I should explain what makes this class so amazingly difficult to get through. It's not the material itself. Legal writing and research are good skills to learn.
No, what kills me are the absurd limitations that are placed on us. We are not allowed to use well-established technical solutions to legal research questions. No, if we so much as touch a computer for our research, we become candidates for expulsion.
The full horror of this restriction didn't become apparent until a few days ago. Our classroom darkened and the instructor placed slides on the overhead that were photocopied index pages from various books. I realized, as he droned on about index page after index page, that what I could undoubtedly do in seconds on the computer was going to take me hours of manual labor. I'm a software engineer, and this is my water torture.
My instructor claimed, "You won't understand how the computer works if you don't do it the hard way first."
I muttered, "Try me.", under my breath, but luckily for me he didn't hear.
What else is this but a data indexing and layout problem? We have a lot of data, which includes the statutes, the cases, and persuasive commentary. Then we have methods by which we have to index into that data. How on earth does it matter whether I index by computer or by book? That isn't key to understanding the underlying schema of the data itself. What I have to understand, and what is important to know, is how all this legal data is interrelated, not the methods that I use to get to it.
I'm surprised they don't insist we write our legal memos with quill pens and candlelight.
5 comments:
Sorry about your frustration. But I am glad to know that I was not the only one who hated the fact that we couldn't use Westlaw in Legal I.....seemed idiotic to me too.
Glad to hear it's not just my school, though! I thought perhaps I had accidently found the only school in the country that was so backwards. :)
At least I'm not suffering alone!
Quill pens! Candlelight!
In my day we had to write our legal memos in charcoal on cave walls by moonlight.
Kids today want everything just handed to them on a silver platter.
Yup, you'll be using the books for the first and last time this semester. Regardless of what they say, most lawfirms are too cheap to afford to update large hardcopy libraries so they have to go with electronic research; so you won't have contact with these books with the exception of your state's statute volumes.
<i>I'm surprised they don't insist we write our legal memos with quill pens and candlelight</i>
Shush your mouth, girl, you'll give them ideas!
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