4. The Letter of the Law.  It sounds a lot like “Black Letter Law,” but has a tototally different meaning.  If you use this phrase, people assume that you are about to invoke “the spirit of the law,” which is a mistake.  Because the law has no spirit. Mitigate.  It’s an important word in contracts (“duty to mitigate”) and it is just fun to say.  Try it out a few times.  Plus, you can conjugate it and really bring the hammer in class by saying things like, “The damage here is mitigated by the fact …”  See, genius. Caveat Emptor.  Just say “buyer beware.”  Please.  (Author’s note – the key “buyer beware” case in most property law classes is the infamous Stambovsky v. Ackley case, which is about a haunted house and features an opinion riddled with bad puns like “this case doesn’t have ghost of a chance.”  Your author will probably write about this case in the future and feature it as Exhibit A in the argument that professors do not have the first clue about what it is that law students find “fun.”)
2. 3. USE
1. Black Letter Law.  This refers to the standard principals that are known and free from dispute, but typically not compiled in one source.  This phrase is a great stall technique, because you can almost always answer a professor’s question with: “Well, there’s no black letter law for this issue.”  This is obvious (because if there was established law, the professor wouldn’t ask you a question about it), but the phrasing will make them think you are really grappling with the issue’s complexity and that you have investigated the source material seeking a consensus. Quid Pro Quo.  People will often avoid Latin terms for fear of sounding pretentious, but this is one one place where the use makes since.  You actually sound more ridiculous trying to describe quid pro quo without using the actual terms.  “What we have here is a situation where one party is doing something for another party with the promise that they will resipricate and do something for said party.”  Now that sounds ridiculous.  Plus, you are going to want to get comfortable with this phrase if you ever plan to work in a supervisory position (ahem, sexual harrassment, ahem). Ex Post Facto.  it means “after the fact” or “retroactive law,” both of which are easier to say.  When in doubt, ditch the Latin. 5. 3. Slippery Slope.  Forwarding a Slippery Slope argument is a great way to win the hearts and minds of your peers and professors … in college.  For many reasons (some of which are valid, some of which are aribtrary), worrying over a “slippery slope” is greated with nothing more than an eyeroll in law school.  It is seen as simplistic and the “easy way out” of tricky legal questions.  Your author personally finds people who hate the use of “slippery slope” more annoying than the people who use the phrase, but you are still best served avoiding it altogether.  After all, who wants to jump into that kind of hotbed of controversy! Coaseian.  This works especially well if you are at a “law and econ” school like the University of Chicago.  Instead of talking about the social cost of a situation, discuss the “Coaseian” implications.  Ronald Coase would be proud and your professor will be impressed.  If you are really bold, you can even – appropos of nothing – suggest applying Coaseian Economics to the problem of North Korea. 5. DON’T USE
1. Onerous.  This is a word, not a phrase, but it is a great one to use to sound like a lawyer.  Attorneys and legal scholars love to label laws onerous or egregious.  Onerous is best used when knocking down a “straw man” argument (a phrase for another day!).  For instance: “Those against capital punishment argue that putting someone to death is too onerous, but in reality …”  (I bet you would love to hear the end of this hypothetical statement.  “Putting someone to death might not be unduly burdensome to the now dead person?  Please explain!”)
4. 2. Framers.  Never, ever mention the “Framers” of the United States Constitution.  Doing so puts you on the path to original intent, aka, the path to debate hell.  The surest way to place yourself on the radar of the lamest, most argumentative, most brown-nosing gunner in your class is to start talking about the framers of the Consitution.  This one is to be avoided if you value your sanity. If you are going to attend law school, you need to know which tricky legal phrases to use (so you can sound smart, which is 90% of the battle) and which to avoid so that you don’t sound like a total douche.  This will be yet another ongoing theme on this blog, because if there is one thing that blogs need it is ongoing themes.  We’ll break it down into top five lists; five phrases to use, five phrases to avoid.

