learning curve...

(wow. haven't blogged since election day! i've got some catching up to do...)

i just got back from my legal writing students' post-memo negotiation session. the professor for whom i'm a TA and another professor take opposite sides of the same fact pattern and after the students have written and turned in their memos, they work in teams of 2 and try to reach a settlement between the two parties. goodness. gracious!

my job for this session was to mill about, help out if the students reached some sort of impasse, make sure no punches were thrown. when i got there, my professor informed me that the students all smelled like they had been drinking (no surprise -- their memos were due at noon, the negotiation session began at 2:00 -- they had to kill some time somehow, and they are, after all, law students), so things could get interesting. it was fairly tame, though. i did observe some students who steadfastly believed in things that simply were not the law, some students who tried to bully their way to the conclusion they wanted, some students who wrestled with the conversion between euros and US dollars (the plaintiff in the dispute was belgian, the defendants were american), some students who just wanted to get to some sort of agreement as quickly as possible so that they could continue drinking.

i really like the first year students i've worked with, and all in all, i think they did a good job. there were a few groups who needed a little reminding that their clients did not want to go to trial, and their jobs were to negotiate on behalf of their clients (rather than their own egos). but mostly, the experience reminded me that i really have learned a hell of a lot in the past two years. and that feels good. i'm making some progress after all. this whole education thing hasn't been all for naught.

congrats to my students for completing their first semester of legal writing!