Posted by TDot on Dec 20, 2011 in
The 3L Life Good evening y’all 
Sorry for the abrupt disappearance this past week, but the end of the semester brought a flurry of activity that I’m still slogging through. Here’s a quick bulleted update on life:
- I don’t remember what happened last Monday during the day, but I distinctly recall waking up from my first bona fide law school-related nightmare in awhile
It was next semester and I was at my first CrimLaw tutorial… except I didn’t have my Keynote slides. So I decided that, to preoccupy the 1Ls, we’d go around introducing ourselves… except apparently several of the students had issues with each other, so when one girl introduced herself another called her a b*tch, shouting back and forth ensued, and not a single soul was listening as I tried to get them to shut up and pay attention. Then I decided to distract people with index cards, having them write down names and other tidbits about themselves instead of talking… except I couldn’t find any blank index cards. 
Every time I’d find a pile of them, they were already filled out. Even a mostly-fresh pile of index cards had an occasional filled-out card included, so I was trying to gather enough fresh cards while the room re-descended into chaos. It was a strange, odd, unpleasant dream. That thankfully has a 0% chance of happening next semester or I’ll physically beat someone 
- Last Tuesday was the first meeting of the NCCU Law 1L trial teams, letting them know roughly what to expect in the now-Kilpatrick-Townsend competition that will take place in January. This is now the 3rd generation of teams to compete so I’m hoping it will be a more-comfortable experience for these 1Ls now that they have both 2Ls and 3Ls available to share their experiences.
- Right after the team meeting at 1pm was the release date for my Criminal Prosecution Clinic exam, which I spent the next 48 hours grinding through. Not difficult per se, but lengthy and detailed. Impressed that police and prosecutors are able to remember all of these various statutes…
- Speaking of academics, I’m still not done. I’ve still got 2 briefs for Employment Discrimination to finish, and a paper for ConLaw II that hasn’t even substantively been started aside from my prep work for the radio show on my topic. I had long ago accepted the probability of failing both classes given all the other stuff I foolishly piled on my plate. Tack on the fact they’re both electives that I don’t need to graduate, and you have a dangerous recipe of grade-A Motivation Killer™ to at least turn in some kind of work product.
- Not sure I’ll have time to get around to my usual guesswork “Here’s what I’m hoping to get grade-wise” posts for 3L Fall, so I’m tucking it in here: B+ in Sales, B- in Tax, A in Criminal Prosecution Clinic, D- in both Employment Discrimination and ConLaw II, for a 2.333 semester GPA. Fingers crossed for that or better. Will elaborate if the opportunity presents itself.
- Part of why I’m not finished academically is because I’ve very successfully sidetracked myself on this going solo idea and exploring the creation of a small practice incubator at the law school. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading and researching, put together a proposal complete with financial projections, and have started farming it around among faculty at the school. I even came up with a snazzy acronym for it: the Small Practice Incubator & Collaboration Environment… because a little seasoning makes everything better!
- I had also already stacked my calendar high with stuff scheduled for last week because I’m habitual about planning ahead, so when the papers didn’t get done on time they’ve got pushed even farther back then they would be otherwise as my focus shifted elsewhere. In addition to the Crim Prosecution exam, spent Wednesday afternoon catching up with a good friend over lunch who I hadn’t seen in ages. Thursday was spent finishing up the exam, turning it in, then skipping the first TYLA trial team meeting to immediately drive down to Raleigh to help with another good friend’s bachelor party. Friday was a smidge of work on the papers followed by the wedding rehearsal dinner, Saturday was the wedding, then Sunday was returning the tux to Men’s Wearhouse and finally catching up on life basics like laundry / dishes / vacuuming the disaster that had become my apartment.
- Yesterday I got a smidge bit more work done, though not before inadvertently crossing paths with MDG in the hallway at school (my Emp Disc professor). I greatly appreciate that he hasn’t reamed me out for my slacker-ness… but it was still awkward exchanging pleasantries knowing I still owed the man two papers.
- And voila here we are at today. Behind on academics. Behind schedule on the moot court problem I’m working on. Behind schedule on the TYLA problem I’ll also be litigating in February. But otherwise alive, breathing, and determined to make it through the vacation in one piece
That’s it for tonight’s entry. Hope all of you are doing well and enjoying the break yourselves! More to come once I get caught up
Good night! 
Tags: 3L, ConLaw II, Criminal Prosecution, Employment Discrimination, Haunted by Law School, Howard Law, K-S 1L Mock Trial Competition, Law Grades, MDG, Moot Court, NCCU Law, NCSU Student Senate, Sales, Tax, Trial Team, UNCASG
Posted by TDot on Dec 9, 2011 in
Site Stats Hey y’all!
It’s been half a year since our last Site Stats entry back in June, not for lack of time or interest but mostly because traffic tended to stagnate with my random disappearances all the time. Even with us passing 1,000,000+ pageviews back in September, there wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy to merit another entry.
