So school has begun again, as it must in the vicious cycle of academia. This semester my classes all seem to be exponentially harder than last semester. In almost all of them, I have seriously considered dropping them, thinking there was no way I could hack it in that class. Alas, I decided to go the route of masochism, and stay in all of my classes. Ultimately I decided that I should just step up to the damn plate. Maybe I'll surprise myself. I really hope so.
Anyway, my first class is federal jurisdiction. It's going to be a class about federalism (the different powers afforded to the states and the federal government and the relationship between the two) and about federal courts. That sort of thing. I think I'm going to enjoy it. It's a really small class. There are only like 15 people in that class. I think that'll be good though.
My next class is legal profession. It's a class about legal ethics. It'll be good. In order to be admitted to the bar, you have to take the MPRE which is a test about legal ethics and professional rules of responsibility. So this class will help with that. Plus, it's required, so you know, there's that.
My next class is criminal procedure: investigation. We'll be talking about things like search and seizure, interrogation, that sort of thing. It's a really big class, but I still think it'll be good. My professor is very passionate about criminal procedure, so that makes the class interesting.
My last class is legislative and statutory interpretation. This class, I fear, will be my hardest. It's going to be really interesting though. As implied by the title, it's a class that teaches different ways to read and interpret statutes. You'd think that would be a fairly straightforward endeavor, but I expect if you think that you've never read a statute. Also, we're lawyers. We need to know how to argue that a statute means the exact opposite of whatever our opponent says it means. (I hope you keep that in mind when you hear politicians squabbling about what a certain piece of legislation means. You're probably not getting the full picture from either one of them.) Anyway, I think it'll be a good class. Setting aside the cynicism, it's good to know how to read and interpret statutes. Sometimes (read almost always) they're hard to understand, so I think this class will give me the tools I need to understand legislation better, which is always good.
Anyway, those are my classes this semester. It's gonna be a crazy semester, but I think it'll be good. I'm also doing the moot court trial team. We get started on Monday. I'm pretty excited about that. I think it'll be a lot of fun, so I'll keep you posted on a the adventures I expect will be inherent with the athletic equivalent of law school. :) Hope you're all staying warm!
