Ira, 3L

It's 6:39am and I had a strong urge to start this blog with "Captain's Log, October 28, 2009. 6:39am. Somewhere--somewhere lost in the galaxy."

Odd as I've never been much more than a passing Star Trek fan.

As I may have stated in previous blogs, this quarter of my third year feels a lot like being a 1L all over again. That, in turn, feels a lot like constantly trying to keep yourself from drowning under the weight of it all. Early on in this quarter, I became all too tempted to assume being this busy and feeling this oppressed by time and agenda was an Ira-centric issue. However, as weeks pass and we draw near to the close of the term, I'm starting to hear from classmate after classmate that they too have been staggering under the weight of it all.

There are a few lessons to be had here, I'm convinced:

(1) Don't bite off more than you can chew. Being involved in student activities and extracurriculars is great, and IMPORTANT, but don't let your eyes get bigger than your stomach. It seems it's a pretty common mistake to assume you can do it all. That's when classes start to feel the pinch. There is a balance to be had, and it's different for everyone. So, find yours but don't forget about classes. They are primarily why you're here at law school, and why you're future self is paying them ungodly amounts of money.

(2) No person is an island. Realize that a lot of the time, when you feel alone in your burdens, you have good company. Many of your classmates are also feeling a little taken down by the wolves that hell week during 1L when you question why you even came to law school, or when you're having nagging, persistent 3L/senioritis musings about why are you still in law school.

You might respond..."but Ira, those are all pretty cliche and common-sense lessons." And you'd be correct and get the gold star. However, as you'll learn, much of law school is an unwitting war to disturb common sense out of your day to day thinking for a while. Not all of school has it out for your practical side, of course, and you'll probably be far better off at experiential-focused NUSL. Just know, for a while, when you're trying to delve deep into the conceptual thought pattern of whether a fictitious, objective, and quite unrealistic "reasonable person would feel harmed by such behavior," common sense may take a vacation and not tell you it's leaving.

You may also be quite calculating and notice that I said there were a few lessons to be learned. I guess that lesson is to stop reading so much into things. Some things--sometimes--need to just be taken at face value.

In less ranting news, I have two interviews this week for post-grad opportunities. Wish me luck! And good luck to all my fellow interviewers. At this point, I'm rooting for any and all of us to get a job lined up before we take the bar. I also attended an MPRE review session this past weekend, which is helping prepare me for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. Nearly every state (except California, I think) requires that you have a certain high score on the MPRE before you can even sit to take the bar and become a licensed attorney. After all, they want to make sure that you're ethical. Or...at the least, that you can answer sixty multiple choice questions as if you are.

More on that later. Good luck to all of you out there as you start finalizing early admission applications.

Posted by Ira at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, the Sox lost it.

I'll go ahead and say it and get it out of the way: They deserved to lose. October being October, and all things being equal, the way they were playing in the post-season I'm fairly positive they wouldn't have made it to the trophy.

Oh well, there's always next year. Sad weekend for Boston and much of New England, though, to see the Sox, Pats, and Bruins all go down in a three day hat trick.

Let's all just collectively hope the Steinbrenner family doesn't get another ring.

Things are status quo in law school. Reading, researching, writing, editing, working on the Journal, applying for post-graduate positions. Interestingly, there is a general fog of starting the quarter lifting around the law school. I can tell that everyone is starting to realize (or, at the least, allow themselves to be aware) that we only have a month before exams. To butcher a quote from a friend of mine: there are two kinds of people in the world--those who feel ready for exams, and liars.

Currently, while ignoring the threat of exams, I am working on a teaching outline for my 1L research and writing class. Tonight I am going to lead the first-years through some helpful research tools and tactics. Also, researching on my own, I am working on a memo for my Section 1983 course. Section 1983 refers to the federal civil rights statute that allows individuals to sue the government and government officials for tramping over their rights. My topic is on the confluence of the First Amendment and retaliatory arrests (e.g., after speeding through a school zone, for which he was not stopped or cited, a bloke flips a cop the bird. The cop then stops him and arrests him for speeding. Constitutional? We'll find out!).