November '11 now holds the all-time attendance record 
Then a whole bunch of y’all appeared out of nowhere!
November 2011 was officially the single busiest month law:/dev/null has had since we launched back in August 2009!
And I have absolutely no clue why
We had a +6.7% bump in daily readership to 2,041, likely resulting from my somewhat-less-sporadic posting over the month.
But the real craziness is the sudden +57.4% explosion in unique people coming to the site (8,144) — leapfrogging our previous record back in October 2010 of 6,716, and for reasons totally unknown to me.
There wasn’t a sudden bump in Google searches, no random spike in RSS readership, no particularly controversial posts that I’m aware of, and yet somehow we still had a whole bunch ‘o newcomers stop by this little piece of internet real estate.
The war on spammers continues...
And what makes the unique IP number particularly odd is that it came alongside us blocking an unprecedented number of spammers that would otherwise be distorting the traffic figures.
In what has become my WordPress equivalent of the government’s War on Drugs, on a regular basis I go through our logs line-by-line and wall off this space from an ever-growing number of bots and spamdexers via our .htaccess file. It’s virtually eliminated comment spam (0.00479 spam comments per IP last month) but has the side effect of holding down the traffic figures.
Which is just as good since I don’t really count spammers as “real” visitors, but it’s still weird seeing such a jump in readership knowing there are about 2,000 URLs blocked from sending people here.
Anyhow, to the new folks: *WELCOME*, and thank you for visiting! Hopefully you’ll enjoy it and keep coming back.
Doubt we’ll hit this level of traffic again any time soon but we’ll see what happens…
***
The main reason I started putting these entries together ages ago was to go through some of the search queries that send people to the site. So here’s a random selection of 20 out of the 580+ unique search terms that brought folks here in November 2011:
- can a footnote go under the signature on a legal doc: Depends on the document, and depends on the rule of construction the courts in that jurisdiction use; some courts allow it, others consider anything past the signature (including footnotes) as “surplusage” that has no legal effect.
- nccu law bad neighborhood: Aside from a drug bust at the local Burger King and the occasional stuff that happen on every sizable college campus, it’s really not that bad.
- can you petition your gpa if you are within less than 2 tenths away from cum laude: In the words of MDG, “LOL. no.” (at least not here at NCCU Law)
- lawyers in state legislatures: Are a surprising rarity
- i’m panicking wording: Freaking out. Melting down. Losing your nerve. Having a psychotic episode. Taking a law school exam. Let me know if I should continue…
- how often do people get kicked out for 2l grades: Not often compared to 1L year because people can self-select their classes, but it does happen. The frequency doesn’t matter, all that matters is whether or not your GPA is above a 2.0
- how to get a job with bad grades in law: (1) Develop a personality, then (2) network. If you exclude me tutoring CrimLaw (where the grade for that single class was a smidge important), I’ve had exactly -0- employers care about my GPA for the various law jobs/internships I’ve had. Particularly in smaller firms, people care more about whether or not they can tolerate working with you every day than whether or not you were Top 10% academically. Make sure you have a solid LinkedIn profile, go to various law-related events, attend CLEs, get to know your professors and career services personnel, and so on — that way when openings pop up, people are willing to recommend you or at least clue you in to the vacancy.
- american travel blog first impression toronto: I loved loved loved it! Awesome place.
- dueces fingers with white background: You’d probably have more success spelling it correctly (“deuces”), but until then you can use the pic from this old UNCASG-related entry.
- college students taking classes unrelated to their major: Yep, that’s how I made my way through N.C. State
- why do you want to go to nc central law?: Ummm… if you don’t know the answer to that question already, you probably don’t want to go here
If you want my reasons, you can read my “Why NCCU Law?” entry linked at the top of this page.
- is law school still worth it: Nothing has happened to change my perspective (Part I and Part II) so I’d say “yes.”
- can you fail duke law?: On a B+ curve? And risk the school losing $51K+ a year in tuition in fees per student? It might be theoretically possible, but I doubt it happens
- 1l grades most important: I certainly hope not or I’m screwed. I prefer my own $.02: your 1L grades don’t matter.
- va beach snowmageddon: Terrifying at the time, but pretty effing cool in retrospect
- sulc has too many white students: With budget cuts going on and minimum bar passage rates slated to rise, my guess is SULC has bigger things to worry about
- november mpre 2011 thoughts: It sucked. But I passed.
- “closing argument” “let me try that again” good morning: Assuming you’re planning to try something similar to the Chief’s greeting back at 1L Orientation: please don’t. I’ve yet to find a single person who thinks this tactic is humorous or anything but annoying.
- how to get caught up law school: When you figure it out, please let me know
- young lawyers division ridiculous: That’s actually not the first time I’ve heard this. Aside from the YLD’s incomplete approach to transparency in law school statistics, a number of them were downright rude during the ABA Annual Meeting this past summer. I guess being esquires entitles them to be pricks? Hopefully that won’t be me this time next year.
