or suck really bad if you know you only want the SMU LR.

Law review is really a great resume builder, but if you know you want to go into litigation and you don't want to work at Jones Day or some other firm like that, then LR isn't necessary. It's always helpful though.

Soooooooo... I'll be working on my LR write on submission this weekend. Wish me luck! Catch y'all on the flip side.

Post 1L Decompression

All right, so 1L is done. For those of you 0Ls looking for some last-minute advice before you transition into law school life in August, I hope to write a few entries in the upcoming weeks about things I wish I had known before 1L that would have made my life a little easier in the last few months.

A preemptory "you're welcome."

Also a preemptory "sorry I didn't write as much as I wanted to."

So here's the low down on my recent life. SMU schedules it's spring finals so that this year we had one reading day before having a final every other weekday for two weeks (five total). Between the studying, the caffeine, and the drama it's all a blur, but I'll do my best to break it down for you.

In a later post.

Until then, I'll be taking the next week or so to decompress, clean my apartment, play with my dog (he's doing very well, thanks for asking), and generally get my life in order before the first of my two summer jobs starts.

For reference, I'm working for half of the summer at a boutique corporate litigation and tech startup firm in Dallas (paid -- yay!), and then the second half I'll be with a justice at the Texas Court of Appeals (not paid, but good experience). They stop hearing cases in May, so I'll mostly be doing research and writing there; not too much courtroom shadowing, unfortunately.

I always thought it would be interesting to sit in on family court or criminal court. I would think it would be like Jerry Springer or Maury Povitch or something. Without the moondancing when a potential baby-daddy is told, "You are NOT the father."

I digress.

Anyway, I'm excited for the experience of both jobs, even though it means I'm not getting much of a summer break. I might end up having to take a bartending or waitressing or retail job PT in order to make rent the second half of the summer, but it might not come to that. We'll see. For the next week I'll be cleaning my crap up and working on law review write on. And maybe (if I'm lucky) getting my tan on pool-side.

So, ask questions, let me know what you want me to write about, what you're interested in, or what you're worried about in your own law school journey. I'll try my hardest to respond and enlighten you as to the perils and pitfalls (and fun times, don't worry) of 1L.

Finals Recap

I know, I know.

All I can say in my defense is that the memo and finals were a lot more overwhelming than anyone not in law school can imagine, and that the last thing I wanted to do over my (very short) winter break was think about school.

Sorry, my bad.

But I'm back, and happy to answer questions about finals for 0Ls that are worried or curious. Seriously. I'll answer way more frequently than I'll post.

But this is a post, and as such, let's get on with it, shall we?

Basically, the memo wasn't too bad, if you didn't leave it until the last minute. I didn't, thankfully, but I did become DEATHLY ill the weekend before it was due. Really. I don't think I left my bed/bathroom for two or three days. People had to come over and walk Bingley for me because I literally couldn't make it down the stairs in my apartment building. So my illness left me in a little bit of a time crunch as far as editing goes. I normally edit as I write, which works well for me, so my editing process is usually quite a bit less intense than most people. But legal writing is a little bit different.

In undergrad, professors gave you a page target. You could wax on poetically, change your line spacing, the font size of your periods, etc. to make it to that dreaded 20th page, and then relax, right? Not so in law school. In fact, it's the exact opposite. We are given a page limit...and a very stringent one at that. I think our page limit was 7 pages? It's been so long I can't remember. All I do remember is that I wrote what I felt needed to be in, and didn't use any flowery language or sentence lengtheners, and I think my memo was 13 pages. I had a LOT of editing to do.

After I got my memo in about three hours before it was due, I went to our huge memo party (which was a LOT of fun), and then it was time for Thanksgiving break. Of course, it's not really smart to fly 4 hours home and 4 hours back for a weekend, especially when the weekend is the one before your finals starting. So I stayed in Dallas and went to a friend's for Thanksgiving. It was REALLY hard being away from my family, but I enjoyed my break and know that staying here was the smartest thing I could have done.

Over Thanksgiving break I did take it a little easy, but I planned out my attack for finals. Knowing that once our reading week started I probably wouldn't even be looking at the outlines for my later finals, I spent a good chunk of my break completely re-working my outline for my last final (Crim), and putting together a few charts for my open-note exam, most notably a comparison of pretty much every crim we studied under the CL and the MPC. That particular chart took almost a whole day and ended up being a beautiful, beautiful document.

Then I didn't touch Crim again until the day before the final.

Our final schedule went Torts, off, Civ Pro, off, Contracts, off, Property, off, and Crim. Torts was the most stressful, because it was the first exam. I don't like to rehash exams right after they end, but normally I can stay composed. After torts I went home, fed and walked my dog, tried to call my dad, and as soon as he got on the phone I started sobbing. Uncontrollably.

It was pretty awful.

But I moved on, got my shiz together, and made it back to the library an hour later to study for Civ Pro. Our civ pro exam was multiple choice, so that made it a little less pressure, but looking at it now it also means that the curve is just that much more tight. I didn't have another break down after Torts, except for when I yelled at the undergrad that was having a very LOUD conversation in the law library.

Ugh. SIDE NOTE: If you are an undergrad at a school that has a law library, don't go study there unless you really have to. And if you HAVE to go, don't let it be during finals. And at least have the good grace to look frazzled and stressed. And for God's sake, be quiet. You don't look cool, and you're making everyone in that library HATE you.

Seriously.

As far as studying goes, I pretty much studied on my own, either at my apartment or in the library. There's SO much stress during finals, and different people study in different ways, so you have to pick who you study with carefully -- it's not always going to be your closest friend that you want at that study carrel with you. There was a little bit of tension between my friends during the whole exam period, to be honest. I just had to keep reminding myself that it would be okay, that everyone is just different during finals. And I spent a lot of time in my house with just Bingley and Netflix. I really don't like drama, but it seems like you can't escape it. Especially during finals.

