Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here Forum

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goosey

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by goosey » Sat Feb 12, 2011 6:38 pm

snowpeach06 wrote:Met with teacher about a draft of my motion to dismiss. After being a solid b/b+ student last semester she told me mine was basically the best in the class. Looking at it, I'd pretty much written the whole thing in my draft. Work on it more (since clearly everyone else will be, and what if it was just good for a draft), or fix the typos, add a few lines and not fuck with a good thing by over thinking it? What do ya'll think?

id probably do what you said..polish it up..but dont do any massive overhaul. But yeah, keep in mind that she had only seen drafts as yet, so dont get too comfy in what you have.

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snowpeach06

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by snowpeach06 » Sat Feb 12, 2011 6:53 pm

goosey wrote:
snowpeach06 wrote:Met with teacher about a draft of my motion to dismiss. After being a solid b/b+ student last semester she told me mine was basically the best in the class. Looking at it, I'd pretty much written the whole thing in my draft. Work on it more (since clearly everyone else will be, and what if it was just good for a draft), or fix the typos, add a few lines and not fuck with a good thing by over thinking it? What do ya'll think?

id probably do what you said..polish it up..but dont do any massive overhaul. But yeah, keep in mind that she had only seen drafts as yet, so dont get too comfy in what you have.
Yeah, and I do have a meeting with the writing center this week, and it's not due for another week, so if the writing center reads it and thinks it's a disaster, I can fix it then. For now I think I'll just make it read like a motion and fix my passive voice. I don't know that the arguments can improve much.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by GATORTIM » Sat Feb 12, 2011 8:41 pm

conlaw makes me want to punch a framer in the face

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traehekat

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by traehekat » Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:51 pm

goosey wrote:
snowpeach06 wrote:Met with teacher about a draft of my motion to dismiss. After being a solid b/b+ student last semester she told me mine was basically the best in the class. Looking at it, I'd pretty much written the whole thing in my draft. Work on it more (since clearly everyone else will be, and what if it was just good for a draft), or fix the typos, add a few lines and not fuck with a good thing by over thinking it? What do ya'll think?

id probably do what you said..polish it up..but dont do any massive overhaul. But yeah, keep in mind that she had only seen drafts as yet, so dont get too comfy in what you have.
Yeah, I would definitely echo the idea that you shouldn't get too complacent with it. Too many stories from last semester from students who had a legal writing professor who said their draft was great and then received less than what they were looking for on the final. I also agree that a lot of students don't give much of an effort on drafts, so you have to watch out for that.

THAT SAID, sounds like you are in a good spot and I feel it's always a good idea to put a lot of effort into the draft so you don't have to worry about having pressure of cranking out something on a completely different level than your draft a couple nights before the final is due. Keep in mind there is work you can do without actually changing anything. Go through the cases again, the research, etc. and see if you are missing anything, see if there is anyway you can reword things to make it clearer - stuff like that.

BTW, got this quote from our professor, feel like it's applicable: "There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting."

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snowpeach06

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by snowpeach06 » Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:03 pm

GATORTIM wrote:conlaw makes me want to punch a framer in the face
Con Law makes me want to punch Scalia. Every time.
traehekat wrote:
goosey wrote:
Yeah, I would definitely echo the idea that you shouldn't get too complacent with it. Too many stories from last semester from students who had a legal writing professor who said their draft was great and then received less than what they were looking for on the final. I also agree that a lot of students don't give much of an effort on drafts, so you have to watch out for that.

THAT SAID, sounds like you are in a good spot and I feel it's always a good idea to put a lot of effort into the draft so you don't have to worry about having pressure of cranking out something on a completely different level than your draft a couple nights before the final is due. Keep in mind there is work you can do without actually changing anything. Go through the cases again, the research, etc. and see if you are missing anything, see if there is anyway you can reword things to make it clearer - stuff like that.

BTW, got this quote from our professor, feel like it's applicable: "There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting."
In the past content has never been my problem, and quite frankly, I don't think my teacher cares much about it. If I focus on getting rid of passive voice, having appropriate commas, ect, I think that will make the difference for me. So, I'm going to keep all my content and just focus on making it sound better. Thanks.

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kalvano

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by kalvano » Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:08 pm

GATORTIM wrote:conlaw makes me want to punch a framer in the face

You wouldn't dare.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by keg411 » Sat Feb 12, 2011 11:34 pm

Conlawl isn't all that bad. My prof has taught it in a way so far so that people don't just start blabbing their opinions in class. Advantages to teaching it chronologically FTW.

Also, I still have over 25 pages of Property to read this weekend and write most of my trial brief (why we are doing trial when most people are doing appellate, I have no idea) since I have a draft due Friday.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by BarbellDreams » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:58 am

We are doing BOTH a trial and a appellate. The Trial one was due last week and the appellate is due early March. After that we have ANOTHER writing assignment. This coupled with a Con Law paper due Monday leads me to once again ignore all supplement work and do the bare minimum of what is assigned.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by dailygrind » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:16 am

first section of appellate brief due tomorrow. i think they wanted 10-12 pages. i've got 8. think they'll tell me i'm in danger of failing if i hand it in as is? it's pretty well reasoned, just not as long as they want it to be. i could easily fluff it to 10 pages, though. that might be the reasonable thing to do...