Nothing particularly risqué in this month’s batch of queries, but I still enjoyed digging through them
***
To wrap things up, here are the Top 5 posts from November 2011:
- On NCCU Law’s strict-C curve: In support of the strict C: a year later (11/12/11)
- On thinking about going solo: Should I just go solo after graduation? (Part I) (11/27/11)
- On pros/cons for going solo: Should I just go solo after graduation? (Part II) (11/29/11)
- On the irrelevance of 1L grades: Your 1L Grades Don’t Matter (05/29/11)
- On the November ’11 MPRE: That was remarkably unpleasant (11/05/11)
And that’s it for this entry! *THANK YOU* as always for your continued support of law:/dev/null, it’s greatly appreciated! 
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From the Site Stats archives:
Tags: 1L, 3L, ABA Annual Meeting 2011, ABA-YLD, Blawg Love, Career Prospects, Damned Lies and Statistics, Duke Law, Law Grades, MDG, Money Money Money, MPRE, NC State, NCCU Law, O Canada, SULC, Tuition & Fees
Posted by TDot on Nov 10, 2011 in
The 3L Life Part of my rationale for spending Halloween weekend trying to un-confuse myself in Sales was in recognition that I’d soon be on deck for questions. Prof Sales uses a straight-forward method for his Socratic selections, snaking row-by-row and plucking two 3Ls at a time for the questions. Tonight was my night.
And clearly I’m still alive
I wanted to knock things out of the ballpark tonight, because I’d heard through the grapevine that Prof Sales and MDG discussed my sub-standard academic performance between themselves and (rightfully) expected better from me. So as soon as ConLaw II was over I hunkered down in a cubicle and started steadily reading the UCC…
…only to realize about 5 minutes before class began that I had somehow managed to study the wrong material and nearly gave myself a heart attack. I had read everything before where we started, and read the stuff after where we started, but the stuff actually at where we started either didn’t get read or got forgotten (or a combination of the two)
I frantically started speed-reading while my co-counsel for the class was fielding her set of questions, and after bumbling an initial answer or two (or three) once Prof Sales turned to me, I finally hit a stride and think I got everything else right for the rest of the class.
Now I have to switch gears again and put Sales back on the backburner so I can try to catch up in Tax and Employment Discrimination…
Is it May 12th yet?
Tags: 3L, MDG, Prof Sales, Sales
Posted by TDot on Oct 31, 2011 in
The 3L Life Ugh.
Happy Halloween folks. I decided to dress up as an overextended 3L for the holiday.
Just kidding — I stuck with my Guy Fawkes mask, but had to forgo the cape this year due to academic obligations; here’s a pic
I prefer the cape to the suit, but law school calls...
In all seriousness, I’m drowning in assignments and apologize for not blogging more often. I’ve taken a week’s worth of draft entries and stripped them down to another one of my really-need-to-be-trademarked bulleted lists so the folks who want to know what I’m up to (or an excuse to take a break from work) have something to read
- On the technical side of law:/dev/null, we’ve added in a new widget that lets users subscribe to the comments of any particular post. Now if you write a comment you can be notified by email if someone replies so you don’t have to go digging through old entries to check.
- I’ve also received some suggestions/requests to improve the pagination on old entries. It’s been added to the to-do list, but the CSS for that one will take more effort so it won’t be getting done any time soon (don’t expect the subscription widget to look pretty either )
- At no point since I started writing this blawg two-and-a-quarter years ago have I ever even contemplated saying “f*ck it, I quit”… but today the thought crossed my mind for a couple femtoseconds. The class schedule I arranged was mind-bogglingly stupid in retrospect; my day is spent reading for classes, and my off-days are spent… reading for classes. Taking a quartet of paper-oriented courses (with their attendant components and drafts and etc all due at overlapping times) was equally ill-conceived in light of the reading volume. I’ve missed enough deadlines at this point that it’s almost impossible to keep my GPA above 3.0. Insanely frustrating.
- Case in point: in Employment Discrimination we were given a fact pattern from which we were to craft a complaint and a client letter. I knew MDG’s late policy only allowed items up to 2 hours late, and I also knew there was -0- chance I was going to be able to comply with the policy. Sure enough I got an F… but only after MDG noted that I otherwise would have had a perfect score
- There’s also no real outlet for me just to vent, because I inevitably get advice that I’ve either already done (dramatically scaling back SBA involvement), advice I’m simply not willing to entertain (dropping Samson, close friends, or courses), or advice that does nothing at all to actually solve the problem (limiting involvement in trial team… which doesn’t start until January). PSA: If you have a classmate who looks stressed out and needs to b*tch, just let them carry on for a bit. After ranting and raving for a bit we’re usually in much better mental shape.
- Speaking of people with mental issues, last Tuesday a friend of mine posted pictures from NC State‘s GLBTA Center — where someone had spray-painted “Fags burn” and “DIe” [sic] across the door. This type of stuff is (thankfully) a relatively rare occurrence at NCSU, but I have to confess a certain degree of amazement that (1) anyone would feel so morally secure to declare divine judgment upon people they don’t like, and (2) they think destroying property and attempting to intimidate others is an acceptable form of self-expression. Reprehensible, disappointing, and wrong.