Everything's cool now. I know you were SUPER worried.

All right, so in total I felt okay about pretty much every exam. Not great about any, not terrible about any. We'll see how it went when our grades come out. I know for sure that I didn't fail anything, so that's a little bit of comfort, right?

I'll try to post again (very soon) about my break and coming back to Dallas for the second semester. But seriously, comment and ask questions. I'll get back to you, I promise.

An Addition to my Family

One thing that I forgot to mention in my update from yesterday was the fact that, as of two months ago, I have a addition to my household...

This is Bingley (in his Halloween costume)! He's a schnoodle, and he is a little under 5 months old now. While a lot of people thought that getting a dog might be a bad idea during my first semester of 1L, I just couldn't help myself. I was lonely and I reeeeeeally wanted one.

Plus I live RIGHT across the street from campus. If I didn't there is no way that I would have gotten a puppy. It wouldn't have been fair. But as it is, and as you can see from my last post, I am home A LOT, so I feel like Bingley gets plenty of love and attention.

And he's a great distraction and outlet for when the sheer amount of work that I have seems to be too much...he always cheers me right up! Right now we're working on getting 100% potty trained (he's at, like, 88% now), and basic obedience commands. He knows sit, down, off, roll over, paw (shake), and jump. But he's a puppy, so he gets distracted.

If you're in law school and considering getting a dog, please consider whether you live close enough to be able to go home and give your dog the interaction that he deserves. Most of my friends stay on campus ALL day, at least 7 hours, and that's just too long to be away from a puppy (or dog of any age, unless you have a backyard). But if you're a dog lover and can give (or make) the time for a furry friend, I recommend having a pet...they make life so much better!

So far, so good

Well, I've been in law school for two and a half months. So far everything's going well; don't get me wrong, it's a LOT of work...but I expected that.

For you future 1Ls reading, concerned about the work load, here's what my schedule looks like on a day-to-day basis (Tuesday through Thursday...my schedule is different on Mondays and Fridays):
     6:45 - wake up, shower
     7:45 - study for an hour while I eat breakfast
     8:45 - go to class
     9:00 - 11:45 - class
     11:45 - 12:30 - eat lunch
     12:30 - 2:00 - read for class
     2:00 - 3:20 - class
     4:00 - 6:00 - study (clean up notes, outline a bit)
     6:00 - 8:00 - cook and eat dinner, watch an episode of trashy tv
     8:00 - 9:00 (three or four days a week) - gym
     8:00/9:00 - 10:30 - read for class the next day
     10:30 - 11:30 - relax
     11:30 - bedtime!!

Monday I don't have class until 1:30, so I wake up at 8:30, start reading by 9:45, and take a break at 12:30 for lunch and relaxing before class. Then after class it's pretty much the same as the rest of the week. Fridays I'm done with class by 11, so I take two hours off after class to have lunch and hang out, then I spend three or four hours cleaning up my notes and reviewing from the previous week, and (now) outlining.

Saturdays I work for about 7 hours spread out throughout the day. Sunday I work for about three hours, unless I have a legal writing assignment due on Monday or Tuesday.

Sometimes I don't get as much work done as I'd like -- facebook calls, or I can't stop at just one episode of The Jersey Shore (my trashy tv show of choice). But the above schedule is what I really try to stick to. Some people work a heck of a lot more than I do, some people don't work at all, but I feel like my schedule is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as where my friends are.

Synopsis of SMU Orientation

Before I go through and describe my two days at orientation, I wanted to share this beautiful work of art, drawn by a fellow 1L, that I feel very accurately describes everything we learned at the first day of orientation.

We've got there a story that Dean Camp told about crossing the street to buy a kite (the ending depicted in the drawing was much more dramatic than the ending to the real story). There's a drawing describing the average cost of the books for your 1L. Also, she's included an interpretation of all law students hitting the wall, which, we learned, was inevitable in 1L.

Lastly, we have Dean Attanasio, the first (and absolutely most important) speaker, who mentioned -- no fewer than seven times -- the fact that SMU is comparable to, if not better than, Harvard.

That's right. Harvard. Just think about that (and then give SMU your money).

Growly Notes in Action

For those of you wondering, I am still liking the organization options offered by Growly Notes. It's easy to use and read, and so far I don't have any complaints.

(The one complaint that I had about the printing was fixed in the latest update).

If you were just DYING to find out how I'm organizing my notes (so far) this semester, here's a screenshot for you (click on it to enlarge it).

I have a one "book" for 1L, and a separate "section" for each class I'm taking. Within the section I have "pages" for the following: Class Notes, Case Briefs, Reading Notes, and miscellaneous notes about the instructor.

Let's see how this strategy plays out for me...

It's only the first (full) week...

Goodness gracious.

It's only the first full week, and already my planner is full. Literally, that's not an exaggeration. I've had to add post-its to two different days in my planner this week in order to have enough room to write down my different reading and assignments, plus my "notes to self" about classes and profs.

It's exhausting. But, as my friend is so fond of saying to me, "you knew what you were getting into before you got there."

She's right. I did. But in times like these, when the newness of the classroom setting and the stress seems to be getting to me, I only have to think of one thing to be able to get back on track.

I feel like everyone should have a little mantra to keep themselves grounded in times of stress. It doesn't have to be a Bible verse, or even a whole quote. Just something to calm you down and keep you focused. Maybe even put this quote/verse/mantra into an art piece or somewhere in your house or apartment or book bag to force yourself to remember it.

Okay, back to my reading/briefing/writing. I swear at some point this week I will find time to blog about my orientation.

Welcome to the Paper Chase...