Unrelenting

I have a fortune cookie fortune taped above my desk. It reads, "With perseverance, one can succeed in the most difficult tasks." I think this will prove to be apt advice for law school.

This week has been a lesson in vigilant time management. It would seem that the work is not so much incomprehensible as unrelenting. I can see that I have shed some of the naïveté that I possessed a mere four days ago, but there is still much to learn about law school. Above all else, I am still burning with excitement about being at Georgetown, bolstered by my similarly passionate classmates. Every time I catch sight of the Capitol, I cannot help but to stare in wonderment at my good fortune.

I am taking four classes this semester: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Legal Research and Writing, and Torts. Civ Pro and Con Law are with my entire section of 120 students, and LRW and Torts are in smaller subsections of 30. There is an emphasis on the Socratic method, which I expected, but I did not realize that this meant that when a person was called upon in class, they were put on the spot for the entire hour-and-a-half of the lecture. Again, unrelenting. I have yet to experience cold-calling, but I did volunteer a couple of times, which was exhilirating.

I did some research in the library today. It felt very official to have an actual reason to look up something in the U.S. Code. During orientation, the deans, professors, and upperclassmen kept emphasizing that our legal careers begin not when we graduate, but from the moment we enter law school. At first, I sort of dismissed the statement as a platitude, but the professionalism and legal analysis that I have seen this week is persuading me to the contrary.

I find myself here in D.C.,
A casebook rests on my knee.
I long to explore,
Yet, the reading's hardcore...
Perhaps, at week's end, I'll be free?

Vindication

So, here I am, reading State v. Mallett, 2003 WL 22901008 (Iowa App.) for my Legal Research and Writing course. Halfway through the case, I reach these paragraphs:

Mallett contends this instruction is inconsistent with Iowa Code section 715A.8(2), which provides:

[HN1] A person commits the offense of identity theft if the person with the intent to obtain a benefit fraudulently obtains identification information of another person and uses or attempts to use that information to obtain credit, property, or services without the authorization of that other person."

In her view, the district court erroneously determined that the term "fraudulently" modified the clause before it ("obtain a benefit") rather than the clause after it ("obtains identification information").

Oh, my goodness! This case went to the Iowa Court of Appeals on the basis of a misplaced modifier! Finally, vindication for my English degree.