- It’s a historical anomaly that the attack was discovered five years to the day after myself and a pair of other Senators pushed a (successfully adopted) resolution calling for the GLBT Center’s creation through the Student Senate. I remember the floor debate back then focusing on whether or not something like this was needed, or worth students’ fee money. I’d argue the Center being targeted in the manner it was speaks to the majority’s wisdom back then.
- On a happier note, NCCU Law‘s first-ever “Speed Networking” event was held last Wednesday and was a HUGE success! The brainchild of EIC based on an idea she got from the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto back in August, basically SBA / Career Services / Alumni Relations teamed up to bring in 45+ alums for a rapid-fire series of one-on-one meetings with 2Ls and 3Ls. It was the first time we’ve done anything like it at NCCU and it was awesome.
- Also on the extracurricular front, last week I submitted a brief to our Moot Court Board for their Fall tryouts After ignoring the appellate stuff for the past 2 years to focus on trial advocacy, I decided to at least give it a try just to see if I’ve got the technical competence for it. Oral arguments will be this Wednesday if anyone wants to come learn about the Eleventh Amendment.
- Recognizing the huge hole I’ve dug myself academically, I spent my entire weekend trying to catch up on Sales & Secured Transactions. Prof Sales gave us old copies of the 2009 and 2010 exams without the answers; we’ve got until tonight to send in our guesses for feedback. Realistically I won’t be anywhere near done by deadline (which, like MDG, is a bright line cutoff) but at least I don’t feel totally lost anymore.
- I also penned a letter to the alumni asking them to give back to the law school With the North Carolina General Assembly gutting the University-system budget, and the law school losing $2M in the process ($1 of every $7), we need private support now more than at any time since when the law school was still legally segregated. I’ve announced what’s tentatively being dubbed “The SBA Challenge” where we’ll raise $1 for every alum who contributes. Fingers are crossed for a big response.
- Oh and did I mention I registered for class for the very last time evah? More on that later this week.
There’s been a lot more going on but I’ve gotta snip it here so I can get back to work. Have a great night y’all!
Tags: ABA Annual Meeting 2011, Career Services, EIC, Employment Discrimination, MDG, Moot Court, NC State, NCCU Law, NCSU Student Senate, Prof Sales, Sales, Samson, SBA
Posted by TDot on Oct 14, 2011 in
The 3L Life Good evening folks!
EIC and I are both currently down in South Carolina for the ABA Law Student Division‘s Fall “Super Circuit” meeting for the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Circuits, scheduled to take place tomorrow at the Charleston School of Law.
It’s pretty much been a whirlwind of a day since I woke up — I somehow managed to fall asleep in the middle of working on my Employment Discrimination complaint and client letter, and also managed to successfully navigate the multiple steps necessary to disable the alarm I set just in case I fell asleep
So rather than spend yesterday cleaning up the apartment and packing, I went to class and then spent until a couple hours before midnight getting the client letter finished, then picked up 雅雅 from the airport just after midnight for her coming in to visit. This morning was then spent getting the house in order for the dogsitter, packing up, then making the 5 hour drive south.
Since getting here, I have to say Charleston has been rehabilitating my opinion of South Carolina My only other time in the state involved burning hours of time to go a few miles on the interstate. Couple that with some natural North-South rivalry that comes from me living in North Carolina since 1998, and let’s just say I’ve had a dim view of this state
But we got here, went exploring the French Quarter, found a decent place to eat, and checked out the City Market. So far it seems pretty cool, and knowing some of this stuff has been here since the Revolutionary War just really blows my mind.
Heading to bed so I can get up for the meeting in the morning Have a great night y’all!
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From the law:/dev/null travel-related archives:
Tags: 3L, ABA-LSD, Charleston Law, EIC, Employment Discrimination, 雅雅, MDG, NCCU Law
Posted by TDot on Oct 12, 2011 in
The 3L Life A complaint alleging discriminatory employment practices (racially motivated firing) and a client letter explaining it are all that stand between yours truly and a 1.5-day quasi-vacation in Charleston SC for the ABA-LSD’s Fall “Super Circuit” meeting.
The problem? The first one’s nowhere near done, and the second one isn’t even started
MDG wanted us to have drafts to him days ago so he could at least give us pointers on what to include. As you can probably guess (see here and here) I definitely never got around to that. ::facepalm::
It’s gonna be a loooooong night…
Tags: 3L, ABA-LSD, Employment Discrimination, MDG
Posted by TDot on Aug 29, 2011 in
The 3L Life The old saying was “1L year they scare you to death, 2L year they work you to death, 3L year they bore you to death.”
Evidently I’ve become so skilled at procrastination that I’m just now getting to the “work you to death” part, because this semester is going to be crazy
Yes, that's nearly 2 feet of textbook for just one semester -- and doesn't even include Employment Discrimination!