Tasty Legal Morsel #4 - Defense attorneys.  Jay-Z shines a light on the inequalities in defendant representation embedded in our justice system when he says that he’s “got big money, big lawyers to fight it” and that “like Cochran,” you’ll never see him boxed in.  And this is basically the whole reason that he’s “back on the streets before you know it.”  (Well, that and the fact that he’s claustrophobic, which is an admittedly tremendous bit of word play.)
Tasty Legal Morsel #5 – Frivolous civil suits.  This is where it gets pretty personal as he describes a sex act performed on a woman who later sued him for hitting her over the head with a champagne bottle at a bar (“can he buy me a car?”).  He never goes so far as to say it didn’t happen, instead arguing that buying a Range Rover for the victim won’t make her pain go away.  Not real sympathetic.  But given the fact that he calls her suit “rhetoric,” I’m guessing he finds the whole thing a waste of taxpayer money. 1 album).  He explains that he doesn’t have to go to the cops to get rich, he just goes “to the block” to “pitch” (that means to deal drugs, squares).  Again, I’m wondering about this – do people really turn to snitching to “get rich”?  It has always struck me as a “incarceration prevention” strategy more than a business opportunity.  Maybe your author is just naive. Tasty Legal Morsel #2 - Bail.  Late in the first verse, Jay-Z tells us that he was arrested and put in a lineup (because people were “trying to put dents” in his “armor”).  But because he’s a survivor and liver than most, he is out on bail for $50,000 and “still riding with toast.”  How brazen to be out on bail and still carrying a weapon!  Or is it?  Is this a restricted firearm?  Concealed without a permit?  Within the city limits of Chicago or Washington D.C.?  We don’t get any context that explains why this would be a cocky, taunting move in the face of Johnny Law.  Frankly, this is a letdown. Now … is any more justification necessary than the mere fact that R. It’s time for the #8 song on the all-time list of legal rap goodness … “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” by Jay-Z and R. Tasty Legal Morsel #3 – Informants.  They are legal and effective, but despised in the hip-hop community.  Who hasn’t heard the valiant “Stop Snitchin” war cry?  Jay decides this is a good time to remind us that he himself doesn’t snitch (this, despite the fact that he devoted an entire song – “A Week Ago,” featuring Too Short – to the topic on his Life and Times Vol. If so, then read it and weep. Kelly. All told, Jay-Z covers a lot of ground here, but most of the lyrics consist of bragging about his ability to manipulate and abuse the legal system, which runs counter to his martyr stance in the title.  I wonder if he even bothered to reconcile the two …
Either way, it is song #8 and Jay-Z’s second appearance on the list.  He’s like rap’s Alan Dershowitz at this point. Kelly was involved? Alan Dershowitz = Jay-Z? This song actually disappoints a little when it comes to legal commentary, as the title misleads.  You think it is going to be another scathing (if inaccurate) commentary on the legal system by Jay-Z, but it is really just another brag rap with a few “law morsels” thrown in.  Thankfully, the law morsels are pretty good.  Oh, and has it been mentioned that R. Tasty Legal Morsel #1 – Copyright infringement.  You have to listen carefully or you will miss it, but Jigga quickly informs us that the public couldn’t wait and had to have “it” (the Dynasty album) before the release date.  He became “irate” about this fact.  And we though Metallica was the band that brought down Napster! Kelly was involved?

On the contrary, these notes revealed that almost every word the professor said was scripted and prepared, like he was a robot programmed to read from the same document we had found.[2]

