Moot Court Redux

We're going to court and this is our new case.

Anticlimactic Ending

I just finished taking my Legal Ethics exam and it was a rather anticlimactic ending for a week that started out with a lot of promise for new discoveries and insights. Now, it seems I have to get back to work and apply whatever insights I have learned these past few days and prepare myself as early as today for the next batch of exams.

For now, while waiting for the results of the exams, I will consolidate whatever territory I gained and review how I conducted the entire "campaign." Hmm. I just realized that I have not used this word—campaign—in any of my other blogs. This is actually the first time I'm using it and it came, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Anyway, ashîta. Tomorrow. I'll think about what I'll do next, tomorrow.

Being a Writer and a Law Student

In the 2000 movie Finding Forrester, Sean Connery, playing the part of William Forrester—a Pulitzer-prize winning writer—taught Kamal how to write. It was a rather simple formula. You just write and keep on writing. You're not suppose to think. Thinking comes later, he said. To write, you just keep on writing and writing and writing. Kamal did as Forrester said. And in the story, he wrote a beautiful piece that was too good that he was actually judged unworthy of writing it.

Actually, they used typewriters. And following their lead, any time I have the chance, I just typed whatever I want to and I kept on typing to let the words out. I haven't master the process yet because I find myself thinking and spending vast stretches of time just thinking what to write.

This writing and blogging work I do everyday is somehow doing me some good in law school during my exams. I find myself to be much more responsive to the questions when I write my answers. Although I still think before writing, the time constraint forces me to just write and keep on writing like William Forrester. Eventually, I noticed that words do fall into place and somehow they are starting to flow.

Earlier tonight, I took my Criminal Law II exam. And I found myself writing a lot. I could have kept writing, but I was writing legal arguments and they were supposed to end. After the legal argument seemed complete, I would write and add another paragraph until I start to repeat myself.

Law school, it seems, became better because I'm writing now. In fact, I'm tempted to give a categorical recommendation for those who want to be serious lawyers. They should start writing. Reading cases is not the key activity in law school. It is writing.

I have one more exam tomorrow—Legal Ethics. And after that, we will have a debating competition in my Forensics class next week. The latter is especially interesting because it offers a challenging opportunity to do some serious writing.

Anyway, ikanakereba-naranai desû. I have to go. I still need to digest some cases tonight for my Legal Ethics exam. Hmm. More writing work.

Immunity from Law School

Maybe, I'm distracted by blogging or the demands of publishing because lately, I feel less and less anxious about law school. To be sure, I still have problems that bother me, but schoolwork is not one of them anymore. It's hard to explain, but I feel like I have developed some kind of immunity after being afflicted with law school "fever" last semester.

And I noticed this lack of anxiety in my attitude towards exams. Earlier tonight, I just took my Constitutional Law II exam. But ... (I know this would sound crazy) I would like to take another one. It's not because I felt I didn't do well. On the contrary, I felt I held my ground. But I would just like to keep improving my score however difficult the questions may be.

Somehow, it feels like I'm fourteen again when my Dad came from the United States with several books of GRE, GMAT and SAT exams. I was barely in high school, but I grew up answering college-level and graduate-level test questions. I would take test after test without my Dad prompting me to do so. And now, I feel like doing it again.

I have an exam on Criminal Law tomorrow evening and Legal Ethics, the day after. If the feeling is still there after the exams, it's probably not a fluke.

Legal Ethics Cases for Midterms

I added the links to the 26 cases for Legal Ethics (LLB420) to Cannot Digest Supreme Court Rulings. There were two cases that are not found online at lawphil.net and then, there is Bar Matter 850—i.e., Mandatory Continuing Legal Education.

Now, I can study for the Constitutional Law exam.