I hope someone built an Ark...

...because we've been getting rain in biblical proportions! I don't have exact figures for you, but we have had rain for 8 days in a row now, and somewhere around 10 inches of rain since Wednesday. The weatherman emphasized that it is "inches of rain" and not "inches of snow"--had it been snow, we'd be under something like 72 inches of snow (probably more than that now).

I spoke with a 1L today and it got me reminiscing about the good ol' days, or rather just about this time last year. They have their Elements of Law final on Monday. It's sort of a joke. He convinced there was some good that comes out of it--that they get to see what it is like to take an exam. Good point. Other than that though, it is a joke. Perhaps it is just the clouds of old age obscuring my memory, but I can't recall much of anything I learned in that class. I'm sure there must have been some skill or technique I picked up in it, but danged if I remember.

I do remember what it was like preparing to take the first exam. It was crazy. All those ultra competitive people freaking out about a measly two credit class, and the best part was that we had been told the professors likes to give B's and since she grades on a curve, the best way for her to do that was to give very few A's and very few C's; the result being that 80% of the class falls into the B grade range. I didn't freak out, in fact, I probably would have been better off to be a little more concerned. I was, quite possibly, the most calm person in my section that day. Guess what grade I got--a B. If that offends you, then you know not to take any of my advice. Advice which I share willingly and freely, and you have to remember that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

I passed on some other gems of advice to this 1L that I will now post here for posterity:

• Commercial outlines are okay. Don't be all macho and say I can do it myself. Sure you can do it yourself, but why waste all that time and energy when someone has already done it for you.
• Get into a study group. Some people may not think this applies to them. Well, good for them; if they can get a good grade alone, they should. I am of the opinion that there isn't anyone who couldn't benefit from a little group study. Get a small group of 3-6 people and go to it. Guaranteed that someone else will catch something that you didn't and maybe you'll even get into an argument about what the answer to a problem should be, but hey, at least you'll know the material.
• Use old exams. There is no better resource for studying for an exam than to practice with old exams from that professor. You don't have to replicate the whole test taking experience like you did on the LSAT, but go through it and see what you'll be encountering.
• Hit up the 2Ls and 3Ls and see if they have any outlines or tips about the class you're taking.
• It's great that you can use your computer on the exam, but find out what your professor likes. If they've been at the school for a really long time, are very set in their ways, have a collection of pens, and tell you how much they dislike typing as opposed to writing; you may want to consider hand writing your exam. Remember: every point counts (even brownie points)!
• Bring the appropriate food/drink to the exam. You'll be there for four hours. Chances are that it has been a long time since you've sat anywhere in one place for four hours and mentally worked yourself like you are about to. The appropriate snacks could give you that edge you need to be successful. Think about what you drink though. You don't want to have to make a potty break 20 minutes before time is up and you still have one question to go...
• Get to the room early to stake your claim. There's nothing worse that having to sit right next to the door where everyone is signing in and out to go to the bathroom. If you're easily distracted, this will drive you nuts. I prefer to sit near the wall up front (if the doors are in the back) so that my field of vision is limited to the wall and chalkboard. The less I have to see other people and their nervous habits the better.
• Feel free to take a nap during the exam. No one will mind if you don't answer a few questions, in fact, you might even win friends if you "take one for the team" and score lower than everyone else. In any given class, there may be only 2 failing grades and so you may even be able to get people to pay you off to tank it. Really, make sure you get a good nights sleep before the exam. Don't stay up cramming. You're the best judge of your own body chemistry, but it usually helps to be awake during the exam

Good luck, 1Ls on your first little, uh, (practice) exam. The real thing is gonna be a lot more intense.

The sky is falling...

... or maybe it's just raining. Apparently, there is more rain on the way and that is bad news for people in NH and CT that have been flooded in the last few days. It seems like every time I turn to a news site or channel, there is some new disaster going on in some part of the world. Maybe the sky really is falling.

School is going good. 2L year is not completely different from 1L year, but at least I got to pick my classes (and boy, does that make a huge difference). I actually enjoy all of the classes I'm taking right now, although there are times when I wish that I wasn't taking the tax class. There are parts of it that just go right over my head. For the most part, I am able to follow what is going on and keep up with what she is saying. It doesn't help that we have so many days off this month. That is an important thing to consider for anyone thinking about going to school at Cardozo--the holidays! Last year, all of the Jewish holidays fell towards the end of the week and so we had several 4-day weekends. This year, they are in the middle of the week, so we never go to school for more than three days in a row. They also change the schedule around to make up for the missed classes. For example--in real life, tomorrow is a Wednesday, but at Cardozo, tomorrow is a Friday schedule. Then on Thursday, we have the day off for Yom Kippur. When we come back on Friday (in the real world), Cardozo is on a Thursday schedule. There is really no obvious logic behind what days are scheduled when and even the person who designed the schedule for the month has to refer to a calendar to keep is somewhat straight.

The IP classes I'm taking are great. When I was checking out law schools, Cardozo kept coming up as having the #6 ranked intellectual property program in the country. Well, if the quality of the teaching is any indication, then I can believe the program is ranked that high. The professors really know what they're talking about and are enthusiastic about the subject. In the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to attend some wonderful guest lectures/symposiums on IP. To be honest, these great programs help me feel confident about my choice to attend Cardozo. The professors are obviously connected to or are some of the leading players in the field and that inspires confidence in my chances of succeeding in IP. Now if only certain other areas of the school could do the same (ahem, OCS).

I'm supposed to be working on my journal note right now. We are supposed to have 10 pages done by Friday. Luckily I have most of tomorrow and Thursday to work on that. The journal is an interesting experience because it seems obvious to me that some people really don't care about it or what it publishes. The articles that we have been editing may be by leaders in the field, but of the stuff I have worked on, nothing has really shined as a piece of good writing. I'm not trying to say they're terrible. I'm not much of a writer myself, but I believe that most of my writing is coherent and easily understandable to a reader. The papers we've been editing are barely comprehensible in my mind and supposedly, I'm being trained to understand this stuff. No wonder there is such an emphasis on legal writing--they know that the state of writing in law needs to be improved and so they're trying to help us out. In my opinion, there are a lot of improvements they could make in the process at Cardozo if they wanted to be more effective in their legal writing curriculum. I will say that they're trying, but some of it is not working out. They tried to make it so that our writing requirements will be evaluated by a faculty member. We were supposed to get a faculty member to agree to advise us on our paper. This is a great idea because we have such a well written and highly published faculty. The only problem is that they want to be writing and getting published; not advising some measly 2L who has no clue about what is relevant in the legal world. I guess the problem was prevalent enough that they made it so that we don't have an individual faculty advisor anymore for each student, rather, several faculty were assigned to each journal to peruse the notes from that journal and make suggestions after the editorial staff has done so. That's great if you're on law review and have some of the best writers around editing your note, but what if you're on a journal where the editors don't really care about anything besides the extra line on their resume that says "editor." Oh, well.