But like most things of great power, notes of this brilliance should be used very carefully.[3] This author quickly developed an etiquette for using this magical script during class, and your author urges readers to follow these two important rules if they find themselves in a similar situation. A quick glance at a good outline can make up for hours of pre-class reading, and at least give you something to say if the professor happens to call your name. Rule #1 – Sharing is Caring. You can sit back and enjoy the ride. First and foremost, share the magical notes. It is as if you needed one more player to play on your neighborhood pickup basketball game and found LeBron James looking to run. Class notes can be even more useful. Never raise your hand to respond to a professor’s question and answer as if you thought up the concept yourself. These documents are generally most useful to give you a sense of the professor’s style, how each case fits within the overall structure of the class, and for the main points of each discussion. Use the notes with respect. Outlines and notes are best used in coordination with some of the other tools mentioned in this blog. [6] The ultimate fear is that the professor comes to realize that his notes have been disseminated and then takes some form of action to change the outline, or even to punish the lucky students. It was rumored that these notes were the collective creation of many previous students, much like people suspect Shakespeare was not one individual, but multiple people working together. That is still a big no-no. Having great class notes taken during a previous semester can completely obviate the need to go to class, and can also eliminate the fear of the Socratic method. This wonderful document gave us a window into the mind of the professor, predicting almost verbatim what he was going to say. Don’t try to keep them to yourself, because if you are so lucky to get these notes, other people will also have them as well. That what having a prepared friend in the chat room is for! [1] Not plagiarism though. Most class notes or outlines don’t approach these great heights. Because they don’t include every conceivable detail of each case, a class or professor that emphasizes facts or procedural posture may ask you detailed questions to which an outline wouldn’t have the answer. My friend Peter approached me in the hall. The professors also often teach the same legal subject repeatedly (especially in slow-developing areas of the law such as Trusts and Estates) and uses the same course materials each time. For some reason, this never gets old. They will come across these notes eventually, and if they then figure out that you had them the entire time, they will know that you didn’t offer it to them. Also like Shakespeare, the work was unsurpassed. To those without the notes, it may have seemed like only the professor’s lecture points were from a prepared speech, and that at least the questions and discussions were impromptu and ad hoc. [4] Plus, it is fun to use the chat room to “predict” what the professor will say next. I don’t need that kind of stress.”

“Come on, it’s a great class.”

“Tell you what, if you get me one of those Law Review outlines for the class, you can count me in.”

This is obvious to anyone who has spent a single day in a law school, but might not be evident to the newcomer: a huge (and necessary) component of law school involves using other people’s work.[1] Outlines prepared by others can save you a ton of time studying for exams, but they can also be a useful tool for getting through your classes and for surviving the Socratic method. They can also decrease your anxiety level about getting called on, and you may even find yourself going to class more often to partake in “the life of the mind.” At the very least, if you happen to be at school and don’t want to miss out on a potentially hilarious IM chat session, the fear of getting called on won’t deter you from attending class. Even worse, they will know that you weren’t as brilliant as you made it seem that day the professor called on you, and they will question your integrity. If you find yourself in this situation, you have hit the law school free-riding jackpot. This author noticed a few students raise their hands to answer the professor’s question using the same exact language as the notes, and the author’s opinion of them changed forever.[6] It is as if they stood up and announced that they spend every Saturday tripping old ladies outside the local market. [5] It is also a fun pastime to watch your classmates act out the scripts, particularly when the professor doesn’t know a thing. Be generous and share with your friends, who will appreciate the gesture. Just dishonorable and pathetic, really. In the best-case scenario, a friend who happens to be a diligent note-taker (choosing not to partake in the online chat room discussions) has already completed a class that you will soon take. “So, have you decided whether you are taking that Immigration Law class yet? [2] We were unable to catch the professor plugging himself into an outlet, but our suspicions never completely disappeared. Nevertheless, even an average outline or collection of notes will prepare you for what to expect each day in class and set your mind at ease if you happen to miss a lecture here and there (or always). “I don’t know, I heard he grills people. [3] Akin to the Peter Parker “with great power comes great responsibility” refrain in Spider-Man. During 1L year, this author happened to come into possession of the greatest set of notes ever to have existed. A good outline will capture the main points of each topic, giving you valuable clues about the direction of classroom discussions. It will also quickly become clear which other students have these notes, since their answers to the professor’s questions will mirror the language in the notes.[4]

