Alumni Newsletter

Today, the people who put together the UA Law School Alumni Newsletter gave me a shout out in the form of a link to my blog.  Thank you for that, sincerely.  I welcome all efforts that will expose my writing to a bigger audience.

But I thought now would be a good time to clarify the roles of the law school and of this blog.  Obviously, since I chose to go here, I believe in this school.  I believe it has a great program, but I'm just a student in this program.  In this blog, I've tried to record and describe the experience of being a law student.  You could say that I've endorsed this school simply by coming here and believing in it, but the school did not endorse this blog as the official UA law blog (or otherwise) when it sent out the link.  It's just sending some reading to alumni that they might find interesting.  We went through the same things, we will have the same alma mater, and we're bound by those shared experiences, so they might be interested in the experience of a 2L who's chosen to keep a blog and share what she's learned.  

To repeat: the law school does not endorse everything I say on this blog, and I intend to keep the blog as an honest reflection of my time here.  This might include some criticisms of the program, but it includes a lot of praise as well.  

Every organization has its problems, and one reason I post my criticisms here is so that fellow students, past and present, can have a forum in which to discuss them.  Otherwise, I hope the blog continues to give some insight into what it feels like to be a law student, and I hope I can make you laugh while you read.  Either way, I hope you find something of value here.  If you have an issue with something I've posted, you're always welcome to email me: Senichols@gmail.com.  

Alabama Law Applicants get Free iTunes

The Alabama Law Admissions Office is using a creative tactic to get students to apply.  They're giving away $20 in iTunes!  Dan Slater, at the Wall Street Law Blog, posted the partial email and then comments afterwards:

Admit it! You are an outstanding student. For a select number of students like you, The University of Alabama School of Law is offering some special incentives. But, don’t wait! . . .

For you, we’re making two special offers:

1. We’ll waive your application fee, and

2. We’ll present you with free iTunes® downloads in the amount of $20 if you apply!

We have no doubt that the Loyal Reader who received this generous music offer would make a fine law student — how could he not? he’s a Loyal Reader! — but of course we wonder about Alabama’s motives. Raise the number of applications? The number of rejections? Capitalize on what’s expected to be a big application year?

We await a response from Claude Reeves Arrington, Alabama law’s associate dean of admissions.

When I applied, the school knew that I had already bought a house in Tuscaloosa. They knew my brother was an undergraduate there, that I was born in Mobile, and that my grandparents lived in Birmingham. They knew I was very likely to come there. Is that why I didn't get my $20 in iTunes??

Are some people talented at (almost) everything?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medicine man, is being considered by president-elect Obama for Surgeon General.  

Dr. Gupta probably wouldn't be where he is, with a prominent spot on CNN, without being a good doctor.  But his position on CNN has something to do with his likeability -- his appearance and ability to communicate well on camera.  Are those qualities that we really value in a SG?  

He could just be a brilliant doctor and a great communicator.  One of my non-law student friends was asking me the other day about my peers in school.  I told him that they're extremely intelligent, and he asked if they also have interesting personalities.  Are they smart and the type of people you'd want at your party?  My answer was, generally, yes.  It's very intimidating, but my class (and the other classes at my school too, I'm sure) are both intelligent and well rounded.  They're the type of people you're jealous of in high school and college: football team captain, speak 3 languages, double major in chemical engineering and political science and a model on the side.  Seriously?  Ugh.  

Maybe Dr. Gupta is just one of those all-around talented people.  And that can't be a bad thing in a SG.  

Busting Out All Over

In my attempt to get inside Prof. Horwitz's head and win round 2 (I didn't do as well as I'd hoped in his Con Law class last semester), I looked up and read some of his published articles. This was my favorite sentence, from "Religious Tests in the Mirror: The Constitutional Law and Constitutional Etiquette in Judicial Nominations" (15 WMMBRJ 75):

It would seem that the Religious Test Clause is busting out all over.

He's too smart not to know exactly what he was writing there. I'm glad to see that irreverence is alive and well, even in the stuffy world of legal scholarship.

Jackpot.

For some reason, it never occurred to me that my professors might have blogs. Yesterday, my eyes were opened to the cool-potential of my professors. My Constitutional Law professor, Paul Horwitz, writes for PrawfsBlawg. When I found out that Prof. Horwitz blogs, I had to confess my impulse to bling out his pimp-cane (which I wrote about in this post). I emailed the blog post to him, but he hasn't responded yet. I don't know if that means he's amused or perturbed, but I hope his reaction is positive. It was meant to flatter you, Prof. Horwitz, honest!

I also found out yesterday that my Property professor is as much of a rockstar in property law as his son is in music. The Property rockstar is James Krier, and his son is Andrew W.K.

