As part of the orientation process yesterday we had to sit through the last few minutes of class before we took the floor. He had been covering the general basics of what is Personal Jursidction and the elements of a Contract. But we got to hear this professor drone on about legal writing made me seriously think of running out the door screaming:
Prof: [Holding a book in his hands, speaking in monotone] This book, are any of you familiar with this book? [Dead silence] This book is Strunk's Elements of Style. [I'm not really sure these students had a pulse at this point] I re-read this book at least once a year. You should read through this book three or four times this semester and again next semester. [At this point, I'm shrinking below the 1L sitting in front of me, hand over my mouth, face down, stifling laughter] This next book is called Plain English for Lawyers. [He picks up this book, still in his monotone] If it were up to me, I would call it Elements of Style in Plain English for Lawyers. [I shit you not: He paused waiting for laughter none of which came].So, this batch of 1L's had 4 hours of that yesterday and 8 hours of that today. They must be wanting to kill themselves at this point. Anyway, I stopped by the school today to drop some crap off at my locker and the second day of 'orientation' was in full swing. I was passing the table full of unclaimed nametags when the idea hit me: I should have posed as a 1L.
Imagine, if you will, sitting in a class with a bunch of freshly minted 1L's knees deep in the law school immersion process and there's always that one student who acts like he knows something, but really is full of shit. But what if that student did actually know what he was talking about? When the professor was covering the basics of Civil Procedure or Contracts, you could bust out a few lines about the Williston approach to the Parol Evidence Rule or the meaning of International Shoe. Maybe I'm sick, but I think that the fear inspired would be worth it.
Since I missed out on the opportunity to crash the classes, I'm thinking about ways I can get someone into their first final. A non-descript sort of person that could have been in the class all semester that no one would have noticed. And have them 35 minutes into the test break down, rip the test up, fling it at the person in front of them and run screaming from the examination room.
Remember, they let me be a mentor.
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