Rule #2 – R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If you get called on, pause and reflect upon the question, perhaps even giving a wrong answer now and again.[5] When you give the right answer, never use the same wording as the notes.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Snoop tells us that it isn’t enjoyable – not in the least. We learn that Snoop makes a dramatic recovery from being shot and nearly killed and that he does it with the help of the homies in his corner, and the “keys” he was fronted. The key to appreciating this song for the legal commentary it provides, is eschewing the first verse, which is a narrative of a near death experience (highlight: when Snoop asks God to save him and is told that he will live for eternal life AND forever, which is a pretty amazing deal). By verse three, we realize that “livin’ like a baller loc” has caught up to Snoop and that God has punished him for not changing his ways. He senses danger. Continuing the sensation that is sweeping the nation, The Legal Ease is here to present the #9 “Rap Song That Deals With Legal Issues” of all time … “Murder Was the Case” by Snoop Dogg. Rolling on the prison bus (“the grey goose”) to Chino to serve a sentence. We’re back with more hot legal rap action (note: phrase inserted for SEO purposes). This early 90’s classic had a lot of things going for it – the Mista Grimm intro, the all-one-word subtitle (DeathAfterVisualizingEternity), that pitch perfect first line (“As I look up at the sky – my mind starts trippin’, a tear drops my eye”), and so much more. But for our purposes, the real value here is obviously the hard-hitting, first-person account of being a prisoner in the state pen. Snoop never really goes into the details of his trial, why he committed a murder (did God make him, for going back on his “Crossroads” esque deal?), or what kind of appeal process he’s looking at, which is why the song is only #9 on the list. Uh oh. It is verse two – when he comes “fresh up out” his coma – when he really starts breaking it down. But he’s the O.G. Here’s where we get inside Snoop’s head. D-o-double-g from the LBC, so he “mad dogs” people like he doesn’t care in a red (not orange?) jumpsuit with braids in his hair. People recognize him. Snoop is clearly scaring people because they take him to the “level 3 yard.” This puts him in position to hear all the brutal sounds of prison life, such as toothbrushes scraping the floor (who knew?) and people getting shanked (more like it). He’s shackled from head to toe (with nowhere to “gizzo”). You know what that means, right?

In three years of law school, your author can’t recall thinking – even once – “wow, that’s a really stupid answer, what an idiot” or hearing someone else make a similar comment about a peer’s answer. And DO NOT be intimidated simply because they appear to know more than you. They are the law school equivalent of the overzealous military recruit that makes everyone look bad in boot camp only to wind up torturing an enemy combatant and bringing great shame upon the United States. Moreover, everyone is in the same boat. Listen up, people. Generally, law students are not paying enough attention to one another’s responses to form that sort of opinion, whether it is because they are too busy trying to be prepared in case they get called on, or because they are just bored and are surfing the web. You are attending school with these people because you belong there. They have read the professor’s books and publications, and have done background research before the class even began. [2] Your author has some proof of this last part and would share it, but the research is, sadly, incomplete at this time. No group represents a more destructive force in a law classroom. Do not think that they are representative of everyone in the class. Fact: Human beings are far too self-absorbed to really notice what sort of answer you are giving unless you do something that really annoys them. This brings your author to another important issue regarding the self-esteem element of classroom discussions: the negative impact of “Gunners.”[1]

Gunners will enter class possessing (or, at least, believing they posses) a wealth of irrelevant and unnecessary knowledge, and they will claw each other’s eyes out for the chance to extol this knowledge to the professor. We’ve got more Socratic method fact and fiction for you. Okay, that might be harsh, but let’s just say that a gunner’s star will certainly fade, and it will happen quickly. Professors are not impressed by this kind of lunacy. Fiction: If you do not know an answer, everyone will think you are an idiot who should be at the Tijuana School of Law and Cosmetology. Do not be unnerved by this bizarre behavior. If you do not know the answer, you are probably not the only one in the room in that predicament. Everything that you need to know, and are expected to know, is in the assigned reading. In fact, professors do not like it when students do extra research, both because it distracts from the general instruction they are giving, and because it exposes these students as exactly what they are: insecure know-it-alls who need constant approval from authority figures because they were not hugged enough as children.[2]

[1] These fellows will be discussed at length when The Legal Ease starts to break down “The Cast of Characters,” but they warrant special attention here.

Over the course of three years, most law students eventually come to these realizations. “I just made such a fool of myself,” my friend Julie lamented in embarrassed fashion as we exited class during the fall quarter of our 1L year. This fear, more than anything else, motivates students to be prepared for class. [1] This is not a fabricated story just to hammer home the point. It’s really not that scary. [5] It is not recommended that you try “I don’t know’s” distant cousin, “Um, I didn’t do the reading” or “Sorry, I nodded off for a minute.” If you want to use one of those responses, proceed with caution. This actually happened and the friend in question is really named Julie. I don’t even want to look at anyone right now,” she cried. [2] Allowing for the brilliant punch line: “Most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