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romothesavior

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by romothesavior » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:19 am

dailygrind wrote:first section of appellate brief due tomorrow. i think they wanted 10-12 pages. i've got 8. think they'll tell me i'm in danger of failing if i hand it in as is? it's pretty well reasoned, just not as long as they want it to be. i could easily fluff it to 10 pages, though. that might be the reasonable thing to do...
Is it just a draft? I don't think being too short can really hurt you.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by NU_Jet55 » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:20 am

GATORTIM wrote:conlaw makes me want to punch a framer in the face
literally LOL'd

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by dailygrind » Sun Feb 13, 2011 10:10 am

romothesavior wrote:
dailygrind wrote:first section of appellate brief due tomorrow. i think they wanted 10-12 pages. i've got 8. think they'll tell me i'm in danger of failing if i hand it in as is? it's pretty well reasoned, just not as long as they want it to be. i could easily fluff it to 10 pages, though. that might be the reasonable thing to do...
Is it just a draft? I don't think being too short can really hurt you.
yeah. i'm going to rework it a bit more anyway, so if they make me revise it it's not like it's work i won't be doing anyway. fuckit, i'm handing it in as is.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by romothesavior » Sun Feb 13, 2011 11:45 am

dailygrind wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
dailygrind wrote:first section of appellate brief due tomorrow. i think they wanted 10-12 pages. i've got 8. think they'll tell me i'm in danger of failing if i hand it in as is? it's pretty well reasoned, just not as long as they want it to be. i could easily fluff it to 10 pages, though. that might be the reasonable thing to do...
Is it just a draft? I don't think being too short can really hurt you.
yeah. i'm going to rework it a bit more anyway, so if they make me revise it it's not like it's work i won't be doing anyway. fuckit, i'm handing it in as is.
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keg411

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by keg411 » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:35 pm

BarbellDreams wrote:We are doing BOTH a trial and a appellate. The Trial one was due last week and the appellate is due early March. After that we have ANOTHER writing assignment. This coupled with a Con Law paper due Monday leads me to once again ignore all supplement work and do the bare minimum of what is assigned.
Wow... we just have the trial brief due before Spring Break and then we do Oral Argument after. We had two writing assignments last semester (one graded, one ungraded) and it seemed easier than the brief. Maybe it's because I'm better at objective writing.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by BarbellDreams » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:39 pm

We had 2 writing assignments last semester and 3 this semester. We have a notoriously easy grader in HelLWR but honestly my bluebooking is horrendous and my GPA is going to be wrecked with a B+ from a 4 credit class.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by kalvano » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:43 pm

We are only getting one practice brief before our final.

Get bent, LRW.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by stayway » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:47 pm

kalvano wrote:We are only getting one practice brief before our final.

Get bent, LRW.
We were only given one non-graded ARGUMENT section before we got our final brief assignment.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by kalvano » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:53 pm

nooyyllib wrote:
kalvano wrote:We are only getting one practice brief before our final.

Get bent, LRW.
We were only given one non-graded ARGUMENT section before we got our final brief assignment.

Yeah, that's basically what we are getting.

No instruction on the actual format of the brief, just a couple samples and a "You'll figure it out".

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by 09042014 » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:04 pm

I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.

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romothesavior

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by romothesavior » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:13 pm

Desert Fox wrote:I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.
Wait... journal?

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by traehekat » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:20 pm

Desert Fox wrote:I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.
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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by Kretzy » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:37 pm

romothesavior wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.
Wait... journal?
Oy, I'm on a journal too. My article was awful, and cite-checks + bluebooking took forever.

I'm becoming managing editor of it in the fall, though, so I'd better get used to it.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by romothesavior » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:39 pm

Kretzy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.
Wait... journal?
Oy, I'm on a journal too. My article was awful, and cite-checks + bluebooking took forever.

I'm becoming managing editor of it in the fall, though, so I'd better get used to it.
I think we're confused because journal is a 2L/3L activity, or at least it is at most schools.

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by goosey » Sun Feb 13, 2011 1:54 pm

nooyyllib wrote:
kalvano wrote:We are only getting one practice brief before our final.

Get bent, LRW.
We were only given one non-graded ARGUMENT section before we got our final brief assignment.
We werent given any practice at all, so quit your whining :lol: jk.

but seriously, we were given some samples to base our formatting on and no practice. This is a significant departure for my LWR professor who was SUPER helpful last semester...if you sought her out, she would give you as much or as little guidance as you needed. Its different for the brief for some reason, her input is quite restrained. My theory is that its because these are being used for moot court selection so she might want to keep it as hands-off as possible to keep the playing field even for all

but yeah..thoroughly confused

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Re: Thread Unworthy 1L fears, inquiries, and rants welcome here

Post by Kretzy » Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:01 pm

romothesavior wrote:
Kretzy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:I've got 7 pages of LRW due by 7pm, and 60 cites to check for my TTT journal by midnight. FML.
Wait... journal?
Oy, I'm on a journal too. My article was awful, and cite-checks + bluebooking took forever.

I'm becoming managing editor of it in the fall, though, so I'd better get used to it.
I think we're confused because journal is a 2L/3L activity, or at least it is at most schools.
Ah, gotcha. 1Ls can do journal work here (just Associate Editor stuff, cite-checking/bluebooking/helping with article selection). It's good experience, and I think will make the write-on for LR both fairer and more difficult, since 2/3s of us have done the work already.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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