With the first week of 3L Fall behind me (NCCU Law started a week later this calendar year) and 1.5′ of books to read, here are some initial thoughts on my classes this semester:
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PREFACE
===============
After graduating high school with few accolades — and graduating from N.C. State with none at all — I decided I was going to be one of the most-decorated people to cross NCCU Law’s stage for graduation on May 12, 2012.
So I’m currently signed up for the maximum number of hours you can take in a semester (16 hours / 6 classes) and will be taking a full load next semester too. And I don’t have the option of dropping any of them if I stick with my plan to be blinged out in May.
Just wanted to throw that preface out there so y’all don’t think I’m insane
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APPELLATE ADVOCACY I
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Those of you who are long-time readers of law:/dev/null might notice that I had signed up for this class last year… and promptly dropped it when things got too busy.
The problem is that AppAd is a prerequisite for trying out for our Moot Court Board, which I’ve developed an ever-so-tiny urge to attempt even if I stick with the TYLA trial team this coming year.
Prof AppAd is the same professor I’ve got for Criminal Prosecution Clinic I. Seems to be a good guy, passionate about the subject and has a good sense of humor to keep things entertaining. He also appears to be very very very detail-oriented — which makes me feel better since I won’t be the only one raising an eyebrow when I see a sample appeal in two different fonts
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FUNDAMENTALS OF INCOME TAXATION
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This class… yyyeeeaaaahhh…
Remember how I said I appreciated Prof Ks because he was upbeat about the subject?
And remember how I still hated Contracts because it was (i) so @#$%ing early in the morning, (ii) required, and (iii) the subject matter was more dense than a brick wrapped in a neutron star at the center of black hole?
And remember how I ended up with a C- in Contracts I and a C in Contracts II?
The first two items on that list accurately describe Tax so far: passionate teacher, required course with dense subject matter at 8:30am.
I’m praying I don’t end up with the third item on the list too…
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EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
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MDG teaches this one, which is the only reason I signed up for the class — I might not have loved CivPro, but at least I knew the material when we finished!
Class has been challenging so far because the bookstore still doesn’t have the casebook so I only partially know what’s going on. The upside is that MDG has focused on teaching the concepts with hypos drawn from real cases, so the debates have been interesting and the class has been pretty engaged.
Not that we have much choice since there are only 9 of us in there, but still…
This also goes toward the elective requirements for me to complete NCCU Law’s Civil Rights & Constitutional Law concentration that I’ll have wrapped up this semester (assuming I pass )
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CONSTITUTIONAL LAW II: FIRST AMENDMENT
===============
I’m not sure what to think about this one.
On the one hand, (1) I love constitutional law in general and (2) this is one of the required courses for the Civil Rights concentration.
On the other, I don’t think the professor likes me…
It could just be me imagining things of course, but the first time we met in-person was upon her request to come to her office (I had emailed her to see if she would approve me being added to the course even though it was at the enrollment cap). When I got there, she asked me to sit tight because she had to walk across the hall and talk to MDG about something.
3 hours later and I was still sitting there before finally deciding I had been punk’d
That aside, so far the classes have been fun hashing out some of the nettlesome challenges facing the courts in dealing with the First Amendment. I’m assuming it only gets better from here…
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SALES & SECURED TRANSACTIONS
===============
Contracts IV basically. 
Prof Sales sort of reminds me of the mad scientists you see on TV: very passionate, very animated, trying to convince the masses to take an interest in their respective crafts. He’s funny too.
But, again, this is essentially Contracts IV we’re talking about here. I’m trying not to go in with a too-negative mindset, but I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the semester in this class…
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CRIMINAL PROSECUTION CLINIC I
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Not sure what to expect here — this class only meets once a week, and I had to sheepishly ask Prof AppAd if I could leave about an hour in for a required meeting I had with the law school administration
Essentially this class will be teaching us how to handle ourselves in the courtroom when we’re trying actual cases under the Third Year Practice Rule next semester when we do the field portion of this class. Since this is what I want to do for a living (assuming I can make enough to pay the bills) I’m looking forward to the experience
***
So that’s the synopsis so far It’s going to be a long semester, but I hope / pray / expect it will be worth it in the end!
Have a great night y’all!
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From the law:/dev/null First Impressions archive:
Tags: 3L, AppAd, ConLaw, Criminal Prosecution, Employment Discrimination, MDG, NCCU Law, Prof AppAd, Prof BRS, Prof Sales, Prof Tax, Sales, Tax
Posted by TDot on Mar 22, 2011 in
The 3L Life Welcome to the very first entry in the new “The 3L Life” category!
True, I’m not technically a 3L for another 1.5 months yet. But since I’m now all signed up for 3L classes I figured this would be as good an entry as any to make it official on the blog
As you could probably guess from yesterday’s entry on my Summer 2011 classes, Monday was registration day for the 2Ls here at NCCU Law. It was also the first semester the 3Ls did not register, and it showed in the course availability — while 3 seconds last semester was all it took for me to get frozen out of several classes I wanted, I overslept yesterday, logged in to the registration system about 5 minutes late, but still got everything I needed
Fall 2011 Schedule: almost done!
