pmbr: day 5

criminal law and procedure.

by far the sexiest of the subjects, criminal law is almost always fun. before today, i would not have qualified that with an 'almost.'

today was an especially hard one for me to get out of bed for. perhaps it was soreness from working out the night before, maybe the accumulation of the last few short nights of sleep, or it could have been because i had a hard time falling asleep last night. whatever the cause, the shrieking of my alarm clock was painful this morning. there are really two things that will leave me grumpy in the morning, anxiety about the day to come and a lack of sleep. every day of pmbr so far has made me anxious, scared to find out how much i don't know about every subject in turn. tack on a few sleepless nights in a row and i'm a real charmer before noon.

as has become my custom this week, i looked over the criminal law materials in the back of our pmbr workbook on the train ride to santa clara, a little last-minute reminder for the impending exam. today, it did me no good. it probably actually confused me more than anything. i rushed through the exam, i missed questions that our teacher practically wrote the answers on the board for while he was giving us some tips before the exam, in short, it was a disaster.

i'm too embarassed to print my score, but i feel compelled because i did it for the other subject areas. i think one problem i had is that the only criminal law and procedure questions i'd ever had before today were essay, these were multiple choice. well... i'm stalling. i got a 28... not as a raw score... as a percentage. i got 14 out of 50 right. i honestly think that was the first time in my life i've scored so low on a multiple choice test. but i did it in record time. i flew through it. and i think that was part of the problem. rather than having a regular friday night, i'm studying. or at least sitting in front of my computer thinking that i should be studying. the next 8 weeks are going to suck. i need to get used to that, or i'm never going to get to where i need to be.

the odd thing about today was that after the exam, and lunch, and a little time to think about some answers, i found myself singing along with the lecture. as if i knew all the concepts and ideas cold, i just didn't know how to apply them, or the details that the examiners were testing or something. it was a bizzarre feeling to feel so completely ignorant based on my score, and so prepared based on the familiarity, even knowing acknowledgement, with which the lecture hit my ear.

i feel like i should have more to say, but i'm exhausted... it's time to remedy some of the shortfall in sleep i've been suffering from lately.

pmbr: day 4

torts...

in contrast with my 1l experience with property, i was inexplicably bad at torts. i read more than i read for every other class (which isn't to say i read religiously, but you know, there were some highlights in my torts book at least), i poured over the outlines (of course our professor gave everyone the same outline to work from), i studied the supplements, i worked practice exams, i just couldn't make headway in that class. i honestly think i got hung up by my more literary tendencies. my need to proofread sentences to make sure they made sense, to spell check, not at the end, but after i put down a word i was unsure of, to internally debate the need for commas (when in doubt, i put a comma, in case you hadn't noticed). because i was thinking more about how i was writing, i don't think i was thinking enough about how much i was writing. talking with classmates after my final, i realized that my answers were, in total, 300-500 words shorter. torts was a racehorse exam and i spent too much time grooming a donkey.

flash forward to today. we had a new, considerably more fascist, instructor today. our instructor for the first three days had been lighthearted, corny, but well-intentioned. he spent what felt like too much time, at the time, joking about anything, from drugs, to law professors, to sex, anything to get a rise out of us. but he had a way of distilling his advice into essential nuggets that didn't go unnoticed. he gave us specific strategies that, at least now, seem very helpful.

our new guy just flies through the material (maybe it's just torts, maybe there's so much in torts that teaching it by sprinting through a distilled outline is the only way to get through it all, but i get the feeling the next two days are going to have a very similar feel). he doesn't pause for moments of levity, he barely pauses for bathroom breaks, he's a machine. the first three days, the reviews left me more confident, more excited, more curious than i was before the review, but today, the review just exhausted me. trying to keep up with this guy was like trying to be a stenographer at an auction. you had to listen intently, but not forget what your fingers were doing (typing what he said 2-5 minutes ago).

he had some good strategies, but when he moved away from outlining tort law and reviewing the questions we'd done in the morning, it felt more like a mental vacation than time to cue in to what was really important. here what is important is not the substance but the process of studying for and taking the bar exam. we'll get beaten about the head for the next two months with substance. this short workshop should be about test-studying and test-taking strategies so that we can get the most out of the rest of our time to study.

