Fun Time is Over

"Fun time is over.  And I guess it's enough.  But just for the record, it was a little too rough."
-'Til Tuesday "Sleeping and Waking"

(NB:  'Til Tuesday's "Welcome Home" album?  Freakin' awesome.)

Okay, exam season is over. I can do things like spend a half hour watching a Beatles documentary with my son, now. Won't know grades for a few weeks, probably. As one prof pointed out, he's grading about 300 essays. It just takes a while to plow through all that.

I just can't say one way or another. For the most part, I got most of the stuff I should have onto the paper. Just not always in the way I should have.

For example: on one question, I categorized a death-bed gift as an intevivos gift (an unconditional gift given during life) and not as a gift in causa mortis (a gift given in anticipation of impending death, conditional upon actual death). The reason I categorized it this way was that the donative intent was simply that it be a gift.  When the donor then survived, he did not want the gift back (as you would if it were a gift in causa mortis).

The optimal answer would have included something like, "donative intent is demonstrated by the fact that, upon survival, the donor did not want the gift back."

Instead, I said something to the effect of, "the gift was given without conditon with the words 'this is yours'." Then, in the next paragraph discussing bailment, I said, "Because it is an intervivos gift, and not a gift in causa mortis, the donor does not want the chattel back,"

So, it's in there, but not in the most optimal way.  Is it wrong?  Yeah, maybe.  Is it right?  Yeah, maybe.  Is it something in between?  Yeah, probably. 

Another example? In my torts exam, there was an action for wrongful death. What I did, which wasn't really right, wasn't really wrong, was to first discuss the underlying torts. I discussed battery (it wasn't). Then discussed negligence (it was.) Then discussed actions for wrongful death and the fact that damages are nuanced a wrongful death action.

The optimal answer would have been to discuss wrongful death based on the underlying torts. So, it's all in there, just in the wrong order / format. Basically instead of:  "Discuss Battery.  Discuss Negligence.  Discuss Wrongful Death", it should have been:  "Discuss wrongful death and the underlying tort."

This seems like a distinction without a difference, but this is one of those gigantic differences between b-school and law school.  B-school is all about decision making tools and it is driven by the "it".  Find "it".  Everything is driven by "it".  You don't have to find a perfect answer.  You need to find a justifiable business answer that you can move your organization towards.  If you make money?  You got the right answer.  Here's your bigass bonus.  Do it again next year.

Law?  Law is war with words.  The 90% right answer loses to the 91% right answer.  So, attorneys almost never arrive at "it".  They arrive at a 95% right solution, then obsess about the possibility that their opponent might find a 96% right solution.  Nothing is ever right or wrong.  It's always a shade of maybe.  You just pray that your maybe is better than the other guy's maybe.  (This, of course, refers to cases that go to trial.  Most of the time, the law provides a pretty definite answer, and the matter never reaches trial.  In law school, though, everything we study is based on decisions at trial.)

In another case, on a 30 minute bar style essay, I forgot to mention consideration in a contract. The prof had hammered that point nearly every day since the class began. It wasn't that I forgot it, per se. It's that time ran out and I didn't have enough time to go back and check if I was missing anything. That'll be a gigantic point deduction, I'm sure. I did discuss a lot more issues than most people probably did, but missed one of the biggest ones.

It's just hard to compose a great answer in 30 minutes or 60 minutes, or sometimes even in 90 minutes.  Figure a 650 word bar-style essay in 30 minutes?  If you could do that and still truly produce high quality work, you could write 30 novels in a year.  It's just hard to get all that in there, that quickly. 

So, at this point, all I can say is, I haven't got a freakin' clue how I did.  I feel good enough about my exams that I'll be stunned if I have to repeat any classes, but beyond that, no guesses, really.  If you told me I got a C, I wouldn't be shocked.  If you told me I got an A, I might be overjoyed, but not shocked. 

My worst grade will come in Legal Research and Writing, I'm sure.  I can get my memo back, with a point tally, today.  Since I'm going back to sell back my books, I'll go ahead and get it.  That won't tell me my grade, per se.  On Monday, though, the grades for LRW should be posted.

Beyond that, most of the profs have indicated that we should be looking for our grades closer to the January 7th, than sooner. 

Funny how expectations have dropped.  I started off hoping for a top class rank and transfer to U of M.  Then, devolved to hoping for maybe a top 10% class rank.  Then, hoping for a 3.3 so I can keep my scholarship.  Then, hoping for mostly Bs.  Then, just praying I do well enough that I don't have to repeat any classes.

I would like to get a law degree, but won't be doing this if I have to repeat classes.  It's just not that important to me. 

There are, absolutely, some brilliant people in this class, though.  Much smarter than anything I remember.  It is somewhat taking me back to my days at the Weatherhead School at CWRU.  I'd go in there thinking I was smart and was going to work my balls off, and would end up getting a B in Quantitative Methods, behind a gaggle of engineers.  I think it's going to be largely the same experience, here. 

I do worry that perhaps I'm just not as sharp as I once was.  Motorcycle accidents, age, whatever.  I'm probably not working with as much mental horsepower as I once was.  Who knows.

I just don't know what I could have done, with one exception, to do better.  I knew the law pretty well.  My performance wasn't really due to lack of preparation.  Perhaps a really good study group would have helped.  Who knows.  There are just some realities about my situation, with family and all, that make it tough for me to do that sort of thing. 

Anyway, last law post until the grades start coming in.