It’s also shaping up to be a dog of a semester as I knock out more of my required courses
I’ll be starting my Tuesday and Thursday mornings with our Fundamentals of Income Taxation class. Just about every 3L I’ve talked to has told me to stay far away from Professor Tax, some heatedly so, but this is the only Tax section I could take that would fit with the other classes so I’m rolling the dice.
On the opposite end of the day, the earliest Sales and Secured Transactions class I can take that doesn’t conflict with something else starts at 6:00pm M/T/H
Sales has a reputation as one of our hardest 3L classes, so combining that (I subject I already know I don’t like) with Professor Tax (who will already be teaching another subject I already know I don’t like) is going to make for interesting / stressed out times.
The rest of my classes are all electives though, and split to complement the similarly-competing interests in my summer schedule. Employment Discrimination is taught by MDG and will cover the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and related hiring issues that might come up if I went the in-house counsel route with a tech firm. The class also goes toward our Civil Rights & Constitutional Law concentration that I’m working to knock out.
Appellate Advocacy is a class I originally planned to take this Spring, but dropped when I realized 2L trial team was going to be running my life. I’m going to give it another shot in the Fall because it’s a required co-requisite in order to participate in our annual moot court competitions, which I’ve developed a small but persistent interest in trying. Professor AppAd spent most of his legal career working for the Attorney General’s Office on both trial and appellate cases so it should make for an interesting class.
The last course on the list is our Criminal Prosecution Clinic class, which is the prerequisite for our field clinic in the Durham County Courthouse next Spring. It’s also taught by Professor AppAd, and it’s a course I’ve been planning to take this class ever since the 1L trial team last year. I’m not sure if I’ll be keeping it though — for some reason it’s not included among the clinical programs that apply to the Civil Rights & Constitutional Law concentration, so if I can’t petition successfully to have it apply I’ll have to look for something else.
The biggest upshot to the schedule is that I’ve got no classes at all on Fridays along with a huge gap in the middle of the day for SBA business. At the very least I’ll never have an excuse to fall behind on classwork
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From the schedule-related archives:
Tags: 2L, 3L, AppAd, Class Schedules, Criminal Prosecution, Employment Discrimination, MDG, NCCU Law, Prof AppAd, Prof Sales, Prof Tax, Sales, SBA, Tax
Posted by TDot on Mar 12, 2011 in
The 2L Life Hey everybody!
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here at law:/dev/null, largely due to spending Spring Break this past week trying to get caught up on life post-trial team season. I’m still not there yet, but I figured if I waited to post until I was caught up on classwork I wouldn’t have any readers left
So what’s been going on over the past week and a half here in Legal Eagle territory? Here’s a bulleted rundown:
- Wednesday (03/02/11): Finally had my nuked Gmail restored… in its entirety I have to admit I was both surprised and impressed, and I’ll concede I was wrong in my entry predicting the worst. After making sure all of my mail was restored / downloaded / backed up / etc, I stayed up until 2am-ish to make sure I was fully packed and my trial team binder was ready for the AAJ competition I was brought in on.
- Thursday (03/03/11): Skipped classes to head to the airport, then flew down to Atlanta GA for the AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Competition regionals. The first round wasn’t until Friday night, so I spent the day with the team checking out the city. We had lunch at the Underground‘s Georgia Peach Restaurant & Lounge — some of the best barbecue I’ve had outside of North Carolina, and their peach-blended tea was delicious too.
- Friday (03/04/11): The 2L team’s first round in the AAJ STAC was against the 3Ls from WFU Law. There were some initial jitters when we found out I had already met the presiding judge — the coach of the GSU Law team Christie and I dismantled at the TYLA NTC — but since we didn’t really know how to go about asking for a recusal (and didn’t even know if doing so would even be appropriate given AAJ’s chronic shortage of judges) we just went ahead and did our thing. EIC and M&M were counsel for the defense on that case and turned in a top-notch performance. It provided a big confidence boost to Tinkerbell and I heading into the Saturday rounds.
- Saturday (03/05/11): And with that confidence in-hand, we torched the next two teams we faced on Saturday Tinkerbell and I were counsel for the Plaintiff for both rounds, and we first went up against 2Ls from I’m-not-entirely-sure-where. The results could be summed up like this: Tinkerbell was so devastating on cross-examination, their lead counsel blurted “DAMN!” in exasperation when yet another one of his objections was (properly) overruled I also got to deliver my first “split” closing, which went over well with the jury both in its execution and content.
