Never in the history of academics have students had to do so much work for two credits. Legal Writing is hard. One would think that just from reading case after case after case there would be some learning by osmosis. Nope. Let me put it to you this way. I’ve been done with my first year of Law School now for the better part of the summer and I am just beginning to understand legal writing. Here’s my advice…
Don’t think of it was writing. I repeat, if you think of legal writing as writing you will fail. Writing is about telling a story; setting scene, perhaps character development, rising action and resolution. Writing can be enjoyable, sometimes people even find it cathartic. Legal Writing is not like that at all. Your best bet is to think of Legal Writing as math. Remember geometry proofs? Proving triangle A is similar to triangle B, or proving congruence between two parallelograms? If you don’t remember, refresh yourself.
Legal writing is definitely more like a logic proof than a short story. Throw away all of your fancy writing books and find your Integrated Math II textbook from tenth grade and get crackin.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Laptops
“There is actually a significant movement within the Law Professor community to ban laptops from classrooms.”
Well isn’t that something. All this time I had been sitting comfortably behind my laptop screen thinking about how wonderful the laptop made my educational experience, and the professor I respect the most is talking smack. The laptop computer makes everything better. Notes are useful because they are legible, mutable and exchangeable. I can take down a lot more information as I type significantly faster than I could ever write and if I get bored there is facebook. That’s the conflict really. With laptops comes the presence of the biggest distraction in the entire world, the internet.
What I found surprising was the fact that this particular professor was anti-laptop. It wouldn’t really surprise me if some of the other faculty took this position but here was a guy that seemed to be on the side of technology. The last time I sat in classrooms regularly we didn’t have laptops or wireless internet in every classroom. It was only 3 or 4 years ago but that’s how fast this technology has taken over. My response to this attack on laptops is twofold….
First, the benefits of the laptop far outweigh the possible drawbacks. In addition to the note-taking issue mentioned above the accessibility of the internet is an invaluable educational tool. I can’t tell you how many times I looked things up in Blacks Dictionary in the middle of class. Second, laptops did not create distracted students. In college I would draw very complex pictures of trees in the margins of my notebook. If you’re not going to pay attention, the presence or absence of a computer will not change your mind. The laptop just makes the options available to the bored student more entertaining. The answer…and professors take note… just make your lectures more entertaining….
Well isn’t that something. All this time I had been sitting comfortably behind my laptop screen thinking about how wonderful the laptop made my educational experience, and the professor I respect the most is talking smack. The laptop computer makes everything better. Notes are useful because they are legible, mutable and exchangeable. I can take down a lot more information as I type significantly faster than I could ever write and if I get bored there is facebook. That’s the conflict really. With laptops comes the presence of the biggest distraction in the entire world, the internet.
What I found surprising was the fact that this particular professor was anti-laptop. It wouldn’t really surprise me if some of the other faculty took this position but here was a guy that seemed to be on the side of technology. The last time I sat in classrooms regularly we didn’t have laptops or wireless internet in every classroom. It was only 3 or 4 years ago but that’s how fast this technology has taken over. My response to this attack on laptops is twofold….
First, the benefits of the laptop far outweigh the possible drawbacks. In addition to the note-taking issue mentioned above the accessibility of the internet is an invaluable educational tool. I can’t tell you how many times I looked things up in Blacks Dictionary in the middle of class. Second, laptops did not create distracted students. In college I would draw very complex pictures of trees in the margins of my notebook. If you’re not going to pay attention, the presence or absence of a computer will not change your mind. The laptop just makes the options available to the bored student more entertaining. The answer…and professors take note… just make your lectures more entertaining….
Accuracy v. Precision
“Lawyers have to be PRECISE with their language.”
Every first year law student has undoubtedly heard this phrase about a million times. There’s a major problem with it though. The problem stems from the difference between accuracy and precision. Accuracy is the degree of veracity while precision is the degree of reproducibility. The analogy used here to explain the difference between accuracy and precision is the target comparison. In this analogy, repeated measurements are compared to arrows that are fired at a target. Accuracy describes the closeness of arrows to the bullseye at the target center. Arrows that strike closer to the bullseye are considered more accurate. The closer a system's measurements to the accepted value, the more accurate the system is considered to be.