Posted by Ira at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October is the post-season in Major League Baseball. This is what it all comes down to. As Joe Posnanski recently wrote in Sports Illustrated:

"ANYTHING can happen in October. Who was the best team this year? Who cares?

...

Just in the last dozen years, we have seen the Boston Red Sox come back from a three games to zero deficit, we have seen TWO Florida Marlins teams sneak in as wildcards and win the World Series, we have seen a 116-win Seattle Mariners team lose in the first round. How about the 2006 Cardinals? They lost nine of their last 12 games and looked like they might pull off the most spectacular collapse in more than two decades. They hold on, make it to the playoffs with 83 wins, win a playoff round, then beat the Mets in seven games, and then take out Detroit in the World Series.

...

It can happen -- anything can happen -- because baseball is like that. The best NFL teams win 80 to 90 percent of the time. The best NBA teams win about 75 to 80 percent of the time. The best college basketball and football teams win 90 to 100 percent of the time.

But in baseball, great teams only win about six out of 10. So you can do the math: It's a whole lot easier in baseball to take three out of five or four out of seven from a great team. Call it magic. Call it luck. Call me irresponsible. But you never know where it's going to go. I once asked Brooks Robinson if he thought his '69 Orioles were better than the Miracle Mets. He smiled and said the eight words that might best describe October baseball: 'It doesn't matter what I think. They won.'"

That's what makes baseball so great, and that's also why I tell my friends never to bet money on baseball. It's too unpredictable. And too fantastic. Who wants prediction when you can have edge-of-your seat frustration and anticipation from one pitch to the next?

As I get pumped thinking about the playoffs and thinking about the Red Sox (despite lamenting that my favorite National Leaguers, the Braves, had a long walk home with their heads hanging down), I realized that being a 3L feels a lot similar to a constant October. Applying for post-grad jobs, clerkships, fellowships, co-ops, taking classes, looking out onto a hazy horizon of your future (which may be hazier than you thought even if you got an offer from a firm)--it is all post-season. What could happen? Who looked like they had great chances at a job and were all lined up last week? Who cares? One great interview, one day, could change it all.

Stay tuned. Go strong, go well, or go home. Go Sox.

Posted by Ira at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am still working on finding a post-graduation job, but I've finally lined up my Winter co-op. I interviewed at several places, and, ultimately, it was a tough decision, but I chose to go with the Roxbury Defenders. The Roxbury Defenders are a divisional office of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (i.e., Massachusetts' public defender system), representing indigent criminal defendants for crimes allegedly committed in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. I will get to work on cases in both Roxbury District Court and Suffolk Superior Court (both trial level courts), help attorneys with their own cases and trials, and even argue some bail hearings when the Commonwealth (aka District Attorney) are asking the judge to set a bail/bond that will keep the client in jail until his/her next court date.

As stated above, the job search goes on. A rejection has rolled in here and there, but such is the nature of the beast (and the economy). This year's graduates are competing with a larger pool of last year's graduates (and I'm talking about the national job market!), as well as a smaller pool of the year prior. I still have applications out in the ether, and will likely have some interviews before Halloween. I feel that my prospects are good, and I'll continue to put myself out there and apply for jobs. Having a paycheck (especially working in an area of law that intrigues me) would be clutch. Thankfully, NUSL's Office of Career Development is hugely helpful in reaching out to employers and contacting students about career opportunities.

The school's Law Journal is currently working towards its second publication, which will have articles about the subprime mortgage crisis and related litigation, and planning for its third Symposium and publication. The latter issue will be about the regulation of firearms, both by the federal government and state government, and will touch some of the many, many subtopics that fall under discussion of gun regulation. We are currently contacting potential speakers for the Symposium and authors for the publication (those two groups not being mutually exclusive), and laying down some of the logistical groundwork for holding a Symposium at the law school (e.g., reserving the budget, rooms, caterers).

More to come...

Posted by Ira at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)