Of being oriented...
Well most of my orientation is done with a welcome party-type event tomorrow night being the last thing on the schedule. It's been a rather interesting three days at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Did some interesting things like watch a moot court trial on Monday as well as having my first Legal Writing class. The moot court seemed a bit contrived but it did make us think on our feet as we were broken up into juries to "decide" the case. My jury ended up finding for plaintiff and against only the named defendant. On the other hand there was one jury that did find for defendants. Legal Writing I was pretty interesting too with a general introduction to court systems. It was stuff I already knew but Professor Penrose made it interesting for old material.
Tuesday spent three hours configuring laptops for network access. I had forgotten exactly how much of a pain it is to administer Windows networks. That combined with the CLC Department's attitude towards Macs and other non-Win2k/XP Pro systems made my techie self a bit irate. Criminal Law on the other hand was a fabulous debate on value judgments and defenses to homicide.
However, today's excursion was probably the most interesting of them all. We had a discussion with judges in the Cook County Circuit Court about the bench and some of the things that they liked, disliked, and general questions about the bench and the profession. Afterwards we sat in on an actual proceeding. The case we sat in on happened to be a medical malpractice suit and we had gotten in as defense counsel was making his opening statement. It was a rather exciting experience (well, at least for me) to see the lawyers in action as well as the first witness presenting her testimony. We didn't get much time but most of us thought we would have liked to see how the case turned out. We had some more of those informational sessions followed by another Legal Writing I lecture, this time on the life of a suit from complaint to judgment and all of twists and turns it can take along the way.
So far I've met some interesting folks including a fellow Mac user, a World of Warcraft player, folks coming to school after spending a few years out in the workforce, and folks like myself coming straight out of undergrad. Hopefully spending the next year with Section C should prove to be a great experience.
Tuesday spent three hours configuring laptops for network access. I had forgotten exactly how much of a pain it is to administer Windows networks. That combined with the CLC Department's attitude towards Macs and other non-Win2k/XP Pro systems made my techie self a bit irate. Criminal Law on the other hand was a fabulous debate on value judgments and defenses to homicide.
However, today's excursion was probably the most interesting of them all. We had a discussion with judges in the Cook County Circuit Court about the bench and some of the things that they liked, disliked, and general questions about the bench and the profession. Afterwards we sat in on an actual proceeding. The case we sat in on happened to be a medical malpractice suit and we had gotten in as defense counsel was making his opening statement. It was a rather exciting experience (well, at least for me) to see the lawyers in action as well as the first witness presenting her testimony. We didn't get much time but most of us thought we would have liked to see how the case turned out. We had some more of those informational sessions followed by another Legal Writing I lecture, this time on the life of a suit from complaint to judgment and all of twists and turns it can take along the way.
So far I've met some interesting folks including a fellow Mac user, a World of Warcraft player, folks coming to school after spending a few years out in the workforce, and folks like myself coming straight out of undergrad. Hopefully spending the next year with Section C should prove to be a great experience.