For those of you curious as to what I've been doing the last two years, here are some of my observations on law school to a friend considering it:
The common law tends to be very "detail oriented" and spends a lot of time focusing on facts (as opposed to civil law systems, i.e. every country in the world except the English speaking ones, which are more conceptual in spirit). I'm conceptual, too, which is why I enjoy the Masters more (political science/international relations needing no facts whatsoever ;)). Yet I did enjoy law school, and thought it was a positive learning and growth experience that I'd recommend to other people looking for that sort of thing. It's not as bad as they say, once you figure out the way things work. There are some silly things in law school, especially the first year. I about died when they told us we'd need to spend 60 hours a week studying. Not true. They LIED. 3-10 hours a week is a more realistic estimate if you're a fast learner and have better things to do, although being at the top of the class requires quite a bit more studying and also figuring out how the law school "game" is played. Outlining is a scam, too (mind you, this is what most of said 60 hours are to be spent doing, you see the logic). I highlight relevant stuff in my textbook then put it into my class notes, that's the closest I come to "outlining." Although, of course, people have different learning styles, and outlining seems to work for some people. My class notes are pretty good, though; I type about 110 wpm (almost at the speed of spoken word, although I don't bother transcribing the lecture (some people do!)) and I format them nicely, so that helps a lot. I guess that's one of the big points I'm trying to make, there are lots of myths about law school, and I've chosen to ignore most of them and do what works for me (of course, the proof will be in the pudding once I'm out in the real world). Lots of silly stuff, essentially rites of passage. I think rites of passage are almost always a way to identify suckers who are willing toe the line (see above about working for big law firms and clerking with judges, i.e. those looking for slaves willing to toe the line), so the system has a certain twisted logic. Can you see why one of my professors called me an iconoclast, as I might have mentioned, but he meant it very nicely (as he writes articles on how law school should be changed to be more accommodating to - gasp - students, thus is well aware of these issues as well. There is a surprising amount of literature on it.) As to exams, it's basically buzzword bingo, you try to identify and use the same language to describe things that the professor used in his or her lecture. I find it a very dull and stilted way to write, unfortunately, but that's the secret. Almost all class grades are based entirely on a final exam (and maybe a few participation points); a few have papers or midterms. There is a curve, and people don't seem to like it. I think curves are inherently evil, but it's survivable. The Socratic method is okay, you get used to it. Not all professors use it, and no one gets called on that often (maybe 5 or so times a semester, at most). It did help me get over a mild aversion to speaking in public, as once you get used to rambling aimlessly in public, you stop being humiliated by it. That was actually my biggest fear about law school, as I'd had a bad experience with an undergrad professor who used it to target students who irritated her (never me, she seemed to like me okay, or maybe I just lucked out, but one of my friends walked out of the class and flunked rather than go back to more abuse). At it's best, classroom discussion can become a very interesting dialogue, which is when law school is at its best. Although it has degenerated into a shouting match a couple of times (people get very heated about economics!). That's another thing, I read up a bit on basic economic principles, as my own knowledge was spotty; the law and economics movement is chic right now, and it helps to know how to talk THAT talk, too. Game theory is also another thing to maybe read up on in a very minor way, if you haven't read much about it (I keep avoiding it like the plague, bah, mathematicians attempting to predict human behavior indeed). You hear people talking about zero sum games and even the prisoner's dilemma ever so often. Um, that�s about it for general law school observations. As one of the drunken attorneys at the Mensa meeting told me, it all does come together in the end. There is sort of a method to the madness, ultimately. But not really. Once you've got the basics, it's mostly all just made up on the fly. And THAT is the real lesson of law school...heh heh.