i was pleasantly surprised by my 48%. i had honestly anticipated something in the 25-35% range. torts still baffles me. not because it's so complicated (which it is), but because all the different causes of action are so similar, all the various tests use overlapping vocabularies, everything in torts is related to something else in torts and i get lost in the web most times, and pick out bits of vocabulary that have nothing to do with the proper cause of action.

the only real excitement of the afternoon, other than a lunch conversation about lost, in which i was completely... lost (that's one of those jokes you wish you could stop yourself from making, but it's just too easy to be resisted), was nearly getting hit by a pickup truck on my bike ride to the train station. it wasn't really that close, he just made a stupid maneuver to cut me off as we both approached a red light.

i thought briefly about throwing a water bottle at him in retaliation, but then realized that with the bottle tucked in my backpack (no bottle cages on my commuter bike), i would probably wind up throwing myself under his wheel before i managed to unholster my plastic projectile. i settled on a dirty look as i cut back around him while he waited at the red light, then another dirty look (which he avoided) as he repassed me once we got rolling again.

there's nothing like the fear of iminent death to make you simultaneously afraid of everything and afraid of nothing. while i was absolutely petrified by the thought of getting hit by that pickup, i somehow thought it was a good idea to display my anger at him through a brief staredown. as if the sight of me, atop my crappy 9-year old costco bike glaring at him like a hockey enforcer (which is a joke, i own a mirror, i know my 'tough face' is the rough equivalent of president bush trying to act literate) was going to quell his impulse to get to his destination, my safety be damned. no, he probably avoided my second glare out of courtesy, realizing it was just mean to laugh at me to my face when he knew full well that someone as boyish-looking as me would probably stand less of a chance hand-to-hand than pickup-to-bike.

pmbr: day 3

property!

for some reason, this subject was my mother's milk as a 1l. i received my best grade, i studied the least, i barely read the casebook or prepared for class, i screwed around online during lectures. my success didn't make sense. but for some reason, at the end of the second semester, i sat down, took the test, and did fine (all of our 1l classes were a full year except for criminal law, which gave way to a second-semester version of writing and research that made the first semester seem like a voluntary tour of the law library... which, i guess, it basically was). i did better than fine.

by second semester, i had changed gears from my initial 'i'm going to attack law school and be an academic bad-ass' to, 'fuck grades, i want to change the world and i'm going to spend my time learning about the world and its problems.' i still recognized that i needed to survive academically, but that was about all i was trying to do at that point. stay off of academic probation and focus on my time and interests outside of the classroom.

property just clicked. i can't explain it, i don't remember much of it, but future interests had a logic i could follow, for some reason all of the elemental tests for different causes of action fell into neat little acronyms in my head. it just worked. it wasn't effortless, but it's the closest i've come to effortless since bullshitting my way through an intro to philosophy final in college.

today, it wasn't quite so effortless, i felt really quite lost. the 50 multiple choice questions that had taken me an hour and fifteen to an hour and a half for evidence and con law took me just under two hours. rather than feeling my curiosity piqued at lunchtime (as i had the last couple of days, wondering what i'd remembered without realizing i'd remembered it, what the answer really was to that one question... things like that), i felt intellectually drained, it was just a low energy day after that test.

the review wasn't as painful as i'd feared. i actually scored relatively well (54%) for a subject i hadn't really thought about for two years. it was a long review. more than substantive law, it was filled with tips for how to avoid really long or difficult questions that weren't worth the time they required to muddle through. similar to con law, the universe of property law is relatively narrow. the reviewer highlighted trends in the areas that examiners have been testing on for the last few years to give us a portrait of where we can expect to see an emphasis in the coming exam.

i left the review feeling better than i'd gone in, but still disoriented and drained. standing around on the train station platform, after leaving a short, grumpy message on the answering machine of a woman whose attention i'm desparately seeking, i decided maybe it was a good time to lighten up a little. so i cranked up the ipod and dug out a novel i'm working my way throught that makes me laugh.

