Classless

I have to go to court this morning, not for the usual reasons, but rather as part of a class.

This is because a large part of my schedule involves the criminal clinic and its attendant classes. Last semester, I took Criminal Procedure, or as I like to call it, Defense Against the Dark Arts.

This semester, I'm taking several classes in the same vein. To be more precise, only one of them is a class in the traditional sense -- that is, a class with a casebook and a final and an opportunity to sit in a classroom for 4 or 5 hours a week and catch up on email.

This would be Evidence, which teaches valuable lessons, not the least of which is the incredibly useful "Motion to Suppress the Gun."

The rest of the classes I'm taking this semester should more accurately be described as "workshops." While probably more valuable than actual classes, they decline to administer finals and only require a bare minimum of reading and actual class time.

The clinic in itself is a god-send. Now I barely have class (a condition I'm used to in another sense), and spend most of my time actually working instead of studying. There actually is a class for the clinic, a two hour affair that seems an excuse to get us to actually go to the tower of terror once a week, if only to prove that we are still alive and responsive. Most of the class actually involves going to court and working on actual, real cases. I am told much of it concerns prosecuting drug dealers. The conflict of interest here is so spectacularly obvious, it hardly warrants mentioning.

The third class would be Trial Advocacy, a three hour seminar taught once a week by a former judge in which we actually learn lawyering. In this class, we get a crash course on how to actually be a trial attorney, and how to give an opening statement, closing stement, direct and cross-examine, and dissemble, dissemble, dissemble. After a line of questioning, the judge actually told me to be a bigger asshole. I was unaware that this was possible, but will enthusiastically take her advice in what should be regarded as a textbook definition of "Enabling."

And, of course, the last class, which is not related to the criminal clinic. This would be Depositions, in which we learn how to, um, depose people. To those non-lawyers among you, this is much less dirty than it sounds. The importance of this class rests on the fact that it fulfills a requirement to graduate: that of a class teaching you professional responsibility. These two words have never been used to describe me, either individually or in their conjoined version. Therefore, this should be interesting, like learning a foreign language you know you'll never use.

I anticipate I'll spend most of my time this semester looking for a job and recovering from paralyzing hangovers. It should be simultaneously fun and terrifying. Pray for me.