And the answer is Demurrer, What is _____ __ _____ ?

I had my first law school experience yesterday (9am-4pm Saturday!).  The day consisted of various different activities.  One such activity was meeting up with a couple of lawyers to discuss several different “What If…” scenarios.

Our group had one young lawyer, probably late thirties, early forties, and one older lawyer (probably 60-ish).  Regardless of age, they might as well have been named Laurel & Hardy. The Older lawyer always wanted to interject his opinion, and once he finished, he would lean back and fall asleep for another 5-10mins. BUT, whenever he did add his opinion, the younger lawyer would say something like “Well, why do you think they did that?”, to which the older lawyer replied by repeating his opinion again (I guess he reasoned that if we didn’t agree, we must not have heard him. lol)

The most nerve-racking part of the day was the sample class.  It probably wouldn’t have been so nerve-racking if after the first 5-10mins we didn’t all realize that our case briefs didn’t have the answers to the questions that were being asked. (e.g. Why was a federal court looking to state court laws in Food Lion v. ABC? *I knew the answer to this one. ) It’s also a bit unnerving wondering if the next person to be called on is going to be you and whether or not you’ll be able to answer the question. (I’m still trying to tell myself not to be nervous, I’m paying to be in that room, the teacher is being paid by money from my pocket….but that doesn’t work. =P)

One of the biggest problems was trying to use lawyer-speak. We all wanted to at least sound intelligent, but we’d end up saying things like “The reason they demurred a remittitur was because the appellate federal circuit court justice motioned a breach of trespass for conduct of disloyal damages.” (Don’t even try to figure it out, it doesn’t make sense!)

Almost everything that is said in class has to be backed up by some kind of precedent and if not by precedent, then by some form of legal reasoning. We’re told the reasoning for this type of teaching is because a judge, who may side with us, is going to want to know what the basis is for our argument.

Overall, it was a mildly stressful experience, but I did get to meet several professors who seem like they really want to make the law school experience a great one.