Disclaimer: I am going to make direct references to Obama in this post. However, I swear to you, this is not a political post in any meaningful sense of the word.
Today in the Sunday Magazine, the New York Times has its second major article on Obama as a law professor at the University of Chicago. To me, these articles, while slightly repetitive—could we have not done it in just one article?—are pretty interesting. It’s a kind of window to remember what law school was like now that I’m far enough away from it to have some real perspective.
But I do think the articles are inherently flawed. There is no translation, no guide for people unfamiliar with law school and its quirks. I can see how a layperson could read the articles and think Obama was kind of crazy, even though to me he sounds like a pretty great professor. Especially with the exams. A bunch of Obama’s sample exams are online, and this could certainly make people think he’s a weirdo.
He is prone to name the fictional state where his problems are set Utopia or Nirvana. Get it? The state of Nirvana? Yes, it’s a terrible joke. In one exam, you, the testtaker, are working as general counsel to the governor of the state, Arnold Whatzanager. Really. His exams are full of hot-button topics. Reproductive issues seem particularly common: IVF, cloning, gay adoption, etc. Discrimination and race also seem to play a big role. I can see how from the outside this kind of exam could be seen as nuts.
The sad truth is that these are pretty much par-for-the-course law school exams. There is this strange but apparently widespread tradition of making jokes and puns in the fact pattern. The name of the country/state/city is a favorite. So is the name of the person or company you represent in the question. Some incorporate characters from well-known stories or songs, which are then acted out in some form in the fact pattern. Once in a while you’ll get a professor that won’t do this, but most of them do. Even professors who are serious in class will make crazy puns on an exam. (Then again, there are professors who always joke. My Wills class, for example, was pretty much jokes mixed with occasional analysis. But morbid humor is something of a necessity when every single case starts with death.) I don’t really understand the point of this tradition. Although I suppose there’s cold comfort after an exam that even if you think you blew it, you can still manage a chuckle. (I do also remember a small amount of tittering going through the exam room if a question was particularly funny or weird.)
The controversial topic as subject is also common. My very very very anti-gay rights professor had constant gay marriage questions in one of my seminars. Law professors have a tendency to address issues that are pretty ripe to be addressed. Obama’s 2000 exam has an affirmative action question (there was a huge set of rulings with Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003) and his 1996 exam addresses the Bowers v. Hardwick ruling from 1986 allowing Georgia to outlaw sodomy, which was overturned a few years later in Lawrence v. Texas. (Is it awesome or totally dorky that I still remember the case names, though I had to look up the years?) Or they’ll address issues (such as cloning) that we don’t expect to be addressed any time soon but that are still fun to analyze.
My main reaction to these exams? I’m glad I don’t have to take those anymore. Reading through his sample answers makes me feel wholly inadequate. Law school exams were one of those things I knew I should have been able to ace but never really nailed down. In fact, if someone had shown me Obama’s sample answers during my 1L year, I think it may have improved my grades. Not because of what he says but how, and that was something I never really got.
I had a couple moments of glory. Civ Pro, perhaps the most feared 1L class among my peers, was a high grade for me. I had this very backwards strategy. I figured that since this was the one where everyone was freaking out and figured they couldn’t possibly do well, that I could work really hard and kill. This worked well, since that’s basically what happened. Except for the fact that it meant I virtually ignored my Property final. That was fine with me at the time because Property is boring. (I know that many of you law school buddies will immediately say, “And Civ Pro isn’t?” And please believe me when I say that I actually loved that class in a very strange but undeniable way. I understand this makes me potentially certifiable.) This unfortunate pattern of studying what I liked and not studying what I didn’t continued throughout my three years.
I think I lacked improvement because I never got that nice memo with the sample answer, like the one Obama has. You wrote your exam, you turned it in, and I don’t remember ever seeing it again. A grade was spit out on my record and that was that. It’s hard to really know what I did. I suspect I didn’t cite enough case law or lines of precedent. Did that matter? It’s hard to say. I did find a couple of my take-home exams still saved on my hard drive. The last was from Conflicts of Law, another class anyone else would have hated but that I adored. But reading it I was shocked to see how good my answers were. (I don’t know what the questions were, but still.) I cite cases. I discuss pluralities and concurring opinions. Was it open book or was I just that good? I lean towards the former, to be honest. Then again, it was a while ago.
The other potential reason I didn’t do as well was because I was a lone wolf. I had no study group. Law school has many many traditions and study groups seem to be one of them. Everyone had one, at least for 1L year. I never did. I don’t really know why that was. I wasn’t even sure where people got their study groups and I didn’t feel really integrated until we were 2L’s so maybe I just missed the boat.
We were an uptight bunch that first year. We didn’t know each other well yet. People were hesitant to discuss grades. Instead we all had assumptions about how everyone was doing. There was a common misconception that I was at the top of our class. I tried to dispel this myth, but people assumed I was just being modest. I believe the story came about when I was called on in Civ Pro. By my best guess this happened about a month in. (Despite the fact that it’s 7 years later, I could swear it was on the John Deere case, and a reference to my folder full of Civ Pro briefs says we did that one on September 20th. My diary is of no help since all I did that year was write about boys. To show how much of a dork I am, just to check, I went over to my bookshelf, pulled out my Civ Pro text book—yes, I still have it—flipped to the John Deere case, and then found the note on VanDusen to confirm my story. So, the stage is set, September 20, 2001.) A month into that class I felt completely lost and overwhelmed, like everyone. Our professor was incredibly hard and we all trembled waiting to see who he would call on that day. For once I was determined to figure out what was going on, so I read that case over and over again. For maybe the first (and perhaps only?) time I read the notes after the case. And I actually thought I had it. Sure enough, that was the day I was called on. Actually, first the person behind me was called on, they admitted to not having read, and I literally sat up in my seat. If someone was unable to fulfill their duties, the most likely person to step in was someone in close geographic proximity. And I was the next one asked. Somewhere during my grilling, I made a smooth reference to the case mentioned in the notes—which was obviously where I was supposed to go based on the question, but an impressive move otherwise—and the whole thing was over within just a minute or two. This was a miracle compared to the long pauses that often came with being called on while a student flipped pages trying to find an answer. Flipping pages meant you had no clue and didn’t know where to look but thought that maybe you could find somewhere a paragraph that might say something relevant. It was the last flail of a drowning man. I must have looked pretty on top of things. The guy sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “How much do you study?” with awe.
It was an impressive show even if I wasn’t that impressive of a student. (To be fair, the subject in that case was venue. An easy one, relatively speaking. And it also happened to make up the bulk of the exam, which was great for me.) I’m not sure why all that credibility didn’t go out the window when I completely bungled getting called on in Property at least twice.
I’m wondering if anyone is going to show for our 5-year reunion next year. I’m not opposed, though I suggest right now that instead of attending all the Homecoming stuff (except maybe the football game) we just hang out. CLE for a reunion? Uh, no. Those are boring things I do because I’m forced to. I think much partying is in order. Who’s with me?
