Off to Chicago...

I'm taking a long weekend and heading to Chicago... Goodbye boring work! Goodbye boring Evidence class! Goodbye stress!

Wasting Away Evidence Class

Last night I spend approximately 170 minutes of my Evidence class doing as little as humanly possible while still trying to look awake.

I simply did not want to be there.

No, nothing major happened to me. I just had a serious case of the blahs. It was too sunny. I was feeling too lazy. I didn't want to be in class but my signature had to be on the attendance sheet. Since I sit in the second row, I'm pretty sure the professor would know if I signed and dashed (a major student honor code violation which some stupid people attempt).

I doodled. I wrote direct and cross examination questions for my ADR class. I daydreamed. I yawned. I counted the minutes. I almost paid attention once or twice for a few moments, but then drifted away again.

Impeachment evidence was completely lost on me for about 168 of those minutes (minus bathroom breaks). I'm hoping this isn't a case of senioritis, because I don't officially become a 3L until the end of the term.

If Law School Testing Were Like FEMA Testing

I drew the short straw at work and have been nominated to be the point person at work for the Emergency Operations Plan for our area in the university. As a result, I have to take training and be tested on FEMA's Incident Command System for Higher Education.

Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right?

Actually, the training consists of this: go to class, have instructor tell you the answer to the specific questions, go online for the test at FEMA, answer the specific questions while the instructor is still in the room to ask questions, get certificate.

Yep, if a Hurricane Katrina-esque catastrophy occurs on campus where I work, I will be fully trained by FEMA for a response. Are you feeling comforted yet? I wouldn't be based on that training.

If only law school testing were like FEMA testing: go to class, have law professor tell you the answer to the specific bar questions, go online to test for the bar exam, answer the specific questions while the law professor is still in the room to ask questions, get bar card / law license.

Granted, if the bar exam were representative of FEMA testing, I'd hate to see what our justice system would look like.

Depending on Your Classmates

I don't think there's anything worse than having to depend on your classmates for your grade.

In real life, you always have to depend on someone else for something. And I'm pretty sure in the practice of law, this is equally true. You have to depend on a co-worker, a secretary, a judge, a client, the opposing counsel, or what have you. And no doubt, it is equally frustrating when they don't show up, don't have their work done, or just don't care.

In one of my classes, I'm going through the same situation. We had a group project where all five of us had to contribute. The problem was, two of the students failed to show up to one class, and were a half hour late for the next, totally unprepared. And then when we had to compile our submission for class, these two didn't turn in their work until the very last minute and what they turned in kinda sucked. They must not feel any responsibility to the rest of us for their actions.

I have no control over what these two students do. I just don't have to like it.

I know, I know... get used to it. I felt no less frustrated in my former job when these types of things would happen. I don't know why I expect law school to be any different.

My advice to anyone looking at law school is this:

a) Don't take yourself too seriously. It's okay to have a little fun as long as you don't overdo it.
b) Do take your group projects seriously. It's not just your behind riding on the line. And it's good practice for when you have clients.

Tuesdays Are Always Better

After having a bad case of the Mondays, I find that Tuesdays are always better.

Yes, it's raining. But that means I won't have to water the plants.

And yes, I have class tonight. But that means I'm that much closer to the end of the term.

And yes, I still have lingering blisters from yesterday. But I'm wearing comfy shoes today to make up for it.

And yes, my car still has the scrape on it. But my husband offered to take it into the repair shop for an estimate for me so I don't have to deal with that stress by myself. He even offered to wash my car for me.

So Tuesday is a better day.

A Bad Case of the Mondays...

I'm having a really bad day.

My cell phone died.
My car was scraped while parked on the street.
I didn't get to eat my lunch.
I developed a gigantic blister.

...Here's hoping I don't fall and break anything on my way to class tonight.

Yes... it could be worse. Please don't wish that on me either!

Being In-Between

I don't like being in-between. I know that everyone says that it's the journey, not the destination. What a load of crap. Okay, some journeys are good ones. But this journey between my previous life and being a lawyer is getting pretty tiresome. I just want it to be over, yet I have another year left of law school.

I miss having a "real" job. I know I gave that up to work at something less stressful while I'm in law school. But I have to say that being a secretary after having a substantive job is a hard adjustment. Yes, I like having less responsibility sometimes. And less pressure is nice too, sometimes. But call me ungrateful if you will - I sometimes get really sick of making copies, ordering supplies and answering the telephone. I silently grit my teeth when someone at work asks me to schedule a meeting for them. Or when they don't tell me the details because I don't need to know them for my job.

I have to give them credit, secretaries do a lot of menial yet important work for little gratitude or pay. They certainly take a lot of crap and are an easy scape goat if things messed up (even when most of the time its not their fault.) I have a greater appreciation of all secretaries now that I've been doing it again for the past two years.

And let's face it, if people don't know I actually have a degree and a former life, the snob factor comes into play. I feel like the upper level staff here look down on me and treat me differently because I'm "only a secretary". If they only knew....

The funny thing is, most of the secretaries where I work have bachelor degrees but are in-between other jobs. We commiserate a lot!

