Gee10

Our client was punched in the face by a professional athlete. It happened in a bar after she turned down his drunken advances. After he grabbed her butt for the second or third time, she threw a drink in his face. In response, he punched her in the face, then stomped on her chest while she was on the ground. This big, tough guy then ran out of the bar and hid.

It was not a difficult case to win (it was essentially only a question of how much the jury would award her in damages); it was a difficult case to live with, day-in-day-out, because it shattered her life...and it barely impacted him. He got a slap on the wrist on the criminal side of things. My client wanted "justice," and it was tough to get her to understand that no matter how big the award from the jury, she wasn't going to get anything approaching justice even though we'd likely be able to get her some money.

Great questions...

OK, the difference between an A and a B is that an A paper will find not just the major issues, but the sub-issues. It'll also analyze both what you think is the likely outcome on a given issue (e.g. why there IS an offer and why the counterargument that there is not one will fail). I like IRAC because it's clear and concise and informative - I think most profs also love IRAC, even if they say they don't.

A related comment: the difference between a B and a C is simply if the person knows all the law. Know the law inside and out. Showing up and making an effort to apply it using some reasonable format will typically get you to at least the middle of the curve, even if your analysis isn't perfect.

In terms of dealing with the vastness...I always recommend creating a skeletal outline and making sure you're addressing each and every major topic you studied in the course of an essay. Look, if you're doing contracts, you're almost assuredly going to have to identify an offer, acceptance, consideration and defenses. So I tell students to write OACD on their scratch paper (we allow that here - check your school's rules) to make sure they address each of those issues. From there, just look for the nested issues within each. Hitting the major topics will get you in the ballpark, from there, just pick up as many minor ones as you can.

As for what profs think of gunners...hey look, I can speak for me: I like it. I like students who come to class and want to participate. It's the prof's job to recognize who needs to be drawn out and who needn't be and if a student wants to sit up front and try to answer every question, I say have at it. Might not be the best social strategy, but then again, it ain't a frat party.

You've nicely articulated the two sides of that one.

I'm guessing the statute of limitations has passed (I hope so, anyway), but I'll admit that I used to enjoy using Napster and never felt bad about it. Art should be free and created for art's sake, right? Having said that, on an ethical level, I recognize that it's taking food out of the mouth of the artist who created it to take their product without compensation when I otherwise would've purchased it.

Not sure how I feel about it. A conundrum.

Great comments.

When I practiced, I represented exclusively plaintiffs...always the little guy (I chose that side because it made me feel good - I didn't want to represent big corporations or insurance companies, though many friends and great lawyers are happy in that area).

I represented hundreds of people and found that, consistently, when something terrible happens, even if accidental, they tend to feel some combination of alarmed and mad because a piece of their life and happiness was taken from them through someone else's fault.

In this case - the rarely-brought civil battery case (all the 1Ls know this one: battery is the intentional harmful touching of another!) - it's not just that this person had something bad happen to her...it was on purpose. That's very, very difficult for people to accept. If you were to ask her what "justice" would've been, I don't know what her answer would be (and as a lawyer, it was important to me to help focus clients on what I could help them with, as opposed to upset them by thinking about hypotheticals I couldn't help with)

As an attorney, I'd tell all clients, straight out, "my role in this process is to seek money compensation for you. That's how our civil system allows for 'justice,' and that's the limit of what I'd ever be able to do for you." That's sobering for some folks. I'd also tell them that if I'm able to get them money, it's theirs - they can use it for paying for the medical or mental health care they needed or will need...but that they can also use it to donate to organizations to prevent the sort of thing that happened to them. I found that sort of thing is often meaningful to people - the idea that they can use the jury-awarded money to try to help someone else if they choose to.

Easy one: no.

I favor creating more and more simulation-based experiences in the first year, coupled with internships and clinical experiences in the upper levels.

I would (my own interests are showing...) require training in fields like legal technology and ADR, as well as contract drafting and trial practice. I think it's a sin that some schools allow students to graduate without evidence, which is an underpinning of all law, transactional or (obviously) litigation.

Finally, I'd have more interaction between students and practitioners. Lunchtime talks, trips to the courthouse, job shadowing, etc. I'd encourage students to dress and behave professionally at law school (as B-schools do) and I would recruit applicants who had a few years of job experience to promote an atmosphere closer to professional training than to an extension of undergrad.