Law School Finals: Take One

Because I seem bound and determined to take my CivPro exam having hardly cracked a book, why not put off studying a little more and add my only slightly better than worthless opinion to the glut of writing about law school finals? If you look around, you’re bound to find a dozen people who’ve written things infinitely better than what follows, but we’re all here, so let’s make the most of it, k?

It’s sort of interesting… there was little said about finals for the first, oh, fourteen weeks of the semester, but it seems like the minute we all got back from break all we could do was talk about sex, make slightly-funny law-related jokes, and obsess over finals. What adds to the dementia is that most of us spend most of our waking ours at the law school… so there is a hell of a lot of talking about sex, making aforementioned jokes, and obsessing over finals. As the days wore on, this finals-craze only increases.

But more interesting, is the closer finals have gotten, the more often our fellow 1Ls — the vast majority of whom have no law-final-taking experience to speak of — have started waxing poetic on the nature of finals, how to take them, how best to study for them, and (of course) sex.

Last night in a chat room (future law students: avoid AIM Chatrooms. I am not kidding) Jen said that she thought the whole law school needed to get laid. This is probably a true statement. Though I can’t decide if that would make finals week(s) better or worse, since I’m pretty sure I’d want to slap someone if that many people were walking around with their morning-after glow.

And now I’ve started talking about finals and wound up on sex. Do you see what law school does to your brain?

But I’ve said this before — we’ve got 200ish Type A personalities for whom a battery of four exams will determine their entire semester grade. Do you see how this might cause a little hysteria? It is, indeed, hysterical.

Let me give you an example.

Last night Dana was trying to put together a poker night (which she did, and it was fun, so screw all you losers who were too busy studying to play poker) and slowly people started backing out, citing “finals” as their reason. They had too much studying to do. Our exam schedule is like this: Tuesday, Friday, Monday, Friday. Most people (especially the study-bugs) have been working on CivPro since MONDAY of this week, if not earlier. So, what these people are saying, is that they need approximately EIGHT DAYS to study for the CivPro final.

Now, fair readers, this is not because these people are stupid, it’s because they’re scared. Yes, I said scared. They’re scared of different things — scared of the final itself, scared of not knowing how finals are going to go, scared of forgetting something, scared of not getting it, scared of not studying more than every other living organism in the law school, scared of being too ugly to be allowed to sit for the final — the list goes on. They’re scared that if they spend one waking moment between now and the start of the CivPro final doing anything but studying, complaining about studying, or talking about sex that they will fail. Or, at the very least, not get an A.

Because I know some of you about whom I am speaking actually read this tripe that I write, I want to suggest to you some logic that will either make you feel better or much, much worse.

When the CivPro final is over, depending on your section, you will have approximately two and one-half days to study for torts. Those of you who have spent 6 days studying for CivPro take note: I don’t care who you are, CivPro is easier than torts. It just is. Also, I think all of our sections of CivPro are open — so you have help. Some of the torts sections are closed… so you just have to remember. If you need six days to get ready for CivPro, you will need twelve to prepare for torts and, as I mentioned above, you do not have twelve days — you have three, tops. So if you do, indeed, need six days for CivPro, you are just going to flat out fail Torts. Fail. it.

But that’s ridiculous, right? Because everyone gets a B. Even your mother gets a B, and she’s not even IN law school. So my point is that you people do not need as much time as you’ve spent on CivPro, you’re just studying out of compulsion. And that is helpful in that it makes you feel better… but for Paris’s sake… CHILL OUT.

We’re all going to pass, except for, potentially, hypochondriacs who never go to class, but whatever… relax, have a good time, and if a single one of you¹ skips Holly’s birthday dinner tonight to study for CivPro, Paris help me, I’m going to cut your gonads off/out with a salt-encrusted spoon, do you hear me? Poker night may not be more important than your CivPro final, but Holly Johnson’s birthday dinner is.

Ok. Deep breaths. Sorry for the rant².

Back to my point. What was my point again?

Oh, right… law school is nuts, and so are the people who go to law school. But it’s all even more nuts during finals.

This post sucked. Sorry about that. I’m going to blame it on finals.

¹ This applies only to those who were notified of the birthday dinner. All others will simply be looked upon with disdain.

² Not really.