as i write this, i think i'm back on course and my sanity is trickling back in, but the one thing that does have me concerned about today is how much that test threw me off for the rest of the day. in two months, i'm going to have to sit for six three-hour tests in a row, two a day for three days. if one-half of one of those tests can throw me off right now, i need to work on my endurance and my focus, more than a little. i guess that's what this 6-day a week studying plan is all about, but still, it's a long road ahead. wish me luck.

pmbr: day 2

today was constitutional law. it was nothing too exciting, same general format: show up at 9, take 50-question multiple choice exam, grade it yourself at lunch, and then come back at noon for a three-hour lecture that consists mostly of going over the answers and a couple strategies for studying and test-taking.

the proctor/lecturer warned us that con law would be the easiest subject, though it might not necessarily be the easiest for us today. He said, depending on how fresh it was in our minds, we might score a little higher, or a little lower than evidence, but by the time we were done with today, and with our bar preparations, con law should be a subject in which we expect to gain ground, at least on the multiple choice portion of the test.

con law definitely was easier for me than evidence was. i think i mentioned that i scored a 38% on the evidence test yesterday. today, i hit 62% on con law. still short of the 65-70% to put me in the 'safe' range for the bar, but not bad for a first go. of course, one bit of preparation that i did today (which i didn't do for evidence) was skimming the chart outline they supply in the back of the pmbr materials. it served as a good brushup for con law concepts. i think without that little review, i would have missed at least 3 or 4 of the questions that i got right, so that's one more reason not to get too confident about my performance on the con law section. i was horribly confused on questions about presidential powers and equal protection. i blame the former on our current administration's own confusion about the limits of presidential powers and the latter on my inability to remember which classifications are suspect, quasi-suspect and not suspect at all.

today served as a little bump up in my esteem. one that hopefully will carry me through the rest of the week, as i doubt it will happen again.

pmbr: day 1

now that i'm done with the sappy post, down to the nuts and bolts of getting ready for the bar. today was the first day of pmbr. as a preliminary matter, i should lay out my studying plans, as i promised i would:

may 22-27: pmbr 6-day 'early-bird' course
may 30- july 11: bar/bri
mid-july: pmbr 3-day intensive seminar
late july: personal freak-out time
july 25-27: california state bar examination

i'm taking a pretty conventional approach, i signed up for both of the major bar study courses that are marketed to us on campus. it's nothing horribly exciting, but it will be an experience. i wonder if (read: i doubt that) i can keep my head above water enough to post here every day, but i'm going to try to, just to chronicle my experience. maybe, if someone reads this, i'll serve to highlight the places where i was counter-productive or misguided and help some poor soul in the future who thinks that this is a good idea to have a more successful experience.... of course there's always the chance that the poor soul in the future could be me, retaking the exam.

back to the first day of pmbr. i first had to get there. partly due to my environmental conscience, partly due to my desire to drop a few pounds, and partly due to skycorcketing gas prices, i've chosen to ride my bike and take a train to my bar preparation classes. since i haven't done this in over two and a half years, i didn't really remember how long it took to get going in the morning (i also forgot to factor in a little emergency bike maintenance to get my old beater mountain bike rolling). as a result, i sat at the train station for the better part of an hour, after i missed the 6:42 a.m. train. fortunately, i brought a book. unfortunately, i was only about 20 pages from the end and spent the bulk of my time on the platform contemplating my navel.

at any rate, i got to class on time, just not as early as i'd planned on, so i wasn't able to pick up the materials that they would have mailed me if i'd registered earlier. our day consisted of an untimed 50 multiple-choice question session in the morning (we were given two hours, assuming a one-hour lunch) and a three hour lecture in the afternoon, during which we reviewed our answers and the general issue areas and concepts of federal evidence rules.

we were told to grade our exams during our lunch break and not to be discouraged by our outcomes. our proctor assured us that evidence is likely one of the hardest subjects we'll ever face and doing it on the first day would make it that much harder. the proctor told us not to be discouraged if we only scored around 44-46%. the first ten questions, i got seven right. then it took me 30 more questions to get another seven right. i scored 38%. i tried to play it off, but it did knock the wind out of my sails a little.

