“Whoever a werewolf imprints on can’t be harmed. It’s their most absolute law.” ― Edward Cullen in Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1
The stress of law school finals can humble even the most confident students. It distills months of study, outlining, and class participation into one exam to determine your mastery of the material. It all comes down to a few hours in a classroom. It’s daunting, overwhelming, and, even at times, exhilarating.
Continue readingHappy Holidays! With finals finishing up, it’s time for students to relax and refresh. What better way to do this than watching holiday movies – but with a law school twist? Here are some Holiday movies as first-year law school courses.
Hallmark Movies: Civil Procedure
Yes, Hallmark movies – as in the WHOLE collection of those predictable movies we know and love. Hallmark Christmas movie plots seem to follow a certain formula, or PROCEDURE *wink wink* (I mean look at that photo!). Similarly to Civil Procedure, there are specific rules that govern Hallmark Christmas movies, making them very predictable.
Each Hallmark Christmas movie puts its own spin on a classic Christmas plot. In Civil Procedure you learn the procedural rules governing our civil system, but you also learn how ingenuity allows lawyers to approach each civil case differently and apply their own tactical spin.
With four weeks of 1L classes under my belt, I can affirmatively say that this whole law school experience is quite transformative. The time leading up to my first class (29 days ago!) was marked by a dizzying amount of unsolicited advice from upperclassmen, lawyers, professors, and family. Within the advice on how to not have a mental breakdown or flunk out of school was the idea that law school will change how you see the world. Reflecting on my 4-week long stint so far, I have already seen the relevance of this in my life.
I recently found myself re-watching old favorite movies to decompress from the long law school days (there is seemingly no escape from the lessons learned in the classroom; I found myself saying under my breath “that’s a tort” as I watched characters on screen act negligently). One of my favorite films I recently rewatched is Moonrise Kingdom, which is set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s. Our protagonists, Suzy and Sam, are two twelve-year-olds who fall in love and run away from home. In typical Wes Anderson style, a series of obtuse events follows as the residents of their town search for the pair. Through my new legal lens, I rewatched this Anderson favorite with fresh thoughts to share.
Continue readingThe time has come once again for me to write a post for the Impact Blog. And yet, my mind is an empty, barren wasteland. I’ve got nothing cooking, there’s no fuel in the tank, the store is closed, lights are off, doors are locked, we’re finished, done, kaput. I simply cannot summon forth another word of unsolicited law school advice from the darkest recesses of my weak and feeble brain to foist upon the unsuspecting masses.
What I can do is watch a legal movie, and then tell you about it. Last year, similarly incapable of riffing 500-800 words about outlining or whatever, I catalogued ten minor inaccuracies about the law school experience portrayed in the documentary feature-film Legally Blonde. This time, I’ll be comprehensively scrutinizing My Cousin Vinny, a film centered around beleaguered Italian Americans starring Joe Pesci, and therefore, I assume, directed by Martin Scorsese.
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BC Law: Impact 