Monday, September 28, 2009

Oh Yeah, I Go To Lawschool Too Sometimes

For my final semester of law school, I am taking:

Insurance law
Healthcare Law
Professional Responsibility
Trusts & Estates
Pre-Trial Advocacy (we handle a pretend case through complain, answer, deposition, witness and client interviews, and summary judgment motions)

Today I was amazed by a few things. First of all, for the first time of my law school life, I am not terrorized by my law school professors. For the first time EVER I thought, "Eh, so what if Prof calls on me for a case I have not read. i'll just say "pass" and move on with my life." Usually, I am thinking more along the lines of "Holy Sh*t! What if he calls on me? I'll just DIE and people will realize I'm not smart and then the law school will tell me they want me to drop out and no one will ever be my friend and the Prof will think I'm a slacker loser and I will have to join a circus in order to achieve gainful employment!"

Also, for the first time EVER, I was distracted and not paying attention to a class lecture (GET THIS) in order to read for the another class. For once, it wasn't Facebook or Google or Blogger or CreateFarts or DirtySounding.com that was to blame. In Professional Responsibility, I had my Trusts & Estates book cracked open on the desk and I was pouring wildly over the proper execution of a will while the class was discussing what to do when your client insists on giving false testimony. HULLO- if he was my client, I would either (a) kick him in the balls and tell him to stop being a twerp or (b) drop his ass and make him find another attorney to commit all kinds of ethical horrors for him. Class dismissed. What is there to discuss? (Am I going to fail that class?).

This is also kinda crazy, but I actually have enough real world litigation experience to actually understand the context of what I am learning in my classes. This is expecially trye for my insurance law class. I did insurance defense for two summers in a row and will continue to do this when I start my job in March. The professor asked a question today, the answer to which could not be found in our reading, and I ANSWERED the question! I knew the answer solely from my litigation experience! Yes, I have officially become the annoying person who knows everything from personal life experience.

3 comments:

Andrea said...

Yeah, PR is really easy to not take seriously. Don't sleep with your client, don't microwave your client's ex-wife's cat, blah blah. I passed the MPRE without studying. However, my grade in PR did suffer, because while I knew what violated the rules and what to do about it, I couldn't tell you what rules it actually violated. "You shouldn't do that, that's dumb, you'll get disbarred," apparently wasn't a thorough enough answer. Whatever. If you want an outline for insurance, let me know. It sadly was one of my best grades in law school.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the "noisy withdrawal." The lawyers euphenism for kicking your client in the balls and telling them to stop being a twerp.

Shelley said...

Insurance sounds like a fabulous class to take - I wish I'd had the opportunity to take it.

PR was one of my two worst grades in law school, because I seem to think that the standard of conduct is higher than it really is. I think, "Don't ever sleep with your client," not, "Don't ever sleep with your client, unless you were in a relationship before or your terminate the attorney client relationship then sleep with them."

I have yelled at clients for lying. It's actually quite therapeutic.