Moot Court Appellate Brief

If you notice the time of these first posts, you'll see that I don't usually make it to bed very early. That is indeed the case. It seems like all year long bed time has been about 2am, that could be because it's midnight in Mountain time and that's what I'm used too or it could just be that I'm in NYC and you everything goes later. I think it's pretty cool how that works out. Everything is later here. The news comes on at 11pm instead of 10pm like at home. As far as I can tell, it's totally appropriate to call people all the way up until at least 11pm and maybe even midnight. It makes for fun nights when you go to something that is over by 9:30 or 10 and then still go out because, in all seriousness, the night is still young.

I've spent the last few nights attempting to work on my appellate brief rough draft for moot court that all 1L Legal writing students have to do. You have to work with a partner to produce an amazing paper. They give you a packet of information and pretty much say, go and do it. We got a little instruction, but most of it is figuring out what you think you should do. It's not very much like what a real life appellate scenario would be like because in real life the prosecution would get the defense brief before they submit theirs. Here, we have to turn them in at the same time, so we (as prosecution) don't know specifically what the defense will argue. I guess it's all part of the process of being able to magically accomplish super human tasks, but I'm just not there yet. This paper takes a lot of time and focus away from other classes. All of our professors can't wait for us to turn it in so that we start reading for class again. They feel like we are all zombies and no one is participating because we are wore out and our thoughts are elsewhere. That's so true. We've had one professor actually start taking roll because people haven't been showing up- of course that could have more to do with the professor than the brief, but who's to say?

My attention span seems to get shorter and shorter. I am able to work for about 5 minutes at a time and then I spend about 30 minutes doing something else like playing guitar or surfing the net or anything else I can possibly think of to keep from working on the paper. It's so tedious. I guess I don't do tedious very well. It's funny though, because I caught an error in our info packet and it could possibly change the case (more likely not because it's just a typo). That's always a good thing to be able to remind yourself that you have some skills applicable to the trade.

The most important thing about law school is to figure out how to balance everything: your priorities, your work, your social life, your health, etc. If you can figure that out, you'll be a huge success. Don't let it be a deterrent to you, but also don't sit there reading this saying, "Oh, I can handle it." You'd be surprised. Maybe you can handle it, but it definitely won't be as easy as you expect. Sure, there will be moments where it seems easy, but there will also be moments where the pressure is exerting all it can on your poor, overworked little brain. Just hang in there and keep going. Think of it as a rite of passage.

Ta-da.

Here I am. Finally making my entrance into the blog scene. Yes, I'm a bit late I know, but better late than never.

I intend for this to be a place to do a little blogging about law school. Yes, this another law school blog, but not just any law school.... this is going to start out about being a 1L at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Cardozo is the law school portion of Yeshiva University in New York City.

Obviously (as you learn in law school you should never use that word), this is my first year of law school. It is also the first time that I have lived in New York City. I'm from the West and this is a whole different world for me. Everything seems like something right out of the movies, or at least off of a tv show.

Well, that's good enough to get us started. I've been in school for almost six months now and have got a little bit of perspective on this whole thing. If anyone reading this has any questions about what it's like going to Cardozo, feel free to ask.