Myself and countless other law students will take the MPRE this week. I should probably be more worried about it, but I think my 3L apathy may be kicking in a little early. I’m still in summer mode — anxiety and stress belong to the other seasons. I took a legal profession class last semester that was basically a review of the model rules, with a midterm and final consisting solely of old MPRE questions. Those feeble defenses for my lethargy aside, probably the most substantial factor in my readiness to take the test is putting an end to the countless jokes from my father and others about lawyers and ethics (“Lawyers and ethics — those are two words that don’t belong in the same sentence!” “How can you take a test on ethics? Everyone knows lawyers don’t have any!”). Simply put, I want the damn ethics test – and the jokes – behind me.
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There is a double standard in appropriate court room attire for male and female attorneys. Men wear suit jackets and ties to court every time. I’ve seen 6’3” men borrow the suit jackets of their 5’9” coworkers to go to court when they’ve misplaced their own, men ridiculed or reprimanded for choosing a bowtie over the traditional, and male attorneys who won’t even enter the courtroom if they feel less than professionally dressed. On the other hand, I’ve seen women in dresses I’d wear to the beach, bedazzled jean jackets, make up I’d only wear on Halloween, and shoes only a “dancer” should wear to work. So, I’m going to discuss and occasionally proffer advice on what I see as problematic in women’s court attire, from head to toe.
Makeup: There’s a place for bar or club makeup. And it’s at the bar or in the club, not the courtroom. There’s a place to test out new makeup techniques. It’s your bathroom, not the courtroom. If you’re using glitter or smoky eye or really any color found in a rainbow on your eyelids as part of your professional court appearance, you’re doing it wrong. I’m going to skip blushes and lipsticks and just say this: even clowns don’t want to look like clowns. As usual, a little goes a long way. Don’t overdo it.
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I don’t play games with law students.
And I mean any kind of game. I don’t play board games, Catchphrase, intramurals, pickup games, drinking games – nothing – with law students.
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“What are you going to do when you graduate?”
“What type of law do you want to practice?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Where do you want to live?”
“What next?”
I dread these questions and their innumerable variations. Why? Because I don’t have the answers. Frankly, I hardly have any ideas. I simply don’t know.
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By this point in the summer, most law students have received or are receiving their grades for the spring semester. There are a few different styles when it comes to getting grades back: the wait and see, the compulsive checker, the notification receiver. Waiting to see when everyone else starts facebooking or tweeting or texting about grades, obsessively revisiting the grading website, or getting notices from professors or administrative staff or other students that class grades have been posted.
Whatever the semester, and whatever your style, most law students have received each of the following grades.
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I started my summer job recently and, prior to my first day, had a head full of typical first day anxiety questions. Will they be nice to me? Will I know how to do what they ask me to do? How often do they have snack day? Does this suit send the right message? Will anyone even notice me? Is this the kind of place that uses 1 ply toilet paper to cut costs? Do they use Lexis or Westlaw? (Because I’m only proficient in one, contrary to what my résumé implies.) And the one that plagued me most: do they really know who they hired?
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May is such a mixed bag for law students. First finals, packing, then graduation, then summer, all in a span of about 3 weeks. It’s a whirlwind of activity and emotion, and getting enough sleep is almost never an option. You’re studying for finals and taking breaks for anything, accepting all distractions. Probably packing for the summer when you feel like it—any non-study activity is allowed if it can be written off as productive in any way.
Law students are hearing 3Ls talk about graduation and the bar exam and getting a job while 1Ls and 2Ls talk about trying to get summer jobs, maybe taking summer classes. Then, faster than you leave the law school on a Friday afternoon, you’re right in the middle of a final. Finals always seem to sneak up on people, even though the whole semester is a steady march toward them. Then, as quickly as they snuck up, it’s suddenly all over, and you’re walking out of the exam room of your last final. The sweet relief of summer beckons—unless you’re taking summer classes.
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It’s that time again. Finals time. There are a variety of signs finals are approaching, including study groups.
Study groups are not for everyone and they aren’t for every class. But at least once in law school, almost everyone finds themselves attending some form of a voluntary group study session. While some study groups seem open to new people showing up and others seem to require sponsorship by a current member and proof of your projected contribution, most study groups are made up of more or less the same personalities. Note: these personalities are not mutually exclusive.
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Law school is a weird place full of weird people. In a lot of ways it seems to exist in a three-year overpriced vacuum. What happens there stays there (sometimes). And you can be certain everyone knows about it. It’s like being famous in a small town.
Some people are helpers. They’ll lend you the study guide they aren’t using, send you notes if you miss class, and in general if you ask for some form of assistance, they’ll do what they can to provide it. They understand that “consideration” has a meaning outside of contract law and that sometimes someone has to take one for the team “for the greater good.”
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Law School Open House Season is drawing to a close. Prospective students have just about two weeks to shell out a few hundred dollars to reserve their seat in the 2015 class, or save themselves three years and tens of thousands of dollars by skipping the whole law school thing and applying now for a retail/food service job.
Two years ago, at about this time, I came to my law school for an open house. The itinerary read something like this:*
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