Law school students live and die with highlighters. Highlighting is an art with many different methods. The are two predominant methods, the one color method and the mutlicolor method. The one color method involves highlighting with one color (usually yellow) and making notes in the margins to remind you why you highlighted the particular part. The multicolor method uses five colors and is my method of choice. Each color is significant. My color scheme is as follows:
Yellow - Procedural Issues
Green - Facts of the case
Pink - Plaintiff's arguments
Blue - Defendant's arguments
Orange - The voice of th court
The point of this little blurb about highlighting is that opinions contain mostly the voice of the court and I've already gone through two orange highlighters.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
More time....
I thought I'd have more time for fishing, or writing on my blog, or eating or sleeping. Law school had other plans. School started at a pretty fast pace. I've also been doing some "real" lawyer work for an attorney here in town. It feels great when I ask people where they're headed and they shrug, "Library, you?" and I get to say, "To the court house to file a complaint."
On Friday my worst nightmare came true. Well sort of. We have to go back to Wed. to understand what happened. So we're in con law (constitutional law) and we're pressing through the material. Class ends without us getting through all the material. So I'm preparing for Fridays class on Thursday and it's probably one of the best opinions I've ever read (McCulluch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion). I read it and reread it. Get to class on Friday and professor Airens says "Mr. Perez," I raise my hand because I'm prepared, ready to jump in the ring with the bull right? "What's the court's holding in Baker v. Carr?" Split second of silence and the whole class together begins to frantically flip the pages in our book. Airens was asking about a case from Wednesday's class that we hadn't gotten to. I had read the opinion but only once. I didn't have a brief ready. He crushed me, question after question, silence upon silence. No cocounsel (cocounsel is when a professor calls on the person next to you if you can't get the answer), no help. I was alone. I made it through about 40 minutes of questions but it was brutal. Everyone congratulated me after class for getting through it. Thanked me for being the sacrificial lamb. You see, no one had prepared for Baker v. Carr, like me they had just gone on with the reading. I was pretty much humiliated.
On Friday my worst nightmare came true. Well sort of. We have to go back to Wed. to understand what happened. So we're in con law (constitutional law) and we're pressing through the material. Class ends without us getting through all the material. So I'm preparing for Fridays class on Thursday and it's probably one of the best opinions I've ever read (McCulluch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion). I read it and reread it. Get to class on Friday and professor Airens says "Mr. Perez," I raise my hand because I'm prepared, ready to jump in the ring with the bull right? "What's the court's holding in Baker v. Carr?" Split second of silence and the whole class together begins to frantically flip the pages in our book. Airens was asking about a case from Wednesday's class that we hadn't gotten to. I had read the opinion but only once. I didn't have a brief ready. He crushed me, question after question, silence upon silence. No cocounsel (cocounsel is when a professor calls on the person next to you if you can't get the answer), no help. I was alone. I made it through about 40 minutes of questions but it was brutal. Everyone congratulated me after class for getting through it. Thanked me for being the sacrificial lamb. You see, no one had prepared for Baker v. Carr, like me they had just gone on with the reading. I was pretty much humiliated.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Back from the break...
Well, I'm back in San Antonio, back to work, back to school. The break was great, just what I needed. I got some much needed rest, spent a lot of time with my family and good deal of time fishing (my new pastime). Grades are in. Well, not all of them but most. One grade, Civ Pro, is still out. I'm not posting my grades here because some of my friends from school read my blog and if they want to know my grades, they can ante up and ask me. If you'd like to know how I did, just send an email and I get back to you as soon as I can.
The line up this semester includes Property, Contracts and Torts from last semester and two new courses, Criminal Law (I'm paying attention Jonathan), and Constitutional Law. Reamey, pronounced RAY-ME, is an older man with short clean cut hair and big ears. Very Ross Perot. He dresses sharp and so far has displayed some quick humor. Con Law is taught by Dean Airens, he's supposed to be just as hard as Teeter but meaner. Ha! Didn't know that was possible. Actually, Teeter's my favorite. I'll be in that class at 12:30 so we'll see. I'll be updating more this semester. I think I have a much better feel as to how to manage my time so hopefully I'll be more productive and have time to fish once or twice.
The line up this semester includes Property, Contracts and Torts from last semester and two new courses, Criminal Law (I'm paying attention Jonathan), and Constitutional Law. Reamey, pronounced RAY-ME, is an older man with short clean cut hair and big ears. Very Ross Perot. He dresses sharp and so far has displayed some quick humor. Con Law is taught by Dean Airens, he's supposed to be just as hard as Teeter but meaner. Ha! Didn't know that was possible. Actually, Teeter's my favorite. I'll be in that class at 12:30 so we'll see. I'll be updating more this semester. I think I have a much better feel as to how to manage my time so hopefully I'll be more productive and have time to fish once or twice.
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