It's almost finals time, and you know what that means:
Snow!
You know it's going to be a great week when the first phrase you speak out loud on a Monday morning, after looking out your window, is, "Holy Crap!" Getting up is hard enough without knowing you should leave early to get anywhere because the roads are so bad. And I don't exaggerate: I live out on the edge of town, and it can get pretty ugly. I'll have a picture later.
It's particularly hard when I was up until 1am getting our client files ready for Civil Pretrial Practice. It wasn't bad or hard, but it did take a while.
I like that class. It's only a 2-credit class (most classes here are 3 credits), but it is very challenging. We have to get firms together and handle two cases from client interview up to trial. We treat the cases as in real life, with filing deadlines, drafting pleadings, discovery, everything. I don't kid myself that it is really that much like real life, but it's clear that the professor who teaches it makes every effort to give us as realistic an experience as possible. We have to use our local federal district court rules, use their forms, write letters requesting complaint filing to the actual clerk of court, etc. It's nice because while I have a preference for criminal work, the civil work that I would like to do is in a courtroom, perhaps in litigation.
I would highly recommend classes like this, particularly at our school. This semester, the class was taught by a highly experienced adjunct who is actively practicing in litigation. She also is the state's Bar Counsel. That's the best kind of situation for these kinds of classes: someone who can say, "For example, in the deposition I took last week . . . ."
It's a lot of work, but it's well worth it.
