This upcoming week I begin my internship. This internship is for experience. I will not get paid or get academic credit. I intend on touching on the benefit of an internship to the law school experience. But for now, I will continue my review of first year courses.
Tedious and time consuming best describe Legal Skills during the 1L year.
Legal Skills I is about learning to do legal research and to write like an English professor (at least if you have Professor Hargrove). The memorandum written for the project is an objective-based writing project. In other words, you do not argue for or against a legal stand; instead, you argue both.
The gist is to write both sides of an issue to give someone else the law and the interpretation of the law. Then applying the law to the legal issue of a client, what arguments for and against the client arises. The most difficult part of the writing is the English professor portion.
Legal Skills II is more writing like an English professor plus the aspect of writing a persuasive appellate brief. The project is an appeal of a ruling and you, as the lawyer, are trying to persuade an appeals court to rule in your favor on the issues. This is very challenging.
The other different aspect of the course is the 1L Legal Skills competition. Everyone is required to stand in front of a three-person panel and argue a side of the issue. I should point out, the legal skills project is the same for all the sections. This competition is very challenging. But rewarding, even when you don't win, place, or show.
Many of my classmates hated the competition. These classmates were predominantly those who have no desire to be a trial or appellate lawyer. They desire to be transactional lawyers or something else. Do not fear the competition. It is a lot of fun.
The brief was time consuming though. I rewrote my brief more times than I did my LS-I project. A word limit existed for the project. Paring down the arguments so that the arguments were strong but not wordy was challenging. The most infuriating aspect of this process was when this process occurred. The edits of the project occurred while studying for finals. Last semester I felt it was easier to finish the legal skills project while studying than this semester.
Maybe one of the differences was the length of the project. Last semester we word limited but the limit was less than this semester. Last semester's project was approximately 10 pages. This semester's project was 2 to 3 times that length. The project required a cover page, table of contents, list of authorities used in the brief, and other formatted-style pages. Did I mention this was time-consuming?
Moving onto Professor Hargrove. She is a trip. A recovering comedian, she attempts to bring humor to law school to make learning interesting. Her attempts are not appreciated by all of the students. I found her classes informative and fun. It's all in the perspective.
Now some will say she seems scatter-brained. Her classes sometimes don't flow, she seems to be behind her syllabus (if she actually follows it), and her posts in the forum sometimes seem mean or aggressive.
If you speak to her during office hours, you will find a very bright and intelligent professor. Her passion is teaching young lawyers how to write, and not how to write like lawyers and judges of the past, but, instead, how to write like lawyers should. She is not scatter-brained; she is not boring; she is not crazy. She is very enjoyable to learn from.
Some of my classmates complained about how she doesn't give good feedback to them. You can talk to them and find out what feedback they sought. Realize some things don't have feedback. See if they were asking about something which doesn't require feedback. I received a lot of feedback and felt I improved in my writing and my legal analysis. I can attribute this to her feedback and her teaching.
Another complaint about her is her tendency to play favorites. But she doesn't do that. Okay, maybe she does, a little. If you do not visit her during office hours or converse with her via email or speak during class, she is not apt to respond to you. If you want help, seek her help. Some people don't understand this. If you don't seek help and don't do the things she asked you do, you cannot complain about her when your grade doesn't reflect what you thought it should.
Realize, this is my opinion about Professor Hargrove. I like her; others may not. Not everyone is perfect and she does have her flaws. But if you work with her, she will work you. And you'll be better for it.
In summary, Legal Skills is time consuming and tedious and frustrating at times. The legal skills competition is fun. Professor Hargrove can be eccentric at times, but is fun to learn from, if you're willing to seek her out.
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