Law Students

Half-Time.

By Steve Pirates

Property final over! I felt decent about this final. Last semester property was my strongest class, and I figure it will be again this semester.

Having a final on Saturday is weird. It’s not as bad as you might think, because when finals roll around, the day of the week stops mattering. It’s just Finals Time. For me, day and time of day are abstract. I’ve been going to sleep at 8p.m. almost every night, and waking up around 5a.m. so that I can be alert and awake for the 8a.m. final. It’s a little surreal. I think that Finals Time is really one of the only times I truly feel that law school is how I thought it would be.

For this final we were allowed to bring one regular piece of paper with anything written on it, on both sides. I can read about down to 6 Point Font., so I managed to get a decent amount on my “cheat sheet”. I saw people with documents that were 5 or 4 point. It was crazy.

When you try to winnow down a course to one page, there will always be holes left in your outline. Unfortunately some of the questions were exactly in those holes. It was like Bedknobs And Broomsticks, where I had one half of the answer, and the other half of the answer, but not the one piece in the middle that made it actually work. So, there were a few questions where I was like, “Yes, I know OF Chain of Title and Wild Deeds”, as opposed to “X’s claim fails because Y’s Wild Deed is outside the Chain of Title.”

Still, I felt pretty decent over all. I think the part of law school exams that bothers me the most is that during school you get so used to examining each and every word for any possible ambiguity that it is almost impossible for a question to not have SOME wiggle room. And by some wiggle room I mean as much room as a flagellate needs to oscillate. (Which is not much). So you sit there and think you have the right answer based on the common sense plain meaning of the question, but what if up means down, or it’s ambiguous? This is especially bad when there is a “none of the above” option. Because an answer could be right with one interpretation, but if the other meaning of “is” is the question, then “none of the above” is the best choice.

In cases like this, it’s best to know your professor well. Is this a professor who doesn’t want you to overthink stuff, and is testing you for basic knowledge? Or is this a professor who wants to see how far you can push what you know and how well you can stretch? Knowing your professor can help you figure out whether you’re psyching yourself out on some of the multiple choice questions.

The essays for this exam were interesting three (3) short essays and one (1) longer essay. The short essays were pretty straight forward. The longer essay seemed kind of “Bar Exam-esque”. One fact pattern, several legal theories going on all based on different facts. I enjoyed it. I hope I did well on it.

Two down, two left. Half-time, have some oranges and a Hi-C.

Full post as published by Jolly Lawger on April 19, 2008 (boomark / email).