The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

You nerds already know that I love Property law. I love it, I love it, I love it. It’s just the best, even though it is, quite honestly, the worst area of law ever. Ever. It’s horrendous. So why do I like it if it’s so offensive to the conscience? Because I am a freaking masochist.

My property class was the worst class I’ve ever taken in my life. It was nearly two hours long, every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30 (way too late in the day for a class!), the room was always boiling hot, the Dukeminier casebook was the sort that even dead fish would object to being wrapped in, the material was dense and needlessly complicated, the professor psychologically terrorized everyone throughout the semester, it was an 80 person lecture class, and everything was terrible.

Our professor loved to grill students; everyone would be called on once during every class – almost. I realized that in Property, I was one of those people for whom nothing made sense until right before the final, and then I owned that sucker. Got my highest grade in that class, and came out of the exam thrilled even though I wrote for literally four hours straight. I knew I’d killed it, and I didn’t even need to see my grades a month later to know I was right.

But I hated being called on in class because I always came across as a blithering idiot, so I developed a little trick. I sat in the middle of the middle row on the left side of the room (from the professor’s view). I was right there plunk in the middle, trapped. So every Tuesday and Thursday, I would wear neutral colors.

I’m not kidding, you guys.

I’d wear neutral colors. Usually, I’d toss on a camel-colored cardigan and just sit primly in my seat for 2 hours. It worked like a charm, because I didn’t get called on for a month. A month. That’s eight classes that I escaped his grilling!

It was beautiful.

Call me a chicken if you want; in Property, I totally was. I don’t care. I survived, and I survived with flying colors. ;-) If that’s what happens to milky-liv’r'd people, I’ll take it!

But I still love property law so much, probably because of it’s ridiculousness instead of just in spite of it. That’s why things like this wound me:

I pulled this from my Hootsuite page.

“Quick claim” deeds.

Quick claim.

:-|

This wounds me. It wounds me to the quick. It wounds me very near the heart.

The correct term is “quit-claim deed,” referring to a document in which the grantor disavows any right/claim he had to the property in question. Please don’t tell my property professor about this blog, because he won’t like that definition. And then he will yell. And then I will never be able to forget his definition of ‘quit-claim deed,’ which, come to think of it, should already be saved in my “Personal Legal Dictionary” that he made us start and maintain during our first year.

You nerds probably think I’m making all this up, so let me put things in context for you. On the VERY FIRST day of Property, second day of 1L, he spent the first 50 minutes of a 1:40 long class grilling everyone in the room about what “ferae naturae” meant. “Wild animals” wasn’t good enough. He reduced half the kids in the room to tears (not really, but he might as well have) before we settled, fifty minutes later, on ferae naturae being “that which by its nature resists capture.”

And if you listen to the second Podcast Ipsa Loquitur, posted on Social Media Law Student sometime today, you’ll hear all about our discussion of the precise distinction between “poltergeist” and your plain old, run-0f-the-mill, smarter than the average bear, friendly neighborhood Spiderman “ghost.”

:-|

Don’t go to law school, you guys.