NCCU Law's 2L and 3L AAJ Trial Teams :D
We followed that beatdown with a match against the 2Ls from WFU Law, in what was hands-down the toughest match we had. Their cross-examination was sharp, and it seemed like every evidentiary ruling made by the judge was going in their direction whether it was warranted or not. Tinkerbell finally shook them off their game during her cross-examination of the Defendant, who started fabricating facts under the pressure. I was sufficiently heated at that point that I was out for blood when it came time for closing arguments, and proceeded to beat the Defense over the head with their own inconsistencies. It was all very satisfying Afterwards we headed to a post-competition reception, then went back to the hotel and played spades at its downstairs bar until last call.
- Sunday (03/06/11): We found out our 2L team came in 7th place overall and only the Top 4 would advance to the semis, so Sunday got spent checking out the Centennial Olympic Park, the Georgia Aquarium, and then packing up to head back to the Bull City. Before leaving the hotel we also ran into MDG… which was vaguely reminiscent of a 1L nightmare I used to have where I tried to hide from my teachers but they always seemed to find me no matter where I went.
- Monday & Tuesday (03/07-08/11): Both of these days get lumped together because they were both spent knocking out life necessities — several loads of laundry, apartment cleaning, turning in travel-related paperwork, and so on.
- Wednesday (03/09/11): Had a business lunch with the Pickle Princess, who I hadn’t seen since the April festivities celebrating the end of my second term as UNCASG President. After catching up on how our respective lives had progressed over the past year, I gave a tour of my alma mater to a quartet of her students who were participating in a FFA competition we were hosting. Turns out one of them even wants to go to law school eventually If I ever get sick of the whole “being a lawyer” thing, I think I’d really love being a booster for N.C. State and for NCCU Law
- Thursday & Friday (03/10-11/11): These two get lumped together too, since they were basically split between watching the opening games of the ACC tournament and trying to catch up on all the mounds of schoolwork that amassed themselves between focusing on TYLA, focusing on SBA, and focusing on AAJ.
Which brings us to today: catching up on law school work, catching up with law school friends, and catching up on the law school blog
God willing I’ll be able to resume my somewhat-normal life now that I’ll have some free hours again, which in turn should (hopefully) mean more work around the blawgosphere — keep your fingers crossed!
And until then, have a great night y’all!
Tags: 2L, AAJ, Christie, Co-Counsel, EIC, Emory Law, Georgia State Law, Haunted by Law School, Legal Eagles FTW, M&M, Madame Prosecutor, MDG, Mercer Law, NC State, NCCU Law, SBA, TDot's Travels, The Pickle Princess, Tinkerbell, Trial Team, TYLA, UNCASG, WFU Law
Posted by TDot on Feb 14, 2011 in
NotFail Good evening y’all
As law:/dev/null exhibited the occasional sign of life over the past couple weeks, I had a trio of people ask me the same question: aside from my obvious elation at the ending GPA, how did my individual classes turn out during 2L Fall?
I’ve been meaning to post an entry explaining exactly that… but then realized I never gave y’all a final update on 1L Spring, or any update at all on 1L Summer
So to properly bolster my reputation of being totally open about my law school grades, I’ve copy/pasted my previous Spring grades entry and revised it with the exam info The textual updates are [bracketed], bolded, and preceded by “Update:” for readability.
I’ll post a separate entry on summer school grades some time this week, and then 2L Fall grades after that — I thought about rolling all that info into this one entry, but considering I haven’t managed to string 3 consecutive entries together for awhile now I wanted to make sure I’ve got easily-editable stuff in the queue
Without further ado…
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1L SPRING REVISITED
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[Everything below is a copy/paste from this entry except for the updates and the final exam grades. You've been forewarned, so any resulting confusion is your own fault! ]
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CIVIL PROCEDURE II
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MDG switched things up from the usual final, giving us a set of multiples but then providing documents from a mock court case to review for the essay. Our objective was to review the documents and craft a letter to the client discussing the numerous FRCP-related concerns that existed.
It was during that portion of the exam that I stopped watching the clock and had time called before I got anywhere near finishing it
CivPro II Final Exam Grades
The multiples were a challenge, with MDG describing them as “nuanced” and mentioning that even a fellow CivPro instructor missed a couple. The highest correct was 15 out of 20 multiples (75%) with the class average at 12 (60%) — high enough to pass the Bar, which is definitely a good thing given the difficulty.
The chart to the right shows how the final exam grades broke down. There was a +19-point curve.
My final grade for the course turned out slightly higher than anticipated, so my guess is I did well on the multiples. But I’m kicking myself for choosing a UNC Board of Governors meeting over an extra credit assignment we were given shortly after midterms though — the extra 5 points would have bumped the final grade to a B, bumping my 1L GPA above a 2.7 (eligible for some NCCU Law merit scholarships).
Lesson learned :headdesk:
[Update: I found out from MDG that I tied for top score on the multiple choice, which let me know I completely bombed the essay -- so I didn't bother picking it up ]
Midterm exam grade: A-
Final exam grade: C
Expected final grade for class: C+
Actual final grade for class: B-
Synopsis: Worse performance than last semester, but given how gratuitously I choked on the essay I’m satisfied with how it turned out. And now I know to do all available extra credit in the future
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CONTRACTS II
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Not a whole lot to say here: Contracts clearly isn’t my thing.
