A Third Year's Perspective
A blog by Paul Black, 3L
Getting Things Done, or How I Learned to Stop Freaking Out and Survive The Chaos of Law School:
The day after Spring Break, I returned to campus with so many things to do that I felt as if a giant wave had smacked into me and knocked me over. It wasn’t that I visited some exotic locale for many days and hadn’t been paying attention to things. In fact, I actually stayed here and had a week that was both productive and relaxing before spending the weekend with my sister visiting our dad and grandmother in southwest Georgia. Resistance was futile; I simply had to be patient until Tuesday Wednesday, a day on which I had some “protected” unscheduled time to get things done.
A Third Year's Perspective
A blog by Paul Black, 3L
When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get…Connected To any law students who have job offers in hand and have it all figured out, you can skip to the second paragraph. For the rest of us, I’ll start with the obvious: the job market is pretty bleak right now. Many May 2009 graduates were not hired until late 2009 or even early 2010. A few have yet to find legal jobs. In such a tight job market, many of the usual indicia of desirability for students (in particular, high grades) do not have the same weight as they would in a healthier economy.
A Third Year's Perspective
A blog by Paul Black, 3L
January 24, 2009
As always, the world around is filled with a lot of uncertainty right now. Even as supplies pour in, Haiti is still reeling from the earthquake. The recent election if Massachusetts puts the U.S. Senate back into the land of unstoppable filibusters and portends a divided government. And here on the GSU Law campus, each year of students is receiving exam grades.
A Third Year's Perspective
A blog by Paul Black, 3L
Time Apart
As I sit down to write this entry, it’s a rainy fall Saturday afternoon. For law students, “Saturday afternoon,” almost certainly means we have probably already put in a few hours of work and are looking forward to spending time with friends or family this evening. There are times when we are tempted not to do so--times when we think if only we could put in a few more hours of work this evening, we would be caught up. Of course, when we give in to this thinking, we find that our relationships with others are damaged, and that for all of our hard work, there is always more to be done. In simplest terms, we either remember or discover the importance of time apart from work.
A Third Year's Perspective
A blog by Paul Black, 3L
In praise of midterms, group assignments, and authentic assessment in law school
OK, fellow students, I have a confession to make: I like the idea of midterms for upper-level law school courses which also contain a final exam.