Last night in LARW, we started to talk about our third and final Memo of the semester.  (Crazy–the semester is quickly nearing the end!)  It deals with premises liability.  As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’ve found that I actually enjoy legal research and writing, for the most part.  That realization was, quite honestly, very surprising.  But really, as long as I give myself enough time–where I’m not feeling rushed to complete the assignment–I enjoy the puzzle that it often is.  You’re given a problem, essentially, and you have to predict what the outcome will be, based on the relevant law.

In many ways, it’s like writing a research paper for one of my undergrad English classes.  The research part of it is, anyway.  When it comes time for the writing, it’s definitely been a different sort of challenge–but a challenge that I can appreciate.  I’ve become much more aware of what and how I write.  I stop and analyze sentences and even words.  Before this class, writing was, for me, something that either flowed or didn’t.  It wasn’t nearly so technical.

But, getting back to last night’s class, specifically… It was actually pretty funny.  The hypo isn’t anything too controversial and our professor just gave it to us last night so it wasn’t even as though we’d had time to sit on it & think about it.  Even so, when he opened it up for a little bit of discussion, some people got pretty feisty about their opinions.

Photo by hnnhlh14

These two girls behind me were going back and forth arguing one point–not even a part of the class discussion, as a whole.  At one point, Professor S quieted everyone down and asked if they had something they wanted to say and the one girl said:

Oh, yeah.  She has something she wants to say.

It wasn’t in a snotty way at all–she’s actually very sweet–but you could tell she was getting a bit heated during their exchange.  The guy sitting next to her said, “Yeah.  Seriously.  She’s ready to go to trial on this one.”

One woman, who just irks me for reasons I can’t articulate, raised her hand and said:

I don’t have an opinion…but I’ll form one.

I think I made a rude face at her–she sits 2 rows ahead of me–because Professor S made eye-contact with me and sort of smiled/smirked, while Crazy was rambling.  (I really like Professor S!)  I mean seriously, though–if you don’t have an opinion, why did you raise your hand??  Form your opinion, then speak.

Also, speaking of people who irk me…This is the guy who, on the first day of LARW, when we were introducing ourselves (it’s a small class), proudly proclaimed that he wanted to be a TV judge.  Now, I’m not quick to call a question stupid because I tend to think that if one person has a question, many others will have that question.  Often, I’m wondering the same thing.  Not with this guy though.  I don’t remember his exact question, but Professor S’s response was:

So you want to challenge the facts?!  No.  You cannot warp the facts of the case.

Oy.

And one final quote, for now, from dear Professor S:

So what you’re asking is how much feedback I’ll give you.  Which might go better in a conference…When you get up in my face about your grade…?  Which I wouldn’t advise…You might regret it.