[3] There are no stats on this, but a best guess says that students – on average – come to this realization after about 1.7 years of law school. Fact: It is absolutely, unequivocally, one hundred percent okay to tell a professor that you do not know the answer. Plus, it sets a nice tone for the rest of your Socratic dialogue, as you begin with a humble statement, which is much better than coming off snotty or condescending. Always try to come up with an answer, lest you disappoint all the brilliant minds around you and cause your family great shame and embarrassment for years to come. Entering law school, nearly all students are terrified of being called on by one of their luminary professors. It drives them to read every word of every case, to highlight footnotes with special, colored highlighters, and to chew their fingernails down to the cuticles. After a puzzled silence, I responded with, “You got called on?”[1]

As Jerry Seinfeld once joked, the average American’s greatest fear is public speaking, a greater fear even than death.[2] It is not surprising then, that the aspect of law school that strikes students with that nervous sting of apprehension is the Socratic method used by professors to foster involvement in their classes. You will need to have something to follow with, which is why your author recommends reading the other Socratic method posts. However, don’t think that simply saying “I don’t know” gets you completely off the hook. Fiction: You must never, ever utter the words “I don’t know” when called upon. “I was completely unprepared when the professor called on me, my answer was totally wrong, and he kept coming back to me. In fact, this is a much better option than stammering nervously as you try to scam your way to an acceptable response.[4] If a professor calls on you and you don’t know the answer, simply say “honestly, I don’t know” or something along those lines.[5] It will buy you time, which allows you to collect your thoughts, lower your heart rate, and even score up some answers from outside sources. However, as mentioned ad nauseum in this space, having your name called by the professor need not be a heart-stopping, hyperventilation-inducing event. Nor does anyone care about what happened ten minutes after the fact. [4] This almost never works. Repeat: no one cares. But why suffer needlessly for any period of time?[3] In this ongoing feature, your author will separate myth from reality in order to hopefully alleviate some of your anxieties from Day One. Everyone must think I’m so stupid. Not only that, but the urban legends and myths and whispered cardinal rules that float down law school corridors are largely made up, erroneous, and dead wrong.

(Seriously, have you ever met anyone from Yale Law School? Are we sure that such people exist?) Classes started yesterday at Yale, as the law school’s fall semester kicked off in earnest. Elsewhere, blue unicorns were seen running past leprechauns and dragons.

It’s about one individual? Hail to the (lawsuit) victors, I guess. Because of this. No? 8 hours and 200 pages of testimony. Possibly an egregious political scandal the likes of which this country has never seen (at least since Bob Packwood was scouring the U.S. Okay, then it must be a grave criminal matter indeed. Surely this is a massive corporate scandal or a huge merger agreement. Several months of discovery. The case I linked to above is about a single clause in an individual contract about a kid’s game. Senate for dates serving the state of Oregon). Wrong again. And while this author loves football as much as the next person and while a friend of mine has me prepped to be a Michigan fan, I simply can’t believe that the University of Michigan, West Virginia University, and head coach Rich Rodriguez are able to fill up that kind of a legal docket over a sport involving unpaid athletes.

If there are two things that go together perfectly in this world, it is rap music and the law. When the cop demands license and registration and asks Jay-Z to “step out of the car,” S-Dot Carter exclaims that he most certainly will not comply with that request. Mimms (no relation to the artist who gave us “This is Why I’m Hot”), lets Jay-Z stay in the car but asks if he can “look round the car a little bit.”
Not so fast, says Jay-Z. In fact, the 1977 Supreme Court case of Pennsylvannia v. And your author was an expert on both while spending his three year vacation at one of the world’s elite law schools. Alas, it doesn’t work with a car. In the end, it is Cop 1, Jay-Z 0 … and it all adds up to the #3 Legal Rap song of all time. In fact, provided that the “law enforcement officer” has probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of a crime and that there are “exigent circumstances” making it impractical to obtain a warrant, he can search every part of the vehicle, including the trunk and any “closed containers.”
Jay-Z admits here that he didn’t “pass the bar or nuthin” and that much is clear, given all the gross errors! (Jay’s one argument here might be that the car was not in fact lawfully stopped since he was only going “fifty-five in a fifty-fo’”.)
The cop, clearly not understanding the ramifications of Penn v. Here, he seems to be banking on a Constitutional protection that would perhaps dovetail from the “knock and announce” search and seizure lies laws that apply to one’s home. Those exceptions include: the automobile exception, the consent exception, the plain view exception … wait, why are we still listing them! Anyhoo. I mean, just look at the (incorrect) analysis Shawn Carter packs into this screed against the boys in blue:

He doesn’t want to engage in a highway chase with the police and believes that with his “few dollars” he can fight the case; opting to “pull over to the side of the road” in a civil fashion. All’s well that ends well for the cop though, because he gets to snarl and wonder how smart Jay-Z will look “when the canines come.” Plus, he officially adds one problem to Shawn Carter’s 99. His glove compartment is locked, as is his trunk (“In the back” – just to clarify that this is not a Volkswagon Bug) and his rights – as he perceives them – indicate that the cop is going to need a warrant. Once again though, the cop just lets Jay-Z push him around with his faulty understanding of the law and resorts to calling in the dogs. Actually, a cop does not need a warrant to conduct a search, provided the search can meet one of two conditions: 1) there is no violation of a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy, or 2) the search falls within one of several established exceptions to the warrant requirement. Clearly, Jay-Z does not understand that The Automobile Exception to the warrant requirement gives the racist cop (the cop is racist, right?) the authority to search his glove box. In yet another attempt to win the hearts and the minds of America, Legal Ease is launching a new series: identifying that 10 best rap songs to ever deal with the subject of law.  (Oh, and we’re going out of order because going out of order is what’s hot in the streets right now.)
#3 on the list is “99 Problems” by Jay-Z. Hit me. Mimms held that a police officer “as a matter of course” may order the driver of a lawfully stopped car to exit the vehicle. The song that brought Rick Rubin out of semi retirement and caused this author’s wife to wonder how Beyonce felt about the lyrics is underrated … underrated for its examination of 4th Amendment search and seizure issues, that is! Okay, so he was an expert on rap music. Or his trunk, whether in front or back.

To understand it, we need to break it down into two words: mank and ind. YourAuthor: Help. What do these words mean? I was saved by “The Chat Room” dozens of times during my three years of law school. Sometimes these thoughts can be comments on the class, personal opinions, or esoteric observations about the nature of mankind.[3] More commonly, they are jokes and pop culture references. And most of all, there is the looming possibility of a laughing outburst. The one corner of the Internet that seems to be well known to students but still a bit of a mystery to professors is Instant Messaging. With IM, those thoughts, jokes, and oh-so-important answers discussed above can be delivered to your computer screen in a flash. In the “old days,” if you were summoned to engage in the Socratic dialogue, it was just you and the professor in a fight to the intellectual death. Trust me. [2] Yes, I realize the Internet was around “a few years ago,” but many classrooms were not yet equipped with network access, wireless or otherwise. This phenomenon provides obvious social benefits in addition to universally acknowledged academic support in the form of study groups. It’s from yesterday’s hypo. That is, unless you have a highly developed sense of guilt, in which case you might feel terrible if you lead a friend to the wrong conclusion. YourAuthor: Uh oh, here he comes. [5] And, as we know from movies like iRobot and shows like Battlestar Galactica, this increasing dependence on computers and machines will one day lead to a world where the robots control and terrorize us. If I get called on I’m going to need some help. There were plenty of class discussions and cases that I understood better than some of the people around me and in those instances, I was able to provide answers to my friends and to give them some of the words, phrases, and rulings they needed to survive a round of questioning.[8]