the odd thing for me was the book's classification of the questions when compared with how well i did on them. i think nearly every question that the book referred to as 'tricky' or 'really difficult' i answered correctly. but, conversely, every question they identified as 'straightforward' or 'basic' i struggled with. of course, once we went over the answers i understood the problem i had. all i remember from evidence are a set of special exceptions and rare rules that i hoped would make the difference on the exam. i don't remember the basics. at all. i could remember the key words that made up the definition of hearsay, but not how to arrange them into something other than legalistic-sounding gobbeldy-gook. it was a rocky first day.

tomorrow: constitutional law

graduation day!

graduation picture
Originally uploaded by tobin dietrich.

it's officially over... well, except for transferring my grades back over from hastings when hastings finishes grading me. then it will be officially over. but i walked on saturday, it was a good time.

the only item of real note, aside from the usual graduation glee, was our keynote speaker. samantha power was a little long-winded, but a lot inspirational. her address was warm, funny, politically poignant, and spoke directly to my personal ethos in ways i haven't yet enunciated (though i heard a few members of the campus chapter of the federalist society express some dismay). she really reaffirmed my belief that i don't need to be a 'real' lawyer to make the most of my law degree. which isn't going to stop me from studying for and taking the bar, but it will stop me from putting too much emphasis on whether or not i pass. i'm not so sure i am going to want to practice traditionally.

congratulations to all my classmates! especially to those who took the process more seriously than i and stressed themselves and their relationships every step of the way. i imagine being able to put the law school experience behind you on saturday was that much more a relief and a joy.

i got stopped by some really unexpected people and congratulated on saturday. i'm not going to get into name-dropping and personal drama, but it really warmed my heart to be congratulated by a few of the people who unexpectedly went out of their way to say hi.

graduation day (counting high school and undergrad, this is my third) is always a day of profoundly mixed emotions. elation for the finality of the experience, melancholy for the memory of good times and good friends that may never be again, optimism and hope for the future that may yet be, and a healthy amount of pride for the accomplishment symbolized by the ceremony.

if i had to pick one emotion that dominated me throughout the day, i think this was my most melancholy graduation to date. it certainly had moments of all of them, but generally i felt that i'd miss these people, i'd miss this place, and i'd miss the intellectual freedom academic life provides. whatever i do next, i'm quite certain it won't be more school, at least not for a while and i think that realization saddened me a bit. not that this ceremony meant the end of learning, but more the end of curiosity unencumbered by practicality. not the end of expanding my intellectual capacity, but the end of exploring it for exploration's sake.

graduation: the prelude

today i participated in the public interest and social justice law celebration and graduation ceremony at my degree-conferring institution (have i slipped up and named it yet?). it was a short, pleasant ceremony that recognized the hard work and dedication of the portion of the student body that focused their coursework on more socially-minded, public service work.

i received two awards, the public interest and social justice law scholar certificate, for demonstrating an academic interest in public service and the pro bono recognition award, for volunteering some of my time this year to help our community. it was my third year receiving the pro bono plaque, and my third year attending the pisj graduation. i went because the ceremony, in my opinion, is a small, intimate gathering of students and professors who think a law degree should be more than a piece of paper that paves the way for membership into the bmw owners' circle. it's a place to come together with a lot of folks who belive that lawyers can be instruments of positive change in the world.

the ceremony was enjoyable enough, but i particularly enjoy the mingling afterwards. i got to meet the families of good friends of mine, get to know some of the faculty and administration a little better (especially the guy who works in career services with third-year students and recent grads).

the question i'm just starting to get sick of, already, is the inevitable "so what are you doing after graduation?" "nothing, yet." is my stock answer right now. it's such an unsatisfying answer. i have a lot of ideas, but no job. i have a lot of friends who would probably take my call and at least try and put me in front of someone who's hiring, but i'm still trying to figure out a plan, a path, something to get me to where i can have a real impact on policy in a relatively short period of time without being financially crippled by my loans.

i'm intentionally delaying all career plan-making until after i go through the bar experience. i'll post details soon on my preparation steps for the exam. first, i graduate.

getting closer...

capitol at night
Originally uploaded by tobin dietrich.

so, i've officially finished all of the work i need to in order to graduate. on monday night, i dropped off all of my written work from this last semester at the uc hastings legislation clinic. it was barely still monday when i dropped it off, but hey, barely is still monday.

on my way back down to my parents' house, i stopped off at the front steps of the capitol for one last shot of the capitol building. for someone who lived up there for four months, i'm amazed i never once took a picture of it at night. it's really quite majestic at night. whenever i was feeling overwhelmed by work, or just generally unmotivated, i would make a point of driving into sacramento via the tower bridge. i could drive down the capitol mall straight at the face of the capitol building and be inspired by its majesty. it worked every time, at least until my alarm clock reminded me that it was actually time to go back to work, not just be inspired to do so.

crossing the divide

law school, really, was not that hard. parts of it were difficult.

adjusting to the case method was, well, an adjustment. for those without a frame of reference, imagine going to a writing class and trying to learn how to write a great novel by reading reviews of novels. sure all the elements are in there, you just get no sense of where the elements came from, why they're important, or how you, as a writer, can incorporate them. the case method is similar. sure all the law is in those cases, but you never actually look at the statutes, discuss how or why they were enacted, or what you, as a lawyer need to do to prepare for litigation. no... that stuff you cover in the optional, practical courses that everyone in law academia seems to consider an afterthought, a footnote to learning how to 'think like a lawyer.' i'm so sick of thinking like a lawyer, i'd prefer a lobotomy to another day in this ridiculous charade.

the socratic method wasn't as scary as The Paper Chase made it out to be. no, most of my professors were pretty lenient with the occasional unprepared student. we quickly learned how to game the system and maximize our professors' pleasure with our competence while minimizing our actual competence. hooray for laptops in the classroom and commercial outlines. only the elite few actually need to do the work.

navigating the bureaucracy of a law school took a little doing. the school was small enough, that after a year or two of getting to know the administration, it was actually much easier than it was at my public undergraduate institution.

the arbitrary and uncontrollable nature of the tests, while difficult, is the one thing i'm grateful for in law school. the bar exam will be like that, the practice of law, i imagine will be like that. you simply have to be prepared for whatever set of facts walks in the door, and do your best to navigate the law to protect your client's interests. when caught unprepared, the faking skills we all acquired in law school should prove invaluable.

now is when i turn the corner. i finish my studies and move forward. i stop thinking like a lawyer, i stop acting like a lawyer, and i start being a lawyer.

there's only one small hitch. my last semester, the one i'm just finishing up, i spent in our state's capital of Sacramento. i participated in the UC Hastings Legislation Clinic. the clinic was enjoyable. rather than be trapped in a classroom, with all of my conventional gripes about law school for my last semester, i was able to go play a part in our state's policy discussion and receive academic credit. in order to receive the aforementioned credit, however, i need to write up around 55 pages of journals about my experiences. i have about 30 done and hari kari is really beginning to sound like a viable alternative to finishing.

this semester i paid around eleven thousand dollars in tuition to go work, for free, for a state legislator. while the experience was invaluable, it was also grueling. i spent many long nights in the office analyzing, drafting, and briefing, and i didn't mind, because it was much more interesting than traditional law school work. now, to get my units, complete my work and graduate, i need to finish these journals. they aren't substantively hard. i kept pretty good notes. it's just so much paper that i have to generate. some of it, for units i don't even need.

these journals are the only thing standing between me and freedom from the intellectually numbing, emotionally degrading, economically preposterous exercise, i now laughingly refer to as law 'school'. i can't wait to be done. i am so anxious, in fact, that i'm writing out quite possibly the longest blog entry i've ever written, rather than finishing up. how many pages do you think i could've cranked out in the time it took me to ink this? yeah. at least a couple. that's going to piss me off later, i know it.

the study materials have arrived!

barbri books on my bed
Originally uploaded by tobin dietrich.

okay, it happened a couple of days ago, but all of my bar/bri books got here. i'm at a little bit of a loss... it's just so much paper. am i actually supposed to digest all that information between now and the bar?

oh... i was supposed to have learned all this already and this is just supposed to be a review?!?!

crap.