A Quick Update

First of all, I can’t believe that my last post was November 11th.  So many things have happened since then that I haven’t filled you in on, yet it seems like it was just yesterday.  Time is really flying by!  While I would love to give you a play-by-play of the last month or so, that would be pretty boring for you.  So, here are some of the highlights of what I’ve been up to and what’s coming up soon.

Law School

I’m still going strong in law school.  I’m halfway done!  Last semester ended and the grades have all finally come in.  I’m pretty happy with where I currently stand, so no complaints there.  I literally went into hiding during exams last semester, I think it was my hardest set of exams yet.  I’ve decided that, despite popular opinion, your second year doesn’t get easier.  Believe it or not, you are supposed to remember and apply the basic concepts you learned in your first year classes, like the elements of negligence, interpretations of the Constitution, and how to form a contract. There is  a reason they make you take these classes in the beginning; everything uses them in some way or another!  It was nice to take classes that I was specifically interested in.  I had Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Immigration, Education Law and Mock Trial.

Mock trial was awesome.  My partner and I made it to the Final round and lost by just a few points.  Mock trial (called Student Trial Advocacy Program at Wayne) is a program where students compete against each other in “real” trials. We get a problem and have to argue the case for a given side in one trial, then switch to argue the other side in the next trial.  We use the Federal Rules of Evidence to argue for whether we should be able to admit or not admit certain testimony or exhibits.  We have volunteer witnesses that play the characters in the problem, who we prep as best we can so they can support our case. I thought the Wayne team did a great job of making it as realistic as possible.  During the “in-house” competition, where Wayne students in the program compete against each other, we even had a few of our trials in actual courtrooms.  We have witnesses and judges volunteer to preside as a judge over each case. They rule on any legal decisions and also score us as we go.  It is a lot of fun.  I took evidence at the same time I was in Mock Trial, so I was learning new rules and applying them to the problem at the same time.  I thought this was extremely beneficial for me, not only in my Mock Trial case but in my evidence class, the rules seemed more real to me because I had a way to use them. Of course, it’s ideal if you have already taken evidence before Mock Trial.

After the in-house competition ended, I tried out for and made one of the national competition teams.  We send teams to two national competitions, AAJ and TYLA.  I won’t say which one I got onto, since the teams are highly competitive and we are in the middle of preparing for competition.  However, it was very exciting to be invited to join one of these prestigious teams.  We will have the chance to compete against teams from other schools in a regional competition, with the winners going on to compete at a National competition. My team has put in a ton of time already, practicing two to three times a week.

Immigration Law Clinic

I was also accepted into the Immigration Law Clinic at Wayne State.