The professor who has been mentoring me through the book publishing process, Alfred L. Brophy, has a blog as well. Professor Brophy went to lunch with (literal) rockstar dad PropProf. Krier. Here's Prof. Brophy's write-up of their lunch.

Also amusing: Prop.Prof Krier's son, Andrew W.K., released an EP called Party Til You Puke.

Perspectives

Here's classroom 187 from one seat in on the fourth row:

It's where I've spent most of my life for the past few weeks, and where the rest of my semester will be lived.












Here's the same classroom from the professor's perspective:



I posted these pictures for a few reasons:
(1) I just got a new phone, and wanted to test out the camera function;
(2) I wanted to see how clearly the pictures taken with my phone would show up online;
(3) I wanted to see if the classroom seems as daunting in picture form as it does in person.

Career Services Office

I'm a 1L, just received the grades at the end of my spirit-breaking first semester, so this is my first opportunity to deal with the Career Services Office. My first meeting is tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Mama, check this out.

To make a long story short: I found out a few days ago that my insurance company dropped me when I turned 23 on Dec. 6, but they've been telling me -- up until Jan. 21st -- that I was still covered. They didn't notify me that I was dropped until the 21st, which makes more than a month without insurance coverage. You're supposed to sign up for student health insurance within a month of being dropped by your old insurance company, so because the old company gave me false information and I relied on it, there are problems with my student coverage.

All that boring background leads me to something more exciting. I just wrote my first REAL letter threatening legal action. The "legal action" would be to file a formal complaint with the state insurance board. It's a very mild threat, but it gave me a rush nonetheless.

See, mama? I am totally learning useful things in law school.

Law Students and Stress

"The emotional distress of law students appears to significantly exceed that of medical students and at times approach that of psychiatric populations.” -- Finding of a new(ish) study, found via the WSJ Law Blog.

Why is law school so stressful? Is law school even more stressful than medical school? I think it is, and the number of hours spent doesn't have much to do with it. If you tell a medical student that law school is more stressful than med school, they'll likely respond by telling you how many hours they just spent in a lab or studying for a test. But just because you spend hours and hours doing something doesn't necessarily mean that it's stressful. The only instance when time spent studying is truly stressful is when I'm not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep takes an emotional and physical toll, but this doesn't explain the difference in stress levels between law and other graduate students.

It doesn't relate to the difficulty of the material, either. I'm not disputing that med school is hard -- it should be hard, and law school is hard too. Both take a ton of work to be admitted and to stay afloat.

I think it has something to do with the method of accountability in law school. Law classes are dialogues that turn into verbal battles sometimes. The system is adversarial by nature. As a student, you have to do all the assigned reading because you might be called on -- not only to answer specific questions, but to take and defend a position on an issue. Making an argument about the material takes more than a cursory knowledge of it. And usually, law professors are not kind enough to move on to another student if they call on someone who doesn't know the answer. The alternative to being prepared is being embarrassed in front of your class, and people will usually go to great lengths to avoid embarrassment.

Any and all bitterness I have, I blame on law school.

"My friend."

Fred Thompson peppered his Saturday speech in South Carolina with the phrase "my friend." Other politicians do this as well. It's another appearance of that calculated, folksy, fake-intimate type of speech that baby-kissers seem fond of lately. Anytime a politician says the words "my friend," I shut down and stop listening. It triggers my defenses because it sounds so disingenuous.

No, I'm not your friend. You're not my friend, and you're not going to convince me that we're friends. Stop saying it.

And no, you can't kiss my baby.

Law School Gunners

Above the Law has an open thread this morning about law school "gunners." A gunner is someone who is inappropriately enthusiastic and insensitive to class etiquette, always "gunning" for a chance to speak. Gunners quickly get the disdain of everyone else in their class, including the professors.

The one gunner (that I can think of) in our class is, thankfully, more amusing than annoying. I actually have a lot of affection for him, and I like it when he talks because he usually says something funny. He's earned the nickname "The Sniper" because he sits in the back/top of the room and always finds a way to reference guns in his class comments. The Sniper is from Texas, and if the topic doesn't allow him a chance to talk about guns, he falls back on a Texas comment. Here's my favorite standard comment from The Sniper:

"I don't know about where y'all are from, but everything's bigger in Texas, including our guns."

I'm in love.

I'm starting to become more comfortable with law school. Law school and I haven't exactly become friends yet, but we're on a first name basis. Law school and I will be spending a lot more time together in the next few years, so we have plenty of time to take this relationship slowly and get to know each other better. I'm still skeptical, but it's getting better.

Westlaw, on the other hand, is my new true love. You can look up people's criminal records! If the law school authorities were really serious about getting us to pay attention in class, they wouldn't have taught us how to snoop on Westlaw.