The Law School Transplant

Law school, being like high school, has its own unique set of social norms. Many are axiomatic: Don’t sleep with your classmates. Or with your professors, for that matter. Don’t say things that you don’t want everyone else to know (because they will find out). Just generally, don’t act like a jackass.

The most important social norm in law school is obvious to those of us on the “inside,” but completely foreign to everyone else: Don’t be a gunner. As a matter of fact, this unspoken rule is so painfully obvious that I was hesitant to even rehash it here.

Gunners are those assholes who raise their hands in class and talk just to hear themselves and prove how smart they are and how, as a matter of fact, they are that much smarter than you. They want to flex their intellectual muscle. This is probably an effort to make up for their microscopic penises, being that a good 95% of the gunners in law school are males. First year professors are not friendly to the ego, and as such, generally beat the gunner-ness out of them by the end of first year (or first semester, if they’re really good).

But sometimes people slip under the radar and continue to act like asshats well after first year, entirely oblivious to the fact that they are subject to the hatred and vitriol of an entire class. While I thought I’d escaped most of the gunners long ago, I was rudely informed otherwise this semester – a semester where my patience is thin and my tolerance for bullshit even thinner.

I’m lucky enough to have in my 16-person Copyright class a 2L gunner of epic proportions. Affectionately known by his class as the 43L, the Copyright Gunner has a Ph.D. in Asshattery and loves parading his irrelevant knowledge and high-horse attitude before the class on a regular basis.

Not only does he interrupt both classmates and the professor on a regular basis, but his holier-than-thou attitude makes me roll my eyes so hard I end up with a headache by the time class is over. Example:

Prof. Copyright: Okay, I’ll raise my hand too since I’ve done it, so don’t feel like you’re incriminating yourself or anything: Who in here has committed copyright infringement?

[Entire class, save the 43L, raises their hands.]

Prof. Copyright, to 43L: Come on, you’ve never committed copyright infringement?
43L: No, I haven’t.

[Commence eye-rolling.]

Prof. Copyright: Never?
43L: No. I’ve copied articles for educational purposes, but as an author, I would never commit copyright infringement.

[Oh, barf.]

Prof. Copyright (who is incidentally a well-published author and academic), smirking: Well, I’m an author, too. But that doesn’t mean I have never infringed a copyright.

You get the picture. Many of his comments also begin with the preamble, “In my experience…” or “If I may…”

I swear, before this semester is over, I am going to snap. I’m going to duct tape his mouth shut and beat him over the head with my Copyright book. Infringe that, asshole.

Lesson to be learned, kids: Don’t. Be. A. Gunner.

In the Deep South, if anyone even mentions the word “snow,” traffic on the interstate grinds to a halt and the grocery store shelves are instantly emptied of milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper and beer. Which really begs the question why people feel the need to make French toast and sit on the toilet on the one day we have inclement weather each winter, but that is beside the point.

So when the forecasters dare to mention the word “ice,” virtual pandemonium breaks out. In addition to the aforementioned items, the grocery stores also sell out of firewood and bottled water (which makes slightly more sense). People huddle in their houses and wait for “the big one.” After the storm passes, you can purchase t-shirts from street vendors that read, “I Survived the Storm!”

Now, there hasn’t been a snow storm of consequence that I can recall since 1993, when we got a record two feet of snow, which shut down most of the state for nearly a week. But when the weather forecast called for some ice last night, all hell broke lose.

To my pleasant surprise, I awoke this morning to an e-mail message from the university letting me know that the school was closed due to inclement weather. I had conveniently neglected to complete my Public Health assignment, so the snow day bought me a couple extra days.

Let me tell you, any time the university decides to cancel school, I don’t think twice about it and enjoy the hell out of an extra day off, putting out of my mind the fact that we will probably have to make it up sometime later in the semester.

Winter south of the Mason-Dixon stands in stark contrast to my undergraduate alma mater in the northeast, affectionately referred to by my father as The Frozen Tundra. Sadly, it’s not an inaccurate description. My undergrad university prided itself on having not canceled a day of classes in over 30 years, leaving students grumble, freeze and curse their way to class through the snow, ice and slush from October through April.

