I am going to be starting my fourth year of law school in a week. Well, technically I will not be starting the year on the 21st because that is the day I will be meeting Marcie (!). But I should be starting law school that day. . .
Law school is competitive, to say the least. I've heard stories of people hiding books so their classmates can't find the answers to research problems. I've never seen that happen though. I have, however, had someone approach me and actually tell me their goal was to get a better grade than me in a class (what is this, elementary school?!?). I thought they were kidding, and I laughed. They didn't.
Why is it so competitive? I have actually given this a lot of thought. As a high school teacher, I set expectations and I can award an A to anyone who reaches those expectations, a B to those who achieve most of the expectations, and so on. Not so in law school. In law school, there is a mandatory curve. When I started, that meant only 10-15% of the students in your section could earn an A or A-. And a certain percentage of students were required to receive below a C. The mean grade had to be in the C-range. So if everyone were a stellar student and actually learned 98% of the material the professor presented, it would be a tight curve, but the student who performed 98.0% would earn a C (or worse!), and the student who earned a 98.4% might receive an A! This is not very conducive to cooperative study efforts, but it's the way it works.
I have been very lucky. My second year of law school, I happened to have all my classes with two other people who had similar study habits. We've been studying together ever since-- even when we don't have the same classes. I love my study group. We call ourselves the Slackers (I even had shirts made last year!) because we are so not Slackers. We actually meet weekly to outline and review the previous week's coursework and ask questions about the upcoming week's readings. We all work doing something during the day and go to school at night (actually, Delinda transferred into the full-time program last year and will graduate in December and complete her LLM in Taxation this spring-- talk about an over-achiever!).
Anyway, Delinda and Paul are tried and true friends-- and after two years of studying together, I can hardly remember what law school was like before them! When I don't earn the grade I want, the first thing I do (after I moan incessantly to my husband, of course), is call Paul and Delinda to make sure at least one of us did okay in the class! (As a side note, I'd be remiss in leaving out our good pal Nicole, who actually studied with us our second year of law school. She graduated in May and took the California bar this past July. She also is very cool.)
Jason and I started the adoption process not long after I started studying with Delinda and Paul-- October 2004. So they have really seen me through this whole process. During finals this past year, I actually interrupted a practice test with a phone call form our agency about the referral timeline. They have been very patient with my obsessing. Anyway, because I'll be missing the first two weeks of the school year, I won't be able to take care of a lot of administrative details-- like adding a class (to write a paper), attending the first night of class, and collecting books. My study group is really rallying-- they are submitting paperwork, attending class for me- getting dibs on my favorite seat and everything! How lucky am I?!? With so much to worry about with our trip to China, it's just so nice to know they will keep things in check for me on the home front. . .
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