Almost There.
The funny thing about summer classes is that it’s now August 18th and I am waiting for my summer to finally begin on Friday. As the back to school commercials play, instead of getting excited as I usually do during this time of year, I scoff at them and couldn’t be more glad that these 12 straight months of school are finally over. I’ll have two weeks off between this quarter and starting my coop on September 7th. I plan to spend them frolicking in my garden and hopefully catching another beach day or two.
For now, I’m approaching the tail end of finals week and what a fast week it has been. My last two classes were on Friday and I spent the few days before working on my tax outline so I could revise it during our in class review. Then I spent Saturday and Sunday writing take home exams; both 20 pages, both way more painful than any in class exam I’ve ever had. Monday I reviewed for my tax final, spruced up my outline and did some more work on the two take homes. Tuesday I had my tax exam at 1. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been but with only two hours and 14 questions, it certainly went by quickly. Tax class reminded me a lot of math courses I have taken in the past. They are both complicated, full of formulas and technical languages. Unlike other areas of law which require flexibility, answers in tax are either right or wrong and never in between. So we’ll see how that goes. As for my take homes, I feel really confident about my employment law one and pretty solid about my family law one as well. After my IP studying today and my exam tomorrow, I plan to revise the take homes most of Thursday afternoon and then wake up on Friday to turn them in. Do you hear that people? Noon on Friday, I am done!
One of the really interesting things that came out of this quarter is that I think I’ve discovered an area of law that is not only really interesting to me but something I can actually see myself practicing and that’s employment law. It’s pretty far away from health law and family law (my initial interests when I came to school) but I really like the dynamic nature of the arguments and how winning a case seems to be entirely about what elements are focused upon and how they are argued. It’s a strategic area of law and the background to it (race, sex, religion, disability etc. discrimination) is something I feel my undergraduate studies really provided me a strong foundation in. I’m looking forward to exploring this area of law more and hoping to do a coop in employment law/discrimination at some point in the future. My professor for this course was also incredible and I think his take on life and his style of teaching showed me how rewarding practicing law can be. Unlike a lot of people I’ve met who litigate for big firms, he seemed to really draw his energy from his work and I liked that.
Ok, back to work for me. I have a lot of IP concepts to memorize by 9AM tomorrow.