I distinctly remember my first winter living up north. The first snow we got had me dancing around my dorm room in my pj’s, celebrating the fact that I could stay inside and sip cocoa all day. People looked at me like I was from Mars. “Get dressed and get your ass to class,” they said. “The university hasn’t canceled classes in 30 years and probably won’t cancel them for 30 more.”

After the first big blizzard I experienced up there, I was convinced I’d get a day off. Again, no such luck. The plows had come through early in the morning and the sidewalks were freshly salted, which astonished me because at home, the only snowplow in the state is at the airport. I was late to class because I had to throw myself over a three-foot snow drift and got stuck on top of it like a turtle, flailing around on that pile of snow in my wool coat, hat, scarf and gloves, my backpack not making things any easier.

Needless to say, I don’t have the constitution to live up north any longer than I actually did. The mild winters are one of the many reasons I’m glad to be back down South. I sometimes laugh to myself at the people who panic at the mention of flurries, but I’m not too good to enjoy a snow day when the university decides to throw one my way.

Contrary to its name, Entertainment Law is anything but entertaining.

Only an hour and seven minutes to go…

I decided about five minutes into Administrative Law that it just had to go. The professor seems nice enough. But the thought of sitting through that class three times a week for a semester makes Secured Transactions seem fun in retrospect.

Today I embarked on my mad whirlwind tour of law school classes in a frantic attempt to find a replacement that would deliver me from the boredom of executive agencies and internal review procedures.

My first experimental class was Entertainment Law. Pros: Only two credits; meets once a week; interesting and potentially useful and applicable subject matter. Cons: Brand new edition of the textbook (read: sell your firstborn child to purchase it); adjunct professor who got some not great reviews.

As an interesting aside, the professor is something like six or seven months pregnant. She assured us that she wasn’t going to let the baby come until after the class is over. Hon, I know you’re a lawyer, but you just can’t control everything.

My alternative experimental class was Real Estate Transactions. Pros: Nice, laid back professor; interesting and very practical subject matter; good textbook. Cons: Meets twice a week for 75 minutes (an eternity for my ferret-like 3L attention span); rumor has it that the class is largely self-taught; exam is closed-book.

The fact that I sprinted to the door after real estate was over like I was trying to escape a masked gunman was obviously not a good sign. So, after some vascillating and hemming and hawwing, I eventually dropped Administrative Law like the bad habit it is and picked up Entertainment Law. Hopefully this well-thought out (perhaps even over-thought out) decision won’t come back to bite me in the ass later.

And as one semester begins, last semester is still nagging us like Long Island housewife. The grade submission deadline for professors is not until tomorrow, but I’d be too naive to think that all of my grades will actually be posted by then. There are enough old codgers with tenure teaching here who can disregard guidelines and deadlines with impunity and who are not afraid of being chased through the halls by a little man in a bow tie.

Not like grades matter that much at this point, anyways. Not unless I actually want to get a job or something. Psh.

I took a rather long hiatus from blogging during Christmas break and gave myself the opportunity to do things I rarely get to do, i.e., read non-law books, spend time with my family and friends, sleep in, watch ridiculous amounts of college football, and learn to sew useful and nifty things.

And so it begins again. I’m sitting in my first class on the first day of my very last semester of law school. Thirty minutes into this class, I am already debating dropping it like a bad habit. I suppose that during registration last semester, nothing seemed as bad as Secured Transactions, and thus Administrative Law seemed like a good prospect. So far, I appear to be dead wrong on that one.

Already I have fallen back into my routine of directing about 12% of my attention to the professor and 88% of my attention to other pursuits, namely instant messaging, blogging and responding to e-mails piled up in my inbox.

I should enjoy it while it lasts. After all, graduation will be here before I know it. After the poofy hat and cape are gone, I’m faced with bar prep and then (*gasp!*) the real world, for which I am dreadfully unprepared. I guess in comparison, Administrative Law seems like a veritable picnic.