How will you exercise?

[Felsen]

Yes, the journals are something you can only start once a 2L.  The writing competition and selection for them are right at the tail end of the 1L year.  I was writing my list a bit more comprehensively for all three years.

I'm trying to look around to see where I saw information on Moot/Mock competitions.  I may just be remembering stuff from other schools.  My wife's friend who is a 1L at UT has been talking about trying to get on a team this year.  This is her second time starting law school, though.  It seems like some of the competitions are closely tied with certain classes.  I had thought that one of those classes was a legal writing class, and may have misunderstood it and thought they mentioned one for the first year legal writing class.

[margee]

 



I've gotten the impression that moot court looks better on a resume, but I think mock trial sounds WAY more fun and useful (for me, anyway).

[Felsen]

I've gotten the impression that moot court looks better on a resume, but I think mock trial sounds WAY more fun and useful (for me, anyway).

Since there seems to be more lawyer work in the writing realm, the moot court probably is more useful, since it is appellate work.  I hadn't noticed much of a difference in opinion between the two so far in my investigations, because I've not been careful about the use of the terms myself, so it looks to me like most people use them somewhat interchangeably to mean both collectively.

[margee]

1 thing I really REALLY want to avoid - Law Review *blech*  It sounds torturous.

One of 4 things will happen (in order of likelihood)

1. I won't make the grade and will be blissfully free of the dreaded journals
2. I won't make the grade but will decide that I must try to write on to one of the other journals 
3. I will make the grade and end up doing it b/c it'll look great on my resume. 
4. I will make the grade and will decline to submit an application b/c I really REALLY don't want to do it.

[Felsen]

You've got a long school year to make your final decision still, Margee.  I'm going to be trying out for the Law Review just to make sure I don't shoot my own foot getting out of law school.  You could always submit the paper for the competition, get accepted, and then decline if you decide over the summer you really don't want to do it.

[margee]

It's not just that I'm lazy and don't want to do the work, it's that I don't see any real benefit other than a line on my resume.  That ticks me off.  I'm sure there is some benefit, but as of yet I have not discovered what it might be.  It just seems ridiculous to spend so much time doing something so unrelated to what I want to do just to add a line to my resume. 

Part of it is that I don't want to do the work (it sounds torturous), part is that I don't see a favorable cost/benefit relationship, part is that I'm just being ornery and rebellious and want to stick out my tongue at the old men in leather chairs that think cite checking experience is the end-all and be-all of a new lawyer's worth.

[LitDoc]

The benefits to LR include, but are not limited to:
1. Higher demand for you on the job market
2. Potentially higher pay for you on the job market -- some firms even offer a bonus to 1st yr associates who were on LR
3. Increased networking opportunities
4. Increased opportunity/liklihood of publishing a note (adding yet another line to the resume, and all the benefits that that entails)
5. Higher demand for you on the clerkship market

I have a good friend who graduated top of his class and was EIC of LR. He said the LR is what got him his clerkship, and the clerkship has proven invaluable to him in his practice -- first, it helped him as an ADA, and it continues to help him as a defense attorney with his own practice.

All thanks to LR.

He says if you don't care about any of that, then you should avoid LR like the plague -- it's a LOT of work. But if you care about any of that, then you have to pursue LR.

As for me...

I'll be shooting for LR and Coif, maybe one or two other organizations -- depends on what kind of free time I've got, and what the organizations do. Felsen, I didn't know you were a fellow Mormon -- I might see you at the LDS group's meetings....

[Felsen]

...I'm just being ornery and rebellious and want to stick out my tongue at the old men...

That's hot.   

So many ways to spin this.  So darn many, that I think I'm going to willingly pass on them, as long as Margee comes back blushing effusively at how her innocent comment is being so misinterpreted.  

[Felsen]

Felsen, I didn't know you were a fellow Mormon -- I might see you at the LDS group's meetings....

That's actually one of the meetings where I'll go and see what the heck they actually do, and who's around.  I figure its one of the most likely places to find other married guys with kids and folks who aren't visiting the bars on weekends.  I just can't really imagine what they do except serve as a way for visiting prospectives to find other members and ask them questions.  I know that's what I used it for when visiting the non-UT schools I was looking at.

[LitDoc]

<--------- fellow married guy with kids.

Are you already on the email list for married students -- the one where we've been talking about setting up a BBQ so married couples can meet each other? It's not a Mormon group, just a general married group.

And yeah, I agree with you re: the Mormon association. If they actually do cool stuff, then I'll be part of it. Otherwise, no thanks.

Same goes for any/all of the other organizations.