Of course, like anything in life, chat room reliance is not a perfect system. JDsHaveMoreFun: I’m up for going to the business school for lunch if people feel like walking. It is no secret that students check their emails incessantly during class, and, in fact, many professors will make jokes about it and acknowledge the practice.[4] Professors also know all about surfing the net and playing solitaire and other tried and true ways in which humans now use computers to keep themselves entertained at all times.[5] The great academic minds teaching at the head of the class don’t like any of this, certainly, but it is a necessary tradeoff in order to allow students access to word processing software that increases note-taking capabilities, as well as the vast legal resources available online. YourAuthor: Hey guys, be on the ready, keep your head on a swivel, I just saw Professor X look my way. You are still engaging in the process of testing your legal reasoning, but you have the added benefit of someone else taking the risk of delivering the theory out loud. LawStudent119: So, what does everyone want to do for lunch once we get out of this class? SocraticWarrior: Didn’t do the reading? And when you surround yourself with people that you have chosen to hang out with (indicating a shared sense of humor) and that are very clever (due to their high intellectual quotients), you run the risk of people writing very funny things, very often. God bless technology. [8] Feeding a classmate the answer is actually pretty exciting. And regardless of your eventual fate, your friends were merely spectators; much like the ancient gladiators who stood watching Russell Crowe joust with a tiger. This may sound ridiculous, but the biggest danger with relying on the chat room to get through class is the possibility that someone will type something hilarious and you will burst out laughing in the middle of a lecture. YourAuthor: I knew it! The dreaded Socratic method was rendered impotent in the face of Instant Messaging software. And on occasion, they can be the exact answers the professor is looking for – answers formulated outside of the Socratic spotlight that are otherwise escaping you at the moment you need them most. [1] If I may, a toast to Al Gore before we move on. JDsHaveMoreFun: We’ve got your back. Hey, anything to make law school easier, right? And young people just so happen to represent the majority of the students streaming through the classroom doors of law schools everywhere. So it is kind of a no-lose situation. But it worked, almost without fail, to the point where I stopped worrying about being called on altogether. YourAuthor: That sounds good. YourAuthor: I was working on my screenplay. It’s a mystery and that’s why so is mankind.”

[4] Although they are careful not to condone it. From times where the answer was barely eluding me to times when I honestly had no idea what we were even discussing in class, all that was required was to quickly type “help!” into my chat window (while telling the professor that I didn’t “quite understand” what he “meant by the question” in order to buy some time) and seconds later, information was flowing my way. If they don’t, they had better get on it, or someone might show them this footnote and make them feel pretty inadequate. Obviously, IM has been around for several years and has even become the primary means of communication for many people, but it doesn’t seem to be universally known to many adults born before 1975 or so.[6] In other words, it is an aspect of the Internet that is largely used by young people. Now the thoughts of others can be made available to you in the blink of an eye. [3] If you believe Jack Handy, the nature of mankind can’t be understood. Just sign on through a service like AOL or iChat, open a chat window, and stash it in the corner of your screen.[7] You can type comments and it looks just like you are plugging away at your notes. (Five minutes later)

YourAuthor: Nice. You’ll get the idea. [6] IM belongs to Generations “Whatever-Comes-After-X”, much like Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, and other interactive social networking functions. There are going to be times where your friends are paying just as little attention as you to the discussion or where the issue is tricky enough to elude everyone that happens to be online. [7] Also be sure to turn the volume off. So, did anyone see Lost last night …

Unless you go out of your way to be a recluse and a total jerk, you will quickly make friends at your law school. [9] But nothing too sad, because you don’t want to start sobbing in class. You get good at maintaining a “game face,” but even the best among us slip up. And when several of your friends are in the same class, you can start an entire chat room, which involves everyone and creates a pool of thoughts, jokes, and - most importantly – answers. However, this network of friends can also perform one other very important task: it can make you look really good in class or, more importantly, save you in a mid-class emergency. Not to say that I was always taking and never giving. Then, when you get outside and regain your composure, just think how much better it is to be afraid of laughing than to be afraid of the Socratic method. From Deep Thoughts: “What is mankind? Even that isn’t all bad though, because your friend will be so glad to have something to say he won’t even care if it is wrong. There is no refreshing of screens, no large windows to toggle, and very little effort required. Note: This is a long one … but a good one! There are also the rare occurrences where the wireless network might be down (a truly awful thing). That is even worse than laughing. Just chalk it up to an occupational hazard and when it happens, try to imagine something terribly sad, like the passing of a family pet.[9]

Finally, if you do laugh in class, just pretend to have an allergic reaction and leave as quickly as possible. SocraticWarrior: I think he’s looking for something about the Last Clear Chance Doctrine. Sometimes all it took was a single word or concept to get me on the right track, other times I had to engage a friend on the other side of that chat connection and draw out the answers I needed. One method for exchanging these thoughts, jokes, and critical answers is through email. I owe you guys. This is all possible because of the magic of the Internet.[1] Decades ago, and even a few years ago[2], the ability to instantly receive the thoughts of your friends and colleagues was an impossible dream, unless you were blessed with some form of ESP or could write and pass notes with astounding speed. Now, nearly every law school classroom in America has wireless access. I wanted to find an actual, saved IM conversation from one of my law school classes, but this recreation will have to do.