Sample Law School Essay . . .

Facts
OK, where do we start? Student A is having an exam in property. To prepare for the exam he turns to another law student. A 2L. Student says to 2L, "Hey, I've got this exam in property, you had Mather (the professor), do you have anything that might help?" In turn, that person had 16 sample multiple choice problems. Apparently, this 2L had gone to see Mather to look over the exam from last year. That's perfectly "legal." The student then hand copied the questions verbatim. This is not "legal."

The student (not the 2L) realizing she had a great study tool gave them to one friend, that friend gave them to another friend and so on and so forth till a number of students (not sure how many) had a copy of the exam. Long story short, these students has an unfair advantage during the exam even though they themselves had not done anything wrong.

One student who had gotten a hold of this exam went to Mather after the property exam and told her that she/he had studied from a sample exam with the same questions which were on the actual exam.

Taking a Test
Here at school, the way we're taught to attack legal problems is with a method commonly known as IRAC. Issue, rule, analysis, conclusion.

Issue
Students attain a copy of exam we are about to take. They attain it in a way that may or may not have been a violation of the honor code.

Rule (This part is not so simple. Very analogous to the law).
Generally, when a student is taking an exam, they may use whatever resources may be available which many times includes 2L's and 3L's.

If a student realizes when they are taking the exam that the study aid they have attained from another student may have been acquired in a way in violation of the honor code, they should tell their professor.

A student, upon realizing that the exam he or she is taking is the EXACT same test they acquired from a 2L, the student should tell their professor.

Exam is not graded and thrown out.

Analysis
The 2L should not have copied the questions from her previous exam. If the 1L student who attained those questions from the 2L knew they were taken from a previous exam which was unreleased to the class as a whole, that student should have turned them down or immediately spoken to Mather. If the student did not know, they were free to circulate the sample exam as they wished. Any student who received the exam under some sort of suspicion also should have spoken to Mather.

Once a student who had used the sample questions to study realized the answers were the same, they should have immediately gone to Mather (who was proctering the exam) to let her know that the questions on the exam had all ready been circulated among students. No student approached professor Mather during the exam. Someone did however approach her after the exam. I really applaud this person.

Professor Mather, once realizing that the test had been compromised, has several options each of which is not completely fair. First, she may decide to score the exam. This is unfair to the students who didn't have the sample questions in two ways. One group had the answer to the multiple choice portion of the exam and that group in essence had a longer amount of time to work on the essay. This option is probably not best.

Professor Mather may score the exam for those who did not have the sample questions. She may then give those who did have the exam another exam. This is unfair and not wise on a number of levels. First, there is no way to completely know who did and did not have the exam. This would lead to some students who may have had the exam "fly under the radar"so to speak and score very well on the test. Second, the second exam may not be as "fair" as the first exam and subject those who studied with the sample questions, who in reality did not do anything wrong, to be graded on a different scale then those who did not have the exam. This is not the best option.

Professor Mather may choose to not score the exam. This option is unfair to everyone in the class and is what should in fact be done. The students who did not have the sample questions basically wasted their time. Those students denied themselves of sleep and ignored their other classes for nothing. The students who used the sample question studied just as hard, denied themselves of sleep and didn't study for other classes and are also denied their hard work because they had sample questions which they didn't know they weren't allowed to have.

Conclusion
Professor Mather did in fact throw out the test. This isn't a hypothetical. It's what happened over the last three days. In reality, it's Professor Mather's fault for being too lazy to write a new exam but there are good arguments for recycling exam questions.

Have you heard of Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? This was lose/lose.

I think I'll be an attorney . . .

I did fairly well on my grades last semester and was invited to join an honors fraternity here at school called Phi Delta Phi. Our induction ceremony was last night. For those of you that know me personally, you'd imagine I had seen the inside of a court room from my traffic tickets. I've seen a traffic court but I had never been in a "court room." You know, the kind you see on TV with the huge bench for the judge and a witness chair to the side, a jury box and tables where counsel sit. Last night our induction ceremony was in the Federal Bankrupcy Court for the Western District. The courtroom was beautiful and the ceremony was great. The spoke to us about the need for honest ethical lawyers. That our profession was one whose foundation is on truth and justice and the only what that the goals of our legal system are fulfilled is when lawyers are also grounded on those foundations. I felt honored and privileged to be taking my first steps towards joining this profession.

Back in class...

We're back in class today. A good example of how hard it is to think when you're being called on.

Professor: What year was the case decided?

Student: Um . .

Professor: That's ok, I can tell you, 1905. And what year is it?

Student: Um . . .

Professor: This year Miss _____________ (To protect student's identity).

Student: Oh, 2006

Professor: And how many years between the case and the present

Student: Um . . .

Professor: Six minus five is one, zero minus zero is zero, nine minus zero, wait, cross out the two make it a one, carry the one, nine minus ten is one . . .

Student: Um, 106 years?

Professor: No, 101.


Being called on is the worst feeling ever. Your mind just shuts down.

No Sleep

Coming off of another 20 hour day, I decided to one up myself and last night I just didn't go to sleep. Here's the kicker, I worked from the moment I got home 12:00AM to the moment I left 6:50AM. I only stopped to go to the bathroom and shower. I was working on an appellate brief for the Supreme Court. We like to play pretend here at school. The brief was not only difficult to write, the format was awful. On top of that, going through all the cites and signals took forever and on the 4th read through, I was still finding citation errors. Any time you use precedent from another court opinion, you have to cite it. This tells the reader where to go if they would like to know where you got the information from. This takes forever and is an extremely tedious process.

Overall, I enjoyed the assignment, but after 3 weeks straight of 80-90 hour weeks, I was ready to just be through with it.

Introductions Please

Some of you don't know my daughter so I thought you might like to meet her. Say hello to Kaitlyn.

The best day in a long time . . .

Yesterday was the best day I've had in a long time. I had the opportunity to hook up with some old friends from undergrad (if you can call LABI undergrad) and talk about old times. We laughed and ate, and remembered our friends from school. It really was a great time. God just hears prayers. He's never early, never late, but he hears us and responds when we need him too. They were a breath of fresh air.

Now it's back to school, back to work. Two more days till my break. I can't wait. Yesterday was a twenty hour day. A TWENTY HOUR DAY. I'm a little tired today but I'll rest when the weekend gets here.

Midterms, A Brief and a Chapter 11

Sorry everybody, I wish I could post more. I had another midterm this past Friday. It was very difficult. I feel like I did ok but you never really know. On top of that, I've been working on an appellate brief for my writing class. It's due this Friday and because of the exams, I'm pretty far behind. On top of that, I've been working on this chapter 11 for my boss. Not working on it yet but working through an old Disclosure Statement and Plan of Reorganization. It's been a very busy. Last week I probably put in 90 hours here at school. I'm glad spring break is coming up next week because I need a break.