Why Did A Short Week Seem So Long?

Only four days this week. Seems like it should've been a piece of cake.

All first year students have to take an Introduction to Lawyering class. It's worth two credits, but it should be a four credit class for the amount of work we have to do (and I have it easier than Hers). The first week, we were asked to choose whether we wanted to represent a plaintiff or defendant in a hypothetical, semester-long case. I grabbed a folder marked "Plaintiff" on my way out the door. The file included a short memo with some basic information about the case. As it turns out, my "client" is a single mother with a daughter who was nearly three years old. The child was conceived via artificial insemination. The donor was someone the mother knew and had verbally agreed to release from any parental obligation. Now, almost three years after the birth, she wants the father to take some responsibility for the child.

Last week, we were given our first research path, which is essentially a scavenger hunt through the law library. We each received 20-pages with about 35 questions we had to answer using legal references in the library. Naturally, the questions all related to laws governing parental obligations and legal issues surrounding artificial insemination. We divided up into groups of three to work on the research path together. My group decided we'd all do the research separately and then get together to compare notes. Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand that we were supposed to each finish the project separately, so I ended up doing the majority of my research path Wednesday night. I got home about 8:00 Wednesday night.

The next day, we met to compare notes and it almost took longer to decide on final answers than it did for us to do the original research. Nothing like getting three lawyers together to argue why their answer is the right one. In the end though, I think our answers were the better for it.

The research actually wasn't too bad. The hardest part of the project was properly citing the sources. Put a comma in the wrong place and you'll lose points on the answer. We talked with the TA for the class and he told us the average for the research project is around 60%. Despite the time we've put into the first research path, we've resigned ourselves to the fact that it's going to come back covered in red ink.

Thursday night was Hers first Rugby practice. So that ended up being another late night. A four day week and two of those days we didn't get home from school until almost 8:00. Can't wait to see what next week brings.