The rest of orientation almost flew by. Even though it was always stressed that we shouldn’t stress about any of the stuff we had to do (the two memos, case briefs, etc), the week was pretty hectic.

Tuesday we had our first assignment due at 9 am. It was very short and only took 15 minutes to finish, but it was also the first piece of writing our Legal Skills professors would see (and that we would never get back). Just a little pressure. We then had a full day of learning about the American court structure. I already had a good idea of how the courts were structured thanks to three different classes on the courts. While the information wasn’t new, it was also our first introduction to the Socratic method. Having taught a Socratic seminar before, this part wasn’t too bad either. There wasn’t any cold calling and no one was put on the spot really, so it was a pretty good day. We did have a fun moment where our professor thought we had reading (we didn’t) and set of a bit of panic in the entire class (except the gunners who had already read the entire book we had to read for orientation).

Wednesday and Thursday was more of the same. We had our first (for law school at least) case brief, our first experience with someone (staged) getting called out for being late. Our class didn’t have cold calling, but one of the other classes did. The gunners became apparent fairly quickly during these two days. You know you’re a gunner when the professor stops you because you aren’t answering the question and you interrupt her to say that you are getting to the answer. Classy.

Thursday night was our first “real” assignment that actually counts towards our Legal Skills grade. It was a fairly simple closed research memo; all of the cases seemed to point towards our client recovering and the facts of the cases given were strikingly similar to our case. If I wasn’t so distracted by the internet (which I still don’t have at home), it would have taken me only about two hours. As it was, it took more like five, not including the time I took to drive home to get away from the internet.

Friday was the last day of orientation. We had our work study meeting, found out where we would work. I’m in technology, which I find pretty funny. I’m not tech illiterate by any means, but I pretty much only know how to work on the user end. And I’m much more proficient at Apple than Windows computers. But the supervisor reassured me that we were mostly there to make sure people can connect to the printers and internet and such. Nothing major.

Friday night was the first big party of the year, sort of a welcome back for the 2Ls and 3Ls and a way for the 1Ls to meet more of the upperclassmen. We are a fairly small school, so pretty much everyone in all of the classes could have been there and still not overwhelmed the place. I’m pretty sure that was close to how many people were there. We didn’t stay long (one of the kegs was already tapped out when we got there), but I did get to see some of my fellow 1Ls who were in different classes all week and some of the upperclassmen I had already met.

Now I’m looking forward to a weekend of reading Crim Law and wine. And hopefully getting my refund check!