Friday, August 26, 2011

Law School First Week Verdict: Big Ass Bag of Awesome

Okay, the first week is done and I have to say, Law School is awesome.

I know that part of this is that bizarre enthusiasm that old people bring when they come back to school at an age where they really shouldn't.  I feel like I really got an extra shot at something and I'm really glad for the opportunity.  I don't have to do this.  I have an education and a way to earn a living already.

The thing I like about this is that the subject is fascinating.  It is a bit astonishing that something that impacts our day-to-day life in so many ways is something I'm so utterly ignorant of.  So, the education, even if I never practice law, is worth it.

Every day, I have an "ah-ha!" moment, where something clicks and I understand something that I truly, truly had no idea of, before. 

I heard somebody say that law school should be fun, and based on my previous education (largely computer and business-related), I thought, "yeah, whatever, Sparky.  Education is to be endured, not enjoyed."

Now, that wasn't always true.  Some subjects, I really enjoyed.  I almost always liked my Marketing classes, for instance.  Marketing, like law, is an attempt to apply a science to the realities of everyday human existence.

Anyway, back to the reasons for law school awesomeness.  One of them is that, although the class is probably 65% male, of the women who are here, it seems like fully half of them are supermodel thin.  And the other half are almost all attractive. 

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a pathetic old man.  Deal with it.  Obviously, if this were really my main concern, I'd be clawing people's eyes out to get into the college of nursing.  Probably better job and earnings prospects there, too.

The neatest thing about all this is the energy of a university.  I really like the University of Toledo.  I know the name "Toledo" doesn't exactly conjur up images of a great place to spend your youth, but after having been on this campus, I'd recommend it to anybody.  The campus is beautiful.  Toledo is a nice-sized town:  big enough you can get anything you want.  Not so big that we have big city problems.  (For instance, if there are gangs here, I've never seen any evidence of them.  Also, rush-hour traffic, here, is virtually non-existant.  My brother moved her a few years ago, and that was one of the first things he noticed.  "There's no traffic here.")

It has revived my interest in perhaps doing something that would lead to a professorship somewhere, at some time.  Who knows when or where.  I'm not that sanguine about getting a degree in the Ph.D. program here in Manufacturing Technology.  So, where and when I get a Ph.D. is largely up in the air.  The clock is ticking and perhaps this is something I just won't be able to do.

Also, I'm glad I made the choice of University of Toledo Law.  I obviously haven't studied law anywhere else, but the profs here are awesome.  They're really making the material interesting.  The students are friendly.  Overall, I think this is a great environment.

I've heard people say that some majors are better than others for going into Law School.  Various people say their major taught them critical reasoning skills, superior language skills, whatever.  I'm going to throw my hat in the ring on this one.  I'll say that Information Systems is at least as good an academic discipline as any other and perhaps a lot better than most.

I remember once talking to a law student about "code".  Of course, I was talking about computer code.  She was puzzled and we talked past each other for a few minutes until she realized that she was thinking about the legal code.  The reality is that computer code and the legal code are very, very, very similar.

If this, then that.  If this and this and this, then that.  Computer code and legal code are a set of formalized rules.  You apply them to a situation and that's how you get your result.  If you don't like the result, you need to apply different code.

I have heard others say that the best preparation for law school is the hard sciences, like physics, chemistry, etc.  I think that may be true.  However, part of it is that you have to be extremely smart just to pass in subjects like that with a minimum grade. 

The other part, though, is that the thinking is very structured.  You're learning rules, rules, rules and then applying them to the real world to see what happens.

At this point, I'm getting very interested in both Securities law and Intellectual Property Law.  I wish my undergrad education were sufficient for me to qualify for the Patent Bar.  It doesn't.  However, because I already have 8 hours of Chemistry, I could qualify if I took 24 hours of various science classes.  (Subjects like Biology and Botany qualify, yet information technology classes don't.  Go figure.)

I guess the bright side is that I could take all those classes at a community college.  The downside is that this would represent one year of full-time study or probably two years of part-time study.  At this point, I'm not looking for ways to prolong my education.

I figured the more I got into this, the more I'd be aware of what various options are in the law, and it would change my goals.  I think that's really true.

In the mean time, I'm current on all my reading and assignments, but there's going to be some work involved this weekend.  I will try to stay current during the week, but with the biz, helping coach my son's football team, etc., the weeks are pretty full.  I also need to get my sleep schedule more regularized.  I stayed up way too late a couple nights this week. 

Workouts continue to be something I need to squeeze in here and there.  I hope to hit it at least 4 days a week.  So far, I'm on a good trajectory fitness and weight-wise.  Need to keep that going.

So, with one week down, I'm one week closer to final exams.  I feel pretty good so far.  I'm not learning huge chunks of information.  My pre-law studies have generally given me the bulk of the material.  I'm spending most lectures learning what the prof wants to see and how things are structured in the prof's mind. 

Also, the best advice I ever got was not to spend too much time briefing the cases.  2L and 3L students seldom seem to create a formal brief for each case.  I've been book-briefing, and it's been more than enough.  I have even heard people say to skim, not read each case.  I've been actually reading them and generally I retain enough that I can participate in class.

I also need to ratchet down my participation in class.  I knew this was going to be a problem, but I'm gonna start looking like a gunner if I don't tone things down.  It's just the nature of my personality, and probably just a sign of general insecurity that I will sometimes try to show everybody that I know a lot about X, Y or Z.  I am trying only to contribute when nobody else is raising their hand, or the point I'm asking about isn't an obvious one.

So far, so great.  I'm treating this as a one-semester adventure at this point.  The rest of the roadmap won't be clear until I have my Fall 1L grades.  So, everything at this point is focused on Fall exams.

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