Monday, January 09, 2006

First Day of Class, Spring Edition

So I had my first day of class today. Everyone agreed that it felt a little weird to be back in school, and the day felt pretty weird in general. A sense of "I shouldn't be here... what am I doing here? Why am I back in school?" pervaded everything. It's definitely going to take a little while to get back into the swing of things.

This semester, I'm taking a heavier load than last semester:
Property
Torts
Legislation
Written and Oral Advocacy
Civil Procedure II

My Torts prof, Alta Charo, is very peppy, which is nice given that our class starts 15 minutes earlier in the morning than Crim last semester (8:45 AM, bloody hell). She seems a little less organized than say, super-structured Prof. Talley in Contracts, but at least she has a structure, unlike Prof. Westen.

Legislation is taught by Prof. Phillip Frickey, who apparently pioneered this entire field of study. He co-wrote our casebook, for example. I guess you could say it's the quintessential "lawyer" class, since it's all about how to split hairs on the meaning of words in a law. Today, for example, we spent the entire period discussing what "approach" meant for the purposes of a left-turn traffic law (If a statute makes it illegal to make a left turn when cars are "approaching" from the opposite direction, and if you make a left turn as soon as the traffic light turns green but before any of the oncoming cars have moved yet, is it technically illegal?). Anyways, the material is kinda interesting. Seems like it'll be useful. Prof. Frickey is engaging, but hard to follow. I've heard that despite the dry material, it's wothwhile and it'll pay off in the long run. I hope it's true, because I know a lot of people who are already thinking about dropping it.

WOA seems like it'll be fun this semester. We get to write argumentative briefs (as opposed to objective memos), and at the end of the class we get to practice trial technique and make oral arguments before a panel of judges. It's also always nice to see our super-sweetheart instructor Lindsey.

All my Property classes were cancelled this week, due to a death Prof. Volpp's family. :-( I've heard from people who took property last semester that it's probably the hardest of the first-year core classes. I've heard good things about Prof. Volpp, so hopefully it won't be so bad.

CivPro II is tomorrow. I'm really excited because I love CivPro (there's something oddly alluring about rules and procedure), and Prof. Bundy is considered one of the best professors at Boalt.

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