Yes, I know, I have plenty of challenge trying to learn the law. I like school well enough and there's plenty of intellectual stimuli if I want it. There's a lot of hard work too, which is why I needed a less stressful day job to balance the workload out.

But I miss the challenge of having a higher functioning job. I miss working on technical issues and on researching policy. I miss having to problem solve something more than how to unjam the copier. There are some people who can spend their entire lives working at a certain repetitive level and be perfectly happy. I've seen it here and I saw it when I worked in state government. I am not one of them.

After finishing undergrad and doing some lower level positions, I've spent many years doing higher level work. To go back down to a secretary-level position has been hard. I get bored easily, so answering telephones and sorting the mail just doesn't do it for me.

That's why I'm in law school.

I guess I just hate being in this in-between phase where I'm not really one thing or another. I'm a former analyst, current law student who works as a secretary to pay the bills.

I guess I'm having a case of the Mondays!

Nothing Worse than a Summer Cold!

There is nothing worse than a summer cold. The sun is shining, there are beautiful flowers in the yard. And I have a head full of snotty gunk, courtesy of my husband who caught a cold while out of state on business! When I asked him to bring me something back from his trip, this was not what I expected. And now he's gone away again!

I stayed home from work yesterday to a chorus of evil birds wanting to chat with me all day and when I wouldn't, they screamed from neglect. Apparently it's not good enough to let them out of their cages and be in the same room as them. If I'm home, according to the little evil beasts, I should be paying attention to them. Oh, and gee thanks Big Bird for flapping your wings non-stop and adding more dust to my already stuffed up head.

Then I went to class yesterday evening but in between sneezing and coughing, while my eyes watered (I'm sure the prof thought I was moved by his lecture), I barely remember any of it. Tonight, I have another evening class, which I'm sure will be more of the same when it comes to the wheezing, sneezing, and leaking.

Tips for Finding Career Alternatives

I'm not feeling terribly inspired this month on my blog, but I am feeling a little feisty about my career prospects being so crappy, especially in this economy.

Over at Above the Law, they have an interesting post entitled "Career Alternatives: A Panel Discussion". The article offers tips on those considering alternatives to law firm careers. While jobs themselves may be scarce, especially in large firms, solo or contract work (not to be confused with document review temping) may still be an option for some.

Although I should add that the field is probably getting a little crowded with all those Big Law survivors and layoff survivors mixed in with the newly graduated.

Am I panicked about my career prospects? Not really... at least not yet. I'm not delusional, I just can't live that way. Instead I just keep plugging along at school for another year while I work my regular 40 hour a week job (which I have no intention of quitting until I graduate, pass the bar, and find a legal job).

Law Student Power Trips

A few days ago I was sitting in my classroom about a half hour before class going over my notes. There were about five others in the class doing the same or chit-chatting. This is normal and unless there's a class right before mine, I do this for every class.

Well, this time an unknown student walked in and brusquely announced that she had reserved the class room until 6 pm and we must leave. She must have been some junior leader of a law school organization. I knew she was a student because she was far too young to be a professor. She was also too well-dressed, with her well-coifed hair, little professional suit, and matching pumps, probably trying to overcome the fact that she looked about 12 years old. None of our professors dress that well for an evening class.

When we just stared at her in surprise, she brusquely announced again in her I-mean-business voice, "You have to leave the room. I have reserved it for our meeting so you have to leave. This is OUR room right now. You have to leave!" No please, no sorry, no excuse me, no thank you, nothing. Just come in and kick us out. And there were a hallway full of EMPTY classrooms that weren't being used at all. I was expecting her to stomp her feet next and start whining if we didn't comply.

Okaaaayyy.... I've never had this happen before a class but whatever...

So we packed up and went into the hallway. A troup of her little look-alikes came entered into the room, looking annoyed to be there. They spent a total of TEN minutes in the room. And then they told us we could come back in.

COME ON! Ten minutes??? You couldn't hold your brownie troup meeting next door in the empty classroom? Instead you had to come in on a power trip and kick us out?

I understand she reserved the room (when she could have found an unused classroom, we have plenty in the evening.) But little Miss Power Trip could have been polite about it.

If I had acted that way at work, I would be having everyone pissed off at me, and my supervisor would probably be having a "special" talk with me about playing nice with others. And if anyone acted that way to me at work, they could bet that I would remember that later on when they needed something from me. Maybe I've been in the work-world a little too long, but this girl's behavior was unacceptable.

Sometimes I think being a non-trad makes me have too high of expectations from others.

I hope this girl doesn't think that bullying her way through life will get her very far... because some day she'll run into a bigger bully who isn't as accomodating as we were.

Student Debt Relief Webinars

It's never too early to start thinking post-law school.

For anyone who's interested, Equal Justice Works is offering Student Debt Relief Webinars. The first one starts on June 17th.

The first set in the series talks about how government and nonprofit employees can earn public service loan forgiveness.

The second set in the series talks about income based repayment plans for student loans.

Both of these topics are important because they are new ways to manage your law school student loan debt through the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The new income-based repayment plans start in July 2009.

If the whole Webinar doesn't appeal to you, you might check out some of the online articles Equal Justice Works offers on Student Debt Relief.

Former Attorney Becomes Dogwalker

Of all the jobs that I have considered should I not find a legal position upon graduation, I never thought of being a dog-walker. But all things considered, it would be an awesome job, especially because I love dogs!

Attorney Turns Dogwalker After Economic Downturn

And why not? It beats doing document review in a dark office building basement or mopping floors for a living.

The Need to Work Full Time

I am a non-traditional law student in that I'm not straight out of undergrad and I work full time. I work for two reasons: money and lack thereof.

Law school would be so much easier if I didn't have to work. And I would graduate much sooner. But it's one thing to get scholarships in law school, which I have some, but they do not cover everything tuition-wise, nor do they cover my living expenses. So I need to work.

A co-worker of mine just received news that her husband was going to be laid off. Of course, I felt bad for her. He works at the same university we do, so of course we were all nervous about getting laid off. The difference between him and I is a matter of a couple of years of seniority which I have and he didn't. A couple of years isn't much, so I'm still nervous that I could be laid off.

What made it worse was that my coworker said, "It's not like you need to work, you're in law school and can get a different job." I don't think she meant it to be mean, but it still stung. On top of that, it was not correct.

I told her I needed to work to pay the bills (since my husband is not independently wealthy.) And yeah, when I graduate and pass the bar in a few years, I will be capable of getting a new job - provided someone is hiring or I'm ready to go solo. But for right now, I need my paycheck to cover things like electricity, phone bills, dog food, bird food, people food, etc.

I also refuse to take out crippling law school loans. I do have them, but not the full amount I would need to survive without a job. And I'm not tapping into my retirement accounts -that is for emergencies, such as actually being laid off.

What a stressful time to be a layoff survivor in law school.

Irrational Fears

Every week in ADR class, we have group participation. I loathe them.

Yesterday afternoon, I had an irrational fear of the group participation that I had to do for my ADR class that evening. I sat all afternoon wishing I could skip class and feeling kind of sour in my stomach. I was wishing that the floor would swallow me up.

Half my battle, I think, is finding a partner in class. I am very shy at first. I hate having to ask to join groups and I have no close friends in the class, so it's awkward for me. It's like speed dating in the wrong crowd (another activity I would NEVER willingly do). In class, I feel like I sit on the great divide... more serious students on one side of me, the dudes and dudettes on the other (including dude from the other day who doesn't bother to make any effort).

So when the professor asked us to split into groups of four, I lucked out because the nice people on one side of me asked me to join their group. Hooray. The first hurdle was over and I felt a little better about the group participation. My neck stopped feeling so tight.

Then the dude next to me asked if he could join us. We agreed, of course, because that's what polite people do when asked. But let's leave it at the fact that dude put no more effort into our group participation this week than he did last week in class. He did admit to zoning out last week, which was why he felt he could not participate more this week because he didn't know the material.

My other fear of group participation is that helpless feeling of not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing. We managed to work out how to calculate BATNA's (best alternative to negotiated agreements) but it was challenging because in a group, there can be seventeen different theories of how we should handle it. And of course, I forgot my calculator (and the one on my phone is basically useless) so I had to rely on someone else to work the problem for me, making me feel helpless.

And then there's role play... bleh! I never feel natural when I'm doing role play and I feel like I'm never doing what I'm supposed to be doing. We tried to get into it, but in all honesty, in the end we talked about how a real attorney might handle the situation. It was enlightening to learn about the negotiation process. But role play always feels false to me. I would rather observe a real negotiation session, but I know that's hard to do.

I had these same sour feelings about doing the First Year Moot Court competition in school. My stomach felt sour, I had a hard time deciding who to partner with, and the actual role play was hard because it didn't feel real.

I know this type of role play is important in the learning process, I would just prefer not to do them (ever again).

In my old job, we had meetings where we always had an icebreaker activity. I hated those as well. And I still managed to do my job quiet competently, including speaking in front of others and interacting with the public. So maybe it's just pretend activities I don't like?

Apathy

Something about weeks 4-6 each term make me feel apathetic about school.

Weeks 1-3 are stress-filled, wondering how I did on my exams. Weeks 7-14 are spent with my nose to the grind, with a special push weeks 12-14. But weeks 4-6 are kind of just there.

The thought of actually working hard during this time just never seems to sink in. I have every intention of studying during these weeks. I get the book out, put it on the coffee table, and tell myself in an hour I'll crack it open and start reading. By the next morning, it's still there, sitting quietly on the coffee table, unopened, now covered in a small sprinkling of bird dust. Just in case there isn't enough bird dust, Big Bird will give an extra flap of her wings to scatter more.

The road to hell is paved with law school intentions, I guess.

Maybe it's post traumatic stress disorder from exams? Maybe it's just exhaustion that sinks in and it's my time to recoup. Either way, I could care less about studying right now. I did manage to spend four hours last night watching episodes of old television shows on DVD. So it's not that I'm completely lazy... just lazy about law school.

Oh well, week 7 will get here before you know it and I'll be back in the saddle again.