The downside is that I now have to explain to future employers how I barely passed a core class two semesters in a row.
The upside? I never have to take Contracts again until the bar exam
[Update: This was the first (and thus far only) exam where I've underperformed on the multiples compared to the essay. According to Prof Ks, I got 33 of 50 possible essay points and was comfortably above the class median. But I somehow had the 3rd lowest score on the multiple choice Still glad the class is over...]
Midterm exam grade: C-
Final exam grade: C
Expected final grade for class: C-
Actual final grade for class: C
Synopsis: I passed
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CRIMINAL LAW
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If my perpetual flailing in Ks killed any briefly-nurtured dreams I had of going the intellectual property route, CrimLaw coupled with 1L Trial Team have convinced me to follow my heart and go the criminal prosecution route professionally. It’s something I had wanted to do for years, but never seriously considered since public employees don’t make much salary-wise.
But based on my grades it seems like the only thing I’ll be qualified to do
The really crazy part? This was my best grade all year, and it was in the one class where I didn’t study for the final exam because I had a UNCASG meeting that weekend
Professor CrimLaw sent me an email making sure I knew that (i) I earned the grade I got but (ii) I shouldn’t make any professional decisions based on one course. He’s got a valid point but I don’t feel like I’m doing that here — I really, truly, and deeply hate Contracts too so technically it’s based on three courses
[Update: I missed a trio of the multiple choice, and had a few points taken off on the essay. For an ever-so-brief period of time I thought about arguing with Prof CrimLaw over some of the missed points -- including a section where he wrote that I misread the fact pattern, even though myself and every other classmate I spoke to "misread" the same thing -- but I was sufficiently happy/stunned to have at least 1 A-range grade that I didn't bother contesting it.]
Midterm exam grade: A-
Final exam grade: A-
Expected final grade for class: A-
Actual final grade for class: A-
Synopsis: I’m 90% sure Professor CrimLaw isn’t a TDot fan, but I still enjoyed the course. And I’m glad I finally have something other than B’s and C’s populating my transcript
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LEGAL RESEARCH & PERSUASION
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Along with not watching the clock in the CivPro final, this was my other instance of taking a strong starting grade and pissing it away through truly stunning incompetence.
Note to the pre-Ls: read directions!
Then when you’re done: re-read directions!
Then after that: re-re-read directions!
Trust me
[Update: The professor said my final memo was excellent and would have earned me an A- had it not been days late. Le sigh. #kanyeshrug]
Cumulative grade after midterm: A-
Final memo grade: C-
Expected final grade for class: C
Actual final grade for class: C
Synopsis: It could have been worse I guess. At least the research skills we learned actually turned out to be useful. ::headdesk::
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PROPERTY II
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This was the only final exam where I didn’t have a gut feeling one way or the other on how it turned out. I’m not sure if it was from the stress of the looming Contracts final two days later or what.
My performance was worse than the midterm, but high enough that I ended up with the exact same grade I got in the Fall.
And I don’t remember any of it already
[Update: The final for Property II was "meh" all around. Lost a few points on the multiples. Lost a few points on the fill-in-the-blanks covering future interests. Lost a few points on the essay. If anyone has any particularly compelling insights to glean from that performance, let me know ]
Midterm exam grade: A- (and in Top 3)
Final exam grade: B
Expected final grade for class: B+
Actual final grade for class: B+
Synopsis: At least I’m consistent
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TORTS II
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Professor Torts is currently in Costa Rica with our Study Abroad folks, so I won’t know how the final exam turned out for a long while.
But I know enough to know I blew it 
Back on the midterms I ended up with the #1 score out of the class on the multiples-only exam, so to end up with a final grade below even last semester’s I must have quite thoroughly FUBAR’d the final. And I feel fairly certain I did well on the essay, meaning I can only assume I botched the multiples.
Meh. Was never a fan of this class either…
[Update: Didn't do as well on the essay as I thought, completing missing 1 of the issues and losing a point or two on a pair of others. Also didn't do as bad as I thought on the multiples... but someone nailed everything so there was no boost at all in the typical curving of grades ]
Midterm exam grade: A (and in Top 3)
Final exam grade: C+
Expected final grade for class: A-
Actual final grade for class: B-
Synopsis: This was the only bona fide disappointment for the semester, but at least it’s over. I will most definitely not be taking Advanced Torts
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FINAL SCORE: SPRING 2010 FINALS
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Expected End-of-Semester GPA: 2.756
Actual End-of-Semester GPA: 2.733
Actual End-of-1L GPA: 2.678 (Law school median: 2.000)
*****
So that’s the final word on 1L Spring. Info on 1L Summer coming soon (really! )
Have a great night!
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From the grade-related archives:
Tags: 1L, CivPro, CrimLaw, Exams, Ks, Law Grades, LRP, MDG, NCCU Law, Prof CrimLaw, Prof Ks, Prof Torts, Property, Torts
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