To continue the analogy, if a large number of arrows are fired, precision would be the size of the arrow cluster. (When only one arrow is fired, precision is the size of the cluster one would expect if this were repeated many times under the same conditions.) When all arrows are grouped tightly together, the cluster is considered precise since they all struck close to the same spot, if not necessarily near the bullseye. The measurements are precise, though not necessarily accurate.
So now that we’re all clear on that difference… I invite all of you to call out the first professor you hear say that thing about lawyers and precise language. Simply ask… “professor I’m unclear on the differences between accuracy and precision, would you please explain it?” Then see what happens…
Every first year law student has undoubtedly heard this phrase about a million times. There’s a major problem with it though. The problem stems from the difference between accuracy and precision. Accuracy is the degree of veracity while precision is the degree of reproducibility. The analogy used here to explain the difference between accuracy and precision is the target comparison. In this analogy, repeated measurements are compared to arrows that are fired at a target. Accuracy describes the closeness of arrows to the bullseye at the target center. Arrows that strike closer to the bullseye are considered more accurate. The closer a system's measurements to the accepted value, the more accurate the system is considered to be.
To continue the analogy, if a large number of arrows are fired, precision would be the size of the arrow cluster. (When only one arrow is fired, precision is the size of the cluster one would expect if this were repeated many times under the same conditions.) When all arrows are grouped tightly together, the cluster is considered precise since they all struck close to the same spot, if not necessarily near the bullseye. The measurements are precise, though not necessarily accurate.
So now that we’re all clear on that difference… I invite all of you to call out the first professor you hear say that thing about lawyers and precise language. Simply ask… “professor I’m unclear on the differences between accuracy and precision, would you please explain it?” Then see what happens…
First Day Blues...
I had spent the previous two weeks fishing. I would wake up at dawn, throw my gear and dog in the car and head out to the beach. Needless to say a classroom in Jamaica Queens felt like a world away from the beaches and vineyards of the North Fork. “Your goal is to find the issue at the heart of each case.” Issue? I didn’t really know what an issue was. It seemed like a relatively important concept though. I typed the word issue onto my laptop, control b’d it to make it bold and typed a question mark. All around me the clicking of fingers on keys rose to an impressive roar.
This was law school up close. We were all sitting in a tiered classroom on Utopia Parkway watching the strange creature called the “law Professor” behind the mahogany podium. “Sometimes the Court will be nice and actually state, ‘the issue in this case is such and such,’ but more often then not you’ll have to find it yourself.”
The first week of law school was basically an introduction to the procedural aspects of the study of law (the distinction between procedure and substance is a useful concept to become familiar with as soon as possible.). Today’s lesson was case briefing. So apparently the deal is that in each case there is an “issue,” the issue is the question the case addresses. The issue is the law. Again, the roar of fingers on keyboards.
Looking back I realize that I literally had no idea what I signed up for. The first year of law school was so intense, so insane, so much fun and so much pain that had someone attempted to explain it all to me I would not have believed them. People had told me that it will change the way you think. I was told that the abstract concept of “thinking like a lawyer” would invade every aspect of my life. It did. It was the first step into a larger world. I’d do it again.
This was law school up close. We were all sitting in a tiered classroom on Utopia Parkway watching the strange creature called the “law Professor” behind the mahogany podium. “Sometimes the Court will be nice and actually state, ‘the issue in this case is such and such,’ but more often then not you’ll have to find it yourself.”
The first week of law school was basically an introduction to the procedural aspects of the study of law (the distinction between procedure and substance is a useful concept to become familiar with as soon as possible.). Today’s lesson was case briefing. So apparently the deal is that in each case there is an “issue,” the issue is the question the case addresses. The issue is the law. Again, the roar of fingers on keyboards.
Looking back I realize that I literally had no idea what I signed up for. The first year of law school was so intense, so insane, so much fun and so much pain that had someone attempted to explain it all to me I would not have believed them. People had told me that it will change the way you think. I was told that the abstract concept of “thinking like a lawyer” would invade every aspect of my life. It did. It was the first step into a larger world. I’d do it again.
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