| | |
|
LawSchoolAdvice 4 - 10 Feb 2010 - Main.CeciliaWang
|
| | Before coming to law school, I received two pieces of advice from coworkers about how to "succeed" at Columbia Law School. I found both of these to be really troubling and upsetting. I also think that they demonstrate attitudes that are indicative of some of the problems with the current law school set up and the reasons that people feel the need/desire to pawn their degrees. I figured this would be a good place to discuss them, hear what other people think about them and hear advice that others received before coming to law school.
The first piece of advice that I got was to go into each of my first year classes on the first day with one thing in mind - the exam. All of my work should be geared to "acing" the exam. I should read prior exams/outlines before coming to class to get an idea of what the professor covered on exams (black letter law, policy, etc.) and focus only on learning these things. | | | -- DavidGoldin - 04 Feb 2010 | |
>
> |
The second years here have been generally laidback in their advice to me, probably assuming first years already pressure themselves so much they do not need to urge outlining or taking practice exams or taking school too seriously. We should’ve already known that. Might have figured that out from the fact that there are surprisingly few non-resume enhancing activities. We are the only law school without some sort of singing group (even the notoriously stressful University of Chicago has one!), though thank goodness we still have Law Revue. To be fair, law students can always join undergraduate activities. I continue to go to the radio station, and I know of alums of the College who still attend meetings and events hosted by undergraduate favorites. Of course, the point is probably that we should be spending time on the many meaningful activities available to first years: tutoring schoolchildren, writing petitions for victims of domestic violence and the welfare-eligible, immigrant rights, etc.
My mentor emphasized spending time on relationships, perhaps as a way of blocking off that slippery slope leading down to a life of always putting clients’ interests and needs above those of family and friends associated with the stereotypical lawyer – “bad” and “good” lawyers. There are no prizes for how close you are to friends and family; didn’t the professors on the advice panels of orientation urge us to be congenial for the sake of our professional reputations, encourage friendships for their networking and study group benefits?
This was inspiring to me: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/09bar.html
I am going to assume he was able to train himself to be such an impressive lawyer because he knew his client and was driven by a very specific goal that is more persuasive than good grades for jobs. Law school is like high school in that we have to take foundational classes in order to understand anything else and those tend to be duller than elective courses. And what an odd situation to be in, to be so esteemed because his lawyer failed to persuade the jury or judge or prosecutor to acquit. Were we supposed to realize chance placed us as students here so that we would not take our opportunities for granted? I was not unaware of the fact that what I took to be the way the world in relation to me simply is could have very easily not have been. The concept of my parents’ choices being chance in relation to me is not difficult to grasp and my own choices being chance – yes, it is true.
-- CeciliaWang - 10 Feb 2010 | | |
Hey David, I received very similar advices. I think all these advices are geared toward one thing, to get one step ahead of others on the 1L curve. We have very limited time, 14 weeks of classes, and yet we have tremendous amount of work. If you spend more time on what interests you the most, you will likely spend less time on what interests the professor the most. I think the real problem is that we are still adjusting to the “how to think like a lawyer” and this is why these advices are all based on the assumption that we cannot learn what the professor wants to teach us and pursue our own interests at the same time. The bottom line is that the professor writes the exam however he/she likes and grades the exams however he/she likes. I am actually very intrigued by what Professor Moglen said in class on Tuesday, just have no first year grades and give students more time to adjust. This way you don’t have to refrain from spending more time on topics that interest you. However, this will definitely create chaos for the employers during EIP. We just have to face the truth that the purpose of grades is probably more for the convenience of employers than for providing feedbacks to the students. Now transition to what really bothers me about law school is that professors do not have to provide mandatory feedbacks to the students. How are we supposed to improve if we don’t even know what we did wrong? How can we become better lawyers without knowing how to improve? |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |